Chapter 70: Possession

[Edited by: Bunny, deathbricks, Arthur300000, and ArchmageNaoki ]

"Hey, sir, we weren’t playing hooky, we just had an irregular activity at lunch time, so we had an afternoon break." As I entered the police station, a group of teenage girls wearing school uniforms were arguing with a police officer in the hallway. Their faces were filled with unnatural cosmetic work, glitter, fluorescence purple lipstick and panda like eyeshadow. However, the most important thing was that their skirts were very short. If had I sat down for a bit, I think I could have seen their panties.

"And you girls have that irregular activity every day? I got complaints from the neighbor that you are making a lot of noise there every afternoon." The cop said while herding them into a room. Shit, I took out a gold coin too slow, so it was useless for me to pretend to drop it. Hah, I hope they will make a storage device that’s quicker.

The police station of this world looked more like a mobile phone service center. There were queue kiosks, service counters, and a TV with advertisements to watch while waiting. In the center of the room there were small seats packed closely, half of them occupied with several kinds of people. There was mixed emotions in the air; anger, anxiety, sadness, and just plain indifference.

Because I didn't know how to handle the police of this world I told my sister and Ms. Natalee what had happened during the drive here. But I asked them to keep it a secret from my parents because I didn't want to worry them.

"So, that fox did something illegal and got caught by policemen, nya?" Ms. Nyatalee seemed to be happy for some reason. Perhaps she is a sadist? Or maybe it's that 'schadenfreude' thing?

Anyways, I believe the Cocoa being arrested thing was nothing more than just a misunderstanding. Maybe she forgot to bring her papers with her when she went shopping for my mom.

"Kuro, just wait there, I will handle this." My sister told me and pointed at the only table where I could eat my lunch box; the kiddy corner, a table filled with large Lego blocks on top of it... Was she teasing me now?

"This is my responsibility." I told her, determined to try to act like an adult and ignore my stomach grumbling.

"Hmm, I want you to rely on me more. It’ll be fine, I already know everyone here. Also, you didn't eat anything since morning right?" I wondered how she could know everyone here, but she was right, I hadn’t eaten anything yet. The scary driving skill of Ms. Nyatalee made me cringe all the way.

"Kuro missy worried too much. I got cat-like reflexes, nya." Was Ms. Nyatalee excuse when I looked at her accusingly. Well, I couldn't entirely blame her when I was the one who told her to step on it.

"No, I will go with you. At least let me follow." I looked back at Pristia. My stomach grumbled in protest but it could wait. The fox girl in distress came first. At least if something came up maybe I could do something. I hoped there was something like trial by combat in this world. Also, Skynet was a diplomat AI before, maybe she could do something.

[Leave it to me, mistress.] She promptly answered when I asked.

"At least have a snack." Pristia smiled and handed me an energy bar from her purse. I knew that it was quicker to take things from there than a storage device, but I still preferred to store everything in my hair clip. Anyway, I happily took it from her and began munching on it. Hmm, maybe I should have bought some of these for myself. It looked more adult like to eat on the go than the assorted snacks in my stockpile.

"Hello, Tony." My sister greeted an officer behind the counter without even taking a ticket from the queue kiosk. She seemed to know the guy.

"Oh, hi Pristia. It's a rare sight to see you walking through that door. Is she a lost girl?" Officer Tony presumptuously pointed at me. Maybe it was because of how ravenous I looked while I devoured the energy bar that made him think that, so I tried to slow down and eat it in a more dignified manner. If such a thing as energy bar consumption manners exists though.

"No no, she is my sister." The guy looked surprised. "Anyways, I came to pick up a young fox girl." She showed him Cocoa's documents that I gave her.

"Oh..." Officer Tony paused for a while then he looked at the document, read it a few times like he tried to find a fault in the document. As he couldn't find anything wrong with it, he returned it to her after he made a copy of it.

"I can arrange for you to meet her, but she was charged with destruction of public property, wielding and using a dangerous weapon in a civilian area, public obscenity, and disruption of the work of police officers, so it’s quite problematic to release her now." ... Did she go on a full moon rampage or something? No, it was midday so that shouldn't be the case.

"Officer, isn't this some kind of misunderstanding?" I found it hard to believe, so I blurted it out without thinking. I absolutely didn't raise her that way.

"No, we have video clips, objective evidence, and half of the police force saw what happened." Officer Tony sternly answered. How could that be, she didn't have an evil twin or something, right? Wait, this was not the time to look for 'why' now. What was important was how to get her out of there.

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"I request a trial by combat!" I panicked and yelled. It caused almost everyone in the station to looked at me.

[There are no such thing as trial by combat in this age, mistress. Only historical drama series have them.] Skynet explained patiently. In my defense, I was bad at dealing with police to begin with. However, Officer Tony was quite rude to look at me with dead fish eyes while mumbling: "What era did this girl come from." Well, he did mumble quietly so no one could hear, but my acute ears picked it up anyway.

"Pristia, where did your sister come from." He gathered his wit and asked Pristia.

"W-well, she is an outsider, so she doesn't know much about the law here." My sister defended me and added: "But she is cute so everything is fine." Now I was even more embarrassed when a rude cop answered with "My condolences." Maybe I should go back to the kiddy corner and pretend to enjoy those Lego blocks...

"Don't worry Ms. Velvori, I already called a company lawyer, nya. Also, there is a budget for these kinds of situations." Ohh, Ms. Nyatalee is reliable as always. Is it because superstars frequently have their run-in with police that made the company set up this kind of policy? Anyways, I thanked those scandalous seniors in my mind.

"So, would you like to wait for your lawyer?" Officer Tony asked but before we could answer, a chubby man approached us and handed out his name card.

"That would be me, sir. I'm Gregory Hamilton, their lawyer." The man introduced himself. He had heterochromia eyes, one ruby red and the other one was emerald green. This was the first time I saw a real person with this. Even in this fantasy world, it was quite rare. He asked for the situation and relied on my right as Cocoa’s guardian, to see all of the evidence.

"What outcome do you prefer, missy?" Mr. Hamilton asked me while we walked to the appointed room.

"Just get Cocoa out as fast as possible." I told him. 'At least before Big Bubba gets his hands on her.' Is what I wanted to add but decided against it.

"So you don't mind if they confiscate the weapon in question?" He asked.

"No, I don't mind." If they take away the cause of Cocoa's rampage all the better, whatever it is.

"Then this will be easy." He smiled as he opened the door. I hoped he was as good as he implied.

Inside the room, there was Sergeant Jackson, the officer who helped me with Ms. Bluebell's sister-incident.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Velvori, I heard the news about you taking down that unique monster, you are stronger than you look, huh?" Officer Jackson, greeted me in an over-familiar manner, he even jokingly punched my side. I looked at my lawyer in hope of leveraging this for Cocoa's case. He subtlety nodded.

"Captain Jackson, I'm a lawyer from Bluebell Corp. I came here to ask for Ms. Cocoa’s release. She is surely innocent in all charges." Mr. Hamilton gave him his businesses card. I didn't know how he ranked up from Sergeant to Captain this quick, but his facial expression did change when Mr. Hamilton mentioned the company name. Did I work for a black company or something?

"Well, before that, please look at the video we have." Captain Jackson turned serious and showed us the video. It began with Cocoa approaching a street sign with my dagger in her hand. Damn it, that thing had surely become a cursed dagger. I shouldn't have left it lying around like that in the morning. Maybe I should have destroyed it, but I did make it strong enough that in order to get rid of it, I would have to walk barefoot to Mt. Doom and throw it into the volcano.

"I could understand the destruction of public property, but public obscenity and disruption of police duty? Come on." As we watched the clip, my lawyer began to protest.

"You see the blinking of her dagger?" He pointed at the video. "At first, I didn't know what it was, but when I fed its blinking pattern into the decryption machine. Here is the result." He shifted a slip of paper over to us. On it, there was a phase that read: "Show me your panties." ... Maybe I should go back to that child corner and leave this matter to the expert. Ignorance is bliss it seemed.

"You can't accuse someone because of your machine's glitch, all I could see was it blinking randomly." I nodded along with my lawyer even though I knew full well that it wasn't a glitch.

.

.

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The argument went on for a long time. While they were doing that, I wondered why we had to argue with Officer Jackson. Wasn't this supposed to be the prosecutor's job or something?

[Anything under execution, the captain of the police force has full authority here, mistress. However, the case will be reviewed later by a judge committee on a quarterly basis and may be taken back for another trial, but those cases are very rare.] Skynet explained the process to me. What she explained seemed strange but that explained why they had a lot of cameras pointed at us in this room.

“But, that dagger’s blinking pattern seemed obscene to me.” For some reason, Captain Jackson didn’t let go of the public obscenity charge.

"Captain, according to your standard of prosecuting people based on how things appear, why did you accuse her in the first place? Doesn't she look like a child? Half of those charges shouldn't apply to children in the first place." Mr. Hamilton fiercely argued.

"Uh, but her documents say that she is already 26-"

"Now, you look at the facts. All I can see from you is an inconsistency, Captain. Please tell me, what should we proceed with, facts, or what it appeared like." Captain Jackson was hard pressed.

"... Facts... of course." Captain Jackson was losing his ground inch by inch.

Because Mr. Hamilton did a great job, Skynet and I didn't have to do anything. I even took out my lunch box to eat while listening to them. Well, I was very hungry so it couldn't be helped. I even shared some of it with Ms. Nyatalee and my sister.

In the end, Cocoa was released, the cursed dagger was confiscated, and my agency paid the fine for me. All's well that ends well, I think. There was one downside to this outcome though: I was sentenced to 10 days of community service because something about neglecting to look after her properly.

“Think of it as doing a promotional advertisement, missy.” was Mr. Hamilton’s excuse before he ran away.

There was also a warning from Captain Jackson that the thugs he was fighting with in Cocoa’s video were a part of a slaver gang who planned to do something big in this town. He said that it was the same gang that kidnapped Ms. Bluebell’s sister. Luckily he busted their operation before something serious could happen. In my opinion, Cocoa should be thanked for exposing them, not accused of disrupting police operations.

That night, when we took Cocoa back home, she kept repeating 'I'm sorry.’ Her eyes were a bit red and swollen. She must feel very guilty. I already said to her that it was alright but she didn't look better and was mumbling something incoherent about the dagger being my precious thing instead. I wondered what my cursed dagger did to her mind.

Now, how should I explain what happened to Cocoa to my mom?