From the bridge of the Nike, Harry and Millie were using the large vessel's scanning array to monitor the local area via radar and radial thermal imaging respectively. Pansy was controlling the aerial scout (which could be launched from beneath a trapdoor concealed in the main deck), which was slowly circling a fifty mile radius. The scout had its adaptive camouflage activated, plus was fully shielded against every technological or magical means of detection known. The live action relay was coming through a third monitor screen, allowing Pansy to see everything in range of its cameras.
"There seems to be a blind spot on our sensors just off your screen, Pansy," Harry noted. "It is roughly headed south east from Iceland, which is where our kraken would have been heading from. Should we investigate further?"
"Negative, Harry," Millie replied. "I see a couple of vessels approaching."
"They are on radar too, Millie.
"Pansy, please send the scout to take a visual inspection of our intruders. Ginny love, please let Dan and Mary know that they might need to intercept them if they find themselves transported a few thousand miles south west in a matter of seconds."
Over at the secure communication array, Ginny relayed the message to the Gloria Scott. "Mary is poised to activate the EMP cannon at the first sign of any other modern vessel off Arendelle. The Jolly Roger is with them. Killian, Emma and their party can board once the Gloria Scott has used its high tech arsenal."
"Late eighteenth-century cannons can still pack a punch, love. I assume that is roughly Killian's era – or would that be when the book was first published? As Regina would say, it's complicated…
"If you can find any company logos or registration numbers, Pansy, we can ask our sleuth friends to research companies for us.
"Ginny, please speak to Rex about obtaining muggle press passes for Bess and Kate Pembroke, once he returns from Storybrooke. That would give them an excuse for asking questions. Perhaps you and Pansy could tag along, in case Lioness and Wrath are required? I don't think that the extra magical and physical muscle would be required, but it is always best to be prepared."
"Of course, darling! I am always up for beating up and/or hexing criminals! It's even more fun than the hot tub below decks!"
Pansy, meanwhile, had moved the cloaked scout to line up with the vessels. "Those ships seem to be commercial trawlers. Those harpoon launchers on the prow, however, suggest that they are after bigger fish than cod, haddock or herring.
"There's a weird logo and a company name on the side of the first trawler. I thought that penguins were only found in the Southern Hemisphere. K G Bird Fishing Company Incorporated…? What sort of a name is that?!"
"From what a certain friend in Gotham City has told me," Millie told her wife, "the Penguin often uses K G Bird as an alias. I guess that we had better let the Chief Grouch know!
"Both ships are skirting the edge of the possible… Great Hera! They just vanished into thin air!
"I'm recalling the scout, Harry." Pansy opened her bathrobe to reveal a skimpy bikini beneath. Ginny was doing likewise. "Once it is stowed away, Gin and I have a date with the hot tub."
"Amen to that, Pans!"
Mary pressed the control to fire the Gloria Scott's EMP cannon almost within a second of the two trawlers appearing out of thin air off the coast of Arendelle. Whilst all electronics on board the yacht were pulse-hardened, Dan confirmed from the scanning array that the communications equipment and GPS tracking on the new arrivals were inactive.
Both the Gloria Scott and, from outside of range of the EMP cannon, the Jolly Roger (for the benefit of Emma and Killian's mobiles, the ship itself lacking electronics) advanced upon the two trawlers. A machine-gun post at the back of one trawler spat into life. The armoured hull and bulletproof glass of the yacht was unaffected and the pirate ship was still out of range. At a push of a button from Mary, twin hatches in the foredeck of the former opened and machine-guns were raised through them. A second button was pressed and the guns burst into life, strafing the trawlers.
On the deck of the Jolly Roger, Killian gave the order for his crew to fire the cannons at the enemy vessels. "Prepare a boarding party, Mr Smee!" he added.
The crew of one of the trawlers attempted to manoeuvre their vessel to the aft of the Gloria Scott. Part of the aft of the yacht lowered to reveal the mine launchers. A tap of a further button from Mary sent a row of six mines sliding down into the sea. A couple of minutes later, the trawler hit two of the mines. It was blown to smithereens and lost with all hands.
Dan brought the Gloria Scott to bear on the remaining trawler. "Ready the torpedoes, Mary!"
"Aye-aye, my darling!" Twin torpedo tubes emerged from hatches in the Gloria Scott's prow. At that moment, the Jolly Roger pulled up alongside the trawler. Emma and Killian joined the boarding party, alongside a sword-twirling Mulan. It did not take long for the crew of the trawler, faced with guns and swords, to surrender and be taken into custody.
The kraken waved a delighted tentacle as the whalers were placed in the brig of the Jolly Roger, as twin torpedoes from the Gloria Scott sent the trawler to the bottom of the sea. The Battle of the Coast of Arendelle was over barely after it had started.
"Those trawlers seemed to vanish into thin air, boss."
Oswald Cobblepot gave a asthmatic wheeze that sounded like the squawk of an exotic bird over the video call from the Iceberg Lounge. "Ah well, that oversized cephalopod has escaped us, and taken two expensive ships with him. It is fortunate that the whaling business is proving most profitable. Penguins are born for icy waters, albeit in the other hemisphere.
"I take it that there has been no issues with our chiropteran friends? That would be the last thing that we need!"
"Chiropteran?!"
"The educational standards amongst my employees have fallen of late. Captain Fishfinger, chiropteran means pertaining to the bat family."
"Oh, them! Don't worry, boss. We are thousands of miles from Gotham City."
"You don't know the Batman and his associates! They can show up anywhere.
"Be vigilant, captain! Keep in touch. Penguin out!"
Anne and Catalina were meeting up with Rex, Louise and Zelena in Storybrooke Park. Harriet had come through the portal and was playing with Robyn. Spending time with some of her honorary Aunties was always a plus, particularly hearing their tales of Oz and the Tudor Court. Auntie 'Lina digging her elbow into Auntie Anne's side whenever their history was about to get either too gory or too sexually explicit was a particular highlight.
Both Pembrokes were enjoying their stay in the United Realms. Aladdin and Jasmine had taken them on a magic carpet ride over Agrabah, whilst Belle had shown off the library. Regina had shown her the Town Hall and especially her office as the Good Queen of the United Realms. Granny had treated them to a rabbit stew with dumplings for lunch. Dr Whale had shown off the hospital – and received a feisty slap from Anne when he had got attempted to get too touchy-feely with the couple.
Rex's mobile ringtone sounded. "Hi Dan! You and Mary are OK…? Yes, that's good… The survivors are in custody…? Thanks for letting us know. I'll tell Anne and Catalina… Bye!
"Anne, Catalina, two trawlers belonging to the whalers fell through the portal. The Gloria Scott and the Jolly Roger have destroyed both ships, capturing the crew of one. Dan, Mary and the crew of the Jolly Roger are unharmed.
"Zelena, the Jolly Roger shall be dropping off the captives in Storybrooke Harbour shortly. Queen Elsa is inviting us to a victory celebration in her ice palace tonight."
"Bloody hell! I can't stand pickled herring, my pretties. The sweet treats of Arendelle, however, are tasty."
"Don't worry, Zelena. The main course will be Swedish-style pork and beef meatballs with mashed potato, creamy mashed cauliflower and a creamy gravy sauce. Arendelle might be Norwegian in culture, but their chefs are branching out into cuisine of the rest of Scandinavia and the Baltic States. After that, will you and Robyn join us on the Balaska II, Zelena?"
"Oh, please do, Auntie Zelena!"
"Of course, my little flying monkey! I love spending time with you and your parents."
Bess Pembroke adjusted her bikini top. Q-Branch had issued her and her sisters with four bikinis each, with the tops containing secret compartments in the inner lining of each cup. The left cup held two tubes of plastic explosive and the right the detonators. The only drawback was that the zip fastenings were on the inside, meaning that you could not access the contents without removing the top. Bess agreed with Mary and Kate that it was better to preserve their lives than their modesty. Luckily, only Mary had needed the explosives so far, and only Dan and Zelena had got a free show. Modesty Blaise, for whom Willie Garvin had come up with the concept, liked to fight topless to distract her enemies, although Bess had no desire to do likewise.
Kate was next to her sister, donning one of Q-Branch's fur-lined wetsuits over her own bikini. Bess zipped her in, before reaching for her own wetsuit. Once she had put it on, Kate returned the favour.
The sisters were in the diving gear locker in the Bonaventure. After fixing their flippers, diving masks, diving chronometers and scuba equipment, they opened the door into the airlock chamber. After checking that the inner door was sealed shut, Bess pressed the buttons to depressurise and then flood the chamber. Once flooded, she opened the outside door, hidden in the prow of the vessel and she and Kate swam out into the clear icy waters below.
From the base of the hulking Nike, a concealed door opened and the minisub Poseidon emerged. With Jupiter Jones at the controls, Harry and Millie were taking a look below. "According to George," the latter noted, "the headquarters of the K G Bird Fishing Company Incorporated are on a small island nearby. Let's go and have a look!"
"Harry!" Hermione called over the loudspeakers. "Pansy, Ginny and Luna have press passes to visit the premises of the company tomorrow, with Bess and Kate along."
"Thanks, Hermione. The rest of us shall be on high alert.
"What are the kids up to?"
"James is taking on Ron at wizard chess, Lily, Hugo and Sirius are playing exploding snap, Daph and Pads are playing with Dora, Hope and Sachin and Rose, Albus and Scorpius are in the sauna with Trace. Parv is breastfeeding Anushka."
"Thanks again." Harry looked over at Jupiter. "Activate the adaptive camouflage and all jamming equipment please, Jupe. I'll do the same for the anti-magical detection runes. We need to get close to that headquarters now."
As Harry touched the runes inside the control cabin with his wand and cast the relevant spells, Millie grinned at Jupiter. "I bet that you never thought that you would find yourself dealing with genuine mages when you founded the Three Investigators."
"Well, the so-called covens that we encountered in that Singing Serpent business and that Magic Circle in Hollywood affair were non-magical. Like most detectives, I tend to assume that everything has a rational physical explanation until proven otherwise. As Dan's great-grandfather Sherlock would put it, "no ghosts need apply."
"Hearing Harry mutter things in Latin, however, makes me wonder how Pete and Bob put up with all those multi-syllable words that I keep using for some six decades now. I must have driven Bob's late mother to distraction with all those "Green Gate One at eight" and "Red Gate Rover at nine" messages that I kept leaving with her too."
"At the risk of exposing my ignorance, what the heck are Green Gate One and Red Gate Rover when they are at home?"
"My late Aunt and Uncle ran a salvage yard back at Rocky Beach. After my parents died, they raised me as their own. Whilst she was a marvellous woman, my aunt did believe that boys needed to be kept busy to stay out of mischief. I therefore needed to create four secret entrances in the elaborately painted fence surrounding the Jones Salvage Yard. One of these was two green-painted boards in the front fence, opened by pushing the eye of a fish watching a shipwreck. This was codenamed Green Gate One. Another was three boards in the back, held in place by a latch. There was a painted dog watching the Great San Francisco Fire of 1906. By plucking out the knot in the wood that formed his eye and reaching through the revealed knothole, you could open the latch from the outside. I dubbed the dog Rover, and the entrance Red Gate Rover.
"After I inherited the Jones Salvage Yard, I reopened the Gates with electronic locks that I can unlock by remote control. Kids can use the gates to their hearts content when the yard is open. I also set up a second version of our old trailer Headquarters with all the junk piled around it. The five secret entrances are all present and correct, as are the See-All periscope, the laboratory and dark room and all the furniture. Pete, Bob and I still test Emergency One and Easy Three ourselves sometimes, with Bob still just about able to squeeze through Tunnel Two and Door Four.
"The original trailer has an electronic combination lock on it now and is still our Headquarters to this day. Whilst I employ staff to handle the day-to-day operations of the yard itself, it and the nearby house that I also inherited from my aunt and uncle are and always will be my main homes."
Meanwhile Bess had spotted a fishing boat nearby, heading away from the island on which the fishing company was based. She swam up to the prow of the ship, where she ran a finger across the bottom of the front casing of her diving chronometer. A panel opened to reveal three buttons, of which she pressed the one on the right. The dial opened to reveal an underwater GPS homing device, which she removed from its compartment and attached to the prow. Having closed the homer's compartment, she then pressed the middle button and the dial display showed a GPS tracking screen, with a flashing dot showing that the homer was working. She swam back down to join Kate. They then swam back to where the Bonaventure was waiting.
From the cockpit of the Poseidon, Harry, Millie and Jupiter examined the fishing company's docks from underwater. "Fellows, that aperture in the fascia of the main dock looks like a not fully sealed underwater door.
"According to the plans that Jigger and Velma were able to trace online, the factory has three large industrial freezers and a processing and canning plan, but nothing behind that dock."
"Those sound about right for a fish processing plant. Is there anything that suggests that whaling is going on?"
"We need to have a look behind those doors, Harry." Millie then used the telepathic link that she shared with Pansy, Harry, Ginny, Wednesday, Daphne, Tracey, Parvati, Padma, Ron and Hermione as the chosen Coven of Lady Hecate herself. Pans darling, Gin, try to get a look down there tomorrow.
We will, Millie love! Now come back, so we can take a portal to the Kilns for a quick workout.
Millie and Pansy had been gifted a small island about ten miles from Themyscira by the Six Goddesses of the Amazons. The Temple had been sanctified by Queen Hera and Lady Hestia personally, with the latter stopping by occasionally to tend the Eternal Flame herself. Lady Hecate had placed the wards around the island herself. Potter Island (Ginny, Millie and Pansy had overruled Harry's objections) was also where Harry had built a small manor house with a wing for Daphne, Tracey and Dora. James had dubbed the former the Kilns and the latter the Meadows, as puns on Potter and Greengrass respectively.
Having arrived back at the Kilns, Millie, Pansy, Ginny, Daphne, Astoria, Tracey, Parvati and Padma spun rapidly to the right. After the usual vortexes, flashes of light and thunderclaps, they were all clad in black armour decorated with alchemical and astrological symbols over their torsos and flanks, with a short skirts attached. They also wore knee-length high-heeled boots, large golden bracelets from their wrists almost to their elbows and golden tiaras with Caduceus symbols to match the Caduceus wands in the holsters on their golden belts. Also hanging from their belts were lassos and large broadswords in scabbards, whilst bronzed hoplon shields were slung across their backs. Grace's armour had been magically altered to reflect her figure still showing the signs of having recently given birth. She merely did a few stretching exercises, rather than the full running, jumping and sparring of her sister Furies.
After the Furies' workout had finished, the adult Potters went for a quick skyclad swim together, whilst the Malfoys and Weasleys led the children and teenagers back through the portal to the Nike. Ginny and Pansy discussed the plans for the following day. "Snooping around the premises should be fun, Gin"
"Amen to that, Pans, particularly if I get to turn into Lioness to thump a few bad guys!" Lioness and Warrior were known to be the most combative Furies after Wonder Witch herself.
"Hopefully it won't come to that, Gin. We are supposed to be discrete! Those mobiles and smart watches that girls have should allow us to sniff out what that cagey bird is up to?"
"You say that you have had a request by three journalists and two trainees of theirs from Britain," the Penguin said over the Skype connection. "Who are the three older ones please? I need to know if any of them might be a Bat in disguise!" That squawking wheeze came from his lungs, not helped by the Cuban cigar that he was smoking.
"They are Mrs Ginny Potter, Mrs Pansy Potter and Mrs Luna Scamander, boss, writing on behalf of The Clarion. I can't find any reference to them anywhere! The paper exists, but is known for investigative journalism, rather than pieces on the fish industry."
"Yes, I have had numerous British front organisations exposed by that particular irksome publication. I want those journalists captured and interrogated, under whatever conditions you think necessary."
"That was a fun banquet in Arendelle," Rex noted, back on board the Balaska II.
"Are you ready for your assignment tomorrow, Luna? Richard got those passes through in time." The editor of The Clarion was a member of the Lone Piners, the group of former young sleuths that Jon and Penny Warrender also belonged to. He had quickly agreed to get passes and invites issued for the three witches and two resurrected Tudors.
"Of course he would, Rex!" Penny beamed, her grey eyes sparkling with sheer delight. "All Lone Piners are sworn to…"
"Always be true to each other whatever happens!" chorused Rex, Louise, Rolf, Luna and Zelena. That particular rule of the Lone Piners had become the catchphrase of the Former Young Adventurers. If you took on one, you took on the entire community home and abroad.
Luna smiled. "Aye, Captain. We are all shipshape and Bristol fashion for tomorrow. Them scurvy landlubbers will be walking the plank ere sundown!"
"Please just stop with the pirate talk, Luna!"
"You are no fun today, Rex! I am merely trying to fit in with the nautical environment.
"As for tomorrow, what could possibly go wrong…?"