Bubble Gum HYTE (Fan-fic)
Source: Bubble Gum Crisis/Crash
Author: LV426
Chapter 3: Accusations
Linna waited as calmly as she could for the interrogations of her friends to finish up. Priss was, of course, going to be there for a while. She was the last one with Reika while she was alive... and from the yelling by both involved, was obviously not in a cooperative mode.
Nene also had not returned yet, though there was much less commotion coming from that room. "Guess it's just that she is a cop, so she might have caught more of it," Linna thought to herself. With a sigh, her mind began to wander on tonight, as she wondered what she could have done, but did not. She couldn't fight this path of thought, even as her rational mind rejected it.
A hand on her shoulder startled her back into this world as she looked up into the concerned face of Nene. "You ready to go, Linna?" she asked, with as much concern in her voice as was in her expression. That concern did not lift with Linna's once again downtrodden face nodding.
Linna got up and slowly walked to the front door, Nene right beside her, and even opening the car door for her. It hadn't even occurred to her to wonder who would take care of her car... all she thought about was trying to keep her mind as blank as she could.
The drive home wasn't much better either... the longest drive Nene had ever been on... and by far way too quiet. She glanced at Linna from time to time, who remained seated and pretty much looking ahead, the worry for her friend never leaving her. "Poor Linna," she thought to herself, "This is the second time she has watched a close friend die right in front of her." With a sigh, she looked at the clock, then back to Linna, half wanting to say something, half afraid to.
For her part, the looking ahead was the last thing on Linna's mind.... That had returned to previous lines of thought. She just kept going over this in her mind. "even worse than when Irene was killed..." And with that, she was back on the street that fateful night, looking down at the dead corpse of her friend Irene Chang... the assassin boomer who had done this, already gone by the time she got there. Of course she could do nothing then... she cant possibly be in too places at once. But now she had failed Reika too, and Irene a second time... she couldn't protect her sister... This final note finished her off as she curled up in the seat of the car... and began to cry.
Nene looked to Linna, shaken to see her friend, who usually was so strong, curled up like that... but still not having a clue what to say, just drove on... till she finally got Linna home.
* * *
Priss got on her bike with a huff, more than pissed off at the interrogator she was dealing with. "Who does he think he is?" she asked herself under her breath. "I sure as HELL didn't do it, and I don't have a fucking clue who did!" She revved the bike. "Damn cops... they are all so fucking useless!" With a roar, she was on the road, blasting at top speed on her bike, as if to outrun her anger.
However, it wasn't home that she went first. Her first stop was far more personal. Even after the whole place was leveled, the site of her old trailer was still a place she would go from time to time... when she needed to be by herself. She arrived there very soon, and stopped the engine of her bike and parked it. She then walked toward the now roped off pile of rubble that was the entire zone of the city. "Funny, they never did make this place into anything, did they?" Priss said to herself with a lot of sarcasm. A few years ago, this pile of rubble was several buildings where her few friends she had lived, and she herself lived right in the thick of it... her trailer where she had lived quite comfortably at the time was also destroyed in that move.
With a sigh, Priss thought back on her past. Yes, those were much better times than tonight, but its further back than that, that is was on Priss' mind that night. Before the idea of Knight Sabers existed... before Sylia changed her life...
Priss was out at the Hot Legs, as normally was the case for her, singing for the place. As usual, her style, lyrics, and general sound was well taken by the crowd, but it was still a small crowd... something that would always come back to remind her how much more she was capable of.
"Save it," she told herself as she took a second between songs. "Your time will come. And when it does, you can take him away from all this." A smile came to her face as she thought about it... not something that she was well known for. She hasn't been the happiest of teens... not since her days in the orphanage. However, she seemed to notice the crowd saw it, and quickly turned it to a 'I'm good' smirk, looking out at them like she knew exactly what to expect... and she did. The roar from even this small band listening was formidable. "Ah yes... things certainly have gotten better, haven't they?" she finished to herself.
"ALRIGHT! THANK YOU! But you may want to calm a moment..." she looked around the room... "Where is he?" she thought to herself, but continued to play to the crowd. "...because the next song isn't quite as rough as you would expect out of us. In fact, there is someone in the crowd now you can thank for that..." The drums started beating to a much slower beat as she continued. " enjoy this little twist change of pace..." and without another thought she began to sing.
A bit after the song, the show ended... and Priss began to help the band pick up... but her 'companion' never made it to help as well. "That's odd... if he was here, he would be HERE by now," she thought... now a bit worried about it all. Still, she had to help here, and besides, she couldn't know where to even begin to look for him...
At least till another member of her bike gang came bursting through the door. "PRISS! Oh where are you..." the girl dressed in blood red with bright green spiked hair saw Priss and ran head first to her. "PRISS!!! Oh there you are thank god!"
"Calm down, Shaike... your freaking me out." Priss replied with a nervous smile. Her friend was a welcome sight, as the two had been through hell together.
"Well I'm afraid what I have to say wont help much. Priss... its Tranx."
Now Priss paid full attention. Tranx was the leader of their biker gang... and the one she was waiting for. "What's wrong?"
Shaike took about 30 seconds to say anything, which only pushed Priss to panic herself... "He was shot... just now... on his..." she didn't get any farther before Priss had her by the lapels of her black leather jacket.
"Don't even joke like that..." the glare in Priss' eyes says it all. There are few places you can really hit her and hurt her, but that was it.
"I'm not joking..." a scared Shaike replied quietly. She had seen Priss get downright brutal for the wrong word at the wrong time before to others of the gang. But having also come from that orphanage, she NEVER thought Priss would do this to her... much less when she was dead serious.
It was only that fear that made Priss realize she was serious... before she felt the wetness of the jacket on her hands... blood? "Oh my god... this just..." she thought, and silenced the thought a moment. "Where is he..." she managed to stammer... shaking in anger, pain, and generally just being upset.
Shaike with a calmness unbecoming of her... but a strength she knew she had to show for her friend's sake, took Priss' hand. "Follow me."
They were there in a few minutes... the scene leaving Priss completely numb with shock. Here was the man she adored, this Tranx, who was probably the strongest if not craziest man she ever knew, laying on the ground... well, the upper half of him, anyway... well not even that is really true. More like from the nose down through the ribcage. The rest was beyond recognition... turned into pulp as the blood oozed out...
That was the last night she ever sang that song... the song he was meant to hear, but never got to the show to hear it.
...Once again, a turning point on stage has brought death to her door, and blood on her hands in the most literal sense of it. Even as her mind went back on the night she has always tried to forget happened, and was never fully able to do it... that song came back to mind all the stronger with tonight's events. The pain it carried for her tonight being just as strong as so many years ago. Priss looked at the wreckage that Genom had left of her whole neighborhood during those days, cursing them, and herself, for letting someone else die on her night on stage once more, but no words came out. All that did, was that tune in her humming... and a tear that no one would see in the darkness of the midnight hour.
* * *
"WHAT?!?!?" Leon screamed at the chief of the AD Police chief as he slammed a fist down on the man's desk. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN NO ONE SAW HIM?!?!? HE WAS PRACTICALLY WAVING THE DAMN GUN IN FRONT OF THEM SCREAMING 'I DID IT! I DID IT' FOR HOW DAMN OBVIOUS HE WAS!"
The chief however, was much calmer, only clearing his thought in the face of Leon's anger as he straightened his tie. "According to your report. However, you and Daley are the only two to have seen him at all. The young lady who played along with her said something about a man in a trenchcoat, but she didn't get a view of him we can use. So that leaves us with only your reports... and you both said his face couldn't really be seen."
"And NO ONE ELSE SAW HIM AT ALL?!?!?" Leon fumed, too pissed off to notice he had basically said Priss had seen him until about 5 seconds later. "Wait a sec... Priss saw him?" he asked, as if to confirm this might prove him sane.
"So you know her? Guess that takes care of that..."
Leon wanted any excuse to punch the guy, and his beat red hue probably gave that away quite nicely. "Come on, Daley! Unlike SOME people here, we actually have someone to try to find."
"Actually, we already have a suspect in mind." The chief said to this, still so calm it was maddening.
"But you just said no one saw him," Daley prodded... kinda confused.
"Yes I did."
"Then who do you..." a sinking feeling stopped Daley dead in his tracks.
"I think you know already." The quiet smile on the chief's face said enough.
Leon just couldn't take this. Here they were, the only ones who even came close to seeing this man's face, and they were suddenly suspected of pulling the trigger? "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!?!?" he blared, getting people outside the office to look.
"To the best of anyone's knowledge, you and your partner were the only ones armed in the whole stadium. We considered the slim chance that your story was true despite being surrounded by a crowd and no one saw the man you claim to have tried to take in... uh, how did he get away again?" It was obvious the chief was enjoying this. Leon being how he is, naturally clashed with the man and his goals, so to get Leon like this was a great thrill to him.
Leon only growled at him, at the moment powerless about any of this. He knew even as he made his report that was going to sound crazy, but he decided the truth had to be there. "Yeah... great day to go insane and report something like that to someone like this, Leon," he thought to himself.
"Ah that's right. He vanished," the Chief snapped his fingers melodramatically, "just like that. Really Leon. You should have known that wouldn't fly. However, we couldn't ignore the testimony that the singer... Ms Asigiri gave us about a man who somewhat seemed to be the same guy as you saw... at least till now... she is your friend and could well be covering for you."
The silence and pure anger on Leon's face was more than amusing to the chief. "Do you have something to say, Leon?" his smugness was too much for Leon, who was barely keeping himself from pounding the chief through the wall. The chief only continues now all the more pleased and completely oblivious (or uncaring) how close he was to dying at Leon's hand. "I didn't think you would." He stretched out and leaned back on his chair, "and on that note, you are being suspended, Leon. I wouldn't leave town if I were you." He grinned to himself as Leon got up, furious and doing his best to control it, "I hope it works out for the best."
SLAM! Everyone looked up to see Daley a little ahead of Leon, who probably almost took the door off it's hinge. His face was beat red and the perfect counterpart to the sad, downlooking expression on Daley's face. "CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT PIECE OF CHICKEN SHIT?!?!?"
Leon fumed more than loud enough for the entire department to hear him. Daley acted quickly, knowing that someone had to. "Why don't we get out of here and go chill off somewhere... this wont help us much," he said kinda quiet. He barely even looked up... concerned for his partner more than for himself. The guns wouldn't match, they were safe, but in this mood, Leon might do something to get himself in trouble in the meantime.
Nene looked up quietly at the two of them, concerned, and still saddened by the previous night. What the hell happened? That was supposed to be the ultimate night for all of them. Priss would finally be recognized on a large scale, Leon would get to see this moment (something he did want, though no one would expect him to say it, due to Priss' reaction), and she and Linna would be there to share the moment. Instead, it became a blood bath and chaos. Nene sighed, "Why does something always have to occur?" she asked herself rather moodily. Her friend almost tapped her shoulder to ask what was wrong, but knew of the night's events... and that Nene was practically front row to it. Not having anything to really say, she decided to leave Nene alone.
Leon, meanwhile sighed and took Daley's advice. For now, he best just get as far away from the chief as he can before he just punches his face in. Grabbing his jacket, he went to join Daley in the lobby. "What else have I to do anyway? Well now, anyway?" he thought to himself still pissed off, but at the same time, glad to get away from someone who was quickly becoming the biggest pain in his ass there could be... well almost.
"Whoa there... where you going, bud?" Leon cringed. That voice was a rather new one to hear within the office, but one Leon already was learning to regret. He turned to face the newest recruit to the department... a K-Suit operator from the US. The man was streached out against his chair, almost knocking it over, his feet on his desk, black and off white due to dirt sneakers leaving scuff marks already, while his deep green jacket hung off the seat where it flapped off him and it. He looked up at Leon, an amused/curious look on his face. Yep, this is gonna be one of those people to avoid at all costs. "You cant leave without giving me some details... that just wouldn't be fair."
"Leave me alone, Jake. Better for all of us that way," Leon returned with a slight glare. He didn't want to get suspended and get into a fist fight immediately afterward.
Jake leaned up and looked at Leon... the expression was enough to get him to be quiet for now... something that Leon was very thankful for as he left the station, Daley in tow. Jake watched them leave. "What's his problem?" he thought to himself, "Maybe he is a little nuts after all."
* * *
Priss returned to the apartment late that morning, having chosen to try to face her pain on her own. Not something uncommon for her, but she didn't return in much better condition then she left the stadium in. She opened the door to see the apartment almost exactly as she had left it when she went out that night, maybe a little messier from Linna's rush to get to the show, but not too much. "Odd..." she thought to herself, "I would have thought Linna would have cleaned up last night..." But then she had to remind herself... Reika was a friend to her... far more so than most, as the death of Irene had driven them both. "Guess she also took this roughly..." Priss found herself saying quietly to herself, a bit of a shocker to her. Here she was supposed to be the one who didn't give a shit, and she was worried for Linna. She would have smirked at the irony if she didn't feel like nothing could be funny right now.
Stepping in, she found Linna rather quickly, asleep on the couch, still dressed up for the night. Priss couldn't help but feel sorry for her, especially as she saw how much this hurt Linna... by the tear trails on her face. The thought did occur to her to wake her, as Linna was due to go to work today, but then again, Priss figured they would understand if she took a day to herself after last night.
With a sigh, Priss picked up the phone and dialed up the office Linna was working at and let them know...
"Hello, this is Currency Inc. How may we help you?" a voice on the other end answered. Priss was in no mood to depict the mood off hand yet.
"Yes... I need to speak to the manager of a Miss Linna Yamazaki?" Priss was slightly bothered by how unsure she sounded in her own ears.
"Uh... sure, hang on one second please." Then the hold music kicked in... something done several decades ago, but sounding kinda nice anyway...
"Nice to see someone thinks about that these days," Priss thought to herself with weak smirk. It at least was a slight lightener to the day.
After a few moments, a man's voice kicked in. "Hello, this is Mr. Newman. Who is this?" he sounded annoyed and intrigued at the same time.
"This is Priss Asigiri... a friend of..."
"The singer who was with Vision last night?" he sounded stunned, "Man.. I'm so sorry about what happened," he kinda stammered, as if he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Yeah... that's me..." Priss added, obviously it wasn't happiness in her voice. "But... I was calling about that for Linna...."
"Oh... what's wrong?" his voice never lost that 'oh shit it's her' sound to it.
"She... wont make it into work today... Vision was a good friend of hers, and she is really in no shape to go about work yet."
"....I... I see.... Well I understand... thank you for calling... miss." His voice was now solemn... guess Linna did show him what she could do.
"Well I couldn't leave her off and have her have no job come tomorrow..."
"Again... I understand. Thank you so much... and have a good day, Miss Asigiri." *click*
No one seemed angry, so that was a good sign. "Besides," she thought to herself, "it really is best to let her sleep... she needs the time... after that." Priss sighed... knowing she could probably use it too, but unlike Linna, she couldn't see herself take advantage of it. Not that Linna was doing much better, as a shutter in her breath, even now, showed to Priss just how hurt her friend really was.
With a sigh, Priss went to the balcony and stretched a moment, then for lack of anything else to do, she pulled a chair in front of the TV and with the volume low, hit the power on the remote. "Might as well..." she told herself. She had no intentions of going anywhere that day and began to methodically flip through channels, not caring too much what was on any one, and not enough to stop...
...at least not till she got to a news broadcast... she would have just turned the TV off when she saw the icon in the corner stating "Big Egg killing," but the words "one suspect" caught her attention...
The newscaster went on... "one suspect has been called into question so far. The man, who goes by Leon McNichol, is an AD Police officer. In so far, the AD Police have made no comments involving this, but it is reported he has been put on sus...." With a loud thud to the ground, Priss kicked the TV over, startling the till then sleeping Linna awake with the sound of impact and the static as the TV went nuts.
"They are blaming LEON for this? WHY THOSE MISURABLE..." by now, Priss was literally too pissed off to even say anything. If there is anyone she blamed for this, it was herself for not being fast enough to protect Reika. Now the ONLY AD Police officer (with the exception of Nene, of course) worth ANYTHING is the one they blamed?
Linna, for her part, kept quiet as she watched Priss fuming. She had an idea why... her sleep wasn't deep enough to block the TV, but she had no idea what to say. For once, between her own pain and her friend's anger, she was completely helpless in such things...
* * *
Outside the Big Egg Stadium, investigators moved about still looking through the scene for whatever might have been missed. For the moment, no one was about to say anything about who did what. There simply wasn't much to go by. The bullets had been extracted from Vision's body, or rather, the pieces of them. They were designed to fragment shortly after impact, and that will make it that much harder for them to be traced. Not one of them knew that Leon had been suspended, or that an official statement had been made as of yet. However, one of them did know a little more than the others.
After commenting on needing some rest, he stretched and went to his car. He opened the door, got in, and drove off, his trenchcoat now slightly damp with the moisture of the morning, making it look slightly darker than normal. He sighed as he put his shades on and put the car into reverse and pulled out. It wasn't long before he was heading down the road.
Without a word or so much as a sound, he clicked on his car-phone and dialed a few numbers... after waiting a moment, he spoke. "Mission accomplished. Returning to the lab," and he hung up, his pistol sitting in the passenger seat beside him, exactly two rounds spent in the clip right next to it.
Source: Bubble Gum Crisis/Crash
Author: LV426
Chapter 3: Accusations
Linna waited as calmly as she could for the interrogations of her friends to finish up. Priss was, of course, going to be there for a while. She was the last one with Reika while she was alive... and from the yelling by both involved, was obviously not in a cooperative mode.
Nene also had not returned yet, though there was much less commotion coming from that room. "Guess it's just that she is a cop, so she might have caught more of it," Linna thought to herself. With a sigh, her mind began to wander on tonight, as she wondered what she could have done, but did not. She couldn't fight this path of thought, even as her rational mind rejected it.
A hand on her shoulder startled her back into this world as she looked up into the concerned face of Nene. "You ready to go, Linna?" she asked, with as much concern in her voice as was in her expression. That concern did not lift with Linna's once again downtrodden face nodding.
Linna got up and slowly walked to the front door, Nene right beside her, and even opening the car door for her. It hadn't even occurred to her to wonder who would take care of her car... all she thought about was trying to keep her mind as blank as she could.
The drive home wasn't much better either... the longest drive Nene had ever been on... and by far way too quiet. She glanced at Linna from time to time, who remained seated and pretty much looking ahead, the worry for her friend never leaving her. "Poor Linna," she thought to herself, "This is the second time she has watched a close friend die right in front of her." With a sigh, she looked at the clock, then back to Linna, half wanting to say something, half afraid to.
For her part, the looking ahead was the last thing on Linna's mind.... That had returned to previous lines of thought. She just kept going over this in her mind. "even worse than when Irene was killed..." And with that, she was back on the street that fateful night, looking down at the dead corpse of her friend Irene Chang... the assassin boomer who had done this, already gone by the time she got there. Of course she could do nothing then... she cant possibly be in too places at once. But now she had failed Reika too, and Irene a second time... she couldn't protect her sister... This final note finished her off as she curled up in the seat of the car... and began to cry.
Nene looked to Linna, shaken to see her friend, who usually was so strong, curled up like that... but still not having a clue what to say, just drove on... till she finally got Linna home.
* * *
Priss got on her bike with a huff, more than pissed off at the interrogator she was dealing with. "Who does he think he is?" she asked herself under her breath. "I sure as HELL didn't do it, and I don't have a fucking clue who did!" She revved the bike. "Damn cops... they are all so fucking useless!" With a roar, she was on the road, blasting at top speed on her bike, as if to outrun her anger.
However, it wasn't home that she went first. Her first stop was far more personal. Even after the whole place was leveled, the site of her old trailer was still a place she would go from time to time... when she needed to be by herself. She arrived there very soon, and stopped the engine of her bike and parked it. She then walked toward the now roped off pile of rubble that was the entire zone of the city. "Funny, they never did make this place into anything, did they?" Priss said to herself with a lot of sarcasm. A few years ago, this pile of rubble was several buildings where her few friends she had lived, and she herself lived right in the thick of it... her trailer where she had lived quite comfortably at the time was also destroyed in that move.
With a sigh, Priss thought back on her past. Yes, those were much better times than tonight, but its further back than that, that is was on Priss' mind that night. Before the idea of Knight Sabers existed... before Sylia changed her life...
Priss was out at the Hot Legs, as normally was the case for her, singing for the place. As usual, her style, lyrics, and general sound was well taken by the crowd, but it was still a small crowd... something that would always come back to remind her how much more she was capable of.
"Save it," she told herself as she took a second between songs. "Your time will come. And when it does, you can take him away from all this." A smile came to her face as she thought about it... not something that she was well known for. She hasn't been the happiest of teens... not since her days in the orphanage. However, she seemed to notice the crowd saw it, and quickly turned it to a 'I'm good' smirk, looking out at them like she knew exactly what to expect... and she did. The roar from even this small band listening was formidable. "Ah yes... things certainly have gotten better, haven't they?" she finished to herself.
"ALRIGHT! THANK YOU! But you may want to calm a moment..." she looked around the room... "Where is he?" she thought to herself, but continued to play to the crowd. "...because the next song isn't quite as rough as you would expect out of us. In fact, there is someone in the crowd now you can thank for that..." The drums started beating to a much slower beat as she continued. " enjoy this little twist change of pace..." and without another thought she began to sing.
A bit after the song, the show ended... and Priss began to help the band pick up... but her 'companion' never made it to help as well. "That's odd... if he was here, he would be HERE by now," she thought... now a bit worried about it all. Still, she had to help here, and besides, she couldn't know where to even begin to look for him...
At least till another member of her bike gang came bursting through the door. "PRISS! Oh where are you..." the girl dressed in blood red with bright green spiked hair saw Priss and ran head first to her. "PRISS!!! Oh there you are thank god!"
"Calm down, Shaike... your freaking me out." Priss replied with a nervous smile. Her friend was a welcome sight, as the two had been through hell together.
"Well I'm afraid what I have to say wont help much. Priss... its Tranx."
Now Priss paid full attention. Tranx was the leader of their biker gang... and the one she was waiting for. "What's wrong?"
Shaike took about 30 seconds to say anything, which only pushed Priss to panic herself... "He was shot... just now... on his..." she didn't get any farther before Priss had her by the lapels of her black leather jacket.
"Don't even joke like that..." the glare in Priss' eyes says it all. There are few places you can really hit her and hurt her, but that was it.
"I'm not joking..." a scared Shaike replied quietly. She had seen Priss get downright brutal for the wrong word at the wrong time before to others of the gang. But having also come from that orphanage, she NEVER thought Priss would do this to her... much less when she was dead serious.
It was only that fear that made Priss realize she was serious... before she felt the wetness of the jacket on her hands... blood? "Oh my god... this just..." she thought, and silenced the thought a moment. "Where is he..." she managed to stammer... shaking in anger, pain, and generally just being upset.
Shaike with a calmness unbecoming of her... but a strength she knew she had to show for her friend's sake, took Priss' hand. "Follow me."
They were there in a few minutes... the scene leaving Priss completely numb with shock. Here was the man she adored, this Tranx, who was probably the strongest if not craziest man she ever knew, laying on the ground... well, the upper half of him, anyway... well not even that is really true. More like from the nose down through the ribcage. The rest was beyond recognition... turned into pulp as the blood oozed out...
That was the last night she ever sang that song... the song he was meant to hear, but never got to the show to hear it.
...Once again, a turning point on stage has brought death to her door, and blood on her hands in the most literal sense of it. Even as her mind went back on the night she has always tried to forget happened, and was never fully able to do it... that song came back to mind all the stronger with tonight's events. The pain it carried for her tonight being just as strong as so many years ago. Priss looked at the wreckage that Genom had left of her whole neighborhood during those days, cursing them, and herself, for letting someone else die on her night on stage once more, but no words came out. All that did, was that tune in her humming... and a tear that no one would see in the darkness of the midnight hour.
* * *
"WHAT?!?!?" Leon screamed at the chief of the AD Police chief as he slammed a fist down on the man's desk. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN NO ONE SAW HIM?!?!? HE WAS PRACTICALLY WAVING THE DAMN GUN IN FRONT OF THEM SCREAMING 'I DID IT! I DID IT' FOR HOW DAMN OBVIOUS HE WAS!"
The chief however, was much calmer, only clearing his thought in the face of Leon's anger as he straightened his tie. "According to your report. However, you and Daley are the only two to have seen him at all. The young lady who played along with her said something about a man in a trenchcoat, but she didn't get a view of him we can use. So that leaves us with only your reports... and you both said his face couldn't really be seen."
"And NO ONE ELSE SAW HIM AT ALL?!?!?" Leon fumed, too pissed off to notice he had basically said Priss had seen him until about 5 seconds later. "Wait a sec... Priss saw him?" he asked, as if to confirm this might prove him sane.
"So you know her? Guess that takes care of that..."
Leon wanted any excuse to punch the guy, and his beat red hue probably gave that away quite nicely. "Come on, Daley! Unlike SOME people here, we actually have someone to try to find."
"Actually, we already have a suspect in mind." The chief said to this, still so calm it was maddening.
"But you just said no one saw him," Daley prodded... kinda confused.
"Yes I did."
"Then who do you..." a sinking feeling stopped Daley dead in his tracks.
"I think you know already." The quiet smile on the chief's face said enough.
Leon just couldn't take this. Here they were, the only ones who even came close to seeing this man's face, and they were suddenly suspected of pulling the trigger? "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!?!?" he blared, getting people outside the office to look.
"To the best of anyone's knowledge, you and your partner were the only ones armed in the whole stadium. We considered the slim chance that your story was true despite being surrounded by a crowd and no one saw the man you claim to have tried to take in... uh, how did he get away again?" It was obvious the chief was enjoying this. Leon being how he is, naturally clashed with the man and his goals, so to get Leon like this was a great thrill to him.
Leon only growled at him, at the moment powerless about any of this. He knew even as he made his report that was going to sound crazy, but he decided the truth had to be there. "Yeah... great day to go insane and report something like that to someone like this, Leon," he thought to himself.
"Ah that's right. He vanished," the Chief snapped his fingers melodramatically, "just like that. Really Leon. You should have known that wouldn't fly. However, we couldn't ignore the testimony that the singer... Ms Asigiri gave us about a man who somewhat seemed to be the same guy as you saw... at least till now... she is your friend and could well be covering for you."
The silence and pure anger on Leon's face was more than amusing to the chief. "Do you have something to say, Leon?" his smugness was too much for Leon, who was barely keeping himself from pounding the chief through the wall. The chief only continues now all the more pleased and completely oblivious (or uncaring) how close he was to dying at Leon's hand. "I didn't think you would." He stretched out and leaned back on his chair, "and on that note, you are being suspended, Leon. I wouldn't leave town if I were you." He grinned to himself as Leon got up, furious and doing his best to control it, "I hope it works out for the best."
SLAM! Everyone looked up to see Daley a little ahead of Leon, who probably almost took the door off it's hinge. His face was beat red and the perfect counterpart to the sad, downlooking expression on Daley's face. "CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT PIECE OF CHICKEN SHIT?!?!?"
Leon fumed more than loud enough for the entire department to hear him. Daley acted quickly, knowing that someone had to. "Why don't we get out of here and go chill off somewhere... this wont help us much," he said kinda quiet. He barely even looked up... concerned for his partner more than for himself. The guns wouldn't match, they were safe, but in this mood, Leon might do something to get himself in trouble in the meantime.
Nene looked up quietly at the two of them, concerned, and still saddened by the previous night. What the hell happened? That was supposed to be the ultimate night for all of them. Priss would finally be recognized on a large scale, Leon would get to see this moment (something he did want, though no one would expect him to say it, due to Priss' reaction), and she and Linna would be there to share the moment. Instead, it became a blood bath and chaos. Nene sighed, "Why does something always have to occur?" she asked herself rather moodily. Her friend almost tapped her shoulder to ask what was wrong, but knew of the night's events... and that Nene was practically front row to it. Not having anything to really say, she decided to leave Nene alone.
Leon, meanwhile sighed and took Daley's advice. For now, he best just get as far away from the chief as he can before he just punches his face in. Grabbing his jacket, he went to join Daley in the lobby. "What else have I to do anyway? Well now, anyway?" he thought to himself still pissed off, but at the same time, glad to get away from someone who was quickly becoming the biggest pain in his ass there could be... well almost.
"Whoa there... where you going, bud?" Leon cringed. That voice was a rather new one to hear within the office, but one Leon already was learning to regret. He turned to face the newest recruit to the department... a K-Suit operator from the US. The man was streached out against his chair, almost knocking it over, his feet on his desk, black and off white due to dirt sneakers leaving scuff marks already, while his deep green jacket hung off the seat where it flapped off him and it. He looked up at Leon, an amused/curious look on his face. Yep, this is gonna be one of those people to avoid at all costs. "You cant leave without giving me some details... that just wouldn't be fair."
"Leave me alone, Jake. Better for all of us that way," Leon returned with a slight glare. He didn't want to get suspended and get into a fist fight immediately afterward.
Jake leaned up and looked at Leon... the expression was enough to get him to be quiet for now... something that Leon was very thankful for as he left the station, Daley in tow. Jake watched them leave. "What's his problem?" he thought to himself, "Maybe he is a little nuts after all."
* * *
Priss returned to the apartment late that morning, having chosen to try to face her pain on her own. Not something uncommon for her, but she didn't return in much better condition then she left the stadium in. She opened the door to see the apartment almost exactly as she had left it when she went out that night, maybe a little messier from Linna's rush to get to the show, but not too much. "Odd..." she thought to herself, "I would have thought Linna would have cleaned up last night..." But then she had to remind herself... Reika was a friend to her... far more so than most, as the death of Irene had driven them both. "Guess she also took this roughly..." Priss found herself saying quietly to herself, a bit of a shocker to her. Here she was supposed to be the one who didn't give a shit, and she was worried for Linna. She would have smirked at the irony if she didn't feel like nothing could be funny right now.
Stepping in, she found Linna rather quickly, asleep on the couch, still dressed up for the night. Priss couldn't help but feel sorry for her, especially as she saw how much this hurt Linna... by the tear trails on her face. The thought did occur to her to wake her, as Linna was due to go to work today, but then again, Priss figured they would understand if she took a day to herself after last night.
With a sigh, Priss picked up the phone and dialed up the office Linna was working at and let them know...
"Hello, this is Currency Inc. How may we help you?" a voice on the other end answered. Priss was in no mood to depict the mood off hand yet.
"Yes... I need to speak to the manager of a Miss Linna Yamazaki?" Priss was slightly bothered by how unsure she sounded in her own ears.
"Uh... sure, hang on one second please." Then the hold music kicked in... something done several decades ago, but sounding kinda nice anyway...
"Nice to see someone thinks about that these days," Priss thought to herself with weak smirk. It at least was a slight lightener to the day.
After a few moments, a man's voice kicked in. "Hello, this is Mr. Newman. Who is this?" he sounded annoyed and intrigued at the same time.
"This is Priss Asigiri... a friend of..."
"The singer who was with Vision last night?" he sounded stunned, "Man.. I'm so sorry about what happened," he kinda stammered, as if he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Yeah... that's me..." Priss added, obviously it wasn't happiness in her voice. "But... I was calling about that for Linna...."
"Oh... what's wrong?" his voice never lost that 'oh shit it's her' sound to it.
"She... wont make it into work today... Vision was a good friend of hers, and she is really in no shape to go about work yet."
"....I... I see.... Well I understand... thank you for calling... miss." His voice was now solemn... guess Linna did show him what she could do.
"Well I couldn't leave her off and have her have no job come tomorrow..."
"Again... I understand. Thank you so much... and have a good day, Miss Asigiri." *click*
No one seemed angry, so that was a good sign. "Besides," she thought to herself, "it really is best to let her sleep... she needs the time... after that." Priss sighed... knowing she could probably use it too, but unlike Linna, she couldn't see herself take advantage of it. Not that Linna was doing much better, as a shutter in her breath, even now, showed to Priss just how hurt her friend really was.
With a sigh, Priss went to the balcony and stretched a moment, then for lack of anything else to do, she pulled a chair in front of the TV and with the volume low, hit the power on the remote. "Might as well..." she told herself. She had no intentions of going anywhere that day and began to methodically flip through channels, not caring too much what was on any one, and not enough to stop...
...at least not till she got to a news broadcast... she would have just turned the TV off when she saw the icon in the corner stating "Big Egg killing," but the words "one suspect" caught her attention...
The newscaster went on... "one suspect has been called into question so far. The man, who goes by Leon McNichol, is an AD Police officer. In so far, the AD Police have made no comments involving this, but it is reported he has been put on sus...." With a loud thud to the ground, Priss kicked the TV over, startling the till then sleeping Linna awake with the sound of impact and the static as the TV went nuts.
"They are blaming LEON for this? WHY THOSE MISURABLE..." by now, Priss was literally too pissed off to even say anything. If there is anyone she blamed for this, it was herself for not being fast enough to protect Reika. Now the ONLY AD Police officer (with the exception of Nene, of course) worth ANYTHING is the one they blamed?
Linna, for her part, kept quiet as she watched Priss fuming. She had an idea why... her sleep wasn't deep enough to block the TV, but she had no idea what to say. For once, between her own pain and her friend's anger, she was completely helpless in such things...
* * *
Outside the Big Egg Stadium, investigators moved about still looking through the scene for whatever might have been missed. For the moment, no one was about to say anything about who did what. There simply wasn't much to go by. The bullets had been extracted from Vision's body, or rather, the pieces of them. They were designed to fragment shortly after impact, and that will make it that much harder for them to be traced. Not one of them knew that Leon had been suspended, or that an official statement had been made as of yet. However, one of them did know a little more than the others.
After commenting on needing some rest, he stretched and went to his car. He opened the door, got in, and drove off, his trenchcoat now slightly damp with the moisture of the morning, making it look slightly darker than normal. He sighed as he put his shades on and put the car into reverse and pulled out. It wasn't long before he was heading down the road.
Without a word or so much as a sound, he clicked on his car-phone and dialed a few numbers... after waiting a moment, he spoke. "Mission accomplished. Returning to the lab," and he hung up, his pistol sitting in the passenger seat beside him, exactly two rounds spent in the clip right next to it.