Mystery fanfic #1
PHANTOM I BREAK MY TUMBLR BAN FOR YOU because its Phantom Saturday! Many thanks to Shishou, Iris and my irl friend Acaia. Okay enough said on to the fic. (P.S. Yes female evan is in this I call her Evian like the mineral water brand)
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#1 (day 0 – evening)
The brown-haired boy stared in disbelief at the man standing opposite him, grinning as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
“T-this isn’t true right, mister-” the boy stuttered.
“Silence. I’m not done explaining myself.” The man said.
“B-but why-”
The sharp edge of the man’s weapon rested calmly on the boy’s collarbone.
“I said, silence.” The man commanded.
The boy whimpered slightly but gave no other protest.
“So meddlesome aren’t you? If only you had listened to me like a good boy and not gone around digging into other people’s business, then it would have all been fine. I’d finally gain control over the onyx dragons, or at least the last of them. I would have been able to laugh at that fool Freud and prove to him all he had done was futile.” The man sighed.
The man leaned forward and grabbed the boy by the chin, blade still remaining in place.
“But you had to be disobedient. Now everything’s ruined and I guess I’ll have to remove the onyx dragons from my beautiful plan. I guess those glittering blue scales beside me would be nothing but a dream.”
“D-don’t- I-I- But why?! I thought you wanted to fight the Black Mage because-”
The blade sunk slightly into the boy’s skin and he gulped, falling quiet.
“Phish. All but little schemes and lies I made up of course my boy. Quite funny how everyone lapped them up like kittens. I have to say, I’m a very good planner aren’t I? But as they say self-praise is no praise so, won’t you agree that I’m brilliant?”
“Y-y-you…are…cruel.” the boy barely managed to force out the words.
The man stroked the boy’s face tenderly.
“That was your last chance. I guess you’re just like Freud then, not just in appearance. Which also means…you’re of no use to me any longer.” He said, nearly sorrowfully.
The boy opened his mouth to protest, but all that escaped was a pained gasp. Then a muffled cry of pain. A strained choking noise. Sputtering. The boy found himself losing the ability to produce any further noises, and then lost his ability to stay conscious. Soon after, he lost his ability to ever awaken again.
The man, still grinning like a maniac, continued stabbing the limp body in his arms for a bit before deciding he was satisfied. He quickly confiscated the boy’s wand. He then let the body drop to the floor, draped his bloodied cloak over it and drenched the whole mass with liquid. He then lit a match, disappearing right after he dropped it. The red tongues of flame burst up, hungrily devouring the meal offered for it. By the time anyone got to the scene, all that was left to tell the story were black shreds of carbon lying were the body and cloak used to be.
—–
(Day 0 – evening/night)
“What…what is this?” Brighton muttered to himself.
He approached the pile of ash carefully, as if afraid it’d burst back into flames. The cinders were still glowing, reminding him of that tall column of flame from a moment back. The flames caught his attention on his way back into Edelstein, and he had headed back out to check things out, only to be confronted with this mysterious pile of ash.
He scrutinised it. It was so thoroughly burned he had no idea what had been burnt there. Indeed he did take quite some time to get here but seeing how complete the combustion was, there was definitely the aid of something here. Fire magic? Chemicals? Some kind of substance that supports combustion? He didn’t know…and probably would never know. He quickly cast some light at the tip of his staff, moving it gradually over the ash to search for any items among it, using his boot to knock down areas with larger piles of ash. He grimaced at the thought of having to clean his boot. He never liked cleaning. A while more of searching produced a glint of gold, and he gingerly reached down to pick up the object. Using his free hand, he took out a spare piece of cloth on him and wiped the object clean. It was a single gold earring, glinting softly in the light of his staff. He groaned. How much help was this going to be? He was nowhere closer to finding out anything about this pile of ash.
“Over here I swore there were flames!” A voice exclaimed.
Brighton quickly extinguished his light. Black wings?
“Oh right let’s head there.” Another voice said.
Beams of light trailed into sight as two dark figures came into view. It was time to leave. The area had little to offer in terms of cover, so leaving was the only choice. He decided that he’d head back later on.
The two figures entered the area.
“I can’t see a thing mind giving some light, Acaia?” The first said.
“Oh right. I forgot I could do that.” The second replied.
Acaia took out her staff and soon lighted up her surrounding area. Her partner, a teenage boy, raised an eyebrow at the ash.
“A pile of ash. Seriously. That’s all we find. I thought it was something more.” The teenage boy said.
“Cal…don’t tell me we ran out here for nothing.” Acaia said.
“Well I guess we could report this back to headquarters, I mean its weird to find a pile of ash in the middle of nowhere right.” Cal said.
“Let me take a picture as evidence. Oh, and we can ask old Brighton to clean it up later haha, since he seems to like cleaning so much.” Acaia joked.
“Hey, he’s your instructor you shouldn’t badmouth him you know.” Cal said.
“Even so, he really does looks old. I can’t believe he’s the same age as Belle, she looks so much younger.” Acaia replied.
“Oh well, see you back in Edelstein.” Cal said, opening a return scroll.
Acaia shrugged and used her own return scroll.
—–
(Day 0 – night)
Spinning her chair 180 degrees, claudine turned to face Brighton.
“Brighton, what took you so long? There weren’t any complications, I hope.” Claudine asked.
“No, just took a slight detour and had some trouble getting into the base. Black wings were taking their own sweet time talking before the entrance.” Brighton said.
“Oh, did you hear? Two of our students reported finding some suspicious pile of ash.” Belle said from her corner while combing Black Jack’s coat.
“Oh that. That’s what I took the detour for. Saw some flames up in the distance and headed over. Found that pile of ash, and this with it.” Brighton said.
He pulled out the single gold earring he had found, placing it down on Claudine’s table.
“Oooh what’s that.” Belle said, moving over to look.
“A gold earring I found in the ash.” Brighton said.
Belle gave him a look that spelled ‘obviously’.
“i guess we should send this to Checky and ask him to analyse it?” Belle asked.
“Well yes of course, as long as he isn’t busy. Else send it by Aidan…unless he’s busy too. If so…put it on hold.” Claudine said.
“…I see. And by on hold I assume I can keep it till Checky and Aidan can analyse it?” Belle asked.
“Yes. Please get a bag to put it in though, else you lose it.” Claudine agreed.
Strange how it wound up with Belle. Not that Brighton minded though, less things to hold onto.
“Alright, be right back.” Belle said as she headed off to the mechanic’s workshop.
Turning her attention to Brighton, Claudine then asked.
“How was the mission?”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get much. There was nothing there this time. Guess we were a step behind.” Brighton replied.
“Hmmm, alright then. We’ll have to act much faster next time we get any information…though recently our missions have all been ending in failure it’s as if they know our plans already.” Claudine sighed.
“…a traitor in our midst?” Brighton suggested.
“As much as I hate to admit but, yes, that’s a possibility. But for now there’s no point jumping to conclusions. We’ll just see how things go and if that possibility becomes more of a reality then…we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” She said.
“I guess that’s all we can do for now.” He agreed.
“I’ll be wrapping up for the day, I promised Ulrika I’d be home before her bedtime. Mind helping me wrap up the remaining loose ends down here?” Claudine asked.
“No problem.” He replied.
—–
(Day 0 – night)
Evian paced back and forth. Where was Evan? It was late in the night and though he said he’d be late, she didn’t expect him to be this late. He had promised to train with her tonight… Next to her, Ruby shifted her position again, eyeing her master’s frantic pacing with similar anxiety in her heart.
Evian took out her phone. Not that she thought it’d help, but it never hurt to try. She called Evan and frowned as the voice message came back at her yet again. She didn’t know whether to be angry, worried, irritated, fearful…Evan had simply left and told her he had something urgent on, leaving only a text promising to make up tonight. And that was two days ago.
She sat down on the floor, tired of pacing. This was getting on her nerves. Her brother had first disappeared one day when she just happened to have woken up earlier and gone off to do some chores at the marketplace. She was so frustrated when he had left. Her twin brother she had always been with, just disappeared! Without even leaving a word! Quite some time later, she had met Ruby and became a dragon master and was off running around doing things for Ruby when suddenly her brother reappeared with a huge dragon next to him. Before she could so much as scold him, he had started fussing over the Black Wings and told her stuff like how they were evil. Well he did tell her why he left without ever returning so she forgave him for that. Just when she thought she had reunited with her brother, he joined some alliance thing without her and became extremely busy afterwards. Well, she didn’t hold it against him for joining the alliance alone, she was still too inexperienced as compared to him, but couldn’t he spare some time to visit her? Instead she was stuck training on her own while trying to hide from those Black Wings, who she found out were evil after all. She was trying to catch up with her brother, but his headstart proved to be too great. Of course that irritated her but she couldn’t do anything about it.
Then recently, he started pulling his disappearing act all over again, sometimes postponing appointments with her for mysterious ‘urgent matters’. He said it didn’t have to do with the alliance but refused to tell her anyway. Usually he’d come by later and apologise but this time round, it was just ludicrous. Two days? What kind of brother was he, just ignoring her for two days? She tried every way possible to get in contact with him, but it was as if he was hiding from her. Did he have some guilty conscience to hide? Well, whatever it was, she was getting irritated…and worried.
She stood up with a start. That was it. She had agreed not to meet anyone in the alliance for Evan had said it was for her own good, but she could take it no longer. She was going to find him and drag him out if she needed to. She considered her choices. The resistance was pretty far. The cygnus knights had some ‘no outsiders allowed’ policy. The other heroes were often on the move according to Evan, but often returned to a certain place each. Well, she was going to put her bet on Elluel. Evan had pointed her to the place before and it seemed quite pretty…and considering her possibly long wait that’d be good. Luminous and Aran both had less favourable places, one in the forest and the other in the cold. The Lumiere was impossible to find.
“Ruby, we’re headed to Elluel.” Evian announced.
—–
(Day 1 – morning)
Mercedes stared at the girl, trying her best to keep her calm facade. She had no idea how to react. Evan was bad enough. Now…another? Freud had two successors? There were two eggs? Or did Evan turn into a girl? But the dragon is different…
She kept up her mask as thoughts kept stabbing her like knives. The memories of Freud hurt. It had taken her so long to get herself used to the fact that the dragon master was now Evan and no longer Freud and to get her mind to stop associating the two as one. Just when she thought she’d finally gotten over it…another dragon master popped up like a daisy. Judging from the size of her dragon, the young girl had been training for a bit. How did they never know? Did Evan hide this from them? Did Evan know she existed? Did the girl know Evan existed? Why did she come to Elluel? How did she come to Elluel? Was this Phantom’s doing?
She quickly paused all those thoughts. It would be best to ask the girl herself rather than speculate all day long. The first question to ask…
“Who are you?” Mercedes asked.
Only then did Mercedes realise how nervous the girl was. She was gripping onto the edge of her coat while biting her lip, eyes darting from side to side, jerking slightly whenever their eyes made contact.
“M-my name is Evian…” the girl stammered.
Maybe she was looking a little too intimidating? Expected, for she was the Queen of the Elves. She wondered whether or not to soften her image a bit. She remembered this was how Evan had reacted too. He was a nervous wreck back then. She relaxed her stance slightly and smiled at the girl.
“Are you by any chance related to Evan?” Mercedes asked.
“Ah yes! He’s my brother.” Evian answered shyly.
Evian wasn’t as jittery as before though, having relaxed her grip on her coat, even managing a small smile.
“…he never told the heroes he had a sister…nor that it was another dragon master. Neither have I seen you before.” Mercedes said.
“Erm, he told me not to meet with the alliance in general…for my safety because of the Black Wings and…yeah.” the girl replied.
Seemed like there was more to Evan than expected.
“And why have you ignored your brother’s warning?”
“The thing is…he disappeared for two days! He said he’d be there to train with me but suddenly said something about urgent business then he disappeared and never replied I’ve tried contacting him but-” the girl rambled.
“Sorry, but could you please slow down a bit? I could not quite catch what you were just saying.” Mercedes interrupted.
“Sorry…well in short Evan kind of disappeared and I’m trying to find him.” Evian said.
“What do you mean by ‘kind of’ disappeared?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure if he really disappeared, but he hasn’t been answering my calls and I tried finding him but…” Evian trailed off.
“I presume you are here to ask me whether I have seen Evan recently, and to help you if needed?” Mercedes asked.
“Yeah…”
“Unfortunately, I have not seen him as of late and I can say there have not been any alliance missions that would keep him away. I will be more than glad to help you find him, but I have no leads as to his whereabouts. You probably know more than I do in this aspect. I doubt I would be able to offer much help.” Mercedes said.
“Oh…I see.”
The girl fell silent, staring at the floor.
“However, I can contact Phantom and request for his help in the search for your brother. I believe he would be more able to help you.” Mercedes said.
“Ah okay thank you so much! …could you please not tell him about me though? My brother would be upset enough if he knew I came to find you…could you please keep me meeting you a secret from him?” Evian asked.
“If that is what you wish, then yes, I would not tell those concerned.”
“Thank you so much, err, Ms Mercedes.” Evian said, bowing as she did.
“You are welcome. Now, I believe you would like to stay in Elluel so news gets to you quickly, am I not wrong?” Mercedes said.
“Ah, yes please, if you don’t mind…sorry to impose on you.” Evian replied.
“Now, follow me, I will let you stay someplace while you wait.”