A Provocative Teaser Letter

"On the night of the full moon, after the curtain of sunset falls, I will claim the Stone of Destiny under the first rays of moonlight.",

　　The headquarters of the Gotham City Police Department (the GCPD) received an odd letter today, a provocative letter, to be precise.

　　The letter was made using some high quality paper. It was rough, like a piece of cardboard but far thinner than that. The text of the letter was printed onto it, so there was no way to tell by whom it was written through the handwriting.

　　However, in the lower right corner of the text, there was a drawing, a signature of some sorts, of a cartoon head with a tall bowler hat and monocle.

　　The Stone of Destiny is an alias for a sapphire, a precious stone sought after by many in the world.

　　Coincidentally, only three days later, the Gotham City Exhibition Hall will be exhibiting the world's largest sapphire, the Adam's Star!

　　This world-renowned gem said to be valued at the mind boggling sum of $170 million dollars.

　　And that day happens to be the day that the full moon sails in the sky.

　　From the contents of this provocative letter, it seems that a self-proclaimed thief has taken a liking to Adam's Star, and he plans to steal it on the day of the exhibition and arrogantly decided to send such a teaser to the police…

　　Utter nonsense!

　　No thief in the world would inform the police before stealing, especially when planning to heist the world's largest sapphire. For this to be true, this "thief" must either be a psychopath, overwhelmingly arrogant, or just an idiot.

　　This letter alone sheds all of the police's lights upon him and make pulling of this "heist" exceedingly more difficult than it otherwise would be.

　　The security surrounding one of Gotham's the national treasures, the Adam's Star, was the sole responsibility of the GCPD. They had scheduled to deploy over a hundred police officers to the site.

Jim Gordon is the current Commissioner of the Gotham Police Department and has been for exceptionally long time.

　　However, right after receiving the letter, Gordon immediately pulled together close to a tenth of Gotham's police force to take charge of protecting the Adam's Star.

　　"Commissioner, wouldn't the number of men now scheduled to the security of the Exhibition Hall be a little too much?", Aaron Cash asked, right after he joined Gordon in his office.

　　He was the one who had discovered and then reported the forewarning letter, although he himself had been completely dismissive of it. To him a kid had probably gotten to bored and sent the letter as a joke and it was a shame that such a letter had to be taken seriously instead of being thrown in the trash.

　　"Aaron, don't you think it's been too quiet these last few years?"

　　Gordon's eyes were as deep as a tunnel, as if he was remembering the old days' catastrophes.

　　"Chief, why do you want me to suddenly think of Arkham's criminals, whereas they have all been defeated by Bat …?"

　　"Don't say that name, he's gone!"

　　"Okay, Chief, whatever so say. But what I'm getting at is that Gotham has changed a lot since that incident eight years ago, it's not the same Sin City it once was.", Aaron explained while reluctantly remembering the old Gotham which was synonymous with the word crime.

　　"I know, but… this teasing letter is making me uneasy."

　　"You think this might be another nutcase?"

　　"Aaron, you've been through all that with me, you should understand that this city is never short of lunatics… no matter how many years it's been quiet."

　　In a city like this where prosperity and sin coexist, no matter how shiny and bright the skyscrapers are on the outside, a dirty, dark and ominous alleyway exists behind them, even the GCPD is no exception.

　　In fact, in the said shadowy alley behind the Gotham Police Department, Mathison Fang emerges. A young twenty-year-old man of Asian descent whose parents died young and is a currently second-year student at Gotham University.

　　He the one aiming to be the Kaito Kid. He also is the one who sent the teaser letter to the GCPD not long ago.

　　«All other villains and hero have all kinds of talented great powers, and what do I get, I get the wonderful power of stealing stuff»,

　　As he left the police station, Mathison was thinking depressedly of how unfair the world while walking home.

　　When he has been transmitted to this world ten years ago, he was shocked to find out that he was in a place was called Gotham and there was a super-rich man with the surname Wayne.

　　Just when when he was coming to grips with the fact that he was in the DC universe, he saw some report that the legendary billionaire inventor, Tony Stark, had slept with yet another magazine celebrity…

　　«You've got to be kidding me, DC is already super dangerous, and then add Marvel to it?»

　　«Thanos and Darkseid together?»

　　«The Infinity glove and also the anti-life Equation?»

　　«The Earth is totally screwed at this point!»

　　"If it was just Marvel, I could bet being on the half who survived Thanos's snap, but with the presence of anti-life Equation, the odds of survival aren't looking the best.»

　　After years of observation, Mathison was sure that he now lives in a world based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe with some of DC's, all merged in a mess. Only, in this world, there was a Gotham but not a Metropolis: a Batman but no Superman.

　　As for the other of DC heroes who might still be in hiding, Mathison was not sure.

　　From what Mathison could gather, timeline wise, Gotham here is before the start of Nolan's version of the Dark Knight Rises storyline, and, over in New York, Tony Stark has just announced himself to the world as Iron man.

　　The Great War in New York has far-reaching implications, but it has little to do with Gotham and chaos probably would not spill over into Gotham until the Age of Ultron storyline.

　　And so, Mathison has long enough time to develop so he can survive this crazy world.

　　Whenever he thought about how dangerous this world was, Mathison sighed at the fact he that he was probably one of the most miserable transmigrators in history.

　　Almost everyone else is granted some kind of ninjutsu, superpower, immortality, Kryptonian blood, alien magic, or something among those lines.

　　«How about myself? Seriously, a thief system?!»

　　«I'll admit that being a thief like Kid is very pretentious and cool, but what am I to do with it in this dangerous environment?»

　　«What's even scarier is that this thief system doesn't grant me anything other than a beginner's pack of smartass skills.»

　　There was not even a starting manual to explain to him how to use his powers, what their individual potential is, or how fully unlock their powers.

　　It was entirely up to him to fully discover his skills and it took him about ten years to finally do so.

　　In the spirit of not wasting his hard-earned skills, Mathison decided to take a bold step. Perhaps his thief system would be completely activated once he does it this and becomes a Phantom Thief.

　　There wasn't anything major happening to distract him from his plan for the last few years have been quiet in Gotham, with super-criminals such as the Scarecrow safely locked away and the Batman who has retreated into obscurity.

　　Before Bane came to Gotham, there was not anyone in particular who was difficult to deal with.

But currently, it is Gordon on his own along with the GCPD against the existing villains.

　　Consequently, there couldn't have been a better time than now for Kaito Kid to make his move.

　　In a flash, three days passed, and it was finally the day of Kid's scheduled debut.

　　On that day, Gordon and Aaron arrived early at the Gotham City Exhibition Hall with a team of police officers and were immediately surprised by the overwhelming crowds.

　　They gazed dumbfounded at the sheer volume of people. The Exhibition Hall gates packed to the brim, the people all held back by the dozen or so police officers who had been placed to guard at the entrance.

　　It was not even the time that the museum was scheduled to open.

　　"What the hell is going on here, why are there so many people coming?", Gordon asked, frowning.

　　"That… I don't know, sir.", Aaron was at a lost.

　　Although the Adam's Star is exceedingly precious, it usually isn't so attractive to ordinary people and so wouldn't draw a crowd under ordinary circumstances. It usually captivates the attention of an exception from the upper class.

　　At a cursory glance, the entrance was blocked by more than 300 people, a number that was increasing by the second every second.

　　It was only seven in the morning and the exhibition would not start until two in the afternoon. The event will last for twenty-four hours, until two in the afternoon of the following day, and it will not close halfway through. To draw such a crowed this early is with such a wide time frame to see a jewel for 5 minutes is absolutely insane.

　　"Could it be?", a possibility suddenly struck Gordon, "these people couldn't be here for Kaito Kid, could they?"

　　But how was that possible? The GCPD hadn't announced this to the public, only the exhibition's staff and the police department would know about the letter.

　　"Look, it's him, Gordon!", a scream of alarm suddenly came from the crowd.

Immediately dozens of people pushed out from the crowd and surrounded Gordon and Aaron. This group comprised of both men and women with some carrying cameras and others holding microphones, so they were obviously journalists from the mass media.

　　As soon as they appeared, they began bombard Gordon with questions their own individual questions. However, the constant stream of questions didn't seem to bother Gordon.

　　"Commissioner Gordon, may I ask if you know the true identity of Kaito Kid?"

　　"Commissioner Gordon, may I ask if it's true that Kaito Kid is coming to steal the Adam's Star today?"

　　"I heard that you made an exception and mobilized a tenth of the GCPD's police force to protect the exhibition hall, as far as I know, the value of the Adam's Star does not seem to require such a large mobilization of the police force to secure it. Do you think that the Phantom Thief warrants such a response?"

　　"The need to mobilize so many police officers against one criminal only occurred eight years ago during the supervillains' wave. Do you think that Kaito Kid will be the next supervillain in Gotham after eight years?"

　　"SHUT UP!", Gordon thundered.

The reporters were stunned momentarily at Gordon's outburst and universally waited a bit to see if the Commissioner would say anything before they would begin to fire more questions.

　　"Before I can answer your questions, what I need to know is how do you know about Kaito Kid, and why are all these civilians gathered here?"

　　At his statement, the crowd of journalists looked at Gordon in bafflement.

　　"Don't you know about Kid's letter? Last night, a person from Gotham's downtown found a teaser letter from Kaito Kid the thief saying that he would take the Stone of Destiny today."

　　"The story has already gone viral on the internet. You wouldn't be unaware of it, would you?"

"Could the GCPD's information gathering methods really be so outdated, how could you expect to protect us if your surprised by something like this in the age where everything is online?"

　　The journalist who asked the question wore a duck-top hat that was pressed down low enough to make his face unreadable.

　　Gordon ignored the last question which was just bait for him to respond and instead turned to Aaron with a meaningful glare.

　　"Hey, sir, what are you looking at me for? Everyone knows I'm not good at online socializing or anything…"

　　Gordon sighed and decided to just make the most of this situation.

"I don't want to be bothered with some stupid teaser letter circulating on the internet. Aaron, take your men and dismiss this crowd, now!"

　　Gordon felt the beginnings of a headache.

　　Inviting a crowd to watch you steal a gem when one would normally want no extra eyes on them? That's a step above taunting the police to the fact that it seems suicidal.

What the hell was this Phantom Thief up to?