Chương 93: Interlude: The Aftermath

The next morning, when the daylamps brightened, they illuminated a Crashpoint that was unusually quiet and grim. Word had spread of what had happened in the Old Earth Museum: the one calling herself Night Raider (and her buddy, who had gone unnamed) had made good on their word and managed to steal not just one but several irreplaceable artifacts! Again! And not just any artifacts, but ones that had belonged to Stardancer herself!

Three of her balisong were taken, part of a—now incomplete—set of ten that their creator had slowly been assembled over the years. These knives had been part of her loadout that had been left aboard the Frilly Pink Fortress of Friendship if she had ever needed to restock, actual weapons she had wielded in her noble but never-ending battle against the forces of evil! And the Museum had lost them. Worse yet, they had been lost to Phantom Thieves! In a way, that was almost worse.

When the first challenge had been issued, there had been some confusion that in hindsight had actually been massive amounts of denial. Because unless something had gone very strange—which was still not off the table, but so far there was no evidence for it—then this alleged Phantom Thief was Kaedekin, grown and raised right here in the Dancer system. And that shouldn't be possible.

Yes, they had a few sisters who were criminally insane, but none had ever sank to such depths of moral ambiguity as to call themselves Phantom Thieves. They had all been honest, criminally insane supervillains!

With this second challenge and the undeniable appearance of a girl and buddy standing together to form regalia, who had declared they were a Phantom Thief—and in the buddies case, had declared nothing at all, refusing all handshake protocols and sending out no signals of their own—they no longer had the luxury of self-delusion: one of their own had voluntarily turned to the ways of criminality and villainy. Someone had apparently chosen, freely and of their own will, to do evil.

And that meant there existed a systemic failure in the civilization that they had created. A failure so massive that it had caused one of their own to turn to evil. It was not a realization that many girls reached, and certainly not immediately.

A lot of them were busy either accounting for themselves, relating what they'd been doing the night before to friends and family, doing paperwork as Stardancer intended, or going through the museum artifact by irreplaceable historical artifact, checking if anything else had been stolen. After all, it would be just like a Phantom Thief to use the open and blatant theft of one thing to conceal the quiet and subtle theft of another.

The inventory still wasn't finished, though they had found a beautifully painted statue of Nikaede that had been placed in one of the model bedrooms, covered up by a blanket to look like a sleeping little sister. It had taken some effort to confirm, but it was soon apparent this was the statue the Phantom Thieves had begun their villainy by absconding with, left here as some kind of taunt. The statue had been cleaned and repainted.

Given the state of disrepair it had doubtless been in when it had been stolen, that seemed like twisting the knife. The realization came like drops of rain. It struck at seemingly random, with little rhyme or reason. A girl doing paperwork here, another girl and buddy pair discussing the night's events there, a Metro Ranger reading over the reports of what had happened.

Even in the old universe, villains and criminals hadn't just come into existence out of nothing, with the usual question mark regarding social media streamer villains. They had arisen from established, systemic failures: poverty that drove people to steal, outrage at social systems that had not only failed them but had outright been turned against them, ignorance that had kept people from learning all the option available to them, neglect that had left people vulnerable to being exploited…

In those that had made the realization, the thought had come. It had slithered from out of sight, seemingly to leave pinpricks of legs crawling across their skin. It had whispered a fear they had never considered, never had cause to consider, but now that they had it seemed to wrap their arms around them holding them close as it whispered into their ear and made their skin crawl.

It was like eyes they had never realized they possessed had opened, and they were seeing their beautiful, peaceful, happy world awash in invisible colors out of space, and what had once been whole and healthy was now cracked and rotting. They saw how the Phantom Thieves had done what they had done, the practices of everyday life they had exploited. A cry for help that had been answered, because what hero would ignore a little sister in need?

Everyone had been allowed in and out of the museum after the challenge had gone out, because who wouldn't try to stop someone trying to steal? Never mind that not all of them had stayed, that the Phantom Thieves could have entered and left at any time to scout the museum's defenses. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. But that didn't address the heart of issue. Somewhere out there, Kaedekin society had failed a girl and her buddy.

It had failed them so utterly that they had chosen, planned, and executed not one but two evil heists to do evil rather than good. That couldn't be allowed to continue. Because if it had happened once, it could happen again. With one case, it was only a matter of time before there was a second. A third. A fourth. More girls and buddies could be in the process of being failed by the society they had made, being given cause to not do what was right. They needed to find where they had gone wrong.

They needed to find where they were failing as a society. And they had to do it quickly, before another poor girl decided the only course of action available to them was the path of evil.

"It's finally done!" Meiko exclaimed, relaxing into a boneless lump on the sofa in Leah's house.

"We've finally given back Nikaede-oneesama's statue! It's over!"

"Hurray," Leah said tiredly. While she'd already managed to recover from the previous night's exertions, her soul still felt tired. All that running around, keeping track of multiple running spells at once with only minimal assistance from Hunter, reacting to possible attacks from multiple directions at once…

She had Kaede's memories of doing things like that—doing far more extreme things than that, actually—but it was something else actually trying to do it herself, and just put into perspective how gifted their creator had been at being a Magical Girl, at Thaumaturgy. Or maybe she just didn't use her magic enough to gain the needed experience with it. That could be it too.

"I'm just glad we didn't get caught," Nora sighed as she came with a plate full of air-fried spiced ham slices, along with some little buns of reheated pandesal bread.

"What are you sighing about, I'm the one who had to pretend to be Meiko," Leah said.

"And I'm the one who had to set off the recording of Meiko calling for help," Nora retorted.

"I almost ran into people trying to find who it was!"

"And we had a plan for that," Leah reminded her.

"You were supposed to be looking for it too, remember?"

"And what if the rangers had asked who I was and wondered what I was doing in Crashpoint, and talked to everyone at home and they said I said I was just going out to get art supplies!"

"That's why you were supposed to be carrying art supplies!"

"Why would I go all the way to Crashpoint to get art supplies?!"

"I'm not getting into this with you," Leah said.

"It worked, no one was caught."

"That's what I said!"

"Are you going to punch each other?" Meiko asked innocently. The two paused as one of Kaede's memories rose from the reminder. They looked at each other, then looked away, the memory enough to remind the two of them they shouldn't be bickering over something so petty, especially in front of a little sister. Granted, it was the little sister who had technically masterminded a crime spree, but still!

"So, it's over, right?" Nora said.

"You've returned Nikaede-oneesama's statue, so everything's settled?"

"Yup!" Meiko said.

"Well, mostly." Leah went very, very still.

"'Mostly'? What do you mean, 'mostly'?"

"Well, I need to give back these knives I took," Meiko said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out three… knives… … Kaede watched, fascinated, as the man turned what used to be a piece of rusting car leaf spring into a small blade…

"Why do you have that? -!" Nora said, sounded strangled. Meiko blinked in confusion.

"That was the plan, remember? I'd take something, and it would look like Night Raider had managed to steal it in the confusion."

"That was not the pan!" Leah said, equally strangled.

"You were supposed to hide it so that it looked like I had stolen it!"

"I did!" Meiko said, looking back and forth between them and clearly not understanding why they were upset.

"I hid it in my cart!"

"Yes, and they're here," Nora said.

"That makes them stolen!"

"Only until I give it back," Meiko said.

"Which will be a lot easier than giving back Nikaede-oneesama's statue. These fit in my pocket. I can just go to the museum in a few days, leave them somewhere they'll be found eventually, and leave. No one will ever know it was me." Leah allowed herself to relax slightly.

"Are you sure?"

"I brought in a whole statue last time and no one noticed," the little sister pointed out.

"A few knives will be even easier. Don't worry, I've got this!" A few days later, Leah stared down at a little sister wearing a red coat and red hat in front of her door.

"They have cameras and sensors watching the whole museum now," Meiko said, on the verge of tears.

"They didn't used to before!" Leah sighed. She'd been looking forward to spending the day catching up on the news about the aliens.