Saw a shark beached on the shore as I looked out the viewport window on my way back home. Blasted thing got caught in a fishing net and suffocated. This kingdom is afraid of me. I've seen it's true face. People who had their homes destroyed forced to work with the people who destroyed them. Whole city is a powder keg ready to explode. One spark is all it takes for us to start watching another short rerun of the war we just got finished fighting. The bad blood is going clot over all drains and gullies in Etheria and drown everyone in the firey rain of armageddon and genocide while the Horde simply moves on to another world to conquer and destroy without a care in the universe. And when the same citizens who blame the princesses for all their problems will shout up to us, 'Save us!', I will look back down at them and say... 'Uggh, do I have to?'
"You've awfully quiet this whole trip," Scorpia notes as she piloted the transport down to the docks, "You doing alright?"
"I'm fine," I lie, putting on my coat and hat before I step out into the torrential rain, "Just thinking about the facts behind the case... Also I'm practicing keeping my running monologue internal for a change."
"Wow, you can do that?" Scorpia says with genuine admiration, following behind me in a nicely tailored suit and tiny bowler hat she got in Brightmoon, "I usually just say things as soon as they pop in my head. It's kinda why I got kicked out of Horde Special Intelligence and reassigned by Shadow Weaver to work with Catra. Did you know you were my first assignment with her? Yeah, that feels like a lifetime ago. Hard to believe the first time we met was you hitting me with a tidal wave into the ocean while your boyfriend kamakaze'd his boat into our ship and I had to drag Catra all the way to the Fright Zone on my back because she couldn't swim. Now look at us. Working together... solving mysteries... fighting crime..."
Scorpia wasn't the most discrete partner when it came to being a detective, but I needed some extra muscle to have my back for when things got rough. And a dockside bar after dark is one of the roughest places in Salineas. A couple nights ago, someone tried to poison all the princesses at a birthday party with Potassium Cyanide. Somebody here knows why. Potassium Cyanide was used as a last resort suicide pill by the officers in Hordak's horde. There were plenty here who came after the war ended looking for work on the fishing boats. I was hoping to have a talk with one. I pretended not to notice the looks I got as I went into the joint. I just calmly walked over to the bar and took a stool.
"Hey, Barkeep!" I shout at the rugged old woman polishing glasses, "Two beers."
"Oh... um... so..." Scorpia whispers in my ear, "I hate to be that guy, but I don't actually drink. Alcohol, I mean."
"Okay then..." I sigh, "Make that one beer and one sarsaparilla."
"A non-alcoholic sarsaparilla!" Scorpia corrected.
While me and Scorpia waited for our drinks, we did our best to be conspicuously inconspicuous. I was waiting for someone here to come up and start a conversation, but the fish were cautious about biting. It probably would've gone faster if I didn't have Scorpia sitting right next to me, but I wanted her to scare away the small fries. It was the big lunker I was after. Every good fisherman knows how big a payout you get from a little patience. When I heard a chair scoot and heavy footsteps thump up behind me, I knew I caught one.
"You're in my seat," a sharp female voice growled behind me.
"Am I?" I scoffed, taking a big swig of my glass, "You looked plenty comfortable sitting where you were."
"Oh, don't you know?" the harpy sneered, "All the seats in this bar are *my* seat."
Hook, Line and Sinker. Glass in hand, I spin around in my stool and lean back against the bar. I quickly finish my drink as I examine my catch. Tall, athletic, smooth green skin, pouty fish lips, tentacles coming off her back and a black patch over her right eye.
"So, what are you going to do about it?" I ask as I place the empty glass back on the bar and crane my neck to crack out all the kinks.
I stare down my prey, waiting for her to make the first move. She locks eyes with me and looms over me, inches away from my face. At this moment, I'm ready for anything to go down. Or so I thought at the time. I was kinda planning on things turning more violent than it did to be honest. The whole room was silent apart from the nervous slurps from Scorpia's straw as her eyes repeatedly switch between the two of us. Finally, it's the cyclops who blinks. Or winks, it's hard to tell with one eye.
"Haha!" the sailor laughs as she pats me on the shoulder, "You're alright, Princess. Hey, Agnes! One drink for the lady who knocked some sense into Catra with a metal club upside her head! On me!"
"Force Captain Octavia!" Scorpia remarked, "Wow, I haven't seen you since Amphibious Operations Training."
"Oh, is that you, Scorpia?" the sailor asks as she turns to my partner, "Gosh, what has it been? 10 years? My, how you've grown... Last I saw you, you were yay high."
Octavia held a tentacle just above her waist.
"By the way, it's just Captain Octavia now," the sailor corrected, "I run a fishing boat now."
~*~
We talk for the better part of the night. Most of it is Scorpia catching up on her old life in the Horde, Octavia shows me a video someone recorded of how the baseball game ended. Someone added cartoon sound effects to the video. Scorpia is unimpressed. Octavia finds it hilarious.
"And the game is over in two hits," Octavia narrates as her tablet shows Catra falling face first in the mound, "You hitting Catra and Catra hitting the ground. Haha."
"You know... I don't really find this funny," Scorpia grumbled, "I heard Catra still can't hear properly in her left ear."
"Your right... that's even better," Octavia laughs, tapping her eyepatch, "She takes my eye and loses her ear. Karma's a pain, ain't it?"
"Wait, Catra took out your eye?" I ask, "How did that happen? Did you embarrass her in front of Hordak or something?"
"No, this happened when she was six," Octavia told me, "Catra wasn't happy with how Amphibious Operations Training was going and took it out on me. I heard that Shadow Weaver took over for me after I refused to continue training her and Adora. Apparently, Adora got better over time, Catra didn't."
I chuckle at myself as I picture Shadow Weaver in a one piece bathing suit and a flower patterned shower cap teaching a six-year old Adora how to swim while Catra frantically flailed in the water behind them, trying not to drown.
"Yeah, she really didn't..." Scorpia commented.
"So, while I've got you here," I interject, trying to get back to work, "I was wondering if I could ask you some questions."
"Yeah, okay," Octavia says, leaning back in her chair and taking a swig out of her bottle, "Shoot."
"What do you know about Princess Frosta's birthday party?" I ask.
"Frosta?" Octavia repeated, "She's the snow princess, right? What did you want me to give you gift ideas or something?"
"Someone tried to poison her birthday cake a couple nights ago," I tell her, "Do you know anyone who would have it out for all the princesses in Etheria?"
"I mean, that's a pretty big list, isn't it?" Octavia says, "Isn't there a whole resistance movement in the Whispering Woods plotting to overthrow you?"
"We're looking for people with access to Potassium Cyanide," Scorpia explains, "Mermista and I think it might have been someone who used to be high up in Hordak's old Horde."
"Like a Force Captain..." Octavia said, finishing Scorpia's thought, "I'm not a suspect, am I?"
"Not a likely one," I tell her, "Your ship reports being nowhere near the Kingdom of the Snows during the incident."
"We need a list of all the old Force Captains including anyone else who was in charge of sensitive information in the Horde," Scorpia continues, "My files were disavowed by Catra after I defected to the Princess Alliance, and you've been with the Horde since before the fall of Elberon."
Scorpia was talking about the Old Kingdom of the Butterflies, which used to border Horror Hall. It was one of the first Kingdoms Hordak openly attacked in his rise to power. The royal family wasn't very popular and didn't have many allies, so the other kingdoms didn't pay it much notice when the Horde rolled over them. It's said the peasants cheered when King Malcolm the Wirey was brought back to the Fright Zone in chains. Hordak ordered him shipped out to Beast Island and he was never seen again. The queen went into hiding before the final assault, presumed dead. Princess Flutterina makes an appearance now and again when she can be guaranteed protection on neutral ground, like the Princess Prom. But now all that's left of Elberon is a tiny village with a few stragglers. If the other Kingdoms had bothered to act back then, we probably could have ended the war before it even started.
"Hmm..." Octavia sighs, stroking their chin in thought, "Yeah, okay. I've got some old files in my cabin that might help you guys. My ship's not too far away. Stay here, and I'll be right back."
Octavia scoots her chair and gets up from the table, leaving me and Scorpia alone to chat.
"Did you want me to follow her?" Scorpia asks.
"Don't worry. I've got someone on it," I assure her, "What did you think of her?"
"Well, we didn't see much of each other after I transferred over to Horde Intelligence," Scorpia recollects, "But I don't think she's our guy. She would have really stood out at the party if she was there."
"I'm not talking about the case," I say to her, "Look... girl... I know how hard things can get after a bad breakup. And you seemed to be getting on pretty friendly with her. So..?"
"Well, yeah, I'm friendly with everyone, but I don't see what my breakup has to do with-" Scorpia began before she finally realized what I was talking about, "No! Absolutely not. I mean, she's old enough to be my mom."
"Really?" I say in surprise, "Because if that's the case, then Mommy has been taking *really* good care of herself. You sure you're not into that?"
"Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, really," Scorpia said, "But I'm really not ready to get back into the dating pool just yet. I just wanna help with the case, okay?"
"Yeah, that's okay, I get it," I tell her, "Just wanted to remind you that there are plenty of fish in the sea... as well as a few actual fish. Also, I want you to get the first chance at dibs."
I leave Scorpia to finish her drink as I go outside and wait by the docks. The rain is beautiful on the ocean shore, almost makes up for the smell of fresh fish and burning smoke from the gigantic Horde ships in the harbor. I let myself relax for a moment when some creep in a sailor's raincoat walks up behind me.
"My, my," the loser says, "What is a beautiful princess like you doing in a run down place like this?"
As soon as he gets close enough, I spin around and clock him right between his pretty blue eyes, breaking his nose and spilling blood all over his fancy mustache. Oh, damn it.
"Seahawke?!" I gasp, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be tailing that Force Captain who just left the bar!"
"I'm thorry," Seahawke apologizes, holding his mouth in his hands, "I lotht 'er wheb thee jubbed into the wadder. Dat's why I came bat to dell you."
Great, so much for that plan. Looks like our little fishy is going to be the one who got away. I thought this was going too easy. I should have seen this coming. Of course, no one would wanna be caught dead snitching to the princesses.
"Hold still," I order Seahawke.
"Whad are you-?" Seahawke says before I pull his nose back into place, "Yeaowch! Ahem... Thank you."
"Let's get back inside..." I suggest, "I'm going to need a much stronger drink."
We go back to the bar and Seahawke gets to preach the virtues of the single life to Scorpia while I try to figure out where to go from here. The other Princesses think the case is hopeless, that it could have been one of any number of political revolutionaries with an axe to grind. Even if we did find out who it was, they would probably be long gone by now, just another unknown face in the crowd. Scorpia and Seahawke are only here for the fun of it. Is that why I'm here? Fun? A way to distract myself from the crushing ennui of our imminent destruction? No. Even at the end of the world, there is good and there is evil. And evil can not be allowed to get away with trying to hurt people. There must be no compromises on this. Before I finish my third drink of the night, a dripping wet hand places a data crystal on the bar.
"Sorry, I took so long," Octavia says, sitting down beside me, "I had to lose some skeevy pervert who was following me."
It takes me a few minutes to register what is happening as she slides the data crystal towards me. I pick it up to examine it.
"Umm... Wow... uh... Thanks?" I manage to sputter out, "Sorry... that came out way more sarcastic then I intended."
"Yeah, it's fine," Octavia says as picks up my drink to take a sip, "So are we done here?"
"Pretty much..." I reply, taking a moment to get my confidence back, "So, hey... Did you wanna get out of here?"
Octavia gives me the side eye with her one eye, obviously caught off guard by my proposition.
"Maybe when your older, Kid..." Octavia tells me as she gets up to leave.
I pocket the data crystal and finish my drink. I got what I needed, it was time to go home and get some rest. I had a long list of suspects to interview in the morning.
