Co-production between PeachDestroyer (RedThreat, AO3) and LenoreWells (AO3).

PeachDestroyer does the main story, LenoreWells does the extras.

I hope you'll enjoy the first chapter! :D

Chapter One:

The Land of Hope and Glory

"The blood a hero sire hath spent/Still nerves a hero son."

– A.C. Benson and Edward Elgar, Land of Hope and Glory

THE WHITECHAPEL COPYCAT ARC

London, England, United Kingdom – November 2016

"There is nothing more ridiculous than living in a country in which an orange-skinned man with dreadful hair won an election – and no, I don´t mean Oompa-Loompas, they are decent people," Francis Midford had said, already packing together their things and thus ending the Midfords four-year-long stay in the USA.

If it had fully gone after Francis` wishes, Elizabeth Midford would now live in Australia or Canada or perhaps even in a more exotic country, but Alexis Leon, her father, had managed to persuade his wife to go back to England, their old home – Brexit or not. After all, they had spent most of their lives there, were members of the old British gentry, and the history of their families was entangled with the history of the kingdom.

Therefore, Elizabeth was now running through the crowded streets of London, trying not to be late on her first day at her new school, while the stereotypical British rain was falling upon her. It was insane to change schools in the middle of the school year, but there had not been anything she could have done against it. At least, the school year had only started a couple of months ago. But it was still a bothersome procedure – a new school, new teachers, new schoolmates. Elizabeth had been with almost the same people in the middle and high school – but at her new school, the renowned Weston College, she didn´t know anybody besides her brother. She would be the stranger in a pile of already distinct groups.

Even if Elizabeth doubted that everyone at Weston would be a stranger to her.

Terribly wet and wishing that she would be back in Los Angeles, feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin rather than the stinging rain, Elizabeth finally arrived in the school´s main building. Its official name was "Pearl Swan," but everybody called it "Grey House" rather than "White House" because that would have been incredibly ridiculous.

Before the 1920s, Weston College had only been open to males. But now, even selected "normal" people – the children of parents who were neither rich nor noble – could attend it. With the change of the school system, the house classification had been abolished, and Weston College had become a day school and wasn´t a boarding school anymore. Now, the former four dormitory houses – Scarlet Fox, Sapphire Owl, Violet Wolf, and Green Lion – inhabited different school subjects: In Green House, P.E. and the sport clubs took place. In Purple House, music, art, drama, and dance was taught. In Red House, the pupils learned languages, manners, and cooking; and Blue House was the home of every other subject.

Still, Weston College mostly allowed rich and noble children to wander through their ancient, historical corridors, and, therefore, the percentage of "normal" pupils was quite low.

Fumbling her timetable out of her magenta leather bag, Elizabeth hurried through the white marmoreal corridors of Grey House.

It was 9.25, and Elizabeth had only five minutes to find out to which house she had to go for her first lesson. (She had already missed both the registration and the assembly.) And if she didn´t find her timetable in her bag soon, she would be late because the four old Houses were scattered over the huge campus. She could have gone to any ordinary school, but, of course, her parents had had to send her to a school whose premises were larger than three or four football fields together. And only because it was a Midford tradition to enrol their children in Weston.

Elizabeth sighed. The timetable seemed to have vanished inside the depths of her lovely bag – and why did she have to oversleep for the first time in her entire life today of all days? (It had only happened because Francis hadn´t been there in the morning for a change. She had been called by her sister-in-law very early in the morning, and Alexis hadn´t realised that it had now been his duty to make sure that both of his children got to school in time.)

If Elizabeth hadn´t overslept, her older brother Edward could have brought her to school, and on the way, she could have calmly searched for her timetable. Everything would have gone smoothly, but, of course, the universe had decided to turn her life into a silly romance novel beginning today – only without the slice of buttered toast in her mouth.

Now, I only have to run into a boy for whom I would fall immediately. And I would fall for him in the most disgusting and unrealistic way which was possible. After all, he would be "the great love of my life" and just like every over stupid romance "heroine" I would be strangled by the red thread, Elizabeth thought – and promptly collided with someone.

Elizabeth´s bag slipped out of her hands and because the bag was open, most of her belongings flew out of it. She landed on the hard floor and when she looked up she gazed into the eyes – no, eye, he was wearing an eye-patch over his right one – of a boy who, she had to admit, was actually quite cute despite the circumstance that he looked a bit feminine. But "him being cute" was not enough to start the magical "falling in love" process. If it had worked, she would have dumbly stared at him, perhaps even drooling onto her clothes and the floor.

Thank heavens.

"Are you all right?" the boy she had collided with asked, standing up before offering her a hand to help her up.

Hell – he is even nice! Good that this is still the reality and not a cheesy novel.

Elizabeth took his hand, and while she rose from the ground, she said: "I am fine. Thanks for asking." When she was standing in front of the boy to her full height, Elizabeth had to realise that he was a few centimetres shorter than her.

Then, before anybody could say anything, the bell rang.

"Dammit," Elizabeth cursed silently, quickly collecting her belongings and aggressively throwing them into her bag – and there was her timetable! Lying on the ground beside her chemistry book. She resisted the urge to kick it furiously into the next bin and simply picked up both things before saying goodbye to the boy and running to get to art.

And, of course, Purple House had to be at the other side of the campus which a glimpse at a map told her.

Hallelujah.

Art had been terrible. Elizabeth had been forty minutes late because she had missed the bus driving from Grey to Purple House. The school grounds were seriously so large that there were even buses driving between the six main houses. (The buses were colour-coded to make sure everyone – even Elizabeth – could figure out where they headed.) Her art teacher, Miss Julia Fray, had not been very amused of the fact that her new student had missed so much of her lesson, and Elizabeth´s new classmates had stared at her as if she was an alien. (As if they had never been late themselves.) That she had been still soaked in rain hadn´t helped much.

Now, fifteen minutes later, Elizabeth left Purple House and got into a bus which should bring her to Red House for English Literature.

I just want to go home, she thought while hugging her magenta bag. I want to go back to Los Angeles. Trump or not. I want to go back to my normal daily life full of sunlight, not-being late, and Red Velvet Oreos.

After Elizabeth had dropped out and entered Red House, she had to face another problem: Where was the English Literature Room? There wasn´t any room number on her timetable, and there were too many people walking around for her to see any signs or maps. Elizabeth already accepted the fact that she would be late again – and then, she saw a brown-haired girl who had also been with her in art.

I guess, she must have Literature now too... right?

Elizabeth fought her way to the girl and tapped her on the shoulder. Immediately, she started to scream and whirled around, her eyes wide.

"Hi," Elizabeth greeted her with a smile. "I am Elizabeth Midford. Do you know by chance where Miss Lucie Doyle´s class is?"

After the girl had stared at her for a couple of seconds, she nodded and visibly relaxed. "Hello. I am Paula Sergeant. I also have Literature now – just follow me."

Lucie Doyle, a woman with a friendliness shining in her pale blue eyes, approached Paula and Elizabeth when they entered her classroom on time.

She extended a hand to Elizabeth. "You must be Elizabeth Midford. I am Miss Doyle – your Form Tutor and English Literature and Language teacher. I missed you during the registration."

With an awkward smile, Elizabeth shook Miss Doyle´s hand. "I am terribly sorry, Miss. I overslept this morning and was completely overstrained with the school´s layout."

"That´s all right," Miss Doyle meant, smiling at her. "It´s your first day at Weston College after all. Also, you came to London only a few days ago. That must have been very stressful."

Actually, the Midfords had arrived in London yesterday. That´s how fast their moving had gone. Three days ago, Francis had decided to leave Los Angeles, and now there were here: around eleven hours and almost 9000 kilometres away.

English Literature went better than art – after all, Elizabeth hadn´t been late this time –, but she had to realise that, to her misfortune, they were doing something entirely different than what she had done in America a few days ago.

Clearly, it wouldn´t be funny to rework everything.

And again – hallelujah. Thanks for everything, stupid election. Thanks, Donald Trump´s hairdresser.

Paula showed Elizabeth around during the break between 11.35 and 12.00 after they had spent half of English Literature exchanging notes. Paula introduced her to some of their schoolmates – shy Joanne Harcourt (He was a boy! Was every boy in this school feminine looking? Elizabeth had to take notes.), dashing Irene Diaz, the star of the Drama Club, and Grimsby Keane, her boyfriend (Okay, not everyone.) – and pointed at the Student Council when they passed by. Edgar Redmond, Gregory Violet, Lawrence Bluewer, and Herman Greenhill didn´t only have stu... interesting names but also attended Onyx Raven, the university part of Weston which had been created during the school´s reformation in the 1920s. (The name "Onyx Raven" sounded like the title of a Pokémon game, with its counterpart being "Pearl Swan.") Paula told Elizabeth that always four of the university students formed the Inner Core of the Student Council for the entire institute. The Inner Core members were called "Council 4" or "C4" for short. Then, there were also their deputies and assistants – Cheslock, Maurice Cole, and Clayton – who belonged to the Intermediate Core. The Outer Core consisted of two pupils of each school year. For Year 10, it were Irene and Justus Siemens.

Also, Elizabeth told Paula about Los Angeles: How her family had moved there in 2012. How they had originally planned to stay only for a year, but fell in love with the city and stayed three more years until the next election which had been nothing but a total train-wreck. A ridiculous match between pest and cholera, Dolores Umbridge and Joffrey Baratheon, Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. No matter what you chose, you would always get something utterly horrible.

Elizabeth looked around to find out if Edward was somewhere, but she couldn´t see him, and then, the break was already over.

She trudged through a lesson of Chemistry (The teacher was seriously named Merlin Morgan. As if he was a book character) and P.E. (It was quite boring to not being able to participate, but her P.E. clothes were still in one of the million boxes filling their villa like furniture) until Lunch Break finally began.

Paula and Elizabeth went to the cafeteria which adjoined Grey House. Elizabeth hammered her head against the table in frustration, and Paula tried to calm her down. But there was nothing to calm her down.

During P.E. Elizabeth had gone through her bag and noticed that her diary was gone. Her diary.

She was none of these girls who carried their diaries everywhere – even to the toilet. The only reason why Elizabeth had brought her diary to school today was because she had put it into her bag for the flight. And because she had been in a hurry this morning, she hadn´t been able to remove it. And now, it was gone, and she had no idea where it could be. Perhaps, she had lost it on her run to school or somewhere on the school grounds – she didn´t know. Actually, Elizabeth preferred her diary to have gone lost in the rain somewhere in the streets of London over a schoolmate having found and now reading it. She wasn´t a person who poured all her heart into a simple notebook, but she would still die of embarrassment if someone read it. And today was her first day at the new school.

I think, things couldn´t go worse now. I was already at the absolute zero point.

"I am certain that you will find your diary, Lizzy," Paula said. Elizabeth had offered her one period ago to call her "Lizzy." At home and in Los Angeles, everyone called her "Lizzy." It was weird to be called "Elizabeth" all day long.

Elizabeth stopped hammering her head against the table and looked up. "Paula – I am fine. Stop talking about it."

"But you are definitely not fine," Paula replied. "You were hitting the table with your head."

"I am fine now. I stopped doing it, so I am fine."

Her new friend sighed. "Whatever you say, Lizzy."

Elizabeth let her gaze wander through the cafeteria, searching again for her brother. But then, her gaze froze at the entrance door – no other than Cute Shortie into whom she had run into earlier was standing there and talking to a boy with funny reddish brown hair and round glasses. Paula followed Elizabeth´s gaze and tilted her head.

"They are Ciel Phantomhive and McMillan," she told Elizabeth. "They belong to the 'Phantomhive & McMillan Detective Agency – Chocolate for Investigating.'"

Elizabeth frowned. "Detective Agency?"

Paula nodded. "You can go there if one of your things is missing or anything like that, and they solve your case in exchange of sweets. The one with the eye-patch is Ciel, the detective and the agency´s leader. McMillan is his secretary and assistant."

"Why do you keep calling him by his surname?"

Paula simply shrugged. "Everyone calls McMillan McMillan. I don´t think anybody actually knows his first name. Not even the teachers."

"O-," Elizabeth started to say before cutting herself off when she saw Ciel noticing and approaching her.

Don´t tell me the "Red String Strangle Magic" had worked on him. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

"You lost this earlier," Ciel Phantomhive said to Elizabeth when he stood in front of hers and Paula´s table, handing her a blue velvet notebook with a soft Victorian pattern on it – her diary.

Okay – I have been wrong. I have just fallen beyond the absolute zero point.

Cute Shortie – I mean, Ciel Phantomhive – has read my diary. He. Has. Read. My. Diary. Hopefully, he just wanted to have my entire stock of Red Velvet Oreos which I had brought over from America and didn´t go around telling everyone about my diary´s contents.

I don´t pour my heart into it. Usually. But I did it once. On my darkest of days. And this entry contains my biggest secret nobody could ever know. And now, Cu- Ciel Phantomhive did, and who knows who would know about it soon? Or did already know?

Perhaps, I should give him the Oreos I have in my bag.

Wordlessly, Elizabeth took the diary. Ciel also didn´t say anything anymore and just went back to McMillan.

"Lizzy!" Paula exclaimed, blinking at the blue notebook. "Is this your lost diary?"

Like she had been mesmerised (Like there was a fairy sitting invisibly on her diary and looking into her unprotected eyes!), Elizabeth stared at her diary and slowly nodded.

"Yey! You have it back, isn´t it great? But why are you looking like the Earl has given you ectoplasm?"

I wouldn´t have this expression on my face if he gave me ectoplasm – ectoplasm was awesome.

Elizabeth´s confusion was strong enough to make her forget that her life was probably over now – and that after only fourteen years! She looked up and frowned at Paula. "'The Earl'?"

Paula frowned back. "Uh... Ciel Phantomhive? The Earl of Phantomhive? The boy who came to our table a few minutes ago? Dark hair? A deep blue eye? Eye-patch?"

"'Earl of Phantomhive'?" Elizabeth said, her eyes widening. "Do you mean that he already holds his family´s title? That he isn´t just, for example, the son of a Duke who was granted an extra title to his title of a Lord? That he is already the head of his family?"

Oh, God – I am the daughter of a Marquess and thus hold the title of a Lady. Cute Shortie, however, has already inherited his family´s "main" title – and the position as the family head – despite being in my age or perhaps even one or two years younger (probably not older, he is so short).

That he is holding this title means that his predecessor – most likely his father – is already dead.

"Uh... yes? He inherited the title after his parents` death," Paula told Elizabeth who could only stare at her with an open mouth. (Terribly unladylike, but then, they weren´t in the 19th century.)

Both his parents are dead?! I think I would die if Mum and Dad suddenly passed away in the foreseeable future. I couldn´t imagine living without parents at my age even though I know that there are far too many children in the world who have to live like that.

"Didn´t you know about it?" Paula asked, still frowning. "It was all over the news three years ago. 'Head of the Funtom Corporation and Family Die In a Mysterious Fire.' 'Earl Phantomhive Son´s Ashes Not Found.' 'Who Burned Down Phantomhive Manor?' 'What Happened to the Company´s Heir?' 'Phantomhive Arsonist Still On the Loose.' 'Ciel Phantomhive´s Miraculous Return!' 'Where Had Ciel Been?'" she recited some of the news` headlines. "The news about the fire was everywhere. For seemingly endless weeks, it flooded everything – the newspapers, the internet, the television... Everyone talked about it. Everyone wondered what happened to the missing ten-year-old boy. Groups of people searched for Ciel for weeks – until he magically returned. After his return, he was labelled 'England´s saddest boy.' Now, everyone is wondering where he had been and what had happened on the day of the fire."

"Do they know it now? I mean, three years have passed after all." Elizabeth had turned pale. This was even worse than she had imagined.

Paula shook her head. "No. Ciel refuses to talk about these topics, and his aunt does everything she can to ensure that the media does not harass him so that her nephew can live without having to fear that reporters jump out of every bush he passes by. There´s also a distant relative who leads Funtom Corporation until Ciel is old enough to do it on his own. He lost everything else on December 14, 2013 – his tenth birthday."

OH. GOD.

"It happened on his birthday?!" Elizabeth yelled and quite a lot of people turned around to her. She ignored them.

Paula nodded with a sad expression on her face. "Yes. That´s why they are calling him 'England´s saddest boy.'"

To hell – I doubt that THIS BOY could ever, ever read someone else´s diary, or at least, tell everyone about its contents.

First of all, he didn´t know me, and thus he had no reason to do anything like that to me. I didn´t go and punch him in the face today or anything like that after all.

Also, telling the world about someone else´s diary would not only draw attention to the diary´s owner but to the whistleblower too. And Ciel Phantomhive is DEFINITELY not a person who wants to draw a lot of attention to himself.

And the most definite argument: If he had seriously wanted to mortify me, he would not have given me back my diary. Of course, he could have made photos of the pages, but wasn´t keeping the diary more vicious? Also, Ciel didn´t seem evil or plotting or anything like that to me. He just seemed like a nice boy who wanted to give something he had found to its rightful owner.

I simply overreacted.

Elizabeth sighed in relief.

I am saved! My life isn´t over yet!

"I am going to get myself something to eat," Elizabeth told Paula and stood up. "Should I get you something too?"

Paula shook her head and got out a lovingly filled lunch box. Just before Elizabeth walked to the food counter, she looked back to the cafeteria´s entrance – but McMillan and Ciel were already gone.

There is only one thing I was looking forward too when Mum announced that we would move.

With a wide smile on her face, Elizabeth ran all the way back to Midford Villa after the school had ended.

Alexis Leon Midford had brought the villa – a dream of black and white with five floors (counting the attic), one basement, three garages, and a huge garden with a pond – in 1997 after marrying Francis. Since then, the beautiful Victorian villa in Mayfair belonged to the Midford family. This did not change when they moved to the States – a convenient circumstance, considering their rushed return to England.

Elizabeth hurried through the enormous, brilliantly shining white entrance hall and up the red-carpeted stairs to get to her room. The new servants (their old ones had refused to leave America; Francis didn´t mind as she had been able to get new ones in no time) were running around like busy bees and packing out the many, many moving boxes. If they had also sounded like bees, a terrible noise would have gone through the villa and a policeman would be standing on the door because he had been called due to "breach of the peace." Luckily, the servants did not make the annoying sound of bees while working. Getting into a fight with your new neighbours on your first day was never a good thing.

Elizabeth closed the door behind her and quickly exchanged the white and black school uniform with a pale orange knitted jumper, thick tights in pale rosé, and a black skirt. Elizabeth threw her school and exercise books out of her bag before grabbing the bag, her velvet coat which had a lovely, warm brown colour, her black boots and left her room again, putting on the coat and bag. She jumped around while putting on the boots when she passed by her father´s study.

"I am going out!" Elizabeth announced through the study´s opened door while getting into her left boot.

Alexis looked up from the newspapers he had been reading and frowned. "Didn´t you just come back, Lizzy? Can´t you eat something first?"

"I ate at school!" she yelled and hurried downstairs. She was out of the door before Alexis could reply anything.

When the Midfords had moved to Los Angeles, Elizabeth had been ten years old and too young to explore the city on her own. Now, back and fourteen, she was finally able to walk through the stunning streets of London all on her own.

I couldn´t await to meet London´s atmosphere, its life, in a new way – as a person different to the one who had left it all these years ago.

Elizabeth walked through Grosvenor Street before turning right into Bond Street before entering Burlington Gardens and some other streets – and twenty minutes later, she was standing in front of M&M´s World, every child´s biggest dream. It was the world´s largest candy store at 3250cm² – and Elizabeth was so happy to stand in front of it because there were only a handful of these stores existing in the world, and none in Los Angeles.

Just like A.C. Benson had said, England was really "the land of hope and glory." Hope for almost infinite sweets. Glory for dentists.

How could she have lived in London for ten years without ever going here before?

Happily, Elizabeth entered Hea... M&M´s World, only to come out hours later with far too many sweets in her almost exploding bag. But actually, that wasn´t true: You could never have too many sweets. Just like you can never have enough sweets.

Perhaps, I should share some of my sweets with Cute Shortie. He may have enough money to buy M&M´s World (I quickly googled "Funtom Corporation" on my way to the candy store – he is truly one hell of a rich kid), but the gesture of someone giving him sweets out of nothing would certainly, hopefully, make him happy. At least, for a short amount of time.

Also, I have falsely accused him of being an arsehole who goes around and tells the contents of someone else´s diary. Cute Shortie may not know anything about it – I did it in my mind after all –, but I still feel that I owe him something as an apology.

It was already past seven o´clock (and because it was November, it was quite dark despite the glowing shop lights) and tomorrow was school, and perhaps, perhaps, Elizabeth should go home now..., but she had even resisted the urge to go into the Nickelodeon Store right next to M&M´s World... (Who had come up with that?) ... and she had always wanted to eat one of these famous Rainbow Bagels...

Before she knew what was happening, Elizabeth found herself on a Piccadilly Line train. She got out in Holborn and took the Central Line (The train was suffocatingly full!) to Liverpool Street. Fifteen minutes later, Elizabeth stood in front of Beigel Shop, Brick Lane. Would she walk down the Brick Lane, she would eventually arrive at Aladin – the restaurant serving London´s best curry. Even His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, had eaten there.

She would go there on another day. The temptation was big, though.

Elizabeth entered Beigel Shop (It was a 24/7 shop! Rainbow Bagels all day long forever!) and ordered twenty Rainbow Bagels. They were just the right things to buy on such a grey day. Also, she was certain that even Francis would like them.

Alternatively to the sweets, I could give Cute Shortie one of the bagels – but first, let´s see if Edward and Dad don´t eat all of them immediately.

With a bag full of warm bagels, Elizabeth walked through various side streets to get back to Liverpool Station. Of course, she could have gone back the same way she had come – but her city exploration trip had only consisted of two stops today (Damn you, amazingness of M&M´s World for stealing time like teeth!), and Elizabeth wanted to have something of a little "adventure" to make her trip less lame. Good that she had her smartphone with her. Good that she was not afraid of the dark.

And then, right before entering the quietest side street of them all, she saw something terrible on its other end.

Elizabeth Midford, fourteen-years-old, with M&Ms and plushies in her magenta leather bag and a bag full of Rainbow Bagels in her hand, stared at the scene in front of her – and watched a figure clad in black brutally stabbing an already unmoving body.