"Ahhhh~ That's a good cup of coffee. Although Belfast makes the perfect cup of coffee, her sister Edinburgh can make one just as good, even if it takes 20 minutes longer from all the accidents and spillages that occur." Hornet was sitting in her chair, her legs back up on the desk and taking a long sip on a mug of coffee, her hat slightly pulled over her eyes. I had now given up on sitting on the desk, instead I decided to lay down on top of it, staring at the ceiling, Myoukou was now sitting on her desk, entirely enthralled by Hornet's story. The boss took another long sip of her drink. "Aaaaahh~" she looked up and then remembered that she was in the middle of something. "Oh! Err… where did I get up to…?"

"You'd just found an iron cross." Myoukou answered enthusiastically.

"Oh! Right! Now let's see…"

"Ah! Danke! I wondered where that got to!" Enterprise and Essex were sitting on a settee in the Iron Blood dorms, sitting opposite of them was Z23, who was missing one of her iron crosses from her hairpin on the side of her head. She took the medal back before placing it back in her hair. "I didn't think I'll find it again, after the three stages threw it in the storage room."

"Three stages?" Essex asked.

"You know those comedians from the Eagle Union, I think one of them was called, Larry?"

"Oh! You mean the three stooges."

"Ah, yes! Those three, Javelin, Laffey and Ayanami. They were mucking about and threw it in there. If there is any way I could repay the favour."

"Well, actually, there is one way you could repay us…" Enterprise said, however at that moment the door to the adjoining room opened and Bismarck walked in.

"Ah, Z23! Herr Amazon was wondering if you could take her classes on…" Bismarck stopped as spotted the two guests sitting on one of the settees. "Why are you dressed like Herlock Sholmes?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Enterprise exasperated, pointing towards her deerstalker she added "These are thinking caps, they help your intelligence." Bismarck gave a frown.

"Evidently, they've failed." She replied.

"Huh?"

"It's actually a saying that means to give a problem all your attention." Z23 explained.

"WHAT? Then why didn't you say anything when we arrived?"

"I thought you were cosplaying…?" Enterprise sunk her head in her hands and rested them on her lap, her face getting increasingly redder and hotter by the second.

"So…what was it that you decided to grace us with your presence for?" Bismarck asked.

"We were just giving Z23 her hairpin back…" Essex explained. After giving a big sigh, and having enough time to recompose herself, Enterprise shot up straight and continued the conversation.

"And we were just going to ask Zed here to show us her rigging."

"Huh?" Z23 gave the two carriers a funny look and tilted her head slightly. "Is that all?" Enterprise nodded, "Okay then…" Z23 stood up and summoned her rigging. Enterprise and Essex stared at her rigging vigorously, humming and haaing.

"…I don't…think so…" Enterprise muttered.

"Enterprise!" Essex suddenly yelled, Enterprise turned to look towards her junior, "She's much smaller than we are!" Enterprise gave a nod, and, to the confusion of both Bismarck and Z23 the two aircraft carriers lifted themselves of the settee and dropped down to their knees on the floor in front of them, all while still staring Zed's rigging, which was starting to become a bit embarrassing for the poor destroyer. Eventually, "Well…?" Enterprise shook her head.

"No…even down here it doesn't look scary enough." Z23 recoiled at what they'd just said, covering herself with her arms and a small blush on her cheeks.

"EXCUSE ME? What do you mean 'not scary enough'? Dummkopf!" Enterprise stood up on her legs.

"Sorry about that." She apologized to Z23, before turning towards Bismarck. "Would you mind if we searched the dorms Bismarck?" The Iron Blood leader shook her head.

"Nein!"

"We can only search nin-GUH!" Enterprise 'accidently' nudged Essex in the ribs before she could make the relations between the two factions deteriorate any further.

"I understand what you are doing, and I'm sorry for the disappearance of your eagles, but unless you have proof, or a warrant, you can't search our accommodation."

"But to find our proof we need to search the dorms!" Essex exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, I know that you have the authority necessary to interview suspects, but you don't have the authority to search our accommodation, come back when you have a search warrant, then you can search the premises as much as you want." Bismarck extended her hand towards the exit, indicating to the two aircraft carriers that it was time to leave. Enterprise and Essex complied, meekly exiting the building to a glorious sunrise.

"Damn it! I guess we'll have to ask Queen Elizabeth for a search warrant."

"I don't think it'll be that easy Essex; I don't think the queen will give her approval for any request that we ask from her. I think she'll want us to solve this on our own."

"But we only have 5 hours left! And by the time we apply for a search warrant and go through the procedures it'll be too late!"

"Then we'll just have to get one readymade!" Enterprise replied with a huge look of satisfaction on her face. "C'mon." she beckoned to her junior as she made her way back towards the Eagle Union dorms, what Essex didn't see however was Enterprise's face dropping, she gave a sigh "(I really wanted that motorbike)" she muttered.

"Nyello! Welcome to Akashi's Emporium! Nya~!" The two aircraft carriers were standing outside of Akashi's shop on the outskirts of the central plaza. Enterprise looked from side to side to make sure that no-one was around, before she leaned in and whispered.

"We would like a search warrant, please, as signed by her majesty Queen Elizabeth." Akashi gave a look of confusion.

"Nyahahaha! Don't be silly, Nya! Akashi doesn't sell anything like that, Nya!" Enterprise dropped a bag on the table.

"There are 200 red gems in this bag, I'm sure you could do this small, little thing for me?" Akashi's eyes grew wide as soon as the word 'gems' was spoken; however, she was still acting cautious, she quickly counted the gems in the bag, and sure enough there was 200 of them.

"Hmmm~ I still don't think…" Enterprise dropped another bag on the table.

"And there's another 200 if you can procure one in less than 5 minutes." Akashi ducked under the counter, then half a second later jumped back up with a piece of paper in her hands (Paws?).

"That was quick!" Essex yelled.

"Akashi's delivery service is always quick, Nya~"

"Did you have that under the counter all the time?" Essex asked. Akashi's face tried to act like she didn't hear that, and the capitalist cat tried to act all innocent, the whistling didn't help. "Wait! DID YOU?"

"Thank you for shopping at Akashi's emporium!" Akashi said, trying to move the conversation on, Enterprise went to grab the warrant, only for Akashi to flip it out of her grip.

"Wait, you're not going to raid Akashi with this, are nyaa?"

"No!" Enterprise replied.

"Cross nya heart and hope to die?"

Enterprise sighed "Cross my heart~"

"In the loving embrace of Observer Alpha's tentacles?"

"Yes…!" Enterprise gritted.

"You have your finger crossed!" Enterprise gave another sigh and moved her hands in front of her so Akashi could see that she didn't have them crossed. "What about her?" this time Essex sighed and lifted her hands to show Akashi that they weren't crossed. "Nyokay then…" Akashi gingerly handed the warrant back to Enterprise. Enterprise gave a nod and turning around she started walking back towards the Iron Blood dorms with Essex only a few steps behind. "Thank you for shopping at Akashi's emporium!" Akashi yelled after them, more at ease with herself.

"So where do we start?" asked Essex.

"Huh? You don't know?"

"Don't know what?"

"The person who stole Grim and Nine?"

"WAIT YOU KNOW?"

"Of course I know, don't you?" Essex shook her head. "Well think about it who was the only other people to know about where Grim and Nine were kept last night?"

"Ummm…" Essex shook her head again. "No, sorry, I don't know."

"It doesn't matter, you'll see when we get there."

"That was quick." Bismarck commented staring at the search warrant that she held in her hand, Both Enterprise and Essex were trying not to look uncomfortable.

"Well, we happened to look in the place where she would be most likely, and sure enough…" Enterprise explained, Bismarck stared at them with a look of scrutiny.

"And where was she exactly?" She quizzed.

"Umm…"

"The garden, having a tea party!" Enterprise said quickly. Bismarck gave another few glances at the search warrant, then back at the pair of aircraft carriers, who were getting more uncomfortable with each passing second.

"Fine~" she sighed, "But I'll be keeping this, until you have finished, understood."

"Yes, certainly." Enterprise replied rather stiffly, before grabbing Essex by the arm and leading her up the grand staircase of the Iron Blood dorms. Bismarck watched the two of them ascend the staircase to the next floor up before disappearing out of sight, she looked back down at the search warrant before making her way towards the foyer.

"Are you sure this is it?" Essex asked as Enterprise knocked on the door.

"99% sure" she replied before the occupant of the room opened the door.

"Oh? And what are a pair of lowly animals doing knocking on our door?" Deutschland answered, leaning on the doorframe and blocking the entrance.

"Can we come inside?" Enterprise asked.

"No." Deutschland gritted leaning more heavily on the doorframe and blocking it diagonally.

"And why not?" Essex asked.

"I don't need a reason to keep lowly animals from getting in my room."

"Well, we'll just have to force our way in." Enterprise retorted an edge to her voice.

"You can't!" Deutschland blurted out before composing herself "You have no right to be here!"

"We have a warrant to search the premises." Essex replied matter-of-factly.

"And we're going through your room whether you comply or not." Enterprise emphasised.

"HALT!" Someone yelled from down the corridor, the three ship girls turned towards the sound to see the figure of a cross Bismarck approaching them from down the hallway. "I've just been on the phone to her majesty Queen Elizabeth, she wrote no such warrant, you need to leave!"

"Aww~ That's too bad, I guess you'll need to come back with an actual search warrant next time~" Enterprise, now angry and annoyed, turned to stare at the heavy cruiser, before pushing her aside, causing the cruiser to stumble on the floor, before Enterprise walked through the door, much to the annoyance of the lecturing Bismarck. "You can't go in there!" Deutschland yelled. Essex followed suite walking through the door and turning to look in the direction that Enterprise was looking. On the far side of the room was a bird cage, with two very loudly chirping eagles inside, and standing next to cage, with a box of birdseed in one hand was Admiral Graf Spee, staring back at the ensemble in the room with a look of confusion.

"Wait Graf Spee?" Myoukou asked.

"Well…sort of…" Hornet answered, now back to staring out of the window, "So it turns out that I wasn't the only one who had taken a fancy to Enterprise's eagles during that meeting, Graf Spee had also been staring at them too, and her sister Deutschland noticed, and when she overheard us talking about keeping them in the ballroom, she decided to steal them so that Graf Spee would be happy. Needless to say, Bismarck was furious, not only did Deutschland get a very stern lecture from Bismarck, but she also had to make a grovelling apology to both Enterprise, Essex, and her own sister, and then to round it all up, Bismarck personally marched Deutschland to Queen Elizabeth to explain the whole ordeal."

"Ouch…" Myoukou winced

"I heard she got 2 months jail, while I was released without charge. And through much campaigning by myself I managed to convince the commander to allow me to set up ALIBI as an alternative to the Royal Knights, in his words 'You can do anything you want in your spare time.'."

"So, do you have an eagle of you own Hornet Senpai?"

"I'm afraid not, after the amount of trouble that they got me into, I sort of gave up the idea, besides, you really need a lot of patience to train one, and they make a mess everywhere…"

"That's all very well and good." I spoke leaning up off the desk "But I asked to listen to your First Case." Myoukou looked at me confused.

"But she did Indianapolis, she spent 3 hours talking about it."

"No" I pointed out "What we heard was the events that led to her forming ALIBI, not about her first case working under the banner of ALIBI." Myoukou turned back towards Hornet, then back to me, before she realised what I was trying to say. "So…what was your actual first case, Hornet…?" Hornet continued to stare out of the window, before she whispered.

"It's stopped raining…"

"Don't you dare…" I growled, but it was already too late, Hornet had jumped over her desk and made a beeline to the door, I tried to jump on her, but ended up falling face first on the floor, I turned to look towards the door, where my boss gave a casual wave before saying.

"Well, I'm off now, make sure to clean up the office you two!" before rushing out of the door and slamming it shut behind her.

We never caught up to Hornet for the rest of the day, and as the forecast was set to be dry for the following few weeks, we were unlikely to get another chance to interrogate her. However while searching the Eagle Union dorms we ended up barging into Enterprise's room, catching her by surprise, dressed in her Herlock Sholmes dress. None of us said a word, before we slowly walked backward out of the room and shutting the door quietly before we walked away without saying a word as Enterprise was trying to yell excuses from behind the door.