Beau sat in unperturbed silence. His mind, body and soul focusing purely on one thing. His new invention lay in front of him, he was working in the shop because it was currently open and his presence was needed in order to sell things.

Of course he did not have to. It was always a wonder how he had as much money as he did, the shop did well as it was on Bath’s main street but it was only the second time he had opened it in a city. The reason for his ridiculous wealth was very simple thievery.

He spent 4 straight years cleaning out the sewer rats, as it were, and most of them happened to be absurdly rich.

As he was already a criminal, and a country-wide one at that, why not go the extra mile and take some of their valuables. The dead have no need for gold or silver, after all.

He hid his extreme wealth very well, Watson now knew of it and was right ready to quit her job but was stopped by Beau as he might need to use her high up position in the MCR in the future. Which sounded bad, but, Watson agreed with his point saying it would be for the best.

The only expensive thing he bought were his clothes and some of his accessories. His furniture and crockery were pretty much bog standard and he had no houses in the countryside that he could retire to, at least, not yet. That was something he would have to discuss with Watson.

All of this meant that he had money lying around gathering dust. A lot of it.

Their plan was to go to Reading, which was not only the place where The Creed were planning on brainwashing the Queen, but also where he was born and his parent buried.

This meant that after the mission’s outcome was decided, for better or worse, Watson would no doubt want to stay a little longer to visit their graves and the town in general.

He decided, it would be best, to buy a cart. Even if it were to be only temporary, it would make the journey infinitely more comfortable and would mean that they could go at their own pace, rather than one dictated by others.

With his mind made up, he closed the shop. The regulars and other customers were beginning to get used to the shops random closing times. They had been angry at first, however, they moved on from it assuming that someone who meddles with magic, no doubt has a somewhat special personality. They were not wrong.

He found his destination in one of the less busy streets; this being compared to the main street, so it was still quite busy.

His target was a rather famous cart shop, nobles usually used this shop and they had even crafted for royalty in the past.

He slipped into the shop to get a look around. It was large but filled mostly with designs. Round the back of the shop was a small lane, just big enough for a large cart, which lead out into a cart’s stable of sorts. There were a few customers, not nearly enough to excuse making one wait. Beau was immediately picked up by a slightly tall, slightly large lady.

“Good day, kind Sir. What are you lookiong for today?”

“Greetings. I am looking for a medium sized carriage for 2 people. It needs to have a reasonably large trunk as well.”

Of course, he could have afforded a large cart, but that would put too much distance between himself and Watson, a small carriage would be a tight squeeze, hence the choice for a medium sized one.

“Of course, please come this way, I will show you our range, of course, you can also have one order-made, however, it will take a week to finish.”

“The premade ones are fine, thank you.” He was on a tight schedule after all.

After choosing a suitable cart, he was offered the choice of a driver. He accepted this, he would after all, want to have maximum Watson time on their journey, even one second away would be unforgivable.

The shop assistant asked him a variety of questions. One of them being whether or not the driver would need to be a capable bodyguard. Beau insisted that they did not. What could a bodyguard do that the head of MCR Bath and the UK’s most wanted rogue could not?

He ended up with a 17 year old girl, no doubt a commoner who definitely had her own circumstances; not that Beau really cared, as long as she did her job well.

When the time came he departed so that the shop could get in contact with the driver. He also asked if they could store the carriage for it to be ready the next day. She agreed after some monetary motivation.

His next stop was buying a horse. A lot of people spend a lot of time picking the right horse for the best value, but Beau didn’t care. He was not going to war nor on any long distance adventures. It just had to pull a cart for a bit. Well within any decent horses capabilities. With that settled he assured that he would be back the next morning to pick the brown horse up.

His walk home was filled with a sense of accomplishment. Watson would no doubt be thrilled at the prospect of a relaxing journey in almost privacy. He found that, even though it had only been several hours, he missed her like mad.

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Watson’s day was dull. She had not much to do during the day except for paperwork, which, anyone with her signature could do. It was tedious but necessary, she understood that.

Spencer, who was now leading the case on the White Demon was currently at a major standstill. Whether that was a good or bad thing, they could not tell.

She was looking forward to the journey between her and Beau. Seeing as she had no one she needed to report to, she just told her subordinates that she had some business to deal with in Reading. Seeing as the Queen was going to be there soon, they asked no questions. Not that they could anyway.

Watson giggled like a little girl, it was really nice being the boss.

Her mind constantly wandered about Beau’s past and the horrors that he had gone through. Ever since he had told her she was lost in it. However, that lost look that he had in his eyes had disappeared. Or maybe it hadn’t she just understood the reason behind it. It brought her a lot closer to him.

With her concentration briefly lapse she quickly snapped back to her work. Taking hesitant glances at the clock on the wall.

After her work day was officially finished and saying or signaling goodbye to her colleagues, she practically ran home. She arrived outside the door of Beau’s shop and could already see through the window. Marianne was sitting at the main desk. Her classes finished before Watson’s work so she was almost always the first there.

She walked through the door and casually greeted Marianne, exchanging a few words about their day and for some reason the weather. Which was a mandatory conversation topic between English people.

Finally she opened the door to Beau’s office and gave him a bear’s hug from behind before smoothly landing a kiss on his lips. Due to him facing away from her he tilted his head back, resulting in her chin just below his nose and his eyes looking at her chest and neck. Upside down kissed were also good, they both decided.

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Magic and mana were still very under-researched and ultimately confusing to the very core. So far, people like Beau had the most practical knowledge in the subject. Theorists and scholars had the most academic or theoretical knowledge. In regards to the magic that could influence a human beings mind, both parties were unsure of why or how it worked. In order to find out that such a thing was even possible, they just ran live tests. Lots and lots of them.

It had cost the Government a lot of prisoners but they got there eventually.

The basic idea, that has been agreed upon by many, including Beau. Was that due to the mana being produced by the body, it would, of course, also affect it; in a variety of ways.

Beau has used mana to heal people, it works in the same sort of way. It influences the body to act or perform in a certain way. In the case of healing, it was just speeding up the process that the body would have done naturally.

Beau’s new invention was something that he had been thinking about for a while. It was, what he called, a mana bomb. It worked very similarly to a modern day grenade, it explodes with hot fire and great force after a certain amount of time after being activated. The real question was why this was in any way superior to just using magic.

It is area of effect without having to manually target multiple people. It is unpredictable. You can store mana and use it later, meaning you don’t have to draw on your current mana pool. It is unexpected, the enemies will have never seen something like it. You can aim/throw it wherever you want, even if you can’t see where it’s going.

These are just a few that Beau considered, but there were no doubt more.

The final thing that he had crafted was a mana shield for Watson. Due to his enormously large mana pool he had no reason for such a thing. Watson, on the other hand, was not able to fight continuously for a long period of time whilst maintaining a steady offence as well as a impenetrable defence. So he crafted a device that, when activated, drew on the vast amounts of mana inside the device (supplied by Beau beforehand) and summoned a shield around her that rivalled his own.

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With his ridiculously over powered equipment and vastly intelligent fiancée on board the 2 person cart and their sweet driver who was massively nervous faced with the two enormously beautiful passengers, they started their journey to Reading.