#they tell people they're detectives to get into restricted areas but not one of them has a qualification to their name and are both

[autisticrosewilson]

TMA Excerpt Part 2: Jayrose Edition

Ft. Hunt! Jason, Eye! Rose, dog imagery, suggestive themes, canon typical murder and gore, and a hint of cannibalism as a treat. they're evil and married your honor @perseus-jackass

°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Bones crunch under the pressure of his jaws, tender flesh splitting to welcome in his teeth as blood drenches the concrete and his clothes. He'd just washed these yesterday, so at least it's Rose's day for laundry.

The writhing thing beneath him makes an agonized noise as Jason's claws dig into it's soft belly, guts spilling out as Jason rips and tears with wild abandon, lost to the haze of blood and the rushing victory of a successful chase.

The deliberate footsteps become apparent behind him as Rose decides to let him know of her presence. Not that she needs to, he's a Hunter, he smelled her the second she turned the corner of the block. Thick and smokey and almost enough to distract him from the bones he's cleaning with heavy swipes of his tongue.

Almost.

The growl rises in his chest unbidden as she steps close to his kill, but a sharp look and pointed whistle is all it takes to bring him to heel. The noise freezes in his chest abruptly and he straightens his spine like an eager puppy greeting it's owner. He scrambles over to her without bothering to stand, kneeling at her feet with a blood stained grin.

She telegraphs her movements as she reaches towards his face, thumb sliding through the viscera along his jaw briefly before she hooks her pointer finger behind his fully extended canines, playfully tugging at it. He let's her, let's his jaw relax and his shoulders slump forward. Rose rewards him by carding her strong fingers through his hair, unheeding of the gore drying in tacky clumps in his curls.

She clicks her tongue when she reaches the white streaks in his hair. "Should just dye it red at this point." She drawls, smile soft and indulgent, the way one looks at a prized pet whose just knocked over a house plant and rolled around in the soil.

He can't quite speak yet, an almost human noise the closest vocalization he can manage as far down as he is. This is fine, he doesn't need to be present. Rose will take his leash, and he will follow wherever she leads. Let it never be said that he's untrained.

Her now bloody fingers drop to the thick leather collar around his neck, lightly brushing the sparkling eye pendant before backtracking to the ring it dangles from. She tugs once, twice, gentle but firm. "Time to go home." She intones softly.

He nods, only just managing to push himself to his haunches. He towers over her like this, but she leads him easier than even a real dog might allow. A low, constant rumble starts in his throat, getting louder when the finger looped around his collar is replaced by a firm hand in his oversized paws.

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

[tobiasdrake]

Time to start up the sixth chapter, Chapter 4!

By process of elimination, I get to hang out with Vivia this time around. Who might be planning to slit my throat with a box cutter. Which. I mean. I have murdered quite a lot of people, so fair's fair. I'm not gonna fault him that.

I'm so excited!

Last we saw these characters, Kurumi was dragging Yuma away to "investigate". Nice to see Halara realized someone should go chaperone those two kids and make sure they stay on-task.

Or Yakou had a moment to sit down and go, "Wait, did I just assign Yuma-supervision duties to the rando? She might actually be an enabing influence. Halara, please fix my terrible mistake."

(She is, in fact, an enabling influence.)

My money's still on Dohya District. I think they flooded Dohya on purpose to disguise the entrance to their secret lab. Creating a place that would be supremely difficult to access. Or, at least, it would be for anyone who did not own a submarine.

Is this seriously our plan? Just walk around the city knocking on doors and going, "Hi, is this a secret lab? No? Okay, have a nice day."

Halara's offering this up as evidence that the secret lab must exist. If it wasn't real, why would they be trying so hard to hide it from us?

But. Like. Disgruntled ex-Amaterasu staff launched a terrorist attack against the city, like, yesterday - and Yomi got blue-balled over it in the middle of his big "taking down the terrorists" moment.

There are reasons why Yomi might be going on a law-and-order purge of disgruntled ex-Amaterasu staff right now other than "He wants to keep us from finding the secret lab." Does he even know that we know about the lab? That's not something anyone ever told us; Vivia happened to overhear it while using whatever remote-viewing or bird's-eye Forte he has.

Yomi doesn't have much reason to suddenly panic and go, "Oh shit, the Master Detectives are gonna find the secret lab!'' and then start activating extreme-measures contingencies like Halara's implying.

Well. Unless the new sub's bugged like Halara suggested. Hmm.

You fucking poser. I know you're only saying that to look cool. I know that because you do all kinds of flashy shit, most of which involves beating cops within an inch of their life and occasionally drowning them in the river.

Which, by the way, is extremely cool. You set out every morning to look as badass as humanly possible, and you succeed. I would tip my hat to you but it's a floofy piece of fabric that doesn't tip.

I do not, as a matter of fact. However, before you continue, I will say that a restricted area is where I would most expect a secret facility to be. Of any kind. That seems like the logical location. Why have we been knocking on doors in Kamasaki all morning if a place called "The Restricted Area" exists?

Waste of my fucking morning. Y'all owe me a breakfast burrito KANAI WARD SIGNATURE MEAT BUN.

You have a lot of courage and spirit, Kurumi. And an impressive ability to dodge cops. But your judgment needs work. Holy shit.

Why are you only bringing this up now? How long have you been sitting on this? You have not been a very good informant, Kurumi.

"They're doing strange experiments on homunculi somewhere in the city but no one knows where or what or how. We need to learn more."

"I mean, there's a forbidden zone that no one is ever, ever allowed to enter but the corpses of the dead are allegedly being trucked in there for mysterious reasons. Weird, huh? Anyways, no idea about those homunculi. I'll see if I can find anything out."

This is something you should have told me about on the rooftop, when you were first telling me that homunculi are a thing. I'm super mad at you right now. We could have all been choking to death from toxic gas days ago.

SHAME ON YOU. Not one minute ago you were saying

And now that we have a lead, you're like, "Mm, nope, sounds fake." You don't even follow your own advice; You just say things to look cool, you fucking poser.

Yeah, that's right, I caught you posing.

I don't know if I trust you to handle this yourself anymore. Maybe you should take Kurumi with you. She's bad at making logical connections but she has an open mind, so you two can cover each other's shortcomings.

I mean. Yeah. Despite everything, they truly are.

[ptrckjcne]

📘📕📗 let's hear more mcdanno ideas!

put a version of the book emoji in my inbox, and i'll tell you about a fic i haven't written, but want to write!

three emojis and mcdanno ideas? oh you're on, anon!

idea number one;

life as an air traffic controller is, well, not the most exciting. you work, talk to pilots, make sure everyone's safe while in the sky, chat with your co-workers, and you go home. you don't get a fancy uniform, you don't get famous, but you get a good paycheck. balancing shifts and seeing your daughter ... that's a little more difficult. just ask danny.

however, he makes it work, but between grace and his work, there's not much to brag about in his life. until there's a new pilot in the area. danny doesn't know much about him, other than the fact that his name's steve, and he has a sexy voice (don't question danny, he's basically living in celibacy). outside of the standard talk, they don't actually talk that much, though steve adds jokes and tidbits of information about himself, and it's a funny coincidence that he happens to only fly routes within the sector that danny works in?

well, danny finds himself googling this steve (mcgarrett, danny knew his surname, this is an official pilot that danny talks to on a regular basis we're talking about) and holy shit he's hot it's a shame he's restricted to the cockpit of a plane

bring on the dreams (they're pretty nsfw, don't worry, and they leave danny all hot and bothered because he wants the real thing), and he accidentally talks to grace about this pilot, which was a mistake because now she wants to meet the guy who makes her danno all excited, and shit he didn't think about that

luckily, there's a control center anniversary coming up, and danny knows some of the pilots are invited, and lucky him – there's steve, and holy shit he's even hotter in real life

and a little scene because i'm nice like that:

"i thought you'd be taller." steve chuckled, the fabric of his shirt tightening around his bicep as he lifted the beer to his lips, not once taking his eyes off danny as he sipped the cool beverage. "something about the confident tone in your voice, i suppose. not that i mind."

danny rolled his eyes, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks. "i thought you'd be hotter." he replied as nonchalantly as possible, though the smirk that spread on steve's lips told him he had failed.

the pilot, however, simply leaned closer, lips by danny's ear as he whispered. "we both know that's a lie."

onto idea number two;

(i might switch it all up and have steve be the one who's abducted when i get around to writing this, and have it be some sort of revenge mission against danny tbh)

day of death. danny is snatched as they work a case. the scene is chaotic, there's been a shoot out, and people are running everywhere, and danny was just there and the next second he's not.

and steve fucking loses it.

see, danny's strong and danny's just as good of a fighter as steve, he knows this, but it's danny, his fucking danny. the case takes them to jersey. or, takes steve to jersey, and he rallies together some of danny's old co-workers, and works the case like it was a black op. danny's former colleagues are ... terrified, to say the least, but they see that danny's definitely got someone to keep him on his toes in hawaii, and while they're terrified, they're a little jealous of this headstrong navy seal – he's working with danny after all.

danny's abductor is a dumbass, really, who has been idolising a serial killer, and thinks kidnapping and killing a cop is his one big chance at doing something great. spoiler alert: it's not. that aside, he's marked danny. knocking the feisty detective out cold with a concoction of drugs, this guy's taking a needle and ink, and he has tattooed danny's day of death onto him, permanently etched it into his skin.

in the end, the dumbass really did underestimate danny's power, but he also did underestimate the lengths steve would go to, and its a happy ending because i wouldn't allow either one of the boys to get hurt and die.

anyway, there's also a bit there (a little similar to chen and bradford in the rookie) where steve goes on to tell danny that that tattoo should be a reminder of what he went through, and that he's alive. (and then you know, maybe he proceeds on showing danny just how alive he is–)

scene scene scene scene:

detective foltyn was the complete opposite of what steve had expected, based on the very little danny had told him of his years with the police in jersey. yet, as he strode around the table and immediately took to scanning out the little info steve had scraped together at that point, it was clear he meant business.

"who's got our guy?" he questioned, turning to steve with an expression that was anything but pleasant; an expression he quickly schooled as the navy seal shot him a face of his own.

"i was hoping you could help clear that out." steve growled, dropping a folder to the table with a heavy thud. "my boy's more than capable of taking care of himself, but he needs our help. so either you help me figure this out, or you're not helping out at all."

officer russell, on the other hand, was the softer of the two, and he met steve's eye with the utmost respect, almost bowing his head to show he was happy with being the subordinate of their little team. "commander, if i know the detective – foltyn, that is – as well as i think i do, i know he will be nothing but helpful in the search of detective sergeant williams."

"very well then." steve huffed out a sharp breath of air through his nostrils, before pulling out his phone to call up his real team who were still in hawaii. "let's get to work then. we have no time to lose."

and then for the third idea;

danny's the best reporter this paper's got. there is just something about his analytical way of looking at journalism, and it has earned both him and the paper a whole lot of awards and titles. the thing is, they work in teams; a reporter and a photographer. always a team. when danny's other half hands in her resignation, and gets a new job, danny has to find himself a new partner.

enter steve, the quiet photographer who has seen more horror in the world than anyone can imagine. he's new in town, and is offered a top-paying job as a videographer at the local news station – but there's a blond reporter at the paper who catches his attention, and he turns down the top paying job to weasel his way into the paper instead.

he's immediately signed on to be danny's partner, because of course you match the top-quality reporter with the top-quality photographer. the chief editor worries, though, because he's got a loud, hard-headed reporter and he's got a quiet, hard-headed photographer – but they work magic together.

it seems the paper truly comes alive again, and it seems like steve comes alive again, at the same time as danny finds some of that peace he's always sought from his work.

and it's super cliché, but let's face it, we all love a good cliché.

and a little scene for that:

danny crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against the wall as steve got to work. he was quiet, only giving directions using a very few words, and he worked quicker than danny had ever seen anyone else working. yet, he never made any of the people they met feel uncomfortable. as aloof as steve was, there was just something so warm about him, something that drew people in.

they had butted heads, more than once, but even then it was clear to danny that they were only pushing each other, making each other better, and while danny had loved working with his former partner, it couldn't even compare to the joyous challenge that was working with steve – and he was grateful that he chief editor had seen it this way, too.

he tilted his head as steve turned to look at him, a quizzical look on the photographer's face. "i think i'm nearing done here, but is there any kind of photos you specifically have in mind for your article?"

danny shook his head, a grin spreading on his lips. "no, i'm good. i think we've already established on multiple occasions that you seem to know exactly what i want and need."

[izzyspussy]

trophy is probably most likely, yeah! and i always love stealing being a courtship ritual between thieves. if you're going to propose to a proud and fulfilled career criminal, a stolen diamond is much more romantic than one bought and paid for. well that, and also just the fact that mickey is SO fucking cute when he's excited. we love to see it.

i absolutely do think his hatred of cops extends to pretending to be one. as in, he would do it - to make them look bad lmfao. or, even better, to incriminate them somehow.

as for impersonating for practical reasons, he wouldn't necessarily need to say he's undercover (if he planned ahead of time or happened to be dressed in his Nice Outfit) because detectives wear plain clothes! i mean it's possible uniforms and detectives have different kinds of badges, but if they do i don't know for sure much less how so, so i doubt many people who don't regularly deal with cops would either (and even if that's common knowledge that i happen to be oblivious to, in the magic of fiction land we can simply say: no it isn't).

for example, if he wants access to a restricted area he could flash the badge and say he's after evidence or a suspect or whatever and hopefully be let in, provided of course the doorman doesn't know cops need a warrant for that even though it's not someone's home (actually, i'm kind of trying to remember if he did exactly this to jump the line and/or get in without paying a cover at the club... i can picture it perfectly, but it's unclear if it's a memory or just me putting my little guy into situations).

or he could be trying to get into someone's home! a lot of people don't know or don't remember in the moment to ask for a warrant (though if he did this and, say, used his access to rob them, and he was confident they weren't immediately dangerous to him, i think mickey would tell on himself on his way out - in part to brag about pulling one over on them, but in part to tell them to ask for a fucking warrant next time lmfaoooo).

or he could be at the scene of a crime and say he's there to investigate it, maybe because his getaway got fucked/he didn't do it but he and his priors are stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time and he happened to have the badge on him, or perhaps in order to plant or remove evidence before csi shows up.

but also... i share mick's level of hatred of cops, if not his exact reason(s). cops are arrogant, lazy, incompetent, careless, amoral bullies who never grew out of a middle schooler's self-centered fantasies of grandeur, huge overly sensitive ego, and temper tantrums. every single one has committed egregious judicial misconduct and hate crime with no exception, and if they aren't already a domestic abuser and cold-blooded murderer they almost certainly will be soon - being only a knowing, active accomplice to these is as "good" as a cop can get. and on top of all that they're trained to have a distinct and hugely exaggerated Us vs Them mentality, where Us is all cops who are brave and heroic soldiers fighting for their lives side by side in the trenches, and Them is the wicked and villainous army of Criminals (read: any civilian that, for whatever arbitrary reason the cop so chooses, cannot be classified as a Victim) who have them under ruthless siege 24/7.

like sure, officer carlos'shusband probably did let mickey go as an act of genuine gay solidarity, but realistically it was ALSO because he decided terry was the Criminal (villain) and mickey was the Victim (damsel) AND because he truly cannot be fucked to do any part of his job that doesn't make him feel like rambo. if he ever sees mickey - and actually remembers him - he WILL expect mickey to express gratitude and idolatry for him, with a 50/50 shot of getting aggressive when mickey doesn't. (if this character canonically recurs, i didn't see it and would have thought it was trash garbage.)

so, accounting for the fact that mickey is a relatively gender conforming white man and an experienced liar who improvises well, i actually think he wouldn't have much trouble fooling a real cop with nothing but a fake/stolen badge, a business casual outfit, a light covering of mandy's concealer over his knuckles, and an Us attitude. the only provision is that the cop not recognize mickey personally. beyond that, it's mickey and not the pig who has the odds in his favor.

just rewatched the "MY soap doesn't have pubes on it" scene for clothing reference (i've given up). why does mickey have a police badge in his gun drawer lmfao. is it a fake for impersonation purposes, or is it a fucking trophy ghheigj. anyway i love him.,

[the-firebird69]

There a couple more things going on that was very rude wasn't going around here is very rude my son is a genius so watch out. Well the moon for Melody is screaming and it's happening now other items that are big are the police are reorganizing and they're getting rid of Corky and his friends as are the sheriff and they're getting rid of trump and Dan and others they're being pushed out completely they don't want them in there for ranks and they're being pushed out of the prison system and I figured out that they need to get him out of the attorney general and other offices in order to discourage not encourage them so they're doing that now it's been a massive pain is that nothing for them. And I can say for Max to arm up don't let them take you because they'll set a precedent and he didn't tell me after it's finally doing it and it's kind of a war going on in Florida. Huge numbers of warlock are trying to grab them because a pile of did more like and them and they bring the dead ones outrageous but it is a religious right of satanists to take their own life and the way they want and this is what they want to do. You should a little bit of gammara Budweiser, it's a big hit and success and we're selling tons and tons of it now it's just like a special edition Budweiser they're selling tons of it they grab it and go it's hordes going there about 5 octillion area it says that's way too many it should be out we looked outside it probably should that's way too many even at 50% it should it should be out we detected is heating up a little bit which is good and it's not the beer we see that it's probably about 20% and that's way more than it has been in the past it's only been a few days of going to the mouth area and off and on by the way so they're all safe you know how to do it now cuz I don't want to go by what the hell's down there there's no mouth it's big tentacle or something so they're all going there and jumping in and it's huge in about 10 octillion now it feels a whole area of the Everglades no itchy and scratching and saying this is terrible I shouldn't have done it well my money back and they're going in towards the lake they need the beer to get there so we're doing beer drops. Huge huge numbers and yes the bears and others are out of the way huge drops of beer. And I was thinking with another brand name and she can whip it out pretty quick it's bare naked or buck naked. And it's selling tons comes in a big kid it's like a naked person right different naked people on it huge numbers of people are drinking it not just more luck but they drink it all the time now.

It's a tireless crowd and it's growing and shrinking they'll be out today these monsters so they're doing it and doing it and it's going on all over the globe and look for the mouth and they're aiming for it some digging stuff I'm so done digging they jump in it's a huge crowd it's about 20 keys you all over the world that they're doing it too and they're pretty big giant numbers down here in Florida pretty soon it won't be any more luck here they're pretty much all be gone.

Tell me a savino is under siege and he is taking a pummeling his big bases are taking a beating. The Max and Foreigner saw hey we can't get to these bases and if our boy goes up there it's all over and or in the tunnels so they started hammering on him and started to get rid of the warlock too this is your way to take our hardware and stuff if you're done and the ammo you should see why and they don't so they're giving it all they got and it's working a little but while these bases are beefy we saw the hell beefy they are these reactions are terrible now they're changing it too they got to get their acting gear should be a little bit better they're going to restrict us and we're going to feel it they say we're going to say they're going to feel it if you do

I got a feeling today is going to be a decent day this last Trump will be out of our hair it's going to begin shortly you go to trial at about noon cuz they don't chill the issue another hearing notice and it can be for the same day if they don't show again they get warrants and they're fed up with it Pacific issue the same day

There is news all over the world but there's some major breaking news right now and I ran they are executing hostages as opposed to letting them out and it's Tommy f there's a team of negotiators as you see in the movie that have moved over there nearby in a country that is secure and they're asking them what they want the executions have slowed and stopped and they are discussing it

Thor Freya

[tobiasdrake]

Alright. We have one friend in trouble and one friend who left that's decidedly past trouble.

I am no longer as confident in my Wishful Thinking theory that there are multiple sets of the Master Detectives thanks to being UG homunculi rather than Amaterasu homunculi, so our versions of them are fine. But even if that's true, it still sucks that this fate befell the others.

Though whether these are our friends or not, if they are UG homunculi, then they'll regenerate fine. Only Amaterasu's shitty off-brand homunculi are defective, to our knowledge. We know Amaterasu homunculi have to consume human flesh in order to avoid going feral, and instantly and irrevocably go feral the first time they regenerate. But we know the latter does not apply to UG homunculi, and don't know if the former does or not.

But if they're human, then they're just fucked. Sorry, guys. Hope you'll get well soon.

Oh, we're about to learn about UG homunculi. Wanna bet Makoto's the first homunculus?

Sure sounds like she's talking about Makoto here. This would explain why he so adamantly shut down homunculus research at Amaterasu as soon as he seized control of the facility.

But if Makoto didn't create the Kanai Ward homunculi, who did? We can be pretty sure at this point that the feral homunculus outbreak from the facility is responsible for everyone dying, and then being remade as defective homunculi.

But who did that? If Makoto isn't responsible, then what happened during the Blank Week?

She's safe! And non-feral!

You probably did. Aiko died six months ago, but Blank Week was three years ago. So Aiko would be wandering around this place as a feral too. So would Karen, as a matter of fact. Basically the entire theater club is now roaming the Restricted Area as ferals.

...that's really sad. Those girls had hopes and dreams and futures. T_T I hope Feral Aiko meets up with Feral Waruna, Yoshiko, and Kurane, and they can form a pack.

God, this chapter is the bleakest thing Kodaka's ever written. And trust me, as a Danganronpa aficionado, that competition is steep.

Kurumi's taking all of this in stride. Her emotional fortitude is amazing. "We're surrounded by the zombies of everyone who's ever died in Kanai Ward? Wow, that's so interesting. OH, MY DEAD BESTIE! Hey, let's catch up!"

Put her in the "10/10 Would play a spinoff starring them" category alongside Halara and Fubuki. Also Vivia, technically, but why would you do that? Let the man rest.

...that's interesting. So maybe it's not everyone who was made into a homunculus. Vivia's report said that you can distinguish homunculi from humans based on undisclosed "special characteristics of their blood".

But if some people were human then they wouldn't have missing memories of the Blank Week, right? They'd remember what happened to everyone else. Wouldn't they?

They were taking this homunculus-testing deadly seriously.

Her grandpa also knew about the homunculi. Kurumi was the first person to tell us about them; She got that information from her missing grandfather.

So. Maybe. He was a human survivor of the Whatever Killed Everyone. Instead of testing for homunculi, the Peacekeepers may have been testing for humans hidden among the population. People who would know and remember what happened. People who were a threat to Yomi's information control.

Multiple people avoided the tests!? Who were the others!? Are they alive or did Yomi get them too?

Yeah. Okay. They were witch-hunting for human survivors.

Definitely feeling Yomi for the person responsible for the necropolis. He's a fascist but he was working directly with Huesca to sell company secrets for years. Maybe he knew enough to make this happen, but not enough to not make a city full of defective homunculi, oh my god.

Could that be--

... O.O Oh. My. God.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

The blood tests were before the Blank Week. They weren't looking for homunculus or human DNA. They were taking samples. Samples for Huesca's rushed homunculus project, which created the defective homunculi that killed everyone.

That's what happened to Kurumi's grandpa. Nothing happened to Kurumi's grandpa. Or the others who got away from the testing. They got away with it. They never gave samples.

So when the city-load of homunculi were created, they were never copied with everyone else. To the perspective of everyone waking up and going "Huh, what happened?" one week after their human counterparts died horrifically, those select people simply dropped off the face of the universe, never to be seen again.

Kurumi's grandfather is not Number One. He's not Makoto. He's not anyone. He was devoured by ferals three years ago. Nothing more and nothing less.

That was the day you first woke up, in the image of a high school girl that died here.

Right now, my biggest burning question is: What became of the ferals that ate Kanai Ward? How did they come to no longer be eating the city. It's not like they could have simply left. If a roaming pack of regenerating immortal zombies was devouring cities across the globe, we would have heard about it.

Are they here in the Restricted Area with everyone else? If so, how did that happen? Did UG come in and clear them out? Did Yomi do it somehow?

Is that where these music-playing Ama-Pals with KANAI WARD SIGNATURE MEAT BUN steamers came in? Did whoever was left at Amaterasu use these to Pied Piper the ferals out of the city and herd them into the Restricted Area?

We have a strong understanding now of what happened during Blank Week but who and how still eludes us.

Oh, and we also don't know how that is involved. What part of this results in the Forever Rain? We have so many answers and so many questions and none of it links up to "Bizarre weather phenomenon causing endless rain".

Is it the testing site explosion? Did that fuck up the climate or something? The testing site is built over the ocean. Shinigami made a note of pointing that out so you'd assume it's relevant to something and Forever Rain is the only thing I can think of.

We've painted a very strong picture of what's happening here but we still don't know everything. Or why Makoto killed the Master Detectives and is now making us learn all of this.

Does he want us to find all the secrets so we can use the Mystery Labyrinth to kill him or something? Because that doesn't perma-kill homunculi. We've seen the evidence of that for ourselves.

[tobiasdrake]

At last, the secret lab. Allegedly.

Honestly, yeah. Yes, please. Give me one of your masks. If the goal is to sell the illusion that I'm your private secretary, that's all we need. Someone sees me walking around in a Makoto mask, they will assume "Weird Makoto Thing" and pay me no further mind.

That's brilliant. Do that.

At the very least, a change of clothes would be good. I didn't think about this before we got here but Yuma's still wearing the Standard Master Detective Uniform. It's easy to forget 'cause all the Master Detectives are mavericks who screw the rules and dress how they please. But to anyone who knows the WDO, these clothes are a neon sign that reads "MASTER DETECTIVE".

This is like going undercover in a Galactic Empire base, but wearing your white/orange Rebel Alliance Pilot jumper while you do it.

Ooo, maybe there's a murder to solve.

Which. I. Should not. Solve. While I am undercover as a not-murder-solver...

...

But... mystery....

Maybe it's Halara. Maybe this is the same Restricted Area somehow, and now they're halfway through trashing the entire Peacekeeper army to find evidence of malfeasance.

They'd need to get past the biometric scanner to get here, but it's Halara. Remember that time they successfully drew a floor map of a place they'd never visited before? Halara could glare sternly at the biometric scanner, and the scanner would blink and give them a green light.

Yeah, I was thinking that too, Shinigami. The both of us being here at the same time may not be directly related but it's unlikely to be entirely coincidental.

It's okay. We go in, we see what's up, maybe high-five the intruder if they are who I think they are. Everything is fine.

Everything is not fine. We are doomed. This is the worst possible scenario that could ever have occurred. Yuma, why didn't you take the mask when it was offered!?

Going straight into business mode and pretending I'm not even here. Completely ignoring the elephant in the room. That's certainly a choice, Makoto, but I'm not sure if Yomi will go for it.

Makoto strongly implying that Yomi's presence here is suspicious. Would Yomi descend from his ivory tower to catch some burglar?

...

I mean. He sure does descend from his ivory tower to chase after us a whole lot, so this doesn't seem that OOC for him. Though that could be my bias talking, as he's taken a personal interest in our organization specifically.

So maybe it is OOC for Yomi to care about a break-in, but not if it's a WDO-related break-in. Which. If it's Halara. Then.

He's weaseling so hard to get me into that crime scene and I have no idea where he's going with this. I can feel the play being made but cannot for the life of me fathom what maneuvers it will involve.

If you have to tell people that you're charismatic then that's a tacit admission that you're not very charismatic. It's one of those things that can't be self-diagnosed.

Power and numbers, I'll grant you. He's got four armed men with guns while Makoto's got one out-of-place Junior Detective struggling not to pee himself.

Ooo, appealing to Yomi's ego. Yomi is the Scar to Makoto's Mufasa. Putting pride on the line and offering him a chance to prove he's better than Makoto is a genius play.

Yomi has no practical reason to accept Makoto's offer. But Yomi is not a practical man. He's jealous, spiteful, and desperate for validation. How could he possibly resist a dick-measuring contest against the central focus of his ire?

Weird name for a guy who only KO'd a couple guards. I would have expected a Slaughter Artist to. Y'know. Slaughter.

Also, fantastic job subtle-interrogating Yomi there, Makoto. An effective technique for extracting information is to avoid asking questions and instead make false statements. People love to correct people. It's reflexive. If you assert something that's wrong, you're more likely to get a right answer in response than if you merely asked about it in the first place.

Ask someone, "What's John's role?" and he'll tell you to eat shit. But tell him, "We nabbed your boss John," and he might go, "Fuck you, John's a glorified delivery guy. He just moves supplies. You dumbasses think I answer to JOHN?"

Makoto isn't doing that, but what he is doing is that-adjacent. He's playing civil and offering Yomi opportunities to bark information at him. Playing on their rivalry to make Yomi uncooperatively forthcoming with information about the situation taking place.

He's a corporate arms manufacturer so I'm not surprised he's made some deadly enemies. So now we have another serial murderer targeting corporate assholes for retaliation.

Clearly, Fink the Slaughter Artist must be Halara. :P

Okay but why tho. Why send a letter to the cops going, "Hey cops, I'm going to be coming to kill one of your cop scientists soon so you better CLOSE RANKS!"

The existence of this letter is extremely suspicious. A hitman who calls the police to report on himself does not sound like a very good hitman to me.

Just like that, Yomi's snared in the psychological trap Makoto laid for him. He's so eagerly chomping at the bit to prove how much smarter he is than Makoto that he completely forgot he was going to have Yuma dragged away and waterboarded.

This is what a master class in manipulation looks like.

...oh, yeah, I guess he landed that too. Master class in manipulation. This is unsettling, in fact. Makoto, did you hire Fink to break in for the express purpose of providing us with this smokescreen?

...

Hold on. Breaking into a secret government lab. Conspiracies wheeling within conspiracies. Searching for secrets related to homunculi. Out-of-control serial killer running amok. Something about this scenario seems familiar.

...

No, I can't place it. Must have been my imagination. Anyways, let's go see if we can hunt down Barry the Chopper before Yomi does.

[the-firebird69]

I thank you for listening to me Zeus my husband I really require you to and you do and you get it done and there's just a few more things we need to do before you said this whole ball of waxing motion to get you a place to stay and one of them is to make sure Godzilla is fed and I think you took care of that and yes you did and the other is to make sure we're going to move in which you did and said half the equipment's ready in the structure is ready all of it so I'm going to move on that and I'm going to get this place filled underneath and they're going to be sorry that they ever got up in the morning this morning to bother us and I'm sending teams and now I'm sitting in 500 battalions and you're matching and I'm going to feed them and we're dedicating a huge group to do it we don't see movement yet

Hera

Zues

We see some movement and I detect it and it's positive effect and we know how much food it needs and about a day more but solid constant when you're trying to mix the way you should but really it needs to just eat and absorb I'm going to throw some uranium in there for a Thor's instruction and Freya

Savage Oppress

We have a huge amount of movement in a certain area and it's not near the head or top torso it's the tail for some reason it tail is moving around like crazy actually we need to stop I don't know why it's doing it no we do he's saying I'm alive here I'm alive my tail is alive so use it cuz that's how I was going to get out and was trying to figure out what you're saying we need to use the story about what happened here because they want to pull his tail off but spraying it out and we're telling people once again we're soliciting for more volunteers the people on duty are having a great time it is a blessing to be able to help and he really needs it badly we need a lot more volunteers than we have in the ones are in a great really know what to do to use and they're dedicated the lines going nuts and we're getting real numbers now

Thor Freya

It's a tour of duty and I'm requesting that everybody who wants to sign up sign up it's not restricted to strict professionals if we do that we're going to have this mess forever and we won't be the free our people