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Look, things like this just happen sometimes. Usually because she winds her watch the wrong way, or magic. A strong magic field is always an issue when she tries to jump. It fucks with the magic crystal that powers her watch and can send her centuries off course, or even across dimensions. And then, of course, it always takes ages for her watch to regain power, and it's this whole mess that's really inconvenient to deal with.
Ten minutes to one is a fine recharge rate, until you jump six thousand years in the wrong direction and have to wait sixty years in that future just to be able to jump back.
Today the cause of being punted to Baelz-knows-where is trying to do a jump in the basement of a cult base. Not a fun Ina cult base. A 'let's all commune with aliens by sacrificing young children' sort of cult base.
Anyhow, they probably had some fancy magic summoning circle on the floor above, and that's enough to send her careening to somewhen that definitely isn't three weeks in the past like she intended.
She can tell because the basement looks quite different. Rather than being a place made of stone, housing shelves and crates, she's in… uh… well there are still shelves and crates, but they're a bit more professional. Industrial shelving units with metal and plastic crates populate a much larger storage area that is almost warehouse sized. Soldiers walk up and down the aisles, carrying crates to their destinations.
Not just any soldiers though, atlantean soldiers. You know, like Gura. They all have silver or blueish hair, sharp teeth, and red or blue eyes.
Atlanteans are all quite dead in Amelia's dimension, and certainly weren't high-tech enough to have electricity even when they were around. She's absolutely in another dimension.
Even stranger, the soldiers barely react to her presence. They glance at her when they notice her standing awkwardly in an aisle, but either promptly ignore her, or give her a nod and keep on doing what they were doing like she isn't a total stranger standing in the middle of what is clearly a military base.
It's better than being punched in the face and thrown in a jail cell as soon as she jumped, but it's still weird.
Amelia tries her very best to look like she knows what she's doing. She peers at the labels on some of the crates (ammo for unfamiliar weapons, replacement parts, normal stuff you'd expect to find in a military base) and pulls out her notebook and scribbles down some random sentences. After doing that for a few minutes, she nods to herself (in a way that people watching her can see), turns on her heel, and walks with purpose to (what she hopes is) the exit.
None of the soldiers ask what she's doing or where she came from. Not a single person tries to stop her from leaving. In fact, the soldiers politely stand aside for her. It's very odd.
The door she exits leads to a courtyard. Off to her left, she can see atlantean soldiers doing marching drills, and to her right she can see large blue-green buildings that clearly aren't warehouses like she just exited.
As she wanders around trying to find an exit from the walls of the base, again, no one bats an eye at her presence. The silver-haired atlanteans go about their business as if she doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. She even meets the eye of a soldier with a number of fancy pins on his uniform, probably someone of high rank, and the only thing they do is incline their head and return to the conversation they were having about a delayed shipment.
It's surreal, as if reality is operating on logic that only she's supposed to understand but doesn't. It's like she's having a particularly vivid dream.
It's a relief to see the exit gate. She makes a beeline for it, and her breath catches when the guard manning the gate actually speaks to her.
"Hello Detective." The soldier says in a strangely soft voice. It's a voice he wasn't using just a moment ago to the driver that came in. "Just a moment if you will, I have to note that you're leaving."
Amelia nods and waits, because what else can she really do? Her watch is still on cooldown, and she needs to avoid a fight at the moment. Her revolver alone isn't going to be much use against an actual soldier.
"I don't see you on the visitor list." The soldier says after a minute, and Amelia tenses up. She needs a good excuse. "And there was no alert about expecting you to be here. Did you jump here from the future, Detective?"
Two things quickly cross Amelia's mind. One: this random soldier knows who she is and that she can time travel. Two: he just handed her a perfect excuse.
"Yes, I did." Amelia says, finding her voice. "Had to check a shipment in the warehouse. It's important later."
"Understood." The soldier nods. "Do you want me to send a memo to someone? General Gawr perhaps?"
General Gawr? General Gura Gawr? Amelia can hardly wrap her mind around that notion. It sounds absolutely adorable. She can just imagine Gura dressed up in a uniform with her trident, trying to look stern and serious and looking so fucking cute instead.
"U-Uh, no. I can handle it myself." Amelia says, and internally curses her stammer. This is not the time to smile or laugh. She can enjoy the mental image of Gura in a uniform later.
"Understood." The soldier says again. He nods to her. "I shouldn't keep you then. Have a nice day, Detective."
"You too." Amelia says, lazily nodding back.
She walks out the front gate onto a retractable bridge (which wasn't there back in her dimension because the warehouse wasn't surrounded by a goddamn moat in her dimension because it was miles inland and nowhere close to the ocean) and out into the streets of military houses beyond.
Her heart only stops pounding when she's a mile away from the base itself, at which point she finds the nearest bench and collapses into it.
"A military base, huh? That's new." She groans to herself while rubbing the palms of her hands against her eyelids. "Better than that time I jumped into an active battlefield I guess."
At least she's alive and not in immediate danger, but she's also in an unfamiliar world. Who knows what sort of differences have been brought on by the fact that atlanteans are still around and have their own civilization? Also, she has no idea how far into the future or past she is relative to her home dimension.
After a minute or two of calming down, Amelia figures out what she needs.
She needs information.
###
Amelia stares dumbly at the newspaper in her hands. She found it abandoned on the bench of a bus stop while trying to find a public computer, and seeing a familiar name in the headline, decided to read it.
"Empress Ina'nis?" Amelia mutters under her breath, staring at an image of Ina's politely smiling face poking out from the window of a limousine. "And I thought General Gura was weird enough."
On the bright side, Ina shouldn't be hard to find. On the negative side, the chances of Amelia being able to walk up and talk to Ina are next to zero.
"Empress of what country?" Amelia mutters, skimming the text. The newspaper couldn't even be bothered to say. "Maybe I really will be better off trying to contact Gura."
An empress and a general… those two have done well for themselves here.
Amelia folds up the paper and tucks it into her coat. She'll read the rest of it later. For now, she needs food and sleep. She's been wandering around for the better part of the day trying to find a public computer, and she just needs sleep.
This atlantean city doesn't look much like London (where Amelia jumped from). The architecture is much more blue and wavy and close to the ground, waterways crisscross the ground just as much as roads do, and everything smells faintly of salt.
After getting some distance from the military base, Amelia has noticed more humans among the populace. They're not common, but they're not particularly rare either. If she glances over the crowd she can see a few flashes of brown or blond hair between all the silver, grey, and light blue.
Amelia finds her feet carrying her down the streets to the spot that usually contains her apartment. The city looks different, but the layout is startlingly similar to London. Still, even knowing that, Amelia is shocked to see an apartment building in exactly the same spot as her dimension. It feels way too coincidental.
"Well, weirder things have happened." Amelia mutters, stepping into the lobby. She fingers her A key (her "Amelia key", which is a key all Amelias have), hoping it will let her get inside her apartment. If not, no big loss except people thinking she's creepy.
She's mildly reassured when she steps in the elevator and some of the residents give her a nod. Good, she's familiar to these people. She probably does have a room.
(It's still a bit weird that no one tries to talk to her despite recognizing her.)
She exits the elevator at the fifth floor, walks to room 507, and prays to Baelz that her A key will work on the lock. The key slides into the lock without too much resistance. Amelia takes a deep breath, and twists.
Click.
The door unlocks and swings inward an inch, and Amelia lets out a breath and laughs quietly. "Miracles do happen I guess."
Without further thought to it, Amelia steps inside the room and closes the door behind her, and then stops to stare at the room she's now in.
She's standing in an office. A spacious office with a nice mahogany desk, a cushioned chair, an old grandfather clock, and rows upon rows of filing cabinets. There's a first-aid kit hung prominently to her left, a laptop computer sitting closed on the desk next to some photographs, and a pinboard with a number of articles stuck onto it with strings tied to various points.
Amelia was almost positive this is an apartment building and not an office building. It was laid out like an apartment building, had rooms numbered like an apartment building, and had families taking the elevator like you might expect from an apartment building. Why is there an office here?
Amelia cautiously checks the desk and the photographs. She can see headshots of Ina, Calli, Gura, Kiara, and a bunch of other recognizable faces there, so she's fairly sure this is the office of this world's Ame, but why is it in an apartment building? Also, this room is low-key huge, and she knows there are some other doors not too far away. From a floor plan perspective, this room doesn't make any sense unless those doors are fake for some reason.
Feeling just a bit weirded out and realizing there's not going to be any food here for her, Amelia turns the door handle and exits the room into the hallway… and by that she means an entirely different hallway than the one she entered from. Rather than a bland carpet, bland paint, and numbered doors, the hallway has a vaulted ceiling, a rich, patterned carpet, paintings on the walls, and honest-to-Baelz pillars and a stained-glass window at the end of the hall. Everything is colored purple and blue, and decorated with the images of sealife, particularly octopi and sharks.
Amelia blinks slowly. She stares at the hallway, and then the room she just exited. Feeling just a bit paranoid, she closes the door, waits a second, then opens it again, half expecting to see a different room appear.
Another room does not appear. The office is still on the other side of the door.
Amelia squeezes her eyes shut for a second. This is too much. She's tired, she's hungry, and now she's even more lost than she already was. She needs a moment to think,
The universe doesn't want to give her that moment.
Hands suddenly grip her shoulders. Amelia stiffens, her hand instinctively grabs her revolver, though she refrains from pulling it just yet.
"Detective…" A familiar voice growls in her ear. "You're back early. Are you abandoning your duties?"
Gura? That sounds like Gura's voice, but deeper. It has to be Gura, right? What are the chances of Amelia ending up near her? "I'm hurt, really I am. Ever think that maybe I'm just that good?"
There's a moment of awkward silence, and Amelia wishes her watch were working. All she'd have to do is turn one of the dials a bit and press the button and she'd be out of this weird situation.
"Maybe I was just working in my office. You can't prove I wasn't." Amelia continues when Gura doesn't speak.
"Going to investigate a murder in North End by staying in your office? Coming back two days early?" The voice chuckles darkly. The hands on her shoulders tighten their grip until Amelia can feel claws pressing into her skin, just barely lacking the force to hurt. The voice comes closer, until Amelia can feel Gura's breath brushing her ear. "Don't lie to me, Detective. Did you forget our deal?"
Okay. That doesn't sound ominous at all. She needs to get out of this situation right now.
"What are you talking about, Gura?" Amelia asks. Her hand drops from her revolver to the syringes of W on her leg. Those will be more helpful.
"Gura?" The voice breathes, momentarily dropping into an… excited tone before returning to anger. "Don't think being bold is going to distract me, Amelia."
The tonal whiplash in Gura's voice gives Amelia pause, but only for a moment. This situation is still way too sketchy. Gura's hands slackened their grip during her momentary excitement, and Amelia takes full advantage. She pulls out a syringe of W, stabs herself with it, and stomps on Gura's foot.
The concoction pushes through her veins in an instant, and Amelia takes full advantage. She wrenches herself out of Gura's grip using her W-boosted strength and takes off in a dead sprint down the hall.
Amelia blows through a door into what she thinks is a family room complete with a massive couch, a million cushions, and a giant television. She has a moment of indecision as she tries to choose which door to take, but then she hears Gura's footsteps behind her and arbitrarily chooses the door to her right, kicks it down, and keeps moving.
She's greeted with a railing and a staircase next to it, she immediately leaps over it. A moment of panic flashes through her when plummets through the middle of the spiral staircase down two levels before she grabs onto a railing and stops her fall. Her arms probably protest, but with W in her system she barely feels it. She only notices one of her shoulders has been yanked out of its socket after she's pulled herself up and it won't bend like usual.
"Watson, what's- holy shit, did you just jump!? Detective, what the fuck!?" Gura's voice calls down to her as Amelia takes a few seconds to pull her arm over her head to tug her shoulder back into its socket. She looks back up the stairwell and gets her first look at this world's Gura.
First thing she notices: Gura is tall. She's not a cute, smol shork. She's six feet tall and dressed in a deep blue uniform with badges sewn into the left side over her heart. Her hair is tied back in a professional bun except for two short strands at the front that fall to frame her face, and that face looks distinctly older than the Gura Amelia is used to. It's a bit harder, a bit sharper, and the scar across her cheek cements that difference. Her blue eyes are wide, staring down at Amelia.
"She's hot. Why is she hot?" Amelia whines to herself. "That's going to make things harder if I have to shoot her."
"Detective, I'm ordering you to stay there!" Gura barks, and she starts running down the stairs. Amelia, naturally, doesn't listen, and immediately starts running again.
Amelia doesn't listen, obviously. She darts through the various rooms of the house, passing through a dedicated game room, a reading room, a room dedicated to magic, and various other things. She was hoping to find another way down, but she's not that lucky. She does, however, find a supply closet to duck into. She closes the door behind her, and waits.
About half a minute later, she hears footsteps storming down the hallway, and as soon as they pass her Amelia takes her chance. She quietly opens the door, and runs back the way she came towards the stairwell.
She doesn't jump over the railing this time. She runs down normally, praying Gura won't come back in time to see her. She gets down two more floors before the staircase ends in a pair of doors. When she kicks open the doors, she sees six men (three human, three atlantean) dressed in purple robes and carrying rifles standing at attention in the hallway.
"Detective!" One of the guards barks, and they all salute. "Is something amiss?"
"No, no, everything is fine." Amelia says, hurrying down the hallway. "Carry on with your duties."
"Yes ma'am."
"Even the guards here know who I am." Amelia notes while taking a sharp left at a T-junction and running past two men in purple and blue suits. "So why was Gura so hostile to me? Is this world's Ame an abused underling?"
She hears the low hum of voices down the hall, and makes the split-second decision to move towards them. She's quickly met with doors, and upon seeing her stop there, the two guards stationed there open it for her. She tips her hat to them and ducks inside.
The room inside is massive. It's a ballroom with balconies all around, and mighty pillars along the wall filled with water and live fish. The floors are polished to a shine, and have an alternating pattern of blues and purples and whites. The throng of people milling around on top of the dance floor (there isn't any music playing, so this must be some other sort of social function) are dressed in a wide array of suits and dresses, though purple and blue still seem to be the predominant colors.
In short, Amelia sticks out like a sore thumb in her yellow, white, and brown outfit. Not to mention how informally she's dressed.
"Ah, Lady Watson!" Some random woman in a lavish teal dress greets her with a curtsey. "It wasn't announced that the royal detective would be attending this event! I must say it's an honor to meet you."
"And I you." Amelia nods as amicably as she can. Her blood is still pounding in her ears, doubly so thanks to the W in her veins, but she needs to maintain her composure. Her composure is her cover right now.
"Detective!" Another man calls, stepping out from the crown and bowing to her. "Can I just say-"
"Detective!"
"Lady Watson!"
"Detective Watson!"
Amelia keeps smiling as more and more people start to crowd around her, but internally she's panicking. Of course this world's Ame had to be the royal detective. That's why everyone knows her! Now everyone's eyes are on her, and that's even worse than plain sticking out. If Gura pokes her head in here, she's going to spot Amelia immediately.
"Everyone, everyone!" Amelia says, raising her voice. "I'd love to entertain all of you, but I came here to speak with someone specific. I'll have plenty of time for the rest of you after I've spoken with them. Now, if you'd please stand aside!"
The crowd, surprisingly, does exactly as she asks. They give way before her, letting her push through the room at a decent pace. Amelia intentionally heads towards a large clump of people near the back corner.
Uncomfortable as she is, it's a relief to be jostled around by the crowd near the corner, as their attention is firmly fixed on something else. Strangely enough, this corner is quieter than the rest of the room, as despite the agitation everyone is remaining strangely, respectfully quiet.
And because they're being quiet, Amelia can hear a familiar voice trickle through the crowd.
"-of the issue, young acolyte." Ina's gentle voice filters into Amelia's ears. "It's already being looked into. Your concern is appreciated. If you have any new information, please bring it to the attention of the local bishop or mayor. Next please."
The newspaper title with the words "Empress Ina" flash through Amelia's mind just as the crowd shifts, allowing Amelia a glance of the woman.
Ina looks much more familiar than Gura. She's still the short, adorable woman Amelia is familiar with, just wearing an elaborate dress that is somehow just as revealing as her usual outfit, and she's sitting on a chair made of her own tentacles. There's an empty circle in a two meter radius around her, enforced by guards keeping the crowd at bay.
Amelia looks for only a moment, but that moment is enough for Ina's gaze to turn her way. Amelia averts her eyes, hoping to not be noticed, but she gets no such luck. A tentacle grabs her arm, and Amelia is pulled through the crowd and the line of guards until she's standing right in front of Ina.
Empress Ina.
"Detective Watson." Ina murmurs, releasing Amelia from the tentacle's grip. Someone protests that the Detective gets to cut the line, and in response the empress makes a motion with her hand and suddenly the sound of the party outside the circle is entirely gone. Ina sits up from the languid slouch she'd adopted to a position of attention. Her eyes, formerly closed, flick open to show beautiful starry eyes that lack any discernible pupils, irises, or whites. Her voice is still soft, but carries the distinct air of command to it. "Is it that urgent? Does it require our attention?"
"Uh…" Amelia blinks, not at all understanding the context of what Ina is asking. "What makes you think that?"
Ina tilts her head and her brow furrows, and Amelia sweats. "Detective… you told us one week at the earliest. If you've come back earlier than that, unannounced, and willingly entered a party to come find one of us, I can only assume it is something dire."
Oh, this is bad. She's going to get exposed before she has a chance to figure out if this Ina is nice or not. "Well… I… uh…" Amelia stalls. Her eyes flick from side to side, hoping to find an escape route. All she sees is a wall of people staring in at her and the empress, and guards with their backs turned. W is still pumping through her, making it even harder to focus on talking.
Ina's tentacles rush forward, and for a second Amelia thinks she's being attacked, but all they do is close around her and Ina, sealing them in a private bubble where no one can see inside.
"Detective." Ina says in a much softer tone. She stands up off her make-shift couch, steps forward, and grabs Amelia's hands with hers in a firm grip. A cold tingle runs through Amelia's body, and she can feel W being forcefully removed from her body through magic. "Tell me. We cannot help until we know the problem. I know you wouldn't come here without good reason."
Is this the part where she mentions she's a different detective? She's half sure that will end with her being chucked in a dungeon at this point.
"Is it time travel related?" Ina presses. "Is this a warning?"
"Sort of, and no." Amelia says, finally getting the words out. "Honestly Ina, I'm regretting stepping into this room."
Ina blinks in shock, and both her grip and tentacles slacken for a moment. "How far in the future did you come from?"
What? What's giving her that impression? This is getting out of hand fast. What is she supposed to say? "Look, maybe this is a bad time, you're busy talking to people and all that, I'll just drop by later-"
"Absolutely not Detective. I do not believe for a second you came here without a reason." Ina insists, and tightens her grip again. "You will tell me. Has something gone wrong at North End? Is there some horrible future?"
"No. I'm not from the future."
"You-" Utter bewilderment crosses Ina's face. She straightens to her full height, schooling her face into stone. "Detective, I demand an explanation. Report, now."
"Report is that I can't stay, gotta go!" Amelia says. She pulls herself out of Ina's grip, kicks one of Ina's tentacles to get it to move, and ducks out of the tentacle wall.
Ina can't chase her without giving away something is wrong to everyone watching, or at least that's what Amelia was expecting. To Amelia's dismay, that's not at all what happens.
"Guards!" Ina barks, abruptly dismissing the zone of silence. "Please escort the detective to the medical ward and ensure she gets a full checkup. After that, escort her to my sitting room and ensure she stays there until I return."
A few guards turn to Amelia, and out of the corner of her eye she can also see Gura entering the room through the door she came through herself. With a grimace, Amelia realizes she's going to have to get creative.
She runs two steps, then leaps as high as she can at the wall, and pushes off it with one foot to get some extra height and grab onto the supports for the balcony area above. Confused shouting breaks out below her, and she takes full advantage of the confusion to swing herself into the crowd where the guards can't easily get her and start pushing her way to the nearest exit.
Ina could easily stop her, but the empress doesn't try beyond a shout. Amelia gets to the door without too much effort despite the hands grabbing at her, hauls open the huge door, and darts into the next room (which turns out to be a banquet hall).
The banquet hall is mercifully empty. It's not being prepared for anything, so Amelia can run down the middle as a few guards pile in after her, and then take a hard right and shove open one of the smaller side doors.
The surprised eyes of cooks greet her on the other side, and Amelia mutters apologies as she darts through the kitchen and into the service hallways beyond it.
"Is this some sort of manor? A palace?" Amelia questions. "A suite in the top, ball room and dining hall in the bottom, guards everywhere except the top levels… is this Ina's home? Why was Gura allowed up top? Why is other Ame's office up there?"
Despite her show in the ballroom, no guards try to stop her. Maybe Ina didn't want to put out a call for her to be detained and make more of a show than she already did.
It doesn't sit well with Amelia that she's only getting away because Ina can't be bothered to stop her. If Ina actually tried, Amelia would be no match. Not without her watch. If all the guards in the palace came down on her, Amelia is in no position to survive that. Sure, she could use some more W, but that will only do so much. The Watson Concoction is a limit breaker, it allows her to surpass her body's natural adrenaline limit; it's not an 'I win' button for physical challenges.
"Don't worry about it now. Just keep moving. Get out of here."
She can hear something chasing her, maybe Gura, so she takes a series of sharp turns through the maze of hallways until she's running out a side door into a garden.
Although, calling it a 'garden' is underselling it a bit. It's a whole, carefully cultivated countryside that sprawls out before Amelia. There are tall trees with branches well above head height, manicured grass of an off blue-green color, bushes carefully trimmed into twisting spires and arches, and statues of atlanteans and humans alike alongside twisted, and tentacled monstrosities.
She doesn't think twice about bolting into the bushes. They're arranged in some sort of pattern, maybe a maze, but she pushes through the leaves rather than follow the path. Branches scratch at her arms and catch her coat and hat, but she pushes through. She pushes through more and more bushes until she reaches a clearing of blue and purple flowers and statues and she doesn't hear the people following her.
Something brushes Amelia's face when she's looking behind her, and she frantically flails her arms to get the thing away, but quickly discovers the offender is merely a takodachi. The lesser eldritch are littered around the flower field, floating lazily overhead like jellyfish, resting in clumps of flowers, or perching on a statue's head.
Amelia has nothing against takodachis, they're harmless unless you antagonize them, but it's still unnerving to see so many of them in one place. Usually you don't see this many of them unless there's an active reality break nearby. Maybe Ina summoned these ones, but it doesn't sit well in Ame's mind.
The takodachi Amelia swatted floats around her head before settling on her cap, completely unbothered by her flailing. The thing weighs barely more than a balloon. Its weight is almost unnoticeable. Amelia allows it. Any friendly company is appreciated at the moment, even if it's from an eldritch monster that probably shouldn't exist.
"Okay. Okay. What's the plan? You need a plan, Watson." She thinks, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. "They're both of questionable morality, they both know you're not their Amelia, and you're running around their stupidly massive garden like a rat, and not the chaos kind. You don't have any safe spaces you can run to, and even if you could there's a chance anything you use your key on will lead you right back to the palace."
Usually in these sorts of situations the solution is to time travel, but her watch isn't ready.
"I need to hide, but trying to leave would be obvious, everyone seems to know who I am, and I clearly don't act like this world's Amelia. So what do I do."
She thinks for a few seconds, and then an idea comes to her. Running is the obvious option, but they're going to expect that. No, what she needs to do is hide somewhere they'd never expect her to.
She's going to hide right under their nose in the palace. Maybe she can spy on them and learn what their relationship to this world's Ame is. What if other Ame needs saving?
Is it a bad idea? Absolutely. Has she pulled off stupider things before? Absolutely.
So, despite having just fled from there, Amelia turns right around and makes her way back towards the palace.
###
Finding her way back inside is easier than you might think. Despite charging through the kitchen, disrupting a party, and bursting out a side door while pursued by a military general, the guards don't seem to be on high alert. They look away for five seconds and Amelia dashes between two pillars on a side wall, and does a series of jumps between them to get herself up to a third story balcony.
Her parkour lessons never stop coming in handy. It also feels like a serious security flaw that these pillars have so many hand and footholds.
The balcony is small, but packed. There's an empty easel, an ornate side table which has been stained by paint, a stool, and several potted plants (both normal and unfamiliar). Amelia can imagine Ina sitting here on a sunnier day, overlooking that field of flowers and statues she just saw.
The sliding door to get inside is, surprisingly, unlocked. Amelia doesn't question her good fortune. She slips inside what turns out to be a drawing room, stuffed with paints and brushes and canvases and spare easels.
"Definitely an Ina room." Amelia concludes, gazing at some paintings on the walls. Several of them are landscapes, including paintings of fields and a mountain, as well as more curious paintings like various underwater vistas of different depths and locations as well as one painting that is of a distorted purple landscape filled with tentacles and eyes that is both fascinating and disturbing to look at.
But those aren't the only paintings. There's one of Gura dressed in much more casual clothing. It looks somewhat like what her Gura would wear, but a bit less… childish? Rather than a hoodie and a suspicious lack of pants, this Gura is painted wearing a long-sleeve blue vest with a white shirt underneath and deep blue pants. Her hair is also down, and though it's hard to tell Amelia thinks it falls far along her back. Gura has a casual grin on her face; not quite as wide as the Gura she knows, but relaxed and happy nonetheless.
There's one last painting that catches her eye. One of her, or, this world's Amelia. Whereas Gura's portrait is smiling with sun on her face, the one of Amelia has a different tone. The lighting is dim, if not totally dark, and this Amelia is dressed in detective attire with her cap pulled over most of her face with one hand, leaving only an eye and less than half of the nose and mouth exposed. Despite having so little to see, Ina (for Amelia assumed Ina painted this) has given meticulous attention to what little of the expression there is to see. It's the expression of someone trying to act calm, but not quite managing it. The eye is just a bit too wide, the lips parted just a tiny amount, and the hand holding the hat down is visibly clenched.
Anxiety. That's what Amelia sees in the portrait.
Both portraits are proudly displayed in the center of one wall, and are obviously the focal point of the entire room. Amelia can't help but be baffled. She can understand Gura having a prominent spot, but why is this clearly nervous picture of their Amelia here? Is that really Ina's best painting of her? Or maybe she takes amusement in Amelia's nervousness?
Maybe she's cruel. That's a possibility.
Either way, she's inside again. She closes the door to the balcony, and then nudges open the door to the hallway. She has a scare when she sees a young man in the hall, dressed in deep violet with an octopus mask, clearly a cultist, but he's only cleaning with some spell, and upon seeing her he merely nods and continues working.
Amelia doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. She walks past him with purpose, takes the first corner she can, and tests another door. She checks every door that isn't in sight of a servant, making sure she has a good mental map of her surroundings in case she needs to flee.
When she's done surveying the third floor, she finds a side staircase that leads up to the fourth floor (no staircase aside from the main one seems to lead down, oddly enough), and repeats her survey.
It's on the fourth floor that she finds something curious: a full-on crime lab. Desks, machines, computers, and cupboards fully stocked with beakers, slides, and other forensics equipment.
An office and a crime lab. This world's Amelia clearly works here, but that's strange in itself. This is a palace. Probably Ina's palace. There's no reason for Amelia to work here rather than an office somewhere else. This goes double because the palace's third and fourth floors clearly aren't a public space. It's got a personal art room, a movie theater, and now a forensics lab.
"This is so weird. Are the upper levels a home or a workspace?" She frowns. "Well, I guess it could be both, but it's weird that other me has dedicated work rooms in what's probably Ina's home. Unless-"
And at that point, Amelia is struck with the obvious reason.
"-unless she lives here too." She realizes. "Is this Ame a servant? Or maybe that 'royal detective' title means she's royalty? No, probably not. Ina is royalty, but she didn't speak to me like a cousin or family. So other Ame is 'royal' in the sense that she's employed by Ina, probably. Maybe she is a servant after all."
This whole affair is starting to confuse her. She hasn't seen other rooms specifically for Calli or Kiara, or that don't fit any of them and might be for people Amelia doesn't recognize. It's only Gura, Ina, and Amelia. But that doesn't make sense! Gura and Ina both act like her superiors, and she's fairly sure Gura doesn't like her. Other Amelia is clearly not of the same rank as them, but she has her own rooms in the palace?
"I have to be missing something." Amelia concludes. "Maybe it's a 'keep your enemies close' situation? Maybe she's a servant. Maybe maybe maybe. I need that last piece of the puzzle."
Up another level she goes, but not the way she expected. A bit of searching in the forensics lab reveals a retractable staircase, and smacking the button to extend it and peering into the room above shows that it's actually her office. The staircase is in the corner of each room, and a small section of the floor of the office retracts so the staircase can be accessed.
Unnecessarily fancy in Ame's eyes, but cool nonetheless. She closes the door to the lab and takes the staircase up to the fifth floor, smacks a button to retract the staircase, and moves to leave through the front door.
She stops when she hears voices. Familiar voices. Gura. Ina.
"-grabbing the spare key. Going to check the apartment." Gura says.
"In person?" Ina asks.
"In person." Gura affirms. "Where else would she go?"
"Our detective has many safe houses. I do not believe for a moment she has revealed them all to us." Ina warns. "If she wishes to hide, she shall, and we will not find her."
"Fucking time travel makes everything complicated." Gura grumbles.
"That is not quite what I was implying, and I do not believe she is capable of such a thing at the moment." Ina explains. "Her watch was unpowered, and she was under the influence of her potion."
"I know that. Her shoulder came out of its socket after she jumped down two floors. Didn't even flinch while popping it back in." Gura growls. "Still won't tell us what she puts in that stuff."
"Priorities, dear."
"Right, I'm going. You'll cover for me?"
"Of course. The Grand General has urgent business and could not remain at the party. Our detective brought news that demanded immediate attention." Ina says with the ease of a politician. There's a small pause, the shuffling of feet, and then: "Now go. I'll keep handling the party."
Two sets of footsteps fade off down the stairs. Gura's are heavy, and disappear quickly. Ina's are barely able to be heard, and Amelia can't pinpoint the moment she can no longer hear them.
She waits one minute. Two. No risks. Only then does she open the office door and step into the hallway. This time, Gura isn't there to ambush her, there are no servants crawling the hallways, and no cameras to watch her.
Actually, none of the upper three levels have cameras and no guards at all. The security here really is quite poor.
There are very few doors on this uppermost level. There are some that lead to balconies, including an entire rooftop garden and pool, but what interests Amelia are the indoor rooms.
A map room, littered with pins, figurines, and military reports. A room for magic, with a massive arcane circle on the floor and implements and materials and mana gems along the wall.
A deep pool, climate controlled, that seems to lead deeper into the mansion but is blocked off by underwater doors and is otherwise elaborately furnished with rocks, plant life, and what Amelia suspects is atlantean furniture. An isolation room, totally dark except for protection glyphs on the walls and two chairs tucked in the corner.
Another room, mostly empty. An old television, couch, and cassette player, a rack of cassettes, a mini fridge, and a snack cupboard. It's barebones, not in a way that feels intentional like the isolation room, but merely… under furnished. Like someone didn't finish unpacking.
The next room, second to last, is in a similar state. A bed, a closet, a side table, and little else. Only the bland colors and a cleaning kit for a gun in the bottom of the closet suggest it might belong to other Amelia.
On impulse, she checks under the bed. Nothing. The Box isn't stored here, and so Amelia remains wary.
The last room is behind two large doors directly leading from the living room that she passed through on her initial run. The handles are ornate, made of some sort of gemstone. She can feel a faint magical current under her hands as she pushes one open and slips inside.
It's another bedroom. The walls are painted a dark violet, and everything is ornate and meticulously detailed. There's a massive four-poster canopy bed that dominates the middle of the room, an empty lectern off to one side, and a single empty weapon display on the opposing wall.
Amelia realizes immediately that this room is for both Ina and Gura. They must be married. A quick check of the walk-in closet confirms that. She can find both military uniforms too large for Ina and delicate, revealing clothes that Gura would never wear.
She doesn't spend all that long looking. Even if this Gura and Ina are her enemy, it still feels wrong to search their most private belongings. Amelia doesn't touch the jornal she sees, or look into the jewelry case. She even averts her eyes from the paintings up on the walls. Some of Ina's favourites no doubt.
There are some oddities in the room that catch her eye though. There's empty space in the closet that can only be explained by several missing outfits, and each drawer or cabinet or open space that is shared by Ina and Gura is missing a third of its contents. Even the main area of the bedroom sports this pattern, with conspicuous empty spots just waiting to be filled.
It's not the same thing as being unfinished. The room feels too meticulously designed for the holes to be unintentional. Space has intentionally been made for something.
Feeling like she's intruding, Amelia quietly exits the room. This place isn't hers to see. She sighs, rests her head on the door for a few seconds, and then turns around to find somewhere to hide.
Instead, she finds Ina standing half a meter from her, eyes closed, hands clasped, tentacles extended out to her sides, waiting patiently.
"Detective."
"H-Hey again."
"Did you perchance forget that the doors to my bedroom are enchanted, and that I know each time they are opened and who opened them?"
"Uh…" That would explain the magic tingle she felt from the door handles.
"You are not usually so forgetful, Detective."
"Well-"
Ina cuts her off, ignoring her attempts to speak. "And you have been consistently vocal in your desire to avoid my bedroom in the past, despite clear and repeated invitations."
Excuse her, what?
"While I would love to conclude you have had a change of heart, today's events suggest other conclusions." Ina says. "You have fled from both myself and Gura, injured yourself, and now seen fit to sneak back into the palace, a place we have tried our best to make your home, like a criminal instead of someone who belongs and is welcome."
There's no way Ina hasn't figured out what's up yet, right? Amelia is in trouble. Big trouble.
"And yet, despite that, you have called Gura and myself by our first names and spoken to us informally." Ina continues. "So, Detective, I would appreciate very much if you would be as blunt and honest as possible with me in this moment."
Ina opens her eyes. Her expression, serene a moment ago, is now nervous.
"Are you, or are you not, our detective?"
It feels safer to lie, but Amelia has always had a hard time lying to Ina. Doubly so when Ina is placing explicit trust in her honesty in this very moment. So against her better judgment, Amelia speaks truthfully. "I'm not."
Ina exhales slowly, and closes her eyes. Tension leaves her shoulders, and her tentacles pull in to a more relaxed position. "I see."
"Not with your eyes closed you don't." Amelia says impulsively. It's a joke she's made constantly back home. It slips out without her even thinking about it.
Ina pauses, then smiles. "You really aren't her at all."
"I mean if we want to be technical then I am, just from another dimension."
"I do wish you had said so immediately. It would have saved us all a headache." Ina hums.
"I was going to, and then Gura threatened me and I decided it was probably a bad idea."
"She did?" Ina frowns, then her eyebrows rise. "Pardon me if I'm skeptical."
Ina is about to say more, but footsteps interrupt them. Gura comes running up the stairs, stopping short when she sees Ina and Ame.
The three of them are painfully silent. Ina is waiting, Gura is frozen, eyes fixed towards Ina and Ame, and Amelia is debating if she should flee and/or use W again.
Gura is the one to break the stillness. She approaches slowly, cautiously, as if knowing full well that Amelia might run if she makes a sudden move. "Is everything good?" She asks, looking first to Ina and then to Ame.
"I believe so." Ina says. "It was a misunderstanding. She is a dimension-hopper."
"Ah." Gura blinks. "That's… good? That's good."
"Didn't you just leave?" Amelia asks abruptly. "I heard that conversation earlier. You were going to the apartment."
"We do have phones, Traveler." Ina says with some amusement. "When I felt the alarm, I called her back."
"Oh." Well that seems rather obvious in hindsight.
"Now, unfortunately, I do have a party to return to. I have duties." Ina says primly. "If there is something urgent, Traveler, please tell me now. Otherwise Gura will help, and if you still need aid, I must insist we postpone this conversation for a few hours."
"Uh, I only need my watch charged so I can go home." Amelia says dumbly. "Usually you can do it."
Ina holds out her hand, and after a moment of incomprehensive staring, Amelia fumbles her watch out of her pocket and hands it to her. Ina turns the object over in her hands, murmurs something under her breath that causes her hair to float up around her in a surge of magic power, and then hands the watch back to Amelia. The gem in the watch's center starts to glow again, indicating the watch is charged and ready for use.
With that, Ina turns to leave, but before she does she looks to Gura and says: "Amelia mentioned a threat. I presume it was a misunderstanding that you can resolve." Her tone is pleasant, understanding, but there's the barest hint of steel in it. The implicit 'Amelia had better be wrong about that'.
Amelia waits until Ina is out of earshot before whispering. "Your wife is scary."
"Sometimes." The atlantean agrees, scratching the back of her head. "Don't let Ina hear that. She'd be devastated."
Amelia blinks. "Really?"
"Yeah. Our detective is… uh… skittish." Gura coughs. "We've been trying not to scare her for years."
Amelia squints. "You greeted me by grabbing my shoulders and demanding an answer to why I was abandoning my duties."
Gura cringes. "Look, that wasn't- I was joking, okay? She's never given up a job unless me or Ina ordered her to, even if she really should. She knows- I- we have a deal-"
Amelia holds up her hand to stop Gura's stuttering explanations. Maybe she was suspicious a minute ago, but now she's just amused. "You're rather easily flustered for a general."
Red creeps up Gura's neck. "Hey, I'm not on duty right now."
"Mmm." Amelia says, raising an eyebrow along with the corner of her lips. "I'm hearing excuses."
Gura's eyes narrow, her face getting even more red. "Are all other detectives as annoying as you?"
"Pretty much."
Gura huffs. "Well I'm glad ours is less of a brat."
"Don't make me tell Ina you're being mean to me." Amelia says while setting her watch to the appropriate time and place.
"You wouldn't." Gura says, with the barest hint of actual worry breaking through her voice.
"Yeah, I wouldn't." Amelia agrees. "I should go."
"Already?" The atlantean blinks. "Ina would hate to miss the chance to talk to you."
"Yeah I know."
"You can time travel, right? There's no need for you to go now."
"That's a slippery slope." Amelia points out. "Start with a four hour vacation, end with spending two years in a warzone, trauma that your girlfriends have no context for understanding, and being completely divorced from any sense of progression, boundaries, or consequences."
A pause, a breath, then Gura speaks in a soft, accusing voice. "You speak from experience."
Amelia smiles and doesn't say anything.
"Alright, alright, go." Gura sighs, waving her off. "I'll tell Ina. I should probably show up at that party anyway."
"I might be able to carve out time later, but I was sorta in the middle of something."
"You just said-"
"I try to avoid time traveling. Said nothing about dimension hopping." Amelia winks. She thumbs the button of her watch, and in the moment before she disappears she says, "Take care of other me."
And with that, she vanishes.
###
Head down, cap low, and the brim of her coat up around her ears. Her eyes are fixed on the road in front of her because the only other option is constant, frantic glances.
She doesn't approach from the front. She never does. She waves her ID at one of the guards at the supply gate and they let her through without a word. She follows the path alongside trucks unloading boxes of food and squeezes her way through the worker's entrance, past the storage rooms, and up the service elevator to the fourth floor. Just outside the elevator is a pin pad, and she punches in her code to get through.
The elevator doesn't go to the fifth floor. Even the guards and servants rarely go there. It's private. You need to be invited.
She takes the stairs up, heart beating rapidly and shoulders hunched. She's late. She knows she's late. She said she'd be back yesterday, and even today the sun is low in the sky. She didn't make it for dinner. They don't like when she misses dinner. They don't like when she's late. They don't like when she doesn't send them messages.
She doesn't like sending them messages. They're busy. They have a kingdom to run and defend. It never feels right to waste their time with her movements.
When she nears the top of the stairs, she slows her movements. She holds her breath, listening for movement, the sound of television, or anything else that might signal the royals haven't gone to sleep yet.
Sharp voices at low volume, a muffled gunshot, music. A movie in the living room. The only room the stairs connect to. There's no getting past them without being seen.
She debates using her watch. It would be a simple matter to turn the dial and press the button and show up at the right time. They would be none the wiser.
Except they hate it when she lies to them, and she hates using her watch for petty things. She needs some grounding in reality, and that means not using her watch when she's off the job.
Taking a shaky breath, she crests the last few stairs. She keeps her eyes on the floor while walking into the living room. She doesn't look up when she hears the movie pause. She doesn't look up when she hears someone sigh.
She stops when a tentacle curls around one of her arms, and doesn't move when she hears footsteps moving in front of her. Two pairs of shoes enter her lowered gaze: thick blue boots and simple purple platform shoes.
"Detective." A soft voice greets.
"Your Majesty." Her mouth is dry, and it has nothing to do with dehydration. "My investigation was successful."
"We know." Another voice, rougher, says. "The Lieutenant General sent it to me, though I'm pretty sure I asked you to send it to me yourself."
"I'm sorry, your Highness." She whispers. "He said he'd do it, and I didn't want to offend him."
A deep breath, another sigh. She grips her shirt tightly, staring determinedly at the floor. She no longer has a tentacle curled around her arm.
"Detective…" Her Majesty murmurs. "Did something happen?"
"Nothing of importance, Majesty."
"Then why do you act as if you have done something wrong?" Her Majesty questions. "You will not look at us and have returned to royal titles. What is it you fear you have done?"
"I am late, your Majesty."
"Yes, we can see that, and we would have appreciated being alerted." Her Majesty says. "Is that all?"
She nods meekly.
"You offend me, Detective." Her Highness says. She shrinks in upon herself, worst fears confirmed, and tries to still the shaking in her arms. There's a hissed "Gura!" from Her Majesty, but Her Highness continues to speak. "Do you seriously think either of us is going to take offense from you being a day late?"
She swallows. Of course, she should have known they wouldn't mind. She's a fool. Their Imperial Majesties would take no offense from a small mistake or oversight, and only now has she offended them by implying they would be so petty.
Her right knee drops, and she lowers her right hand in preparation to plant her knuckles on the ground.
"Don't you fucking dare, Watson." Her Highness snaps. "I'm actually going to be angry if you bow."
She stops halfway down, hand awkwardly dangling and legs bent at an uncomfortable angle. She opens her mouth. "I-I-"
"That better not be an apology."
Her mouth clicks shut, and her shoulders start to shake. What's she supposed to do then!? She can't bow and she can't apologize, so how is she supposed to beg forgiveness?
"Gura, you're scaring her."
"I'm not trying to!" Her Highness groans. "She was going to bow, Ina!"
"I know dear." Her Majesty says. "Detective? Please stand up straight."
She obeys, straightening everything, even her head. She keeps her eyes as low as they can go, and so her gaze hovers around the navels of their Imperial Majesties.
"Please look at us."
She forces her eyes to meet the starry void where Her Majesty's eyes should be, and then Her Highness's more conventional blue eyes. Neither of them are angry. Her Highness looks sheepish, and Her Majesty is smiling.
Her Majesty's smile brings her shame, even as her heart clenches in her chest and her breath catches. She is a fool, standing somewhere she shouldn't be, in the presence of people far above her.
(She can't run away, it would make their Imperial Majesties worry. She's in too deep to back out. She has been since the day she met them.)
"We are happy to see you safe, Detective. We have missed you terribly." Her Majesty says sweetly. "You had us concerned when you would not respond to texts or calls."
"D-Didn't want to waste your time." She croaks. That's only partially the truth. Mostly, she didn't want to have to tell them that she would be late and hear the disappointment in their voices when there was no good reason for it. The job simply took longer than expected. She made a bad prediction.
"Detective…" Her Majesty sighs. "We have talked about this. We call because we have time. Even if you do not wish to initiate, there is no problem with accepting our calls."
She can feel her face getting red. She wants to turn away, but Her Majesty told her to look. She can't disobey an order.
"We wouldn't have given ya a room here if we didn't like ya, Watson." Her Highness adds.
Her face can't possibly get more red. She squirms in place, pierced by their eyes and unable to escape.
"Now, with that established." Her Majesty says, stepping forward and grabbing her hands. She squeaks in shock at the contact. It's so rare she touches anyone, but their Imperial Majesties have always been forward. "Have you eaten dinner yet?"
She mutely shakes her head.
"We'll have the kitchen send something up then. Do you want to watch a movie with us? We weren't that far in. We can restart."
She turns to look at the progress bar on the television, and before Her Majesty can block her vision with a tentacle she sees the number 1:32:56 out of a two hour film. She speaks in a strangled voice. "I-I couldn't possibly-"
"It is really not a bother." Her Majesty says sweetly. Another tentacle reaches out and taps the remote, rewinding the movie before she can protest more. "Sit with us."
She doesn't really have a choice. Her Majesty pulls her to the couch, and she tries to sit at the corner but is firmly guided to the middle. Once again, she tries to protest, but Their Imperial Highnesses ignore her words and take seats on either side of her. They do not take advantage of the spacious couch, and instead sit so close that she would be in their laps if she moved an inch to the left or right.
"Y-Your Highness, Your Majesty-"
"No complaints, and stop using royal titles." Her Highness huffs. "Got a promise to keep from an other Watson."
"Wh-Wh-Wh-"
"Showed up while you were out, interrupted a party, stomped my foot, jumped down two floors and dislocated her arm." Her Highness shrugs. "Made a mess of everything."
She could cry. One of her other selves caused trouble for Their Imperial Majesties. They should be furious. This is absolutely her fault.
"Also flirted with me, called us Gura and Ina, asked us to take care of you."
Just kill her now. Her other self dared to use their names, and all this is just a favor to that other self. Their Imperial Majesties don't actually-
"Of course we'd do it anyway, but it's nice to have an excuse." Her Highness chuckles, leaning into her. She fights a yelp when Her Highness rests their head on her shoulder. "You don't mind, right Watson?"
"I-I-I- Your High- I mean no, General, but y-you shouldn't-"
"Gura." Her Maj- Priestess says in a scolding tone of voice. Good. Priestess understands this isn't right. She'll tell General to-
Priestess also rests their head on her other shoulder.
"Remember to share."
She can do nothing but whine in embarrassment while Their Imperial Majesties make themselves comfortable using her as a pillow and restart the movie.
(With dinner and murmured reassurances, it's a pleasant evening after she stops panicking enough to enjoy it.)