Pari found himself laying back on a bench sipping from a cup of tea. He went and bought another cup after leaving from Charon. It calmed his nerves as he started to think on how to tackle the problem. He didn't see Charon in the square anymore. " She must have taken a break" he thought to himself. He thought about what he knew in regards to Luna's disappearance.
" so I know it happened some time last night" Pari thought to himself. "Charon said that no one has seen her since they finished playing turf wars. It also seems that all of the missing inklings are high ranking players. There might be some connection there considering that Luna is ranked as S+." Pari took another swig of the tea he had. " this is not a lot to go off of."
Pari looked around the plaza trying to see if something can jog his thought process. Some did catch his attention. Around the plaza were cameras that watched over the daily activities of the turf war players. The cameras were run by the Inkoplis police department. " well that's something I can see if I can use. Hopefully Dorsa or Tina are working today." Pari finished his drink and got up. He deposited the empty cup into the correct trash receptacle before he headed to the train station.
Getting off at the next stop, Pari took the most direct route to the police station. It was only a 3 minute walk from the train station. Walking through the door, to his delight he found Dorsa sitting at the front desk. With a bit of pep in his step he walked over to her. Dorsa was wearing her uniform as she sat there looking bored. Her face was focused on the computer screen as Pari made it to the desk. " Hello, I need some help with a matter." Pari said to the preoccupied Dorsa.
Without taking her face away from the screen Dorsa spoke, " ticket payments are down the hallway to your left. Second door on the right. To report something is in the office at the end of the right hallway."
Pari gave a small chuckle, " actually the person I'm looking for is you Dorsaline Swift."
Dorsa's face instantly turns to face Pari. "Pari" she called out as she literally jumped over the desk and hugged Pari. Needless to say Pari was not expecting this, so they both ended up on the floor. "Hey Pari how are you doing. I never expected you to come visit me at my job. Did you miss me that much?" Dorsa said hyperly. Pari still in shock from being thrown to the floor didn't say anything.
"Officer Swift please get off of the civilian, you are making a scene," another voice said to them. Dorsa looked around and found that everyone was looking at them.
"Oh my bad Pari." Dorsa said as she got off of Pari and offered a hand to help him up. Pari took her hand and got up. Dorsa then turned her attention to the owner of the voice. " sorry Tina, but this is the first time Pari has visited us at work. I just got so excited," Dorsa said with a huge smile on her face.
Tina just shook her head, "you know it's Officer Lenzson at work Officer Swift." Dorsa just tapped her head with her hand and let out a little giggle. Tina shook her head once more, " you are just trouble you know that." Tina then turned her attention to Pari. "So how may we be of service to you today sir?"
Pari gave a soft smile, "no need for all that Tina, I just have a small request."
"Come to my office and we can talk there." Tina replied. Her attention was then turned to Dorsa who was giving her the puppy eyes. " Fine you can come too, Officer Swift." Dorsa gave out a little cheer and followed to Tina's office.
Once inside the office, Tina say at her desk while Pari sat across from it. After closing the door, Dorsa sat in the seat beside Pari. "So what brings you here today Pari. I'm sure it's not to check up on us at work," Tina asked.
" I'm sorry it's not on better terms Tina," Pari replied. "Luna is missing." Dorsa gave out a small gasp while Tina looked at Pari with a lifted eyebrow. "It hasn't been the 72 hours required by your regulations, but Charon is running herself ragged looking for her since last night," Pari continued. " Charon has already contacted anyone that could have seen her."
"Okay. So what would you like us to do Pari?" Tina asked.
"The turf war plaza has cameras installed. I was wondering if you could let me look at the footage as a favor?" Pari responded.
"Sure Pari anything for a friend." Dorsa instantly replied. This got her a stern look from Tina to which Dorsa gave a huge smile. Tina just shook her head.
"Normally I can't do that Pari," Tina replied. "But I might be able to pull some strings, especially since your family's company is a big sponsor to our force." Tina gave a little wink at Pari after saying this.
"Thanks, Officer Lenzson," Pari said with a smile.
They left Tina's office and headed to the camera room. Tina talked to the officer in charge of the camera for a bit before turning around and giving Pari a thumbs up. Dorsa went and got the correct tape and they all and they all say down in Tina's office and watched it.
Once they found the correct time, they watched the footage until they found Luna. Tina was the first one to Luna and pointed her out to everyone.
They followed her on the cameras. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until she went to see Spike. "She never came back out of the alleyway." Pari stated his observation.
" yea" Tina replied as they looked through the footage. Even after fast forwarding the footage, Tina never came back.
" hey Rewind that for a second" Dorsa exclaimed. Pari and Tina looked at each other before going ahead and rewinding it. " stop it right here and press play." Dorsa exclaimed again. Tina went ahead and played the tape. While watching the part the camera seems to mess up for about a minute before resuming normal operations.
"See. That's definitely weird, we just had all the cameras looked at last week and there was no problems with them." Dorsa explained "someone must have messed with them."
"Good catch Officer Swift," Tina replied. "I'll look into this but the fact still remains that Luna never came out of that alleyway. I wish we could be more help to you but this is all we have Pari."
" it's alright Tina," Pari replied. " now at least I have a good starting point. I'm going to go follow this. Thanks guys."
"No problem Pari. It was a pleasure to help," Tina replied.
" And it was good to see you. Don't be a stranger and visit us more often at work. I know we look good in our uniforms so let us show them off to you sometime."Dorsa said as she let out a chuckle.
Pari cracked a small smile. " okay I'll do that, Dorsa."
Tina just shook her head. " I'll look through the footage again and call you if I find anything. Be safe out there Pari. I'm sure you already figured this out, but the missing inklings are all high ranking players."
"I will." Pari answered before getting up and heading to the door. He gave them both a wave before leaving.
Inside the room Tina talked to Dorsa for a bit.
" he will be fine Tina. This is Pari we are talking about. He is not going to do anything dumb." Dorsa said.
"I know, but I'm still worried none the less." Tina replied. " one of our friends is already missing and I don't want the number to increase to two."
Leaving the police station, Pari headed back to the plaza via the train. Once there he made a b-line to the alleyway where Spike sat. He spoke with Spike for a bit. Spike told him that Luna had stopped by last night to get him to convert snails into slots for her gear. Pari was also informed that after she left, Spike had heard a commotion further up the alleyway, but when he went to investigate he found nothing.
Pari bid Spike farewell and headed but up the alleyway. As he walked to the plaza he passed a vending machine and decided to stop and get a drink. Walking towards the machine, a glint of sunlight off of an object underneath the machine caught his eye. Pari reached under the machine and pulled out the object. It was a S hair clip. Upon turning the hair clip over he found that Luna's name was etched into the back of it.
"This is the hair clip I gave Luna when we were younger." Pari said to himself out loud. He instantly looked around the area for anymore clues. After a few minutes, his search came up empty. Disappointed, Pari continued his walk back to the plaza. Almost to the plaza, Pari's phone started to ring. He looked at the screen to see the name Tina. He quickly answered the phone. "Hey. So I'm guessing you found something else?" Pari answered the phone saying.
" Yea." Tina replied. " so it seems that the grate right as you leave the alleyway was moved in the time before and after the blackout on the tape. It took me a couple of rewinds to spot it."
"So you thinking that someone had used the grate and it's also connected to Luna disappearance?" Pari asked.
" Yea, that's all I have." Tina replied. " you might want to look into it."
"I will," Pari said. " thanks, I'll talk to you later."
"Keep me informed on what you find," Tina replied before she hung up on her end.
Pari instantly went over to the grate. He gave it a push and found that it was loose. I was so loose that one could lift it up and go down into the tunnel. Pari paused for a moment thinking to himself. " this is the only lead I have. I have to go." Pari moved the grate and went down the pipe to the tunnel below.
Elsewhere Luna was slowly opening her eyes. She looked around at her surrounding to find that she was in a cell of some kind. Her vision was still fuzzy but she could make out two figures right outside her cage. They seemed to be talking about something but she couldn't make it out. As her vision cleared up she could see the figures more clearly and because of that only one word popped into her mind "Octolings."