June 10th
Mü, The Sky
“And your sure that this is safe? Aren’t you ever afraid that you are going to hit the ground and die?” Emiray tried to stay calm while plummeting toward the Earth but it was hard.
Lynn, just a hands breadth away from Emiray shook her head. The scenery shifted and they were suddenly higher up and the terrain below them had moved quite a bit. “Not really, although I’ve done this a lot so I suppose that I have gotten used to it. Don’t worry, I’ve done this a lot and I know what I’m doing. You may not notice but we had undergone many corrective teleports to keep the keep our bearing and speed correct. At this pace it should be no more then five more minutes to arrive at the Entertainment District.”
“Couldn’t you just teleport us directly to the Entrainment District without this sort of sporadic teleportation. Isn’t that supposed to in the the power range of a level 8?”
“Sure, I probably could assuming you don’t mind getting split in half by a building or ending up joined with another person. I can’t detect safe locations to teleport to at that distance so while this method is not quite as fast it is a much safer way of teleportation, plus I’m using gravity and momentum to speed up the travel even more. I suppose I could go faster but I find that multiple successive teleportations tend to make most people feel fairly sick.” Lynn smiled and the scenery shifted again. This time however they were closer to the ground.
“I think I could deal with being sick.” Said Emiray with a pale look on her face. “It seems to be better option then constantly worrying about hitting the ground.”
“If you say so, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you afterward.” Then the world flickered, and flickered again. Through the constantly flickering backdrop Emiray realized that Lynn was right, this was making her feel sick. Things changed before she even realized they where there. Emiray began to lose track of time during that weird kaleidoscope of world that she couldn’t make sense out of.
Then the flickering stopped and she suddenly felt incredibly sick. She managed to hold it in and after a few deep breaths looked managed to climb up off her knees and looked over at Lynn. “All right, you told me so. Next time we will go the slow method.”
Lynn smiled before waving her hand and saying, “Welcome to the Entertainment District, the place there all your dreams can come true.”
Emiray looked up and was almost blinded by the sight. The signs glared down at her and she looked around a the crowd of people that were moving past them. People where laughing and talking with each other, they were shopping, there were visiting stores that she had never seen before.
She gaped and smiled at everything like a child, however Lynn placed her hand on Emiray’s shoulder and said, “Now is not the time to stare, I am going to bring you to Phantom Thief Rose.” They shifted again and they were in an apartment complex. In from of them was a door to one of the apartments but the nameplate was blank.
Lynn knocked on the door a few times and then the two of them waited. After a moment the door opened into a dark hallways that seemed empty. Lynn motioned to Emiray and R08 and the three of them entered the apartment. The door clicked closed behind them and then the lights flickered on.
“Come in,” came a voice from the room in front of them. The three of them entered the room and found a normal scene. A woman with long hair was lounging on a couch watching television. She looked up at them as they came in and said, “Hello Lynn, back again are you? I believe I already told you that I don’t know anything about the theft that you told me about. And who do you have with you? Some fan that wants my autograph of something?”
Lynn laughed and said, “You know, I still wonder if the strange woman living by herself in an out of the way apartment is really the Phantom Thief Rose. Nobody would ever expect you to be living in a place like this.”
“Your the Phantom Thief Rose?” Said Emiray, “Lynn told me all about you. I really hope I get to see you in action someday.”
“But that isn’t why I am here this time.” Said Lynn with a wave of her hand. “I actually want your help with something. There is something that could use a thieves unique skill set.”
“Oh, I’m listening, though I don’t know if I will be able to accept. You aren’t from the Entertainment District so there might be a limit to what I can steal for you, plus it isn’t really my style to accept jobs from other people, it decreased my reputation as a Phantom Thief.”
Rose listened as they explained the situation with the Euclidian Key.
“I see, so you want to me to help you break into this reactor and steal back the Euclidian Key.” Rose grinned, “I didn’t think the University District could think of this sort of plot but it sounds interesting. Alright, I’m in, I’ll help you get this back for you. I’ve always been a sucker for hopeless situations.”
Rose stood up and moved over to her desk. Pulling out several pieces of paper she began writing, “I have a few things that I will need to do before I’m ready to go, I hope you don’t mind.”
Lynn shook her head, “No, we will need you in your top form. I actually had a question for you. The rumors said that you were trained in the University District. Does that mean you are an Esper?”
“Rumors say a lot of things. However I rather liked the sound of that particular rumor so I’ve been taking a few classes now and then. I even enrolled in one of the ability enhancement programs, so I guess, yes I would qualify as an Esper legally. I don’t really practice that much though, It would be against my code to use that sort of power during a theft and there aren’t really any other times that it could be useful.” Said Rose and she continued to write on the second piece of paper. She seemed to finish and began to fold up the two pieces of paper and put each one into a different black envelope.
“I see, it might have been useful so I wanted to know before we got into any trouble.” Said Lynn in a casual attempt to brush off the personal question she had just asked. Rose passed Lynn the two envelopes and said, “Do you think that you can deliver those two for me. The second one might be kind of difficult but I’m sure you will be able to accomplish it.”
Lynn looked at the addresses on the two envelopes an scowled slightly. “Are you sure. I understand that you are a Phantom Thief but this could seriously compromise our objective.”
Rose nodded, “Yes, I’m sure. Don’t worry, they will turn to our advantage in the long run, you’ll see.” Lynn scowled some more before putting them in her pocket and disappearing.
“What were those letters?” Asked Emiray in curiosity.
“Oh, invitations. A proper thief always informs the target of the thief before it happens. It is part of the allure behind Phantom Thieves. Plus it is a tactical advantage. They think they have an advantage on you because they know when you will be arriving, however that isn’t true. Knowing who is going to be defending the target before hand is very important for a Phantom Thief.”
“So those were letters to Professor Gray telling him we are going to take the Euclidian Key back? Isn’t that kind of dangerous. Won’t he speed up his schedule to make sure he gets it done before we arrive there.”
“Only one of the letters was for Professor Gray, the other was for Inspector Grim. If he knows that I am going to be there then he will be there too. He won’t be able to resist by first theft outside of the Entertainment District. I’m sure the look on his face is going to be priceless, I wish I could see it.”
“Wait, Inspector Grim? Isn’t he part of the police, why would you want to be him involved?”
“Because I know how he thinks. If he is at the reactor trying to protect it then it will be easier to expect what is going to happen next compared to if someone I didn’t know was in charge. Plus it will expose some of what Gray is doing to the light of day and he will have to act carefully around Grim. It is a win-win situation for us.”
“I see.” Said Emiray skeptically. “What are the rest of the preparations that you need to make?”
“Those I will be needing your help.” Rose raised her watch up and using her other hand pressed it a few times. There was a hiss and one off the walls slide open revealing something in the next door apartment. “We will need the right tools to break into a University guarded building, it will be nothing like making a theft in the Entertainment District. We will need the right tools and since you are one of the Belly Engineers I will be expecting you to help me as much as you can in preparing them.”
Emiray stared into the adjacent rooms with her eyes in wonder. “This is amazing, how did you get a workshop like this. There are people who would kill for a setup like yours. And that watch, what does it do, how much of the network is it connected to?” There was a look of wonder and excitement in Emiray’s eyes.