Ch. 2: Prying
Penn woke up much like any other day to the obnoxiously loud, monotone beeps of his alarm clock, before he pulled himself out from his bed with a groggy sigh and walked over to his closet, putting on his clothes for the day. He opened the door to the hallway and was immediately greeted by the smell of a freshly cooked breakfast. But as he went downstairs, the events of last night were suddenly brought to the forefront of his mind.
At the dining table sat the Kobayashis, reminding Penn of everything that happened: the fire, the invite for Sashi's family to stay at his home…
"Sashi," Penn looked over to see her ready for school, but she still seemed distant, staring at her empty plate in the same manner as last night. Penn saw an open seat next to her, so he took it and sat down. "Morning, everyone," Penn spoke out with a smile.
"Morning, Penn!" The room was filled with the sounds of warm greetings. Penn turned to his left and nudged Sashi a little, to see if she was okay; It seemed to work, as she was pulled from her thoughts and looked towards her friend. "Morning Sash. You feeling a bit better today?" Penn tried his best to sound comforting, so he could at least get her to talk to him.
"A bit…" though it was quiet, it was at least a response. Penn wanted to say more to Sashi, hoping to keep the conversation alive, but Aunt Rose was setting breakfast down on the table for everyone to take a piece of her cooking, preventing him from continuing.
"Eat up, everyone. There's plenty more where that came from!" everyone began to fill their plates, before digging in. Penn wanted to get Sashi alone, so she'll be more open to it, before he could really get into what was bothering her so much. Sure, her apartment burned down, but this seemed so not like Sashi at all; there had to be more than this. Maybe he could get her to talk later.
On any other day, the bus ride to school wouldn't be interesting, if it didn't turned into quite the spectacle that it became. Everyone was talking about the fire last night, as it was all over the news, but no one knew that Sashi lived in that apartment building, so they weren't really aware of how Penn, Boone and Sashi were feeling. Penn sat next to Sashi, with Boone in the seat across the aisle from them. The trio didn't speak a word to each other outside of the occasional person asking if they knew about the fire.
At school itself, the three finally got time to talk just before class.
"So, how's staying at Penn's house, Sash?" Boone asked, hoping to get a conversation going between them.
"It's fine," Sashi's tone was cold, which was expected, but it still didn't explain yesterday. Penn knew he couldn't be too blunt with it, but he had to try it at some point. After looking around to see how many people would be looking at their direction, Penn decided to try it now.
"Sash, this isn't like you. You're normally not so…devastated about things like this."
"Well, you've never had your home burn to the ground twice in your life, have you, Zero!" now that was a reaction Penn didn't see coming. Sashi slammed her locker and stormed off with her books, leaving the two alone with their jaws on the floor.
"Wait, this happened before?" Boone managed to speak out, but he didn't really process it very well.
"I had no idea…" Penn looked at his feet, as he spoke softly. He knew nothing about losing a home twice in his life, but he still felt nothing but sympathy for his friend. His face turned serious as he looked at Boone. "We need to go find her."
"Can't we ask someone who won't beat the ever living man-piss out of us? I don't think we'd make it out unscathed if we asked her now," Penn started to think and realized that he had two such individuals living in his house.
"We'll have to ask her parents about it then."
"Now that's a plan I can get behind," Penn and Boone got their stuff for first period and headed off to class. Penn was unaware that with one sentence, had unleashed a monster.
Penn and Boone managed to make their way to class in the nick of time, taking their seats and getting ready for today's lessons. But then, the duo noticed that most of their classmates were whispering to each other, something that rarely happened, even behind the teacher's back.
"Um...what's going on?" Penn curiously asked one of his classmates, prompting him to turn around and face him.
"Did you hear?"
"...Hear what?" for some reason, Penn had a feeling that he was going to regret getting his answer.
"The apartment that burned down last night. Apparently, Sashi used to live there."
Penn's face became pale when his classmate responded back to him like that. How did he and everyone else in the classroom found out that the apartment was Sashi's? That was until he realized he was the reason, causing him to face palm.
"Um, Penn…" Boone spoke up, snapping his friend back to reality, before he pointed his arm out to Sashi; she no longer had the distant stare she had this morning, but seething rage instead.
'Oh crap!' both Penn and Boone realized what was about to happen. The same couldn't be said to their classmate, who turned his attention to Sashi.
"So Sashi, what happened back at your apartment? How did you-" his sentence was cut off when Sashi punched him hard in the face, knocking back to his seat before slamming his face down on the desk. As soon as everyone saw this, they ceased their conversations and remained quiet, just as the teacher finally looked up to see what was going on.
"Mr. Adams! If you wish to take a nap, do it on your time, not mine!" The dazed student just mumbled a bit to the teacher's commands. The teacher then resumed doing his business, giving up on caring, while Penn, Boone and everyone remained silent for the majority of their time in class.
The school bell finally rang after what seemed like an eternity and for once, everyone was grateful to hear the sound of the bell, as they all rushed outside like there was no tomorrow. Everyone except for Penn, Boone and Sashi, as the trio walked out of class, as they headed towards their next period, with the guys becoming concerned for their friend.
"Sashi, I don't blame you for being angry right now, but if you talk about it, then we might be able to help," Penn reasoned with her.
"Yeah, Sashi, just tell us how you feel right now," Boone said, before Sashi stopped in her track and turned to face him and Penn.
"Alright, I'll tell you how I feel…" she cleared her throat up, before responding back. "I want you and Penn...to SHUT UP until school is over!" Sashi then turned her attention to the rest of her classmates, who no doubt heard her outburst. Every student fearfully nodded in agreement, backing up to their lockers "And the same goes with everyone else! You two think you can help?! Can you rebuild a destroyed home?! Fix broken memories?! Replace precious items?!"
Penn and Boone couldn't find any words to say as Sashi just tore them to shreds, both in body and in heart. Sashi turned away to continue walking to her next class, leaving Penn and Boone standing in shock, but not before they heard the barely audible conversations that their fellow peers were quietly saying to each other.
"Man, that Sashi girl has an attitude problem."
"You saw what she did to that kid today in class."
"Just stay quiet and don't get near her, unless you're considering suicide."
Both Penn and Boone simply shook their heads to their classmates' gossips. None of them truly know how Sashi was feeling right now. But then, they didn't either, but they certainly wouldn't jump to conclusions either.
"If they only know Sashi the way we know her," Boone quietly said to Penn.
"You and me both," Penn then let out a sigh. "I swear, this can't get any worse."
"Oh it always can get worse. Let's hope it's something easy in PE," Penn's eyes widened when he realized PE was their next class and what that meant.
"Wait... Today's Friday, isn't it?"
"Yeah?"
"Boone... That's dodgeball day!" Both of the boys instantly felt nothing less than fear and dread. The hell that awaited the unlucky souls of the 9th grade class was the stuff of nightmares... and they had to walk right into it.
After what felt like eons, school was at last finished for today, with everyone heading back home until tomorrow, while Penn, Boone and Sashi were on their way to the Odyssey, with the boys walking at least ten feet behind their friend, giving themselves enough time to react in case she turned on them next.
"Well, this could have been better," Boone muttered under his breath as he held an icepack to his cheek.
"Don't remind me," Penn added as he rubbed his sore arm, before he looked back at Sashi, still having that perpetual frown on her face, before and after school. Seeing her in such a state left him with great concern for her. "How could anyone stay in such a bad mood for the entire day? I thought for sure Sashi would be back to her old self by this morning…or at least she would start faking that nothing was wrong."
"I think it has something to do with everyone talking about-" Boone's words were cut off when Sashi went straight up to his face, much to his discomfort.
"Do you want a death sentence?!"
"N-No, Sashi, I-I wasn't talking about your home or something!" Sashi continued to stare down at Boone, before she backed off, allowing Boone some room to breath, before Penn lean towards his ears.
"You know what happened to the last twenty students that talked about last night. Do you want to be her twenty-first victim? I don't want my best friend added to the body count."
"I was just saying, that's all," Boone defended himself.
"Tell that to everyone back in the gym," Penn reminded his friend.
"I thought it wasn't ever going to end," said Boone, recalling what happened in gym. "The things she did with those dodgeballs is the kind of things I'm going to have PTSD over. No human should ever have to see that..."
"We got to do something to cheer up Sashi. I can't stand her seeing like this," Penn peaked around the corner to see Sashi for a moment, before looking back at Boone. He was just relieved she didn't hear their conversation.
"Wait, I know. Maybe a mission would help her," Boone suggested. "That way, she can take her anger out on Rippen and Larry instead on us."
"Aw man, why would you want to do that to Larry? I don't care if Rippen gets beaten to a pulp, but Larry? What'd he ever do to you?"
"Us or them, Penn. Us or them."
"...When you put it that way, I guess that does sound good," Penn concluded. At this point, any options will have to do, for Sashi's sake.
"So it's settled: to the Odyssey!" Boone declared, before he and his friends headed to the theater, ready for another mission. For Penn, though, he hoped something good would come out of it.
The three walked into the Odyssey, with Penn and Boone maintaining a safe distance from Sashi. Though she looked much calmer, her frown and sharp stare were still very much there. They all clocked in and were met by the owner of the Odyssey herself.
"Sorry to hear about your home, Sashi," Phyllis expressed her sympathy or at least as best as a monotone voice could anyway.
"Save it, Phyllis. I don't want to talk about it," Penn and Boone joined Sashi, as they stepped on their assigned pads.
"Fine then, no more talk. Try these on," Phyllis grabbed a set of specs that looked identical to Sashi's normal ones and had a mechanical arm deliver the new specs to Sashi. "These are outfitted with onboard scanners. It's a prototype, so let me know if any bugs happen. Today, you will go on mission to Old London Town World, so it will be a good chance to test out the new scanner upgrade to Sashi's specs. Good luck," Phyllis tinkered with the MUT, before firing a beam at the trio and zapping them to their mission.
Old London Town World was everything that Penn and his friends had expected: fog so thick that it took them a few seconds to find where each other were, lamppost that barely lit at all and the overall atmosphere was dreary and dark, just like everyone in this world. Regardless of what kind of world they were in, though, they were sent here to stop Rippen from his latest scheme.
"This would be a lot better if we have more lights around here," Penn complained, causing Sashi to sigh, before brightening up the area with her specs. "Thanks Sash, that was much better." Sashi, however, didn't reply back, slightly annoying Penn, but not enough to get mad at her. Penn cleared his throat nervously before getting down to business. "Okay Sash, check the specs."
Sashi simply nodded, before she activated her specs to check about the world they were in and who they were as well.
"You are the great detective Sherlock Holmes, I am your assistant Watson and Boone is Inspector Lestrade. Our job is to solve the robbery of the Dundee Diamond, the most expensive piece of jewelry in all of England," Sashi's tone was a bit more calm and focused, though it could have easily been chalked up by her usual extreme focus on a mission.
"Sweet! We get to be detectives!" Boone enthusiastically shouted. "Though let's hope this goes better than the last time you were a detective."
"Anyway, I have no doubt Rippen is behind this…" Penn began, attempting to ignore Boone's comment. "We should head to the scene of the crime to see if we can find any clues."
"We're on it! And when we're done, we can go buy some of that neat Big Ben merch!" said Boone, before Penn and Sashi shot Boone unamused looks, silencing him. He hung his head as he followed Penn to where the crime took place.
Arriving at the scene of the crime on foot was rather easy, as all it took for them was to spot a large crowd of police officers gathered around Buckingham Palace, interviewing the witnesses about what had occurred, as well as interrogating possible suspects.
"Well...that was easier than I thought," Boone muttered, following Penn and Sashi to the palace, before they came face to face with a nearby officer.
"Aw, the great Sherlock Holmes, I'm so glad you made it here," the officer expressed his relief.
"What can you tell me about the Dundee Diamond?" Penn asked the officer, who cleared his throat up, before answering back.
"As you might probably know by now, the Dundee Diamond is the most expensive piece of jewelry in all of England. It was previously locked in the Queen's most secured location, her collection room and yet, it somehow managed to be taken without alerting the guards at all. I dare say, it was very mysterious that it was stolen just like that."
"Wait, "Dundee"? Isn't that the name of a scottish city?" The officer nodded to Penn's question before Penn continued. "What would anyone want to use the Dundee Diamond for?" Penn questioned further, with Boone snickering upon hearing the word "Dundee".
"It's possible the scoundrel plans to sell it to the highest bidder in the black market. But then again, there are so many possibilities for the Dundee Diamond."
"Many possibilities you say?" at that moment, the officer arched an eyebrow, before staring back at Penn suspiciously.
"Are you really the great Sherlock Holmes who's said to be able to solve any case, because you've been asking a lot of questions that I think you could have figured out on your own."
Penn was starting to get nervous; though he was technically Sherlock Holmes, he wasn't the famous detective to begin with. One slip out of his tongue and their mission would be over before it could truly be solved.
"Well, um, you see…" was all Penn could get out of, before Sashi approached the officer and grabbed him by the collar.
"So what if he's asking too many questions? Maybe we're just checking to make sure you're still capable of doing your jobs."
"A-Alright, if you say so! I was just curious!" the officer's panicked answer was enough to please Sashi, who then promptly let go of his collar, as the officer dust himself. "T-To answer your question, there is a slight chance that it can be taken for themselves as it's said the diamond can work as a power source like a lightning bolt. Like I said, these are just many possibilities." After finishing his explanation, the officer excused himself and made a hasty retreat away from the wrath of Sashi.
"Glad to see the entire police force has to share one backbone amongst themselves."
"Sashi, was that really necessary?" Boone asked her with concern. "I mean, you almost blew your own cover as Watson."
"You got a problem with that?" Sashi asked back, before simply walking to the area where the Dundee Diamond was stolen, not bothering to hear an answer from her friend.
"Let's just get this over with," Penn said and let out a sigh, before he and Boone followed Sashi inside, hoping to find enough clues to stop Rippen and fast.
The trio arrived at the Queen's private collection room, which ranged from priceless paintings to collections of faberge eggs, among others. But one particular display, though, stuck out among the collections and to the trio, there was no doubt that it used to house the Dundee Diamond, with shards of glasses laid all over the floor, a good indication that it had been smashed to get the jewelry,
"Just like Rippen: Takes your stuff and doesn't even bother to be subtle about it," Penn commented, as he examined the scene. "Sash, use your new specs scanner to see if he or Larry left any clues around."
Sashi nodded and activated her specs, examining the room for any clues that Rippen or Larry could have leave lying around, while they were stealing the Dundee Diamond.
"Anything?" Boone asked, causing Sashi to glare back at him. "Sorry, I was just checking." Boone said in his defence as Sashi continued to examine the room, while Boone helped Penn out.
"Still got any clues on what Rippen needs the Dundee Diamond for?" Boone asked, before snickering once more when he said 'Dundee'.
"Beats me, Boone," Penn replied with a shrug. "To be honest, I really wish I have the real Sherlock Holme's intelligence right now. It would make things easier for us."
"I think I might have found something," Sashi calmly said, prompting Penn and Boone to look back at her.
"What is it, Sash?"
"Apparently, while they were trying to rob the Dundee Diamond, one of them thought it was a good idea to touch everything in here," in order to prove her point, Sashi used her specs to recreate what had transpired in the collection room, much to Penn and Boone's amazement. Her specs continued to project a holographic image of Rippen and Larry dressed in English high class wear though for whatever reason, the animation on the two was stiff and uncanny like two puppets handled by a drunk puppetmaster or an exaggerated robot dance. Their faces never changed expressions regardless of what they were doing at the time, only worsening the effect.
The former was smashing the display that held the Dundee Diamond with a vase, while the latter was touching the plates, the faberge eggs, the paintings… anything that wasn't in a display and only stopped when Rippen grabbed him by the arm, before the projection ended right there.
"Phyllis even added a replay function to those things. That's pretty cool! How does it do that?" Boone commented.
"You want to know, then you can go have Phyllis bore you with the details," Sashi's tone was cold as ice, as she stared down at Boone.
"Well, at least we know what happened inside here," Penn spoke up, getting the investigation back on track, "But we still don't have any ideas where they went," Penn pointed out, until something clicked in his mind. "Sashi, play that back again," Sashi pulled out the projection of the hologram Rippen and Larry once more, as Penn started to inspect them. It was then that he saw something had fallen out of Rippen's pocket. Penn walked over to the spot where the object fell. As he was searching, his foot had bumped into something: a pocket watch with a Big Ben engraved on it.
'I wonder…' Penn thought, before he looked outside and saw Big Ben, then looked back at the pocket watch and vice versa, before he was able to piece the puzzle at last.
"I think I know where Rippen is!"
Big Ben, one of London's most iconic buildings, seen by many of the locals as instantly recognizable on sight. But for Rippen, it was the best place to serve as his hideout and to unleash his nefarious scheme on this world.
"At last, Larry! I have the Dundee Diamond at my hands!" Rippen declared out loud, holding the diamond up in the air with admiration, while Larry did his best to hold his laughter down when the word "Dundee" was brought up.
'He said "Dundee",' Larry thought, trying his best to hold his laughter down.
"What's so funny?" Rippen asked, curious to what Larry was snickering about, as if he was laughing at him.
"Oh, it's nothing," Larry replied, calming himself down, before speaking up. "So Rippen, what are you going to do with it? Take it back home with you?"
"That would be tempting, Larry, but I got something better for its use!" Rippen then pulled down a sheet nearby, revealing a deadly looking ray gun for Larry to see. "With the Dundee Diamond, I can use it to power this device and use it against her Royal Majesty, unless my demands of one million pounds are met at midnight."
"What do we need one million pounds for?" Larry asked once more, but before Rippen could answer his minion, he heard a familiar voice of his archenemy.
"He's going to need them to pay for the medical bills when we're done with him," At this point, Penn, Boone and Sashi made their presence known.
"That seems like a pretty hefty bill," said Larry as he tried to think of how a bill would add up to a million pounds, while Rippen looked at his nemesis and his friends in fury.
"You and your friends won't stop me this time! I've got what I need to get rid of you and this time you can't just make it fall over and shatter!"
"Actually, we've been stopping you like dozens of times," Boone stated, prompting Rippen to put the Dundee Diamond into the ray gun and aimed it right at the trio.
"In that case, your time is up!" soon, Rippen began to shoot lasers at the trio, barely dodging the blast on time, as they each took cover to avoid getting zapped by Rippen's ray gun.
"Okay we're outgunned, out of range, and losing cover fast. If anyone has an idea on stopping Rippen, now's the time," Penn called out to his friends.
"Before we ended up as fried chicken!" Boone added.
While the guys tried to figure out their next course of action, Sashi, on the other hand, immediately got out of her cover and charged right towards Rippen, not caring about her safety at all.
"Sashi!" Penn cried out in fear, as he watched her continuing to charge right at Rippen, all the while avoiding the laser beams from the ray gun.
"Hold still already!" Rippen shouted, desperately trying to shoot Sashi down, but no matter how many shots he made, she continued to dodge his attacks. Eventually, she got close enough for her to knock him out of the ray gun's reach.
'Oh no!' Rippen thought, before Sashi sucker punched him in the face, sending him down to the floor, completely dazed. Unable to get up from it, Sashi approached him and quickly picked him up by the collar, forcing Rippen to stare right at her face.
"Looks like we beaten you at your own game again! Do you have something to say about that?!" Rippen didn't answered back, though, still dazed by the sucker punch Sashi gave him. "No matter, here's something to remind you the next time you try to take over the world!" Sashi gripped her hand into a tight knuckle and raised it up in the air and immediately went to town on Rippen's face. Penn and Boone rushed towards Sashi and immediately restrained her, forcing Sashi to let go of Rippen.
"Hey, let me go! I had it under control!"
"No way, Sashi! As much as he deserves it, we can't let you do that! What's gotten into you?!"
"Yeah, that was not cool at all! Okay, it was cool at first, but not at the end!" Penn shot Boone a glare that only could say "Not helping, Boone!".
Sashi continued to struggle, forcing Penn and Boone to tighten their grips much longer on her than they had planned. Eventually, Penn managed to trap both of Sashi's arms behind her back and had to basically lift her out, while Boone picked up the Dundee Diamond from the ray gun and headed out to the exit, with Sashi kicking and screaming for Penn to let her go.
"Rippen, are you okay?!" Larry worriedly asked, approaching his friend with concern.
"But mommy, I'm too old to drink milk anymore..." was all Rippen could say back through dazed consciousness.
A/N: And the winner by knockout in the first round, "Mad Dashi" Sashi Kobayashi! Oh and because I know this is probably going to come up: Rippen is Moriarty and Larry is offically (to me anyway) "Random Mook #1".
So how'd we do for the experiment? Definitely better than I was anticipating. This isn't exactly the most high traffic area on the site so I wasn't expecting too many people to see it. Show's what I know. I'd like to thank all of you for telling me you'd like to see more of this story so I'll try to update once a week every monday.
Now for the one guest review.
The Unnamed: Fascinating story, Your Majesty. I appreciate all your kind words and find it amusing you're looking at this story like void filler for the between-seasons hiatus though don't expect it to be a long one. :) I honestly wish I had more to say about your review because it looks like you put a lot of work into that but words seem to fail me here. The irony is overflowing.
I'd like to thank all of you for participating in my little experiment and I promise to bring you more till the end. Also don't think the most obvious explanation is the right one. Next two chapters will be some of the heavier of the story so look forward to it.
Till next time, Sal out!
