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Sharp Dressed Spiny!
*****
"Crown games center, huh?" Chrono mused as he slipped into the place - in civilian clothes, to be polite.
'Amy', He asked telepathically as half of his backup gave a slight, wide-eyed nod - you'd think she'd never seen the inside of a place like this, even though he knew she had, 'is it me or is this place a little odd?'
'Keep your eyes open. There's active magical scans going on all over the place.' Amy said. 'Durandal, Levantine and Bardiche are giving me -excellent- summaries.'
"Chrono, do you want something?" Fate asked him as they waited, looking over the confectionery and icecream parlor part of the cafe with slight longing.
"I recommend the ice-cream - my wife swears by it - but I'd prefer you avoided the Parfait. It appears to be bad luck in our line of work." Tuxedo Kamen advised from suddenly being there, seated casually on one of the cafe chairs. "Ladies. Officer Harlaown. You wished to interrogate me?"
All three of the visitors - Signum had invited herself along for the ride - stiffened at his sudden presence.
'Harlaown!' Signum's mental voice hissed as the man gestured towards chairs - and nobody else in the cafe noticed him being Tuxedo Kamen.
The three of them definitely noticed his magical power, for the moment not hidden at all - and vastly greater than Chrono had expected it to be.
'I know! He wasn't like this before!' Chrono sent back, but squared his shoulders to head over and pull up a chair.
'Amy?' he asked and heard the sounds of distant freaking out on the other end of the telepathic transmission to where Amy was observing from the house.
'Be careful. He's wearing a disguise effect so strong he could look just like he does now - and when he took it off you wouldn't recognize him. I've never seen anything like it.' Amy sent back. 'and - holy shit! How was he hiding that much power?'
"We'll take the ice-cream - Signum?" Chrono asked politely to cover the exchange of thoughts and got a frosty, "Nothing for me." From the pink haired knight.
The way she was looming she really would prefer to stay standing -
"And we had a few questions about...local events and customs." Chono added diplomatically. "Not wanting to cause trouble."
And then Tuxedo Kamen's magical signature winked out. Completely gone as if it hadn't been there at all, and the three of them had to stifle indrawn breaths. Most disguise magic took at least a few moments to kick in - to be able to hide that much, that quickly was very impressive.
'One, he definitely did that deliberately.' Chrono mentally told them all. 'Two - How is he hiding that much power? It's like the whole area is helping him - never mind, tell me later.'
"Fair enough." The local mage said. "I have some questions of my own about your intentions. Would you mind explaining those? As a matter of curiosity."
"When we first came here it was in response to an incident with artifacts from a precursor to our civilization." Chrono said, "We've known of this world's existence for a long time, but previous visits had indicated that there was no significant magical society, so mainly we've had no reasons to come here until a dimensional criminal lost some dangerous artifacts."
"Ah." Tuxedo Kamen said. "Extremely dangerous artifacts, I presume?"
"Their use is proscribed for a reason." Chrono agreed. "Even one can potentially destroy a world. There were some..complications -"
Fate didn't /quite/ stiffen at being described as a complication, but Chrono knew he'd be paying for the phrasing anyway.
Especially since Tuxedo Kamen had noticed, he was somehow sure.
"-Which wound up involving a local mage-potential. She turned out to be instrumental to solving the incident, and extremely talented." Chrono shrugged. "Since to our knowledge she was the only mage potential in this direction we had been keeping an eye on her."
No need to go into the /second/ incident just now. Or too much description of Nanoha - not in this meeting.
"Then this - incident, which indicates that our previous estimate the local mage population is probably quite low. What we don't know is why they hide so well that our best detection equipment thinks they may be jello." The man raised an eyebrow and Chrono grit his teeth at letting that last bit of description slip in.
"That is an...interesting story. And question." Tuxedo Kamen said. "I haven't all of the answers you may want - my own estimate of the local magic using population has until recently been quite low. As you say, however, I must now assume otherwise...and I do have one or two ideas as to why it may be."
"What might that be?" Chrono carefully didn't grit out and got a slight tip of the head from where Tuxedo Kamen was drumming fingers on the top of the hat he had sat on the table.
"According to the ..origin of my magical education, At a certain point in this world's history," Kamen said, "There was a war between two magic using civilizations which obliterated the larger of them, and decimated the smaller. In the process, the leaders of both societies were wiped out completely. Those who survived were subject to the depredations of ..things..used by the smaller power to assault the larger. Left over monstrosities. I suspect now, that it was at that time that any magic using remnants of the first kingdoms must have gone...thoroughly underground. And the tradition of hiding remains."
"I see." Chrono said. "And those magic using civilizations have something to do with you?"
"Certainly." Tuxedo Kamen said simply. "If that smaller kingdom had not been betrayed into attacking the Silver Millennium and destroyed, I would be this world's king."
'Chrono,' Amy said faintly over their telepathic link, 'the reason it looks like the whole world is helping him hide his magic is because /it is/.'