(Pottermore)

"It is still a good idea to keep tabs on the local sentiment. Even if it is from a...less than trustworthy source," Captain Carson replied, looking at the newspaper. At the mention of being restricted to Hogwarts, the woman nodded.

"Field trips can be used to get around that restriction but I highly suspect too many field trips would arouse suspicion," she added.

When Stripetail mentioned Pinkstone's group she nodded. "I don't agree with taking sides in this war either, Commander," Captain Carson replied. "But with Chong's head start, we will need local help. The other alternative is let the Pinkstone insurgents cause havoc to occupy Prime Minister Fudge and the authorities and then we can hunt for Chong while they're putting out the — likely literal — fires that the insurgents have started."

As she finished the conversation, the door opened and Professor Snape walked in. Her heart flew to her throat as she wrapped her hand around her wand. But the moment the man spoke, she began to calm down. She looked at Stripetail and followed him and Professor Snape to Professor Dumbledore's office.

_________________________________

(Myaardi)

"Could you please wait a moment?" Kire said to the group he was accompanying. He then turned to Chryseis. "I'll need some purification powder."

"Certainly." Several blue pouches materialized out of thin air around the Dryad. Kire handed her some silver coins as payment. He then tucked the pouches into a pocket in his armor.

"All right," he said, turning the rest of the group. "If you'll touch that pylon, you be able to warp to any other pylon in the world. They're all labeled; we'll be heading to the forest pylon."

---------------------

The banquet hall had some simple drinks and small snacks like fruit juice, hot tea and bread.

"All right," Deimos said, looking over the group. "Stripetail has ordered us to learn more about Chong's mining operation. And disrupt it if possible."

Mr. Bigmouth spoke up. "We have very limited resources with us," he said. "It's likely we'll have to look for local assistance."

"Good point." He then looked around. "Any other comments or concerns?"

Derek Powers scowled. He clenched his fists as he felt his temperature rising. Even with the enhanced synthetic skin and clothing he wore, the radiation could still burn them away and it simply wouldn't do to reveal himself as Blight. He took a breath to calm down.

"Commissioner," he said calmly. "Are you forgetting that Wayne-Powers Enterprises has more in assets and turns a greater yearly profit than some countries? Good day." He then hung up the phone.

-----------------

Of course, with how big the news of Paxton's arrest was, his face was soon plastered all over the airwaves.

And unsurprisingly, the Village where Stripetail and the athletes were staying had televisions.

-----------------

Gabriel had sent another two Weasel team to break Blammo out of jail. This time, she told them to be more discreet.

And discreet they were. They were dressed as repair personnel and escorted by two police officers as they walked down the hallways of the cellblock. Already, they were formulating the plan to incapacitate the two officers with them.

"I hope you have enough money to cover everything after my lawyers get through with you," Paxton replied as he was handcuffed and marched out of the apartment.

With Paxton out of the way, the officers began searching the apartment. Unsurprisingly, the search warrant also included all of the other artifacts and artwork he liked to collect as well as paperwork. Soon, boxes of various evidence began piling up as the officers stood guard. Of course, with the presence of officers, there were soon spectators watching as the police began removing evidence.

One of the officers wondered how soon it would take for the press to show up, get in the way and have Paxton's face and this bust plastered all over the media.

(Pottermore)

Captain Carson made her way to the owlery and tied the letter to one of the school owls. She told the owl to give it to Stripetail and to not let anyone else take it. She sighed; this was a very insecure manner to send a letter but her usual encrypted messaging systems were not available. Hopefully, the owls could avoid anyone trying to intercept the letters.

The message delivered, she exited the owlery and returned to the Ravenclaw common area to determine the next lesson plan. She had already covered history of Muggle wandmaking and wand materials.

___________________________________

(Myaardi)

Kire landed in front of the enormous tree. Aside from its sheer size, there was nothing odd about the tree, save for a door at the base of the tree. The solar knight opened the door. "After you," he said, allowing his traveling companions to enter first.

---------------------

Mr. Bigmouth pulled the sled into town and parked it near the Daybloom Inn.

Deimos then spoke up. "Looks like we got a new mission from The Seer himself," he said, putting his radio away.

"What is it?"

Deimos pointed a clawed finger to the inn. "Well discuss it in the banquet hall." He the entered the inn.

(Pottermore)

Captain Carson scowled. She was absolutely not interested in getting her crew involved in an insurgency. "I will need to speak to my superior about this," she said.

The grey bearded wizard nodded. "I see. Do keep what we said in mind earlier. You may no longer have the luxury of ignoring Fudge and the day that comes is getting closer. Already, he's turned Esbenshire into a virtual police state and our sources say that his Aurors are casting Memory Charms on the Muggle residents with wild abandon."

The wizard then nodded. "Now then, I recommend you return to your classes. The message to the next meeting will be delivered by House Elf. Good day."

Captain Carson nodded as she motioned to the rest of the others and she made her way up to the winding staircase. Eventually, the billywig statute moved aside and she exited with her group.

--------------

(Myaardi)

"We need to go back to the town and alert the rest of your group," Kire said. "There should be a pylon somewhere that links to a teleportation system that lets me travel to all the various biomes." He looked around. All he could see were swampy environs of the jungle long with the towering trees and vines. He the narrowed his eyes as he saw a mahogany tree off in the distance that towered above the others. "There!" he said. "That's where the pylon's located."

He then heard an odd mix of a chirp and buzz and saw what looked to be enormous, two-legged blue beetles approaching. "Derplings! Go! Go! Go!" The wings emerged from his armor as he rocketed into the sky at speeds that seemed only attainable by aircraft.

(Myaardi)

Kire alighted onto a small cliff in the vertical shaft. He then looked upwards and saw a faint pinprick of light. "Angela, Sasha, Rivet!" he yelled. "We're getting close to the surface." The shaft lit up with a brilliant light as he solar knight flared out his wings and rocketed upwards towards the light.

When he arrived, he noticed that he was surrounded by muddy swamp and towering mahagony trees. "Huh, the jungle," he said. He then gave a quick look around. Not too far off in the distance was the sickly purple landscape of the Corruption. A well-crafted wooden bridge spanned a massive gorge lined with stone bricks that divided the jungle from the Corruption. A twinge of satisfaction flowed through him as he recalled building the entire canyon by himself.

As he waited for the rest of the group to emerge from the shaft, he simply watched the clouds slowly moving across the sky.

---------------------

Mr. Bigmouth deftly piloted the repulsorsled away from the guards of Chong's mining operation.

"Can someone get in contact with Stripetail?" he asked. The bullet holes in the sled's windshield indicated that he had not gotten away undetected but thankfully, no one was injured and the sled wasn't too badly damaged.

________________________________

(Pottermore)

Captain Carson nodded. She discreetly signaled for the rest of the group to step forward. "If I may," she said. "Why exactly have I been summoned here."

The wizard who greeted her spoke. "Simple," they said. "You are a Muggle who has been wronged by the archaic rules of Fudge."

The starship captain remembered how she had been left wandering outside Esbenshire for hours with fragmented memories after seeing an attack on a government building. "And what is the relevance to your cause?"

"Simple. We know that you are working with a powerful off-world wizard; a guest to our planet, if you will. If the Ministry treats Muggle guests so poorly, who knows what they'll do to the locals?"

Captain Carson kept her face neutral. She was here to assist Stripetail in apprehending Chong, not to take sides in an insurgency (even if the local government had mistreated her). But at the same time, perhaps she could recruit these Magicfolk to assist her? That and there was the possibility that she would be forced to take sides simply because the local government was hindering her efforts.

_____________________________

(RIMCS Spire of Winter)

The bartender passed Frank and Friedrich a menu. The food available was mostly classic bar food like catfish burgers, fish and chips. But thanks to the outsized influence of the Mawashiians aboard, there were also a lot of Mawashiian dishes available, like the famous sumo wrestler's stew, chankonabe.

Getting a judge to sign off on a warrant to search Paxton Powers's apartment, let alone the subpoena was not an easy task. Most of them refused, saying that they needed evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he was trading in illegally acquired antiquities. But in the end, they got their warrant and subpoena from a judge who had promised to clean up corporate malfeasance.

Once that was done, the detectives returned to Commissioner Gordon with the paperwork in hand as well as in the system. The papers were then laid out on her desk.

"Well, Commissioner," the first detective said. "We actually got the paperwork completed. However, knowing Paxton's influence, we can probably only do this once since the moment the news gets a hold of this, we're going to have corporate interests lobbying for more favorable judges."

--------------------------

Gabriel paced inside her RV/headquarters. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she heard about the fiasco that the attempt to give Blammo a variety of breaching tools and weapons hidden inside a pie.

The gathered Weasels in front of her were looking rather shamed as she glared at them. "Did you even think to consider the different variety of Toonforce that this setting operates under?"

"Lord Stripetail is the one who hired Captain Carson and this ship to transport him and his crew through the cosmos as well as provide him with various material and military support," the Spirarian said. They took a drink from the glass of beer they had purchased.

"As for new hires, we usually pick them up from various space stations, planets and the like. And of course, we do have families and children present as well and once the children come of age, they have the option to work for us. Of course, that is rare given that we do not allow child labor and the children must be eighteen to work." The Spirarian worker then turned to the duo. "And of course, all hotel fees and fares are waived if you sign on as a worker."

The detectives nodded. "We'll try our best, Commissioner, but he has a disturbing number of judges in his pocket. Metaphorically, speaking that is. He hasn't directly paid off any of the judges — or else we could just have him arrested for bribery — but he is very liberal with his campaign donations."

-----------------------

Meanwhile, the pie that was being given to Blammo was being checked over to ensure that it didn't contain contraband. One of the Weasels handed the pie over to the group of stone-faced guards at the prisoner mailroom. The pie was then placed inside what looked like an X-ray machine, but it was an advanced mass spectrometer combined with electromagnetic scanner.

"Okay you two! Hands up!" The guards drew their guns and pointed it at the two Weasels, who obligingly raised their hands. They were then roughly handcuffed and hauled off to the holding cell.

"Seriously?" one of the guards said, looking at the results. "You baked a set of hand grenades, a set of self-lighting exothermic cutting sticks, a shotgun, forty 12-gauge shells, a drill, a hacksaw, blasting caps and wire inside a pie made of plastic explosive and expected we wouldn't notice the oddly heavy pie, let alone not pick it up on our scanners? Did you think we live in a cartoon?"

(Hogwarts, Pottermore)

Once they had moved up two floors, Captain Carson took off the emergency breathing hood and stuffed it back into its container. A quick check revealed she had an hour's worth more usage out of it. Below her, the haze of the dung bombs still lingered but it was slowly dissipating. And of course, Peeves and the janitor were still engaged in a screaming match.

"Well," Captain Carson said, looking at the fifth floor. The section of the floor that was open to the main hall of the castle was lined with gargoyles of every type. And there were additional rooms and hallways that branched off the main section. "I think this is the place. But where do we start?"