Chapter 4- Rising Tension
The first night staying with Noire wasn't exactly a fun one, when Noire said that she wanted them to earn their keep she totally meant it! From the moment they'd entered the front doors, they were worked like mules and didn't get a seconds rest, she made them clean every last square nanometer. Every part of it except her room of course… for whatever reason. Honestly Silas didn't see a reason a question it, everyone has something they don't want others to find out, he could respect her privacy is she had something that she wished to hide. What was Noire doing as Silas and Reaver slaved over making sure that everything was sparkly clean? Paperwork. Silas was actually amazed at how mountainous the insurmountable pile of paperwork on her desk was and wondered if she had someone who helped her with that. Though, if there was that much for her to do then probably not. Now it was seven thirty in the morning and Silas was all showered and dressed, it took him a bit of time to find his way around the winding halls, but he eventually found Noire still sitting at her desk polishing off the last bit of paperwork. "Damn… did you sleep at all last night?" He asked as he offered her a plate of French Toast that he'd made for her, he'd already had his in the kitchen that he swore was on the other side of the damn building.
"How could I sleep when there's so much to do…?" She said with a yawn while motioning for him to put it down on the desk. She gave a sigh of relief as she finished off the last piece of paperwork in one of the piles. "Finally…" On cue, she fell asleep immediately after uttering that word, the once daunting pile of paperwork lying next to desk completed… at least one of them was; there was still the aforementioned Olympus Mons of paperwork.
"Huh… she must've been really tired." He said as he opened a nearby window and checked the temperature outside. It was beautiful day with a cloudless sky… he wondered if Noire was going to sleep through it or if she was going to wake up in a few hours only to do more work.
"Morning… she asleep?" Reaver asked as he walked into the room with a small plate of breakfast food.
"Yeah, but she just fell asleep so try to keep it down…" Silas said quietly as he took a sip of the glass of water that he'd brought with him. He wondered if every day went like this for Noire, working night and day to complete piles of paperwork the size of redwood trees. If so, then he felt kind of sorry for her, responsibility as a CPU aside, he felt that she deserved a break.
Suddenly, the phone on her desk began to ring and Noire swiftly awoke to answer it. "Yes…?" She asked with an exhausted sigh, she finally got to sleep only to be awoken by what she assumed would be more work. How annoying… but this came with being a responsible CPU. Suddenly, she seemed to be snapped out of her exhausted stupor, her eyes wide and full of astonishment. "What the…? Why wasn't I informed of this when it actually happened? Somebody is fired!" She shot out of her seat as she spoke to the person on the other line. She went from dead tired to fired up in a matter of microseconds… something must've happened to piss her off. "They thought it was late… that's a bullshit excuse! I'm on my way, and tell whoever fed you that excuse that they're fired!"
"What happened?" Reaver asked as Noire shot to her feet. From comatose to bitch in three seconds flat, that's gotta be some kind of record!
"A mass murder… fifteen people dead. Whoever has the balls to kill my citizens is going to have them cut off! You two are coming with me, I don't trust you here alone." Noire said as she stormed out the Basilicom, her fists clenched so tight that she'd draw blood from her palm if she gripped any tighter.
"And if the killer is a girl or a transgender male?" Silas asked as he followed her out of the Basilicom, grabbing his Glaive just in case he needed it, if a maniacal killer was on the loose, then he figured that the best course of action right now was to arm himself just in case he met them.
"You're not funny…" Noire asked as she flashed Silas a quick glare before continuing to quickly walk down the street. The killing didn't occur too far from her Basilicom… whoever this killer was they were bold, she'd given them that. She was the kind of person who didn't tolerate any killings at all, let alone crime period. She had a very low crime rate in her nation because the punishments for the crimes were so horrid that putting them on here would cause to censor us! "Urgh, first I don't get any sleep and then this happens?"
"And whose fault is that?" Silas felt strangely comfortable and desensitized to the fact that fifteen people were dead. He wasn't sure why but… he didn't feel very affected by it, he was just concentrating on seeing how much he could push Noire's pretty little buttons.
"Silas… shut up…" Noire growled as she spotted the yellow tape of the crime scene. Silas wasn't helping her irritation and she knew that all she was doing was making him satisfied. 'Great, now I have a smartass under my roof…' She thought as an investigator spotted and approached her.
"Lady Black Heart! I'm glad you've arrived, as you may be able to tell, this isn't any ordinary murder scene, the victims seemed to have been killed by the very earth itself. Four of the victims seemed to have been armed with improvised weaponry so they probably tried to mug the wrong person but… I don't understand who could've done this." The detective was spot on when he said that it looked like the earth had killed them… blades of earth had impaled seven of the corpses while the others had masks of rock over their faces that had shallow scratches marking their surface… and how can we neglect that massive pillar of earth that was level with an adjacent building?
"I've met mages before, but this is some high-level stuff. Just look at those masks… whoever they are, they're clearly a skilled mage. I was told that there was one witness, what did you get from him?" Noire asked, trying to ignore the horrid stench of the corpses. She could understand why they were left there; such a bizarre crime scene must be looked over thoroughly before the bodies were moved. At least they were moving them now so she wouldn't have to smell the rotting flesh for much longer.
In the meantime, Silas and Reaver were shocked at the scene of the crime. When they arrived, they expected bullet wounds or maybe knife wounds, but this? Perhaps they weren't shocked as they feel they should be, but they were still amazed at the fact that it looked like a form of magick had slain all fifteen of these people. Hell, they were still trying to sift their brains for a logical possibility but they couldn't come up with anything that would make sense. Did the sidewalk turn into a brutal killer? The more they sifted through it in their minds, the less sense it made. "He told me that he saw a middle aged looking man clad in armour, dark hair with a bit of gray… that's all I've got. He's also got a good alibi, he'd just left a Night Club and the bouncers confirmed it, he wouldn't have the time to do this." The investigator said as one of the bodies was carted past him, the stench caused Noire to turn away.
"A guy in armour huh? Well that should be pretty easy to spot, any other sightings of him?" Noire asked as she waved away the oh-so-delicious smell of decaying bodies with her hand, her disgust evident by the look that decorated her face.
"No, but he definitely escaped to the roofs, these guys died around eleven at night so there's a chance that he's still up there, it's not like many buildings in this city give ready access to their roof… it's likely that he's trapped otherwise I'm pretty sure we'd hear reports of pillars of rock suddenly rising from the ground to help some guy in armour down off the top of a building. What are your orders?" The investigator asked as he looked up towards the roof of the building, as though looking for any signs of a guy in armour.
"Do you guys have any satellites in orbit? If so, why not use them to scan the rooftops and streets for his presence, if you did a good enough job in circulating his description then there's no way he'd try to take shelter inside a populated building…" Silas suggested as he helped himself past the yellow tape and into the crime scene. He sat down on a nearby bench causing the investigator to flash him an icy glare.
"And who do you think you are? I was talking to Lady Black Heart! Get out of here! This is a crime scene!" He said as he marched right towards Silas and directed a finger outside of the yellow tape.
"He's with me and so is his friend over there! Hmmmm… and his idea wasn't that bad, contact your precinct and tell them to use the satellites to find this guy. When you do, tell me where he is, I'll take him in personally…" Noire said as she cracked her knuckles. Though she put on the guise of someone ready to take the killer out, and to be fair she did want to be the one to take him in, her fatigue was evident and there was no way she could hide it. "And get me some coffee while you're at it… cream only."
The investigator nodded slowly and took out his phone while walking towards a coffee shop across the street. "Hey… are you alright? If you want to head back to the Basilicom and rest we can take him out when they report on his location…" Silas offered as he stood up and walked over towards Noire.
"No I'm fine! It's not like I needed more sleep, I'll be perfectly fine…" She said it, but her expression didn't match her words at all. "It's my responsibility as the CPU of this land to make sure that it's laws are properly carried out, making excuses about being tired will just make me look weak and I don't need that. Shares will plummet if my people don't think I'm strong!"
"It's not an excuse if you really are exhausted, and you are so don't try to deny it. Like Silas said, we can take this guy in once he's found…" Reaver said as he walked to Noire's other side and placed a hand on her shoulder only to have her slap it aside.
"Don't touch me…" She said as the investigator walked over with a cup of coffee in hand. "It's about time… I'm so thirsty." She snatched it away from him and took a long sip of the searing hot drink. It nearly cauterized her esophagus, but
"There was a long line, anyways I got in touch with the people back at the station and they are using the satellites to track him down as we speak." The investigator said as he took a small sip of the coffee he'd gotten for himself. "Are you sure you can trust these two though? They don't look like they're from around here and why are they carrying those weapons around?"
"Is that any of your business?" Noire asked as she wiped a bit of coffee of her chin before taking a smaller sip, feeling much more awake now that she had some caffeine in her. "If you have any better ideas then tell me."
The investigator sighed as the last body was placed in an ambulance. "I'm just saying that you should be more careful… anyways, I'm going to go make sure that none of the rookies are screwing around." He said as he walked over to where a few other Lastation police officers were.
Noire gave a sigh and a roll of her eyes before sitting down on a bench and looking around at the rest of the crime scene. "Looks like this is just going to turn into more paperwork that I'm going to have to fill out… and here I thought that I could take a couple of days off…"
"You can always take a break, isn't there anything you do for fun? Don't you like to hang out with the others? That's what you were doing yesterday." Reaver asked as he looked over at the earthen spikes that once propped up the dead bodies of a few Lastation citizens, now they were being carefully dismantled and taken in as evidence.
As though it were a joke, Noire let out a slight laugh and shook her head quickly before speaking. "Them? Two are slackers, one spends weeks on end playing MMO's, and the last ones technology is so outdated that cavemen were more advanced than her! I can't associate with them if I want to keep up my image…"
"Ha! You are a tsundere… You say that, but I think you secretly enjoy hanging out with them, I mean it can't be any worse than just sitting around doing paperwork all day now can it?" Silas asked as he sat down next to Noire and folded his hands back behind his head. What could be worse other than paperwork? It's like the paper equivalent of torture! Countless trees were slaughtered to make them. What she had been filling out were the remains of poor trees! Some young with their whole future ahead of them, others old and wise, but it didn't matter for they were all sacrificed to create the supreme evil that is paperwork.
"Who cares what you think?" Noire retorted simply as she folded her arms and crossed her legs, just waiting for any word on the killer… she was in the mood to cut someone up into tiny pieces, preferably the killer. Right now, she didn't want anyone to talk to her. Usually she was a tsundere, but when she angry her tsun levels just spiraled out of control
"Lady Black Heart! We have word on the killers location!" The investigator said as he ran over to where Noire was sitting.
"Well it's about time…" A smirk crossed the dark haired girls lips as she stood up and took on her HDD form. "Where is he so I can tear him to pieces?"
Me: Eh… I remembered this chapter being better. Oh well, I made a few edits and improvements so I guess it's a little better than it was. Still not that good…
Roadkill: Well let's wait and see what the readers think, ok? Wait hold on… you are not calling me Roadkill!
Everyone: -simultaneously points at Roadkill- Roadkill!
-it suddenly starts raining semi's down on Roadkill-
Roadkill: Wh-What the hell…? –runs to avoid them all-
Blanc: This is so stupid… can't we just get to the review already? I need to get back to Lowee so I can finish writing my fanfiction.
Silas: But it sucks! Have you guys even read the storyboard? It's just cliché after cliché after cliché… Hell, the villain is even worse than Exdeath! That's right! Worse than Exdeath!
Blanc: Argh… you little ass! –takes HDD- I'm gonna bash your brains in you smartass son of a bitch! Get the hell over here! –starts chasing a laughing Silas as the troll song plays in the background-
Me: That was a bit harsh… Anyways, onto the review! So everyone's favourite unicorn has left another review! Let me just say that bad things will happen, by bad I mean really bad! But I won't say what, I'd rather leave you all in suspense, waiting for horror to overtake your body, mind, and soul as you witness every last person you've grown to love drop dead before your very eyes!
Noire: Th-That's a bit morbid.
Me: Ah I was kidding! Still though, you're all going to have to wait and see what I have planned, I just hope you enjoy the story I'm weaving.
Roadkill: There's no way he'd- ah what the hell! –nearly got crushed by a falling panda-
Me: Alright everyone! I've come up with a little game for all of you readers to play as this story goes on! It's called… Spot The Reference! What is it? It's exactly what it says on the tin! Each chapter, I'd like you to identify as many references as you picked up, quote them, and say what we were referencing. At the end of Act I, me and The Co-Writer will tally the reference count. Whoever gets the most references, wins! What do you get from winning? We'll ship you a platter of cookies!
Roadkill: Wait, what? –barely gets out of the way of a falling Eiffel Tower?
Me: Ah they may go bad… hmmmm… Oh I know! I'll send you my own personal Noire dakimakura!
Noire: Y-You have one of those disgusting things?
Me: …I was kidding… Anyways! I'll leave you all here, keep reading, and keep being awesome! Also! Using outside sources for Spot The Reference will earn you negative two Reference Points! Play fair, and have good day/night! This is Fragarach97, and I bid you all farewell.