Although this one was not my very first pastiche story, this one is actually a prequel to Don't You Dare Deny Me. Originally, I had not intended to have any prequels and move forward from Don't You Dare Deny Me (I'm the kind of writer who likes to move forward, not backwards, otherwise I'll go nuts). But, as I was writing the character biography for Captain Lillian Bates, I started getting a multitude of ideas in my head that were just begging to be written separate from the biography.
This story is loosely inspired by the classic Diary of Anne Frank and will be frequently swapping from 3rd person to 1st person, between Basil's perspective and Captain Lillian Bates's perspective. Enjoy!
Prologue:
The crackling flames in the fireplace reminded him of ... her. The Greatest Female Pirate ever to terrorize all of mousedom. As if the portrait of Professor Ratigan alone wasn't enough to test a mouse's endurance. In fact, it was the very same sewer rat that had ended the tyranny of the pirate. One would generally assume, "Oh well ... that's one LESS criminal to worry about." But something about the entire situation bothered Basil.
He met the pirate bat herself, face to face. She was somehow less tyrannical and more motherly than anyone would've imagined. Not to mention that she herself had doubts about the life she was leading. Her end didn't make Basil happy, nor did it relieve him. Just the the opposite. It greatly angered him and made him only more intent on the search for the nefarious Professor.
The woman's fate had come to a tragic end. But what was worse than the fate of that woman was ... her second-in-command. A young boy ... this boy in particular was a maniacal little monster. At least ... that was the impression Basil got. But the pirate bat herself begged to differ ... She somehow saw him as an innocent. Basil, being the skeptical he was, would've refused to believe such a thing, except ... her journal. The very same journal in which the words of her own hand painted an entirely different image of the boy. A victim is what she had called him. A sweet, innocent boy who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She beseeched Basil to save this boy. And now Ratigan has him!
"If only you had stayed here," Basil whispered as if he was still talking to ... her, "then I would've done something. But no, you just had to be a martyr. And what service have you done for that boy to begin with!?"
As Basil complained to thin air, he opened up the journal the pirate bat had left him. He read it in its entirety once, mainly for the sake of searching for more clues. But Basil was too tired to do any detective work tonight. After all, he only had Mrs. Judson to clean up house. Nobody was around to help him with his cases. Now he was about to read it again, this time in memory of ... her.
These are the unspoken words of a pirate who gained infamy, only to be eliminated in the end by the Napoleon of Crime. These are the unspoken words of ... Captain Lillian Bates ... The Poisoned Lilly of The Bloody Rose ...