legionmissions | Time For Some (Quiet) Heroics

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Time For Some (Quiet) Heroics

Who| Miku Hinasaki and Tadashi Hamada
What| Helping out with some cold cases
Where| Cosmopolis, Earth
When| Before "Through the Looking Glass"
Warnings/Notes| Blood, violence

Not everything the Legionnaires do has to be a huge fight against something that might destroy a world or two. Sometimes it's a matter of taking advantage of the new powers they have to do some good.

Which is why Miku is here on Earth now, with an omnicom full of files from the SciCops' cold case drawer. Tadashi is mostly here because he's a big believer in the buddy system and in helping out where he can.

Cosmopolis is an old port city, going all the way back to a time where when people said 'port' they meant 'sea port' instead of 'space port'. It doesn't smell quite the same way that San Fransokyo did, but it's familiar enough to make Tadashi a little homesick.

"Is this the place?"

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Miku nodded, tactfully avoiding some of the gorier stills of the murder scene. "This is it, yes. Ah, I mean, we technically have to actually go inside the building, but this is the right place."

The SciCops had warned them that the series of murders over the last few years had been fairly messy. The scenes of the crimes would all be well and clean by now, of course, but she was glad for the warning.

It would not do to vomit on Tadashi's boots if something became too horrifying. "I'll try to be as clear as possible when I look backwards, maybe it will help us find something." A pause, "And, thank you, really. For coming with me."

Tadashi flashed her a smile.

"No, thank you for letting me tag along. You're doing something really good here, Miku, and I'm honored to be part of it."

She's the one volunteering to witness a series of messy murders to help catch the person who did it. He's just here to take notes and provide emotional support and carry stuff so she has her hands free.

"Ready to go inside, or do you need to take a minute to prepare yourself first?"

The smile made something in her chest squeeze sweetly(strangely), and Miku answered his with a little smile of her own, ignoring whatever that was. She could reflect on it, or not, some other time. There were things to do. "I am never really completely ready for this sort of thing, but I'm as ready as we're going to be."

Miku looked down, blew her bangs out of her face in an attempt to calm herself and stepped inside the building. The important part would be to get to the room the murder occurred first. From there, she could back track, maybe find a base of operations.

From there, they could move on to the next case. She just hoped it was as simple as all of that. "If we find the person, or people, who did this, I'm not going to mind the headache that comes from this at all." Miku laughed a little as they started down the hall.

Edited 2017-04-21 16:40 (UTC)

"We can but hope," Tadashi agreed, holding the door for her. "Either way, I brought painkillers."

The building in question is an old hotel, less grand now than it was when it was built. Fortunately, whoever had decorated the place originally had either been a precognitive or just had a thing for the 'weathered' look, the frosted glass and the driftwood accents. A closer look would reveal some of the cracks in the wood, showing rough walls beneath, and the dust in edges of the window frames, but wear and tear was easily disguised by the flickering light of dozens of electric candles.

The SciCops had called ahead, so the orange-skinned alien with the insectoid eyes at the front desk was more than happy to show them to the room where the murder had taken place. Like the main entry, the halls and elevator are also lit by electric candles for ambience (and to hide wear and tear). The room itself, when they arrive, is much more clearly lit. Its window looks out over the street from the third floor, and the room contains a double bed, a desk and chair, and a holoscreen. The attached bathroom is currently without towels or tiny bottles of toiletries, since no one is scheduled to reserve this room, but they have replaced the door to the sonic shower since it was broken during the murder.

Tadashi glances back over his shoulder as the alien from the front desk leaves, closing the door behind him.

"Did you get the feeling that he just wanted to get us out of the lobby?" he asked, wrinkling his nose. "I think he's worried we're going to scare off potential customers."

"I'm sure of it. I don't suppose having two Legionnaires in one's place of business bodes well if they're on special, non-vacationing business." Miku said and looked around. It was a spotless place, if a little rustic in comparison to everything else she'd ever seen.

"It'd be a nice room, if there hadn't been a murder in it," she observed, looking at the bed and tilting her head. The air felt heavier, almost oppressive, and she motioned to the bed. "Go ahead and sit, I'm going to start. Hopefully I won't be long." She looked down at the floor instead at Tadashi's face.

Miku took a deep breath and let it sigh out. The world became monochromatic, and sped backwards until the point of the murder. A little too late, as the victim was already dead. She paled and pushed further back. The worst part about this was having to watch, like some kind of horrible voyeur.

"There we are," she murmured to Tadashi. "I can see her." She was pretty, even Miku could admit that, painting her nails and watching the holoscreen with vague interest. A knock on the door brought their victim's interest into full bloom. "Someone came to see her..." Miku turned slowly, watching the woman move in half-time. "I'll move forward a little bit." Miku watched the next set of events begin and trembled slightly. "I can see her, but I can't see the murderer. They're wearing something... that makes them look transparent. I can only see what they look like because of the... of the... blood."

Their murderer was holding the woman up with one hand and had the other in her torso, Miku didn't want to look. "Oh, God, he's torturing her..."

Tadashi sat down at the desk, pulling out his omnicom and opening up a fresh page in the note-taking app. He started typing as she spoke, but the trembling in her voice made him look up.

He'd known that this was going to be horrible for her going in, but that didn't make it any easier to listen to her. He couldn't imagine how horrible it would be to be helpless to do anything but watch something like that.

There were probably people who could have better helped her navigate this, but he was the person she had, so he had to figure out what to do and how to help her get as much information as she could out of this so they could get it over with as quickly as possible.

"Can you estimate how tall he is?" he asked gently. "Is he ever up next to anything that we can measure to get an idea of his height, or how broad he is?" He swallowed. "Maybe if you move forward a bit, he'll take off whatever he's wearing when he's done. He couldn't have sneaked out all covered in blood..."

She could hear Tadashi from far away, and knowing she could come out of it gave her a little courage. "Humanoid, but narrow... I don't see any horns or other appendages." The woman was struggling, that made it worse, and then she went slack suddenly.

Miku didn't have to look to know she was dead. But she had to look to see what happened next. She turned and started to walk away from Tadashi, following after the murderer and their victim.

"Four... four digits, spindly... how is he so strong...?" The murderer added insult to injury by throwing his victim against the shower door until to broke, leaving her a mess of bloody limbs.

She swallowed hard, feeling her breakfast protest and roil. She was starting to lose control of the scene, it flickered and jumped. "I think he has red skin, but I can't tell if that's residual blood or not. I can't watch anymore..."

Tadashi followed Miku as she followed her vision, reluctant to let her get too far away even though the murder she was seeing was months old. Just because the guy was still out there didn't mean that he was lurking in the bathroom; but logic wasn't the only thing running this brain and the rest of the brain didn't want to split the party. He was careful not to touch her, though -- that would probably startle her, and the last thing she needed right now was to be startled.

"Humanoid, skinny, four digits, no notable protrusions..." he repeated, continuing to take notes. "Unusually strong for his build. Got it."

He chewed on his lip. "If you can't keep watching it, you can come out. I think we already have more information than we started with."

He backed further away, so that he wouldn't be looming over her in the dark.

Miku let out a little sound, something that sounded like she was grateful. She swallowed thickly and felt the color coming back into her vision, shade by shade. When the murderer and his victim had faded, Miku let herself sink to the floor. She groaned quietly.

"I hope he wasn't some kind of shapeshifter... That would make things more complicated."

Once he was sure that she was seeing back in this time period again, Tadashi stepped forward again to offer her a water bottle. She had one of her own technically, as part of her gear, but it seemed like a good idea to offer her his, help her subconscious recognize and accept that she wasn't in danger.

"I'm sure there are ways to tell if someone's a shapeshifter or not," he assured her. "But we do know that he's stronger than he looks, so maybe he's something else? I think Durlans are only about as strong as humans, but I'd have to double-check."

Miku took a little sip of the water, tasting copper and iron in the back of her throat. A more superstitious part of her cried 'blood!' but Miku reasoned it was probably psychosomatic - her brain empathizing with the scene she'd been a witness to.

But just because she could reason it, did not mean she liked it. "I suppose we can do that while we go to the next scene then? I..." she offered him his bottle back, "I can bear this a little while longer -- really."

"We can."

Tadashi offered her a hand to pull her to her feet.

"Let me know if it does get to be too much," he added with a lopsided smile. "I'm an older brother, I can be a little over-bearing sometimes, but it's just because I worry."

She was still a little unsteady, swaying into Tadashi and quickly away again. "I will. I used to think having experience with something like this before would make it easier, but..."

Miku smoothed out her skirt and turned to Tadashi with a little smile, despite how pale she still looked. "I know all about older brothers, I used to have one."

"I just wish I could help more," Tadashi said. "If you think of anything I can do to help, let me know."

He winced at the second part. Way to go Hamada, you enormous dump truck.

"I'm sorry," he said, on the basis that it was generally a good idea to apologize when you'd shoved your foot in your mouth and accidentally brought up someone's dead relatives.

Miku shook her head, "There isn't anything to apologize for. I do not exactly broadcast my family situation at home. And it was a while ago, it's OK."

It wasn't, but Miku wasn't about to burst his bubble where Mafuyu was concerned. She had plenty of time to chew on that ~~and her survivor's guilt~~ on her own. "I think I can make it out of here without falling down. Shall we go to the next location?"

Tadashi swallowed his own arguments about whether or not 'it' was 'okay'. He didn't know the situation, he reminded himself, and he didn't know Miku all that well yet. Maybe she just didn't really want to talk about her dead brother with him. He should just accept her at her word and move on, especially since they were trying to solve a murder instead of doing peer grief-counseling. Offer her the opportunity to talk about it with him later, if she wanted.

"Sure," he answered, glancing around to make sure they hadn't left anything behind. "If I recall the map right, it's not too terribly far from here. I'm not sure if we'd get more attention walking or flying, though."

(And wasn't that just a phrase he'd never expected to hear himself say?)

"Walking, probably. They expect Legionnaires to fly, don't they?" Then again, she was very pink. "Either way, someone's going to see, don't you think?"

The world was starting to tilt in the right direction again. The tiredness was very annoying, but at least it meant that the experience didn't drain her as much as she thought.

"True," Tadashi agreed, holding the door out into the hall open for her. "But the chances of most people deciding that we're just really dedicated cosplayers seems unlikely."

He could entertain a few autograph seekers though, if it meant that Miku didn't fly head first into a building or crash into the ground while she was still unsteady, though.

"Why don't we decide what to do when we get to the street?" She smiled, "They may mistake me for a dedicated cosplayer, but you look much more heroic than I do." Miku praised him as they walked out on the street.

"Though it may be your height. Heroic people are always very tall." Even Kubo would likely grow much taller than Miku would.

Tadashi laughed.

"I don't know about 'heroic'," he said, "but they might recognize me by what I have been assured is an incredibly dorky helmet."

He knocked on said helmet lightly with his knuckles.

"Besides, being short just means that your heroic-ness is compressed, like foam in a fire extinguisher. It just makes it that much more impressive when it comes out."

"It is a little... well, you're flying safely, I suppose..." Miku looked down at her feet and sighed. "Let's fly, then. Just... please don't let me fly into the side of a building, or anything like that."

Tadashi laughed again.

"No, no, you don't have to spare my feelings, I know it looks dorky," he said. "I just had to watch too many safety videos to get my scooter license to feel comfortable flying around at the speeds we do without something providing padding for my skull."

He hopped a little to get airborne, but only a foot or so.

"I promise not to let you fly into a building," he agreed. "Or fall, or anything like that."

She hopped up beside him and wobbled slightly. "Maybe a different, matchy helmet?" she suggested with a little smile. They started off towards the next location and Miku kept her eye on the ground. There was a lot of movement below, people going through their daily lives.

It was nice to watch, but she also had to keep her eyes on Tadashi, as he knew where they were going and also she didn't want to run into anything.

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Time For Some (Quiet) Heroics

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[cw: blood, torture]

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