Chapter 12: Tac
It was a peaceful afternoon in Dreamland. Kirby was walking through one of the many towns throughout the country. Normally, he would have had a training session with his mentor Meta Knight today, but that was abruptly cancelled for reasons the knight didn't say. The child assumed it was because an urgent matter suddenly came up, but he sounded unusually tense and panicked when asked about it. Suddenly, his peaceful walk was broken when he heard a large amount of yelling. Curious, he followed the voices to find what appeared to be an angry mob being led by King Dedede. The target of the mob also just happened to be another of Kirby's friends, Tac.
"I'm gonna ask ya one last time, where'd ya take 'em, missy!?" Dedede yelled out.
"I already told you, I have nothing to do with this. Do you really think I'd be sticking around town if I really were the culprit?" The cat shouted back.
"You're just sayin' that 'cuz that's what ya want us to think!" Dedede said.
"Ok, that's enough!" Kirby said, jumping in front of Tac. "Now could someone please tell me what's going on?"
"Din't ya hear!? Last night someone robbed this entire town and my castle blind! My poor statues and a large amount of my cash are gone an' that there thievin' cat's the one behind it!" Dedede whined.
Kirby knew exactly what statues the king was talking about. They were the giant golden statues made in Dedede's image that doubled as piggy banks. The angry mob followed up, shouting the various things that were stolen by them. However, Kirby knew his friend Tac well. She was a thief, yes, but she only stole from bad people. None of the people in the mob looked like someone she'd steal anything from.
"Ok, so do you have any proof it was Tac?"
While the question was very simple and straightforward, no one could seem to answer it.
"Yeah, well, do ya have proof that it wasn't?" Dedede countered, riling up the mob again. This made Kirby internally frustrated.
"She couldn't have done it because...because-!"
"Because she was with me the entire time!" Just as the mob heard that, they all turned to see Sir Kibble standing there. With everyone's attention on him, Kibble continued. "Tac was with me the whole day yesterday! If she did leave to go steal something, I would have noticed!"
There was a moment of silence.
"Yeah, well, what if-"
"Pipe down, Steve! That's Sir Kibble! He never lies!"
After that brief exchange from the mob, the entire group seemed to back down.
This allowed Tac to speak.
"Alright, now that you're all quiet, listen to me. I didn't steal anyone's stuff last night, and to prove it, me, Kirby, and Sir Kibble are going to track down the real culprit and get your things back." She then turned to her two friends. "Assuming that's ok with you two."
"Sure! I'm always happy to help!"
"Of course! Not only is there a villain that needs to be stopped, but they've framed a completely innocent friend of mine! That's unforgivable!"
With a nod in acknowledgement, Tac turned back to the gathered mob.
"So, will all of you agree to this?"
There was a moment of chatter between everyone in the mob, but none of them sounded like they were rejecting the idea.
"Hmm... fine. But y'all gots three days to do it, or I'm locking ya up!" Dedede said, crossing his arms.
"Deal." Tac replied, hiding a slight glare she aimed at the king.
The gathered mob dispersed, leaving the trio alone.
"So, what were you two doing with each other last night anyway?" Kirby asked with his usual innocent and child-like curiosity.
Sir Kibble blushed in response to that sudden question, resulting in Tac flicking his helmet in irritation.
"Don't blush like that, you'll give him the wrong idea!" she snapped at him.
"If I could control my blushing, I would!"
"What do you mean by "wrong idea"?" Kirby tilted his head, completely oblivious to what they were discussing.
"You'll understand when you're older!" Tac quickly replied.
Ignoring that statement, the puff continued. "So, Tac, where do we start?"
"Simple, we're going to give the dumb penguin a visit. The best way to track down a thief is to examine the scene of the crime." Tac said.
"What about the other people who were robbed? Shouldn't we investigate them as well?"
"Knowing the thief, Dedede would be their first target."
"Well... he does have a lot of expensive items... that makes sense..." Sir Kibble murmured. "Alright then, let's go!"
With that said, they headed off.
When the trio arrived at the castle closest to the village that was robbed, they were confronted by King Dedede himself, who was blocking the doorway.
"King Dedede, could you please step aside? We need to get inside to investigate the crime scene." Sir Kibble asked.
"Nuh-uh! Ain't no way I'm letting her in here!" Dedede said, pointing directly at Tac.
"Dedede, we don't have time for this." Kirby whined with a pout.
"No means no! I don't want her stealing no more stuff from me!"
"Oh, please." Tac said, rolling her eyes. "I only steal things of value, so you have nothing to worry about."
That was when the king glared at her. "You sayin' my valuables ain't valuable!?"
The cat only gave a slight laugh. "Do you want to prove me wrong?"
"Yes! Get in here!"
Before she could react, the king grabbed her and dragged her into the castle, to the confusion of Kirby and Sir Kibble. The duo just shrugged and followed the king and their friend into the castle.
Once inside, the trio noticed that there was a ton of damage done to the entire interior of Castle Dedede. This included things like broken vases on the floor, a statue of Dedede that wasn't stolen now having various cracks in it, destroyed furniture, and even the curtains were not spared the wrath of this thief.
"Whoever did this is either a rookie or just a terrible thief." Tac said, shaking her head.
"Why do you say that, Tac?" Kirby asked, tilting his head.
"A good thief would make it look like nothing was ever stolen in the first place. Their targets should never notice anything wrong until it's too late. Now take a look at this place, it's like a typhoon blew through here."
As Kirby and Sir Kibble examined the wreckage, they could understand what their friend was talking about.
"And you sayin' you could steal things with no one noticing?" Dedede grumbled, still annoyed at the current situation.
"Oh... I don't know... but first, let me ask you something. Did you see me steal your hat?"
"What!?"
As Dedede went to feel his cap, he felt nothing except for the top of his head. When he looked back, he saw Tac casually twirling it around her finger.
"I guess not." She said, appearing to give a slight smirk.
"You stupid cat! Give that back to me!" The king shouted as he tried to grab it, Tac quickly dodging him.
"I was going to. Have a bit of patience." She placed the cap in his hand.
Dedede grumbled as he placed it back on his head.
"Excuse me, sir." Sir Kibble said to Dedede.
"Why are you so adamant that she is the culprit?"
"Ain't it obvious? She's a thief." The king gave a shrug.
"I fail to see how that proves anything. Yes, she's a thief, but that's just a classification. There are all types of thieves. Thieves who steal objects due to greed. Thieves who steal from the rich and give to the poor. Even someone who steals back something that was stolen from them makes them technically a thief. Besides, didn't you steal all the food in Dreamland once upon a time?"
"OH, WILL YOU PEOPLE STOP BRINGING THAT UP?!"
"Then don't accuse me of something I didn't do without evidence."
Dedede only grumbled as the group continued their investigation.
"Hey, Kirby, what are you staring at?" Tac asked, noticing her friend's attention was fixated on something.
"I think there's something on the chandelier. I'll go check."
Puffing himself up, Kirby floated up and indeed there was something stuck on the chandelier.
"I found something! I think it's some kind of card!" He yelled before floating back down to the floor to show the others.
"That explains a lot. We're dealing with a phantom thief. Or at least someone desperately trying to be one." Tac said, calling the attention of her friends.
"Why do you say that Tac?" Kirby asked.
"Only phantom thieves leave calling cards. Typically, a phantom thief does this to send a message. Though considering there's writing on it and just a symbol, it's probably just someone who wants attention." Tac shrugged with a sigh.
"I never understood that, honestly." Sir Kibble said, scratching his head. "Why would a thief want to draw attention to themselves? Wouldn't that be the last thing they'd want to do?"
"Hard to say, depends on the person. Usually, they do it as a way of challenging detectives and such. It's like a pride thing."
"Oh, like Daroach?" Kirby questioned.
"Yeah, like the rat. Though this symbol definitely doesn't belong to the rodent brigade."
"You mean the Squeaks?"
"Did I stutter?"
Ignoring the last statement, Sir Kibble continued. "Well, what now Tac? You are the expert on this subject matter."
"There's really only one option. If every home in town was stolen from, then we'll just have to investigate each and every one of them thoroughly. Kirby, catch."
Tac then threw two objects, one was an artist beret, which caused Kirby to gain his Artist Copy Ability. The second object was a map of the town.
"Could you make two exact copies of that map, please?"
"Sure! Something like that should be easy enough!" Kirby responded with a smile as he quickly got to work.
After the maps were made, Tac took out a pen.
"Ok, Kibble, you search these houses. Kirby, you search these houses and I'll take these ones. If either of you find anything suspicious, call using these walkie talkies."
"You sure are prepared aren't you, Tac." Kirby said.
"I have to be in order to thrive in my profession." She then took a look at a nearby clock. "Ok, it's noon right now so, in two hours we'll meet up in the center of town. Understand?"
Both Kirby and Sir Kibble gave a nod in response.
"Good. Now get going."
With that said, they split up.
Every house that the group visited was in the exact same state as Castle Dedede. There was destruction all around and a calling card found at each of the scenes. As planned, the trio met back up with each other in the center of town.
"I assume since no one used the walkie talkies that none of us found anything besides those dumb calling cards." Tac said, receiving two sighs in response.
"Sorry, Tac." Kirby replied sadly.
"What are you sorry about? You haven't done anything wrong." Her blunt reply seemed to cheer Kirby back up.
"Tac. I'm afraid I wasn't able to investigate every house. The last one I visited was completely locked up. According to the neighbor, the owner is a repairman who normally returns in the evening." Sir Kibble told his friend.
"Then I guess we'll just have to wait until he comes back." Kirby said.
"Or I could just break in and look around." Tac said, earning a glare from Kibble.
"Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of clearing your name?"
"Not if I don't get caught."
"Hey guys." Kirby said, gaining their attention. "I think that's the repair man walking over there."
Without wasting time, the trio went and caught up with the apparent repair man. When the group caught up to him, their target in question turned out to be a nervous looking Waddle Doo wearing a simple denim cap.
"Excuse me, mister? Could you please let us investigate your house?" Kirby asked in his usual polite manner.
"W-what, why!?" the Doo stuttered in response.
"As you probably already know, good sir, every place of residence has been robbed. My friends and I have been investigating the crime scenes to figure out who the culprit is." Kibble said, trying to calm down the Waddle Doo.
"Oh... ok, yeah that makes sense. Let me go dismantle my security system first."
With that the Waddle Doo took off and quickly entered his house. While all of this was going on, Tac was just silently staring at the Waddle Doo's house.
"Um... is there something wrong, Tac?" Kirby asked.
"Very wrong. There's something fishy about that repairman. I think he's hiding something." She uttered.
"What's he hiding?" Sir Kibble added.
"I'm not saying anything until I have more evidence for my suspicions." The two gave an understanding nod.
Shortly afterwards, the Waddle Doo exited the home.
"Alright, the security system should be down. Take your time!" He seemed to utter quickly.
The group then headed inside his house to investigate.
The interior of the house resembled that of previous victims, where there was destruction all around the home.
"Wait a minute, I thought you said you had a security system?" Tac asked.
"Oh, didn't you hear? This part of the neighborhood had a blackout that took down my security!" The Doo quickly replied.
"Alright then, when did the power return?"
"It returned at about...maybe 5 or 6 AM? Shortly before the thefts were discovered. Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering."
As the group further examined the house, it appeared to be no different from any of the others they've seen.
"It's just like every other house." Sir Kibble said, sounding extremely tired of seeing pointless destruction being done to this town.
"Not quite." Tac said. "Look at the objects that are on the floor and carefully examine them."
Her friend took a closer look at one of the items that had fallen on the floor. "...there's no real damage on them, not even a scratch."
"That's right. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but. It's obvious this thief has some set order on how they do things. This includes damaging as much property as possible. Yet here the damage is superficial, as if someone lazily shoved objects to the floor and called it a day."
There was a moment of silence, as if Sir Kibble and Kirby were thinking about what they were told. Then they stepped closer to the thief to whisper.
"Are you saying that the repair man might be the culprit?" Kibble asked.
"The evidence for it seems to be adding up to that." She then looked back at the wreckage. "But it's not enough to completely free me of charges. I'm going to take a look around his house. I need you guys to distract him."
"How?" Kirby asked.
"Just talk to him about something, anything, I don't know. Just do something that gets his attention off me."
With an understanding nod, Kirby and Kibble walked over to the Waddle Doo.
"Um... we'd like to ask you a bit more about the blackout last night. It seems like it's super important to this case!" Kirby said.
"Alright then, what do you want to know?"
As the two friends began their conversation, Tac quickly and quietly sneaked off to investigate the rest of the house.
With Kirby and Sir Kibble distracting the repair man, Tac was able to make quick work of searching. Her years of experience has taught her what to exactly look for, and now she found it. She arrived at an ordinary looking door, but one look at it and she could tell it was hiding something important. The 10 different locks on it certainly made that part easy and completely obvious. Pulling out her trusty lockpick, she dismantled each one as fast as possible.
"And there. Now let's see what we have in here..."
As soon as she opened the door, she was greeted by a giant golden statue of Dedede falling towards her. Acting quickly, she got a hold of it and pushed it back up right.
"Whew... now I'm glad Kibble keeps challenging me to arm wrestling. More importantly though..."
She looked around the whole room to see that it was filled with various stolen objects.
"Jackpot."
"So are you sure that the blackout happened around that time?" Sir Kibble asked.
"Yes, I already told you that! And where did your friend go anyway?"
"Oh, I think she may have gone to the bathroom." Kirby added.
"Does she know where it is?"
"I'm back." That was when Tac entered the room.
"Ah, there you are! Have you gotten what you needed to get done completed?" The Waddle Doo asked.
"Of course I did."
With a mischievous glare, she pulled out a few objects from her bag, one of which Kirby instantly recognized was one of his mentor's spare masks.
"Ah... so that's why he cancelled our training today..." he thought.
"So, Mr. Repairman..." Tac said, putting sarcastic emphasis on repairman. "Care to explain why you have these items?"
The Waddle Doo seemed to jump upon hearing that. "I-I've never seen those items in my life!"
"Really? Why did I find them in a locked room in this very house then?"
"W-well you see-!"
"Also, where's your card?"
"Huh?"
"Every other place of residence had a card, yet I didn't see one."
"Well, maybe the thief simply forgot the calling card."
Tac smirked slyly. "Who said anything about calling cards? All I said was a card."
"So what? It's perfectly normal to come to the conclusion that you meant a calling card."
"Maybe. Perhaps you were lucky in not getting one. Though I'd consider you lucky in that case, the symbol on it might just be the worst symbol I've ever seen."
"It's not that bad!" The Waddle Doo yelled. Then his eye widened in realization of what he just said.
"Not bad, huh? Care to explain why you think that? Actually, you don't need to." Tac then took out a handful of calling cards. "I found these in the same room. So, care to explain?"
"I-I-AAAAHhhh!"
The Waddle Doo shot a large beam of energy at the trio, which was quickly inhaled by Kirby, who transformed into Beam Kirby. Sir Kibble then got behind the Doo grabbed a hold of him, preventing him from escaping.
"Now that your attempt to get rid of us failed, do you want to talk?" Tac asked.
The Waddle Doo gave a bit of a grumble. "You want me to talk? Fine. I'm the phantom thief that terrorized the town last night."
"Let me guess, the repair man thing is just a disguise to give you an excuse to enter and examine a person's house with no difficulty, right?" Tac said, getting a chuckle from the phantom thief.
"Yes and no. Yes, I did use my position as a repair man to study my targets, but that wasn't a disguise. It was my actual occupation."
That was when the puff realized something.
"Wait a minute... did you actually cause all that damage on purpose so that you could get paid to fix it afterwards?" Kirby spoke up.
"That's exactly it. I steal their valuables and then sell on the black market while also getting paid to fix all the damage. I would've been rich by the end of the week!"
"Let me guess... and you would've gotten away for it if it wasn't for us meddling kids?"
"EXACTLY!"
"How cliché..."
"Did you plan on Tac being framed for your crime as well?" Kibble said, getting progressively angrier the longer the Doo kept talking.
"Not at all. You can't blame me for everyone else's stupidity."
"Maybe not, but I can blame you for the rest of your crimes!"
"I don't think so! The Phantom Doo answers to no one!"
With a surprising burst of strength, "the Phantom Doo" escaped Kibble's grasp and pulled out what appeared to be smoke bombs.
"You'll never catch me!"
He then threw the bombs down, but nothing happened. The Doo looked dumbfounded until he saw the bombs were now in Tac's possession.
"You are just one walking, talking cliché, aren't you?"
Before the Doo could respond, Kibble knocked him out.
Thanks to the trio's efforts, the stolen items were returned to their rightful owners. Not only that, but Dedede locked up the so-called Phantom Doo. The townsfolk apologized to Tac for wrongfully accusing her, to which she basically shrugged it off and said, "It's fine, just don't do it again." Sir Kibble decided to keep an eye on the Doo, just to make sure he didn't try to escape. Though he did have one last private conversation with Tac before he left.
Now the sun was setting, and it was just Tac and Kirby remaining.
"So... what are you gonna do now, Tac?" Kirby asked.
She only shrugged. "Probably sleep. It's pretty late and I'm beat."
"Uh-huh..." Kirby himself realized how tired he was upon hearing that and gave a yawn.
"Hm... tell you what. How about I take you and Kibble out for dinner tomorrow night as a way of saying thanks for today?"
The child's eyes lit up.
"Really!? Thank you!" Then he realized something. "Wait... you're not gonna steal something to pay for it, will you?"
"No promises." She then left.
Ah. This took a bit longer than usual to complete. Then again, I think I tend to normally take longer on Let's Be Friends compared to Only Neat Life. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this simple chapter.
Omake (Bonus)
Kirby: So.. What were you two doing last night?
(Flashback to the previous night)
Tac: Got any two's?
Kibble: Go fish. You have a five?
Tac: Fine, here take it.
(Kibble reached to grab the card, but ended up grabbing a hold of Tac's hand, causing both of them to blush.)
(Back to present)
(Kibble blushes, causing Tac to flick him in the head.)