If You Trust Me - An Onward Fan-Novel

◊ Chapter 1 ◊

◊ A Mysterious Talisman ◊

Dark gray clouds covered the sky as it rained heavily on a regular Sunday evening in New Mushroomton. There was recurring thunder, but nothing too serious. The city was as active as it normally would be during this time with families going out to dinner, groups of friends shopping around, people conducting errands, and businesses running as usual. Though the majority were indoors, either in buildings or in their cars, a few individuals could be seen on the street with their umbrellas. Overall, it seemed like this peaceful evening could get interrupted at any moment—and sure enough, it did.

On the busy corners of Mythril Street and Cauldron Road, a hooded figure suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and ran down the street past pedestrians. This individual was covered completely, looking more like a shadow than anything else.

Then—just moments later—emergency sirens were heard blaring, and as expected, police cars came around, following the mysterious runner.

In the lead of the pursuit was the mustachioed centaur, Officer Colt Bronco. But instead of swerving in cars like his fellow cops, he was running with his own hooves—just like the criminal they were chasing! However, this criminal wasn't a centaur like him. In fact, Colt and the other officers couldn't tell what kind of creature this thief of theirs was—at least based on the abilities he was showing. All they knew was bright beams of light kept coming from the hood of the robed figure every couple seconds or so that made this particular species seem different from others. But that didn't matter too much to Colt because his advantage as a centaur was being known since olden times to carry great speed. The officer had been embracing that fact ever since his stepson, Barley, reminded him of it. He was surely thankful to the nineteen-year-old elf for opening his eyes and his mind, especially now when this delinquent was getting away.

"We gotta catch him!" Colt said to his fellow officers. "This way!"

Local bystanders out on the street were startled if the felon and the police pursuing him happened to zoom by them. They were not expecting to be caught in the middle of some chase, particularly in the thundering rain.

The hooded figure himself was quite concealed under his mostly red and black attire. He wore a heavy, red robe—with its hood completely covering the top of his head—a red face mask that additionally covered the entirety of his scaly face, black gloves that protected his long clawed four-fingered hands, and black rubber shoes that proved in his own way that he was almost as substantial to run as the centaur—even when his feet touched the occasional puddle.

The police didn't have the slightest hint as to why this thief wanted what he'd just stolen from the town's jewel museum. No one had taken anything from that museum in years. Just that fact alone proved that this was already quite the turn of events.

But it was a turn of events that was about to get solved as Colt was now right on the thief's tail! He was about to grab the shoulder of the figure's robe with his bare hand. That was, until he thought he heard a strange mumble come from the robed figure in question. The next thing the centaur officer knew, the thief had sped off like lightning—leaving behind a long, watery trail in the road! It splashed the cops—thus diverting them—but after shaking it off, they soon saw that their criminal had turned another sharp corner.

Despite the setback, the police continued to follow the path he'd left behind, but it didn't last. Very shortly, they'd found themselves in the middle of a typical four-way intersection, with no sign of the runner anywhere. They were left dead in their tracks.

"Which way did he go?" a troll cop asked his squad, popping his head out of the window of his cruiser.

Colt quickly looked around the area in front of them. Just standing there themselves, they were beginning to hold up traffic in the street. Finally, he made a decision.