Chapter 2: The Charon Brotherhood
08:08 AM (Japan Time), Sunday February the 2nd…
"… Hmmppff…! Huff, huff… Hmmpfff…! Huff, huff… I'm making progress, yeah… Good… I'll soon be ready for field action… All these months of training are gonna pay off… Oh yeah…"
A teen guy was working his body out by using weights as he laid face-up on a plastic bench within a largely unlit dull concrete-built room somewhere: the whole room had sports equipment scattered around it and seemed to be a miniature gym.
The teen guy's height could be past the meter and sixty centimeters mark and judging from his face and body his age could be close to sixteen years old: his body was thin, athletic, and had good build to it which was proof of his apparently continuous exercises.
His jet black hair was a wild flock which knew no order or pattern and extended until the base of his neck: his eyes' irises, however, were crimson red in coloring while his face displayed concentration and reflected the effort being made.
He currently was shirtless but wore a pair of navy blue jeans tightened with a black leather belt: a pair of wool socks covered his feet and he used black sneakers for footing.
His hands were protected by fingerless gloves which apparently improved his grip on the weights.
He was currently filled with sweat and looked like he was doing an important effort to try to work it out.
"… Huff… No more… I'm blown out… 35 minutes of these has been more than enough… Heck! It's not even 8:15 AM and I woke up at 7:15 AM. I haven't had breakfast either… Guess I should head for the mess hall and ask of Baron – sama if any new orders for the week have come in: today's a Sunday after all…" He muttered.
He jumped to his feet and stretched.
"Let's wipe off this sweat and pick up the shirt."
He picked a towel resting in a nearby stool and began to wipe the sweat off his upper body and then his head: some heavy metallic footsteps accompanied by a mechanical humming and mosquito-like sound began to head on his direction: he looked up from the towel and his face displayed enmity for a brief fraction of time before he put on a poker face as if saying that nothing impressed him: the sounds came to a halt close by and were replaced by a permanent low-tuned whirring belonging to some kind of fan like in computers.
"Styx. Baron – sama summons you in his quarters."
"Alright, Dullahan…"
The teen named Styx tossed the towel and picked a black and purple-striped shirt which he put on as he calmly walked past the mole of the "headless knight Dullahan" which was standing near the two opened entrance doors: looking closely one could spot two small round objects set in the chest at around the two meter height: Styx directed a bored glare at them for a second and then walked out into a small corridor: he headed for a door right in front of him and knocked on it.
"Come in." A man's voice commanded.
Styx opened the door and entered a modestly-sized room which was a combination of office room and bedroom: a man was sitting on a chair giving him the back and working with a computer but he presently stopped and stood up to turn around.
"Baron – sama." Styx made a reverence.
The "Baron" was a tall man easily overcoming a hundred and ninety centimeters in height yet his age and such was hard to guess because he had a disguise on.
This disguise consisted on a blue cloak covering a black suit beneath it and giving him a European aristocrat look: the disguise was complemented with a white mask like those used in theaters which happened to have two curved sinister eyes and a creepy smile drawn across it.
He also had a top hat over his head as well too and sported while plastic gloves on his hands.
Overall he gave off a commanding and authoritarian feeling to anyone facing his presence.
"Styx. I got new orders from the top. Your turn to shine has finally come, it'd seem. Dullahan's been exposed this evening but it doesn't matter: the desired effect has been laid and society will have a hard time shaking off the trail of death left behind by him."
"I am honored, sir."
"Good. All these months of preparation of both body and mind have been worth it: you'll jump into action in less than 7 days from now once the final details are laid out by the very top. By the way! Has Dullahan tried to start another fight this week? I've been somewhat busy with other paperwork and I think I've been neglecting my vigilance. Ever since you became one of us you quickly upheld the command that no fighting over the past relations between you two should happen. But Dullahan gets picky from time to time. So?"
"No, sir. It'd seem Dullahan is slowly learning his place. Maybe now that he's not… eh… running the show… he'll realize he must behave because he won't have a good excuse at hand, sir." He ventured.
"Hum! Good argument, yes. Yet isn't it ironic?"
"Yes, sir. One would expect me to be the one to pick on fights and not Dullahan but it turned out to be the other way around, sir. Reality can be somewhat ironic, isn't that what you taught me, sir?"
"Correct. Well. Enough chatter. Have you had breakfast yet?"
"No, sir. I was working out on the gym.
"Why, on an empty stomach?"
"Eh… Well, sir… Since Holmes said it stimulated the brain…"
"The brain, yes… But doing exercise like that isn't a good idea."
"I apologize, then, sir… For abusing of my health."
"Well! No harm done, really. Go have some breakfast and then I've got a list of errands for you to run in the city. Don't forget your contacts and make sure to carry the documents."
"Roger, sir. With your leave, sir…"
"Go. Ah! Dullahan! I've been hearing you too close to this room and not in your room as of late. I'm on my late 40s but that doesn't mean I can't hear the hum of your armor! I hope you weren't eavesdropping!"
"No, Master, I was not." Dullahan's tall frame showed up on the doorway and made a saluting gesture which looked incomplete given how there was no head to begin with.
"Hum." "Baron" sounded suspicious.
"I shall return to my duties." He hurriedly announced.
He walked away at a slow pace and shut himself into a room while Styx headed down the corridor and took out a key from his jean's right pocket to unlock his small room: it had a bed, a desk with a Toshiba computer set atop it, one chair and a small bookcase with some books on it mostly about gymnastics and diets: Styx opened one of the desk's drawers and drew a wallet plus a small case for contacts which he left atop the desk before closing the drawer: he pocketed the wallet and exited his room by locking it once again.
"Well. Let's have something for breakfast, my fellow." He muttered to his own as he formed a cocky grin.
He entered a small dining room and headed for a coffee machine: he loaded it with coffee and then placed a cup before starting it up and apparently savoring the smell which came with it given the smile which was slowly drawn across his face.
"How was that motto again…? Oh yeah! Shake the shaking shaker of all shakers! Heh, heh, heh. Things are about to get interesting."
He chuckled aloud…
09:45 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Why, Raoul. Been a while."
"Yeah, Ijuuin… I'm troubled."
"That video, right?"
"Obviously…"
"What do you make of it, Thunder Man?"
"There's no doubt: that guy's the culprit. But it ain't a disguise and it ain't a Net Navi either."
"Heh! Aragoma Torakichi – sama 'ere will pulverize 'em and their off-season Halloween costumes! Right, King Man?"
"Victory will be seized in four moves!"
"Aragoma. I was wondering where you'd gone off to."
"To my uncle's, ya see! Been busy improving Net Chess and participating in tournaments… I missed all of those "Golden Star" dealings but since there barely was any battling then I'd gotten bored anyway."
"Hum. I was on my nation and I heard the tale from Barrel: I quickly realized this wasn't our stuff anymore."
"Yeah. I had to figure it out the hard way, sadly enough."
Enzan stepped into the hallway of the Net Police's Cyber CID HQ and found Ameroupe's Raoul there: he was leaning against a wall, crossing his arms and hanging his head down while closing his eyes: he apparently was meditating and Thunder Man EXE's hologram was projecting from his Link PET as well: Aragoma Torakichi and his Net Navi King Man EXE joined the conversation as he strolled in a cocky and over-confident manner: Enzan merely lifted his eyebrows.
"Yo~! Enzan. Been a while. What's up?" A cheery voice rang out from the entrance.
"Uncle Merton's puns are too much for you?" Another asked.
Enzan formed a smug smile and turned around to see Hikari Netto walking into the lobby while sporting a pair of jeans, a brown fur coat and his usual orange sneakers plus his bandana: he looked close to sixteen years old just as Enzan did and his height was well over the meter and sixty centimeters mark by now.
"Don't forget me! Hikari Saito joins the party!"
Hikari Saito could be one or two centimeters taller than Netto: his eyes' irises were green emerald and his brown hair was an antithesis to Netto's given how it was neatly combed to the millimeter: his face had a smoother look to it as well.
"Huh? Why. Hikari Netto… You had a brother and never introduced him to us?" Raoul opened his eyes and looked slightly surprised.
"Yeah. That ain't fair."
"Well! Saito – niisan has been ill for several years of a genetic heart disease and he had to stay home most of the time… He had to take on his studies and exams from there and go through about three surgeries before he was healed in the summer. I didn't bring him up because I didn't want him to get involved: it'd been bad for the heart." Netto defended with a slightly annoyed face.
"Like he says…" Saito shrugged.
"I can attest to that." Enzan told them.
"Ah. If you say so… No big deal. Anyway… I guess we're going to be summoned soon enough so maybe we should go up there to the meeting room to discuss the news." Raoul shook the topic off.
"Alright! Let's go." Saito grinned.
"Oi, Hikari! Wanna have a showdown?"
"Nope. I retired and I haven't picked up again. Try Enzan or Meijin – san instead." Netto replied.
"What? Retired? WHEN?"
"Jeez. Were you secluded in the mountains or WHAT? That was ever since summer of 2008! It's been over TWO YEARS by now and YOU HADN'T REALIZED IT?" Netto was annoyed by now.
"Yikes!"
"I agree with his point of view. One month or two can be excused but two years… You really haven't paid attention to anything going around here, really. I've known that for a long time." Raoul directed a bored glared at Torakichi.
"JEEZ! Now I'm to blame?" He moaned.
"Yes, you are."
"Che!"
The group headed for the hall's elevators and stepped into one: Enzan hit the 3rd floor button and the elevator climbed: Torakichi began to look at Saito's face and frowned.
"Say, ya… We hadn't met before?"
"No."
"I've got the feeling I've seen your face somewhere else." He muttered while sounding doubtful.
"Maybe you're mistaking the guy."
"Could be, yeah…" He shrugged.
PING!
"Here we are."
"Welcome! Sam Merton He Who Eats Your Dreams AKA Superintendent Oda says you're - HIRED!"
"Oh no."
"Catastrophe."
"Jeez. This is an ambush!"
"Heh, heh, heh!"
No sooner had the doors opened that Superintendent Oda greeted them with one of his own lame jokes: he started to laugh while the five of them grumbled and headed left and down the corridor to come into a meeting room having a round wooden table: Hikari Yuuichirou, Meijin and Obihiro were already sitting on their seats: the other six picked them too and Oda cleared his throat.
"Ahem, ahem. Well! Welcome to the meeting, fellow conspirers sponsored by Uncle Merton's favorite nephew."
"HUH?"
"Kidding, kidding."
"PLEASE BE SERIOUS, SIR!" They all snapped at him.
"Have a look at this fella and tell me what you think."
Oda drew a PET and turned on its holographic screen to display the video in which "Dullahan" had been giving orders to the safe-crackers: Raoul, Yuuichirou, Meijin, Obihiro and Enzan weren't surprised but Aragoma, Netto and Saito gasped and leant on forward.
"Dullahan. That this fella's name. Now, Meijin – chan over there had a theory on what is his trick street performer trick."
"Please…" Meijin groaned.
"Did ya say something, Mr. Anderson?"
"Ahem, ahem! My theory is this: Dullahan isn't a mere disguise because no disguised man could make that much force. And I don't think it to be a Net Navi either: Golden Star confirmed that all existing "Copy Roids" are accounted for and that there hadn't been any "Dimensional Areas" triggered by anyone else who wasn't them or the Science Labs. So I came up with an idea: it's a robot."
"A robot… I see." Enzan rubbed his chin.
"I'll also venture that I believe a Net Navi is controlling it."
"Why?" Netto asked.
"We've analyzed the voice harmonics. They match the frequency used by Net Navis when speaking through PET speakers although these speakers were 10 times more powerful. But the basic harmonics were unaltered to begin with and fall within the 300-3400 Hertz rang in which human voices fall into." Meijin exposed.
"Hum. So a Net Navi piloting a robot… Well. Net Navis sometimes pilot cars or other equipment so it isn't anything revolutionary. But I can see that a Net Navi would not mind piloting this robot: maybe they don't even know it's headless to begin with. That could explain why they wouldn't feel weird or odd to sound disembodied." Enzan ventured.
"That's a good idea too…" Yuuichirou admitted.
"Hum! We're all turning into Holmes disciples."
"WRONG, SIR!" They immediately snapped at him.
"Heh! The Synchro Octuplets!" Oda joked.
"WHA~T?" They all grumbled.
"All I have to do is to cast the net and then pull it to bring up the fish entangled within it: the shark and the silly bull-headed bludgeon. Heh, heh, heh!" Oda joked next.
A general round of grumbling rang out next.
"My. What mood. Should I tell you how I knew that culprit of hacking his way into our Cyber CID was hiding inside of the cleansing closet and tried to disguise as a member of the cleansing staff?"
"NO, SIR!"
"Or my adventures with Uncle Merton?"
"NO, SIR!"
"Or my adventures with Uncle Moriarty."
"NO, SIR!"
11:38 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Welcome, Joel Agoras and Victor. Been a while."
"Yes, Video Man, indeed."
"Needle Man's around?"
"Shah, shah, shah! Sure thing!"
A guy and his companion Navi were chatting with Video Man and Needle Man while standing in a large ship-like deck filled with small buildings and structures: there were two gigantic retractable covers colored in a dull metallic green color suspended over the deck and which looked like they could encompass and seal all of it if needed.
"Video Man, Golden Star's number one radio actor, has proclaimed the Universal Radio Actors' Day: January the 22nd! Getting serious… Or blog is rising in popularity! Our radio adaptations of Master Ibañez's works are a great success!" He laughed.
"Shah, shah, shah! Gimme Needle Man – sama some credit!"
"Of course, my fellow conspirer! It's thanks the efforts of us three that we've come this far." Video Man grinned.
"Shah, shah, shah! Oh yeah! I love pumping these hallucinogens into small fry Navis and have they run straight away thinking they're being chased by a non-existent dragon!"
"Excellent, gentlemen. I think I'll go meet with Mr. President right away to present my report… Joel Agoras has spoken."
Joel Agoras was a young man who appealed to be close to 20 years of age and having a height of about meter and eighty centimeters.
His hair's color was a bright brown one and it was rather messy and forming flocks there and there while a pair of reading glasses hid his eyes.
His choice of clothing happened to be a white shirt with a collar having four buttons on it plus a teal brown coat over it which was open in the middle: he also had grayish wool pants and simplistic brown shoes.
He even had the book The Sign of Four on his right hand and which had a marker to signal the spot he was at: by looking it at from above it was clear that he'd finished about half of the book.
"Victor, my fellow… Maybe we should start by commenting my opinions of these intriguing incidents?"
"By Moran! I'd rather do that, yeah."
"Uncle Moran is on our side, then."
Victor, the Net Navi, was as tall as his Operator and even surpassed by him by a whole five centimeters.
His helmet's surface was covered in a grid of brown tiles separated by black lines and columns: a bright yellowish jewel had been set on the center of the forehead: the ear-pads had his initial, the Alphabet "V" letter colored golden, drawn over them.
Blue transparent shades were installed over his eyes the irises of which were brown: his face had a smooth look to it and could even be considered attractive as seen from the sides.
His main body had that same pattern printed over it and his chest emblem's edge was colored red, green and blue in different percentages while the golden "V" was set against a white background.
His shoulders had eight-pointed stars drawn over them colored red, green and blue at random while his arms also had the grid pattern printed over their skin: the forearms were colored navy blue with dusty brown bands circling around their length.
The legs kept on using the grid pattern over it and the boots happened to have the Alphabet initials "RGB" with each letter printed on their corresponding color, set over them.
Overall he looked like a combination of the three basic colors and a brown grid: his expression denoted amusement.
"That tweed-coat pattern suits you, my fellow." Agoras joked and directed a welcoming smile at him.
"Elemental, my dear Joel – kun." He joked next.
"Ah. You came. The President awaits you two…"
"Oh. Ms. Secretary… It is an honor, ma'am."
"Surely, ma'am. Is everything alright?"
"… It is. You should get on the move."
"Roger, ma'am."
A woman who appealed to be on her 30s had appeared on the deck while walking with long strides.
Her face's shape looked nice but if one tried to look at it as a profile then it lost most of its charm.
She wore a black hat set to that it hid her gaze and she wore a black blouse plus a pair of jeans and rain boots: her hands were covered by gloves as well.
Something about her transmitted a feeling of authority and command as she spoke: everyone quickly saluted.
"We'll be going, our fellow conspirers. We'll be glad to hear to another of your plays soon enough." Agoras announced.
"We'll be looking forward to it."
"Count on us." Video Man proudly replied.
"Shah, shah, shah!"
Agoras and Victor headed further in until they spotted an opened blast door like those in ships and submarines to contain the water: this door had a small square in front of it and two basketball baskets set on the left and right sides plus the floor had been painted to recreate a basketball playing field: Agoras and Victor stepped through the open door into a small hall where a freight elevator's doors were located at: both guys stepped inside and Victor pressed the button labeled "2nd Deck" to start the descent.
"How many days has it been since our last visit?" Agoras distractedly asked him.
"29. Including winter break which we spent at your parents' cabin in NE Gunma…" Victor immediately replied.
"29! My word! I thought it'd been 15 at the most. The chemistry exams have kept me stressed to no end but I passed with noble marks. I deserved them after all my effort."
"Of course. Ah. Here we are."
The elevator pinged and both stepped out through the northern door and into a corridor leading straight into the cafeteria yet there were two doors placed opposite each other labeled "VICE PRESIDENT NOIR OFFICE" and "PRESIDENT HADES OFFICE" and each one having an adjacent code-inputting panel plus a built-in interphone.
"Our first stop."
Agoras pressed the button on the interphone and it buzzed: a man's voice rang out through it.
"Who is it?"
"Joel Agoras, sir."
"Oh! Agoras – kun! It's been TOO long, my young gentleman. Do come inside and let's have a nice debate… Is Mr. Victor there too?" A man eagerly replied.
"I am, sir."
"Excellent. Please wait a minute. There."
The door buzzed and Agoras pushed it open: both stepped into an office room containing a desk and visitor chairs plus a set of three metallic drawers to store files yet the only piece of non-practical furniture was a canvas hanging from the furthest wall and having an oil-based drawing of a four-mast windjammer sailing into the sunset.
"Welcome."
The man sitting on the chair behind the desk looked up from the laptop computer opened atop it.
He appealed to be around 26 years of age and as having a height of a meter and eighty-five centimeters: his hair was neatly combed and brownish in coloring: his eyes' irises were brown in coloring and he was clean shaven.
His clothes consisted on a black suit coupled with black tie and black quality pants: he looked like a typical businessman.
A gray trench coat was hanging from a perch set in the right wall near the door along with a brown hat having a black band around it.
"Have a seat."
"We are sorry to intrude, sir, during work-time…"
"Do not mind it… We've had some fresh developments. In your absence Suzuki – san proved to have caught on the most recent pattern by a pair of vault-breakers… And we got a substantial prize… This video record: we can now name the culprit of those inhuman murders as well as their appearance… Be ready, though…" He told them: his voice and face turned grave.
"We are ready, sir." Victor couldn't avoid making a gulp-like noise as if he was afraid of what they were going to see.
"Here it is."
The man, President Hades, displayed the famed video and both Agoras and Victor gasped in momentary horror upon seeing it: they soon recovered and made no comment until the video stopped: Agoras rubbed his chin.
"Have we figured out anything?"
"Our Net Police Cyber CID first-hand source told us Mr. Meijin's analysis led him to conclude this is a robot piloted by a Net Navi like sometimes bulldozers and trains are driven by both human and Net Navi pilots at the same time." He told them.
"I see. Dullahan…"
"We figured out the origin of the name and the reason for its dramatic appearance too… Dullahan is an Irish mythological character often depicted as a headless haunted knight. Yet this one's concrete size, coloring and other details are not mere coincidence. The design was extracted from a game known as Golden Sun: The Lost Age and another named Golden Sun: Pitch-black Dawn."
"Golden Sun? I'd heard of them." Victor admitted.
"This "Dullahan" character is the most powerful of both games' hidden bosses guarding access to the most powerful "Summon Sequence" in the game using the Sun's power… Iris. His only words before challenging the player's party are… "I am the one guarding the "Light". If you wish the Sun's power then show me your power." … He is a terrific "Hidden Boss" which can easily smash any party, be it ill-prepared or properly prepared and defeating it is no easy thing to do…"
"Hum. So it was picked because it's a strong enemy which knows no rival and ranks above all enemies…" Agoras guessed.
"And we've found out something else… He has access to some new-model "Dimensional Converters" allowing for him to move around easily and largely undetected…"
"Then he isn't alone. Building those mustn't be easy or cheap even if you had the schematics." Victor muttered.
"It isn't." He quickly confirmed with a sigh.
"Someone is pulling the strings behind him… Some kind of commander or superior… But without any more information… They could be anywhere in the world for all we know and the "DC" can give them unlimited range as long as they find a big enough room…"
"In short: we're not sure what to do next."
"Yeah. That's the bad part." Victor sighed.
"Is there nothing we can do?" Agoras asked.
"No except hoping for some developments… I now feel like that Sweddish mystery writer, Henning Mankell's, character, Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad Police… Sometimes even the police can't proceed with the current data and have to hope something will end up happening which would allow them to get their hands on some new data…" He admitted with a sigh and leant backwards on the chair.
"Are you alright, sir? You look tired." Victor looked concerned.
"This financial crisis. It's been a throwback for the insurance company I'm working with part-time… Luckily I still have some salesman instincts left on me to turn up new clients with offers which have had to adapt to the current financial times…" He admitted.
"You should not force yourself, sir… After all… Today is a Sunday and even in Ameroupe it's Saturday…" Agoras suggested.
"Thank you, but I won't feel like it until I manage to close down this new contract… You may leave."
"Alright, sir… We are sorry we weren't of help."
"We robbed you of your time, sir…"
"No, no… As I said… We must hope something is picked by our System's filters and that it leads us on the right direction…"
"Good morning, sir."
"Don't force yourself, sir."
"Thank you, gentlemen."
Agoras and Victor came out and locked the door behind them while looking worried: they spotted "Ms. Secretary" standing at their right while leaning against the wall and crossing her arms: her gaze was lowered and she looked troubled too.
"He forces himself too much. It is not fair. We all know how capable he is: what point is there to it?" She muttered.
"Of course it isn't, ma'am, yet, duty…" Victor bowed.
"I know. One cannot claim of being responsible if they do not fulfill their assigned duty. Yet sometimes…"
She trailed off and sighed while finally heading down the corridor: both guys walked it down and soon spotted an armored door with the name "JOEL AGORAS & VICTOR" set on it: Agoras inputted a code and they stepped into a cabin having two beds, a closed porthole with curtains covering it, a desk and an adjacent bathroom: Victor picked a chair and sat down on it while looking depressed while Agoras opened the porthole and let some air come inside: he also picked a chair and sat down nearby while looking worried too.
"So… What do we do, Joel – kun?" Victor asked with obvious resignation in his voice.
"Wish I knew." Agoras absent-mindedly replied as he carefully slid his right hand's index finger down across the cover of the book.
"Even Holmes would have refused to do anything without having more data. I know he had contacts everywhere and his "Baker Street Irregulars" too but… We've got the most advanced filtering and classifying system in the world and it's taken us half a year to figure this out. Someone smart has quickly found a loophole around it and has pressured the underworld to act like that… Now the only data we pick are about foreign things or red-light district things… The foreign things are handled by their own nations or whoever is in charge of them but we can handle the red-light jerks…" Victor thought aloud.
"Not even a name… Dullahan: its mere form is a total rip-off. But he's had to find a way to build "Dimensional Converters"… He's got to have some money, he or his bosses. And brains to build it too. Maybe they sneaked into the Science Labs and made copies of the schematics we leant to them or the old original schematics drawn by Hikari Tadashi – hakase back in the 90s…" Agoras tried to sum up the whole affair.
"And the guy imposes fear and ensures control of the underworld by leaving a trail of deformed and crushed corpses…"
"Sounds like a horror movie, even."
"Heck: you'd need a Hellfire missile if you want to stand a chance against him but any missile exploding at close-quarters can easily kill you too."
"You'd need to lure him into the open and I'm not sure if even a tank could harm them."
"Don't be so pessimistic. The guy has to walk. If you want it to, the metal can't be very heavy. The heavier the more powerful engine you're gonna need and the more powerful the engine the more powerful power source you're gonna need and so on…" Victor argued back.
"True. It'd be stupid to build a robot and then find out it can only walk like 5 meters in 20 seconds. No. The thing must be agile and the armor must be a metal and carbons compound… I heard that some plans for such an armor designed by NASA to better fit heat shields which planet-dropping probes need were hacked back in June by someone…"
"And that someone applied them into that robot's armor: at least we have an approximate idea of the kind of armor. But they could've improved on it as well."
"Speculation! Vain speculation. Empty speculation. We can't keep on walking down this road. We need something solid." Agoras grumbled in obvious exasperation.
"Maybe Solid Snake can find it for us?" Victor sarcastically suggested while lifting his eyebrows.
"Humpf. How funny." He was now annoyed, for once.
"If only we had a footprint or some cloth piece…"
"A robot doesn't leave footprints on concrete ground even if it's tall and heavy: and even less if they just stand there for five minutes. This is not late 19th century or early 20th century King Land, Victor. This is Japan, the 21st century, and things work very different indeed."
"I knew that."
"Huff! Let devil bite me if the guy suddenly vanishes! I wouldn't be surprised!" Agoras fumed.
"Why?"
"Because he aims to make our frustration grow while he laughs at us from behind the iron curtain…" Agoras' hands convulsed as if he was wishing to seize something and not let go of it.
"The iron curtain fell along with Berlin's wall…"
"The veil of secrecy, then!" He improvised.
"My bad. I didn't want to pick on you but…"
"It doesn't matter. We can't start fighting like old rascals: we must keep Golden Star's reputation intact."
"Dullahan…! That bothersome jerk… Oh how I'd love to stand in front of him and bathe him in flames from the Hell's Burner Battle Chip while saying "You're fired"…!" Victor made a grimace.
"We need a change of airs." Agoras settled.
"Should I open the window?"
"Sure, why not? The room needs some fresh air. Five minutes won't be of any harm."
Victor opened the porthole and let the air blow in: Agoras opened the book and resumed reading so Victor shrugged and came out of the room: he spotted Burner Man, Needle Man and Video Man discussing something close by.
"…Really?" Burner Man was asking.
"Really!" Video Man grinned.
"Heh! As expected of Ibañez! He always makes something important turn out to be a joke!" Needle Man laughed.
"Looks like you're in a good mood, gentlemen."
"Hey, Victor. You look annoyed, man. What's up?" Burner Man asked.
"That Dullahan rascal…"
"Ah! Sure. Makes me feel annoyed too. But I vent it off by going over the totally absurd stuff. Like those MAD videos. Especially the Yu-Gi-Oh videos where they combine audio from different episodes to make a random crazy mix… There are so many memorable quotes… Like "I'm DEA~D!"… Which that Kaiba impostor yells at Duelist Kingdom…" Burner Man firstly grumbled but then got in a better mood.
"I see. Yeah. We mustn't let that rascal frustrate us."
"That's the spirit! Shah, shah, shah!"
"So? Any gags you can tell me?"
"Hmmm… Well. Turns out M&F became the first of their promotion… Because it was only the 2 of them! Despite their horrible test results! Ironic!" Video Man grinned.
"I see. Such as?"
"… "You've got 60 seconds to open that locked door."… "Watchman, watchman!"… Mr. Super tries to see how F would open the door but he merely claps and calls for the watchman! Shah, shah, shah!" Needle Man laughed.
"Instead of trying to use a lock pick, eh?" Victor grinned.
"Sure. It was custom in Spain that the watchman would open the buildings' front door at night so…" Burner Man added.
"Ah! So that's why. He was used to relying on the watchman."
"Another! "No, gentlemen! The message said "fly to the HQ" and not "blow the HQ!"… It's a Spanish pun because "volar" can mean to "fly" and "volar por los aires", "blow sky-high"… And they mistook "al", "to the" for "el", "the"…" Video Man told him.
"Really. So by reading just one letter wrong the message changed completely… They should pay more attention to the text!"
"So you see. You needn't worry 'bout those rascals. As long as we've got M&F here… They won't be able to bust our morale! Oh yeah! Burn!"