In his sleep-deprived rush to reach the New Domino Detention Centre, Yusei had overlooked one key piece of information: he had no real business being there. "Look," Any number of crazy people could walk into a police station in the early hours of the morning and claim one of their equally crazy associates were imprisoned within. "I just need to know if someone has been brought in over the last few days." Yusei had only been allowed into the Facility because of his past exploits. Getting any specific information – especially considering that he didn't know the specifics himself – was proving to be more difficult.
"As I told you before," Piloting a desk during the night shift was boring enough to long for any interaction. Then interactions like this one came along and boring became preferable. "Unless you have an ID number, case number or warrant, I can't give you that information."
"What if we just needed a quick walk around the block?" Approaching from behind came the steady tread and firm voice of Trudge. Held out in one hand was the immediate warrant authority of an official police badge. "Just to check out a lead." Stepping up to the reinforced screen, he spared a sideways glance at his impassive companion. "What ever happened to waiting for me?"
"Who said anything about waiting?" Playing along, Yusei knew that it was no coincidence that his old friend had shown up just in time. "I thought it would save time if I just did the work and took the credit."
"My case, my credit. You're just lucky I needed a consultant on a budget." As the helmeted face went about tapping at the keyboard, Trudge turned to face the other way and lowered his voice. "Lethe called me." Reliable in any timeline, he had come to check on his friend. Even at ungodly hours of the morning. "What's going on with you?" As far as he was concerned, nothing was out of the ordinary except for his young friend.
"Aside from feeling like I'm stuck in a nightmare?" Although this strangeness had begun with a burnt earring and a broken dream, it was starting to feel more and more like a prison. "I'm trying to find someone who might be able to help me. But it'd be better if I can't." If he couldn't find that dark outline, it would just be a dream and nothing else. "Tell me, when was the last time you were here?"
"The Facility?" Scratching at the fine film of stubble on his chin, it took a moment for Trudge to remember. "Maybe eight, nine weeks ago? Came to check out a lead. Didn't pan out. Why'd you ask?" Ignoring the question, Yusei turned back at a slight cough. Trudge not remembering meant that it was more likely he needed to be searching for a good psychiatrist instead of a vague figure he barely remembered.
"You're all set." Handing an access card through the slot, it was didn't need saying why there was only one. "You're responsible for anything he does." Jerking a thumb at the civilian, it was nice to see the bureaucracy was still in the habit of explaining what was obvious. "Don't give anything, don't take anything. The card will only get you onto the walkways, not the cells. Special prisoners are off-limits." It was the first time – in either set of memories – that Yusei had ever officially heard the term. 'Special prisoners' were the Duellists too maniacal to be free yet having not done mainstream enough crimes to go into proper prisons. Underground Duels where lives were put on the line, ante rules where limbs were bet. Sick and twisted versions of Duel Monsters that many people couldn't have believed were real. An entire sub-level of the Facility served to contain these monsters. The only access was an antique, hand-operated freight life and a narrow staircase where the prisoner was always the first to go down.
"We're just here to see if a suspect was brought in under an alias." Taking the card, Trudge was speaking the truth, of a sort. "Come on." Taking stride alongside his new deputy, the pair were soon inside the prison proper and staring down the shaft of interred people. "So then," Twenty levels, six sides to a level and with seventeen cells on most sides, almost all with bunks. Capacity for nearly four thousand people. "Who are we looking for?"
Knuckling his forehead, Yusei tried to remember anything that could have been of use. He was running on an hour-long nap, a handful of scattered dreams and the gut instinct that everything he knew wasn't quite right. "Trudge," There was one part of the nightmare that had stuck with him. That figure clinging to the ceiling. He had been worried about how it might react. With himself, Trudge and two other police officers in the room. "Where do they put the worst people in this place?"
Many of the inhabitants in the Facility were mostly there because they were repeat offenders of petty crimes and serving an average of only a few months. Unfortunately, a handful of them were closer to being 'special' prisoners than regular ones. These inmates were confined to the lowest five floors and kept separated from the main population through extra sets of reinforced gates guarding every level. The riot-resistant lift doors could only operate on those levels with the command code of Warden Ishi from the safety of the main command room. The escape record for convicted felons was zero.
It was these floors that Yusei was slowly circling. For once, he was grateful for the early hour. Many of the prisoners were asleep and unlikely hurl insults at him. All it took to check each cell was a brief glance inside before moving onto the next one. Clearing the first two floors had taken only a few minutes. By the time he was finishing circling the third floor, his hope of finding anyone was fading and his hope of it all just being a normal dream was starting to rise. Then a tickle crossed through his subconscious as he walked past a cell. Taking another step back, he let out a deep, slow breath.
Nobody would have called the conditions in the Facility exactly pleasant. It was technically a prison and meant more for punishment and rehabilitation than a pleasurable stay. Yet – while cold enough that most prisoners used the blanket provided – it was usually kept warm enough that breath shouldn't have fogged over like he was seeing.
Turning with the pit in his stomach growing, Yusei peered through the reinforced door in the middle of the row. It was one of the two securest rooms on the floor. An equal distance from either flight of stairs, randomly reinforced door to eliminate weak points in the design and had a camera installed above the doorway to keep an eye on any interim prisoner being held there. But without a recorded prisoner, there was no reason to even look inside the cell. Especially when all the guards would see is a dark outline on the concrete slab that served as a bed.
"You're still here." Chains rattled gently as the outline carefully shifted upright and swung legs around to face him directly. "Do you have any idea what's going on?" Standing off to one side, Trudge thought for a moment that Yusei might have been talking to him.
Telling if she was nodding or bowing was a matter of guesswork but both indicated a certain acceptance. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, Yusei rested his head against the mismatched bars on the cell door as he saw the wall behind past the movement.
"Do you remember Akiza? Or... the other one?" Either he was slipping further into a delusion or this was something far beyond the scope of average human understanding. Science told him the former, instinct the latter.
Musume? Stepping forward, the shadow crossed the space with only the clinking sound of her chains to mark her footsteps. If this wasn't part of a delusion – and Yusei was afraid to consider the possibility – then this person had not been present eight years ago to meet Musume and could only know her from the present time. The swirling vortex of half-remembered nightmares would be true and he would lose everything all over again.
"Yusei?" Interjecting in the conversation, Trudge didn't notice the dull gleam of chains in the darkened cell. "Who are you talking to?" By the time he was standing by the younger man, the silent figure had quietly withdrawn to the far side of her cell and was tucked against the wall. It was apparent it was going to be no further help.
"This is… her name is…" So many flickers of forgotten ideas were pounding around his head that it was difficult to keep any of them straight.
"Looks like you could do with a good night's sleep." It was impossible for either of them to realise how accurate the statement really was just at that moment. Recognising the risk of falling to an early grave over the railings, Trudge instead opted to lean against the wall outside the cell.
"Is it okay if I ask you a personal question? About weird stuff?" Even with experiences against both the Dark Signers and Yliaster, Trudge insisted that he was the normal one in their partnership and Yusei had to deal with all the 'weird stuff'.
"Yes, the loser of my mahjong group has to wear fishnet stockings for two days." Unable to resist the joke, Yusei started to smile past his exhaustion. Trudge ran a monthly and possibly illegal mahjong tournament with some of his buddies on the service with a substantial penalty for coming in last. Men had to wear fishnets for two days of work and women agreed to make at least one public compliment about the winner.
"Remember when Jakob and Primo took the mayor's office?" In a timeline that had been altered away from that reality, Trudge only recalled by virtue of being conveniently located beside a Signer. Yliaster had been more direct in their approach to controlling New Domino before a change in their plans forced them to give up the office. Protected by the peripheral effects of the Crimson Dragon, it had been a surreal experience for Trudge to adjust to. "What would you do if you were the only one who realised it had all changed?"
Not an easy question. Being the only one to remember a different history would be tantamount to madness. Admitting it would be practically begging to be locked up. "What is it that you think is different?" Certain detective instincts made it easy for Trudge to draw the line straight from the question to the man asking it. "And please tell me it's that a world where Crow beat Jack." Physics and probability dictated that every plausible event must happen somewhere in some way. Nobody knew exactly where such an event would be located but it was probably beneath a sky filled with flying pigs.
"Akiza is still alive." Thinking that a loved one had survived was a common symptom of grief. Flashes of their face in a crowd, insane and improbable plans that could justify their escaping the quiet reach of the grave. "There's this whole life inside my head where I know she died on Ark Cradle. Where Senator Izinski retired, where Senator Enor replaced him. One where my work to perfecting my father's designs allowed countries to come together and share their resources while I went back to Duelling. But it's all a lie." Placing a hand over his eyes, Yusei could hear how crazy it all sounded. "There's another life, one I think I was stolen from us. Akiza isn't dead, she's a doctor. Jack, Crow and Leo are all professional Duellists and Luna's off doing charity work, saving the world."
"Doesn't sound so bad." Guys on the force had this all the time. When their minds started to bend under the strain and a perfect fantasy world was assembled inside their minds in order to keep them sane. "What about you?" What was important was to guide them towards realising that it's just a dream. Reality was not so easily manipulated.
"Running a science institution. Slowly dying from some brain thing." Trudge recognised that as a bad sign. If somebody was imagining their death, it was a sign that they needed more help than a listening ear. "But there's other stuff going on. Like this person from the future came back to do something." Any thoughts he had of Musume were vague and unsure. An effect of whatever had them all in a tight grip. "Akiza's daughter. Hers and Crow's. And this new person who's been following us around. Seems to know a lot about 'weird stuff' like this."
"Think about it though." Even though alarm bells were ringing in Trudge's head left and right, he had to at least explore the idea that Yusei might be right. "If something is strong enough to take out a Signer like that, why Akiza? Why not more of you? Don't get me wrong, I miss her as much as any of you." During her Turbo Duel exam, Trudge had personally made sure that he was assigned Akzia's case. No half-measures for his friends to coast by on. Either she would be good enough to match his skills or she wasn't ready to Turbo Duel. "But she and Crow were never really close. So you'll forgive me for thinking their kid came back from the future for something. How did she do that, anyway?" No answer was coming, the details slipping through Yusei's fingers like treacle. "If it was that bad, surely that Crimson Dragon thing would have saved you." That was it! Because Musume was keeping the Crimson Dragon occupied in the fight against Red Nova, it couldn't keep the rest of them protected like it once had. "Just tell me, what could do something like this?"
Twisting, turning, changing, burning. Trudge leapt away from his piece of wall with a startled curse as Phantom soundlessly appeared behind him. Words suddenly appeared in his head probably did not help matters that much either. As far as he remembered, this was their first time meeting. Boo. It might only be a rudimentary joke yet even the most basic sense of humour helped humanise the figure. And then Yusei recalled a thyme joke and the name finally emerged from the chaos of his mind.
"Trudge, this is Phantom. Phantom, Officer Trudge." Holding out one hand through the bars didn't stop Trudge from noticing the broken shackle on the other wrist. Although history had apparently gone awry and certain events seemingly un-happened, she still considered herself under arrest and would dress as such.
"Pleasure?" Shaking the hand was like grabbing a glove of ice. "Who are you?"
Me, myself and I. Leaning herself against the side of the doorway, her head began to gently sway from one side to the other.
"Yusei, you do realise that this crackpot is delusional?" Swaying to a halt, an intense stare burst through the darkness.
"Can you tell me what's happening?" Ignoring the one friend insane enough to actually listen to him, Yusei pressed for answers from the one person sane enough to remember what was really going on.
Lockdown, lock up. Stepping back into the shadows left only the dull gleam of chains. Bound in chains, nearly insane. It appeared that nobody in the conversation was playing with a full Deck. Trudge had forgotten Akiza, Yusei was torn between two lives and Phantom was making less sense than ever.
"You don't know, do you?" Leaning back against the railing, Yusei his face with both hands as hope drained away. "Of course you don't."
All news, good news. No news, bad news. Leaning casually on the bar, she was listening attentively for any information of the outside world. As long as no sentence had been delivered, there was no reason to assume anything except for the slow legal process to be working towards her release.
"What am I even doing?" A sarcastic laugh broke through his exhaustion as Yusei realised the futility of his attempt. "One bad dream and suddenly I'm running around the city convinced that Akiza's still alive and has a daughter. None of it's real." Resigning himself to reality was the hardest thing that Yusei had ever done. It meant that he had to recognise that not all hopes panned out. "Trudge, take me home. This was a waste of time."
What? Shock managed to break through the mental barrier that was keeping them separated. Musume cannot be gone. Too much, too much! Metal smashed against metal as she shook the cage door in an effort to make herself understood. Conservation, equivalence! Unable to break over the threshold of her captivity, Phantom screamed down the hallway at the retreating back in a language that she hoped he would understand. Special relativity!
One foot paused on the first step as the words bypassed his ears to directly reach Yusei's brain. "Yusei?" Sensing the pause, Trudge could tell an idea was brewing inside that head. "What is it?"
Retreading his steps brought Yusei to stand outside the cell door once again. "Say that again." It was not a phrase that he had ever connected to his Signer heritage. In those uncertain memories of his, it belonged to the other half of his life but he had first heard it long before his life seemed to have been sent in a different direction.
Musume. Snapping a few links from the end of her chains, Phantom balanced them on one finger. Red, crimson, fire bright, fire dark. Many as one. Gently tapping the pieces, she counted off the peculiar arrangement that Musume had. Now that he had a name to work with, other facts were starting to surface in Yusei's mind.
"Right. Red Nova, Crimson Dragon and Musume." Obscuring the first two links inside a clenched fist left one shining piece of metal sticking out. "I don't get what you" Carefully pulling at the exposed link brought the entire arrangement back into view and Yusei finally managed to understand what she was trying to convey. "Trudge, I need her released into my custody."
"Care to explain what's going on?" Time was a pressing factor yet Yusei knew that he had to explain the situation to his friend if they were going to make any progress.
"It's basic physics. Mass and energy can't be destroyed, just change form." Nodding sagely indicated that Trudge was lost from the third word. "Imagine burning down a tree. Although you had a lot of wood, you don't get as much ash."
"Of course not." Arson was less common than it had once been but Trudge still knew a few things about pyrotechnics. "Because most of it went up as smoke or was used as fuel for the fire."
"Exactly." Now came the trickier part. "The girl I remember, Akiza's daughter, she figured out a way to trap Red Nova and the Crimson Dragon inside her. And if!" Sensing Trudge about to ask a wasted question, Yusei pressed on. "If she's still linked to them in that way, we only need to figure out a way to summon one of them. Then Musume gets dragged along as well." Phantom's ravings made more sense now. When she had been shouting about 'too much', it had been because of the sheer power they contained. Erasing a single human was probably not a difficult feat. Trying to suppress the mighty creatures was beyond what Yusei could imagine. All they needed was an easy way to return.
Home again, home again. Pressing the links of the chain into his hand, she curled his fingers about them. Lickity split. It was the first time that he could remember feeling hope in a long time. Wherever Akiza had gone, whatever had happened to her, either the Crimson Dragon or Red Nova would be able to sniff something out. And now they had a plan to get Musume back.
"Yusei, this maniac is just telling you what you want to hear." Carefully guiding his friend away from the cell failed miserably when Yusei refused to shift his feet even an inch. He just kept one fist clenched tightly about the broken pieces of metal in his grip.
"Let's pretend that's the case." Logic and reason might not be working against his past but he was able to apply them now and there was a puzzle right in front of their eyes. "Then how did she know the name 'Musume' if we hadn't said it yet?" It took a moment for Trudge's brain to catch up. It had been Phantom who used the name first, not Yusei. He had been calling Musume 'the other one' when they first got there.
Pen, pencil? Flicking past sensitive notes and a few rudimentary drawings, Phantom finally landed on blank material in the notepad.
"Hey, when did you" Patting down his pockets did nothing to return the stolen notebook to Trduge's side. "Give that back!" One hand remained outside the bars as her other retreated back with the stack of classified material.
"Here." Every few sentences twisted Yusei's hope into doubt before turning it back again. Trudge's words had cast a shade of doubt onto the conversation. Giving a stub of a pencil from his jacket might be all that he needed for some answer.
"What do you expect to get out of this?" Carefully placing the pad against a tiny ledge on the door, the pen gently crawled across the paper as Phantom carefully began her note.
"Tell me honestly." Watching the dark hand carefully pass back and forth across the page, he wished that it had more speed. "What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and only you remembered Mina?"
After a few seconds quiet contemplation, Trudge managed to summon up the courage to give the honest truth. "I'd come right to you and ask what I could do to get her back." Watching the pad carefully rotated as numbers were carefully inscribed along the perimeter, he wondered if history was lying or if Yusei was finally cracking beneath the weight of all everything that he carried. Considering that he was asking for help from an unbalanced prisoner in a secure cell, Trudge would keep a careful eye on his friend.
Ta-da! Passing the inscription back through the cage brought no end of satisfaction. They called me mad, mad! Maybe 'mad' was going a bit far but cackling maniacally with raised hands was not exactly stable behaviour.
"Yeah, we get it. You're insane." Holding the pad of paper sideways was the most effective way to read what was written on it. It took only a few seconds to realise he was far out of his depths. "What exactly am I looking at?"
Leaning over his friend, Yusei saw not exactly proof of reality yet maybe proof of reason from somewhere inside that armour. "That one? Noether's theorem." Which looked to Trudge like somebody had randomly typed using all the buttons he didn't understand on a calculator. "Euler's equation here deals with spheres." How 'V – E + F = 2' could be used in regards to an apple was beyond the understanding of the average cop. "Looks like she has a tidy corner for Einstein's stuff." Choosing from the more famous equations, the formula for special relativity was new to Trudge. At least he understood the first half of the general relativity entry. "This?" Tracing a long stream of digits curling around the page with one finger actually brought a slight smile to Yusei's face. "That's sort of like a joke."
"1 = 0.999999..." It curled around the page in such a way that one corner let the nines merge into a never-ending circle. "But it doesn't." Sensing the amusement coming from two directions, he tried not to ask the obvious question. "Does it?"
"Ask an engineer sometime." Yusei dimly recalled a time when barricades were being drawn and weapons being made because of that equation. Why did he think that there was one twisted face constantly popping up on either side to stir up trouble? Ron? Don? Something like that. "Still believe that she's mad?"
The mad person thinks they are sane and I know I am mad. Yusei uttered a quiet prayer that the chaotic mind would choose a side between sanity and madness and just be done with it already.
"Salvador Dali. Good choice." At least, he hoped that she was intentionally quoting. "Decent grasp of physics, sounds like she understands philosophy to an extent. Other than communication difficulties, why can't she be temporarily released?"
Looking at the pair of part-mad people – one remembering torn between two histories and the other driven crazy by something nobody could yet explain – Trudge considered everything that he knew. Every police instinct in him called for him to dismiss this crazy theory. There was no evidence to support it. Every single person they knew was remembering a history where Akiza had died. Records proved it. History was very clear on that point.
"Okay. But I'm checking why she's in here first." Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out his phone. Being a cop, it was one of the few privileges that were afforded to him while in the facility. There was no telling when he would have had to check details of a case in a hurry. Dialling the direct number for the security booth, he waited as it connected. "It's Trudge. What can you tell me about the prisoner in cell..." All the secure cells looked slightly different which somehow made listing them slightly harder.
A-17/1. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Phantom seemed as excited to be leaving the jail as she had been happy to stay in it.
"Cell A-17/1." How she knew the location of her cell without being able to see the faded inscription above the doorway outside was unsettling to Trudge.
"..." Garbled electric tones came down the line as he waited for information to filter down. "...?" Tone – if not the actual words – managed to make it over to Yusei.
"... Well, of course. I'm standing outside it." Cameras were probably watching him so Trudge tried to play it cool. "I meant the last occupant. I'm... following a lead." Another few minutes of talk came down the line. Talk that went ignored as he only kept up the pretence of investigating a pretend crime. "Got it. Thanks." Putting his phone down, Trudge was starting to see a tiny glimmer of what Yusei understood. "That's weird."
"What is it?" Judging from the expression on his face, it was obvious there was an irregularity of some kind. Like a reflection in the photo that could be dismissed as a printing error. Or a card in a Deck that was not meant to be there.
"There isn't anyone registered in this cell." Leaning on the bars, Phantom had become more confused than before. At least she could recognise the confusion of simple logic and not a worsening of her condition. "Last time it was used was six months ago."
Ripples spreading on a pond. Staring at the figure, Yusei was starting to realise just how much they had underestimated this figure. Drip, drip, drip. Musume had managed to forge some sort of connection before she vanished. Doubtless that she had recognised what lay just beyond the craziness.
"It was Musume who caught her." Whatever protection that had let Phantom retain own memories hadn't extended to the arrest records. Now that Akiza was gone – and her daughter as a result – the ripple effects of untaken actions had undone the arrest.
"Which means – if she really was here – then nobody caught her this time around." Trudge had seen this movie. It had been late one night when nothing else had been on.
Judge, jury. Resting both hands on the bars made Phantom's idea perfectly clear. Jailbreaker? With the legal system no longer aware of her existence, she was looking to the one figure of authority she could trust.
"Can you tell me," Those metal chains had already been broken apart. Only a sense of morality was keeping the prisoner in her cell. He had to hope that would hold a while longer. "Why you were you arrested?"
Multiple mass mayhem and assault against poor proletarian police. After a brief conference with Yusei to clarify the meaning of 'proletarian' and briefly scream that he was mad if he expected Trudge to release this maniac, the officer managed to find a level-head needed to assess the case. He was not a legal expert. Cops learned what they needed to learn and left most of the other stuff to the professionals. Returning to the cell, he tried for a different tactic.
"Do you feel bad about what you did?" Tilting her head to one side, she carefully considered the question from all angles. Then it was shaken from one side to the other. From her perspective – and that of a few laws – Phantom had been justified in her reactions to being mistreated during what was dangerously close to a full psychotic break. Had her trial actually been carried out while anyone still remembered her, there was a good chance she would have made bail.
"But you do realise it was probably wrong?" Another tilt of her head and careful examination of the question. With right and wrong being moral points of view, she had found the same logic from the last question applied to this one as well. Then she remembered the broken figure of Diego. Now that she had adjusted to her new existence, it was clear to see that he had only been trying to help. Taking that into account, she carefully nodded.
"And are you sorry about hurting the police officers?" That was easily the most simple question to answer.
Hurt me, hurt you. A far more vehement shake this time. And she had pulled her punches to avoid inflicting permanent harm. Really, Phantom deserved a medal for her efforts and not the people who were currently under the impression they had been on a drunken night out and ended up heavily wounded from a bar brawl.
"Did they start it?" As a member of the police department, Trudge believed that many of his officers would uphold the law to the best of their ability. As somebody who had spent more than a fair amount of time being chased for unfair circumstances beyond his control, Yusei was fully aware that 'accidents' happened. When Phantom nodded, it tied Trudge's hands in several unpleasant ways.
"Just... don't do it again. If anything like it happens in the future, ask for me first." Memories are tricky little things. Acting on little more than blind faith and gut instinct, Trudge was opting to let the person who had sprained three of his ribs walk completely free. It was not a decision that would come back to haunt him but still a stupid enough call that he would kick himself for it later. Once he remembered why she had been locked up.
"Any bright ideas how to get her out of here without being seen?" Now that he had promised to free the insane prisoner, Trudge realised that he was expected to deliver. Holding up one finger, it appeared that an answer was to be provided.
All of those randomly added bars in the cell door added to the structural integrity yet also made it more difficult for the human mind to entirely track where they should be. Carefully sliding a finger past either end of one bar, Phantom somehow managed to slide the chunk of metal free without any sign of difficulty. Even so, the resulting gap was dreadfully narrow, barely the size of a laptop. Tucking an arm and leg through the opening, she shimmied most of her body through until there was enough room to pass her other arm out and follow it with her head. Then it was a simple matter of drawing the other foot out and simply stepping free.
To whoever next inhabited the cell, the gap would appear no larger than any of the others. Even if they noticed the opening, it was impossible to get out in any way but the method she had just used.
"Well, that was," Before Trudge could finish his sentence, Phantom took one step, placed the other foot on the dented handrail and leapt up two floors to land above the additional security and across to grab the floor directly in front of the lift. Swinging over the higher railings, she used the metal bar to pry open the doors and slipped through in an instant. Even though the move had instantly set off an alarm, cameras showed that nobody had approached the lift from either side and the alert was chalked up to being a malfunction. Any response was cancelled before it could begin. "Impressive?" Came the end of the statement.
"Just to make sure I'm not seeing things now," Ending closer to the edge of the landing, Yusei tried to estimate the distance. Twenty, thirty feet, at least. And she had done it with one jump. "That really happened, right?" Phantom had been in the prison at least a full day already. Everything had cycled through rotation and was just repeating. She could have broken out at any time. Of course, she would pick the exact time that a high ranked police officer came to visit.
"Look at it this way," Barely able to grasp her invisible existence, Trudge now found himself trying to understand how any normal human could have closed that distance in a single move in any way except straight down. "Nobody knew she was here, to begin with. It's not as if they're going to accuse us of breaking her in just to break her out."
Sure enough, nobody batted any eyelid at their departure. Trudge handed back his security card while Yusei stood silent and said nothing and the pair were soon thrust out into the quiet hours of the early morning. Setting a slow pace down the road, it was Trudge who broke the growing silence with a police officer's question.
"So then," Tucking both hands into his pockets and falling into a particular amble, he naturally gravitated to what one Captain Chul referred to as 'the patrol walk'. It was not designed to be a fast or authoritative stride, just one that required the bare minimum to swing one leg forward and leave behind enough momentum that the other could take its turn with the lowest possible measurement of effort. "Where do you think she ran off to?"
"Last time, she was waiting in a cell that you put her in." A damp mist was starting to form in the cold morning, wrapping around the city like a pale shroud. "This time, it's just the two of us to search the entire city." Since nobody apparently remembered the brawl by the docks, Trudge couldn't simply put out an order to search for Phantom. If she didn't move and they methodically searched anywhere in the city that she could be hiding, the pair might just be done in about three lifetimes. "Any preference on where to start?" Yusei was aware of the very real possibility that Phantom could have simply left the city altogether. Luckily for him, this wasn't the case.
Marco. Came the unuttered words from down an alleyway as they walked past.
"Probably down this way." Jerking a thumb to his left, Trudge's heart was pounding in his chest as the silent voice echoed through his skull. This was not a man who spooked easily yet he couldn't remember the last time a perp had been this unusual. "You can go first, seeing as how she's your friend. Go on," Giving his buddy a little prod to get going, Trudge willingly sent him first as a human shield. "Say 'Polo' back."
"Phantom?" Edging down an alleyway towards an invisible assailant and recent prison escapee was probably the most stupid decision an average person could make. For Yusei, it was a Sunday. "Are you still there?" Trying to spot where she was hiding was difficult since any sort of motion was erased by the vantablack armour. Instead, he followed the persistent sound of something being tapped against a dumpster.
Hello. Waiting otherwise unnoticeably on the other side of the garbage container, she had been beating a slow tempo with the metal rod used in her escape. With its purpose now served, she casually tossed it into a recycling bin and faced her rescuers without any emotion showing.
"How did you get out without setting off the alarms?" More concerned with the safety of his city than his own personal safety, Trudge was eager to learn of any holes in security at the Facility. Taking the question dead on, Phantom simply levelled her flickering blue gaze in his direction until he realised that anyone capable of leaping over thirty feet could probably find a few other flaws that normal people couldn't.
"Phantom," Drawing the conversation back to more important matters, Yusei could finally ask the question that he needed an answer to. "Do you have any idea what could have caused something like this?" It was trying to draw an ocean from a well but he had hope that Phantom could pull through one more time.
Miracles, mayhem. Science, magic. One might say that they were just two sides of one coin. It was the same sentiment that Phantom was trying so desperately to express through the sprawling chaos of her mind.
"Which is it?" Already feeling on-edge after the breakout, Trudge was pushing for answers a bit harder than his friend. He was an officer of the law and had just helped a convicted felon escape. It was not looking to be a good day and the sun hadn't even risen yet.
Like this? Two people gone, one person spared? They had run out of luck. Try again later. More accurately, she had plenty of ideas as to what it could possibly be but hadn't enough data to take a guess at what it probably was.
"What do you mean by that? Two of us still remember." Standing in a grimy alleyway, just the three of them, Phantom struggled to find the necessary words without resorting to rhyme or quotes. Although she knew a few that might work, it was better that she put in the additional effort to be clearly understood.
Good armour. Tapping the surface with one pilfered Shock Baton, she watched as Trudge checked his hip in horror. Protected, not spared.
"By all means," Wresting the weapon from her grip, he tried not to let his guilt and doubt overwhelm him. Only five minutes out of a jail cell and already back at pickpocketing. If he knew even a tenth of what she had done, he would probably have escorted her back into the box and bricked over the entrance. "Just help yourself to whatever you want."
"Come on." Setting a lead down the narrow space, Yusei was soon flanked by his unorthodox sidekicks. He had hoped that determining a common link between himself and Phantom might have provided a clue as to what had happened and found neither. At least he had an idea for the next step. "It's time to deal with a demon."
Ho-ho-humbug. This chapter should have one up earlier but I was caught up trying to fix the next two. Unfortunately for me, they each feature a Duel and neither one is proving to be easy. On the bright side, I should be able to have them up by the end of the day and bring this minor fiasco to a close.
As a Christmas gift, you have my promise that - come Hell or high water - I plan to finish this story before next Christmas rolls around. (I know that's not exactly a solid deadline but nothing's exactly set in stone these days.)
Stay kind and I'll see you all in a short while.