Inspector Vanille looked at the stack of papers one of the newest recruits had dropped on her desk.

The hulking reptilian raised an eyebrow ridge as she sipped her coffee, a miraculous warm brew prepared by the equally wonderful Cooper, the greatest right-hand man a cold-blooded agent like her could wish for.

"And this is?"

"I saw some new guy on TV the other day, and-"

"Ugh, let me guess. A suspicious seller goes live and advertises a weird product? This isn't a Villain plot, kid, and if it is, the Union's already on the case. Feel free to investigate further if you really want to when you have free time, but I doubt we'll be getting that anytime soon with that Nightsnatcher still at large."

The mysterious thing that had been plaguing the city for a while now had proven to be annoyingly efficient at evading attention. Even with the police, the Union, and even civilians looking for it, they had yet to even discover what it looked like, let alone figure out a way to put an end to his nightly hunts. At least now that its existence was known and restrictions had been made they had fewer victims to handle. They had no way to determine whether a disappearance case was its fault or not, but the number of people going missing had notably gone down.

Well, that could also be attributed to the overall crime rate going down. It was unsurprising the worst elements of Zalcien preferred not to risk their lives by doing business in the middle of the night now that a very real boogeyman was out and about. At least Heroes had to respect the law, and even the most lethal and stealthy of Vigilantes were known factors. This thing? Whatever the Nightsnatcher was, it was worse than anything in the city in years.

The reprieve was appreciated, but Vanille would still put a bullet between the thing's eyes if she could.

"Inspector, this isn't what I came here to say."

"Well hurry up, my coffee is getting cold and I'd rather not fall asleep in the middle of an interrogation."

The recruit, a strapping man she likely would have been crushing on from afar back when she was younger, looked up to her slitted eyes.

"Silhouette."

"Should I know about them?"

"When the reporters arrived for their interview, he was just done fighting with Abrakaboom."

"Any proof of that?"

"The sound of the explosions."

"That won't be proof enough."

"It doesn't matter, that would fall under the Union's jurisdiction anyway. No, what caught my interest was how he came out of nowhere and settled down in an abandoned factory, turning it into a functional facility seemingly overnight."

She adjusted her posture in her chair, standing up a little straighter, causing her tail to drag on the floor.

"Go on."

"Well, it wasn't truly overnight. At least not all of it. The exterior was fixed right away, but some digging showed the machinery still needed repairs, which is why he hired one Ivan Decanov."

The inspector groaned, a light hiss invading the grave sound escaping her chest due to her reptilian physiology.

"Decanov alone is trouble worth watching for. Any idea when things might blow up?"

"No clue. But, that's not all. Since our mysterious newcomer made contact with one of the city's non-criminal troublemakers, I looked for more."

"And you found something."

"123 Blackrose Street belongs to the Black Bank."

"Of course, the scheming brat would be involved. I guess there's more?"

"The Black Bank led me to investigate the slums, and guess what the branch over there had in their reports?"

"Silhouette, a newcomer to the gang wars. Anything remarkable about him?"

"He still controls his territory there, although he moved into the city. He has a good reputation, the word is that he's a good employer who pays better than anyone else and that he keeps to himself. The only known conflict he was involved with was initiated by an isolated Wicked Witchcraft member, one of the former cabal leaders."

"How did that mess end?"

"That territory is now his, and the previous leader is MIA."

Vanille rose from her seat and drank from her cup, no longer steaming but still hotter than lukewarm.

"Super-level strength, the exact threat is unknown. The slums are a lawless zone, so there's nothing he's done a jury would hold against him. Possible Villain or Vigilante, though it looks like he will probably prefer to remain neutral. That's good to know, thank you. That'll be one more spot the guys can fall back to in case of an emergency, it won't be long before the local idiots know better than to approach the place."

"This isn't all, ma'am."

"It isn't?"

"The rate at which he produces goods in the slums without a known factory there? The fact he has taken over a warehouse last used by the Blood Angels? I think he might be acting as an intermediary for someone outside the city, and it might include a contraband trade. No evidence of drug dealing so far, though."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

She hummed as she put a claw to her chin, rubbing her scales.

"I see where you're coming from. It isn't like there are no breaches in the border, but the fact we might have someone creating a new operation rather than going through the official means or the usual illegal trade routes isn't good. Still, we can't cross out the possibility this Silhouette isn't the middle man, or that whoever is behind his production isn't a local or truly has nefarious intentions."

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed how the recruit began to slouch. Vanille let out a soft silent sigh before continuing.

"That said, you still did a good job. Even if it turns out he's genuinely innocent, knowing that we should keep an eye on him in the first place is good to know."

"Thanks, ma'am."

"Now, get back to work. We still have more people calling in than we have phones."

"As you wish, ma'am!"

The inspector lightly shook her head, a smile on her snout. The eagerness of the newbies could get to her, sometimes. The fact Cooper had managed to keep it even after all this time was yet another reason she liked having him around. She spared a look at the evidence the man had brought her and gently pushed the pile to the side of her desk, in clear enough view she'd remember to read through it later without risking mixing it in all of the other files she had to juggle with. The Nightsnatcher wasn't the only thing making a mess in the city, it was just the worst case the police could handle with minimal interference from the Union. Not that the Heroes went out of their way to impede their investigations, it just wasn't sane or safe to send cops with basic powers or firearms to deal with gangs when they had someone like Sunburn on site.

The lizard drank the last of her coffee.

Today was going to be a long day.

James was back in the improvised training area he had fashioned in the abandoned warehouse of his Penumbral Palace, though already his Infused were preparing the place to get back in activity soon. Most of those who weren't patrolling or guarding the area were with Doctor Decanov though, watching the man put together the machinery that would soon be manufacturing his products. They were supposed to study the engineer at work to see how to maintain and repair his creations without needing to call on him, but James had to admit he had some doubts as to the likelihood of the success of this plan. The fact the robot had a tendency to do most of the heavy lifting mentally meant they likely wouldn't learn how anything actually worked, simply in which order and which way should the pieces be put together.

Well, now wasn't the time to worry about that. If anything, the doctor's slowly growing interest in sticking around might render James' worries null. Sure, it still wouldn't do to need him to move personally for any minor problem, but if he were to become a permanent member of the team he would likely feel more comfortable leaving trustworthy complete instructions and blueprints around. He'd need to hire people to work on these, but he had already been planning something similar to lighten Techlord's workload, so that wasn't so problematic.

Speaking of, he should probably have his main inventor come and verify the doctor's work soon to make sure the mass production of his creations wouldn't ruin their quality. It'd be disastrous if someone were to be harmed by an electrogun exploding in their hand or a shield failing to block a weak hit.

As part of his mind wandered, James was also reading the booklet on the basics of magic he had bought what felt like a lifetime ago. He hadn't dabbled in spells and witchcraft all that much beyond the bare minimum he had learned, and his recent encounter drove him to rectify that.

One topic he had grown curious about following the raid on Runar's base was the subject of elements. Not the ones of the periodic table, though those were still a thing here, but the more spiritual forces of nature. Back on Earth, there were constant debates about what should be counted as an element. For example, metal, which was part of the classic five Chinese elements, was absent from many pieces of fiction. It was somewhat reassuring to see that even here, on Terra Stellis, where magic was very real and easy to observe, the topic was prone to disagreements.

Technically, according to his booklet, anything could be an element. According to it, magic was an intangible rainbow, and harnessing it acted as a prism, capturing some fractions of it, fractions that were then dubbed elements by those using it. It was why water magic could both be very effective and very vulnerable when it came to acid magic, it all depended on how it was used.

To continue on this topic, elements weren't closed-off things. They were like chemicals, mixing them together could have vastly different results based on the conditions. Two benign solutions could result in something monstrous, and two dangerous fields could give birth to a harmless one.

To put it in the words of the booklet...

"Elements as we know them don't exist. They are only our way of categorizing similar enough phenomenons all born from the great chaos we call magic, yet again a term we coined to label a primordial force none can claim to truly understand. Plastic is an element to the same level as fire and decay are."

Now, the exact ramifications of this James was unsure of, but what it meant to him was reassuring: he could magic, thus he could in theory do more than just throw balls and spears of darkness. Well, he also knew how to create a shield, but that wasn't the sort of development he was looking for. To be more specific, what he wanted to replicate were the black flames Loedycan had used during the fight. The wolfman had confirmed to James he had never been able to use such things before they first met, which meant much like Polisson's replacement limb, they were born from his infusion.

Now, the booklet did mention not everyone could act as a prism to the same level. To be more precise, it mentioned each individual being its own prism, with some "colors" being easier to access than others, though then again some people could access supposedly mutually exclusive elements. Considering his situation, James wouldn't be surprised if he was limited to using things that could in one way or another be linked to darkness or shadows. That didn't mean he could only use shadow magic, though. As Loedycan, Fluorine, and even the electroguns had shown, other things could be imbued with darkness. Fire, acid, lightning.

Now, James' goal wasn't to become a master of the arcane arts, but getting closer to being a jack of all trades was always a good idea. According to his shopkeepers, Pierce Evil had prepared himself against electricity and shadows, and had only been killed because he had dropped his guard and was caught off-guard by a regular flamethrower. While there wasn't much he could do against that second resistance, having more elements up his sleeves to deal with different situations was something he could work on.

Hence his current situation: part of him went on and on on the various things he had to prepare for, another worker on keeping his body afloat and finding the best way to move through the air, yet another was meditating to further study the soulspace and his connections to infused items, a different one kept on reading that booklet, and a final one was working on conjuring elemental magic at random to see what worked and what didn't. After all, before he could train on getting stronger, he needed to see what was possible in the first place.

The ratlings spared a glance at what was going on with their father from their own training after a black bolt of lightning struck the wall next to them. The siblings quickly elected to move somewhere else, just in time to be spared from the black snow that began to rain down despite them being inside. Not that they knew it was snow, the odd color looking closer to ash and none of the dark snowflakes reaching them to share their creeping cold.

The couple of Infused in the room weren't quite as lucky. One of the masked guards was hit straight in the face by a bouncing ball of tar-like water while the other calmly patted down the flames spreading on their forearm.

Thankfully, they didn't have the sense of self to panic or be offended.