"Mr Stone and Mr Thorper, you know why I called you in today." (Weems)
(Mr Stone, she's definitely angry.) (William)
"Does this have anything to do with the burning tree incident, Headmistress Weems?" (William)
"Exactly, Mr Stone. Several witnesses place you both at the Archery Club's practice field late at night."
"That day, we were conducting intensive practice for the Archery Team Captain elections." (Xavier)
"We left the field before the incident." (Xavier)
"Are you sure about that? Teacher Thornhill claims to have seen you both running through the corridors of the indoor dining hall at 8:30 pm. She says she remembers the time clearly, as that's when she usually waters her plants for the last time each day." (Weems)
(Tsk, damn Thornhill.) (Xavier)
"That was five minutes after the explosion." (Weems)
"We were in a bit of a hurry that night, we wanted to get to our dormitory before Professor Vlad's first nightly round of the dormitories." (William)
"All right, putting that aside, let's talk about the mysterious cat that often enters the dormitories of Ophelia Hall." (Weems)
"No one has registered a white, black, or orange cat as a pet this year. If I allow rumours to spread that I tolerated something like this happening in the Nevermore girls' dormitory, it would be a scandal among the parents." (Weems)
"What exactly are you talking about?" (Xavier)
"That some student is using their skills to sneak into the room of another specific student, Enid Sinclair. Anything you want to tell me now, Mr Stone?" (Weems)
*Sigh*
"I knocked down and set fire to the tree, Headmistress. I'm sorry I tried to deceive you." (William)
"I was the one who shot the arrow, Headmistress Weems. Will just handed it to me. I was the real culprit." (Xavier)
"That finally clarifies the matter. Since both of you are guilty, you will both receive punishment." (Weems)
Headmistress Weems smiled with some pride and took two folders out of the top drawer of her desk.
"Next month is the National Art Competition for young people. Twenty-five academies will participate, including Nevermore." (Weems)
"I want you to participate with a piece of work, William. It can be charcoal or oil; the choice of category is yours. I want you to win prestige for the academy by getting a good place."
"Understood, Headmistress Weems." (William)
"As for you, Mr Thorper, we have a project with Jericho to promote a good relationship between Normies and Outcasts." (Weems)
"A mural covering the entire front of a fairly popular restaurant that recently opened its doors" (Weems).
"The 'El Milagro' bakery, owned by the father of Jane, the girl William met earlier this year" (Weems).
"I'll gladly take care of it" (Xavier).
"You can both leave now, and remember that something like this must never happen again. It was too dangerous" (Weems).
"It won't happen again, Headmistress Weems" (William).
(I'll try the next ones in the forest) (William).
Deep in the Forest - Hunters' Cabin
"So, what do we have?" (Galpin)
"It was Richard Desmon, a hobby hunter with a lot of experience. His friend, who was going to meet him today, reported him when he arrived in the morning. He saw nothing but the body" (Ritchie)
"So, what I try to kill, I kill him, ironically" (Galpin).
Jericho police vans surrounded a simple wooden cabin, their red and blue lights barely visible in the sunlight.
A half-eaten corpse covered the back yard of the cabin, all its internal organs had been ripped out, the head and limbs were relatively intact, except for a few claw marks.
"He tried to fight back as best he could." (Galpin)
Sheriff Galpin, with his grey hair and sheriff's uniform, pushed a shotgun shell with a pen while crouching on the ground, mud smearing his black boots.
"Do we know who could have done this?" (Galpin)
"We managed to find several footprints on this side." (Ritchie)
"They're huge, Bear?" (Galpin)
"They're the biggest the zoologist we sent photos to has ever seen." (Ritchie)
"Did he give an estimate of their size?" (Galpin)
"At least 13 feet tall." (Ritchie)
"Put out announcements on radio and television. The forest is closed until we find this giant bear." (Galpin)
"No hunters, explorers, or hikers until further notice." (Galpin)
"Mayor Noble won't like that. It's hunting season, and many people come to Jericho just for that." (Ritchie)
"They want to hunt deer with their children." (Ritchie)
"I'll talk to him at the Veleta this afternoon, don't worry, tell them they can collect the body and clean up the place." (Galpin)
"All right, guys, we're done here, you can proceed." (Ritchie)
Soon, men dressed in white suits lifted the body, or what was left of it, to be taken to the morgue in Jericho.
(Oh, so about 13 feet tall, that's pretty big, although I doubt a normal bear would have left footprints of that size). (William)
The footprints in question were very deep, and there were enough shell casings to take down a normal bear. This one was unusual.
William, in his raven form, observed the entire report from the branch of a pine tree. He had come out to stretch his wings and relax by flying freely.
He listened to the conversation from beginning to end between Sheriff Donovan Galpin and his assistant, Ritchie Santiago, an overweight woman of colour.
(I'm surprised she's the Sheriff's assistant in that physical condition).
William flew through the cabin window, took human form, and surveyed the place. Nothing caught his attention. It was a room with a fireplace and no furniture, designed for hunters to spend a night indoors before setting out the next day.
(Hmm, there's no dust on this.)
William held a set of car keys in his hands, with a photo and a key ring hanging from them.
(This must be Richard's wife, and this, a bear claw?) (William)
(The fireplace wasn't lit. He didn't have time, or he just came in to hide from something.) (William)
William accidentally kicked an empty bottle, a loud noise in an empty room.
"Hey, did you hear something inside the cabin?" (Forensic 1)
"Maybe, why don't you go and see?" (Assistant)
"I'm your boss, so go and take a look for me." (Forensic)
A man dressed in white opened the wooden door to take a look, and almost fell over in fright when a large raven, black as night, shot up into the sky.
"That thing scared me. Don't you think it's too big to be a normal crow?" (Assistant)
"I don't know. He didn't tell me how big each bird I see is. Let's get on with this." (Coroner)
"My family has a farm, and I've never seen one that big." (Assistant)
William went into the forest and searched around the cabin until he found an area with several broken trees, claw marks on the bark of another, and footprints. Most of the area around the cabin was gravel, with only a small section of dirt where the police found the only bear footprint.
"This is definitely not a normal bear."
On the damp forest floor, six perfect footprints were marked in the mud.
"This thing has six legs."
William took several photos before flying off to Nevermore. He was running late for breakfast and his first class of the day, Biology with Professor Orloff.
Nevermore Biology Room.
"Where have you been all morning?"
"I went for a walk in the woods. Did I miss anything important?"
William put his backpack on the floor before taking a seat next to Xavier. He wanted to sit with Enid, but she was sitting with Yoko.
"Nothing really."
"All right, young people, quiet down in my class. Today we're going to talk about Trasgos."
The professor entered the classroom. He was a floating head in a glass jar filled with liquid. He moved around the classroom on his motorised machine, an ingenious vehicle designed by one of his favourite students, a DaVinci, which was the only thing keeping him alive.
The biology room was a large room with six long wooden tables with metal tops accompanied by benches, plants decorating the walls and large bookcases filled with various unknown liquids in small bottles, samples of fantastic creatures residing in glass jars.
The most impressive feature of the room was the mortuary table that Professor Orloff used as a desk, a slab of marble originally made for dissecting corpses.
White chalk marks covered the three-segment blackboard behind the desk, drawings about Trasgo's biology for today's class.
"Unusual beasts believed to be extinct, small predators of small animals such as raccoons, rats, insects and occasionally young deer."
"Their main strength lies in their numbers; a single Trasgo Queen is capable of producing large numbers of offspring in a short period of time."
"They are subterranean creatures that only come out to hunt at night."
While Professor Orloff was teaching his class, he glanced at William. He too had heard about what had happened to little Jane, and it was he who had identified the bodies in William's photos.
"A Trasgo horde is made up of the King and Queen, accompanied by their children. Unlike the King, who is usually smaller than normal, the Queen is large and considerably strong."
"Ancient legends tell of their hunt. The Queen had a powerful, almost instantaneous healing ability that made her subjugation difficult. The diaries of St. John of the Cross recount that it took 30 armed knights and large quantities of oil to deal with a single pack."
"What was the oil for, Professor?" (Student B)
"Fire. They cauterised the Troll Queen's wounds before she could heal completely."
"The king leads the hunting and gathering group, and the queen protects the nest."