Notes: This chapter has Luke as the apprentice of Inspector Chelmey, as suggested by PL-Fan111 on dA. It is a direct sequel to the chapter where Luke is Chelmey's apprentice, so if you haven't read that one then this one won't make much sense. There are some mild spoilers for Miracle Mask in this and for those of you more familiar with the US version of the game, Narcisse in the name of the character called Conner in your version. Also, I'd like to apologise for leaving this series so long without being updated – I've gotten so many suggestions to get through that I became a bit overwhelmed and have been putting off it off for a while. But I hope to get a few more written when I can.

"Um, Monica?" Luke prompted, as he walked over to the receptionist's desk. He always ended up a little nervous when talking to Monica, as she never failed to make it clear if you were wasting her time.

"Hmm?" she droned, glaring up at him.

"I was wondering if you knew where Grosky was," Luke enquired, "I was supposed to meet him in his office, but he doesn't seem to be there."

"Grosky, in his office? Hah! That'll be the day," snorted Monica, "That energetic oaf probably doesn't even know what the inside of that room looks like. Don't you worry, he'll be along."

Luke nodded; "All right, I'll just wait for him here then."

He shuffled away to take a seat on one of the chairs at the edge of the room. But no sooner than he'd taken the weight off his feet, Grosky came charging through the door in a blaze of haste, just like Monica had said.

"Good morning, dearest Monica!" he proclaimed, "And how are you this fine day?"

"Constable Triton is waiting for you," muttered Monica, motioning over to where Luke was sat. After years of working with Grosky, she had little time for his small-talk.

"He is?" Grosky swung around to look towards Luke; "So he is! Hello there, boy. How may I help you?"

"D-didn't Inspector Chelmey tell you?" Luke replied, getting up, "He said that I was to spend some time learning your, um, your own methods of policing. Because you've got a very different approach to him and it's be good for me to see the balance, he thinks."

Putting a hand to his chin, Grosky commented, "I don't remember ol' Chelm saying anything about that."

"It was in the paperwork," Monica cut in.

"Ah, paperwork. Never bother with the blasted stuff. But if you both say that's the case, I have to reason to object," said Grosky. He put a hand on Luke's shoulder; "You're going to be learning from one of the Yard's finest, my boy."

"W-wouldn't doubt it for a minute," gulped Luke. Though he was already somewhat familiar with Grosky's methods from when he travelled with the Professor as a child. They tended to involve charging around at top speed and fighting the 'enemy' in as straight-forward a method as was possible.

"Now, we have a lot to cover, but I do think that actions speak louder than words," began Grosky, steering Luke out of the building, "I can spend all day telling you how to do things, but it won't make a lick of difference if you're not out there in the field doing them for yourself. Which is why you're going to help me track down some notorious criminals."

"What kind of criminals?" Luke asked, as they walked down the street.

"Hah, well, calling them 'notorious' might be a bit of a stretch," admitted Grosky, "These two are just a couple of con-artists. But they've been causing bother on the fringe of London for a little too long. In fact, I believe that we first met them back when you were an even littler kid, during the whole Monte d'Or fiasco."

Ignoring the 'littler kid' comment, Luke replied, "I think I remember those two. Narcisse and Frankie, right? It's been a long time since I've heard from them."

"Yes, and I've gotten wind that they're still up to their old tricks," grumbled Grosky, "A leopard never changes its spots and all that."

Luke wasn't quite sure he agreed with that notion, but he wasn't here to argue with Grosky, so he kept quiet as the two of them went down the streets of London. Even when he was walking, Grosky's pace was swift, so Luke almost had to jog to keep up. It certainly didn't seem as if old age had slowed Grosky down in the slightest.

After they'd been walking for some time, he did speak up.

"Where abouts are we going, anyway?"

"To a part of London so vile that you've probably never even seen it before," Grosky answered, "...In fact, here we are now."

"This is... this is just one of the markets," Luke mumbled, looking dejected, "I've been here many times with the Professor."

"Ah, but I'm sure that, when you came here with him, you weren't really looking," countered Grosky.

"Looking for what? We usually buy bread here and sometimes-"

"Looking for trouble, my boy," Grosky interrupted.

"No, can't say we were ever looking for that," agreed Luke.

"As a policeman, you have to look for trouble. Even if you're a good, honest citizen like the two of us are, you can be sure that the rest of the world isn't," bragged Grosky, "You need to see trouble before trouble even sees itself. And speaking of, it looks like trouble's just turned up over there."

Following Grosky's eye-line, Luke saw the back of a tall man, dressed in brown. He had grey hair that looked like it may once have been a proud afro, before age had gotten to it. If Grosky hadn't pointed him out, there was no way that Luke would have made the connection between this man and the con-artist he'd met briefly all those years ago, but he guessed he could see the resemblance.

"Looks like he's just going about his business," said Luke, finding that his voice was lowering to a whisper almost automatically, as if he was worried about the man hearing.

"You might think so, but then you need to ask yourself what he's doing lurking around a market at this time of day," retorted Grosky, "Buying vegetables, he'll probably have you believe. But no, I'm certain that there's something much more sinister going on here... Look! He's just grabbed that women's purse! Stop! In the name of the Yard!"

Before Luke could even blink, Grosky had taken off towards the man.

Spinning on the spot, the person who Luke assumed was Frankie gaped in complete surprise.

"Bloody 'eck! Not that nutter!"

He took off through the crowd as if he'd just seen a ghost, while Grosky pursued him. Figuring that his options were to either stand there doing nothing or catch up with Grosky, Luke charged after them both. It wasn't easy to get around the market, but eventually Luke caught sight of Frankie slipping through a door. It looked like he'd managed to lose Grosky during the chase.

Rushing over to the door, Luke called out to the market in general, "Oi! He went in here!"

In the midst of the confused crowd, Grosky's head shot up and within moments he had joined Luke in front of the door.

"Are you sure about this?" he demanded.

"Yeah, I just saw him go inside," Luke confirmed.

Grosky rattled on the door; "Open up, in the name of Scotland Yard!"

"Push off!" came the muffled reply from the other side.

"You leave me no choice but to enter by force," warned Grosky. He pressed his full weight roughly against the door, which swung open under the pressure. It almost knocked Grosky off his feet, but he recovered quickly and glared around the room.

As Luke joined him, he caught sight of two men within the house. Frankie, who was out of breath from Grosky's pursuit, was crouched in front of another person, who Luke assumed had to be Narcisse. If the years hadn't been kind to Frankie, then they had definitely been much worse to Narcisse. He looked little more than a shell of his former self. And while it was clear that Narcisse had still done much to preserve the appearance he'd valued so highly, nothing could hide the fact that he was obviously not in the best of health any more.

"I see you've brought friends home, Frankie," Narcisse sneered.

"Only if all of your friends try to arrest you," snapped Grosky, "Now are you going to come quietly or-"

"What's this all about?" Narcisse asked. He was looking at Luke, not Grosky.

Recoiling under his gaze, Luke stammered, "Grosky... I-I mean, we came here b-because of the criminal activity and, well, G-grosky saw him snatch a purse." He jabbed a finger towards Frankie.

"Snatch a purse?" Narcisse echoed, before laughing bitterly, "He didn't snatch anything. Frankie bought that on my behalf, because I don't get around so well any more. The lady you saw, Mildred, sells them on her stall."

"A likely story!" Grosky barked, "Then why did he run when I gave chase?"

"Because you're some kinda rampagin' gorilla and you've bin after us before!" Frankie shot.

Luke cut-in, to stop Grosky from furthering the argument; "We could always ask the woman on the stall if that's the case. If she runs it then she'd probably still be there." Now that he thought about it, there were a lot of wallets, purses and bags on display near where she was...

"This officer has some sense," jeered Narcisse.

"Yes, well, Luke is learning from the best," Grosky assured them, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask. But you're still wanted for other crimes!"

"What kind of crimes?" Narcisse pressed.

"The ones that come with being a con-artist," answered Grosky, "We get wind of activity from this place all the time."

"Then we're sorry to disappoint, but you've got the wrong men," Narcisse corrected, "As you can see, I'm in no fit shape to get very far and Frankie here couldn't con a child into believing in the tooth-fairy without someone telling him how to do it. The reason you might have heard of us being around here a lot is because we live here. This is our house. And I very much hope you pay for any damage that you might have done to the door."

"But... that is... I was sure..." Grosky mumbled.

"Do you have any evidence against us, Inspector?" Narcisse checked.

"I don't bother with paperwork," growled Grosky, knowing where this was going.

"Then you don't have a case. Unless you can come back here with an actual case, I'd recommend you be on your way. And you can clear our story with Mildred before heading back to the station," Narcisse dismissed.

"You haven't heard the end of this!" Grosky shot.

"I think that they have..." mumbled Luke, "Let's just... check what they said with the stall owner." He pressed a hand on Grosky's back, this time he was the one to steer Grosky outside. Before he left, Luke turned back to Narcisse and said, "You should probably get yourself to a hospital though."

"And leave a trail of paperwork behind me? I think not," Narcisse snorted, "The world isn't that kind."

"Maybe it isn't," Luke sighed, "Sorry for bothering you both."

He walked out before anything else could be said. Directing Grosky back to the stall they'd initially spotted Frankie at. Sure enough, what they'd said was the exact truth, at least as far as Mildred had to say. And it seemed unlikely that she'd cover for them if they had stolen from her.

The trip back to Scotland Yard saw Grosky saying even less than he had done on the way to the market. And it wasn't long after they'd gotten back until he made excuses to leave, mumbling something about how he'd see Luke in the morning.

Luke, however, stuck around for the next few hours. Eventually being found by Inspector Chelmey looking through Scotland Yard's extensive records.

"How did your first day with Grosky go then?" Chelmey queried, walking over.

"Very well, thank you," answered Luke, looking up from the records, "I learned a lot."

"You did?" Chelmey gaped, sounding quite surprised, considering he was the one who'd put Luke under Grosky's care.

"Yes, I learned about the value of paperwork and how you can't just charge around trying to arrest people without evidence," Luke clarified.

"And you learned that... from Grosky?" checked Chelmey.

"In some ways, he was the best teacher I could have asked for," Luke replied, carefully.

"Right. Very well then. If you're learning then that's what's important. I'm sure that you'll pick up plenty of other valuable pieces of police wisdom from him and all," Chelmey concluded, "But try not to stay up too late. Grosky's an early riser and he won't wait around for you if you're too tired to follow him tomorrow."

"All right, thanks Inspector," Luke said.

"'Night then," grumbled Chelmey, heading off and leaving Luke to his records.

Luke started to put the papers back into the files that he'd found them in. Over the course of the evening he'd certainly found a lot of charges either against Frankie and Narcisse or at least against people who matched their descriptions. Perhaps they had been in the right today, but there was certainly enough evidence here to bring them in about other things. However, all of the records about them dated back enough years that they were long past being looked into. It appeared that, as far as the police were concerned, these two hadn't done anything against the law in recent years.

It was hard to do the right thing, Luke knew. They'd done wrong in the past, but Narcisse looked so worn now... And they both gave off the vibe that they just wanted to be left alone.

The right thing to do would be to bring these records to Grosky's attention and go take them both in, now that they knew where they were and had the evidence to do so.

Instead, Luke slipped the files back onto the shelf, without saying a word.

Perhaps he wasn't cut out to be a police officer after all...