Moonlit Meetings:

Chapter 1:

The Police officer known as Ciel Durless yawned and peered hopefully at the clock on the wall in the task force office. He had half an hour before he could leave and nothing to do because he couldn't get any leads on the elusive thief he was investigating, mainly because he actually was the phantom thief in question.

"Are you sure that Scene of Crime Officers could not pick up any DNA or fingerprints from the scene?" he asked his assistant, an older officer called Tanaka who also assisted in his criminal activities.

Tanaka shook his head. "Fortunately not. There was a close call with a hair from your wig which I managed to pick up without anyone noticing."

Ciel frowned. "I will try to be more careful next time. It's fortunate that I am head of the task force that is supposed to capture my alter ego."

Naturally it wasn't a coincidence. Once he had decided that the way to investigate his parents' mysterious death, was by creating a false persona of a phantom thief, he had made sure to infiltrate the team investigating the aforementioned phantom thief. He was already a respected police officer beforehand so it hadn't been too challenging and he had ended up being in charge of the task force after some well placed bribes.

"What is the media saying about last night?" he enquired curiously. Comments about the inefficiency of the investigating officers were always a source of amusement.

Tanaka held up a newspaper in reply. Ciel stared at the photo taking up a majority of the front pages which was of a man dressed entirely in black with a black cape and a matching mask and hat. He made a face upon observing the angle had been taken from. It clearly showed that he was below average height, something that he was sensitive about.

"The elusive Phantom Thief strikes again, leaving Chief Inspector Ciel Durless in a tizzy. This is the tenth time that the Chief Inspector has let the thief escape unhindered," Tanaka read aloud from the newspaper. "All the newspapers are running similar stories. You can check for yourself.

"Considering that I am the thief in question, it is beneficial, but we may be audited soon or I may be removed from this investigation team. We could leave behind some clues at the next heist," he suggested thoughtfully. "The longer this double life continues, the more likely it is that we will all lose our positions in the task force."

The third occupant of the office finally spoke up.

"Actually, you aren't being removed, a new member is being added to be the team," Mey-Rin said. "An email was sent just now."

Ciel's eyes widened and he hastened to check his inbox. As Mey-Rin has said, there was indeed an email from one of his superiors about the addition to the team. He skim read the email hurriedly to find out the name of the new member.

"Inspector Sebastian Michaelis."

Below the name was a photo. Sebastian Michaelis had long black hair with a long stranded fringe and piercing scarlet eyes. He looked to be a few years older than himself.

He turned to the member of the team whose main duty was to pick up on gossip.

"Mey-Rin, have you ever heard of Sebastian Michaelis?"

"I have. To say he is slightly well known to all the females here at Scotland Yard is an understatement, he is very famous," she explained. "He has had a fast rise through the ranks and hasn't had an unsolved case yet. Everyone considers him to be attractive too."

She paused and Ciel observed that her face had flushed a deep red which he had never seen before.

"Mey-Rin, do you have something else to add?" Tanaka asked her.

"I tripped up last week when I was carrying your tea back here. He was kind enough to catch me and the tea.

Ciel considered their possible options carefully. Firstly, Sebastian Michaelis' track record for cases was unsettling so there was a danger there. There was a chance that he could lure Michaelis onto his side, but if he had a strong sense of justice he was likely to refuse. The current members of the investigation team were his former butler and maid from his childhood that had both entered the Police force as a result of his orders. His attention returned to the email.

"It says he is arriving at 9 tomorrow morning and it is hoped that he will increase our productivity."

"We need a plan," Tanaka stated the obvious. "The moment he comes in here and spots your stack of Sherlock Holmes books and all the magazines on Mey-Rin's desk, he is going to know that something untoward is going on."

Ciel scowled, but placed the books in a bag to take home nevertheless.

"We need to distract him at heists too. It's going to be harder for me to sneak off," Ciel's eyes fell on Mey-Rin and he recalled her blush from earlier. "Mey-Rin, could you possibly flirt with him whenever we need a diversion?"

"I'd be happy to- I mean yes, I will if that is what you wish," she said, looking suspiciously eager.

That caused him to make a mental note to keep an eye on her. If Sebastian was as disarmingly handsome as she seemed to think, there was a possibility that she could slip up and reveal the truth.

"It is decided then, we will clear out every sign of our lack of work, Mey-Rin will act as the diversion and we are going to start leaving behind clues at heists," Tanaka concluded.

The next morning Sebastian Michaelis walked down the corridor to his new place of work. He was not at all apprehensive about the case he would be working on, he had yet to encounter a case he could not solve; he was more nervous about the people he would be working with. Chief Inspector Ciel Durless, Inspector Tanaka and Sergeant Mey-Rin.

As preparation he had asked around about them and hadn't managed to obtain much information as they did not socialise with other detectives. All he knew that that Ciel was in his early twenties whilst looking a lot younger and was considered to be cute, Tanaka was a much older officer that was close to retirement and Mey-Rin was in her thirties and was the one to make Ciel tea. In addition, they had yet to get any leads on the thief they were investigating for over six months, yet they had all had a good track record before joining the team, making their six failures at heists a contrast.

The mysterious phantom thief was also an issue. Prior to the thief's first appearance, Sebastian had believed that phantom thieves firmly belonged in fiction and not in real life. Clearly it was going to be one hell of a unique case. He had also been told by the Superintendent of the department to kick the pale faced weakling, Ciel Durless into action and to not condone any battiness from him.

He knocked on the door of the office and strode in, not bothering to wait for a reply.

A grey blue haired man with arctically pale skin was sitting at his desk and looked up at him questioningly as he walked in. Sebastian took him to be Ciel as he was the only young male in the room. Hovering next to Ciel was an older man with slicked back grey hair and a younger red haired woman with thick glasses.

"Inspector Sebastian Michaelis?" Ciel acknowledged him.

"Yes and you must be Ciel."

Ciel simply nodded at him and went back to talking to Tanaka. Sebastian caught the eye of the only female in the room who sidled out from behind the desk to stand next to him.

"I'm Mey-Rin," she smiled widely and blushed. "We have met before."

Immediately Sebastian categorised her into the group of females that constantly blushed and stuttered around him. He hoped she would get over it and it would not be a continuing habit. He turned back to Ciel and Tanaka.

"-no forensic evidence found at the scene. We could get it checked again or we may have to wait until the next heist," Ciel was saying. "It's a shame about the lack of CCTV too."

Sensing that Ciel was still bitter about his addition to the team and was not going to be forthcoming with information for the time being, Sebastian decided to observe the case progress on the whiteboard in the corner of the office

The dates and times of heists were listed alongside photos displaying the aftermath which was useful to an extent. Underneath a newspaper photo of the phantom thief in question was nothing, indicating that they really hadn't found anything in the past six months. In order to get a closer look, he took down the photo of the thief, noting as he did that the adhesive used was very new. Something caught his eye and he titled the whiteboard slightly. Traces of what looked like a game of hangman that had been rubbed out was visible.

It was clear what had transpired the previous day. To make it look like they actually did work instead of playing games all day, they had removed or at least tried to remove all traces and had hastily added the case progress.

Sebastian replaced the photo and approached Ciel who was looking at him suspiciously, hinting that he had noticed what Sebastian had been doing.

"So Sebastian, what do you think about the case?" Ciel questioned. "I have heard about your reputation."

Sebastian recognised that he was being goaded and refused to rise to the bait.

"I have never encountered anything like it before which makes it all the more interesting and I look forward to encountering the thief," he said smoothly. "Perhaps we will get some evidence at the next heist."

"What do you suggest we do in the meantime? Another heist has not been announced yet and there is not a distinct pattern of heists so far. It would be months away."

Sebastian accepted that he had a valid point, but he wasn't going to let Ciel get away with not doing any work.

"I suggest that we don't play games and start profiling the thief."

Ciel was beginning to sense genuine danger from Sebastian Michaelis. It had not taken him long to deduce that they didn't do anything all day and now he was suggesting profiling.

"Remember, I outrank you and I am still head of this team so I do not have to carry out your suggestions, Michaelis. That said, what can you tell me about the thief?

Sebastian had not yet had a chance to read the case files so all he knew was the information reported in the media.

"The thief, I'm assuming is a male because of the build of his body. He never steals anything, he only ransacks the place, making his motive hard to deduce. There is one thing that I definitely know about him that may help identify who he is."

Ciel started to feel very nervous about what Sebastian was going to say. "What is it?

"His height. He looks short in all the photos. He looks to be as short as you," Sebastian pointed at him.

Ciel flinched. He had been right to feel nervous, Sebastian was going to be trouble.

The influences for this story are the stories written about the French Phantom Thief Arsene Lupin and other works that derived from the original stories.