Case 1 :: Just Another Brick in the Wall [Raph, PM]

Vance got off the plane in Tokyo with a yawn.  He got his things and headed to the nearby city of Karakura, he read over the case file on his phone a  few more times as he was taken there.  It was pretty standard for things that were given to him.  Vance was Interpol's last line of defense, in other words, when a case got to him, it meant it didn't make any sense at all.  Special Investigations was known for being a dead end career.  Vance didn't really care, for him it was a way to keep an eye on the supernatural, as he couldn't do what most others like him could.  

So, he looked over the pictures of the building that had its wall exploded and multiple scratches all over it.  He couldn't exactly say that a giant monster had attacked and torn asunder the place.  So he usually went out and dealt with the hollow, or whatever it was then chalked the entire thing up to a mysterious gas leak or something.  If people knew what actually happened, then everything would be much worse.  

As he got to Karakura, he got out of the car in front of the police station and read the note that there were already a few people being questioned.  Vance actually liked that part of the job.  Trying to hear what kind of weird excuses people made for inter dimensional terrorism was always a good way to pass time.  He headed inside and walked up to the main desk, flashing his badge, and passport and then heading towards the interrogation room.  When he got there he knocked on the door and the officer who had previously been in charge, a mature woman about ten years older than Vance, stomped out.  Vance caught a glimpse of the young man inside and then talked over some details with the woman before politely asking if he could have a try.

---

Officer Akai, was in charge of the questioning to Raphael Laurent, she had been grilling him for answers and wanting to know what he had seen for the better part of two hours.  Then she got a text message saying that Interpol had shown up and a knock on the door a few moments later.  She left the room to talk to a spiky haired weird agent that carried a dam relic before heading to her desk.  

Vance walked in, he was wearing a suit and tie, his gun at his hip, carrying a large case and a small bag with his laptop and such in it.  He set the case by the wall and looked over the young man in the interrogation room.  Vance stretched a bit and cracked his knuckles, before sitting down and and shifting his weight.   "Pleasure to meet you, I am Special Agent Vance Holiday with Interpol.  Now, I'm sure you're bored and annoyed, you probably don't want to do this again but can I ask you to walk me through the incident?"  Vance said in perfect Japanese.  

Vance's love of the Mariner's cross motif was pretty well pointed out between his bracelet, the shots on his gun belt and the hilt of his revolver, plus there was a large anchor on the case behind him.

“Look, officer, we’ve been here, going over the same thing, you asking me the exact same questions for the last two hours.” Akai’s eyes narrowed. First an enormous explosion and devastation of an office building, and then two hours spent trying to get something out of the man that was said to be there that day. “I’ve told you and told you and told you and told you, and for some reason, that I cannot fathom, you are either not believing me, or you think that I’m entirely crazy.” He reached up and gripped his forehead. He could hear the whispers of voices as if from far away, people in different rooms, and then there was this lady whose whispers he could hear VERY clearly. None of what she was saying (or was it thinking?) was particularly nice.

She nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Yes, you’ve told me a very well practiced story. So well practiced, in fact, that you seem to have even fooled yourself into believing such an obvious lie.” She sighed. “I’m on your side here, Raphael; I want to help you out of this, but you need to give me something, ANYthing. We’ve been here basically all day, and I don’t think that you not giving me anything, for all the time that we’ve used, is very fair. Listen, I don’t know why you did it, nor do I even know how you did it, but the fact of the matter remains that you’re the primary suspect in, what appears to be, a large explosion. Now, if you help me out with this, then I will do everything in my power to get you some time off, especially with good behavior.” Her phone suddenly buzzed, she reached into her pocket, pulled it out and sighed. “Well, it doesn’t appear that it will matter anymore. We’ve got a specialist coming in to interrogate you and, for your sake, I hope you’re more cooperative.” There was a knock at the door and she half-stomped over to it and opened the door.

The sight that greeted Raph was…not what he expected. There was a man wearing a mariner’s cross, with spiky yellow hair and wearing a business suit was speaking with Officer Aika. Her thoughts were now more scattered and less easily understood, but it was both frustration and relief, before marching down to her office. While he was glad to be done with her, he looked over at the man that entered instead of her. He was carrying one larger case and one smaller one, the smaller looked like a laptop case while the larger one looked like a guitar, maybe? He introduced himself as Vance Holiday, from Interpol, and asked if Raphael could explain his side of the story one last time.

“I’ve gone over this with Officer Aika for the last two hours, but I’ll go over it one more time, for you.” He sighed and took a breath. “So I was at work, leaving the server room, when suddenly an enormous creature with a mask appeared into the window beside me. When I looked at it, it broke the through the glass and started chasing me, clawing up the inside of the building and, when I finally hid, the sunuvabitch exploded through the wall and went off somewhere. If ya don’t believe me, I can’t help ya.” He leaned forward, looking at the man with a curious expression. “…what are you? Everyone else that I interact or don’t interact with has loud thoughts that whisper into my head… I can hear them in the other rooms, just barely. But not you, and that’s something I’ve never experienced before.”

Vance visibly yawned, closing one eye as if defeated and bored by the point that Raphael was making.  For a second Raphael would hear the thoughts of Vance, something screening in the back of his mind like. Oh good he can see them, now to get him to shut up.  Vance blinked away the flight from his eyes, jet lag was not fun sometimes.  The Interpol Special Investigations officer took a deep breath and looked at the other young man.  With his right hand he reached behind his head and scratched at the base of his neck, as if trying to get himself to relax.

"Believing you isn't the problem, Mister.... Laurent?  Hope I said that right, admitting you're telling the truth, is the problem."  Vance said taking out his phone and activating the white noise generator after typing in his password, which was his favorite boat.    He shifted his weight in his chair and set the phone to the side, it was generating a low hum, but Vance knew it was making the cameras and microphone go haywire.  "I'm, what people like me call a failure, to others, I just see some weird stuff.  So, right now I'm going to ask you what you saw, you're gonna act like you are rationalizing and saw something completely normal I can put in a report to get make these people happy.  Cause that's a lot better than saying OH GOD AN INTER-DIMENSIONAL BEING TRIED TO EAT MY FACE, get it?  Got it? Good."  Vance stated, he wasn't lying, he just avoided the part where he explained why that was what it was.

"So, you saw a gas main explode didn't you?"  Vance said, clearly trying to get passed the usual bullshit.  Talking about monsters with masks in the middle of a police interrogation room, was not ideal.   Akai walked in a few seconds later, probably because all the electronics had malfunctioned, and she seemed much more interested in Raphael's answers now. He slid a card over to Mister Laurent with his name and phone number, as well as his Interpol Office Number for Special Investigations.

Raph took in a deep breath and sighed as the man’s thoughts got onto his head. Maybe he was wrong… He’d been pretty sure that anyone that had power was immune, and that he wouldn’t hear their thoughts too, it was disappointing. Or maybe the man just didn’t have any actual power… Either one of the two was possible, thought it was very difficult to determine which of the two was true. It didn’t matter, at the end of the day; long as he knew that he was hearing people’s thoughts, he only needed to keep in mind that he wasn’t crazy. Well, any crazier than normal.

It was, however, as the man started speaking, that Raphael realized what was really going on here. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Raph, so much as the governments of the world, that probably actually knew that something was going on, didn’t want to admit to the fact that there was something beyond the understanding of normal people going on. When the man pulled out his phone, though, Raph knew something was up, especially when the white noise started. Raph was just glad he’d shielded his phone last payday. He didn’t want to have to worry about this generator frying that thing, though he didn’t really think it was powerful enough to do so anyways. The man, more or less, told him what was really needed for him to say, for the record. It wasn’t…none of it was what he’d been expecting. Though, in the end, he couldn’t deny that it seemed like something Interpol would do.

Rationalize? When an inter-dimensional monster HAD INDEED ATTEMPTED TO EAT HIS FACE?! Raphael sat back in his chair, one hand on the table tapping on it. This was obviously the price that the world paid for the bliss that it lived in. Some truths were harder to accept than others, and the truth that there were masked monsters that ate people’s souls and samurai running on the sky in black pajama’s and parachute pants was obviously one of those harder truths.

“Yeah,” Raph said, taking the card and putting it into his pocket. “I was just so shaken up by the explosion itself that I just made up a story and it just wouldn’t satisfy in my head…” He looked up at the officer. “I’m sorry, officer Akai. I didn’t mean to cause you so much trouble.”

The female officer looked angry that she wasn't going to get anything and stormed out. Vance chuckled and slid his phone back into his pocket. He grabbed the coffee that she had set down for Raphael probably and sucked it down. It was the bad kind, probably made too long ago but Vance didn't seem to care about little details. He stood up and stretched before looking around as he pushed his tie back.

He made his way to the large case and hefted it up before looking back at Raphael. "I got paperwork to finish really quick, meet you out front in about twenty minutes." He stated before leaving the room as another officer came in to sign Raphael out. Vance made his way towards Akai's desk and put his case down before going over the paperwork and signing a bunch of random stuff. He took out his pad after and filed his Interpol report.

After all was said and done, it had been around eighteen minutes he went to find another cup of coffee before drinking it far too fast and compensating by chugging a substance out of a small tube before heading towards the exit to look for Raphael.

"Alright, now tell me about the inter-dimensional masked monster you saw. Then tell me about what else you can see." Vance said as he started walking away from the station, he didn't want to be near any of them. One of the cops stopped him because of the six shooter which Vance simply showed him his Interpol badge and UN Security Release.

Giving Akai a smile, for which she returned a very angry glare, Raphael waited and watched as a second officer came with some paperwork to sign him out. He heard some very bad and angry things from her, or at the very least her head, and he headed outside of the room and was led by another officer to be processed. This was one of the things that Raph hated the most about…whatever had happened or was happening to him. Hearing the very lightest whispers of people’s thoughts was bad, when said people had the ability to think VERY LOUDLY. Akai’s had been some of the loudest of them all, and that had made the interrogation unbearable.

Vance had said to meet him outside in a few minutes, and as Raphael left, he couldn’t help but wonder what exactly the man wanted. After all, if the interrogation was over, then there would’ve been no more use for the two of them to really talk. Raph would go back to his normal life, be told to pretend like nothing had happened and probably be given a week or two off with pay. It was how the company always handled shit like this. He’d seen it once before, when an employee had gotten injured while on the job. It had been said that he’d tripped over something and that’s why he’d had to take some sick pay, but Raph had never believed it.

After getting outside, he sat down on a bench not too far from the entrance and pondered over what Vance wanted to talk to him about. Must’ve been a good bit of paperwork, if it only took twenty minutes to get through, too. Raph pulled out his phone and texted with Donny for a few minutes about his newest research paper and then on the more philosophical repercussions of AI performing tasks for humans, before finally seeing Vance and putting his phone away. He’d keep talking with Donny later.

The question was odd and it made Raph actually stop for a second. “Well, it was about eight feet tall, cut through a window, as I was leaving the server room, and tore through the place trying to get to me. I managed to evade it by hiding in a janitor closet. As for what I can see? Everything. Ghosts, pajama samurai and the masked monsters. What I hear is worse than see, though. I hear the whispers of people’s thoughts constantly. I can’t get it to turn off.”

Vance laughed at Raphael as he spoke. Pajama Samurai, I like that! He thought to himself as he shifted his weight carrying the case. Though he was more worried about the fact that Vance, couldn't actually see monsters, he had a trick for that too. Which he suddenly realized, he hoped he wasn't thinking about.

"Oh well, ESP and telepathy has been part of human belief for years. Same with witches, oracles, gods and most of that stuff was powerful humans or beings from other dimensions. If you can see everything and read minds chances are you're far more powerful than I'll ever be anyway."

Vance said to Raphael, he grinned though, his demonic visage taking effect for a second before he shrugged. "I just cheat, but I can make things so that I can cheat. I try to avoid monsters with masks and pajama samurai. If I kill them, bad things happen. So, instead I write reports on them and make stuff I find cool." Vance stated.

The whispers were maddening and annoying, yet this guy just discussed that what he was experiencing was normal, was basic. It annoyed him, just a little bit, but instead of voicing it, he reached into the bag they’d kept his stuff in, pulled out some ibuprofen and took two pills. Hoping that would settle his headache, he put the pills back into his bag. With a sigh, he took a slightly better look at the man. Why in the world did he have a case like that? What was even in it.

Slinging his own bag over his shoulder, Raphael looked at the man a little more scrupulously. Despite the fact that he was in a business suit, he looked a little more put together, or as if he knew something more than he let on. “You’re from Interpol, yeah? What department are you even from? I’ve seen agents before, living in Chicago it was hard not to sometimes, but I’ve never seen any of them look nearly as…combat ready, if you will, as you do. Also, why in the hell did they call in someone from Interpol, when this event is clearly a domestic one?”

Yet as the man went on, he began to speak about not killing the masked creatures or the pajama wearing samurai. Why in the hell would something like that be a problem? I mean, murder Raph could understand was a problem, but other people could never see them. It was just plain annoying. “What are you? You say you cheat and make things so that you can cheat, but what exactly does that mean? And I can understand the pajama samurai, but why not the monsters in masks? What kinda trouble are you talking about?” He stopped for a second. “And…what’s in the case, if I may ask?”

Vance listened and shifted as he wondered how much of that to answer. "Special Investigations, they call me in when locals flag a case with something along the lines of impossible." Vance said pointedly. "Like when an invisible super human destroys a city block or a masked monster claws up a building made out of steel. I file a report saying it was something else, and move on." Vance said, it was a dead end job, politically, but it gave him freedom to do what he wanted.

"I am 100% normal human. Though people born from special bloodlines like me usually have the power to control inter-dimensional particles. Though they normally use bows, or glowing weapons of blue light. Imagine humans like you, but not strong enough by themselves to overpower things. They waste too much of their internal engine to use powers that impose their will on reality. A program that changes it. So they supplement that program with hardware. Thing's like my gun, other people use Gloves, tubes. I'm about as far off combat ready as it comes. Most of the time I just run away or distract stuff. I'm much better at making things." Vance said taking a few of his tubes out and the odd shots full of reishi.

"The case has a generic sword in it. I can't make spiritual weapons or control particles like others so I made a generic sword that can be empowered by particles I collect with an item I made to collect them. Then I either put them in tubes or make shells for the revolver. Or I make things other people like me want. Gloves, powerful arrows that work like chainsaws, other things." He stated, he was being practical, having a mind reader meant that he was gonna learn anything. If he had something like mind blasting, Vance was more worried about getting lobotomized than anything else.

Raph gave the guy a bit of an incredulous look. ‘Special Investigations’? Raph suddenly felt like he’d walked into a Men In Black movie and was talking with one of the special agents. Made him wonder if Interpol gave this man one of those things that would wipe memories when that stupid light was flashed. Besides, these “powers”? They didn’t exist. Such phenomenon made absolutely no sense. Still, the man was attempting to make it work for Raph specifically, using words like hardware and software. He was appreciative of that.

People like him had the power to control the paracausal particles? People of special bloodlines? His mind went immediately to Jennifer, to Brian… The energy that they’d used. “You’re like my mom and brother, I don’t remember what she called themselves, but they had these weird abilities that they could never explain. Mom always made this bow when she went out hunting after the monsters with masks.” He started laughing. “Good lord the world is so small… Interpol must make your second job a bit easier. I used to want to be able to do the same things they did, despite the fact that they were constantly running around and sometimes even risking their lives doing that shit. Buuuut wasn’t so lucky on the power department, it would seem.” He chuckled, while pretending he was shooting a bow.

“My bro was the really good fighter anyways…” More whispers, mostly useless junk information, some other information that filtered in, though if it was from the man in front of him was unknown. “R-Regardless, I don’t think it’s an issue of power, do you? Even if all you have in there is a sword that you use to special things to use, or make other things, that’s still amazing in it’s own right. I can’t even shut these stupid whispers in my head off.” He slightly bonked his own head, trying his best to shut them out, but as always, it was to no avail. “Regardless, I’m impressed that you’ve got a job like that. Must pay pretty well, huh?”

"It only really pays well when I get overtime, it's the joke department with little to no budget cause you're not supposed to believe or solve anything." If half of Raphael's family was Quincy, it would explain a lot. Though Vance knew that some scripts were amazing and some had little to no use at all. In that respect it was kind of a gamble. "Being good at making stuff is only powerful if you know what you're dealing with before you deal with it. Unfortunately since most things come from other dimensions, that's unlikely." Vance pointed out to Raphael, he had an adopted sister who did everything he could, the right way. Whatever that meant.

"The bloodline stuff doesn't much matter to me, but to some it does. You'd probably qualify, though I'm not exactly the one on the forefront of what that means. I do what I can and not much else. If you can't turn the whispers off, then figure out how to use them. If you go by a logical standard, and you can receive information, wireless rules of radio interference should dictate you can also send packets of information in response." Vance pointed out. It was worth a test, Vance liked tests and theories, it's how he came up with some of his best gear.

"As for the blue light Tron Lovers, they usually go by Quincy, though like pajama samurai, and masked monsters, the nomenclature seems wrong on multiple levels. After all, I build stuff, destroying it is boring, and will most likely get me hunted to death by pajama jocks."

“Well, it’s gotta be better than my job, considering that my area of said job just got exploded by a masked, extra dimensional monster.” Vance’s explanation made some sense, yet Raphael still couldn’t reconcile a separate dimension. Taking that as a hypothetical, it still would have its own laws that would apply to the world and, while those might not have been the same laws that applied to the normal human world, they still had to be obeyed. Perhaps, in fact, the human world followed both sets of physical/metaphysical laws at the same time, just in different degrees. A hypothesis worth exploring, at a later date. “Well, if I have a power that manifests, then perhaps it will deal with the material, causal, world and not the paracausal one.”

Raphael started laughing when the man mentioned bloodlines. “If that’s true, then my bloodline is all kinds of messed up. I don’t have the same abilities that my brother and mom do. Only my dad is more in the normal category, like me. I’ve been called a screw up and failure before, though only by teachers, thankfully. And some of my peers, but that’s not stopped me. I’ve gotten where I am through blood, sweat and tears and that’s how I’d be practicing, if I had actual abilities. Not even to have to use them, but just so that I knew what I could do.” He laughed a bit. “But that’s not gonna happen. I’m not gonna be stronger than you, or anything. Sure, I can hear voices in my head, but that’s about it, man.”

“Why would they bother hunting you to death? Seems like a bit of a waste to use military power on a manhunt. Though they aren’t, necessarily, the smartest tools in the shed, I suppose. Nor am I a tactician for any military.” He sighed and stretched. “I’m not wasting your time, I hope. If you’ve got some kinda big important report to write, I don’t wanna keep ya.”

"My adopted sister can 'gatewalk' my father can juxtapose reality and my mother can use a script that overloads her muscle fiber usage from the usual 4-5% to 100%." Vance pointed out as he shifted to look at Raphael through his evil-set eyes. "And I can pull a trigger. I've seen humans get smacked through walls and be fine, which would probably instantly kill me. Strength is relative, let me explain. In your opinion, what's the most powerful skill to have in normal combat?" Vance stated before waiting for the response.

"My report will be fine. Though think about what I asked. Power doesn't just come out of the barrel of a gun." Vance stated before grabbing his case and starting to leave towards his hotel. He had a really nasty idea, between this human and some of the other things that seemed to be going on, cogs were falling, but they weren't moving fast enough for Vance. He may not have been strong, he may not have been a hunter, but Vance was as odd as they came. He just didn't have voices in his head, after all his own inner monologue was always building something. This time he was adamant on figuring out how some stuff was built.

He started chuckling before smiling back at Raphael, though his smile was more like that of a demon who had just made a deal, than his normal demeanor. "Pleasure to meet you Mister Laurent, hope your building gets fixed soon." He stated.