So I've had the 100 Themes challenge list saved on my computer for something like seven years and only now thought of what I could do with it. Also some time ago I promised one reader there would be Double fics. I have now delivered on that promise.
I won't be going through them in order, because doing things in order is boring. Rather, I'll be doing them as I have inspiration and sometimes using a random number generator. I'll also accept number requests and prompts within the reviews if anyone wants to suggest a theme I haven't done so far. To find the list, you'll have to search the challenge and find the most common one.
Today's theme: #71, Obsession
Spoilers: None. Takes place during the year between Begins Night and episode 1.
#
Obsessive. It was a word Philip was hearing more and more often, always aimed at himself from the mouth of his new partner. "Obsessive freak" Shotaro had called him during their first case together, when Philip had spent more time researching the effects of stress on the human psyche than worrying about their client, a girl whose life had been falling apart thanks to a stalker. "Obsessive idiot" had made an appearance later, with less venom in Shotaro's voice, when Philip had gotten so involved in researching the anatomy and behaviour of the Japanese macaque that he'd fainted in the garage.
Now, though, "obsessive" was the word in Philip's mind as he listened to Shotaro pacing back and forth on the garage's metal grates behind him. The detective's footsteps were louder than the squeaking of the dry-erase marker that was writing the latest victims' names: Renn Heigawa, and right below him, Kei Heigawa. A Fuuto train operator and his fourteen-year-old son, found dismembered, along with the front car of Renn Heigawa's train, on the tracks in the Tower rail station. Above them, the names of five other victims, in English, in Philip's even hand. Once he'd written their familial relationship, Philip straightened and turned to Shotaro. "The fact that the metal train car was cut confirms that it's the Edge Memory. It's the only cutting Memory whose blades get sharper each time they're used. So far, they've cut through people, plastic, wood, and now steel..." He let his words trail off, because Shotaro had stopped pacing and frozen at the word "people."
"Edge, huh..." They had been on this case for a week, ever since Inspector Jinno had come to them with a report from the maximum security prison outside the city limits. Tetsuya Inoue, a mass murderer serving a life sentence, had escaped and murdered two security guards. Jinno had come to them because one of the guards responsible for checking deliveries for inmates had said that a letter to Inoue had included something that looked like a USB drive.
Shotaro resumed movement in order to grab his jacket from the couch. "So does that help us any? Any new keywords to narrow down his location?"
"I'll add 'Tower Station' to the lookup and see if it reduces the books any further—where are you going?" Philip hesitated midway into picking up his book when Shotaro headed for the door.
"Back to the police station. Jin-san took some of the tapes from store security cameras around the station. I'm going to go get them so I can see if Inoue shows up on any of them." He spoke without turning around or stopping, so Philip had to cross to the other side of the garage to continue the conversation as Shotaro ascended the spiral stairs.
"You were out all day, and it's nearly dusk. The footage can wait." Shotaro's hand froze on the door handle.
"Philip. You said Edge's blades get sharper every time they're used, right?" He looked over his shoulder to catch Philip's nod, the only response the younger man could manage. Shotaro's free hand slammed down on the railing. "He just sharpened them on a kid! Someone handed this monster a GaiaMemory and now the whole city's being ripped apart! We're the only ones who can stop him, and until we do, everything else waits!" Then he was gone, the garage door slamming with such force that Philip felt the vibrations through the grate he stood on.
Left alone, Philip raised his fingers to his chin and frowned. In the months since he'd started living with Shotaro, he'd never seen the detective like this. Sure, Shotaro was passionate, that much had been evident from minute one of their relationship, but this was different. The further they went in the Inoue case, the less Shotaro cared about... well, everything else. Philip was usually able to predict the detective's routine, but in the last week it had gone awry. Shotaro would be absent from the office for far longer than normal, getting Philip to do lookups over the phone rather than in person. Philip wasn't even sure if the man had slept or eaten in the last 24 hours.
He returned to his desk and picked up his blank book. The sooner this case was over, the better. "Begin lookup. The subject is the hiding place of Inoue Tetsuya. Keywords..."
~~~
The new keyword reduced the books some, but there were still more than two dozen shelves and no way to know where the killer was holed up. Philip leafed through several of the books, but there was no point. He left the Planet's Bookshelves and took out his Stag phone to check the time. He'd been there for nearly an hour, trying to pry out the answer he wanted without the right clues. Had Shotaro come back?
Heading for the door between the garage and office to check, Philip hesitated when a sound that definitely wasn't Shotaro reached his ears. Opening the door to hear it more clearly, he realized the sound was voices, but not from people inside the office. He stepped through and looked towards the source of the sound: the desk, where Shotaro sat with his portable DVD player open, typewriter pushed to one side.
"What are you watching?" Security footage was quickly crossed off the list of possibilities in his mind. When no answer came, he crossed the office and circled around behind Shotaro. The video was slightly off-colour, clearly not meant for DVD resolution, but it showed a police interrogation room, and the camera was aimed at the man sitting opposite of a suit-wearing officer. Philip recognized him as Tetsuya Inoue from the pictures they'd been shown. "This is...?"
Shotaro didn't look away from the screen, where the officer was asking Inoue why he'd committed the murders. "Old interrogation footage from when Inoue was first arrested."
Philip barely had his mouth open to reply when high-pitched laughter erupted from the DVD player. His eyes snapped to the screen in time to see Inoue leaning back in his chair. The laughter was coming from him. Before the killer could answer the question, Philip pushed the stop button. "Research is my job. Please don't try to understand this kind of material on your own." Upon pushing the player closed and lifting it, he noticed a manila envelope underneath. "... The case files from Inoue's previous murders?"
"Yeah. I think he had the Edge Memory before he went to prison—Hey!" Shotaro grabbed for the files, but Philip had already gathered them under the DVD player and pulled them away from the older detective.
"If the information here does lead us to Inoue, then you need to be able to fight. Double isn't as effective if your body's in bad shape." Hefting files and player alike into his arms, Philip turned back towards the garage. "Get some sleep, Shotaro. I'll add this information to the lookup tomorrow morning." He waited only long enough to hear the sigh that was Shotaro giving up before he re-entered the garage.
A few seconds were spent listening to make sure the detective didn't try to leave, and once Philip was sure that Shotaro would either go to bed or pass out as his desk (uncomfortable, but better than nothing), he carried the confiscated materials over to his work space and pushed his tools to one side to set them down. Rather than go to bed himself, he sat down on the couch and eyed the pile. It was worse than he'd thought. Getting the case files was normal, something they should have done earlier, but what good was the interrogation footage? All it did was reinforce what they already knew: Tetsuya Inoue was a madman, and they needed to stop him.
The young genius leaned back and stared at the garage's ceiling. Would Shotaro be able to keep a level head when they fought the Edge Dopant? It was Shotaro's body that was at risk if not... and if he got hurt... Philip shook his head to clear those thoughts and, foregoing even changing out of his day clothes, fell sideways on the couch.
Tucking one arm behind his head, he reached with his free hand to hit the switch for the garage's lights, plunging the giant room into darkness. He continued to stare at the ceiling as his pupils dilated to try and catch whatever light could be had, but unlike the office, the garage had no windows to brighten it. That was Tetsuya Inoue, shut down to light. That was what Shotaro was immersing himself in.
Philip was leafing through the case files at his work area when he heard the door open. He didn't bother turning as Shotaro made his way up to him with the brisk greeting, "Good, you're up."
"Of course I am." It was unusual for Shotaro to be awake so early (it was just past 7:30 in the morning), but there was no point in saying so. There was only one way to return normalcy to Double's left half.
"So is there anything in the case files we can use? Anything we don't already know?" Shotaro leaned on Philip's shoulder, forcing the younger man to shrug him off in order to stand.
"A lot of his early kills were in the north industrial district. Killers tend to start close to home, and he might've gone back to where he's most familiar." Handing the case files to Shotaro, Philip stretched out his arms to enter the Planet's Bookshelves. Once there, he went through the keywords they already had and eyed the books that remained. "Shotaro, read out the specific locations of each crime. We should be able to narrow it down."
"Alright. First one..."
While most of his attention was for the search, Philip did take note of the increasing anger in Shotaro's voice as he read each location. When the shelves and books finally retreated and left only one behind, he couldn't help but sigh in relief. "Found it." He flipped through to read the significant information, and when he opened his physical eyes again he wasn't surprised to see Shotaro, already with his jacket on, eyeing him impatiently.
"Well?"
"He stays on the move, posing as a homeless man. That's probably why we and the police are having so much trouble tracking him down." Shotaro inhaled for an outburst, but Philip kept going before the other could get a word in. "But the city's changed in the years he was in prison, so he's limiting himself to areas that still have the same layout." He crossed to one of the whiteboards to write down the names of several of Fuuto's districts. Once four were written down, he circled the second one: North Kazeguchi. "This one is most likely, based on his movements. The last three murders occurred within access of the other three, so he won't return there so soon."
"Even with it narrowed down that much, that's a big area to search." Shotaro was already headed for the door.
"The area is largely industrial. There's a Windscale warehouse that's been shut down recently, cleared out but not resold yet. Start there and in the surrounding area. He's somewhere private, still riding the last kill." Philip saw Shotaro's shoulders tense, but the older detective left the garage without another word. All Philip could do was hope Shotaro found Inoue so they could finally finish this case.
~~~
Obsession. Noun. A compulsive or irrational preoccupation; an unhealthy fixation.
The Planet's Bookshelves spread out before him, over three hundred thousand books summoned by that single word. Psychological studies, therapy, self-help, and hundreds upon hundreds of stories of the destruction wrought by it. The Chinese emperors and their alchemy-fueled quest for immortality, Julius Caesar's lust for power, and the vengeance-driven Captain Ahab were all among the famous examples he'd browsed. It wasn't doing much to alleviate his concerns over Shotaro's mental state.
He hadn't realized how long he'd been researching, but the appearance of the DoubleDriver around his waist pulled him back to reality, and Shotaro's thoughts through their link: found him!
Philip wasn't sure if Shotaro had meant to send that or not, but he put that aside to pull the Cyclone Memory from his pocket. "Ready."
Cyclone! Joker!
"Henshin!" The Memory vanished from his DoubleDriver, and a second later his world went dark as his consciousness followed Cyclone. He really wanted to meet whoever had designed their Driver. It was a fascinating piece of technology.
The darkness didn't last long, and soon light and colour returned as his vision merged with Shotaro's. Double was in the warehouse, and less than six feet away was Tetsuya Inoue, staring at the newly transformed warrior. "Oh... so you use Memories too?" He giggled the same, shrill noise Philip remembered from the footage, and took a Memory out of his jacket pocket.
Edge!
The Memory vanished into the connector on the murderer's stomach, and his body changed, growing and turning the colour of steel. His left arm was shrouded in tiny blades, while the right smoothed out into a sword. More blades covered his chest, legs and feet, while a crescent blade grew over his eyes. Philip knew that punching a body like that would be trouble, even with Double's armour.
But Shotaro was in dominant control, and Double charged forward, the Joker hand driving into the Edge Dopant's chests. Sparks and pain were the reward, and the sword hand swung up, barely missing as Double jumped backwards. Tetsuya was still laughing, and Shotaro gave a furious yell, charging in again, this time kicking while he caught Edge's sword-arm by the wrist.
Shotaro, stop! Philip could feel the pain inflicted on the older detective's body. They were damaging the Dopant, but Edge's blades were likewise damaging them with every blow that connected. He had to do something. Taking control of the right arm, he drew a new Memory.
Heat!
Shotaro didn't even pause while the right side shifted, and his next blows radiated the fire of the Heat Memory, blasting the Edge Dopant backwards for a momentary reprieve. Philip tried again to get through the fury of Shotaro's mind. Shotaro, Joker's too risky. Even as he spoke, he saw Edge's left arm move. The tiny blades that comprised it rose up and, with a violent slash of the limb, came flying towards them. Double ducked, but too slow, and two of the blades crashed into the Joker half of the chest, knocking them down hard.
Shotaro tried to force Double back up, but Edge's left arm was moving again. Philip took advantage of the moment, Shotaro briefly stunned by pain, and asserted his will over the other detective's. Double dived to the side, the flying blades slicing furrows into the concrete they'd been standing on a second earlier. Philip summoned as much of Heat's power as he could, and punched the right arm into the nearest interior wall of the warehouse, blasting it and the support beams inside to smithereens. Debris rained down on Double and the Edge Dopant, who turned and fled as Double's transformation unwound, leaving Shotaro with a blooming bruise under his shirt and blood on his hands and legs.
The older detective's anger burned through their mental link. Philip! What'd you do that for!?
Awakening on the floor of the garage, uninjured but not unshaken, Philip frowned. Come back to the agency. We need to talk.
Inoue's going to get away!
We'll find him again, but we need to talk. I'm not activating the Cyclone Memory until we do. ~~~
It took a few more insistences from Philip before Shotaro realized the young man wasn't budging, and pretty soon Shotaro had stormed into the agency, where Philip waited in the kitchen. "Philip, you never interfere in fights! Inoue got away because of you!"
He raised his eyes from his ever-present book. "Your method of fighting wasn't working. Double was taking too much damage."
"So what? It's my body doing the fighting, not yours!" Shotaro still hadn't recovered his indoor voice, his fedora clenched in one hand, the brim jabbed towards Philip and barely an inch from his face. "It doesn't matter what happens, he needs to be stopped!"
Faster than even Shotaro could react, Philip's hand snapped up and seized his wrist. He pushed back until Shotaro's bloodied knuckles were right in his line of sight. "And this is the way to do it? Joker's armour isn't strong enough to face blades that can cut a train car! If I hadn't interfered, he could've killed you!"
Shotaro was speechless even as Philip released his arm and turned away. The fedora was set down, and Shotaro's hand moved to his chest, as if feeling the damage there for the first time. "Philip..." The younger man didn't look at him, and Shotaro couldn't bring himself to step closer. "Are you... worried about me?"
For several long seconds, Philip continued to stare at the floor. Hearing Shotaro say it brought it home: he was more than worried, he was scared. Shotaro was the only link he had to the outside world. Sure, he'd met some of their detective contacts, but none of them knew the truth about him. He had all the knowledge of the world, but without Shotaro, he had no way to relate to the world itself. Finally, he settled on something to say. "Double has two halves. It doesn't work with just one of us."
A few more seconds of silence, then Shotaro let out a short laugh and reached out to clasp Philip's shoulder. "That's true. Guess I've still gotta get the hang of that." His hand dropped again, picking up his hat and restoring it to its place. "So, you said you could find Inoue again?"
"I already know where he's gone. There's another likely hiding spot not far from the warehouse." Philip gave his book a little shake to make the point, but he frowned again. "We need a better plan this time. The Edge Dopant can attack both long and short range... if the long-range attack can hurt you through Joker's armour, the sword could do even more damage."
"So we need stronger armour. Metal?"
Philip nodded. "We have to keep some distance from him... Trigger's best for that, but it takes too much away from defense. Heat worked well, so our best combo for defeating him is Heat-Metal." He saw Shotaro frown, his shoulders sag. "What is it?"
"Oh, nothing." Shotaro sighed, and then he smiled. "I just haven't come up with a name for that combo's Memory Break."
~~~
The second fight, with Double's halves truly in sync, went much better, and one newly-christened Metal Branding later, Double watched from the shadows as the police took a broken-down Tetsuya Inoue back into custody. They said nothing as Shotaro undid the transformation and got on his motorcycle to return home.
Once he was back at the agency, he entered the garage to find Philip erasing all the white boards, the Inoue case materials stacked neatly on his work desk. "Eager to leave the case behind?"
"I know all I'll ever want to know about Inoue Tetsuya. There's no point lingering."
"Right, guess you have to free things up for whatever you bury your nose in next." Shotaro smiled, tapping his fingers on the case materials. "I'll take these back tomorrow." He fell silent, watching Philip erase the names of the victims and the data on the Edge Memory's abilities. "Philip..." The younger detective paused and looked back at him. Shotaro averted his gaze. "I'm sorry... for the way I acted on this case. Thanks for looking out for me."
Shotaro swore he saw Philip smile before resuming erasing. "Don't worry about it, Shotaro. One of us has to be responsible when the other gets obsessive. Right?"
After a few seconds of surprise, Shotaro laughed. That was the closest he'd heard Philip come to telling a joke. "Right."
#
Phew. Got really stuck on this one while I struggled to figure out how to write for Double given that it's two people in one. Think I got a form I like with it now. R&R! And feel free to suggest themes! =D