Here we go the first chapter, enjoy as our heroes plan how to find Scarecrow.
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this.
The Dark Among Us Ep3 An Inquisitive Mile Chapter 1
Regrouping to Plan
We come to a while later at the business officer, Blaze was looking over the broken pieces of the Magic Mirror with Pit who was sorting through them. Meanwhile Mephiles was getting his shoulder patched up by an old woman in a white shirt and blue dress skirt with white hair and some glasses, she was Granny the Fictions leading medical professional.
Helping her were a black and white cat with a red nose and a yellow canary, her pets Sylvester and Tweety who back in the old days were enemies but have sort of settled down outside the occasional havoc.
"I did as well as I could to take out the buckshot, but there still some shards left embedded in your shoulder." Granny said to Mephiles as she has Sylvestor back back up her tools. "They'll eventually worm their way out on their own, but…until they do, you're gonna be sore."
"Suffering Succotash, makes me glad we're from the Toontown side of the Homelands." Sylvester said to Tweety.
"Yeah puddy tat, we don't have to worry too much about that kind of damage." Tweety said nodding.
"Quiet you two." Mephiles said annoyed.
"Mephiles, Granny was appointed Fictiontown physician for a reason." Blaze said to him.
"It's okay, there's only one thing you have to take away from all this: take it easy." Granny said smiling. Mephiles takes a breath and stands straight and adjusts his bandaged shoulder arm "Don't go looking for any more fights. Keep strain off your heart. And try and get some rest."
"Yeah, I can see the bags under your eyes." Tweety said nodding.
"Well can hardly blame him, this whole case can't be easy to sleep with on the mind." Sylvester said and Tweety nods.
"How's everyone else? They all make it?" Mephiles asked concerned about Contessa and Red Hood.
"They're fine." Granny said smiling "I had everyone that got wounded sent home. Contessa refused to let me see where she lived, so I left her and Red Hood back at her bar with a dose of juniper and spring water." She sees the concerned look on Mephiles' face "They're beast kind, Mephiles. They'll be fine. Just remember what I said. The stitches won't hold up if you continue to act…"
"Like a bad old demon being." Tweety said flying up.
"I would say like he normally does but yes" Granny said nodding as the three begin to leave "Everything in monderation. Oh and eat more chicken. I know you're a god like being but your blood pressures through the proverbial roof."
"I'll try to Granny." Mephiles said nodding.
"Alright then. Very good." Granny said smiling.
Just then the phone rings and Blaze answers it "Business Office. I know, I'll have to call you back." She puts the phone down and said to Mephiles "The town is starting to find out…"
"Well, I'll leave you two to it, then." Granny said nodding "Blaze, Mephiles." She and her pets leave.
There was an awkward silence for a bit and Blaze said "So…to recap…"
Mephiles uses his dark power to conceal his bandages and said "Scarecrow watched me through the Magic Mirror uncover his room at the Open Arms. Then he smashed it so we couldn't use it ourselves to go after him. And we know this because Pit was drinking in the rafters. That about cover it?"
"Once he puts all the pieces back together…it'll be easy to catch Jonathan Crane." Blaze said nodding. "So….I guess that's the plan. Currently. But, I don't know…"
"There's no other leads? This is it? Just wait for the mirror." Mephiles asked her in disbelief.
"Yeah." Blaze said sighing "What in Chaos is going on? Just…I don't know what the Paradox Brothers get out of this. I…I don't know if Scarecrow sent them, I don't know if…I mean, this is going to sound crazy, but…Do you really thing Crane did it? Everything points to him, I get it, but…Do you real thing he killed those woman in a way that did utilize fear toxin? Because it's just…It's incomprehensible to me."
"I'm as confused as you are to be honest. I don't know…" Mephiles said, now he had time to think, while Jonathan Crane as the Scarecrow is a villain, chopping off people's head is how of his usual MO on how he does it but like Blaze said everything pointed to him. "It just doesn't make sense."
"He's…he was a conniver, a…a sociaopath, a liar. And I'll always hate him for that." Blaze said firmly nodding "And I'll hate him for how he…. held me in his thoughts. But murdering prostitutes in that way…"
"Ow!" Pit lets out as he held his finger.
"Everything okay over there?" Blaze asked him.
"Yes, Miss. Blaze! Just cut myself on a piece of the glass. Nothing to worry about!" Pit said smiling.
"Thanks for tonight, by the way." Blaze said looking at Mephiles. "That could have gone really terribly…I mean, even worse than it did. I'm glad you were there."
"I just feel bad for Contessa, really." Mephiles said sadly.
"Yeah…" Blaze said nodding sadly "Time heals everything, eventually. At least, I hope so…for her sake. Can I, uh, ask you a question?" She walks up to Mephiles "It's kind of personal…And I don't want to offend you. But after tonight…it's on my mind."
"Why? What's on your mind?" Mephiles asked her.
"It's just…when stuff hits the fan…like…like it did tonight…It feels like before we came to the city. It feels kind of like home." Blaze said looking away before looking back at Mephiles "And I've heard it said…that maybe…in some tiny little, bottled up way, deep inside…you kind of enjoy it…when things go wrong. Because it gives you an excuse to…just, you know…stop pretending?"
"Why even bring this up?" Mephiles asked her looking serious.
"I guess it doesn't matter." Blaze said to that.
"Uh, guys?" Pit called out to the two concerned "We have a problem."
"What is it?" Blaze asked as the two approach him
"I can't finish the mirror. It's missing a piece." Pit said showing the two the semi-reassembled mirror but missing a piece.
"What do you mean…. missing a piece?" Blaze asked him.
"Yes it's, uh…it's not here." Pit said looking down.
"Scarecrow must have taken a shard with him." Mephiles said annoyed that he just thought that Crane would do that as insurance.
"I can't believe this." Blaze said annoyed as well.
"I saw Crane picks something up after he smashed it. I'm sorry…I didn't realize what it was until now." Pit explained to them.
"The mirror can't work unless it's whole." Blaze said devastated.
"Well, that's not entirely true…" Pit said with a smile
"Or what, Pit? We sit around and wait until it mends itself?" Blaze asked in disbelief "We have no idea how long that will take. We're just going to have to do this the hard way."
"I'm just saying, waiting is an option…" Pit tells them both.
"No…" Blaze said firmly "We can't depend on the mirror."
"Alright, how long will it take for the mirror to reform?" Mephiles asked Pit curious.
"It could take days…" Pit began to explain
"Or months or years" Blaze added "He had to have left something that tells us where he's going. He's a bit of a neat freak but while he was smart he often overlooked things in desperate situations."
"He was a least smart enough to take a piece of the mirror…" Pit points out. "We can still solve this ourselves…I know that it…"
"Nevermind that, come help me look." Blaze said interrupting Pit.
Mephiles nods and before going to help hows to Pit. The angel boy sees him and said "Hey Mephiles…I can still help you catch Crane, you know…"
"Oh yeah?" Mephiles asked him.
"Yes!" Pit said nodding "I saw him jump on the telephone before he left. He called up somebody. He said he needed to see 'his witch', or that he would need to get to 'the witch for that'…whoever that is."
"His witch?" Mephiles said to that thinking.
"Yes, it sounded like the one he got his 'Blaze' glamours from." Pit said nodding.
"Mm." Mephiles said nodding "You didn't see anything else, did you?"
"No, not, uh, not especially." Pit said thinking.
"Look…the whole mirror thing. It's not your fault, alright?" Mephiles told him.
"You mean it?" Pit asked with a smile.
"Yeah." Mephiles said nodding with a smile, Pit means well, sure he makes mistakes but he is always helpful.
"I'll just…see if I can do anything about this." Pit said getting back to the mirror.
"You do that." Mephiles said as he goes to help Blaze and tells her "Pit says that he overheard Crane call somebody before he left. It sounds like he's going to see a witch, or…'his witch.' His glamour witch."
"Wait, really?" Blaze asked him "None of the 13th Floor witches would allow that sort of thing. They must be somewhere in the city. It's something at least."
"Find anything?" Mephiles asked her.
"No, but there's enough notes and stuff here to take all night." Blaze said sighing and points to some stuff "Maybe check that stuff there?"
Mephiles checks and sees some letters the first was from Bowser talking about how Crane promised to fix some things around his building but hasn't done so yet, the second was from Krillin a good friend of his complaining to Crane about how the air conditioning is still not fixed and the last one was from Wheeljack, a Fiction who is in charge of watching over the Farm where the fictions who can't blend in go, he was asking Crane for updates on the extra funding to help the Farm feel less like a punishment and settle down some unrest on it.
"Did Crane ever do any work?" Mephiles asked Blaze shaking his head in disbelief.
"Only when Optimus was around…" Blaze told him. Mephiles looks at some mail shelves and pulls out a familiar looking key from it but the tag read Room 207 "What is it?"
"It's the key to that room at the Open Arms." Mephiles tells her.
"You still haven't told me what was in there…" Blaze said a bit nervous. "I want to know. I need to know."
"Crane was, uh…paying Muffet to live out a fantasy. Oh him and you. Together." Mephiles said sadly. "Forgive me if I spare you the details."
"I keep thinking back…I keep…replaying moments in my head, interactions with him, when he'd catch me in the elevator, or…bump into me outside." Blaze said in shock "There's only so much you can repress, you know?"
"Blaze…you couldn't have known." Mephiles said to her "Even for us Fictions a romance or even attraction between two different race species is rare."
"No. I could've." Blaze said to that. She takes a deep breath and said "Come on, let's keep looking."
Mephiles goes to open the desk draw but it was locked, Blaze gives a nod and he uses his strength to forcibly pull it open to reveal a book titled 'The Office of business Affairs Official Compendium of Authorized Articles.
Mephiles opens it up to see it is a book on magical artifacts and comes to a clearly torn out page and said to Blaze "There's a page that was torn out."
"Oh yeah?" Blaze said and looks at it the only part of the page left was a bit of the title 'The Ring of…' "Pit? Do you know what was here?"
Pit comes over and looks and said "It's a ring, at least. Every magical item not retained in the armoury is assigned to someone in Fictiontown. It must be the witch he's going to see…"
"Yeah, I only recently heard about this meeting." Blaze said looking at Pit firmly "Why didn't you mention this before?"
"No one asked me!" Pit said to them.
"Pit!" Blaze said annoued.
"Also, I'm hungover, I'm sorry!" Pit added "He set the meeting at 2:00 AM. Tonight."
Just then the door slams shut and the three see an angry Ganondorf walking in asking "What's going on? Is the mirror fixed yet?"
"Ganondorf, this isn't the time." Blaze told him.
"Is the mirror fixed, or isn't it?" Ganondorf asked her "You called me to…"
"I called just to see if you knew where Crane would be, and that was it, okay? And I'm sorry I said anything more than that." Blaze said to him.
"Well, you did and I know." Ganondorf told her "The cat's out of the bag. So can we find the fear obsessed pervert or not?"
"I tried to but…" Pit began to say.
"This isn't your concern." Blaze told Ganondorf.
"No. It can't be fixed. It's missing a piece." Mephiles said annoyed.
"This is none of Ganondorf's business, Mephiles." Blaze told him.
"None of my business?" Ganondorf said insulted "Scarecrow's the murderer, he's escaped, it seems he's foiled your every attempt at locating him, and now it's none of my business?"
"We don't know if he's the murderer." Blaze told Ganondorf.
"Oh, please, of course he is." Ganondorf said to that.
"Look, this just isn't the time." Blaze said to that "He took a piece of the mirror, so we can't use it."
"The only thing we know is that Crane's going to see a witch at two o'clock." Pit said nodding. He then sees Mephiles and Blaze glare at him and realizes he shouldn't have said that.
"AM or PM?" Ganondorf asked Pit smirking.
"AM." Pit said looking down sad.
"Listen, Ganondorf, you're not a part of this." Blaze said to him.
"I don't think you're in any position to turn away help." Ganondorf told her.
"Define 'help'?" Blaze asked
"What do you know about Scarecrow anyway?" Mephiles asked Ganondorf.
"That he has the stones to kill prostitutes, like any common, sex frightened serial killer, and not face a real challenge." Ganondorf just said to that.
"Look, we know that Crane is going to see a witch, and it's to acquire a magic ring." Blaze said going back to the book.
"What's the ring?" Ganondorf asked.
"We don't know what it does or who it's assigned to since Crane tore it's page out of the book." Blaze explained.
"This farce was your ridiculous idea for a plan." Ganondorf said annoyed and goes to leave "I mean, who put you in charge in the first place?"
"Fixing the mirror was the most logical thing!" Blaze yelled at him.
Ganondorf stops and turns to them and said "You're a secretary, he's the Sheriff and none of you were chosen to run this office. Who elected you to make these decisions?"
"Nobody but that doesn't…" Blaze said to that till Ganondorf cut her off
"Who elected her to spend my money?" Ganondorf asked Mephiles.
"Well, I've been doing that unofficially for years now." Blaze told him.
"'Unofficially' is not 'officially.'" Ganondorf told her.
"Blaze can obviously handle this so let's drop it." Mephiles said to Ganondorf. Blaze smiles at that
"Well then…excuse me for having the commonwealth in mind." Ganondorf said annoyed
Blaze looks at the broken Magic Mirror and sighs saying "Alright, let's just look on the bright side. We know Crane is going to see the witch that's been supplying him black market glamours."
"Thanks to me." Pit said proudly.
"…And that he'll be there at two. So that gives us…" Blaze said and checks the time "…A few short hours to find out who it is and where they live and get them all at once."
"And a few shorter hours the more you babble about it." Ganondorf said annoyed.
"We haven't been the ones 'babbling.'" Blaze told him.
"Yeah, yeah, just point me in the direction you want me to check first." Mephiles said done with this arguing.
"Since Muffet used the glamours, she'd have known who the witch was…and I don't think Contessa's burned her things yet." Blaze said to him. "It would probably have the address or a phone number or something…"
"And Mephiles is free to go there if he likes, but I think the question you should be asking is just what do the Paradox Brothers know about this?" Ganondorf asked her.
"It doesn't matter what they know. After tonight, they'd never go to their office." Blaze said to that.
"They're not smart enough to go anywhere else…" Ganondorf states.
"The Spider's Next is the better option to track the witch down." Blaze said firmly. "That has to be our focus."
"Look, chances are I'll have to swing by both anyway so…" Mephiles said to them.
"No, chances are you won't have the time." Blaze said to him.
"I don't really care what you two do, I'm going to his apartment." Ganondorf said as he goes to leave.
"What?" Blaze said shocked "You can't just go up there."
"And why the Tartarus not?" Ganondorf asked her.
"We already looked for the key, remember? I don't know where it is." Blaze told him.
"Then I'll pick the blasted lock!" Ganondorf said annoyed "I've wasted enough time waiting for the mirror to find him. I won't waste anymore."
"You just can't go up there alone, alright?" Blaze said.
"I've no interest in nicking his drapes, my dear cat, if that's what concerns you." Ganondorf told her.
"What concerns me is you traipsing through possible evidence." Blaze said to that.
"Oh, not it's evidence." Ganondorf said to that "Before you had no interest and now it's a crime scene!"
"Ganondorf, you're not going anywhere." Mephiles said to him firmly.
"Really now! And what, you're going to stand here and babysit me while the rest of your 'leads' evaporate into mist?" Ganondorf asked him.
"We have to find the witch, Ganondorf, since that's where he's going." Blaze told him.
"Or that snivelling so-called doctor chickened out, never went anywhere, and is upstairs right now in his pitiful penthouse with a fort of couch cushions and armed with hastily made fear toxin!" Ganondorf said pacing. "Look, this is how a smart person would do it, so this is how we're going to do it…" He looks to Mephiles "Wherever you go, I'll go to the other."
"I don't like you going anywhere unsupervised." Blaze said to that. She then turns to face away from Ganondorf and whispers to Mephiles "He's up to something, I don't know what it is, but we don't have the time to really worry about it now. Where are you going to go Mephiles?"
Mephiles walks away to think the three locations he can go to are The Spider's Nest, The Paradox Brother's office or Crane's Apartment. He thinks on it and said "Para and Dox must know where he is. I should go their office first."
"Perfect. And I'll go to Crane's apartment." Ganondorf said nodding he begins heading out.
"I'll look up their address." Blaze said sighing. "I hope you know what you're doing."
Mephiles nods he hopes so too but now the race is on to find the witch before they lose their chance.
Well time to find a witch, hopefully Mephiles can find them in time.
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