Ben was taken to an actual police station this time, and his entire party, excluding Vivi, went with him. He didn’t say a word the entire trip, and his mind was completely blank, which worried Short Bus. The only thing Ben was projecting was a sense of being super, super pissed off. Ben was, as was his custom at this point, completely naked. His usual background level of embarrassment at this fact was absent, replaced by a sense of confrontational obstinance that anyone who knew him from the old world would have worried about.

He had the look of someone who was about to start doing some ignorant, ignorant shit. Ghost Ears, who was used to dealing with the intense but fleeting emotions of fairies, could feel the qualitative difference, the intensity coming off of Ben. He did the only thing a [Royal Vizier] could do.

“Please don’t start another war, Prince Ben.”

The resounding and echoing silence that was Ben’s lack of response, resounded and echoed among the quiet, assembled group:

Two Solas PD officers, both Sunlets, and of everyone, they were the most nervous. Not only were they escorting a prisoner with an unknown number of wishes- well, that was enough to make anyone nervous, especially when considering that their prisoner was known to display that very dangerous human trait of imagination. Plus, The Royal Sage of Solas was there, and that was sort of like having the deputy mayor or some shit going for a ride-along;

Short Bus, who was no longer [Acting], who seemed bigger and much more deadly than he normally did, was quiet and waiting. The Man-Shark was still dressed like a clown, but there was nothing funny about him right now. Less Puddles Pity Party and more ‘Holy shit that’s a fucking great white shark in clown makeup’. Short Bus had no attachment to life, no great desire to live forever, and thus no fear of what was going to come next. Fear was, then, a new sensation he associated with others. He feared seeing the people he cared about getting hurt, and he wanted to protect them.

‘Where the hell are you?’ Short Bus thought to himself, ‘We need your eyes.’ He was psychically trawling the city around them, seeing if he could find a trace of Red. Something told him she was going to be pissed that she wasn’t here right now, and it made him grin. The world according to Short Bus was that Red really needed to chill the fuck out, because reading her mind was exhausting. She, in the parlance of sharks, had been messed with by a lot of Orcas and Dolphins in her life;

Ghost Ears, who was free to fly around, but chained to the flying platform they were on. He thought about Strange Town, things like ‘Did we ever have a parade?’ or ‘What did we do, besides work and drink?’ Certainly, they had loved one another, but was that enough? If one of them had gotten ahold of a wish, would they have been wise enough to waste it on the Parade of Wonders? Questions, endless questions. The True-Elf Fairy thought to himself, ‘Was my [Dream] too small, or was I too small to see it fully?’

Then, there was the part of Ghost Ears that never stopped working, and that part of him kept saying ‘Holy shit holy shit we’re at war with the Dark Cities and Ben’s about to declare war on Solas too holy shit holy shit.’ Yet, despite that, Ghost Ears couldn’t bring himself to disagree with Ben’s choices;

The Royal Sage of Solas was both a very complicated enigma of a mind, and a very simple person. The way he thought, the how’s and the what’s of his thoughts were processed through an encyclopedia of knowledge assembled over a respectable length of [Immortal] life. On the surface he was, like most aliens humans came across, complicated, but any real examination, any real digging into his character would reveal the depressing truth: he was shallow, and most aliens were. Humans were simple on the surface, and contained depths of emotion and motivation, each mind was a masterwork of living art, an ancient evolutionary expression of will, full of flourishes and genius. No matter how many times you read it, it was new.

The aliens in The World and the wider universe were complicated like how a five hundred page rulebook for a board game was complicated. Read it once and be amazed. Read it twice without a smile. Read it thrice and it is completely understood, and promptly shelved, only consulted again as reference material.

That’s all a long way of saying that The Royal Sage of Solas was happy he was getting paid a Trivial Wish, and the depths of his happiness were purely transactional. He thought he was getting more than he was giving, so he was happy- full stop, that’s it. Nothing more, and nothing less. No depth to it, at all. Short Bus liked reading Ben’s mind not because he was nosey, but because it was interesting. The Royal Sage of Solas was in no danger of anyone accusing him of that.

So, it was a long trip on top of that moving, glass bottom, flying platform they seemed to favor in Solas. It was night, and the Canopy above them was beautiful in the way the night sky of The World was not, a riot of color and light and complexity. Ben looked up at it, his quiet mind weighing the beauty against the injustice; weighing the wonder against the horror; weighing the novelty against the reality; the good against the bad.

The Knowledge of Good and Evil, some called it, and according to the myths and legends of Earth, we paid a heavy price for it. We paid too much for it, and it wasn’t worth it, but that terrible ability, that terrible knowledge was ours, and we cannot escape it. Might as well use it, and get good at using it too, because it was not going away.

Still, it was troubling that Ben’s question wasn’t whether he was at war with Solas, but how he was going to wage war against the city.

How indeed.

--

They were brought to an unfamiliar police station, different from the one Ben had been to before. It made sense, Ben reflected, that a city the size of Solas would likely have dozens upon dozens of police precincts. He wondered how many of them were as corrupt as the one with Chief Cragg, and then wondered how many more of them were for sale, and how much they cost. How many of them he could afford.

When they arrived, the station management made some noises about separating the Royal Sage of Solas from Ben’s party, to which the Royal Sage just laughed. Note to self, Ben thought, the Royal Sage was way, way above the law.

Now, Ben sat in an interrogation room remarkably similar to the kinds used on Earth, complete with the one way mirror/window wall. Same bright light setup, same single table, same shitty chair for Ben to sit in. Despite his anger, it was actually pretty exciting, sort of like being on a TV show.

“Would be nice if I wasn’t naked-” Ben was in the process of complaining about being naked, so Frankie delivered clothes. A black and purple wave of Utility Pocket rushed over his body, and in its wake- “No way! This is great!” Ben said, standing up and examining his clothes, as in, exact replicas of the clothing he’d been trying to put on in the Pocket of Sanctuary.

Where had those come from! Frankie couldn’t possibly have, somewhere along the way, using his rapidly growing army of [Interdimensional Thieves], stolen an industrial grade Fabrication unit, and then used it to create exact copies of Ben’s things! A Fabrication unit like the one Frankie hypothetically stole was extremely valuable! Who would be crazy enough to-

“You found a way to keep them!” Ben said, still completely oblivious to the looming catastrophe, “Frankie you little genius!” Ben said, scooping up a preening Frankie from the interrogation table and showering him with praise and affection.

Yep, that multidimensional crime spree just paid off for old Frankie, and how he was going to double down and do it even more, with a focus on more industrial equipment. The evidence room in this particular location of Solas PD was, like all high security locations, heavily warded and protected. But not enough to stop Frankie.

As Frankie played and rolled, he quite calmly told his minions to ramp up the thievery, and that they were doing a good job- It went like this; Ben praised Frankie; Frankie praised his immediate subordinates; they praised their subordinates and so on and so forth, until everyone was happy. The ‘Trickle Down Praise-o-nomics’ effect of Ben.

Ben, the Royal Sage, all the Solas PD officers- pretty much everyone but The System was completely unaware of what Frankie was doing, and The System was just gloating at how much of a genius he was, and how well the Utility Pocket turned out. After all, it was designed to adapt to the needs of the user, and it was adapting.

The door to the interrogation room opened, and a mountain of rocks shaped like a person walked through, wearing a dirty uniform. He looked pissed.

“Turn everything off,” he said, looking at the window, “I said fucking turn it off,” he repeated, waited a moment, then nodded and sat heavily down on his chair. It must have been a great chair, because it supported his weight without so much as a creak or a groan. He sighed and leaned into it a little bit, glanced over at the Royal Sage, then over at Ben.

“Chief Cragg,” The Royal Sage said, and Ben looked over at the Sunlet.

“You know him?” Ben asked, looking from one to the other.

“I know anyone who’s anyone, and anyone who wants to be someone knows me,” Cragg said, chuckling to himself, “have you got my money?” he asked, still laughing to himself. In response, Ben produced the bag of gold he’d gotten from Mice Labs before he left- Wow, what a fucking crazy day, Ben thought to himself. Cragg picked up the bag, examined it briefly, then stowed it away somewhere. “It’s not what I asked for, but considering the circumstance, it’s enough. We’ve been robbed, little [Prince]. You and me, we’ve been robbed. You,” he said, pointing at Ben, “You came through. You sold your loot, and you contractually sent it to me. I even got a fucking reciept, and then I hear Mice Labs gets busted. Mice Labs,” he repeated, “Mice Fucking Labs. Do you know how pissed people are that Mice Fucking Labs got busted?”

“Pissed,” Ben said, leaning back and examining Cragg in that royal, ‘I can use this person’ kind of way.

“Very. Aside from our own little financial tragedy, I’ve got fucking Skeletons and Ghouls and fucking Liches from the College breathing down my neck and asking why, all-a-the-sudden, their favorite source of undead super-soldiers is gone.”

“That’s a great question,” Ben said, “why? Who did it?”

“Well,” Cragg said, his face and mouth always moving in an exaggerated way when he spoke, “As for who initiated this little friction-fuck of a situation, that would be your travelling companion Dryst-”

“The sno-cone,” Ben corrected

“Fucking [High Elemental Lord] Dryst, heir and successor to the entire elemental faction in Solas,” Cragg re-corrected.

“Right, the fucking psychedelic sno-cone fucking traitor, [High Elemental Dipshit], Dryst,” Ben re-re-correctred.

“I guess the ‘why he did it’ has revealed itself,” Chief Cragg said, rolling his eyes, “but I’m more upset, what I’m really pissed about, what fucking grinds my boulders, is that Precinct Fucking Six thinks they can just go around and do whatever the fuck they want and bust whoever they want and cause trouble and eat my fucking lunch without consequences.”

“Quick question,” Ben interjected, “they’re precinct six, and you’re precinct. . .?”

“Eight, best fucking precinct if you ask me. Six is a Gray district-”

“Fuck grays, it’s always fucking grays,” Ben said, shaking his head.

“It’s always fucking grays!” Cragg repeated, just as exasperated, “They’re always fucking pushing and poking and-” his hands, which were very expressive, clenched like he wanted to make a fist and smash the table, but then he calmed himself. “So it’s simple, Prince Ben. Through no fault of your own, you still owe me. So I’ve got a great, fantastic, wonderful idea that you’re going to just fucking love, I know you’ll love it, based on our conversation just now. Know that should you accept this task, you’ll be branded a criminal and relegated to the underworld of Solas-”

“I’m in,” Ben said without hesitation.

“Oh,” Cragg said, “Fucking all right then, I like this guy,” he said, pointing a thumb at Ben and looking at the Royal Sage, who was basically just sitting around and not giving a fuck about any of this, still grinning about what a good deal he got.

“He’s pretty exciting,” the Royal Sage said, agreeing.

“So, Ben, what I need you to do is this, are you ready? I want you to fucking burn Precinct Six to the ground. I want you to annihilate those fuckers. My part in this will be making sure nobody comes to interfere, to interrupt what will likely be an orgy of violence and destruction. How does that sound, Mr. ‘Parade of Wonders?’ I think you can pull it off, but if you can’t-”

“I can,” Ben said with total confidence.

“He can,” Cragg said, looking at the Royal Sage again with that same ‘he says he can fucking do it, I believe him’ look on his face again, “Level fucking one, and I believe him.”

“When do you want to do it?”

“Tonight, preferably, I’d like tonight. Tomorrow, I don’t like tomorrow, but tonight, fuck, that sounds good. How does tonight sound to you?”

“Fucking fantastic,” Ben said, “but I need to find someone first, get some stuff. You understand, right?”

“Hey, you’ve got my full support. I’m extremely interested to see how this turns out. Who do you need to find?”

“Red, she’s the Beyonder-”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Oh,” he repeated, “I know exactly where she is. Your friend is a bit of a hell-cat, if you don’t mind me saying it.”

“Oh god did she kill anyone?” Ben asked.

“No, but she was in a state of undress and making out, uh kissing, very indecently kissing someone, the report says, also inappropriately attired, right up against the Capital Crystal. I mean like, pressed up against it, so, uh, that’s very public. And illegal. We do have decency laws around here. Also, it really freaks out city management when people start messing with the Capital Crystal.” Ben groaned, putting his face into his hands.

“Where is she now?”

“Jail,” Cragg said simply, “her and her, uh, boyfriend.”

“Let’s go get em,” Ben sighed, standing up and making to leave. Cragg followed.