There is an old costume store in the middle of Mildew Lane entitled "Costumed Beauty". It is owned by old Donna Widow. She and a very slim few in the town of Eraldatu work there almost every day 12 hours (6 AM to 6 PM, breaks on holidays for almost every religion) Despite the small cast it is still a popular location throughout the town of Eraldatu. Any one can buy a costume, but sometimes the costumes they buy may effect their life, and with halloween coming up...
The winds were hollowing as loud as a wolf on this dark and stormy October Night and Eraldatu seemed to embrace that darkness. Gina's Grilled Cheese didn't open on weekends and they always had the lights off when closed. Harry's Haircut had crumbled into pieces due to an unstable positioning. Walmart had a power outage and it would take 3 days for any kind of technicians to figure it out. Even the mayors office had all of lights turned off, of course it was probably due to the mayor getting some sleep after a long day of buiness.
You know who was not getting rest despite how busy he was? Dectectieve Fitzwilliam Fausto. His sexuality? The least of your worries. His Heritage. Not important right now. All you need to know he was a tall old man at 65 years old. His left eye is made of glass and his hair is white as snow, like his mustache. and he's the islands greatest detective, especially when it came to missing people. When anything or anyone is missing kidnaped, he immediately goes to the crime scene and hunts down clues. Most of the time (but not always )it's kidnapping. he would always find the kidnappers and where they were keeping their victims for less than a week but that doesn't mean the kidnapped always returned alive or sane. When it's not kidnapping, the missing person usually lost their way or simply just forgot about where they lived. Right now he was on the most important mystery case he had so far. Well, most important four cases in this situation.
Here's what he knew about them
The first victim was Mathew Coso, a young adult at 5'11 and brown hair. He was a nice person but also very defying. He had gotten fired from his last job as a janitor of a theatre a couple of months ago and was trying to apply for a new job at a store somewhere last July 22nd. He had mysteriously disappeared that same day.
Second to disappear was Jacqueline La Verne, another young adult but at 5'7. She was a very smart girl, even skipped 11th grade graduating one year earlier than her peers. At the same time though her uninhibitedness did get in the way of making friends. Her disappearance was on July 25th or as some of the people in the town liked to call it, Christmas in July. Her last known sighting was at the costumed beauty.
On July 27th the third victim, Rocky Barnes at 6'3, went to the same store that Jacqueline did where he got hired to test out a new kind of costume. He also got put on a space ship by NASA, while still in this suit, which was a Rocket Raccoon one. He then disappeared from the shuttle that same week on the 4th day of testing, before arriving on a place called "Half World". NASA is now exploring it and it turns out it's a furry land. All that was found of him was a 7 page journal with only 4 of the pages filled in.
The disappearances stopped until five days ago. The most recent missing person was Lawrence Prekrasnyy at 6'0 feet tall. He wanted a job and some of the people thought that it was that he had an advantage in the game. so he decided to go to the store that Mathew, his neighbor, had last applied. It's unknown which job it was but supposedly he was either kidnapped at the store or sometime before hand.
Although most people would say that them being connected would be a bit weird , an intellectual, thought otherwise. Stroking his mustache and adjusting his glass eye he proceeded through the windy weather and headed to what was probably the only store open at the moment.
The newly installed automatic door opener open it and immediately closed. There was a counter in front with a bell that the old man assumed would call someone to the stand.
DING!
"Hello?" asked Fitzwilliam. "Is there anyone here?"
No response.
DING! DING!
"I said...Is anyone here?"
Still no response.
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!
"ALL RIGHT WE GET IT YOU'RE EVEN MORE IMPATIENT THAN ME!" The person that yelled was what appeared to be some jerk in a very familiar raccoon suit "Some one will get to you eventually you don't have to keep making that darn dining noise?"
The man adjusted his glass eye "Pardon me, sir. Do you work here?"
"NO I DON'T WORK HERE AND I WILL NEVER FREAKING WORK HERE!"
"Now, now" said the detective lifted his right eyebrow "there is no need to get angry."
"OH THERE IS A NEED TO GET ANGRY! DO YOU WANNA FIGHT?"
"If you don't stop...I might just have too."
"ALL RIGHT THEN! HAVE AT THEE!"
"No! No one is fighting any one." some girl spoke, it appeared to be a british accent. "After all, why fight when you can love?"
The man turned around to see a girl in a very realistic Maid Marian costume. It appeared she was one of the workers here or at least someone who could provide information about the .
"I'm sorry for getting angry" said the raccoon
The man apologized too. Then he turned to the lady in what he assumed was a costumed and asked a question "Excuse me! I'm detective Fitzwilliam Fausto. Do you have any information about the culprit of the kidnaming of either a Matthew, Jacqueline, Rocky or Lawrence?"
The maiden sighed "No, I do not sadly. It is such a shame about those kidnappers though, I recently almost got kidnapped by the Sherif of Notigham. It was a truly awful experience."
The old man frowned but he wasn't that mad."Not a problem mam. If you remember something just let me know OK?"
"Actually I have a question for you." the vixen said and the mans one good eye lit up "What are you? I know the deceive part, but what species are you? You look like a hairless monkey"
(Must be into Role-play) thought the detective. He decided to play a long "I'm exactly that! A monkey without hair! This Monkey knows that it's getting dark and the weather mongoose says a tornado is coming. so you might as well go before it gets even worse..."
It had been 30 minutes now. The "Rocket" and "Marian" cosplayers have not gone home yet. The wind dyed down a little, but Fitzwilliam still had to get information here. He assumed that maybe the stores owner, Donna Widow could help him out. She was only one year younger than him at 67 and she appeared to be nice. It's the nice ones you have to look out for but-
"LU!" and "LO!" were echoed throughout the almost empty costume store
"GAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"Fitzwilliam screamed!
In front of him were 2 workers that obviously were wearing costumes. One worker had the name tag of Lucille and the other had the name of the first missing person. Of course, it was too blury for him to see the name tags so he just referred to them as Lopunny and Lucario since they were wearing those pokemons costume (don't ask how he knew what they were though).
"Lu lucario luca?" Matthew asked Lucille
"Lo lopunny! Lopunny lo!" Lucille responded.
"Lu Lucari Lucario! Lucar Lucario?"
"Lo...LOPUNNY! -" it was clear Lucille was embarrassed by that statement.
"Uh...hi?" the only human that he thought wasn't in the room asked. "My name detective Fitzwilliam Fausto. Do you have any information about the culprit of the kidnaming of either a Matthew, Jacqueline, Rocky or Lawrence?"
"Lucar? Lucar Lucario Lu Lu Rio? (Missing? How could I be missing if I'm right here?)" the Lucario then did a spin
"Lopunny Lopunny Lopun Lopunny punny. (I think he's talking about a diffrent Matthew.)" Lucille stared at him and rolled her eyes.
"Lucario? Lucari 'luca' rio! (Why would he? I'm the best "Michel" there is.)"
"Lopunny lopunn (I know that, dearie.)"
"Uh? Could I speak to the manager?" Decetive Fausto asked.
"Oooooooooooo" they both said in unision.
"So your'e gonna go get her? Great! I'll just be waiting in here for her to see me..."
It is now 10:00. Donna has not arrivied yet but Mister Fausto can wait a little bit. Right now he's watching the TV to help pass the time. There's a cartoon playing on it. He couldn't recognize what it was called but it sure was entertaining and definitely a better thing to do then find a needle in a haystack. The cartoons main character appeared to be a cat. He was black with white eyes and a little bit of white surrounding his mouth. The eyes were shaped like Pac-Man and judging by the monochrome background it appeared that he was from the 1920's or 30's. The cat certainly was a funny one, almost made the detective forget about the missing people.
By almost I of course ALMOST.
He began to inspire himself (As a detective you need to focus on your goals and the goal of I, Fitzwilliam Fausto was to find the missing people and bring the possible kidnapper to justice. No silly cartoon is gonna make him forget that. I mean, it's a good cartoon and it should be rebooted for younger generations...but right now that's the least of your worries. Yes sir! You are here to find missing people and this is the last known sighting for most of them. Therefore you should be able to get information for at least one of the k-)
Suddenly he train of thought took an interesting turn "Hey is that the character on the TV?"
Indeed, behind the counter was a costume of that cat he saw in the cartoon! Granted, it looked blurry form his point of view but he could recognize the pattern of the colors. Yep, that was certainly a costume representing that thing on the television and by god it looked...good. Maybe he should wear try it on and perhaps role-play in it for a little bit...
GAH! WHAT WAS HE EVEN THINKING AT THAT MOMENT? WEAR A COSTUME JUST BECAUSE IT'S BASE ON SOMETHING HE SAW ON TV? THAT'S THE STUPIDEST IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS!
At the same time though, it would be nice to test it out for Miss Donna. Yeah, maybe you could still even interview her in the costume, despite how ridiculous he'll look.
NO HE CAN NOT! SHE'LL NEVER TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY IN THAT COSTUME!
But maybe he's not meant to be taken seriously.
NO HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. THAT'S WHAT ALL DETECTIVES ARE.
...is he a though detective?
YES HE...Wait...is he?
No...he's a cartoon silly! And right now he needs to get in that suit!
Putting on the costume was surprisingly easy for putting Fitzwilliam Fausto to put on. The first thing to come on was the body suit all he had to do was unzip the back and step in through there. He noticed the quality of the fur was almost life like. It felt like a real cats fur, but that couldn't be for animal skinning is illegal in Eraldatu and Donna didn't seem like the type to break the law.
The next thing to come on was the gloves. The costume only had four fingers on each hand so the second finger on the glove had both the middle and index finger in the left glove and the right's last one had the ring and pinky.
Then came the head. It was fairly large compared to the tv counter part. Thankfully there appeared to have a helmet in it, as to secure the head is not going to fall off the main body or the head of the wearer. He slowly put it on as safely and slowly that he thought he could do. He also made sure to adjust the angle of the head so he could see more and also attached the chin straps together.
Lastly were the feet, which the darkest shade of black that the man had ever seen. He put his right foot in the right boot first and then his left foot in the left boot. Now he looked exactly like that cartoon character.
Fitzwilliam found a mirror soon and got a good look at himself "Well I must say, this is the best costume that I've ever worn. I mean, it's not the only one I've every worn of course but I haven't worn those since I was..."
He lost his thoughts for a few minutes as he began to feel something that wasn't there before. Turning around he saw that thing was...a tail? That was odd, there wasn't a tail on the costume before. Then again it really made this seem authentic. Wait what is he saying? There's a tail the costume that most likely had appeared out of nowhere! That's not normal for costumes to do...that is, unless that costume were made in a cartoon itself!?
As that thought came though his mind his legs seemed to have disappeared. His feet still had 5 toes, but they were covered up in so much black fur that you could barley even see where the border between them began. Underneath the suit, which now seemed to be the real thing, his stomach become larger and more rounded than a human being...which he couldn't be called anymore now could he? Under the gloves his fingers were reduced to four with the two fingers that were in the same hole merged together. The fur spread all the way over the body and up to his face.
"I can't take this any more! I need to get this stupid suit off! I need..." he paused for a minuete "...to get my magic bag! I'm not Felix the Cat without it now aren't I?"
As F̶i̶t̶z̶w̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶m̶ Felix the Cats changes continued all clothes under neath the suit disappeared and fur covered up every thing, EVEN THE PRIVATES. But he was not fully himself yet. D
The head was the only thing left to merge with the wearer and it took the most amount of time. The eyes were the first thing to go. The glass eye turned real again and once real it grew to the same size as the original one, which had now increased in size by a lot. As this was happening he began to lose a few inches in the body. His nose became the equivalent texture and material of a cats. Like his fur the nose was black and so did the color of the eyes, with the only witness being in the outline and the place surrounding the mouth. All that was left was aging down and that was something that took only 30 enough Felix was truly himself once more. But he still was missing his magic bag...now where did he put it again?
Well the bad news is Fitzwiliam never found the missing people but the good news is "Felix" found his magic bag. It turned out that he had left it back at his house and locked up in the cellar (so any doctors with evil intentions grab hold of it). He clutched it in his hands and sighed a gigantic sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, I thought that you were stolen by the Professor...what ever his last name was."
Yes, for Felix his magic bag was his one of his two comfort things, the other being the love his life Kitty! He'd trade his soul for hers if it meant her happiness but somehow the bag was more important. He'd never say that out loud though. That would be an evil thing to do. The way Felix viewed himself was not a stinky evil person who lies cheats and make loud noises in restaurants. He viewed him as "clean-cut". That meant he ate his vegetables, he brushed and flossed daily and he never made rude noises in public.
All of the sudden a knock came at the door. "Who is it?" Felix asked.
"It's me~!" a female voice responded back which happened to belong to none other than Kitty. She appeared to be a little bit slimmer than usual but Felix didn't say anything about it. Her eyes also appeared diffrent but it was night time so maybe it was just the darkness
"Hi Kitty!" Felix smiled as he asked that question "What are you doing here?"
"Oh I'm just here to remind you of the costume party the costumed beauty is having tomorrow!" the white cat handed him an invitation.
Felix looked at the invite and this is what it said
Dear Felix the Cat, You are humbly invited to a costume party in the Costumed Beauty starting at 5 AM and ending at 12 PM, the witching hour. Wear the best costume that you can and see if you can win the costume contest. The reward is 10,000 $ and 2 cents. Signed,Donna Widow
A costume party? Hot dog! No wait...that was Mcikeys thing. "All right I'll come. So what costume are you planning on wearing exactly?"
"Well I'm not sure about mine but I was wondering if you could be a detective."
"A detective? Why's that?"
"Well see I figured we could do a myster themed couple combo. I don't know what part of the mystery I would go as but I know you'd love being a detective. You've already got a bag you can carry evidence."
"Well I guess I could pull a detective costume from here in a week or so. Yeah, I think I'm in"
"Great! I'll call you when I get an idea for my costume OK?"
The white cat then turned around and Felix noticed something that seemed off. It appeared that on her back...there was a silver zipper. Prehaps it was just the darkness messing with him again. On the other hand, It could be Donna herself disguised as Kitty inviting her to the costume party that she would hold at Halloween. Felix would never know, nor would he know that the costume that Kitty recommended was what he once was. That, however, was the least of his worries right now. Right now he need some shut eye.
(Everything is Righty-o!) the cat thought as he finally got some sleep wondering what the costume party would be like and what outfits others would wear...