Luke solves difficult and massive puzzles in the backyard with help from Flora and the Black Ravens while Emmy tries to get his mother to notice. Meanwhile, Layton battles with his nemesis, the evil Don Paolo, who plots revenge on the entire London area.
I really have no idea where this came from. But once it came, it absolutely demanded to be written. So, here you are. An odd product of my muses that somehow managed to be absolutely hysterical. Also, it has guest appearances. Because, you know, why not?
Luke leaned back against the tree he laid against, looking up through the branches at the bright sky over head. It was a gorgeous morning, the perfect way to start summer.
"It's a gorgeous morning, isn't it?" he asked aloud. "The perfect way to start summer."
The man next to him didn't say anything, simply choosing to sip from the cup of tea he held as he sat cross legged on the ground next to Luke.
"You're right, Layton!" Luke agreed, sitting straight up. "It's a beautiful day, but we need something to make that beautiful day worth living! We don't want to waste it, do we?"
The professor took another sip of tea.
"No, we need to do something incredible," Luke decided. "Something amazing! We need to make each day of summer count, and-"
He paused suddenly in his speech, as an idea occurred to him. "That's it! I know what we're going to do today!"
Luke glanced over at the professor in excitement, only to see a piece of paper lying on the ground next to the gentleman, who didn't appear to have moved and continued to sip his tea. He snatched it up to find a complex puzzle scrawled across it.
"As always, Layton, you're two steps ahead!" Luke said cheerfully, examining the puzzle. "Let's see… get the red car out of the traffic jam, if each car can only move forwards and backwards. That sounds appropriately challenging."
At that moment, the gate to the backyard swung open, and a brown haired girl swayed in. "Hi, Luke! Whatcha dooing?"
"Hi, Flora," Luke greeted her. "Layton and I were just coming up with a great puzzle to solve today, and- hang on. Where's Layton?"
o0o
As soon as Luke had become distracted by puzzle logistics, Layton had stood from his position and slipped behind the tree that stood in the middle of the yard (and hadn't that been the inspiration for numerous puzzles over the years!). As soon as Flora entered the yard, distracting Luke further, he palmed the hidden button on the side of the tree before allowing himself to fall backwards down a hidden chute that opened and resealed as soon as he had passed through.
The man turned as he fell, twisting to pull a top hat from his pocket (and wasn't fitting it in such a delightful puzzle as well!) before placing it on his head.
Hershel Layton, mild mannered English gentleman, had become Professor L, archeology expert, puzzle master, and… English gentleman.
The fall came to an abrupt halt as Layton landed in a rather hard green chair that Luke would probably describe as uncomfortable at best. He sat in what appeared to be a simple warm colored office with a soft sofa, coffee table, and dozens and dozens of artifacts that littered every inch of the space.
The one item that seemed out of place was the monitor set into the wall at the desk he now sat at. He reached forward and pressed the green button on the side of it.
"Good Morning, Professor L," greeted the cheerful visage of Dean Delmona, the head of the Gressenheller Professors (*cough*agents*cough*). "Bad news, today. There was a mix up at the scientific board at the graduate school not far from here, the Graduate School Without A Cool Acronym, and accidently assigned one of the students looking for work experience to your nemesis, Don Paolo. You will have to stop Don Paolo while making sure that the student does not get caught in the crossfire."
Layton tipped his hat.
"Oh, and, before you go, Professor L, Rosa has made the demand that you try and keep your office in a bit more reasonable shape."
Of screen came a faint voice "-papers and books everywhere! One of these days I'm going to file them-right into the trash can-!"
Layton winced.
"That's all. You can go, Professor L."
Layton tipped his hat again and a pneumatic tube pulled him back upwards. It deposited him on the street, next to a distinctive car. He lept in the car, pressed the button on the dash that pulled down the top and pushed out dragonfly-like wings from the sides, and took off towards the creepy looking tower that stood for some reason towering over everything in the middle of downtown London.
o0o
The Triton doorbell rang.
Brenda answered the door, her purse over her shoulder, obviously in the process of heading out. "Oh!" she greeted, surprised by the dark haired woman on the step (though she really shouldn't have been). "Emmy!"
"Hi, Mrs. Triton!" Emmy greeted cheerfully. "I came by to see if Luke was doing anything crazy today, so I could prove to you that your son is actually a puzzle solving genius!"
Brenda shook her head. "Emmy, you do this every day. Didn't you tell me yesterday that Luke was giving free flowers out to everyone in town to test his answer to a puzzle to find the perfect bouquet for anyone?"
"Yes," Emmy agreed.
"And didn't you tell me the day before that Luke had built an eighty-story-high tower of Hanoi to test the minimum number of moves the puzzle could be solved in?"
"I'm still not sure how that fit in the backyard," Emmy muttered.
"And where is Luke even supposed to be getting these puzzles?" Brenda pointed out.
"Layton gives them to him," Emmy answered.
Brenda laughed. "Emmy, I love Hershel as much as an old college friend can love another in a purely platonic way, but he's an English gentleman. They don't do much."
"Except give impossibly difficult puzzles to a ten-year-old," Emmy mumbled.
"Anyways, I need to go out for a bit, and I'd really like to get through this day without a dozen phone calls from you," Brenda continued. "Maybe you can get my husband if you absolutely must-he's in charge when I'm gone."
As she said this, Clark poked his head out of his study. "Brenda! I just got an absolutely brilliantly preserved set of Azran ruin stones to decode, and the museum wants be to classify a half dozen coprolites to the species that left them! I'm afraid you probably won't see me at dinner, I'll be working all night!"
He ducked back inside.
Emmy looked at Brenda, who had the expression of one who'd been defeated without even knowing there was a competition going on in the first place. "Okay," she said with a sigh. "You're in charge."
Emmy fist pumped. "Thanks, Mrs. Triton!" she called, running around the house towards the back. "You won't regret it!"
Brenda sighed. "Oh, yes I will."
o0o
"Okay, so now we just need to find a car eight meters long," Luke said, comparing the plans in his hands to the set up in front of him.
He, with Flora's help, had not only built a parking lot in the backyard, but also filled it with several cars of varying sizes. The layout was identical to the puzzle that Layton had given him that morning.
"That's odd, I thought I'd already ordered one of those," Flora commented with a frown, looking at the clipboard she held in her hands. "Yes, right here, after I'd ordered three tons of concrete."
Luke scratched his head under his hat. "Maybe-"
He was cut off by a massive truck driving up.
"Hallo!" called the man in the truck. "I've got an eight meter long truck for a… Flora and Luke?"
"That's us!" Luke cried cheerfully, hurrying over to sign the needed paperwork. He quickly scribbled his name on the needed line.
"Here you are, then," the man said, exiting the truck. "Hey, aren't you a little young to be building a puzzle replication with real cars?"
"Yes," Luke agreed. "Yes we are."
The man shrugged. "Alright, then." He wandered off.
Luke turned to Flora, practically bouncing with excitement. "Come on, let's get this thing in place!"
o0o
"A parking lot?" Emmy asked from her bird's eye view position located in the spare bedroom that looked over the yard. "What kind of puzzle are they trying to solve with-Are they driving cars?!"
Across the yard, a boy popped his head from the driver's seat of the large truck that had just arrived. "Hey, mates, heard you needed some drivers! I brought the whole of the Black Ravens to help!"
"Thanks, Crow!" Luke cheered.
"Okay, just do exactly what I tell you!" Flora called.
"Hang on, I'm in charge of the Black Ravens!" Crow protested.
Then he caught sight of the glare Flora gave him.
"I mean, do whatever the girl says, lads, ya hear?"
o0o
Don Paolo, scientist, mad genius, and nemesis to one Hershel Layton, was video chatting with a man he rather disliked: Leon Bronev. But as a fellow member of TARGENT (Terrifying Archeologists Relishing in Grabbing Evil, Nasty, opporTunities (even if Don Paolo wasn't exactly an archeologist…)), he still had to converse with the man on occasion. After all, there weren't a lot of other evil scientists out there.
"Yeah, having an assistant is great," Don Paolo sighed cheerfully. Yes, he was rubbing it in. He was evil. "And she's hot."
Behind him, there was a crack and a small yelp. "Agh, this is so not worth six credits!"
"I have to admit, I'm jealous," Bronev admitted. "Mine never really does much. Despite the fact that he's my son and should have evil in his blood, he seems to be completely convinced that he's better off as an English gentleman."
The camera shifted to show a man in a dark suit sitting calmly at a table sipping tea and ignoring the world around him.
The camera moved back to Bronev. "Add that to the fact that he always seems to disappear whenever my nemesis shows up, and he's really all around quite useless."
"That's too bad," Don Paolo said, the grin on his face betraying the fact that he actually felt no sympathy whatsoever. "Mine brought cookies this morning."
Bronev sighed. "If only…" He was cut off by the sound of shattering porcelain. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Desmond, not on the couch!"
The feed cut off.
Don Paolo shook his head and exited the computer program. It was just in time, because as he did so, there was the sound of a trap activating.
"Ah, Layton the Gentleman!" the man said, turning in his chair. (It was a swivel chair. Which was awesome. Because, you know, swivel chairs.) "What a surprising development! And by surprising, I mean completely… prising? I guess?" He paused. "And that statement started out so well, too."
Layton was trapped in a dome shaped cage. He frowned at Don Paolo and crossed his arms.
"Yeah, it kind of got away from me," Don Paolo agreed, standing and walking over to an object covered by a tarp. "But no matter! Behold!"
He dramatically pulled away the tarp to show a flying machine that looked rather like a helicopter crossed with a purple pod. "My Flying-Machine-Inator!"
Don Paolo paused for a moment with a frown. "I mean, my flying machine. Not an inator. No clue where that came from."
Layton sighed. This was going to be a long one. He could already tell.
o0o
Brenda hummed to herself as she picked out the groceries for the week. "Let's see, I think Luke would like a roast… And Hershel's always over, so I need to make sure we have tea for him…"
That was when her phone rang.
With a sigh (but it's not like she wasn't expecting it), she answered.
"Hello, Emmy."
"Mrs. Triton! Luke's built an enormous parking lot in the backyard, and he and the Black Ravens are driving cars to try and solve a complex puzzle! You've got to come home and see!"
Brenda sighed. "Emmy, honey, I'm in the middle of grocery shopping. I'll try and get home soon though, alright?"
"Yes! Yes! And then you'll see them!" A slightly manic laugh rang over the phone. "You'll see…"
Brenda hung up. She estimated she had about ten minutes before the next frantic call. She could surely find most of her groceries by then, right?
Back at the house, Emmy scowled as she heard the dial tone. That had been rather rude.
o0o
Don Paolo was in full on maniacal rant mode.
"...So then I will rain my vengeance down on the entire LONDON AREA!" he shouted, waving his arms wildly. "And then, the people will be begging for an umbrella! Or some galoshes! But there will be none, because it's really more of a metaphorical rain than an actual one, but, you know, I'm still going to be doing it from above because it's ironic and stuff. Also, it will be terrifying, because, you know, I'm above them and all. I'm not really sure why that's so terrifying, but it is. It's a thing. It's terrifying. Everyone knows that. I have no idea how everyone can know…"
Layton rolled his eyes as Don Paolo went increasingly off topic, and pulled a bobby pin from his hat. As Don Paolo was rather distracted- (how had he gotten on the topic of collective intelligence?) -it wasn't hard to slip the bobby pin into the top of the cage where the bars met.
From there, it was a simple matter to trick the bars into thinking there was something in the way, causing the safety override to kick in and retract the bars.
Only, before he could do it, the door to the lab opened, and he was greeted to the sight of an absolutely adorable woman standing in the doorway, looking annoyed. "Okay, that's all of your junk put away. You do realize, though, that I'm studying for a PhD in quantum physics, not in boxing up your sh- who is that guy and why is he in a cage?"
"What?" Don Paolo asked, looking between the Graduate Student and the Professor, who now had a slight pink blush on his cheeks. "Oh, that's my nemesis, Professor Hershel Layton, the English Gentleman. Layton, this is my new intern, Claire. The Grad School sent her over to learn from me. Me!"
Layton frowned and sent a quick glare at Don Paolo.
"It's supposed to be great work experience, only I don't remember learning about nemeses, and I haven't seen one sign of a particle accelerator," Claire said with a frown.
"Oh, I'm sure it will come up sooner or later," Don Paolo said dismissively, waving a hand. "Now, since you're done with the organizing, go fetch me a coffee from the shop down the street."
"...You do realize most of my classmates are at CERN right now?" she asked.
"Yes, which is why they are not fetching me a coffee. Black, two sugars."
Claire's eye twitched. "I am so registering a complaint with the board," she muttered as she turned and stalked from the room.
Don Paolo sighed. "Interns, am I right, Lay-"
He was cut off as Layton's right hook smashed into his face.
o0o
"Okay, Crow, move your car two spaces forward!" Luke called, from his position in the large tree that gave him a bird's eye view of the whole lot.
"Right!" Crow shouted, carefully taking his foot off the brake.
"Nibs, you do the same!" Luke instructed.
"At least it's not totally boring," Nibs muttered, obeying.
"And that frees you up to move three spaces backwards, Wren!"
Wren grinned wildly as she backed the large truck up. "This is so cool!"
"Now I just need to free up the yellow car…" Luke muttered to himself as he considered his next move.
o0o
"Move number 109," Emmy counted, making a mark on the paper she was keeping track on. "Oh, where is Mrs. Triton? He's got to be close to solving it by now!"
o0o
"Oh, the traffic is terrible," Brenda sighed as she sat in her car in the store parking lot, waiting for space to clear so she could leave. The whole place was packed with cars. "It's too bad Hershel isn't here. He always like a good puzzle."
o0o
Layton ducked as Don Paolo swung at him, before sweeping the man's legs out from under him and running for the flying machine.
Don Paolo recovered quickly, though. "Oh no you don't!" he shouted, throwing the first thing that his hand touched at the professor. It happened to be small coil of wire, which Layton dodged, followed quickly by a pair of safety goggles, a paper airplane, an empty plastic cup, and a rubber duck.
Layton actually paused with the last one, catching it and holding it up with a bemused expression on his face.
"Yeah…" Don Paolo sighed. "That's a long story, there. Longer than the one I was telling you earlier, about the-hey, don't go blowing up my things when I'm talking to you! It's not polite!"
Layton froze, finger just inches from the self destruct button, before he sighed and turned back to face the other man. Unfortunately, that was true. Blowing up things while your nemesis was talking was not something a gentleman does.
"Better," Don Paolo agreed with a firm nod. "Now, as I was saying, I was talking to Leon Bronev (you remember him, he's my fellow TARGENT member, the one with that masked swordsman as a nemesis (and why don't you have a sword? That would be so much cooler)) the other day, and he was saying…"
Layton sighed again. This was going to take a while.
o0o
"Okay, Flora, pull forward two spaces and you're out of the lot!"
"You've got it, Luke!" Flora cheered. She drove the red car forward slowly, through the small exit, completely out of the lot.
Everyone cheered.
"Layton's apprentice strikes again!" Luke cheered as he quickly descended from the tree. "One more puzzle in the world solved!"
o0o
"Finally," Brenda sighed as she pulled out of the morass. "Now, time to get home and-"
She scowled as her cell phone rang. With a sigh, she picked it up and held it at arm's length before answering.
"MRS. TRITON!"
"Hello, Emmy…"
o0o
"...and it sort of ended up on my floor," Don Paolo finished. He paused for a moment. "Okay, I'm done now."
Layton obligingly hit the self-destruct button.
"NO! CURSE YOU, LAYTON THE GENTLEMAN!"
Layton tipped his hat and ran for the edge of the balcony that looked out over London. Sending a quick wink to the intern who had just returned with a cup of coffee, he lept over the edge, and they both caught sight of him swooping up a second later holding some sort of makeshift hang glider.
"Huh," Claire said calmly. "Is it weird that I was kind of hoping for a propeller to pop out of his hat?"
"Yes, yes it is," Don Paolo told her sullenly from where he was still on the ground.
Claire looked at him flatly for a moment before she removed the lid of the cup and poured the coffee all over him.
"OW! What was that for?"
"For making me go get it in the first place," Claire snapped back. "I'm an intern, not an errand boy!" With that, she spun on her heel and stalked from the room, tossing the empty cup over her shoulder.
The cup flew through the air and smacked another machine, which was sitting on the balcony, activating it. A green ray cut through the air.
"...Huh," Don Paolo said calmly. "I wonder if that hit anything important."
o0o
Back in the backyard, Luke, Flora, and the Black Ravens watched as their parking lot puzzle shrank to the side of a small piece of paper.
"Wait, what just happened?" Luke asked, confused, looking at the others.
They all shrugged.
"Well, at least it fits inside now," Luke decided. "And hey, I bet we could use it to solve other, similar problems a lot more easily! Makes me wonder why we didn't just build it that size in the first place. Probably would have been a lot simpler."
"But then we wouldn't have gotten to drive a really big truck," Crow pointed out.
"...That is an excellent argument," Luke agreed. "I think we all like really big trucks."
o0o
Meanwhile, Brenda pulled into the driveway as Emmy bolted out the front door to meet her.
"Mrs. Triton! Mrs. Triton! You have to see it, you won't believe-!"
She grabbed the woman's arm and, ignoring her protests ("Wait, Emmy, I have frozens!"), dragged her into the backyard, only to see… nothing?
"But it was right here!" Emmy cried. "It was right…"
"Hi, Emmy!" Luke chirped as he came out of the house, all his friends close behind.
"Hi, Luke," Emmy said dully.
Brenda smiled at the kids. "Hello, kids. If you wait a couple moments, I can make snacks."
All the kids seemed very enthusiastic about that idea and followed her into the house. Bringing up the rear was Layton, with his ever present cup of tea in hand as he trotted inside.
"Oh, there you are, Layton," Emmy sighed.
Inside, Luke perked up at the sight of his mentor. "Oh! Layton, we solved that great puzzle you gave us! See, I've even shown my work-" He displayed a notebook and started babbling on about space saving equations and mathematical formulas.
Layton ruffled his hair proudly as Brenda shot him a glance that clearly said "isn't he so cute?"
Emmy just huffed. One of these days, she was going to prove it. One day…
...And, that's a wrap! I am so glad it's done, because it WOULD NOT LEAVE ME ALONE. But I'm rather proud of the way it turned out. Read and Review!