Disclaimer: I don't own Hololive, all rights to the owners.
This is not at all what I planned to write when I started this follow-up story. I wanted more of the fun, shy-Ame overreacting to the royals trying to dote on her. Instead I ended up writing their first meeting, which is devoid of a lot of that fun in exchange for an internal monologue of Ame desperately trying not to fuck up around the most important people in the Empire. Not quite what I wanted to write, but a decent foundation if I want to write anything more about it going forward.
Went hard on the detailed narration for this, so it's a slow story. You've been warned.
Also, I made a small change from Displacement to Royalty. Gura's eyes are now red, not blue.
Most of Amelia's jobs are pretty standard: missing persons, petty thefts, maybe identity theft or cybercrime on a more exciting day.
It's the people who come for her special skills, usually sent by Kiara (or Calli, but usually Kiara), where her job becomes truly interesting. A stranger will walk in, holding a yellow business card, asking for the Detective.
Today, that client is an atlantean.
It's rare to get an atlantean. Detective lives deep in the suburbs of a human-populated city. Atlanteans are just as much a part of Her Majesty's empire as humans are thanks to her marriage to Her Highness over a century ago, but atlanteans are still uncommon except in their own dedicated cities and the capital.
This particular atlantean is tall compared to the Detective at nearly six feet, but feels even taller than she looks. She stands completely straight, arms folded behind her back, a wavy scar cut beside cold red eyes and white hair done up in a tight bun. This is accentuated by a simple, pressed, dark blue suit and dress pants that wouldn't look out-of-place at a formal party. She feels military, or like a stern school principal.
The Detective has never been more aware of how messy her office is. There's some old trophies and thank-yous on a dusty table in the back corner, an award or two and her license up on the wall, and the chair for her visitors has old, worn springs and tears along the armrests. It feels offensive to have such an important-looking woman standing in such an unkept place.
"Are you Detective Watson?" The woman asks. Her voice has a rumble to it, and is rather deep. She was expecting a sharper, higher voice given her appearance.
"Y-Yes!" She says, trying to sit up straight and look somewhat professional. The woman's eyes bore into her, and she swallows thickly. Is her hair messy? Is her cap not straight? Is it the plaid pattern? She forces herself to look the woman in the eye and clasp her hands on her desk. "How can I help you?"
"Kiara recommended you." The woman says, brandishing the yellow business card and tossing it onto the desk. "Said you have a talent for completing impossible jobs."
"That depends on the job." Amelia says. "B-But yes, I do. What do you need?"
"I need you to investigate a theft." The woman explains. "The details are confidential and can't be shared here. If you're willing to take up this task, we can provide you an office on-location to work out of."
She blinks once, twice, as the words sink into her brain. This isn't how special customers usually work. Usually it's a wide-eyed survivor trembling in the chair as they tell her about some horrible monster that consumed their village. Usually those problems can be fixed by giving an anonymous tip to the police or even a local military base at the appropriate time. Sometimes there's a cult (not her Majesty's cult, usually some crazier sub-sect) that she needs to weed out first. That's pretty much the only time she ever has to fully use the tools at her disposal.
"Well, Kiara sent you, so you must be trustworthy." The Detective says, more to reassure herself than for the woman's benefit. The woman raises an eyebrow as if she's said something strange, and the Detective's shoulders hunch in embarrassment. "I- uh- sure, I'll take the case. Though we should discuss my rates-"
"Get this solved and ya can name yer price." The woman says bluntly.
"Okay." She says in a voice that she desperately hopes isn't a squeak. She can't squeak in front of clients. It doesn't instill confidence. Especially not someone as important-looking as this. "Sh-Should I come immediately, or…?"
"Tomorrow, just after lunch." The woman says. "If that works."
"Depends on where I'm going."
The woman pulls a pen and notepad out of a pocket, scribbles on it, and hands it to her. The first thing the Detective notices is this location is in the capital. That's a good seven hour drive from here.
"Uh, okay, sure. I can prob- I can get there on time." The Detective says. "One last thing then. Can I get your name for my files?"
Again, the woman raises an eyebrow, and this time it's accompanied by a small smirk. It's both mildly intimidating and rather humanizing (and kinda hot) at the same time. "Gura."
That name sounds familiar, but the Detective can't quite place it. "Gura, gotcha."
"I know this isn't a lot of info, but you'll get what you need tomorrow." Gura says. "I have a schedule to keep. See ya tomorrow Detective."
"Y-Yes, you too, Gur- I mean, see you tomorrow as well, Gura." She stammers back. Gura has already turned around, but nods and raises a hand in a backwards wave while walking out the door.
The door closes, and Amelia lets out a breath. A trip to the capital for an unspecified job at the benefit of a mysterious client, huh?
She really hopes Kiara didn't make a mistake with this person.
###
Having woken up late today, Amelia is forced to take public transportation. The train cuts down travel time by nearly three hours, which is a boon, but forces her in close proximity to everyone else heading to the capital. Businessmen and women, a family on a day trip, and a high priest out of uniform (their permanent calm smile, closed eyes, and takodachi resting on their shoulder is a dead giveaway).
The capital is as beautiful as it is eerie. The architecture still bears some resemblance to the city it used to be when the Empire was known as "Britain" before Her Majesty's ascension, but with notable changes. The major buildings are still boxy and geometric, but have been warped and added onto with wrapping tentacles, twisting spires, and abstract statues. The main parts of the city are near universally painted in cool colors, favoring blues and purples. The more recent buildings, those built in the last hundred years, show more atlantean influence. This is mainly shown in the use of stained glass, pillars, and tall, open indoor spaces with plenty of nooks and arches. If they were underwater, it would give plenty of place to swim and sit, and while these buildings are decidedly not underwater the stylistic decisions are still impressive (if somewhat less functional).
Perhaps the most notable thing about the capital, however, is the people. The capital, aside from being the center of the Empire, is also the Empire's largest cult city. The people within seem to act like a hive mind at times, driving perfectly at speed, walking in orderly lines, never raising their voices, and other such harmonious oddities. You can tell a visitor from a resident very easily, as the visitor will fumble or ignore these unspoken rules.
There is no obvious force controlling residents of a cult city. Talk to any one of them and you will still find them to be an individual, with tastes and preferences all their own. Still, many people, including Amelia, find the harmony of a cult city… unnerving.
With Gura's note in one hand and her phone with a map pulled up in the other, Amelia navigates the city towards her destination. She keeps her hat pulled low over her eyes, avoiding the eyes of anyone around her. Specially marked sections on the sidewalk, both with red color and raised knobs, tell her when the sidewalk is about to become a crosswalk. She doesn't even need to look up, only feel the ground and listen to the cars, in order to cross the street.
(She was blind for about a year after one of her more difficult jobs. In the time it took to get rid of that curse she picked up some new skills, and they're shockingly helpful when she wants to keep her head down, literally and metaphorically. No one pays attention to a girl who doesn't speak, doesn't look at anyone, and moves with purpose.)
Without taking her eyes off her phone, Amelia follows the map all the way to her destination. Only then, when she arrives, does she look up, and she nearly passes out from shock.
In front of her, gleaming purple and blue, with a stained glass main pathway with statues flaking it all the way up, five stories tall, and a constant stream of cultists, petitioners, businesspeople, and tourists coming in and out, is the imperial palace.
She double, then triple checks her phone brought her to the right place. When she first typed in the address she didn't look at the name of the location, and she's now wishing she had because if she's wrong she's going to look like a fool inside the single most important location in the Empire.
Deep breaths, fix her hat, bring her watch (on a chain) out from under her shirt so it's visible, checks her revolver and potions, and stand up straight. She needs to be a professional. If this really is the place, someone here hired the Detective, not Amelia Watson.
(The guards stare at her as she walks through the gate, having watched her fiddle with her appearance in front of them for the last five minutes. Amelia immediately hunches over again in embarrassment.)
The entry hall is just as grand as you'd expect from an imperial palace. Arches, tentacles, pillars, pillars that are actually aquariums, people, so many people. There would be too many people, but they walk in orderly lines, and so despite how crowded the hall might be it's not chaos. Actually, the hall is unusually quiet, punctuated only by the sounds made by tourists off to the side.
Amel- no, the Detective waits patiently in line until she can talk to a receptionist. The receptionist she gets to talk to is a short, human cultist with light purple hair, closed eyes, and a halo behind her head that her hair is wound around.
"Hello, uh, I was hired for an investigation here?" The Detective says, hoping she looks much more professional than she feels. "I'm detective Amelia Watson."
"Just a moment, let me see if you're on the list." The receptionist murmurs, typing the name into her computer.
How she can see with her eyes closed is beyond the Detective. It's just a thing some cultists can do, and all the research she's done on the topic amounts to "probably the Ancient Ones" or "magic lol", which are equally vague and unhelpful answers.
(The Ancient Ones are more direct in their blessings than most god-adjacent beings from what the Detective is aware. History doesn't have many examples of the Five Aspects granting blessings, but the Ancient Ones are very consistent in such. Then again, the Five Aspects actually walk the planet, whereas the Ancient Ones thankfully do not.)
"Ah, here we are. Amelia Watson, scheduled to meet with Her Highness in twenty minutes. I'll have someone escort you to the correct meeting room."
"Uh, n-no, there must be some confusion." The Detective insists, spreading her fingers in a 'stop' motion. "I was hired by someone called Gura, I was supposed to meet with her."
"Yes." The receptionist says, her calm expression breaking into an amused smile. "Her Highness, Gura Ninomae."
"Th-There must be someone else by the name-"
"Even if there is, you're not scheduled to meet them." The receptionist interrupts gently, and waves someone over. "Please escort Detective Watson to meeting room R-212."
The Detective wants to protest more, but the receptionist is already looking to the next person so she has no choice but to follow the servant off the side and up the elevator. The Detective stares at the floor the entire way up, processing none of the sights visible through the clear door as her mind whirls in panic.
She's going to talk to royalty. She already talked to royalty, and didn't recognize them. Oh Baelz, she asked one of the most important people in the Empire for their name like they were a nobody. She didn't bow, she didn't use her title, didn't even offer her a seat or food or-
"This way, Detective Watson." The servant murmurs. The Detective follows, feeling numb, all the way down the lavish hall to an unremarkable door. She steps inside as the servant holds the door open, and when the door closes behind her she chooses a random seat, sits down at one end, and drops her face onto the rectangular table.
"Baelz kill me now." She thinks. "I'm so fucked. I pretty much insulted the Queen. I had no right to speak with her that way. I should have recognized her on sight. Who doesn't recognize their own queen? Her face is on the news every other day."
She hears a noise outside the door and looks up in fear, but the noise passes without the door opening, and she forces her trembling, clenched hands to relax.
"Maybe I can beg forgiveness? She didn't seem too offended yesterday. Maybe she won't have me thrown into the dungeon, or killed, or whatever the punishment is for insulting the Queen." The Detective thinks. She sits up straight in her chair, straightens her clothes, and takes a deep breath. She brushes the hardwood table where her face was, trying to sweep aside any hair that might have fallen there. "Be professional. She still hired you to do a job even if you were rude. Just don't fuck up any more than you already have."
The fifteen minute wait for Gu- Her Highness is agonizing. The Detective would pace, but she doesn't want to look unprofessional and impatient. Instead she settles for scanning the room, noting the closed, ornate purple curtains with gold tentacles embroidered along the sides, or the tough sisal rug underneath the table and chairs that has clearly had some wear and tear over time but continues to serve its purpose of protecting the hardwood floor from the furniture.
Despite some patterning, the chairs, tables, and the rug are the least ornate part of the room by far. This is a room meant for business rather than show, after all.
Heavy footsteps, probably boots, just down the hall. Brisk pace, no attempt at subtlety. The walls don't insulate against sound very well, which seems like an oversight to the Detective.
The door to the room opens quickly, and closes just as fast. Her Highness marches in, and the first thing the Detective notes is how much more dressed up the woman is. She has a blue suit on just like last time, but this one has badges sewn into it along the arms and chest, light blue epaulets and works in tandem with a peaked cap that has fins along the side and a tall, glowing trident in her right hand to give her an appropriate air of authority. She also has a briefcase, which clashes rather horribly with her outfit, but that's a nitpick.
The Detective stares for a moment as the woman's cold red eyes find her, and then remembers that she's supposed to be professional. She stands up out of her seat (cringing internally when she realizes she's sitting at the head of the table, which should absolutely be Her Highness's spot) and bows from the waist. "Y-Your Royal Highness."
"Detective Watson." She says, sounding tired. She moves to the Detective's side of the table, and the Detective hastily pushes out her chair to let Her Highness sit at the table's head, but Her Highness merely uses the butt of her trident to pull out the chair next to that and sits down there instead, and the Detective awkwardly drops back down into her own seat. "Did your research overnight, huh?"
"Uh…" It takes a moment for her to understand that Her Highness is probably referring to her actually knowing their identity now. "Actually, the… receptionist… told me." She admits, meekly looking down at the table.
Her Highness huffs. There's a soft clink of the trident being put somewhere and the sound of something else being tossed onto the table, and then a more solid thump as the briefcase is deposited between them. "Woulda been funnier if she didn't. Anyhow, to business."
The Detective looks up to see Her Highness spreading out a few papers in front of her. Her Highness has also removed her hat, and the Detective absently notes how she's wearing a low bun rather than a high bun today, probably so it doesn't get in the way of her hat.
Her Highness looks up at her, and the Detective hastily moves her eyes to the papers. She can't get caught ogling the queen. Her Highness has laid out a few written reports and maps in front of them both.
"As I mentioned yesterday, we need you to look into a theft." Her Highness says. "This is top-secret, so regardless of if you're taking this case or not, you can't talk about it. Got it?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Right…" Her Highness inhales, exhales slowly, and explains. "Three days ago, we had an intruder in the royal chambers. Bedchambers that is. Both me and Ina were out at the time, so we weren't there to see it, and we don't have cameras there. However, we do have enchantments. The whole palace has a teleportation barrier, the top three floors are enchanted to set off an alarm, and our bedroom specifically has paralysis and identification spells on the handles and doors. All of these can be bypassed if you're registered into them, but that's the thing: the teleportation barrier didn't deflect anything and the doors didn't trigger, but the third floor alarm did go off."
"Right." The Detective mutters. She yanks out a notepad and pen and starts taking notes. "Does that alarm just go off generally, or can it detect the specific location?"
"A mage can tap into the alarm spell to get information out of it." Her Highness explains. "It can give an exact location, but it doesn't act as an identify. It would take way too much power to spread an identify spell over that wide an area. Identify is easy, but it's a real mana guzzler. At least, that's what Ina tells me."
"Gotcha. So, give me specifics here." The Detective says. "The alarm went off, and then what happened? Someone checked the spell? Someone saw the perp?"
"Someone checked the spell." Her Highness confirms, tapping a specific spot on a map. "Third floor, just above where we are now. Either came from the stairwell or the employee elevator. Was probably dressed as a servant, seeing as no one stopped them coming up and we're fairly sure they ran past at least a few servants and guards without being stopped."
"Disguised, but triggered the alarm. Gotcha." The Detective thinks. "Alright, continue."
"Mage was giving directions from the security booth via walkie talkie to direct the guards." Her Highness says, gesturing to a specific room on the fourth floor. "But the intruder planned their route well, and timed their attempt when the guards were here, at the cross, and here, just past the downward stairwell, so they could jog across this hallway and to the upward stairs before any guards could reach them. We keep stairwells for the bottom two floors separated from anything going up the fourth, and again for the fifth, specifically to prevent stuff like this. You have to walk across the third floor in some capacity to get to the forth, and across the forth to get to the fifth. Well, except the main staircase, but guards can get up that in twenty seconds if they need to."
"Right…" The Detective frowns. "Inside help maybe? Dumb luck? Spying through a window in advance?" She writes a few more notes. "Go on."
"The intruder made their way up the stairwell to the fifth floor, coming out here, near the meditation and pool chambers." Her Highness continues, rubbing her forehead. "From there, they made their way to the bedroom door and got inside, somehow. We're not sure they even touched the door, because the identify spell will trigger even on registered users."
"No clues at all?"
"Our investigators found traces of magic in their own investigation, but it should be teleportation magic. You can teleport within the barrier around the palace as long as you don't cross the barrier line, but our room has its own barrier as well."
"That's… huh." The Detective frowns. She wracks her mind for spells and monsters that can pass through walls without damaging them. "I have a few ideas of what could do that, but finish your story first."
"Right. So, they get inside and- this is the weird part- the mage tapped into the alarm spell reports a second unregistered presence has appeared in our bedroom out of nowhere. Both of them remain there for around two minutes as the guard captain makes his way to our door because he's one of the few people who can actually open it without getting paralyzed, a gunshot is heard within, and then the second unregistered intruder vanishes, and just before the guards get the door open, the first intruder suddenly… again we don't quite know, but one moment they're in our bedroom, the next they're outside, and then a few moments later they can't be sensed. Some of the guards on the walls report seeing someone falling from the roof, but they disappear into the hedge maze and we don't manage to catch them."
The Detective nods slowly, a pit forming in her stomach. She has a vague idea of what's going on, but needs to know just a bit more. "You mentioned a theft?"
"Yes." Her Highness sighs. "Ina's book."
The Detective frowns, trying to place the name for a few seconds before realizing she's making the exact same mistake as before. 'Ina' likely means Ina'nis Ninomae, Her Imperial Majesty, and that would make the book… "Someone stole the Book of the Ancient Ones?"
"Yes." Her Highness grimaces. "Worse yet, she can't sense it at all. Usually she can sense it no matter where it is, even across dimensions."
"I thought Her Majesty kept it with her at all times?"
"She does, usually." Her Highness emphasizes. "But Ina was on diplomatic business where the book's presence would be… inconvenient. In times like that, it's left in our room. I could technically hold onto it in her place, but my job can't afford mistakes, and having an eldritch deity whispering at you all the time doesn't go well with that. So, we have an enchanted lectern that keeps it under control when Ina can't be around to keep it in check. "
"I see." The Detective breathes. "Anything else?"
"One last thing. Or, well, several small, identical things." Her Highness says. "Since the break in, the mages monitoring the alert spell have reported dozens of unregistered presences on all top three floors of the palace. There's only ever one at a time and they run around for a few minutes, then disappear, and not necessarily close to an outer wall or window. We've found traces of temporal magic in these instances."
The Detective groans. That pretty much confirms part of her suspicions. It's one of those missions.
"What is it, Detective? Don't like time magic?" Her Highness asks, narrowing her eyes.
"Th-That's not what I meant, Your Highness." The Detective squeaks, withering under the woman's scrutiny. Her eyes drop to the table again. "If anything, that makes this easier."
Her Highness pauses, and then says, "It does?"
"Yes." The Detective fingers her watch. "Did Kiara tell you exactly what my skills were?"
"Just that you specialize in the impossible."
"Well…" The Detective sighs. "Is this room going to be used in the next half an hour?"
"No, why?"
The Detective twists her watch forward half an hour, raises her eyes to meet Her Highness and the blue eyes behind the woman, and presses the button.
A cold magic tugs at her body for a moment as she's jolted through time to her destination. The world blurs for a fraction of a second before resolving into the same room, but minus Her Highness and everything the woman brought along.
Taking a shaky breath, Amelia pushes out her chair, stands up, moves over to behind the chair Her Highness was sitting in… and then waits three minutes for her watch to recharge.
A ten to one recharge rate isn't bad, but it can make for some awkward waiting if you jump more than a few minutes.
She takes a moment to breathe and fix her appearance again. This is it. This is when she shows her potential to the crown. Don't stutter, don't trip, look her in the eye and then bow deep. Say the usual line. She can do this.
After the three minutes pass, she adjusts her watch to a few seconds before the time she just left, and presses the button again.
She appears behind Her Highness. She can hear herself asking about Kiara, and hear Her Highness's response.
She can see Her Highness's tense shoulders, and the nervous clenching of her hand under the table, and the way she taps her boot on the ground. Things she didn't notice before because she was too concerned with being stared down.
Her past self meets her current gaze, pushes their button, and disappears. Her Highness starts, sitting up straight in shock, and before the woman has time to react the Detective loudly clears her throat.
Her Highness spins in her seat, staring wide-eyed at the Detective. With ease that is more practiced than felt, the Detective looks her in the eye, and sweeps her arms into a bow while saying, "Detective Amelia Watson, Time Traveler, at your service."
There's a pause. The Detective stares at the floor, aware of Her Highness's eyes on the back of her neck, and the swift calculations and realizations likely racing through the woman's mind. She waits, and waits, and waits, for the woman to cast judgment.
Her Highness sighs deeply, and the Detective swallows. Not the response she was hoping for. "A time traveler, huh? You're the reason we're sensing temporal magic all over the place?"
"Maybe." She says shakily, the wind thoroughly sucked from her sails. "I haven't done anything at the palace yet, but what you've told me is in line with things I've done before. Making a lot of small jumps back in time so I can do something quickly and then jump back to the present."
"Like interrupting the thief?"
"Yes." She breathes. "I wouldn't be surprised if that gunshot the guards heard was mine, Your Highness."
"I see."
Another pause. She continues to look at the floor, staring at the legs of Her Highness's chair, heart pounding in her chest. Please let Her Highness give her a chance. She can prove herself. She can help.
"Sorry." Her Highness says, which is just about the last thing the Detective expected to hear. "I ruined your moment. That was supposed to be a dramatic reveal, wasn't it?"
"Not at all Your Highness." She gulps. "Clearly it was not impressive enough."
"It would have been if I wasn't exhausted; it's been a long few days." Her Highness says. "And stop bowing already."
She hurriedly straightens, and sheepishly avoids Her Highness's eyes. This is a disaster. She shouldn't have tried to impress a queen with a party trick. At least Her Highness doesn't sound angry. She's only a disappointment, not insulting.
"Right, so you can time travel." Her Highness says. "So how does this work? You turn your watch and stop the crime? Simple as that?"
"Not quite." The Detective laughs nervously. "The watch only allows me to go back or forward in time in the exact space I'm standing, and it has a ten to one cooldown between jumps. Ten minute jump, one minute recharge. If I were to be standing in your room and jump back three days… I'd have to avoid getting caught for several hours before I could return to the present."
"Ah." Her Highness frowns. "So all those times you've randomly popped up over the last few days…?"
"Me making small jumps, fleeing while waiting out the cooldown, and then jumping again." The Detective explains. "I've got most of what I need, there's just one small problem."
"What?"
"I need a way to get into your room. Not now, in the past. So I can get there when the thief comes."
Her Highness blinks, then frowns thoughtfully. "I guess you can use the glove."
"The glove?"
"Yeah. We've got a glove enchanted to act as a bypass in case someone hijacks the security spell and we're locked out of our own room, and Ina can't dispel it or isn't around to dispel it for some reason. It's hidden under a floorboard in the back corner of Ina's meditation room." Her Highness says, pointing out one of the rooms on the top floor. "Put that on, and you can use it to open the door without any spells triggering."
Kinda like leaving a key under the doormat, but much more well-hidden because the location is completely arbitrary.
"Right…" The Detective says. "One last thing."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to be appearing in your room when I come back, so I'd appreciate if the guards didn't try to kill me." She says sheepishly. "I-If that's… okay with you."
Her Highness snorts. "It's not hard to get you registered. Heck, if this is going to be two seconds for me, I can stand there and wait for you to come back. Can do it right now. I've still got fifteen minutes before my next meeting."
The woman stands up and sweeps the pages back into the briefcase in one swift movement. She flips her hat back on and grabs her trident, and tilts her head towards the door.
"Coming, Detective?" Her Highness asks with the slightest hint of amusement in her voice.
Her heart jumps in her chest. Her Highness strikes quite the figure, framed by the doorway and looking over their shoulder, one red eye watching in faint amusement at the Detective's staring. "Y-Yes Your Highness."
She stumbles out of her seat, following the woman out of the room and down the hallway. They march down two hallways, passing many meeting rooms and a few offices. Guards, and businesspeople stand aside and bow to Her Highness as she moves past, and Her Highness spares a few of them a nod. The soldiers they pass salute, and Her Highness raises her trident a fraction in acknowledgement.
The Detective doesn't enjoy so many eyes her way. She keeps her hat low and her eyes down to Her Highness's boots, and that's enough to ignore any curious gazes.
"You two!" Her Highness barks suddenly. The Detective jumps in surprise, but Her Highness isn't speaking to her. She's talking to two guards standing in front of what looks like a checkpoint. "Got someone new to register. Be quick about it, this is urgent."
The guards hastily escort her inside the checkpoint and yell for someone. A mage dressed in long purple robes and an octopus mask hurries over, bows to Her Highness, and then turns to the Detective.
"This will only take a moment, Miss." The mage says. They take the detective hands in theirs, whisper a chant that sends lukewarm, prickly magic through her palms. This lasts for thirty seconds before the sensation fades. "Alright, you're registered. We just need to record your information for our records."
Name, identification, address, contact information. It doesn't take horribly long, though the Detective suspects that's because of Her Highness impatiently tapping her foot outside the booth.
"Right, that's done, let's move." Her Highness says as soon as the Detective steps out of the booth. The woman has passed off her briefcase to someone, and is now free to gesture with her hand.
What she's seen of the bottom two floors are already impressive, but the top three are even more so. They're lavish not in the sense of a display, but a home. Plush couches, paintings beyond portraits and historical scenes, soft rugs, and all the delicate or personalized sorts of things one wouldn't want to put in a public space. The rooms below might have more expensive items, but the Detec- no, Amelia is more impressed by the simpler extravagances up above.
What catches her eye the most, however, is a portrait of Her Imperial Majesty on the fourth floor. It's not an expert drawing like all the others Amelia has seen. The line art is shaky, the coloring flat, the proportions inconsistent. The amateurish portrait is framed just the same as the expert paintings everywhere else. In fact, it has a rather prominent position compared to them, being the first thing you see coming up this stairwell.
Amelia is so busy staring at this peculiar portrait that her foot catches on the top stair and she falls forward. Her arms instinctively splay out in front of her to catch the fall and turn it into a roll.
She never gets the chance. She's stopped halfway down by something grabbing the back of her shirt and hauling her into the air. She dangles half a meter off the ground for a few seconds before getting her feet under her and being put back down.
"You're here for a job, Detective." Her Highness grumbles. "Focus."
She drops her gaze to the ground in mortification while following Her Highness up the last round of stairs. Bad enough she gets caught staring, but tripping and needing Her Highness to catch her is even worse. If it weren't for her time travel abilities there's no way Her Highness would want her around after this.
Her Highness leads her first to the meditation room. The room is mostly barren, consisting of a hardwood floor, a single chair in the corner, and coal-black walls with runes inscribed on them. Her Highness moves to the back corner, tugs aside a board, and extracts an unassuming black glove from beneath that she hands to the Detective.
"Here's the glove. Remember, the intruder got inside our room three days ago at seven minutes after noon." Her Highness says.
"Yes, Your Highness. I won't fail you."
"See that you don't. I'd hate to have to explain to Kiara that the 'super cute detective' she recommended got stabbed by my guards." Her Highness sighs and waves her off. "Now go, I'll move to the room."
The Detective nods, twists her watch back half an hour, and squeezes the button.
She'll be honest, she was expecting noise. She was expecting a blaring siren or flashing lights. She's half an hour in the past, no longer registered, but she neither hears nor sees any sign of the alarm. She's in the same meditation room, but minus Her Highness.
"I should probably move." She thinks, nudging open the door while slipping on the glove. She pauses in the hallway, hearing rhythmic pounding of increasing noise coming from down the hall. "That's from the main staircase I think. So let's not go that way."
A half an hour jump means three minutes of recharge. She needs to go back approximately seventy two hours, which means one hundred and forty four individual jumps (plus a few more as the three minute recharge timers will nudge her forward in time slightly every single jump if she jumps exactly half an hour).
That means around seven hours of running around for her, with a jump every three minutes. While that might sound terrible, the Detective has dealt with far worse before. If things get bad she always has her W potion for a boost.
(She's not sure if Her Highness truly understood what this involved for her. This isn't a quick jaunt to the past to shoot someone and then return a few minutes later. This is a lengthy process. Time travel takes, well, time. The watch cooldown is no joke.)
She gets to the stairwell Her Highness has led her up and leaps over the railing, landing neatly on the steps below, and pushes open the door in front of her. Her eyes catch on that strange picture again, but she doesn't have time to stop. She moves at a walking pace, seeing no reason to waste her energy running unless someone has actually caught sight of her.
More footsteps, coming from behind her. She takes the next corner, glancing down at her watch. One minute left.
The footsteps grow louder. They're running. The Detective keeps her focus on the watch.
Thirty seconds. Someone shouts behind her. She picks up her pace to a light jog and adjusts her watch.
Ten seconds. She catches drawn weapons out of the corner of her eye, and breaks into a short run.
Zero. She squeezes the button without looking at it, and suddenly there is no more shouting. The footsteps are gone for a few seconds before she can hear them start up from somewhere else on the floor.
She adjusts her watch again, nods to a very startled servant who must have seen her appear, and starts walking again.
Her watch is a strange piece of work. It appears to be a standard gold pocket watch for most purposes, but even casual observation will prove that to be incorrect. For one, it keeps track of time down to the second, but also up to the millennia. The interface is meticulously detailed with mostly clear clock hands so as to not obscure the layers below them, all centered around a blue gem that serves at the gear around which all the hands rotate. The watch has no less than eight individual knobs, four on each side, and each knob corresponds to a different clock hand which it manipulates. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries. Each has a hand and a knob. The button on the top triggers time travel, siphoning power from the mana gem to do so. The bottom button is a toggle that switches the watch from either keeping all hands in place, or allowing them to move forward with the passage of time. Double pressing the bottom button automatically adjusts the hands to the current time.
It's both an incredibly complex but very simple instrument. It takes time to learn to read the face, and which knob is which, but after those skills are acquired the watch is easy to use. Amelia learned to use it when she was ten, after all. It was time-consuming to use at first, but hardly difficult.
Now, the watch is second nature. She doesn't need to look to know which knob to twist, or how far to twist it to get the right result. She's even learned to use her thumb, and her pinky and ring fingers, to turn the dials so she can use the watch one-handed if need be. She can shoot with one hand and escape with the other.
The footsteps find her even more quickly. As the Detective runs, she reminds herself that the guards have been dealing with this for three days. This is actually going to get easier as she travels further back in time.
She tries to make a loop of the current floor, but the guards quickly cut her off. She ducks inside a room at random to buy herself the last few seconds she needs for the watch to recharge before making the next jump.
The room she finds herself in, now that she has a second to look at it, is a movie theater. She takes a second to marvel over the plush seats and look at the vacuum in the corner before guards burst through the door and she remembers that she's supposed to be running.
There's no other exit to the movie theater, so her exit is blocked off by five guards within moments. She nods, mentally admonishing herself for getting distracted. "Hello there. Is something the matter?"
"Hands up!" The guards bark. "You're under arrest for trespassing on royal property."
"I see, I see." The Detective says conversationally, raising her hands but not stopping her movement around the seats. "I-Is that the same or different from the charge of trespassing on private property?"
"You have the right to remain silent." Another guard, looking very ragged, snaps at her.
"Ah, alright." The Detective mutters, eyeing the guards. Rifles, huh? She wonders if they have standing orders to shoot her if she tries to escape. They've probably seen her disappear before their eyes multiple times. Poor guys might have been chasing her around for hours by now.
"Stop moving!" The lead soldier orders, and the Detective complies. It's been a minute and a half. She needs just a bit more time.
They approach slowly as she mentally counts down. She's not going to have time. She really hates to cause trouble for people just doing their job, but she has no choice.
She dives behind a chair, ignores the shouting behind her, and keeps low behind the furniture to avoid being shot. Someone runs down a row to cut off her path, and she picks up speed. She's not trying to pass them, no, the entrance is blocked. There's no point in that. She picks up speed so she can kick out and trip them, then kicks their weapon out of their hands when they scramble to get up.
"Shooting people isn't nice." She mutters. Her watch flashes, she mentally sighs in relief, and then squeezes the button.
This time, she doesn't stick around the movie theater. The hallways are safer. She runs and runs and runs as footsteps close in around her until she can squeeze the button again.
And again.
And again.
Over and over and over.
She spends a long time on that fourth floor, running in circles, doubling back, kicking open a door when she needs those last few seconds.
It's mind-numbing, but repetition is an old friend. It helps that every jump is a little easier. The guards don't respond quite as fast, they're less coordinated, and eventually start coming in smaller groups.
There are even some jumps where the guards never get to her in time, and she can leisurely stroll around the third and fourth floors uncontested. She startles a few servants here and there, but that's unavoidable. She can apologize later, probably, assuming Her Highness doesn't immediately kick her out once the mission is complete.
Time drags on in what feels like an endless loop. The only sense of progress the Detective has is the mental count in her head. She's barely looking at her watch each time she jumps.
At some point (jump eighty) she realizes it's night time. She absently wonders if Her Highness and Her Majesty have gotten much sleep over the three days she's been appearing in the palace. It must be awful being interrupted by an alert every half an hour.
She has paper in her pocket. Maybe she could write a note letting past-Highness know not to worry? Would that even work? Her Highness never mentioned a note, so she imagines not.
Instead, she apologizes to the next guard who finds her to assuage her guilt. He is very confused.
She needn't have bothered. At jump one hundred and twenty, a mere twenty jumps away from her goal, she gets intercepted. She twists her watch and jumps back in time, and starts on her usual walk. She wanders up the stairs to the fourth level, listening for guards nearby and hearing only a few. She jogs down a clear hallway, and turns the corner, and lays eyes on one of the most beautiful women she's seen in her life.
The woman is about the Detective's height (on the shorter side) with pale skin, closed eyes, and long purple hair that falls past her waist. Her hands are clasped tightly in front of her, and she wears a thin frown across a delicate face. Her outfit wouldn't be out of place among a high-ranking cultist, skimpy as it is, though the one long glove and stocking on the left side of her body is an interesting touch. The little flaps on her head are… cute… too…
Uh…
Without even thinking about the fact that she's probably about to be attacked, the Detective quickly drops to one knee. "Y-Y-Your Majesty!"
"Intruder." The Empress says curtly. Even through closed eyes, with her own aimed at the floor, the Detective can feel the disapproving stare leveled her way. "I see you are having great fun dragging my guards all over the palace. Were you not content with stealing my book? You must play the part of ghost as well? Haunting my home and stirring trouble?"
"That's not my intent, Majesty." The Detective says quickly. She gulps when she spies tentacles out of the corner of her eye, poised to grab her legs if she moves. "I'm going back in time to prevent the theft of your book, or at least gather information on the thief."
"A likely story."
"A true one!" She protests. "E-Even if you don't believe me now, you'll have your proof in two days!"
"Not if I stop you here." The threat in her voice is hardly subtle.
The Detective doesn't know what to say. She didn't have time to plan a run-in with the Empress herself. "Please, Your Majesty! There were two people in the room when your book was stolen. Myself, and the thief! The reports Her Highness showed me-"
"Do not bring my wife into this, intruder." Her Majesty warns.
"I-I-I'm telling the truth." She says in a whine.
"Prove it."
"I…"
How is she supposed to prove it? Her Highness didn't let her keep any of the reports, and it's not like she got told a secret. Nothing except-
"I have this!" She yelps, holding up the hand with a black glove over it. "From the future! Her Highness gave it to me directly! If you check your meditation room, your time's glove will still be there!"
A pause. There are footsteps behind the Detective that come to a stop mere meters away. She's not sure if Her Majesty stopped them or they halted of their own volition. The Detective holds her breath, clenching her watch tightly. She could jump right now, but she'd rather Her Majesty not hate her too much. This is already a horrible first impression.
"I do not trust you." Her Majesty responds bluntly. The Detective catches the nuance of that statement though. She didn't say she didn't believe her, just that she doesn't trust her.
"You don't have to." The Detective breathes. "I know the guards will still be chasing me for the next two days. I just lived through those. Just… don't lose any sleep over me being around, alright?"
"What?" Her Majesty asks in obvious confusion.
The Detective doesn't stick around to hear more. She squeezes the button, and soon she's in an empty hallway once more.
The next twenty or so jumps are painfully slow. Rather than counting up, she starts to count down towards the confrontation. Twenty left. Fifteen. Ten. Five.
She makes her way to the fifth floor.
Four.
She paces in front of the meditation room. The guards are too slow to react, and never reach her.
Three.
She checks her gun and her potions.
Two.
Deep breath.
One.
She's ready. She wraps her gloved hand around the handle and pushes into the bedroom. She finds the lectern and moves next to it. The book is going to be there.
Revolver in her right hand, watch in her left. She has to be quick. Another deep breath.
Zero.
As soon as she comes out of the jump, she adjusts the dials on her watch back to the time she left Her Highness. She checks the lectern next to her, noting the hardback black book lying there. It has an intricate design of an eye on the cover in purple embroidery.
(Despite supposedly being contained by the lectern, she can feel the book tugging at the corner of her mind, trying to draw her attention. She feels the irrational urge to touch it, but she's not that stupid. She's heard tales of foolish diplomates or nobles who tried to touch Her Majesty's book. The merely curious would flinch back, and sheepishly mention a minor headache when questioned. Those who would take the book's power in some fashion would instantly crumple to the floor, frothing at the mouth. Sometimes they would die, other times they would 'merely' be rendered insane.)
A noise in the hallway. Shouting. She levels her gun at the door.
But the thief doesn't come through the door. Something pointy juts through the wall and carves a hole. Not a physical hole. No, the Detective can see how the wall distorts around the hole; not torn, merely pushed aside. A small break in reality, creating space where there shouldn't be any.
She knows precisely one item that can accomplish such a feat, and that suspicion is confirmed a moment later when the thief steps through the tear with a reaper scythe in hand.
The Detective highly doubts the thief is a reaper themselves. Reapers are people as much as anyone else, with their own personalities, but precious few interfere with the mortal realm (and when they do, it's often in the form of killing or sparing someone they shouldn't, not theft). Beyond that, the thief is holding the scythe wrong, and even if the reaper had a newly-gotten body they would at least know the theory behind their preferred weapon.
"Halt!" The detective barks, drawing on confidence she only feels facing down criminals and monsters. She points her revolver at the cultist, and they freeze. "You've already gotten something that doesn't belong to you. I suggest you put the scythe down, put your hands in the air, and wait for the guards to come."
She knows full well that's not going to happen, but it's important to give them the option. The cultist wavers as the tear closes behind them, obviously not having expected someone to be here.
"Just put it down buddy."
The cultist huffs and raises their scythe. The Detective fires her revolver in response. She's aiming for a shoulder, and a shoulder she hits, but that doesn't stop the cultist. A string of harsh, unknowable, ear-grating words exit his mouth, and four thick tentacles sprout from his back. One of them grabs the scythe, and cuts in a wide arc.
Duck the swing, sidestep a vertical slice, jump back. The tentacles have a long reach, and the scythe only helps that. She fire another shot, but this one is blocked by a thick tentacle.
"I wasted my chance." She realizes. "I could have aimed to kill with the first shot, but I didn't, and now I'm paying for it."
Her Highness is going to be so disappointed in her.
And then, things get worse. One of the tentacles reaches for the book, and the Detective reacts on instinct. She lunges, eyes fixed on the book.
Something cold and sharp cleaves into her ribs and sends her smacking into the wall like a ragdoll. The lack of pain is concerning, but the fact that her soul wasn't torn from her body confirms this cultist isn't a reaper.
A tentacle snatches the book, and the Detective can feel the oppressive presence of the book magnify the instant it leaves the lectern. The cultist visibly flinches, and their tentacles freeze.
The Detective capitalizes on the moment of inattention. She grabs a potion off her belt and swallows the contents in three big gulps, and the surge of adrenaline gets her to her feet despite the blood dripping down her side. Her gun is gone, knocked from her hand when she was thrown, but she kept a death grip on her watch.
"The thief is secondary." She reminds herself as she uses the wall to support herself. The cultist is still frozen, staring at the book, but their tentacles are starting to move again. "Primary goal is the book."
That doesn't make her next move feel any less suicidal. She breaks into a run, and as the cultist breaks out of their shock and tries to wall her with two tentacles, she leaps up and uses one as a springboard to jump to the tentacle holding the book.
Her hand free hand grips the top of the book, and she squeezes the button on her watch.
She hovers in the air for a long second as the world distorts around her. The book is watching her, here in the time stream. It sends pins and needles down her arm and whispers in the back of her mind, but it doesn't kill her.
The jump completes, and physics take hold of her again. She slams into the floor, shoulder throbbing, while clutching the book to her chest. Her back finds something hard which stops her roll and bruises her spine.
When she looks up, Her Highness looks back, wide-eyed in surprise. With a shaky smile, she holds the book out to them (and winces at the blood splatter now adoring the back of the cover).
"I…" Her Highness blinks slowly. She then snaps out of her surprise, grabs the book, and then stomps out the door yelling. "SOMEONE GET A MEDIC HERE IMMEDIATELY!"
###
Amelia didn't know the palace had its own medical room. It's tucked in the back of the second floor just next to the rear courtyard. When you step in it looks like a school nurse's office, but there's a second room with some beds and a variety of implements stuffed into cupboards.
The room is a faint, calming blue color, though oddly enough the bed frames are a dull green. While the room might appear utilitarian compared to the rest of the palace, the Detective can recognize high-quality sheets and pillows, and the beds have been designed to look like hotel beds. It has open windows (tinted on the outside, Amelia suspects) and a takodachi in the back corner on top of some cupboards that lazily floats to Amelia's side table after the doctor is done with her and patiently accepts head pats (like a therapy dog, maybe?).
The room is trying very hard to be a hospital room without feeling like a hospital room. Amelia would make more detailed observations, but she still has W pumping through her body. It numbs any pain she would be feeling, which is nice, but since it functions as an adrenaline booster it leaves her jittery.
"I know it's only been twenty minutes, but why am I just being left here?" She wonders, petting the takodachi and listening to it coo back at her. Its whole body ripples with each light touch like it's made of jello. "Shouldn't I need stitches or something?"
The door to the medical wing opens, Amelia turns her head, and she suddenly forgets all about stitches because Her Majesty just walked through the door and now Amelia is praying to Baelz that she's not about to get thrown in the dungeon.
"G-Greetings, Your M-Majesty." She stammers, wide-eyed. This feels like the part where she begs for forgiveness. She can't bow while lying in a bed, so she inclines her head instead. "I'm so, so sorry about running around the palace and distracting your guards and getting blood on the carpet and touching your book and getting blood on your book and-"
Her Majesty holds up a hand, and Amelia strangles her own excuses before they can leave her throat. She knows she must look like a deer in headlights right now, but that's accurate to how she feels. She watches in apprehension as Her Majesty approaches her bedside, book floating above their left shoulder. They don't have their tentacles out, but Amelia has seen footage of the famous assassination attempt on TV, so she knows they can come out in a quarter of a second if Her Majesty needs them to.
The Empress moves right to Amelia's bedside until they're close enough that Amelia could touch them, sit down on a guest chair Amelia didn't see because it was too low to the floor, and reach out a hand towards Amelia's injury. She waits fearfully as Her Majesty undoes the bandage with a flick of her wrist, then hovers her hand over the hole in Amelia's side.
"Ha'lek no fes do'alla, mer do kerin, yarken'ika." Her Majesty recites softly. Spectral, thin, purple tentacles sprout from her fingers and dive into Amelia's injury. Despite the W in her body, she can feel a chill on her side as she watches in fascinated horror as the tentacles dive in and out of her skin like ghostly worms, knitting her organs, muscles, and skin back together. It's disturbing to look at, but very effective, and oddly painless. The throbbing ache she was feeling entirely disappears by the time Her Majesty has finished. "Were you otherwise injured, Detective?"
"N-No, Your Majesty. Thank you, Your Majesty."
"Good." Her Majesty nods, sitting back in their chair. The Empress calmly regards Amelia (or at least she assumes they do, their eyes are still closed) and folds her hands in her lap. "It would not do for me to leave the person who saved my book injured. That would make for poor thanks, not to mention give the Imperial family a bad reputation as an employer."
"I-I would never slander you like you."
"Even so, it is both a prudent and moral measure to take." Her Majesty says. "And that is not to forget that I already spoke ill to you once when you were in our employ."
"You didn't know-"
"I did not, and I will stand by the notion that I took no unreasonable steps, but now that I know I was incorrect it still falls to me to correct that rudeness." Her Majesty interrupts with a firm tone.
"Really, don't worry about it. Her Highness already said I could name my price." Amelia hurries to explain. "Besides, I haven't even finished the job yet."
Her Highness pauses. "You have not?"
"I didn't catch the thief." Amelia says. "Not only did they try to get your book, they have a reaper scythe. That's a big deal. I don't know how familiar you are with reapers-"
"Quite. The Mori is a close friend."
Calli knows these people too? Small world. "-but they have some crazy powers tied to their weapons. If the thief figures out how to use them properly they could do a lot more damage than portal through a few walls."
"That is a possibility, yes." Her Majesty acknowledges. "So you wish for us to keep you in our employ?"
"I'm going after him either way." Amelia admits. "It's just a matter of if you want me to keep you updated or not."
It occurs to her, after those words leave her mouth, that as Empress Her Majesty could demand information on the case regardless of if they're employing her or not, and that she really shouldn't suggest she might withhold information.
"We were planning on handing off your notes to our investigators." Her Majesty says after a moment of quiet. "However, if you are going to be looking into it anyway, we might as well keep you employed, no?" A more amused, maybe impish, smile crosses her face. It's very pretty, which is not a helpful thought right now. "And we can hardly argue with having a time traveler at our disposal."
Ah. She really needs to be more careful about what she gets herself into.
"I look forward to seeing your results in the future, Detective." Her Majesty says.
Amelia nods dumbly.
"Oh, and a question before I leave." Her Majesty says, standing up. Amelia sits straight, worried. "Three days ago you said not to lose any sleep over your presence. Why?"
"B-Because I thought with me setting off the alarm every half an hour you and Her Highness might be nervous." Amelia mumbles sheepishly, and looks down at her blankets. "I just wanted you to sleep well."
A pause. Long, awkward, judging. She can feel Her Majesty's gaze burning into-
"You are surprisingly sweet, Detective."
Amelia looks up in shock, but Her Majesty has already turned her back and begun walking away.
"Do try not to get torn up during your investigation. Gura was terribly upset, and now that I have properly spoken to you I share her concern. It seems the book's judgment was correct when it allowed you to grab it."
Her Majesty leaves, and Amelia flops back into her bed. Working for the imperial family, huh? She really has a knack for putting herself in dangerous situations, and this time she's surrounded by dangerously attractive, and immensely powerful, people.
She can only see this ending in her accidentally causing offense, but she can't back out now. She'll just have to hope the Detective can pull through.
Ended up writing a backstory/first meeting instead of the relationship dynamic I intended, so I guess I'm writing more than one chapter of this. Lucky for all of you, I'm going away on vacation soon, and when I don't have internet I tend to write a lot, so I might have a few new chapters for a few things when I come back.
