Disclaimer! I do not own Bungou Stray Dogs. The characters are owned by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by Sango Harukawa. The only things I own are my storyline and OC's. I am not making money off of this story, nor do I plan to.
This story takes place sometime after season 3 of the anime. This can be seen as canon divergence as I do not follow the manga nor the light novels.
*Sorry for no chapter last week! This is changing to a biweekly update schedule!*
…...
Chuuya unlocked the door to his apartment and allowed Charlie inside. It was nearing nine o'clock PM and already getting dark outside.
Charlie immediately went upstairs to the laptop to scour through the notes from the Armed Detective Agency one more time. There had to be something in there about her family's whereabouts, right? He had to have left some sort of clue as to which warehouse her family was being kept in. There were so many by the docks; it would have been impossible to search them all by herself.
And she didn't have enough time anyway to do so. She only had a couple of hours left.
The ear and sword that had been analyzed for fingerprints only to discover it would take three to five days to get the results back. So that was a dead end.
Charlie groaned and slammed her head onto the table, massaging her aching temples with her fingertips. Augustus's teddy bear sat in front of her, Fanny's backpack was sitting at her side. She sat up and wrapped her hands around the teddy, bringing it close to bury her face in its faded fur. It smelled like home, like England. Part of her missed it.
"Everything alright?" Came a familiar voice, and she turned to see Chuuya flipping his phone shut and sliding it into his pocket as he leaned on the doorframe. She shook her head,
"My family is being held hostage, likely by the same person who is killing all these mafia members. Do you think I'm okay?" She said tiredly, and Chuuya shrugged,
"Doesn't hurt to ask. But the Boss said he'd look into the case and divert some resources to find your family." He said, clearly having come in the room to tell her this news.
However, Charlie was skeptical, and she narrowed her eyes.
"At what cost? He doesn't do things like this for free." She said, and Chuuya nodded,
"You're right. He doesn't. But he didn't say what he was going to ask of you. Only that you would have to talk to him about it later." He said, rubbing the back of his head as he spoke. Charlie stood and headed towards the door of the office.
Chuuya caught her hand.
"Just be careful when dealing with Mori, alright?" He warned, and she nodded,
"I'm prepared to deal with him. But let's find my family first before I start worrying about what he wants me to do."
…...
Papers covered Chuuya's small dining table as Charlie tugged at her short hair. She had tangled her fingers thoroughly in the brown curls; her face smushed facedown in the papers. All the documents had her scribbles and a messy mix of Japanese kanji and English cursive. An hour had passed since Mori had allegedly dispatched resources to find her family. She only had two hours left to meet this person before her family got hurt again.
Charlie looked up in time to see Chuuya take a seat across from her, looking pretty tired himself. He had been on the phone with Port Mafia members all night but wasn't allowed to join the search as he was stuck protecting her. They never knew if the person killing Mafia members would go after her, and she was defenseless. Her ability wouldn't save her. No one but her could interact with the ghosts unless she used To be Read at Dusk. And that should be used as sparingly as possible. Charlie didn't want to start bleeding from her eyes again.
A phone rang, making Charlie jump. Chuuya sighed and pulled out his cell phone, flipping it open.
"This is Nakahara." He said curtly, and Charlie could barely hear the voice on the other side. She sat up just as Chuuya did, looking interested as his face tensed up. "Right. Yes, I have her here. Okay. Alright, thanks." He flipped his phone shut without so much as a goodbye and stood.
"They found the warehouse your family is in."
…...
The warehouse was on the more ramshackle side. Several of the walls were severely cracked, and Charlie spied a sign that said the warehouse was scheduled for demolition within the month.
Charlie pulled her jumper down over her hands, but Chuuya swatted them. She jumped and hastily uncovered her fingertips.
"You need your hands free for what's about to happen next." He said shortly, and she made a face,
"Fine." She said hastily and fidgeted in her seat.
They were sat inside a Port Mafia-issued vehicle down the street from the warehouse. A woman was sitting in the front seat of the car. Her hair was cut short and fire-engine red. Her eyes were bright luminescent pink. Charlie had never seen her before, but Chuuya had introduced her as Harper Lee, the mafia member who had found her family in the first place. Her ability: To Kill a Mockingbird, allowed her to control origami birds. That was how she had found the Dickens' family.
The windows of the car were tinted, and the engine silent as they went over the plan one last time.
Charlie was to enter the warehouse, armed with a gun and an earpiece so Chuuya could still talk to her and hear what she was saying. In addition, she had clipped a miniature mic onto her shirt under her sweater so Chuuya could also listen to what was going on and wait for his cue to jump in. The note may have said to come alone, but Charlie wasn't going to take any chances. Not when her family was in danger.
She may not have gotten along with her mother, but that didn't mean she would leave her family to die.
Chuuya pulled a gun out of a holster and handed it to Charlie carefully.
"Here's the safety. Just switch it off and then point and shoot. Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot. Simple enough?" He said, and she swallowed, taking the weapon from the mafioso and tucking it into the waistband of her trousers at his instruction.
"Sure, it seems simple enough. But what about the recoil?" She asked. She had never fired a gun before, even though she had seen what gunshots could do to a body.
"Just hold onto it securely with both hands. You should be fine. If this all goes to plan, you shouldn't even have to fire the gun."
…
The door to the car clicked open quietly as Charlie stepped out. She fiddled with her sleeves and shut the car door as she began to walk towards the warehouse where her family supposedly was. Harper had given her a thumbs-up as she passed. Charlie offered an awkward smile in return before ducking her head and hurrying towards the large building.
The hinges squealed, and Charlie winced at the sound. Well, there went any chance for a quiet entry. She pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside, hand straying to the back of her trousers where the gun was hiding. She had to stop herself from drawing it prematurely.
There was the sound of muffled crying, and then Charlie was running. She skidded around some crates and came face to face with her family.
Allen had a strip of someone's hoodie wrapped around his head to staunch the bleeding from his missing ear. It had caked the side of his face in blood, and he was shaking. Harriet, Frederick, Alfred, and Augustus were all crying, covered in muck from the warehouse. The rest of her siblings were quiet and covered in dirt. Her mother was in front of all of them, holding her arms out as if trying to protect her children. She faltered when she saw Charlie.
"Charlene?" She whispered, and Charlie nodded,
"It's me. I'm here to get you out." She whispered back, and immediately her mother's face twisted,
"And you couldn't get here any earlier?! Your brother's ear got cut off!" She snapped. Charlie's grateful mood at seeing her family mostly unharmed immediately soured.
"Why, you ungrateful little—"
"Charlie, look out!" Allen shouted and staggered to his feet.
His hands planted themselves on her shoulders, and she was shoved out of the way. The last thing she saw was a flash of silver before her head cracked on the corner of a crate, and everything went black.
…
FairyTailWzard's OC's (these are mine! Do not steal them!):
Charlene "Charlie" Dickens: Sleep-deprived 23-year-old medical examiner works to solve homicides and performs autopsies for the police, Port Mafia, and the Armed Detective Agency. Ability: The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain; allows her to see and interact with the spirits of the dead.
Rudyard Kipling: Deceased Englishman in his 30s, unknown background. Ability: The Jungle Book; he can manifest his tattoos into real animals. He has the tattoos of a python, a Bengal tiger, and a giant bear.
Jacob Marley: He is Charlie's assistant in the morgue and during autopsies. He lives with his nephew Tim Cratchit and businessman Ebenezer Scrooge.
"Bones": Port Mafia member found dead
Katrina Van Tassel: Port Mafia member found dead
Ichabod Crane: Port Mafia member found dead. The only one not to come back as a ghost.
Diedrich Knickerbocker: Port Mafia member found dead. Ability: Storyteller-Basically whatever he reads/writes becomes a reality.
Dickens Family: Mother, father, eight children. Charlie's family.
Washington Irving: Suspected serial killer still on the loose.