The Horikita Sky Museum

“Alright, listen up. That woman in the trench coat was our handler. They’re like secret supervisors assigned to watch M-SERT squads. This mission isn’t just a rescue. It’s our final test. If we cause the kind of damage we usually do, she’s disbanding us. Our jobs, our team, it’s all over. We have to save those people, but we have to do it… clean.”

The girls were silent, understandably nervous about the outcome. We didn’t do clean assignments. It just wasn’t in our nature.

We finally arrived on site: the east wing of downtown Tokyo, also known as the home of one of Japan’s most popular tourist attractions, the Horikita Sky Museum. A megaton-sized structure hovering somewhere around two hundred feet in the air, nearly the size of an entire football stadium.

“Whoa, that is one big museum,” Miko commented, leaning forward between the two front seats to gaze through the windshield.

“Haaa,” Aki exclaimed in astonishment, also gazing out the windshield in awe and completely forgetting she was driving.

“Hey, eyes on the road!” I yelled.

“Vhoops, sorry, captain!”

Ahead of us, the front gates looked to have been rammed in by a large black van, still smoking just beyond the entrance. Many of the guards seemed to have been violently incapacitated.

“Miko, call HQ,” I ordered. “Tell them we have casualties, injured or possibly worse. We need healers on the scene. Pronto.”

“Got it, boss.”

When Aki finally pulled over inside the compound, I rushed out of the vehicle and began inspecting the bodies lying in the snow. Some of them were M-SERT officers, most likely the initial team responding to the scene.

There were only four of them. All unconscious. I don’t know why, but I felt like I recognized them. Although M-SERT officers from other teams don’t meet as often during assignments, I had seen this particular squad before. But where?

“Also, let HQ know we found the first squad,” I told Miko, who was standing beside Aki. I reached for one of their badges in the snow and flipped it over. Special Agent Rui Nagisa. Shinjuku division.

“Shinjuku division…” I muttered. I knew it. It was Kaori’s team.

They all looked to have been beaten up badly. They had scratches, cuts, and bruises. Whatever had attacked them didn’t use magic. It had simply relied on brute force and, from the looks of it, overwhelming speed. There were absolutely no signs of a struggle.

Luckily, none of them were bleeding. They were just fast asleep, not responding even when we tried waking them up. I guessed there was some kind of slumber spell working behind the scenes, keeping them this way until the bandits had finished robbing the bank. The perfect heist with no casualties. How considerate of them.

We further searched the perimeter, but none of the bodies possessed long red hair or a captain’s badge. Kaori was missing. Had the armed robbers taken her with them up into the museum? Was she okay? Or was she unconscious like the rest?

We continued our search, and what we eventually found were sets of tiny footprints in the snow. Hundreds of them, resembling those of a ferret or a mongoose.

“Any ideas?” I asked the girls as I stood up from inspecting the prints, stuffing my gloved hands in my jacket pockets. It was still so cold out, and definitely past someone’s bedtime; Miko couldn’t stop herself from constantly yawning.

Aki pulled out her Magical Scanner Device, then went in for a closer look. “I’m picking up traces of creation magic, Captain,” she reported, waving her scanner over the tiny footprints.

“Creation magic?” I repeated. “What kind?”

The blonde girl stood back up as she waited for her scanner to provide a conclusive result. The device then beeped with an update.

“Petra-grant magic,” she said, staring at the screen.

“Petra-grant magic? Isn’t that…”

“Illegal magical fairy dust only sold on the black market, capable of bringing statues to life,” Miko answered, stepping forward with her machine gun as she completed my thought.

“Yeah,” I replied in a whisper. “Usually turning them into horrific monsters in the process too.”

This was not good. Armed robbers with the ability to turn whatever statue in the museum they wanted into monsters—that was not going to be an easy problem to navigate.

I looked around my immediate surroundings to see if I could find more clues that could help identify what we might be dealing with. The tiny footprints were all over the place, alongside a pair of strange-looking prints I couldn’t recognize. But they all seemed to share a single point of origin: the van.

I went for a closer look.

“Captain? Please be careful.”

“Yeah, boss. The thing could be rigged to explode or something.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to touch anything.”

The doors at the back of the van were wide open, revealing an interior covered with scratch marks. On the ceiling, on the floor, and on the walls. The same scratch marks we found on the bodies of Kaori’s team.

It looked like whatever statues these things were before, the robbers had brought them back to life as monsters, transported them here, and were using them as their primary assault force. Both the driver and passenger seats were empty. However, only the door on the driver’s side was left open. This wasn’t much to go on, but it told me enough.

“We’re not dealing with a gang of armed robbers,” I said as I walked back to Miko and Aki, explaining my theory to them. “Most likely, there’s just the one controlling an army of tiny, sharp-clawed stone creatures.”

“You’re sure, boss?” Miko asked.

“Yeah” I turned around to face the vehicle as I continued explaining. The driver-side door was left open because the thief was in a hurry. They rushed into the museum during the chaos caused by the stone creatures in the back of the van.”

I briefly took off my sunglasses to wipe off the lens, and was immediately shocked that I had been wearing them in the first place. I must have involuntarily put them on during the car ride here. No wonder the environment was so dark. Feeling a little embarrassed, I decided to stuff them in my pocket instead.

“But vhat about ze creatures?” Aki asked. “Vere are zey now?”

I glanced over the compound once more, trying to trace the mess of footprints in the snow. It was a little confusing, but I eventually figured it out.

Three distinct sets of prints all led to the center of the compound, onto the platform that ferried tourists from the ground up to the museum. The machine operated using magical crystals with levitation properties, and just as there was one currently on the ground, there would be another one in the museum for when people were ready to come back down.

I remember coming here with my parents and little sister as a kid for the first time. Back then, I had asked the question, and a passing museum employee took his time to explain the transportation process to me and my family. I hadn't forgotten ever since.

I walked over to study the footprints closely. There were the tiny ones belonging to the stone creatures that attacked the guards. A pair of human footprints, most likely belonging to Kaori Katsuragi, I hoped. And the last ones, I just couldn’t place. I’m guessing they belonged to the driver. But they weren’t human footprints. This person, whoever they were, seemed to possess six legs, maybe eight. Which meant we weren’t dealing with a human, but quite possibly a magical creature.

“So zey all went up into ze museum?” Aki asked, having already pieced things together without me saying anything.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Which is also where we need to be right now.”

***

After Miko ran to grab the remote from the control room, we all stepped onto the platform.

“Going up,” she said.

She pushed a singular button on the device, and the familiar transparent blue energy of protection magic rose up from the floor around the platform, extending eight feet into the air. The near-invisible fence rippled with energy when I touched it. It was there to keep passengers from accidentally falling over the edge.

The machine beneath our feet groaned to life, then began steadily moving upward. The sudden movement caused me to stumble back, with Aki quickly reaching out to catch me. Or maybe she was already standing behind me when I fell; I wasn’t sure which.

“Are you okay, Captain?”

“Yeah, thanks. Mmm!”

Even through my winter jacket, I could feel my back pressing against two somethings. Two very soft somethings of hers, specifically. My cheeks instantly flushed with color. I quickly jumped to my feet while clearing my throat.

“So, you guys remember the plan, right? We can’t afford to cause as much collateral as we normally do, so we really need to dial it back on the firepower. Miko?” I turned to the brown-haired girl. “Understand?”

She was gazing at me with an almost pleading look in her eyes. I really needed her to focus and listen to me this time. If the mission went south, even if we saved everyone inside, it could still spell the end of our team.

Seeming as if reading my mind, Miko took in a deep breath, set her weapon on the platform’s floor, and began dismantling it.

“Dialing back energy output to below 30 percent, and switching out plasma magazines for cryogenic ejectors,” she announced as she swapped out parts of her weapon with newer parts from her backpack and belt, remodifying her machine gun into the MT nine-thousand, the prototype freeze ray she had made a few weeks ago. She was actually listening to me. To say I was proud of the little gremlin would be an understatement.

Her ice blaster was going to cause significantly less collateral than her plasma rounds. A smart move, considering we were about to get into a firefight in a museum full of priceless—and potentially hostile—artifacts.

When she had finished putting her weapon back together, she rose back up to her feet, giving her gun a little bump on the side to make sure everything was in place.

“Ready to roll, Captain,” she said, flashing a weak smile. “I’m gonna do everything in my power to make sure I don’t mess things up this time, I promise.” She gripped her weapon tighter and added a nod of her head in assurance.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling back and teasing her a little by grabbing the front part of her police cap and pulling it down to cover her face.

“Hey… What gives, boss?” Miko protested, flailing her arms around wildly.

“You looked a little too serious just now,” I told her, laughing. “It was making me nervous.”

“Well, I’m glad I was able to alleviate your stress, boss,” Miko huffed, glaring daggers at me after successfully pulling her cap back up.

I turned my attention to Aki, who had been standing quietly in the corner. The blonde girl was blankly staring out into the distance. We were halfway up to the museum, pushing higher into the night sky. I walked over to stand beside her, intending to talk, but not knowing how to start. Fortunately, she turned towards me and spoke first.

"Captain, you should not let me come vith you," she said, her eyes clouding over with concern.

"And why is that?" I asked, turning towards her.

"Ze handler said she vill separate us and dissolve our team if vi fail zis mission, ja?"

I nodded.

"Even if vi save ze hostages but cause significant damage, zis will still be considered failure."

I nodded once more.

Aki exhaled.

"Captain, ze monsters zhat took out ze first squad."

"What about them?" I asked, already knowing where she was going with this.

"Even if a single one of them hurt me, or you, or Miko, I could…" She briefly stopped talking, her voice cutting off from fear. "Captain, ze demon inside me vill see ze blood, and I vill transform. And nothing in ze museum vill be able to stop me from destroying ze place."

I wasn't sure what to say after that. I just stared back at her, speechless.

She was right. Fire was literally the most destructive element, and if she were to accidentally lose control while we were in the museum, the entire structure could go up in flames. If that were to happen, we wouldn't just be fired; we’d go to prison.

We remained silent the rest of the way up. I still wasn't all that sure what to say. Whatever way you looked at it, Aki posed a major risk and liability to the operation. Should I just bench her? Could Miko and I do this alone?

We finally arrived in front of the museum, with the platform letting out a mechanical hiss as it settled into place. Up close, the building loomed over us, large and imposing, with the doors alone being at least ten feet tall. As soon as the protection barrier disengaged and we stepped off the machine, I turned to Aki.

"Look," I said. "I'm not going to lie to you and say I'm not worried that you might jeopardize the mission. Because if things go south, which they often tend to do, you probably will."

Aki gazed back at me with sadness in her eyes.

"But," I reached out, placing my hand on her shoulder. "I know you will try your best to fight back the demon from taking control of your body. Just like you did the last time during the dungeon core mission."

"And if I fail, captain?" she asked.

I still didn't have an answer to give her, so I just said the first thing that came to mind.

"Just let me worry about it, okay?" I said, smiling.

The blonde girl hesitated, but then nodded.

"Alright team, here is the game plan."

I went to stand in front of both girls as I verbally outlined our strategy.

"Aki, this is going to be a no-magic operation. At least for you."

The blonde girl recoiled in surprise.

"But captain, how vill I fight?"

"I'm getting to that. We can't have you using your fire magic in there; it's too risky. That's why Miko is going to be lending you one of her cold guns. Miko?"

Without questioning my request, the shorter girl reached for one of her pistols on her waist and handed it to Aki.

"Thank you, Miko," I said to her. "Aki, you good to go?"

She was silent for a few seconds, staring at the weapon in her hand with a solemn expression. She probably felt restricted, not being trusted with her own power.

"Aki?" I called out again, my voice firm. That seemed to have done the trick, bringing her back to the present.

"Yes, captain." She lifted the weapon up and gripped it tightly. "I'm ready." She nodded, trying her best to flash a confident smile.

I knew she was masking her disappointment, but it would have to be enough for now.

"Alright, Shibuya division," I said as I turned around to face the wooden doors of the massive structure—a building floating some two hundred feet in the air. "Let's go stop ourselves a museum heist.”