LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 181: Hope's Help
When we arrived in the vault, Hope and I put on gloves. To me, it didn't look like there was much to inspect. However, Hope walked around the room looking at the walls, the floor, the containers the jewelry had been in and the cameras in the room.
"This is definitely the work of elementals," Hope said.
"How can you tell?" I said.
"When an elemental passes through their element, it disturbs the elements molecules and returns them to a more natural state," Hope walked over to the wall that I saw ripple on the video.
"Feel this wall. Part of it is rough and part is smooth. The rough part is where the elemental passed through the stone. Some parts of the ground are like that too, especially around the places that contained the gems."
I felt the wall and the floor and the metal containers that held the jewelry and gemstones. All of them were slightly rough to the touch. Not enough to be able to physically see, but enough to feel.
"I see," I said.
"They had an earth elemental, a stone elemental, a metal elemental, and a lightning elemental. The earth elemental moved them through the earth underneath the building, the stone elemental passed them through the granite wall, the metal elemental removed the gems from the metal containers and safes, and the lightning elemental disrupted the camera feed," she said.
"How could all those elementals travel underground together? Wouldn't only the earth elemental be able to pass through the earth?" I said.
"Normally, but there is a way around that. If the earth elemental envelopes the other elementals within its body, it can pass the displaced earth through its body, but around the elementals inside it, to allow them all to travel together. The same thing can be done with passing through the granite wall," she said.
"Interesting. The one thing I'm not getting is how they got the gems out of the metal containers," I said. "Wouldn't they need an elemental of each gemstone type to remove them? But then those gem elementals wouldn't be able to put their hands through the metal. Please explain how that works. It's hurting my brain."
"Elementals can manipulate the shape of their material element if they touch it. So the metal elemental could just touch the safe, create a hole in it, grab the gems, and then reseal the hole. That's why the metal is rough to the touch in some areas. Because of the manipulation," she said.
"Oh! That makes so much sense! Thanks. I definitely would not have got that on my own," I said. "Even with all those powers, it's still impressive how they did it in 30 seconds."
"It certainly is. It shows they've had a lot of practice from all the other banks in all the other cities they hit," she said.
I walked outside the vault and called over to Pete. "We're done! We figured it out. You can come in here now. Hope will show you how they did it."
Pete walked into the vault with me and said, "Your name is Hope? Like the famous Hope diamond? Sorry, I couldn't help but notice you were made out of diamonds."
"Yeah," she said. "My father named me after the Hope diamond because it's a blue diamond and I'm specifically made out of blue diamonds."
"Interesting," I said. "I did not realize that."
"So what did you want to show me?" Pete said. He pulled out a big digital camera with a big flash on the top like they use in crime shows.
Hope walked Pete through the how the elementals did the crime and the roughness of the materials that were manipulated. Pete took high definition macro shots of the wall, floor, and containers that were manipulated. In high definition macro, you could see the change in texture on the surfaces.
"Thanks! This will do nicely," Pete said, patting his camera. "I assume you plan to catch the criminals. How are you going to do that?"
"Like this," Hope said.
She clicked the bracelet a couple times and she transformed into her blue diamond form, but normal human size, so her clothes didn't explode off. Then she pulled back her fist and punched the wall that the elementals had passed through.
The wall exploded and broke into pieces, revealing dirt behind the wall. The vault was underground, to make it harder to break through the walls, but that actually made it easier for the elementals.
"Whoa! What the fuck are you doing?" Pete said.
"I'm catching the bad guys," she said.
"You're destroying my crime scene and breaking private property. Do you have any idea how much property damage you just did? How am I going to explain this to my boss?" Pete said, running his hands through his hair.
"Just tell them you weren't in the room and have no idea how it happened. Say the criminals did it somehow. The cameras are off, so there won't be any visual evidence," I said.
"I guess that's what I'm going to have to do," he said, still panicking.
"Don't you want the jewels back?" Hope said.
"Yeah! Wouldn't that be a huge win for you?" I said.
"Yeah, it would! Can I trust you to bring them back once you find them?" Pete said.
"Hmm. How about this? What if we bring back more jewels than were originally stolen from this bank and the other banks in this city, but keep the jewels from the other banks in the other cities?" I said.
"That's very illegal. If you find stolen property, you're required to file an affidavit within 5 days describing how and where you found it and you're not allowed to keep any of it. You have to give it to your local police department to locate the owner and return the property," Pete said.
"What if I somehow only found the gems stolen from this vault?" I said.
"Well, then obviously you'd only have to return the gems you found, but you and I both know, you wouldn't stop there. You'd find the other gems. You seem like the kind of guy who doesn't give up easily," Pete said. "As evidenced by the several things you did in the last 20 minutes to get access to this crime scene."
"That is true. What if I gave you back all the gems except the diamonds, and just gave you money roughly the same in value to the diamonds?" I said.
"She eats diamonds and we need a ton of them if we're going to win this war against the coming invasion. This would help a ton in the war effort. I would be able to gather a ton of diamonds really fast without having to slowly buy them in small quantities across the US."
"If it's for the war effort, I'll let you pay for them," he said, sighing. I'm going to get in so much trouble though.
"Hey. I'll support your department in anyway I can. And only your department. Because of you and all your help today," I said. "I'll even throw in a free penis enlargement to anyone who wants one in the department."
"I'm probably going to regret this, but sure. You've got a deal. Coming home with a bigger penis would probably be the best anniversary present my wife could ask for. And a new diamond necklace, if you can spare one," he said, smiling.
"Of course! Done and done," I said. "I can actually get you both of those things right now."
"What? How?" Pete said, incredulous.