Professor Layton: Conundrum of the Vanishing

Chapter Three

The city's town hall was much fancier than the rest of the buildings. Most of them were all darkly colored and beginning to break down. Vines curled around each and every brick on a few buildings, which left the building with a dark and abandoned feeling. Foliis had to say that this place was a lot less friendly looking on the inside compared to the outside, which made it look like some sort of enchanted paradise.

The town hall looked a bit like the White House in America. If Foliis didn't know better, she'd almost think that this building was actually the capital of the chicken shaped country.

Foliis shrugged this thought off and returned to the task at hand. She opened the door to the town hall, not even bothering with knocking.

Immediately after they walked in, the group was greeted with the sight of a dark haired teen. Foliis couldn't tell what gender the teen identified as. What she knew for sure was that their hair was spiky and dark brown. Streaks of bright colors ran through their mohawk. They wore a black leather jacket with matching pants. Combat boots went up to their calves. Their eyes were dark. They also had a navy blue shirt on. Chains hung from their belt and jacket in a few places.

A piercing hung from the lip of the teen. Foliis noticed this as the person spoke. "You're here for my parents, aren't you?"

Foliis nodded. "If they're the heads of the city, then yes," she replied.

"Upstairs in the office to your right," the teen told them. They pointed upstairs in the correct direction before walking off, hands in pockets.

The group followed the instructions of the teenaged child before knocking on the door to the office. "Are you guys in there?" Fey asked. Today, Fey wore a yellow ponytail, so their pronouns were the same as the teen's downstairs.

The door opened after they knocked to show a man and a woman. The man had dark hair and wore a dark purple suit. He clasped his hands together with a large smile that seemed like it belonged in a cartoon. The woman, who wore a dark purple dress and also had dark hair, was smiling just as much. "Hello, there! You must be some of the investigators!" The woman opened the door wider to allow the group of eight inside. "Landry! Come on upstairs! We have guests you need to meet!"

The dark haired teen from before came stomping up the stairs, looking just as threatening as before. "Yeah, yeah," the teen grumbled. Foliis assumed that this person was the Landry the woman had called for. The child of the mayor and his wife, she guessed.

Landry took a spot in the corner of the room, toying around on her phone. Foliis had to say that they looked even more edgy than she did. She guessed that it was the piercings that gave them the dark and ominous vibe.

"So! You must be eight of our puzzle solvers! My name is Randall Bennett and this is my wife, Reina Bennett," the man introduced. "Over there is our daughter, Landry."

"Not daughter. Child. Learn the difference. I've explained this to you twenty times this week alone," Landry hissed from the corner, looking up from her phone.

"She tends to be a bit... Defensive over pronouns. She seems to think that she's not a girl or a boy, but something in between. We know that this sort of thing doesn't exist, of course, but she's still figuring that out," Reina whispered, trying her hardest to keep the words quiet so that they weren't heard by Landry, who would no doubt be angry.

"Perhaps we should focus on the mystery," Fey said, growing uncomfortable. Faith wrapped an arm around her sibling, knowing that they weren't in a good mood due to the obvious hate towards nonbinary pronouns. Foliis wanted to punch these overly happy parents for messing with her sibling, but she held her tongue so she wasn't banned from Bohimika entirely.

"Alright," nodded Randall. "You see, a crowd of mysterious men recently appeared to us. They have made all of our citizens act sort of like controlled zombies. They refuse to see any visitors and never leave their houses. It's all quite concerning. I would like you all and the others that we summoned to work together and figure out why the people are acting so odd and also why the men appeared so suddenly."

"It's all rather sexist. No women involved? It's absolutely atrocious," Reina said, her smile faltering for a moment or two. "I feel like at least one woman needs to be strong and powerful so that she can show that women are strong. As strong as men, in fact. Maybe even stronger!"

"Nobody needs your feminism speeches, Mom," Landry muttered. "We all know that women are cool. We all also know that men are cool. All you need to say is that nonbinary kids are cool. Then everything will be even and we won't need to worry about this stuff. Nobody will judge you for being transphobic that way too."

"Nonbinary? What's that?" Reina asked, her smile going wider in panic as she turned to face Landry. "Excuse her. It's normal that she's acting this way. Teenagers like to believe in things that aren't real from time to time."

"Just tell us where we can go to meet some of the other investigators," Scarlet said, writing down on her small notepad as she spoke.

"Ah. Out in the back garden. You eight are the last ones to arrive. Here's a list of all of them really quickly," Randall told them. He grabbed a paper with a list of names on it and handed it over to each of the eight members of the group. "I can't wait to see how you'll all do with solving with this crime! I'm positive that you'll all do positively wonderful!"

Landry snuck out along with the group and nobody said a word about it. They didn't blame them for trying to get away from that pair of parents.

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1) this book is dedicated to Girlinatophat and _lily_shield_ bc their birthdays are around when this book was published

2) somebody came over to my house only to fall asleep

3) wow

4) expect five more updates today dang

-Digital