Chương 20: Interlude: The Challenge

It was a perfectly ordinary day in Crashpoint City, the capital of Surcease, and by extension the rest of the Dancer system.

The Dancer was (most likely) shining behind the shroud of ever-present darkness, the birds were singing—although few would consider the sounds chickens made to be any form of song—little sisters were getting out of school so they could have fun in the afternoon, Kaedekin were training at the local park to the sounds of weapons clashing, and everyone was alert for Void kaiju because there was always a chance that one would emerge from the breach that the city was built around. Then something exploded.

It was a small explosion, and caused confusion more than anything else. It didn't sound like any of the explosive munitions commonly used for dealing with kaiju, and there were no buddies pinging out emergency calls asking for assistance, so it didn't seem like some kind of unplanned and unintended explosion. The Kaedekin closest to the blast were mildly annoyed at best at the unexpected sound and shockwave, then bewildered as they noticed sparkles of confetti-like vennplate bloating in the air.

The sparkles drew their gaze towards the writing that had suddenly appeared on the side of a tall building. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Tonight, I shall steal the statue of Stardancer from Hero Park! I challenge the Metro Rangers of Crashpoint City to stop me! It was signed, " Dark Magical Girl Phantom Thief Night Raider'. Everyone stared for several seconds as they tried to comprehend what they were seeing. They comprehended.

For the first time in their history, the Kaedekin had a collective societal ' what the poot?' moment. The Metro Rangers had little to go on. No one had noticed anyone doing anything unusual around the building the message had been written on, which was a recreation center full of makerlabs, supply depots, various workshops, restaurants, and generally full of Kaedekin of all ages.

While many people were willing to help and buddies were willing to provide their sensor data of the area, even for buddies networked together it was a lot of data to go through, with nothing to narrow it down. Kaede's Legacy was, for once, unhelpful. While she had participated in investigations before, Nightmare and Mortal were the experienced investigators in the Outguard, and had been the ones leading when mysteries needed to be solved.

Stardancer had mostly been there for transport, muscle, and occasionally to function as a sensor when her magic could be used to replicate scanning equipment. It was a clear hole in the Metro Ranger's abilities, and even as people scrambled to figure out how to plug it, Rangers were deployed to deal with what they could deal with. They knew where this Night Raider would be, after all.