Notes – Set a few years after the fourth game, with some spoilers for it. This fic was mostly an excuse to practise writing in the present tense and deal with subjects outside of my usual comfort-zone, so it's probably not all that great. Thank you to Cockneys for proof-reading this for me. Also, for those of you with the US games, Gus is the UK name for Tweeds.

Crow hadn't been born into a rich family. Middle-class, probably lower middle-class at best. They get by all right, even after his dad gets laid off his job at the factory. But they never particularly have any extra luxuries in life.

So from a young age Crow learns that if he wants any extras in life then he has to work for them himself.

And, all things considered, he thinks that he does a pretty good job of it. By the time he's in his early teenage years, Crow has organised the other kids in the area - also the products of workers laid off from the factory - to run a black market. They find rubbish, polish it up and sell it for a high price to too trusting buyers. Maybe if those buyers stop and think about it for long enough they might realise they're getting ripped off, but Crow keeps them interested with stories of the Black Raven.

The Black Raven is his creation and one that he's most proud of. The other kids, as well as himself, all don the costume and create the illusion of this elusive Black Raven, a being so hard to catch, who only picks out the worthy among the citizens to be led to the Black Raven's den in order to bid for their wares.

By 'worthy' they mean suckers.

Though that isn't always the case. The Black Ravens bring Hershel Layton and his merry band to Crow on one occasion. That man is definitely not a sucker, figuring out and revealing the Black Ravens' ploy based on what he's seen of their actions. Crow hopes very much to not have to cross swords with him again on bad terms.

The years go on and eager teenagers become young adults. They're not all as interested as they once were. Nabby has always viewed his task of guarding the entrance to be such a pain, so it isn't surprising when he decides to drop out. Doesn't matter though, it filters the wheat from the chaff, as Crow puts it.

Crow's putting forward a lot of view points these days. Because Misthallery is a small town and everyone knows their name by now. There's no element of surprise in the Black Ravens anymore and the potential market in a small town is ultimately, well, small.

He's got ideas, though. Big talk to move the business to London. There's more people there, more suckers to sell to.

So he confronts the other Black Ravens, telling them of his plan. They're all adults now, so there's nothing stopping them from moving away from home if they want to.

The results are… less positive than he wants. Marilyn flat out refuses, which doesn't surprise him too much. She's always been very keen to carry on her parent's work running stalls in the market and moving that far from home would go against her wishes. What does surprise him is that Wren and Socket don't want to go either. The two siblings always seem like they want to see more of the world and get away from a cramped village where they spend their days doing little more than arguing with each other. But when push comes to shove they ultimately decide to stay at home. Crow can see the looks of apology in their eyes and tells them not to worry when the time comes for the remaining Black Ravens to go. He promises them that they'll get by fine without them.

So as they leave Misthallery, their numbers have been reduced to five, including Crow himself. The others who come with him are Louis, Scraps, Gus and Badger. The wheat that remains now that the chaff has been brushed off.

Or that's what Crow thinks at the time, anyway.

They set up shop in London. Between them they have enough money to run a small place and they get by, though they're never well off. Sometimes they have to skip a meal or two.

The lack of an audience in London catches Crow off guard too. He's always viewed London as being a larger collection of fools all waiting to have their money taken from them, but now that he's here he realises that he's just one more con-artist among a set of hundreds of other. People in London don't need expensive knick-knacks and they're all too busy running about their lives to play the Black Raven game. So the con falls flat.

It hits them all hard when Gus says that he's leaving. Tells them that he's sick of just getting by, and especially sick of missing meals when he could easily go back home and have a better way of life.

Crow doesn't answer, he just watches him walk out of the door.

But Gus's words do get him thinking. He's never wanted to be like his old man and 'just get by', so he needs to up the game a lot to meet with London's demand. He sends the other three out to find out what it is that London wants – what sells here.

It's Badger who comes back with an answer. He says that the audience of fools they had in Misthallery is still present in London, but they've been looking in the wrong place. It's not tourists looking for novelties they should be aiming at, it's the masses of people who live on Government benefits and spend their days drinking themselves into oblivion. The wasters. Now there's a word to add to their vocabulary.

So, to sell to these people they need to be selling booze. They can buy it cheap and market it as something fancy, in the same way they sell junk as antiques.

At this point Crow can see the look of disgust on Louis's face. The other boy doesn't like this idea, tells them that he thought the Black Ravens had higher standards than that. So Crow challenges him to point out how this would be any different to what they've been doing all along.

Louis answers that no one gets hurt when they sell junk and Badger cuts in to say that they're not hurting anyone by selling them alcohol either. But Louis isn't done get, claiming that he couldn't in good conscience sell something that he knows a person could use to hurt themselves.

To finish the argument, Crow states that if Louis has such a strong objection to their business then he can leave.

And Louis does leave.

Only three of them left now, the best wheat of the bunch.

They get a leg in the door easy enough with this market, importing cheap brands of drinks from the docks and repackaging them to sell at a higher price. People buy it too. They never stop to think that they could get exactly the same thing for less than half the price at a store, because they like the thrill of sneaking into a back alley and confronting the mysterious Black Raven, then leaving with their prize.

Finally, they have enough money to be comfortable with their lives.

It all goes very well until one day Crow, dressed in the Black Raven cloak, is confronted by one of the lowest looking pieces of scum he's met so far. A middle-aged man who reeks of urine and ale, grunting at him through heavily-chapped lips. The man says that the fancy Black Raven's booze is all very good, but he wants something stronger. At first, Crow is thrown, he tells the man that he can get stronger drink if he wants it and the man just laughs at him and leaves.

What could he have possibly meant?

Crow leaves this question with the other two, carrying on his work in a distracted way. Days go by, until finally Scraps races back through the door, as fast as his tiny legs can carry him. He's panting heavily and looks panicked, though there doesn't appear to be anyone chasing him. When the other two ask him what's wrong, he pulls out a small container.

This, he claims, is the hard stuff. This is what the man wants. They could make a happy profit selling alcohol or they could sell this and be rich beyond their dreams if they were sensible about it.

Scraps tips the white powder out onto the table and Badger gasps when he sees what it is. He rounds on Scraps, yelling that they don't need this sort of thing, and then he turns to Crow and demands that their leader backs him up on this. But Scraps also wants to get his word in, saying that with this the Black Ravens could be something impressive, like they had been back at Misthallery. Or, you know, they could just carry on being comfortably well off and never really making a name for themselves.

Though Crow hasn't said a word throughout the discussion, Badger reads into his silence. He insists that he was willing to back Crow so far because nothing they've done has been illegal, but if Crow so much as considers this then he can count Badger out.

Silence, as Crow continues to look at the powder on the table. He knows of this stuff and would never be dumb enough to take it himself, but do people from the bleakest parts of London really pay all that much for it…?

Seeing the look in Crow's eyes, Badger throws his hands up in the air. Claims that he doesn't want to be part of this anymore and hopes that the two of them see sense before it's too late. The door slams on his way out. There have been a lot of doors slamming from previous Black Ravens these past few months.

So it comes down to him and Scraps. And Crow doesn't say it out loud, but he has to admit that if he ever thought about all of the Black Ravens storming out on him save for one, then the one left probably wouldn't have been Scraps. But this is how it's gone down and he's happy to know who his truly loyal friend is.

Ignoring the loss of Badger, Crow asks Scraps where he got this and if he could get more. The answer is that he found it unattended at the docks and if it sells as well as they think it will then he could easily get more.

And boy does it sell.

They don't even have to market it that much, the people come when they know that the Black Raven has it and they definitely want more. The demand for the substance is impossible to satisfy, with people turning up at the den all hours of the day, shoving bigger and bigger wads of cash into Crow's hands just to get more. They're addicted and therefore the perfect market to manipulate.

They reason that they're playing it smart, that they're probably not the only people in London to be selling this stuff anyway, and that they won't get caught. But the operation gets bigger. The demand outweighs the supply and sometimes they just can't give the people what they want.

On one such occasion they have to turn away a regular customer, a man with beady-eyes who looks like he used to be pretty large but lost a lot of weight over a small space of time. This guy doesn't take it too well, yelling that he'll fetch the pigs if they don't give him some.

Crow just laughs and dares him.

He can see Scraps shaking as the man darts off and tells him not to worry about it. A person like that will never go to the police, since he'll have to explain how he knows about the business in the first place and he looks too obviously like a junkie. They'd arrest him before they even thought about coming here.

But it appears that the man's either not as smart as Crow or just plain lucky, because within the day there are men in uniforms hammering on the door.

They've got the door barricaded as best they can and they need to leave, but there's way too much stock that'll be lost if they abandon this place. Scraps is yelling, loud enough for the guys outside to hear, saying that they could easily restock if it comes to it, but they can't do very much from a prison cell.

Unfortunately, Crow has to admit defeat. He grabs as much as he can carry in his arms and scrambles out of the back window with his partner in crime. Thankfully, the neighbourhood is boxed in and complicated for a stranger to navigate, so the police haven't found their way to the back of the house yet. They cover the distance of a few streets before they hear the sounds of footsteps following them.

If they can make it to the harbour then they're free. There's no way they could be tracked among that throng of people. But the ground is still muddy after an evening's rain and Crow finds himself tripping over a hidden bump in the road.

Their pursuers are closing in on him now.

He yells out to Scraps, who's still running. He thinks that Scraps might not have noticed that he's been left yet.

But Scraps looks back. The boy sees Crow lying on the floor, and then looks past him to see the horde of officers not far behind. He turns to carry on running. Abandoning Crow.

Crow is all alone now, the last remaining member of the Black Ravens.

Perhaps it's the numbness of that sudden realisation that stops him from getting up, but he would have never made it very far even if he had. The next thing he knows he's being pinned to the floor by several men in blue.

The one who he assumes is their pack leader, a dark-haired, moustached man dressed in green, gives them the order to keep him down. Crow envies this man for having a following so eager to listen to his orders. Once Crow had a following like that too, but maybe he's made a few too many bad decisions. So now it's just him.

He can just about hear the man talking about how it's about time they've caught this one. From the way he's going on, Crow assumes that usually this person handles much more high-profile cases than this and he doesn't like being reduced to chasing dealers, but he's happy to catch the criminal all the same.

Then he hears more footsteps running across the murky path. For a moment he hopes that Scraps might have come back for him, but he soon sees from the legs that this new figure is too tall to be Scraps and loses hope.

It seems that the new guy and the green-suited officer are familiar with each other and they're talking in hurried words. He thinks that this guy is trying to defend him, but it's getting harder and harder to make out what they're saying. Perhaps it was the pressure from the men holding him down, perhaps it was the shock of being completely left by his friends, but all Crow knows is that he's got blotches in his vision and he doesn't feel with it right now.

His defender by his own assumption is bending down now, talking to him. Crow can see who this guy is for the first time and he wishes that he couldn't.

Not him. Not here. Not now.

How dare that kindly man in his top hat, solving whimsical problems for the world around him, dare to look upon Crow in this state. Crow sees the look of concern in Layton's face and he hates it. The man's mouth is opening and closing, but for all he's saying Crow only makes out one thing:

"It's going to be all right."

Then he blacks out and knows no more.