The doors of the elevator were only open a fraction of their width, due to the constant gain and loss of power. Midnight found it sufficient to squeeze through as he continued his chase of a man in a fancy suit. He’d already snuck through some vents, and he was making liberal use of Mage’s Reach to deal with pesky doors. It was only because he’d been so far behind to begin with that Midnight hadn’t already caught up.

“You’re under arrest!” Midnight declared as he leapt out, entangling himself under his target’s feet. Midnight jumped back as the man toppled over, leaving him face-to-face with the man’s bald patch as his toupee went flying. “Cease your resistance or I will be forced to shock you.”

The man pushed himself to his hands and knees and took a swipe at Midnight. “I’m not going to be caught by a stupid cat!”

Midnight ducked the first swipe of the man’s arms, but let him connect with the second- as he coated his body with Shocking Grasp. “I am neither stupid nor a cat,” Midnight said to the twitching figure on the ground. He’d gone light on the electricity, since the man didn’t seem to have any ability. Then it took a good minute of fiddling around with Mage’s Reach to get the man’s hands behind him and cuffed, the cuffs taken out of Storage obviously. There was also a little transmitter he left behind inside the neck of the man’s coat, for others to be able to retrieve him or in case he managed to get up and away.

But Midnight wasn’t done yet. He knew there were others somewhere down this tunnel, and he wasn’t going to let them get away. He could probably catch them by simply running, but he had the spare mana for another Haste, and if he ran into actual trouble he had the option to retreat or fight.

He darted down the tunnel, barely large enough for a human to move down but quite roomy for a Celmothian like him. Then he came up on them. As soon as he spotted the pair, he ducked into a corner. They were lit up in a strange manner. A woman was carrying a flashlight by hand, like the running man had been. The other… had it attached to a hardhat.

“W-what are you doing here?” the woman yelled. “This is private property!”

“Private property?” the man said, blocking the hallway. “Yes, it might be. But it’s certainly not your property.” In the light of the woman’s flashlight, he could be seen pushing back his glasses as he held up a clipboard. “Which means not only did you not get permits for this shoddy construction, you’re responsible for criminal trespass. And what looks to be millions in stolen land usage. It’s also going to be very difficult for you to claim you didn’t know of this when you were fleeing an arrest warrant through these very tunnels.”

The woman swung her flashlight like a club, striking the man on the top of his head. Where he happened to be wearing his hardhat.

“Assault of a civil servant is also illegal, you know. But I’m not much of a fighter. Excuse me, you in the shadows. Can you help me arrest this woman?”

“Oh, yes. Of course!” Midnight said. “I was worried you might also be involved in villainy.”

“Nope, just the Building and Safety Division. We were informed of potential code violations, so here I am.”

The tunnel wasn’t wide, but in theory there was room for two humans to squeeze past each other. But the man performed an excellent job of standing in the way of the fleeing woman.

Midnight repeated his warning about shocking and the like. The woman, of course, did not comply. “Hey can you help me cuff her?” Midnight said. “No hands.”

“Sure thing,” the man said. “I do have the authorization to arrest people for violations of building codes.”

“And supervillainy,” Midnight reminded the man. “I believe you should be informed of that…?”

“Supervillainous building codes violation are even more egregious,” the man agreed.

-----

I saw Sir Kalman come out of one of the back rooms with a vaguely familiar elven woman clutching onto his shoulder. “I believe this is everything. Can we burn this place to the ground now?”

“No,” said a woman in a hardhat. “That would be unsafe. But those involved in the crimes here will be paying to restore the integrity of the underground. And the building will likely have to be dismantled at their expense as well, given it served as a lair of supervillain operations. It can’t be resold like this.”

“... That seems like a light sentence,” Sir Kalman said.

At this point, Calculator made himself known. “There will of course be criminal charges. And I wouldn’t underestimate how serious the Building and Safety Division is about pursuing charges. And you can bet that the taxmen will get involved.”

“As for other punishments,” Lady Recollection said, stopping her patrolling of the area for a moment, “We will be negotiating with you on who it is appropriate to bring back to your world… for a proper trial of course.”

“I wouldn’t dream of anything but a proper trial,” Sir Kalman said. “And I likewise wouldn’t bring anyone in without solid evidence. More than solid,” he gestured to the elven woman.

“We are glad to hear that,” Lady Recollection said. Then she turned to me. “I’m certain you’ll be wanting to return her home as soon as possible. We’ll just need to carefully document her presence for the folks at Extra among other things.”

I nodded. “I don’t have the mana right now anyway. It’ll take a couple hours regardless. Until then, she’ll probably want something else to wear.” I stepped closer, mentally switching to Elvish. “Excuse me, miss. With your permission I will use some magic to make your appearance however you prefer. Until we can actually get you something.”

She was still clutching onto Sir Kalman’s shoulder, and leaned forward to whisper to him.

“She asks why you are speaking old elven.”

“... Because those are the only elves I’ve talked to with Translation,” I admitted. “But you seem to be adjusted to modern elven.”

“I just speak it,” Sir Kalman said.

“Oh. Good. Could you translate?”

Ultimately she was a little timid about letting an orc touch her, even briefly, but with Sir Kalman there and the fact that I hardly dressed like a typical orc she agreed. I gave her some garb that looked more like what Ailen and the elder had worn. It was just Disguise, though, so it was only visual.

Around that time, I sensed Midnight coming back. “Hey buddy. How many did you catch?”

“Only two, technically,” Midnight said. “But they seemed important, for some reason? Or they seemed to think they were important?”

“A city councilman and a mayor’s wife,” Calculator commented. I wasn’t surprised he already had that information, as he sought out details above all else. “And there were others in another secret tunnel.”

“I missed that one,” Midnight admitted, hanging his head.

“It’s alright buddy. We can only be in one place at a time right now.”

“I find myself concerned at your phrasing,” Calculator said. “But I suppose I was aware of similar magic in theory. It just seemed implausible.”

“And expensive,” I said. “Though diamond dust is pretty cheap so maybe…”

Lady Recollection continued her work, and Calculator seemed quite interested in the results. As for what was actually happening, I got the vague impression of shapes moving back and forth. Lady Recollection should be receiving a clearer picture of how things were in the past… and from what Calculator had said, being able to ask people where they were at specific times was very useful in court. In theory, she could trace back the steps of several people for this entire night. There was some limit to how far back things worked, and there were limits to how much was directly admissible in court… but that wasn’t my job.

It sounded like those Building and Safety Division guys would be throwing the book at these people regardless. And I had no doubt that anyone who got shipped off to Granbold would be facing the harshest penalties.

“Uuugh,” Current collapsed into a chair nearby. It seemed she chose me as a target to complain to. Or she was just speaking to the air and I happened to be nearby. “I can’t believe I lost to Switch. The drives are all garbled.”

“Computer storage?” I asked.

“Yeah. I would have been nice to have it as additional evidence. Especially for conspiracy charges.”

“Maybe there are online backup?” I titled my head.

“You’d make a terrible villain,” Current said. “Listen, nobody’s going to be that…” she frowned. “The server’s connected to wifi. Technically secured… but if they did that then maybe…!” she threw herself up out of the chair. “I have to go check!”

“Okay bye!” I waved.

Sir Kalman came back around to find Midnight and I sitting together. The wood elf woman came along with him. Her name was… ugh, there were too many. Ant something? I had seen it for Scrying, but it dropped out of my head as we went over so many. But her face was familiar, and I remembered the leather cap connected to her that was now back on her head. And proper if ill-fitting clothing.

“You have a difficult job here,” Sir Kalman said to me. “Not only do you have to deal with various restrictions on your actions, the battles…” he shook his head. “I wasn’t even able to scratch that fellow.”

“Iron Bloke is invincible. Don’t worry ‘bout it.” We looked over, and Squad Ten cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was just standing here and couldn’t help but overhear. Nobody can hurt that guy. Don’t worry about it.”

“Dart took him down in mere moments,” Sir Kalman crossed his arm.

“Yeah, so?” Squad Ten said.

“It simply shows that I was lacking. Not even my holy power could damage him.”

I shrugged, “Don’t worry about it. Invincible is invincible.”

Sir Kalman frowned, “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Everyone has a weakness though,” I said. “It just didn’t happen to be swords or holy power.”

“But- it should have done something. An agent of evil…”

“Look,” I said. “Villains can be evil. No doubt. But they’re by and large not followers of evil gods or devil worshippers or anyone particularly susceptible to holy stuff. But I think the most important thing is… during that fight, did you get experience?”

Sir Kalman paused, looking at his status screen. I couldn’t see it, but everyone knew the look. “... Quite a bit, actually. But I wanted to be more… impactful. I came here to save people.”

“And they’re safe,” I pointed out. “You drew fire away from the innocents when those maniacs were shooting up their own club. Well, you and Lustre,” I gestured towards the guy who was sighing about bloody holes in his clothes and trying to fix his hair with just a mirror and a comb. “But you were out there first. Speaking of which… did you take any injuries?”

“Nothing major. Though I feel like there’s some sort of lingering effect. I healed my wounds but…” he tapped his belly. “There’s something pressing on me?”

“... Let’s hope your healing popped the bullet out of you and it’s just stuck inside your plate,” I said.

“Bullets?”

“They’re like tiny arrows that go real fast. You know, the things guns shoot?”

“I thought they shot magical force. Or… super force, I suppose,” Sir Kalman shrugged.

“Nah.” I popped a bullet out of my magazine, showing him the casing and stuff. I explained how a little hammer hit an exploding thing that exploded more things and pushed some metal- often lead- out the end of a gun really fast.

“I see. A strangely complex design for something so simple.”

“It’s really hard to make bullets go straight,” I said. “That’s where all the work comes in, I hear.”

With that, our first round of work in Yew-Kay was over with. But unless I’d missed something, we hadn’t found everyone yet. There were other raids that happened simultaneously, but in the future we’d have to deal with prepared villains. Or if they were smart, they’d just let people go and hide themselves away. I’d much prefer that option, to be honest, but we weren’t going to count on it.