Talking

Thinking

What even is this? This is when I have a lack of sleep and three hours to burn in between classes. I had a hell of time writing it though.

Chapter I: A Wizard Goes Down the Rabbit Hole

The sign on the front of my office read: 'Detective Evenguard: Solutions to Any Problem'

"I was that I suppose. A detective. I'm only seventeen too. People usually underestimate me until I did a job for them. It was amazing how people change their minds about someone after seeing the kind of success they produce. I WAS an amazing detective after all. That wasn't the entire reason my reputation for solving cases is so good though. I'm also a bit of a prodigy of a wizard. Please don't tell my old master I said that. He'll probably turn me into a frog for being arrogant."

Predictably, a customer interrupted my inner monologue. "People need to stop doing that to wizards. We do enjoy a good inner monologue."

"Yes, may I help you?" I twisted around in my chair and rested my feet on my desk.

"Er yes." a Japanese man spoke to me in broken English. Interesting. He was either newly immigrated to the good old U.S.A. or he came here from Japan just to see little old me, "We were told by a good American friend that you can literally solve any case. My name is Takashi Hiraga."

"Well I'm 100% so far." I popped my feet off the desk and leaned forward on clasped hands, "So what do you need sir? Let it never be said that Wizards aren't perfect gentleman in speech to people we have somewhat respect for.. I took that lesson from master to heart."

"My son disappeared a few weeks back." the man began, "Neither us nor the police have been able to find anything."

"A disappearance case huh. Something supernatural could be involved. Japan always has some weird voodoo going on. Alright! I'm in." I nodded before handing the man a form, "Please read over this contract and if you choose to sign it, I'll take on your case."

The man did just that and with a heavy sigh a few minutes later handed over the signed form and my usual upfront payment in the form of a check.

"Alright!" I suddenly stood to my feet, surprising the poor, middle-aged Japanese man, "Galahad Evenguard at your service! (master liked old English novels far too much for his own good) First things first, do you have any of your kid's things?"

"Er yes." the man pulled out a crumpled picture out of his pocket as well as a Nintendo DS. It was good to see this mystery boy had good taste in handhelds. Sadly us wizards tended to fry anything electronic so I was going to have to turn off all my wards and such to get near it. The one downfall of being able to call fire from your fingertips. It was truly a pity.

"This is Saito," the man pointed to a medium height guy around my age in the middle of the photo. He was wearing a blue and white hoodie and jeans. Pretty normal looking guy to be honest, "If I may ask Evenguard-san?"

"Hmmm?" I was committing Saito's face to memory. Odds are Mr. Hiraga probably wouldn't want to give up the picture.

"Are you really seventeen?"

"Last time I checked. Which I did yesterday. One can never be too sure of their age." I rolled the DS around in my hands casting a locater spell under my breath. Interesting. Saito wasn't on this plane anymore. I ran a quick check on the demon plane and that one plane all the dead souls go too. I was never able to remember the name. Nothing was there either. Innnnnntttteresting. It seems dear Saito was well and truly gone from any plane I was familiar with. FINALLY an interesting case. I was sick to death of finding lost dogs. Nothing against dogs. I loved dogs. I was just sick of the same thing over and over.

"Er excuse me." there goes Mr. Hiraga interrupting my inner monologue again. Man needs to take a course in wizard ethics so he can stop interrupting me, "When do you think you'll find Saito?"

"Soon." I began running a checklist through my head, "I'd better well equip myself before doing anything. I can use a locoportation spell to immediately go to the plane Saito landed himself in, but I've no idea what's waiting me on the other side. At the very least Mr. Hiraga I can assure you he's alive. Here take this walkie-talkie."

I handed him one of my specially engineered walkie-talkies that ran on magic. Perfect for contacting him from another place with the good news. Provided that this plane didn't have a massive amount of unfamiliar magic that would short it out. What are the odds of that?

"I'll be in contact Mr. Hiraga." I tipped my fedora at him, "Hopefully there will be good news soon."

"Thank you." the Japanese man bowed and left the room.

"Right!" I immediately found my Bag of Holding. Now before you ask, no I didn't NAME it the Bag of Holding. I'm not that nerdy. I found a joke bag based of the DnD bag on the internet and cast a spell of infinite space on it. Okay so maybe I am that nerdy. It comes with the profession in my humble opinion. ANYWAYS. I stuffed the bag with basic healing draughts as well as some other potions for increased stamina, agility, etc. Anything I was going to possibly need in an unknown dimension. Spare clothes weren't going to hurt either. Oh and a bottle of my favorite whiskey.

"Hope Saito won't miss his DS." I set the handheld down on the floor and grabbed my magic stuffed penguin, "Anything could be used as a magic channeler if properly set up you know. It doesn't have to be a bloody wand. Stupid stereotypes. It's being used for a good cause. I'm sure he won't mind."

"Oh gods of time and space," I chanted, feeling wind whipping up around me and the DS, "Grant me the power to cross over to another plane so that I can find the owner of this entertainment device."

A green oval opened up before me and I grinned. "Still got it. And its my favorite color too! Hopefully this is a good omen for the future."

I grasped my bag tightly, held on to my fedora tightly, and jumped into the unknown. I was still not sure to this day if I should have done that.

Everything was pure darkness. I gripped my stuffed penguin tightly. While I could channel magic without it, the spell to return home was keyed into it, and I would need months to make a new object if it got destroyed. Suddenly, a bright light shined from under my feet.

"Finally!" I pumped a fist, "I was a bit worried for a moment I'd just dumped myself in some sort of limbo."

The light brightened, and I found myself floating several hundred feet above a town.

"Hmmm... looks medieval. I should fit right in if magic is common in this plane and not technology.

I cast featherfall in a hurry, and floated down to the center of the town on a pile of feathers. I touched down next to a fountain, and noticed immediately that I was drawing stares from all the townspeople. I was now aware a spell of chameleon probably would have been a good idea as well. I readied a couple of choice spells in my head, ready to fight off any hostile people if necessary. To my surprise, the people all shrugged, and went back to their everyday jobs. Some of them were muttering something about show-off nobles or something along that line. It wasn't long until I put two and two together.

"I'm in a dimension where magical people rule by force huh." I sighed, "This is the exact situation the council back home works hard to prevent. Time to get searching for one Saito Hiraga. Uh oh.

The penguin in my hand was now a blackened mess. That wasn't what I was immediately worried about though. I could make another one of those. I was more worried about the next fireball that was heading towards my head. I dodged to the side, and the fire exploded against the cobblestone street with a small boom. I rolled to a kneeling position and saw a group of sketchy looking people wielding some sort of weird stick. It kind of looked like a wand. It looked like I'd drawn a bit more bad attention than I'd originally thought.

"Hey!" I deflected a smaller fireball to the side with a look of annoyance, "What's the big idea?"

They didn't deign to answer, and kept on with the storm of magic. No really. Some of them were shooting lightning bolts at me. I dodged and weaved through the market, hoping to whatever benevolent being that existed that I wouldn't get fried. Eventually I ran smack into what looked like a royal procession. Fudge cakes. Another fireball soared over my head and hit the lead carriage head on, causing screams of terror to fill the crowd. Lovely, I think I interrupted some sort of assassination attempt. I summoned a massive ball of water and promptly dropped it on the carriage before turning to my pursuers.

"Now chasing me is all well and good." I cracked my knuckles, "But blowing up a carriage and scaring innocent people is another matter entirely.

I gathered a huge ball of magical power in my left hand and cast a wind spell that I directed with a sweep of my hand. I slammed my would be murderers into the side of a building once, twice, thrice, before flopping down on the ground, completely out of breath and with half of my magical power gone. Two spells of that magnitude really took it out of a guy. I turned my head to see if everyone behind me was okay. The carriage was burnt, but the people I saw leaving it were soaked but looked fine. Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

"How can I thank you?" a melodious voice filled me ears. I turned to see a beautiful young woman with odd purple hair. It actually looked good. Huh.

"I'm not exactly going to let a carriage burn down to the ground in front of me. I have standards as a wizard unlike those guys." I breathed heavily, "Don't worry about it you don't owe me anything. Unless..."

"Unless?" She cocked her head to the side and kneeled down next to me. "If this girl's royalty she's not what I expected if the nobles rule the country because they have magic. Then again she could be treating me so well because I have magic."

"Do you maybe know a guy named Saito Hiraga?" I questioned, "Geez this is a long-shot."

"Yes." she nodded, "He's the familiar of my dear friend."

I slapped my forehead, "Saito Saito Saito. What have you got yourself into. I can't go messing with familial contracts. To make matters worse, even if I could find a loophole, my penguin is borked, so I'll have to craft a new medium to cross planes. That's going to take months."

I opened my eyes and sighed. The girl was waiting patiently. She waited till I was done with my inner monologue? I wondered briefly if she wanted to be my new best friend.

"Excuse me miss...?"

"Henrietta." I stood to my feet and offered her a hand, which she took primly. Yep she was definitely royalty.

"Right, Miss Henrietta." I pulled her gently to her feet, "Do you think I could meet Saito? You see I've come to bring him home. His father hired me for the job."

"Oh." the noble looked sad, "Louise won't be happy."

"Is that your dear friend you were talking about?" I dropped her hand and wiped off the back of my trousers.

"Yes." She nodded, "Louise summoned Saito as her familiar, and even if she won't admit it she treasures him. Could you come with me to talk for a bit?"

I nodded in reply. The classic familiar master love story. Who was I to come in between them?

"So if you are here to bring Saito back to his world," Henrietta beckoned me inside an inn, where we sat at a nicely crafted oak table, "You aren't a noble then? If so how do you have magic, and such strong magic at that? According to Louise Saito's world has no magic or nobles."

"We keep ourselves secret," I ordered a tankard of ale. Contrary to popular belief, alcohol replenished magic at an absurd rate. It helps wizards, not hinder them, "If Saito knew about magic, the council isn't doing their job."

"Your society sounds fascinating." Henrietta's attention was completely on me. Not used to that. Especially since I'm usually running around in an old, ratty trench-coat with an old t-shirt and jeans on. People tended to see me as a hobo and move on. It was all part of the whole keeping magic secret thing. The less people pay attention to you, the less likely they would see you doing magic.

"It's just a bunch of old men running around trying to give orders," I shrugged, "I'd like to think my job is way more interesting than all their meetings."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a detective." I explained, "I help people with their unsolvable problems for a living. Sometimes using magic, sometimes I just use my brain."

"You're so different from most of the nobles in this country," Henrietta took a sip of her tea, "I have such a hard time convincing my advisers that the commoners aren't so different from them."

"Advisers?" I raised an eyebrow, "She must be pretty important."

"Yes." She stirred her tea with a spoon, "I'm the crown princess of Tristain."

Cue jaw dropping.

**Shrug** this is something I couldn't get out of my head. It remains to be seen if it goes anywhere from here

-Forscythe