Chapter II: Law and Magic
Before she placed the cellphone back into the pockets of her skirt, Pikara looked at the time, displayed at the top right corner of the screen.
“The shops at the mall should be open by now,” she mumbled as she stood up, straightening her skirt.
She walked on, slurping the remainder of her drink. On the sidewalk, there stood posts placed at regular intervals, with lamps hanging over Pikara like the shade of a giant umbrella stand.
The lamps were feared by those who dwelled in the dark. For their entire lives, they did what they thought was right. In the darkness they brandished their weapons high and took the lives of those they considered their enemies. The mage detectives investigated and reasoned their nemesis’ actions with Life and Death being their limitation. They hunted them down and brought them to justice, only to allow more innocent lives to be lost.
It was a never ending cycle created between the mage detectives and the M.D foes. Pikara wondered whether she would become a part of this conflict.
What good were the mage detectives to society if they couldn’t protect the innocent? Were they only destined to hunting and prosecuting? Did they show any genuine love to the families of the murdered?
Pikara went passed a post with a rubbish bin attached. She threw her hand backward as she kept walking and tossed the cup into the bin. Further down the sidewalk, she came to a small crowd of people, standing before a traffic light.
Pikara joined the back of the crowd and waited for the lights to turn.
“Where is that lawyer’s office? I told you that we should just hire that mage detective,” a man in a business suit asked his cohort.
The signals changed at the intersection. The pedestrian lights turned green and the people began treading over the crossing to the other side of the road.
Pikara ran, dodging through the crowd and threw ‘Excuse me’s and ‘Sorry, coming through’s to anyone she bumped into accidentally. She kept running until she reached the next intersection and made a lunge for the post. The palm of her hand slammed the button and activated the lights.
“Too slow, people!” cried Pikara, sticking her tongue at the crowd, who had only walked a few footsteps past the first intersection.
Pikara wished that the crowd would had recognized her cuteness and gave way to her, like the characters in her favourite folklores. It did not seem that they cared too much for a peppy girl, dressed in a white blouse and skirt. Maybe it was because she did not seem like a typical mage detective to them, but more of a teenage girl who had too many sweets to eat.
“Come on…come on,” Pikara complained, twisting on the spot impatiently, the sole of her pink shoes scraping the concrete footpath.
The pedestrian lights had turned green at last. There were two people behind Pikara by the time she had crossed over the road. She was running again, more quickly this time. Her hair swayed to the wind as she ran passed the beach side.
Above her, gulls were soaring in circles over the beach. Their cries accompanied the voices of her friends, happily talking as they walked. The ocean breeze swept again, swaying the palm trees on the beach. Scattered throughout the beach were sand castles, decorated with shells on the slopes of their walls.
She walked on, observing the waves, gently riveting the sands where the girls stood. A tree blocked her sight. She passed the tree and saw a black robed, hooded figure was now standing next to the girl and her group of friends.
Pikara stopped. A sudden chill coursed through her body, similar to the night she treaded in the master bedroom of a deserted mansion. It had only been two weeks since she turned the golden handle of the door and stepped into the darkness of the void in search of new answers for the Final Trial.
She remembered it well. The room was dimly lit when she shot a spell at a lamp standing on the study table, surrounded by books, research notes and vials containing various types of fluids. In the darkest corner of her room, the grandfather clock ticked away the seconds at the absence of the mistress, accompanied by the howling of the wind. Towering stone pillars stood at regular interviews to support a ceiling lost in shadows. A grand bookcase occupied a wall of the master bedroom. Its shelves were stacked with a wide assortment of books.
Her heart pulsated intensely. The large portrait hung amongst the unlit torches in the room. It stared, gesturing anyone that had drawn eyes to him with a skeletal hand. It stood in front of a black backdrop, hidden slightly by a dark fog.
The girl extended her hand out and the stranger did the same.
Pikara walked up. The air around her was hot, yet there was this eeriness as she took a deep breath. The wrinkled hands of the figure held those of the girl. The figure withdrew another hand, hidden in the sleeve of the robe. It threw its free arm around the girl and drew her closer. Her friends edged forwards, eyes fixed on the couple and with wide smiles painted on their faces.
The girl closed her eyes, awaiting her kiss from the figure Pikara saw in the portrait. Logic coincided with her emotions.
What was a person doing in a long black robe anyways? How did it appear from nowhere like that? Teleportation was a possibility, but there was no sudden flash of light.
They kissed. Her friends laughed and cheered. The fun of losing your first kiss to the person they thought was the right one for her.
She looked back up and saw that the hooded figure was gone. Instead, the girl was talking with her friends, casually striding down the water’s edge. Pikara rubbed her eyes, making sure that she wasn’t hallucinating this time. The heat had gotten to her. Wiping the sweat off her nose with the sleeve of his blouse, Pikara decided to move on.
With her arms swinging side to side, she ran on to the mall. After she crossed a roundabout, dodging past the cars, she had arrived. Bushes and flower beds surrounded its perimeter and planted in a small circular garden at the centre of the parking lot. White stripes marked the parking spaces. The paint was peeling and chewed bubble gum stuck on the asphalt. The tall, golden gates at the entrance of the car park was open and gave way to the cars that drove up the steep drive way. Beside the mall was a parking lot, almost empty of cars.
“Now, I need to find that photo shop,” she said, her fists clutched and drawn close to her chest.
Sunlight shone through the glass house which was the entrance way of the mall. The automatic doors opened as she approached the photo shop and walked in. She experienced a slight headache from sniffing in the chemicals coming from the machinery that produced the photos. It was a small shop, not for those who wanted fancy photos produced but for those who wanted them done quickly and with minimal cost. Sitting on the shelves were various film products: Photo paper, film canisters, camera parts and photo editing softwares.
“Hello, anyone here?”
No one came to serve her. It felt like they were too busy minding their own business instead of worrying about the customers. They were going to miss out today. The slightest amount of profit made could really benefit the store.
“Ooo, maybe I should press this,” she said, studying the bell sitting on the counter.
In front of it was a note. Written in a black marker, it says:
Press the bell for service-Bellamy.
She pressed the bell and its chime echoed around the room. A few seconds had passed and there was still a slight hum of vibrating metal. There was silence.
“Hello?” she called out again and pressed the bell. At the end of the hum, she hoped that the door would open, and that she’d get served. But the door remained closed.
“Hello? Oh, anyone there? Don’t be shy now, I won’t bite.” A succession of dings echoed around the room as she kept pressing the bell on the table. She pressed the bell harder, the remedy to get her point across: That she’ll not be ignored.
The automatic doors opened behind her. It was Bellamy, returning to the shop to retrieve the picnic basket. The first thing she saw was of a pink haired girl, messing with the service bell. She headed up behind Pikara and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“You know, a bell isn’t a toy, Pinkie.” Pikara felt as though ice had flooded her arm.
The metal inside the bell still vibrated seconds after Pikara stopped pressing the button. Pikara spoke, her back facing the girl.
“You’re late, you lazy bum,” she said, tapping her nails on the counter.
“Yeah sorry Pink, I was at the beach with my friends.”
As she walked to the back of the counter, she tightened the towel which was wrapped around her.
“Nice outfit girl. The white really does standout with your hair.” Pikara poked her tongue out.
“Don’t know why you’re not in your bikini girl, the water’s warm today. I'm sure a cutie like you can get your way with the local lifeguards. You can get free ice…” Bellamy paused, running her finger on her lips.
“Hmmm, do you like sweets? Tell me the truth Pinkie.”
“Who doesn’t!” Pikara bellowed out, “It tastes sooo good! Chocolate! Jelly drops! Fruit powders! Gah! There’s so many to choose from.” She was jumping up and down on the spot; her eyes squelched shut, beaming a bright smile. The girl rolled her eyes.
“And –and, after you eat so many, you go weee…”
“Ok! Ok! I see you like your sweets now,” wrapping her hand around Pikara’s wrists. A few seconds later, Pikara was listening again. Bellamy let out a sigh of relief.
“Haha. Well, you seem to like a lot of sweets. I hope you like ice cream,” said Bellamy, hoping that the answer was a yes.
“Oh yes, that too!”
“Well, there’s going to be a festival tonight at the beach. I’ve been asking people to take part in the contest that I’m running. I hope you’ll come, it’ll be fun! Everyone in town’s coming. There will be singing, dancing, hot guys, not to mention that there’s an ice cream eating competition that I'm running. And that’s only half of it. You have to come, Pink!”
“If it is that fun, I’ll come along then,” said Pikara.
“Great, hope to see you there, but I need to get dressed so that me and my girls can spread the word around town. So I better help you out now, Pinkie.”
The mage detective reached into her breast pocket for a small dark sphere.
“Here,” placing the sphere on the counter. Bellamy picked it up, twirling it with her fingers.
“I was wondering if you could extract the pictures from the sphere and produce them as photos.”
The girl continued examining the object.
“Well?”
An awkward silence followed. Bellamy wondered how she got her hand on this. It looked exactly like the sphere that was sitting on her study table that she had left behind. Did the girl managed to retrieve it from her mansion?
“Hey, I know it’s pretty, but do you mind answering back?” said Pikara assertively. At last, Bellamy replied.
“I-It will cost you,” she said, deciding that it would not be important to her anyways, and would be better of being sold for morbles. But how did she get inside her mansion? And, what else did she take?
“Do you accept guild cards?” Pikara asked.
“Yes, won’t want your pouch breaking from containing too many morbles now do we?”
Pikara reached into her breast pocket again, this time for her guild card and showed it to her. Below the ID photo were the words “Pre- Mage Detective”. It had caught her interest.
“You’re going to be a mage detective soon?” said Bellamy, looking at her with concern.
“Yes…” said Pikara, confused, “why?”
