Shadow Fox 2013: I understand. XD We all know whose fault it is for not letting him use the Death Note. Maybe, in time, you'll learn to love AU Light. Come on, admit it. He's so adorbs! *cuddles that muse again as he gets annoyed and tells me to quit it*
Hint: I want to write in two extra characters from canon, and they are an obvious pairing. It's not the main pairing though! We'll see how they appear and what happens.
Lurking Phoenix: Mwahahahahaha, JUST AS PLANNED! :P It's nice to know one other person's feeling the emotion, and not just me! So much more to come and it's still nearing the end of Day 1 in the plot!
I already PM'd Fiare (AKA Kali) because I got all excited and enthusiastic about both her story and mine hahaha. I still would like to share the few very interesting things I mentioned to her for all of you to know!
1. Deputy Pallantine. I love this new OC. She sort of took me by surprise as I was writing the last chapter, in a good way! I can definitely assure you she's in this next chapter! I want to write a little more about her. I want to figure out her first name, and I wonder what she's thinking about right now... Her no-nonsense approach, her relentless characteristic to not just accept things without the other's conviction and concrete proof... Pallantine's attitude reminds me a bit of another character of a television show I used to watch a lot. Temperance Brennan from Bones. (Not as much anymore because I think I missed a couple of seasons when they were still airing, and I have to watch shows in order to stay interested in them.)
2. I think the meeting of L and Sim may happen in an interesting way I'd never expect. And yes, I think there will be suspicions or curiosity when it comes to what Sim knows on the L.A. BB Case. Definitely from Naomi. I think I really want her in this story. There's just no doubt that she will be in it! I think she would want to work alongside L again. This I can reveal without really giving out spoilers for this fic. I'll have to get Death Note: Another Note, soon. I'm more curious about it than I was before. I have a friend who works at this comics shop that also sells manga, so I could ask him to get this light novel and set it aside for me.
3. The titles. I don't know who else has really noticed and found this very interesting, apart from myself, but for each chapter that's in AU Light's POV, the title of it is one word. All the other chapter titles have more than one word. I noticed this probably sometime when I was doing chapter 5 or 6 that I had been doing it subconsciously. Now I want to keep it this way for as long as I possibly can! "Collide" is something I really like as a title for this entire story because it's provided as a double meaning. One is Sim quite literally surviving a head on collision from something that you all have yet to find out WAY later on. The other is that Sim is from our world and carries memories and knowledge—that collides into Death Note Earth.
I intend on getting this next chapter done before there comes a bit of slow time in updating. For the next upcoming week while I'm at home, I'd like to add more to my Kira-Light AMV. It's still about halfway finished, and I refuse to just forget about it. I still find it intense, and badass. I want to at least get past the part I know is going to be the hardest to do. There's this one little segment in which I plan to cram as many glimpses of chaos and cameos of Mello, Near, Mikami, Takada, Demegawa, and Matt! It's going to be a PAIN to do, in a way, because of Windows Movie Maker freezing up sometimes and I have to close it down and then open it back up! So annoying! I always make sure to click on Save a lot so I don't have to trim a big video clip down to the way I want it all over again... But the time and frustration will be worth it, I'm sure of it. I've managed to get it edited the way I wanted so far, after fussing and being picky lol.
Don't worry. I'll be working more on the story while I'm back at work, starting Wednesday! It'll just be a little slow going.
While I'm watching more of the anime and working on the AMV, you may say hey to me on AOL Instant Messenger, if you have it! I'll be on it tomorrow, and my SN is phspopular2002. We could chat and stuff. I won't mind spoiling you with the other DN AMV ideas I have, if you ask. ;) Just make sure you tell me who you are on fanfic dot net if you do IM me.
Chapter 10: Heartfelt
Deputy Lanelle Pallantine could see the very sad excuse for a man, Bill Hayes, being taken in past the reception desk she was seated behind. Officer Dan Palmer, she recognized from his young appearance, short dark hair, and athletic build was the one who had apprehended the man. She ignored the felon's hateful dark eyes and angry profane mutterings as she waited for Aizawa's superior to get on the phone. She'd have to ask Dan later about poor Marge. She really ought to consider on divorcing her husband now, or rather sooner after she took the first beating.
Hayes. A terrorist. When she had first talked with the officer of the NPA, in which was indeed a real police force in Japan she found out, she thought this was some kind of twisted joke at first. Terrorism, of course, was nothing to joke about, especially since that particular September Eleventh had taken place. Pallantine just knew this man, and what any of his kind were always like. She had been one of the few of the Maryland State Police out there to arrest him. People like Hayes were too ignorant and selfish to get involved into any organized crime. They wouldn't have the effort, or skill to be stealthy and unseen.
Terrorism. God, over here, in Calvert County? Pallantine was still having a hard time considering this possibility. This area has had a minor crime rate for years. She felt a sense of dread over the possibility of it sky rocketing to becoming as awful as it is in D.C. Pallantine had never been up there, but she was someone who watched the local news a lot. Some of the people that lived up there, seemingly very normal people, were seriously off their rockers.
To Pallantine, it was an importance to keep up to date on was reported crimes on TV or on the radio, so she would stay alert and focused on the job—especially during the days such as this when the original receptionists had sick days or had to take time off for other important reasons. Tracy Darlahan, a sweet and hard-working older woman in her late thirties, wasn't feeling well, and no one else was around to stand in for her today, so Pallantine had volunteered.
If Pallantine could prevent a worst case scenario before it could be noticeable to the public, then the community wouldn't have to hurt over this. A number of lives wouldn't be taken in the process.
There was so little time to dwell on things as she stood up and turned to the filing cabinets close together against the wall. The receiver attached to the phone had been left on its side. A lot of reports that were printed out were sorted and placed into the labeled drawers. The files for missing persons was in a center drawer.
She slid it open and quickly found the manila folder with the label on the tab. It read, "MA – ME" The last name of the woman who had been attacked had to be someone far more vicious than Hayes was Markham. She sat back down in the chair as she thought she heard a male voice calling out from the receiver, "Hello, Ms. Pallantine? Are you there?"
Could that be Chief Yagami? Pallantine brought it to her ear. "Yes, I'm here. I just got a file from Missing Person's. Is this Aizawa's superior and chief of the NPA?"
"Indeed it is. I understand you require a photo of Mari Markham. Do you not have an I.D. of her already? I'd assume she would have been reported missing by now."
This man sounded older than Aizawa, but just as dedicated to helping Ms. Markham reach out to a loved one. "I'm searching for one now as we speak. I don't recall anyone reporting someone by that name, but then again I was not present at the time," Pallantine explained to Yagami. "There are days when I'm out on patrol, and days when I take over for a receptionist."
She knew what he was going to ask her next, so she added, "And no, I have not heard anything about this while I was on patrol." As she skimmed through the names, she asked Yagami, "How recent was the attack and kidnapping, sir?"
"Today, over a few hours ago in the least."
"Aizawa had told me she is from Southern Maryland, but has not stated her address. Did she tell you anything, or were you just trying to contact someone for her?"
"We've been trying to call her parents and friends for the last hour. Our efforts have been unsuccessful so far."
This caused Pallantine to frown again. "That really is unusual. I remember Aizawa telling me in particular about a Jim Bolman that your son was trying to reach, but Hayes had answered. Did he tell you that I found no records of Hayes of being associated with him?"
"Yes, he did... Did you find any report for anyone missing from the Markham family? Or Jim Bolman?"
She sighed, and closed the folder before dropping it onto the desk. "I had just finished looking through to see if the woman you found had been reported missing. I don't see anyone by the last name of Markham, so I suppose no one had reported the Markhams to be missing... I'll see if I can find Bolman in missing person's."
"That was what I was going to suggest."
"I am simply most concerned that there may be organized crime, from what you and Aizawa suspect," Pallantine told him. "I am sorry to hear about your witness, and I am glad she trusts you to look after her. I'll leave the concerns about her to you, while I have mine on the entire community over here."
She truly felt a bit of sympathy towards this woman. The trauma she experienced must have been too much for her to bear—but someone had to consider the bigger picture. Someone had to notify her unit's superiors about this, and possibly get word of this to the FBI.
Pallantine knew someone, a good and honest man who worked as an agent of the FBI.
Yagami sounded a bit weary and stressed. "I fear it may be more complicated than that. This could be more of an international organization. This could relate to human trafficking. A small group of people may have gone missing, and our only witness has lost two month's worth of memories."
She swallowed. As this unsettled her, she immediately shoved her emotions aside and maintained her focus. "Complicated indeed, Chief Yagami." Everything the NPA chief was saying motivated her to remain active, and see to it that there won't be a repeat of anyone else missing. "Until Ms. Markham can remember what happened to her, I suggest we start a search for the people you can't reach, and see if there really is what you may think it is."
Pallantine leaned back in her chair. She would also have to consider what might have resulted in the NPA calling Bill Hayes by mistake. Aizawa's call was just something she couldn't just disregard.
"Agreed," Yagami replied. "I'll list all the contacts from Mari's phone for you, first. Then I'll ask her for a photo and I.D. to give you."
Light watched Mari remove the headphones' cord from one end of her red Verizon phone, before pressing one of the buttons below what had to be a touch screen.
The lock screen appeared, and showed a picture of some sort blue and green leaf patterns as she slid a finger across the screen to make that go away to reveal her current wallpaper. It looked like an illustration of an anime character she must have liked. Light wasn't sure which anime, but he could only assume she understood his country's customs, somewhat. He remembered when she started calling him Light-san.
The dark eyed and dark haired illustration of him in the dark coat had this solemn expression on the screen as she pressed the menu button on the lower right corner. As quickly as she could, she pressed a thumb to open up "Media Center" that showed a list of options. She selected "Picture and Video" that opened up another list. "My Videos" was what she selected next.
"Did you record these videos?" Light hoped he'd try and keep her mind from worrying about things if he could convince her to just talk about them. "What are they about?"
"They're tabletop gaming videos," she said, glancing to him. "Tabletop being another term for board games... I took a few of my mom and myself playing this card deck building game. The one video with my dad in it was when I was playing this other card game with some friends... I intended to upload these online to show some friends."
He nodded and attempted to encourage her, to engage more into a more normal, casual conversation. If anything, Light knew they both needed some normalcy in the middle of all this craziness. "Your family and friends are very into board games, then? It's been forever since I played any."
Mari wasn't showing much emotion, but at least she was much more calmer than she had ever been. That was something. "Some of my friends, and it's just Mom and me in the family that are... Dad doesn't really play, since he can't see very well."
"Oh, that's right..." That must be so hard for him to deal with, Light kept to himself. No, he didn't want to cause her to feel sad. It was important to help them stay on the task at hand.
"It's fine... Well, I'll show you the second one of which is of Mom and me playing the deck builder, called Ascension."
The tiny images and numbers next to them on the screen had to be the videos themselves. "All right. Let's see it."
Mari nodded, and lightly pressed on one of the images before rotating the phone sideways. "Perhaps I'll be introducing some of the games I play to you, later on."
Light looked up to see one corner of her mouth to upturn into a partial grin. "Okay, sure. I'll look forward to it," he replied, and then looked back at the screen, leaning in to see Mari's hand turning this plastic bag of what looked like gems upside down. Altogether, they spilled out into a pile on what a light brown game board. Cards with different illustrations were also on it, arranged into these different stacks to the side farthest from where Mari was holding the phone, in camcorder mode.
"These represent honor," Mari said in the video, narrating. "Victory points." He saw her picking up a small clear gem piece on the screen. "This is one." She put it down, and then pointed to one of the bigger red gems in the pile. "And these are five honor each." From there, he heard her narrate about a row of cards of what was told as the center row. There were another pair of hands setting that up; her mother's, right?
Mari in the video slowly moved the camera. Her mother's face was off to the far left, and Light could definitely tell it was her. They looked alike in facial features, but her hair was darker, and she looked a bit older than Mari. "Your mom's name is Linda, right?" In Mari's phone contacts, one of them was listed as Linda Markham.
"Yeah."
"I see she wears glasses." Is her vision going bad too?
"She only needs them for reading small print," Mari said to him. "The printed text on all the cards, for example."
They listened to more of the video. Light heard Mari in it explain about the card arrangement. The piles to the far side were the "always available" piles. The one known as the cultist card, that represented one of the enemies to battle in this game, for instance always stayed where it was. Each time the cultist was defeated, he would stay right where he was as the player who defeated him would get one of those little clear gems. In the center row, there were monsters to defeat. There were also hero cards or weapon cards to purchase, but with what?
"How do you purchase the heroes and weapons?" Light asked. He was only curious, for this Ascension game looked a little interesting. It wasn't like the kinds of card games two friends of his from school played; that Poke'mon trading game, or just regular poker. Or rummy.
Soon, she pressed on the screen to go back to the menus. "We could always watch the rest of this later... You get heroes and the constructs with rune cards. The mystic and apprentice cards are the most basic ones. Runes are the game's currency."
"Not the honor gems?"
"No. Those are just victory points."
"Oh, okay." He looked up from the phone to her. "So...what's the object of the game, Mari-san? Is this like a trading card game?"
Mari looked to him, raising a brow in interest. "You're into those?"
"No, but I know people at school who are into Poke'mon cards."
"Ah... A long time ago I was too, but that was just a passing fad. I lost interest after some months later, after I first started collecting some of the cards." She slightly grinned to herself in amusement. "Anyways... Ascension is just a deck builder game. There's different base versions, and there are some expansions too. All cards stay with everything that comes in the boxes, and the way to win is to be the first with the most honor gems. Like, with just two people, you play until someone gets up to sixty honor."
Light nodded, believing he understood somewhat. "With more than two, it's less than that."
"Yeah," Mari said. "It's not hard to learn. The cards themselves, some of them, are a bit complicated, but after maybe one or two whole games you'd get the swing of it... Light-san?"
He could see a little uncertainty in her blue eyes. "Yeah?"
"...Are we friends now? I mean-could we be friends?" She shrugged, trying to feign like it was no big deal, when they both knew that was not true. "I'm just wondering." She sighed. "I wouldn't mind being friends with you and Mr. Yagami, and Mr. Aizawa too."
This made him pause and consider a moment. Who was Mari to him? Surely, she was just a nice young woman who grew up in a background almost similar to his own; a loving family, a peaceful neighborhood... The case around her was definitely messed up, and he of course didn't like to see her suffering. As he felt so sorry for her, he was also very intrigued by what a challenge this case was going to be. He was also curious about this L, this detective she said she read articles about.
Right after that, he thought about it through her perspective. Without me, Dad, and Aizawa, she would be alone. She's so far away from her friends and family... Yeah, he knew she needed people to support her, and watch out for her.
He didn't have to give it much thought. This made a lot of sense to him-and he already promised he'd help her. No way, he couldn't just go back on his word.
"I don't see any reason why we couldn't be," Light told her, smiling a bit. "You're a good person, Mari-san. You care deeply about people. That's a quality I like about you. You're considerate of others." There was something else he felt. "I also feel like I can relate with you on some level. I understand all you're going through, too. Dad, Aizawa, and me-we're all going to do all we can to help you. You know that."
"Great. That's something I could definitely live with," she said. There were the beginnings of a real smile, as she looked grateful to him. "Thank you. I can't ever thank you enough-Light-kun." Her expression then changed from eternally grateful to mild amusement. Was that a hint of mischief in her voice? "Yaaay, new friends."
He nodded, his smile an earnest one. "See? It's not so bad now. It's nice to see you're feeling better."
"Yeah, things are looking up a little..." She looked fairly relaxed and content, but then she blinked in realization. "Oh right. I think I'm supposed to show you the video with my dad in it."
"Yeah, I know," replied Light, cooly. He was remembering some small talk they had from a while ago. "But you needed a distraction first."
Mari stared at him and blinked for a split second before snickering. "Oh, that's right. Thanks for that." She giggled. "Cleverrrr, and for a second there I thought you meant that in a naughty way."
Now she was making him stare. He couldn't believe she just said that. "No, no. I'm not that kind of guy."
She laughed and said, "I know! I don't believe you would be. I was only messin' with ya a little."
Light was looking a little peeved, and was about to retort something possibly sardonic when the door opened. His father had come in. Light closed his mouth, and became attentive toward him.
Dad rose a curious brow to the goofy grin on Mari's face before it vanished, as if to ask what was going on, but he didn't. Instead, he asked, "Mari, I hope you don't mind, but I need a photo of you, or some I.D. of yours. There's a Maryland police deputy on the phone who's asking for it."
As Chief Yagami was doing his part, Pallantine started doing hers in pulling out more manila folders from the missing person's drawer. Once Yagami would return, she would tell him about the FBI agent she knew; Raye Penber. If she wasn't able to find a single report on these missing people from Mari Markham's contacts, then she would offer to contact him.