Chapter 2: The Thieves

Blaustid Castle, Kingdom of Ralteague

Kaito snuck his way up one of the outer towers of the castle, having knocked out the guards at the base. He hated not having a more precise time to start, since he enjoyed impressing everyone with his punctuality. This was a fantasy world, though. There was no ability to confirm the correct time. And no way to know what time the clocks in the castle might say without going and looking at them directly (assuming they had any, the technology level in this world seemed inconsistent, to say the least).

So, he climbed up the stairs and stepped out on the roof of the tower as the sky started to turn golden. Waiting a bit, to make sure the sun was looking redder, he gave a nod and turned to the main courtyard.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I am pleased to announce that, for one night only, you will be wowed and amazed by the one, the only, KAITOU KID!" he shouted, throwing his arms wide.

Guards from the courtyard and other parts of the castle walls gave various shouts along the lines of 'get him!'. Kaito smiled, and pulled out his grappling hook gun. Firing it, the hook found purchase on the roof of the keep and he jumped. The swing let him crash through a window on the second level.

He spun around and waved to the guards below. The truth was that he was the distraction right now. Akako was down below, worrying about the safe. It was a strange shift of roles for him, but he accepted she'd be better at breaking a magical lock than him.

And he was certainly good at playing the distraction.

Running along the halls, he threw a glitter bomb at the first group of guards he found. Apparently expecting sorcery, the guards became quite confused by the glitter and goo that exploded on to them.

He giggled as he ran further. Throwing smoke bombs out windows hopefully made his position obvious, since the guards lacked any radios to communicate where he might be. (Maybe they could use crystal balls? He should have asked about that...)

Another set of guards found him a couple minutes later. He fired off his cardgun, slicing through the ropes of the chandeliers above them. The guards scattered, and he ran off, just slow enough for them to stay on his tail, but unlikely to catch up.

A bit more running led him to the second floor gallery over the main hall. Several units of guards were down below, and a few opened fire with crossbows or spells of some sort. He replied by lobbing down canisters of knockout gas. The bulk of the guards below had passed out before the ones chasing him on the second floor reached the gallery.

Kaito smiled at those other guards, before hopping off the gallery, firing his grappling hook into the ceiling. The hook hit a beam and slowed his fall just in time. (He'd been ready to roll on the landing just in case, but was always happy with his showing off worked.)

Under the castle, Akako crept through the cellars. Kaito was definitely doing a good job of running a distraction. She'd only encountered two guards down here, and had used the knockout gas Kaito had given her to deal with both (since her magical charms could only sway them so much against their loyalty to their employer).

And here it was. The safe. She placed a hand on it, feeling the protection wards present in the structure. It was going to take a while to get through them all.

"Stop right there!" a female voice called out.

Kaito turned to the source, a woman who looked to be in her late thirties with a sword pointed his way. She looked down right dashing in her full plate armour, deep blue hair done up in a braided bun on her head.

"I do not take kindly to intruders making a mockery of my men and my castle!" the Baroness hissed, moving forward with confident steps.

"Are you not enjoying the show, my lady?" Kaito asked, removing his tophat and taking a deep bow.

"Why would I enjoy seeing my guards made to look like fools?" the Baroness asked, her sword mere centimetres from the top of his hair.

"It's just a little exercise, running about is such good fun," Kaito replied, before dashing forward.

He moved inside the length of her arm, placing his hand gently on her chin. "Ah, but I suppose my charms are nothing to a woman as beautiful as you."

Kaito placed a quick kiss on her cheek, then slipped away, leaving a rose in her free hand. The baroness blinked, blushing behind him as he ran. The element of surprise was a lovely thing, sometimes. And, maybe he didn't have Akako's magical charms, but his good looks were fairly effective all on their own.

He grinned away as he made it down another hallway, the majority of the guards who'd been chasing him stopping to check on their Baroness.

"He's quite handsome, up close," the Baroness said before Kaito got fully out of earshot.

Another group of guards tried to cut Kaito off, but a flash grenade left them stunned enough for him to swerve into another room. It was fun, how utterly naive to his tricks these guards were.

"DILL BRAND!"

Kaito found himself flying through the air, slamming into the ceiling, while all his mind could think of was 'like dill pickles?'. Despite the distraction, he managed to land on his feet. He spun to face his assailant, and spotted the strange stone man he'd noticed while visiting the previous day.

"You'll find getting away from me rather difficult, Mister Kaito Kid," the stone skinned man said, walking Kaito's way with a sword drawn.

"Is flirting still an option?" Kaito asked, though he shifted his weight ready to run if needed.

"DUG HAUT!"

Kaito scrambled, barely escaping as stone spikes emerged from the ground. The stone man then leapt his way, swinging his sword. Kaito swerved and dodged, drawing his card gun. He managed to aim a card at his opponent's arm, but it bounced off harmlessly.

'Right,' Kaito thought to himself, 'stone skin.'

The vault opened. Akako stepped in, a grin on her face. So much for the supposed inferiority of Earth born Sorceresses. Walking through the halls of treasure, she ignored the gold and statues. It was nice, sure, but there was art on Earth too. The Eye of Yashinbar sat in the middle, prominent on a pedestal.

The red witch walked over and picked up the yellowish hunk of amber-like material, swirling red energies inside it. She could feel the power in her hands.

"Mine now. Ohohoh!" she said, letting herself enjoy the feeling of victory.

Then the palace shook.

Zelgadis and Kaito Kid both turned to where a wall had been. A large chunk of the castle had collapsed in a single explosion. Anything flammable in that section of the castle was now burning, while a small redhead woman stood in the middle, arms crossed and a cape billowing in the updraft of the flames.

"Do I have your attention NOW!?" Lina bellowed. "Honestly! The beautiful and powerful sorceress Lina Inverse shows up, and no one pays any attention!"

Zelgadis let out a tired sigh. "Lina..."

His opponent, the strangely dressed Kaito Kid, looked... curious, more than anything. How anyone hadn't heard of Lina's exploits, Zelgadis wasn't sure, considering all the cities she'd destroyed. And the times she'd saved the world. It wasn't really Zelgadis' problem if his opponent had been living under a rock, though.

"What are you after, Lina!?" Zelgadis asked, turning to shout at the diminutive sorceress.

"Oh! Hi Zel!" Lina shouted back, waving at him as if they'd run into each other while out shopping, rather than her trying to destroy the castle he'd been hired to guard. "Gourry! Zel's here!"

The blonde swordsman poked his head up over the part of the wall Lina was standing on. "Hi, Zel!"

"...Hello Gourry," Zelgadis replied in a tired voice, knowing this was all going to end terribly. "You didn't answer the question, Lina."

"We're here for the Eye of Yashinbar," Lina replied, continuing her casual tone. "If you're in good with the Baroness, can you ask her to hand it over?"

Zelgadis buried his face in his hands, letting out another sigh.

"Hey! We're after the Eye of Yashindar too! And we got here first!" Kaitou Kid shouted. (Zelgadis had almost forgotten the eccentric thief was still there.)

"Are you challenging me, buddy!?" Lina shouted back.

"Maybe I am!" Kid replied.

Zelgadis lowered his hands and turned to Kaitou Kid. "Wait. What do you mean 'we'?"

"A good magician always has a lovely assistant. It's all about misdirection after all," Kaitou Kid said to him, wearing an obnoxious grin.

A distraction. That was why the phantom thief had been running aimlessly around the castle. Then... oh, what did it matter? Lina was here. She'd keep blowing up more and more of the castle until they handed over the Eye of Yashindar.

"You've got the Eye already!?" Lina shouted. "Then I guess you're the one I've got to chase! FIREBALL!"

Zelgadis leapt out of the way as the flame exploded where he and Kaitou Kid had been standing. He decided to ignore the ensuing chaos and try to find Kaito Kid's assistant. If he could get the Eye to Lina faster, then he could minimize the damage to the city.

Kaito scrambled up the stairs as the feral redhead chased after him. He fired off a few cards to try to slow her down, though she was rather nimble and dodged most of them. Inverse fired off 'flare arrows' in reply, forcing Kaito to tuck and roll.

A group of guards tried to block the hallway in front of him, but he had no time to deal with them and leapt over their heads. Another cry of 'fireball' reached his ears from behind, followed by shouts of panic from the guards.

Another stairwell let him scramble up higher. He ignored the explosions behind him and kept running as fast as his legs would take him. Just two more floors to the roof. He was going to yell at Akako later, for not warning him how destructive sorceresses could be. For now, though, he focused on running.

The stairs in front of him exploded upwards, a few crackling bolts of magic sliding up further, into the flight above him. He glanced down, seeing that Lina girl laughing away a floor below him.

"You're trapped, pal!" she shouted. "Hand over the Eye and I won't hurt you."

"It takes more than a broken flight of stairs to stop Kaitou Kid," he called back, pulling on the smoothest Poker Face he could manage.

It was tricky to remain calm in the face of a girl with that much firepower, but, if he could do it while Akako used her more unsettling mind altering magic, then he could do it in the face of this Lina Inverse girl.

Kaito took a couple steps back, then rushed forward, jumping the gap. He then dove into the hallway, deciding to abandon reaching the roof. He dropped several smoke bombs in the hallway before ducking into a bedroom. He threw a window open and leapt out, opening his paraglider. It was smooth (para)sailing to freedom now.

Looking back at the keep, he saw Inverse open a window the floor below where he'd jumped from. He tensed, ready to dodge whatever she tried to blast him with.

Instead, she jumped out of the window.

"RAY WING!" came Inverse's shout, and she was suddenly flying his way.

He turned to look ahead, eyes wide with fear. Akako could have told him they had flight magic here!

City of Blaustid, Kingdom of Ralteague

Princess Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune made her way quietly through the streets. Her father, prince regent of Saillune, and the crown prince of Ralteague had gotten into a row at some banquet or another while she'd been travelling further west. So, her passage through the Kingdom of Ralteague on her way home had to be more subtle than she'd usually do.

Still, she had some spending money, and she didn't mind travelling among the people. As such, she wandered the city for a bit before hunting for an inn to stay the night. There were lots of souvenirs to buy.

When the sun started to set she popped into one of the nicer establishments and bought a room. She ordered a bit of dinner, ready to eat in the common area of the inn. As she hunted for a table, she spotted a girl sitting alone. The girl had mousy brown hair, and wore a strange blue dress with white trim and a red bow on the front. It vaguely reminded Amelia of a uniform she'd seen a sailor wearing one time.

The girl looked lonely and lost in thought. As a champion of justice, Amelia decided to head over to her.

"Is this seat taken?" Amelia asked.

The girl jumped a little. "Oh, no. No. Aoko's friends are... out."

Amelia nodded and sat down. "I'm travelling alone myself, so I'm a bit deprived of conversation... I must say, that's an interesting outfit. Are you visiting from far away?"

The girl looked deep in thought for a moment. "Maybe? Aoko... Aoko supposes it depends how you measure distances? Aoko remembers watching a science documentary one time that said parallel universes might just be a couple centimetres away, but in a direction we can't perceive."

Amelia blinked. She'd understood roughly none of that. "Uni-verses?"

"Oh. S-sorry. Right. Medieval science and all that. Um... is there a moon here?" the girl asked, glancing up at the ceiling.

"...Yes?" Amelia replied.

Amelia found herself wondering about this girl's mental state. She was raised right, so she wouldn't say anything, but... she was concerned, to say the least.

"Mhm. So there's probably other planets and stars and stuff... Anyway, by another universe Aoko means, like... another... plane? Realm? Um... existence? Aoko doesn't really know what magic users would call it here."

"The Physical Sides?" Amelia asked. She'd read up on those ideas after the whole Dark Star incident.

The folks from Dark Star's Physical Side had been so very different from the mousy girl across from her, though.

"Maybe?"

Aoko shrugged, before pulling out a small rectangular object. There was glass on one side, and some sort of leather like substance wrapped around the other sides.

"You probably think Aoko is crazy, but... maybe my phone will prove Aoko isn't? At least while the batteries work," the girl said.

She pushed something, and the 'phone' lit up on the glass side. There were numbers displayed on it. The girl then danced her fingers about, summoning small dots. She doodled some sort of rune and the image changed, revealing many smaller images.

What surprised Amelia the most was that she couldn't sense even the slightest magical aura from the device.

"Are you from the same place the sword of light came from?" Amelia asked.

"The... what? Is... is that like a lightsaber?" the girl replied.

"Maybe? I don't know what a 'lightsaber' is, exactly."

Aoko nodded. "Right, um, it's from a sci-fi... you don't know what 'sci-fi is, do you?"

Amelia shook her head.

A little flustered, Aoko waved her hand. "... Anyhow, Aoko's full name is Nakamori Aoko. Probably should have said that earlier."

Amelia nodded, before sliding into a whisper. "If you can promise not to tell anyone, my name is Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune."

The other girl blinked. "Why can't Aoko tell anyone?"

"Ah, well, you see—" she began, until the sound of an explosion shook the building.

Both girls rushed outside, spotting smoke rising from the castle.

"Kaito!? Akako!?" Aoko shouted, her voice pained and her eyes filled with terror as she ran off towards the castle. "Oh no, oh no... Aoko's friends are at the castle."

Amelia was less directly invested, but... "As a champion of justice I have to help! Let's go! RAY WING!"

Hopping into the air, she scooped up the other girl, and soared towards the castle. More blasts of magical energy shot out from windows. The flames of the original explosion also seemed to be growing.

"Who could do such a thing?" Amelia asked, trying to look around for both the culprit and a safe place to put Aoko down.

"Was it a gas explosion?" Aoko asked, proving a remarkably easy to carry person.

"Probably a fireball spell," Amelia explained.

It was then that they both spotted a person garbed in white jump out a window. The figure's cape opened up and they began to glide off.

"Oh, thank goodness. Kaito's okay," Aoko said.

A second figure jumped out a lower window, a familiar voice shouting 'Ray Wing!' to halt their fall.

"Miss Lina? I... I hope she didn't cause that explosion," Amelia muttered, even though, in her heart, she knew better.

"Lina? Who's that?" Aoko asked, watching Lina chase Kaito through the skies.

"She's a... friend?" Amelia replied. "Has a bit of a temper and knows an impressive range of destructive spells, though. It's not always the best combination."

Just as the redhead figure of Lina was about to catch the white clad form of the 'Kaito' person, a third person entered the skies. This one was riding something. They zipped along far faster than Lina or Kaito, intercepting the latter, who grabbed on to the tail of the... broom? The woman was riding a broom?

The broom riding woman abruptly changed course, heading their way.

"Aoko! Good to see you!" the young woman called out.

"Akako?" Aoko asked, seeming confused that her friend could fly.

"I'll take her from here. You might want to get out of the skies too. Folks seem dangerous here," the Akako woman said to Amelia.

"Um, sure?" Amelia replied, placing Aoko on the back of the broom.

The brunette clung tightly to her sorceress friend.

"Oh, hey. Someone else who can fly," Kaito said, clinging to the straw portion of the broom. "You know, Akako, the knowledge that lots of people here can fly was really important need to know information that I do not appreciate having beeeeeeen—"

The broom took off, Kaito dragged along as they zipped across the sky far faster than any Ray Wing based flight.

Amelia waved them off, before turning to Lina, who had finally caught up.

"Amelia? What are you doing here? Were you helping those thieves!?" the redhead shouted, hovering next to her.

"Thieves? You know I'm a champion of justice who would never knowingly aid criminals," Amelia declared with a pout, crossing her arms.

"They stole the Eye of Yashindar!" Lina shouted.

"Which you were planning to steal too," Zelgadis said, having apparently joined them in the skies while Amelia had been watching Aoko and her friends fly off.

"Details, details," Lina replied, waving her hand dismissively.

"You're also the one who blew up half the castle," Zelgadis countered.

"Zel!" Amelia shouted, getting over the surprise of seeing him, before gliding over to hug him. "Oh gosh! It's been too long!"

"Hello, Amelia," he said, in a softer tone, as the three of them slowly descended back to the ground.

It got tiring to maintain a ray wing for too long, after all.

"Mhm, a touching reunion. Can we go hunt down those thieves who stole my Eye of Yashindar?" Lina said as she touched down.

"It's the Baroness' Eye of Yashindar," Zelgadis muttered.

Lina glared at him.

"But, yes. It's best for everyone if we help you out before you get angry," Zelgadis added.

Lina smiled.

Forests of the Barony of Blaustid, Kingdom of Ralteague

Akako steered them into a clearing, deep in a forest and well away from any roads. The trio then hurried under the cover of the trees. The Red Witch tried to ignore how nice Aoko's grip had been, pressed against her for safety, and focused on checking the Eye of Yashindar was safely stowed in her bag.

"So, are we going home now?" Kaito asked, hands in his pocket as he leaned against a tree.

"Inter-sidal teleportation requires certain preparations. We'll need to buy some necessary ingredients," Akako replied. "That will mean visiting another town."

"Why don't we fly there, then?" Aoko asked.

"Because a charmed item like my broom only holds so much charge. We burnt through it all, and there will be days until it's good to go again," Akako replied, seeing no reason to lie. "We should camp out for the night."

"Bleh... I'll start finding firewood, I guess," Kaito muttered.