melodiesoflife | Event || Cluedo

Hang on, this isn't coming across really well, one sec, you're still at A-03, right?

-Jack

Jack doesn't really wait for a response before showing up at Duster's house. He does sneak around to the side of the house to wave hello to Mercury. He's always tried to treat the horse fairly.

Jack knocks on the door, then raises a hand in greeting.

"Gotta be a little nice, betting you have this place mostly to yourself right now?" Referring to the Marshall's absence.

Duster arrives at the door, looking a bit ragged, but mostly fine. The murders had shaken him up, but now that the victims were back, they could find the Heroes that did such a terrible thing. Betrayed from within...

"Yeah, Sparks is out all night doing work. I'm not much of an investigator, so I'm staying home." Duster swings the door open, sidestepping away from the entrance. "I'm usually out on walks or playing at local bars, anyway."

There's still plenty of sun left in the sky, but Jack shrugs as he enters. "I hear we're on curfew anyway. So much for that."

He takes a quick look around the place, he'll admit to being curious about how the Marshall keeps his place. "What I meant in my letter. Either it's one of us, or it's somebody going to a lot of trouble to make it look like us. What I meant by a fake. I don't think anyone can, say, duplicate our powers. Which is what it might've sounded like I was thinking."

Jack takes a seat at the dining table and looks up at Duster sympathetically. "I know not everybody's used to this shit."

"Duplicate our powers...?" Duster shakes his head. "What do you mean? I haven't gone out to the crime scenes at all."

Was Jack referring to the whole event, or just his murder?

"Did we prove that it's the Heroes doing this?"

Mmm, okay. Take it a step at a time for the newbie. Jack smiles a little, and intentionally slows his thoughts down. "The first person they killed was one of the strongest among us, Jade Curtis. Ignoring for a second that you'd need to be a hero to take him out? Evidence pointed to the use of ice magic. May-be water," Jack waves a hand back and forth, "but there's more high level ice spells than there are water spells."

"Then there's me and Kurashiki. If the same person took the two of us out, they were displaying a much wider array of skills. You'd need agility and some strength to get to where I was and knock me off, while someone seemed to have overpowered Kurashiki."

"And then these new ones came in. Rukia. Reno. I hear the name of the third one was Malik. Either pointing to massive strength or a different way to move objects, like teleportation. Things that are this varied? It's got to be a Hero."

Duster nods throughout Jack's explanation. He knew better than to interrupt someone in the middle of explaining something long and important, which branded him as an excellent listener to most people he met. He just didn't know any other way to deal with talking people.

Jade. Aoi. Rukia. Reno. Malik. Some he recognized more than others, but they were some strong people on their own. Except Aoi. How ironic that he died hours after his private lesson with Duster.

"...Do you think this is all one person? There's no way one guy can do that all by themselves."

"I hate single-bullet theories, but I hate it more when I ignore them and they come up true. So if you want someone with all of those skills at once? Then we're looking at the people with Nine or more Jobs mastered. Yuffie Kisaragi's the only one I know. I'd look at Cloud Strife or his buddy Sephiroth, too."

Jack leans back in his chair, almost tipping the front two legs off the ground. "But there's a problem with that. None of them would want to murder me. Or Jade. Or even Kurashiki, even though he's a prick."

Jack's gaze gets a little distant, almost looking over Duster's shoulder instead of straight at him. "I've been killed by my friends before. And it's always because of something greater than them, something that they couldn't fight back against. Something that gave them no choice."

"Sometimes it's mind control, the literal, something is taking over your mind and forcing you to do this. Sometimes it's more subtle than that, like you're defending something that I'm threatening, or that someone is lying to you, saying that my death will get you something that you want more than anything. Sometimes it's even more subtle, like I represent something that can't possibly be true." There is too much truth to Jack's words, a weight to them of too many years of experience. Too much blood.

Edited (.) 2016-06-25 03:17 (UTC)

Duster turns around, looking for the thing that's caught Jack's attention. Nothing.

"Santa's a bit grating, but nothing worth killing over," Duster adds after a short silence. He's his friend, after all, and he knows that all of his boasts are just for show. "It's like they didn't care who they went after, as long as they were a Hero."

He looks at the ground, avoiding Jack's gaze. "Huh. I never died and came back to life, so I can't say I understand. But if it's mind control...that's..." He shakes his head.

"We need to sit down," he states firmly. With a curt spin on his good leg, he turns to the sofa, limping as he usually does. Some topics are not meant to be discussed standing up.

There's something curious in and of itself, there, too. There's been a theory going in Jack's mind about the lack of rhyme or reason for which Heroes are attacked, too...

But this is the exact point in an investigation when either Jack has struck a nerve, or the person he's talking to is about to reveal something he's reluctant to bring forwards. How would Gwen handle this? Listen.

Jack stands up off the chair and follows Duster to the couch area, if that's where he's more comfortable. Jack nods reassuringly. "Go ahead, what's- this about?"

It's always more comfortable for Duster to sit than to stand. With his body sinking into the back of the couch, the contours around his mind soften. Despite doing his best, he never felt he knew just what to say when someone died. He went missing shortly after Hinawa's funeral, then he and the party had to move on every time Lucas pulled a Needle and killed a member of Kumatora's family. He didn't have time.

He wishes he could do something other than offer a shoulder to rest on.

"...I knew a boy who was killed before turning into a mindless robot. He should have been brought to rest, but someone cruel wanted to use him as a way to end the world. Even worse...it was my 12-year-old friend's twin brother. We could barely think of fighting him once we knew the truth. It's hard to think about someone you care about trying to kill you, and that's what makes it worse."

As opposed to someone you fear, but this wasn't Tanetane over again. The mind controller - if there is one - didn't want to bring their worst fears to light.

"That's why they're using Heroes. To scare us."

Duster's words hit impossibly closer to home than he could ever know. Jack listens in silence, but there is a burst of mixed rage and hearbreak inside of him when Duster says that the victim was only 12 years old. Focus, you're here to listen.

When he's positive that Duster is done, he softly speaks up. "I'm so sorry. That anybody should have to see a friend- a brother, a child, used in such a way." He is trying to hold back any note of disgust. "An enemy from without we'll all unite to fight, we've already proven that time and again. But if the enemy is wearing the face of one of our own? We'll hesitate."

"But for good reason. That force, it used him?" Guessing, even though Jack can't possibly know the specifics. "The boy was already dead, none of the fault lay with him." Extrapolate to the current situation..?

Duster wasn't the one most affected by the reveal that Claus was the Masked Man. He had his misgivings, despite not being close to the boys while they lived in Tazmily, but Lucas was devastated. He was lucky he had something to dispel his lightning attacks.

"Force? You mean Porky? I don't know how he did it, but I'm sure machines were involved. His army really liked creating part-animal, part-mechanical chimeras." He didn't understand the science behind that. The Nowhere Islands were abysmal in teaching their residents modern science.

"But if you're saying that the Heroes were mind-controlled, then it's not our fault."

Machines. It always comes back to machines. For an instant, Jack considers explaining the Cybermen, but something Duster says stops every other thought in his brain cold.

"Not their fault, no." He corrects, casually. "Whoever it is that's being used by this mind control or entity, no, no blame would lie with them."

Just a slip, or something more? Careful, Jack. Your next words are critical.

Jack leans back again, trying to make his posture look more relaxed into the couch. "I know law enforcement thinks it's one of us, so Sparks mentioned that we might as well take the widest-net approach. Account for all of us. Since you said you missed the group meeting, mind if I ask where you were on the 15th and 17th?" Jack lightly shrugs. "I was visiting a hotel downtown on the 15th, and, well, we all know where I was on the 17th."

"A hotel? What for?" That sounded suspicious in of itself. Heroes had their own housing, and there was no point in living anywhere else in Aqures Ixen. Was it important business.

There are many features of modern society that remain mysterious to Duster.

"Anyway, I was resting on the 15th and setting up the martial arts corner of the Hero Training facility. I was there all day on the 16th, which was the last time I saw Santa." The next morning, his friend was gone. If only he did better in teaching him self-defense.

"On the 17th, I woke up around noon and checked the bars I perform in. The regulars were pretty shaken, so I had to play there to calm everyone down."

Jack's questioning look turns into a playful smile at Duster's first question. "Well, he didn't want to go back to his place, and when your housemate is a 13 year-old girl, there are some things you want to keep out of the house..."

Jack's eyes soften at Duster's account. "That's why you're taking this so hard, you were one of the last people to see Kurashiki. Kidd was the last, I kind of want to talk to him, myself, but I get the feeling Sparks is going to do that, too." He doesn't want Kidd to feel backed into a corner.

"If there is something else going on, then, Sparks' plan of keeping us all around each other should help there, too. You'll be safe. We shouldn't take this as an opportunity to turn on each other, like we cant trust each other." Jack shakes his head. "Right now is when we need each other's help the most."

Oh. Oh.

Duster covers his mouth with his hand and looks to the side, but he can't hide how pink his neck turns. He really shouldn't have asked.

"Well, um. You're right," he stutters as he tries to focus on another topic. "We need to keep an eye out in case something like this happens again."

Fun to get an almost-smile out of the man, but Jack allows him to shift back onto a serious topic. "We'll be okay, so long as we stick together or stick indoors."

Jack slowly stands up off the couch. "I'm not too far away, if you need something. A night's sleep instead of Crystal Stasis would be nice, though."

Event || Cluedo

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