Xard had barely made it back from his latest month-long excursion when his peace was disturbed. He had just gotten out of the shower and was now cleaning his combat suit, which wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to keep sanitary. Because of its construction and materials, he couldn’t just throw it into the wash. Instead, he scrubbed the plates by hand and had a special spray that Nathym gave him to disinfect the weaving. It smelled like honey-oat-melon.
And while he was mid-scrub, the door to his room busted wide open. The mansion was very restricted, and most of the members couldn’t enter without explicit permission. So that limited the possibilities of who could be pestering him without notice. But it wasn’t any of the usual suspects: a bored Kada or Mallea come to clean.
“How can I help you, Feyj?” Xard greeted the young teenage boy with warmth since this was abnormal behavior in any lifetime—not like a certain nuisance who he’d be yelling at the moment she stepped inside.
The boy entered trepidatiously, glancing around at everything for a brief moment before finally turning his attention to Xard. “I heard you’d returned from your trip, so I wanted to greet you. And… I was wondering if I could hang out for a bit.”
“Uhh, sure if you want to,” Xard had been taken aback by the inquiry. It was exceedingly rare for Feyjrusa to leave their room of their own volition, usually only for a mission or at someone’s behest. And it was even rarer for them to want to spend time with others, rather keeping their face buried in a screen. The only time they got like this was when they were hyper fixated on some hobby or interest.
So the question was, what could Xard offer that Feyj had become obsessed with? The boy was also only thirteen or fourteen by the redhead’s guess, so he was still in that early developmental stage. Xard didn’t want to hamper any progress or interests, not wanting to be held responsible for the person Feyj could turn into, but teenagers were also very flippant. Something Feyj was interested in today could be dead to him tomorrow, so for now the host would just have to watch and observe, to try and pick up where his mind was at.
The boy didn’t hesitate to make himself at home. He went right over to Xard’s desk and opened up the drawer containing all of his past case files and began rifling through them. His eyes went monochrome, and he started flipping through them at blazing speed. Done in under two minutes, he seemed a little frustrated when he reached the end. But then he asked, “So you really solved all of these yourself?”
“Uhh, the police beat me to a few,” Xard had to be honest, “But yeah, about 95% of them.”
Feyj seemed to ponder on that for a moment before he turned to Xard with bright beaming eyes. “That’s so cool! You’re so cool, Xard!” It was the first time the redhead had been called anything remotely close to ‘cool’ in his life, so he wasn’t quite sure how to react. But the boy didn’t wait for any sort of response or thanks for the compliment before he moved on.
“So is this the one you’re working on currently?” Feyj moved over to the corkboard filled with photos and strings.
“Oh, yeah,” Xard glanced over at the board to refresh his memory. “The water supply has been tainted, clearly intentionally, but no one has yet to find a suspect or even a motive. I've even struggled to find any clear connection while interrogating everyone involved.”
“Hmm…” the eager boy studied over every inch of the investigation, lost in his own mind and thoughts.
“Let me guess, you’ve been reading a lot of mystery novels in this lifetime,” the host believed he finally deduced Feyj’s obsessive interest.
“Yes, all of them,” the young lad didn’t deny. “But it’s left me hankering for more! I want to solve some myself! The real thing has to be even better than just fiction, right? You’ve solved a bunch yourself, so you’d know.”
“Yes, it’s good but…” Xard’s words trailed off after Feyj pulled his antenna out of his pocket and plonked it onto his head. “But you’re not listening to me anymore.”
Indeed, the boy had gotten lost into his phone, like many at that age. But unlike everyone else who’d be chatting with friends or watching mindless videos, he was searching, investigating, digging to the farthest reaches of the internet. The screen of his phone flashed at near seizure-inducing speeds to the point that Xard had to squint and look away.
“Tell me,” Feyj finally paused to look up at his senior. “Did this guy have a limp when you talked to him?” The boy pointed to one of the men on the investigation.
“Uhh, yes, he did,” Xard was surprised that Feyj had been able to pick up on such a minute detail, and was even more curious why such a small thing could be considered relevant or important.
“I see, then that’s our suspect!” the boy pointed at nothing in particular with firm determination. “This man underwent hip replacement surgery three years ago. And based on the records that you all stole from the CP, he was very diligent about keeping up with his physical therapy and routine check-ins with his doctor to prevent the issue from exacerbating. He even had specific instructions not to lift items above a certain weight.”
“But based on the amount of poison that would be required at regular intervals to taint the water supply, and what would be commercially available and easily accessible for someone of his station, then the contaminant would have to be this pesticide,” he held up a picture on his phone.
“Notably, this pesticide is sold as a commercial grade for farmers and only sold in large supply. The lowest quantity being a 43.8 pound bag, just above our suspects weight limit. If he was toting a bag of the stuff to pour into the water at regular intervals, it certainly would have ruined his hip, causing the limp.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Now I’m sure that’s not enough proof, just mere speculation, so I need to…” just as quickly as he’d stopped speaking, he jumped out of his phone and spouted accusations. “Aha, here we go! The exact amount for a pallet purchase of the pesticide from their financial statements sold from the main supplier. That wouldn’t normally raise attention given their job as a landscaper, but this stuff is too high grade for what he’d be doing.”
“As for where they’d be storing that much…” More phone flashes. “Here!” he now showed a satellite image of the resort for the wealthy where the crime had taken place, but zoomed in on a pool pump house that had been closed down after that pool had been turned into a radishball court.
“Well, I’d say all that makes logical sense,” Xard had to agree. “So what’s the motive, then?”
“Nghh,” Feyj grunted before doing another dive into their phone. “Okay, okay, I’ve got it. His department was met with constant layoffs and cutbacks. The man feared for his job, that he’d be let go as well, and he voiced his concerns. This caused the company to trick him into an employment contract. Much higher pay for twenty years of service and the promise that if he was let go before then, he’d get all that money at once. But if he quit before then, he’d have to pay a lot of his salary back.”
“However, the company didn’t improve the working conditions and just kept piling more work onto him instead of hiring replacements. He was basically doing the jobs of five people, but now he was stuck. So he poisoned the water supply in the hopes that the resort would go under. As part of his contract, only a firing for malfeasance would nullify the terms, so even if the company went bankrupt, they’d still be forced to pay him.”
“That’s pretty amazing, Feyj, I have to admit,” the master already felt surpassed by the student. “It would have taken me a lot more time and investigation to figure all that out, and you did it in minutes. You certainly have a knack for this.”
“Thank you, thank you,” the boy gave a few bows for his performance. “So shall we get going then?”
“Huh, go where?” Xard was back to being confused.
“To the crime scene, obviously!” Feyj insisted. “We did the work, now we have to catch the suspect!”
“Uhh, this late at night?” the redhead glanced over to his clock. “And it would probably be best if we stayed hands off from this point anyways.”
“Huh, why?!” The boy demanded to know. “Crime doesn’t sleep, so why should we?! If we know everything, why shouldn’t we barge in there right now and confront the criminal? Do you want to let them keep getting away with this? Isn’t it on us to stop them now that we know the truth?!”
Xard sighed. “I see the problem. All those novels have gotten into your head—how you think things should play out. The protagonist, even if they’re not an official authority figure, reveals the evidence and solves the crime in some grand gesture. Then the criminal is taken away into custody, everyone applauds, happy ending.”
“But let me remind you of something: we are criminals ourselves. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong in this life of yours, even if your status as a royalty prevents you from having a public criminal score, Feyjrusa Sulatrive is still a very wanted Fiend. As such, the police would never take the word of you or I at face value.”
“If us Fiends got involved in the arrest, it would only complicate things. Any criminal lawyer would link us as an excuse. Maybe we tampered with the evidence, maybe we’re the actual culprits. It doesn’t really matter what lie they come up with, but people will nod their heads because we were there when everything goes to zjik. I’ve learned this lesson too many times already.”
“While I have problems with the justice system, many many problems, it’s still best to let it play out in this case. As criminals, we can’t be detectives or police. We can only be vigilantes, and vigilante justice can only take so many forms. So let me ask you, does this man deserve to die for this crime?”
“Huh, what? No I wouldn’t say so,” Feyj was clearly caught off guard by how serious and quickly things had escalated. “Yes, it’s a bad thing to do, and yes, some people have been hurt. But no one has died or suffered long term ill effects. This criminal seemed to act very carefully so as to not cross that line. He didn’t want to harm anyone in particular and just felt trapped—wanting his own justice to escape his situation.”
“And I agree completely,” Xard nodded. “So how would us being there help exactly? This isn’t a dangerous man. He wouldn’t even be able to limp away from the police. It would only be for our own self-satisfaction to witness it all unfold. But as true progenitors of justice, we just need to take solace in that the crime was stopped and the mystery was solved.”
“I’ll pass this information along to my assistant, Dette, and she’ll make sure that it gets to the right channels. It won’t be tonight, but this matter will be solved within a few days. The crime will be stopped, and justice will be served. I know that will be a few years from your perspective, and you might feel robbed of the win, but do you think you can accept that this is the better course of action?”
“Hngh, if I have to,” the boy grit his teeth in frustration. “But I want something in return as compensation!” His accusing finger now pointed directly at Xard. “You’ll be heading out again soon, right? On another trip around the world to fight crime and complete missions? I want to come with you!”
“I get your point about this case, but it just wasn’t enough! Hell, if anything, it’s just made me even more ravenous to experience the real thing! I want to stop crime with my own two hands, and you’re the best person I know to help facilitate that. And you can’t deny my usefulness. So please, let me join you, and we’ll stop so many criminals together!” Feyj bowed his head, a resolute request.
And Xard just couldn’t ignore the lad’s sincerity. “Fine, but on a few conditions. The first is the timing. I’m actually stuck here for another week. Senli has her exams, so I promised I’d help look after the kids at the school so she could focus on her studies. That should give you some time to grow up as well.”
“We’ll be much closer in age then, and you’ll have had more life experience. It will give you time to know for certain if this is an actual life goal you want to pursue or just a passing fancy. Because I’m planning to go out for about a month on my next trip, and that will be a good chunk of your current life, all your youthful years. So I want you to be committed. If you get bored or decide it’s not something you want to pursue midway, I’ll leave you behind.”
“Now the next condition is what you do during the next week. I know you don’t normally work out since your progress is just reset, but I’d prefer the person watching my back to be a bit stronger. If not just for fighting, then for flight. We’ll have Valen take us out initially, but from there we’ll be using my flying to get everywhere quickly. If you’re going to be tagging along, your body needs to be strong enough to withstand the force.”
“Get with Nachi and have her make you a training plan to make yourself as strong as possible within a week. If you stick to it, and still want to become a vigilante by the end, then I’ll take you with me. Deal, partner?” Xard held out his hand expectantly and stared at Feyj straight in his iridescent eyes.”
The boy grabbed hold and shook firm, “Deal!”