In this part we continue the investigation by delivering bad news to Contessa about Muffet.
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The Dark Among Us Ep 2 Smoke and Mirrors Chapter 3
Delivering Bad News
We come to the Spider's Nest in the early evening, some of the damage done from the early scuffle had been cleaned up since the other day. Red Hood and Contessa were at the counter both in their glammored form, but weren't alone. with them pacing around was an imp.
He was a tall for an imp and has red skin with white burn marks of various sizes that cover parts of his forearms, chest, and his tail, as well as most of the right side of his face. His irises are red and he has a heart-shaped skull symbol on the center of his forehead. He wears a tattered slate-gray collared coat with red buttons down the breast, black knee-high boots matching the shape of his feet, and elbow-length black fingerless gloves featuring large, rounded yellow decorations on the upper side of them. He also had a red skull charm around his neck. He was Blitzo, the o is silent, an imp who usually seen as a troublemaker but hasn't done anything to warrant any serious consequence, yet that is, he mostly just gets on everyone's nerves.
"This whole thing is a complete joke and always has been." Red Hood said annoyed at his loss against Mephiles "I mean, what's his job, really?"
"To keep anything dangerous from reaching the Emeralds." Contessa told him simply. He sighs and looks up and said "Blitz, I don't know where they are."
"Oh, come on! You're a bar, you're supposed to have darts around." Blitzo said annoyed.
"And I normally do, but who knows where the heck they went after…" Contessa began standing up and hears the doors and her eyes go wide in worry.
Red Hood look and glares a bit as the ones who entered was Mephiles who drops and puts out his cigarette and Blaze with him.
"Come on Contessa, I need entertainment." Bltizo said unaware of the new arrivals but then sees her attention elsewhere looks and sees Mephiles and Blaze and smiles turning to fully face them and said "Oh, this'll do nicely."
Red Hood looks nervous as Contessa who was just as nervous and proceeds to hide her glasses and bottles to prevent further damage.
Seeing this Mephiles said reassuringly "Okay, okay, I know, just relax. I'm not here to start anything."
Red Hood looks to Contessa who sighs and said "Okay."
"Miss. Cat. I heard you had kind of a strange morning…" Bltizo said grinning.
"It's been 'kind of a strange morning' for everyone, I think." Blaze said with a shrug.
"You know, every time I see this guy he seems to lose weight." Bltizo said grinning wrapping an arm around Mephiles "It's honestly amazing, really. He lose weight and yet never lose an ounce of muscle strength."
"Bltizo…" Mephiles said a bit annoyed, he wasn't a big fan of the imp.
"Mephy, my dear, how are you?" Blitzo said grinning. Mephiles moves away from him and goes up to the bar. Bltizo followed, leaning on the bar arms folded and said "Because, you know, we were just talking about you. All of us. At the bar, here. About you."
"I just need to talk to Contessa. Privately." Mephiles just said firmly.
"Alright, just give us a second first." Blitzo said shrugging. "I'm dying to hear about the body that came out of the East River this morning. It was a Fiction, right?" Mephiles looks at him surprised "Oh, everyone knows."
"Para was just here." Red Hood said to explain why they knew about the body.
"He said it looked like Blaze the cat." Bltizo added smiling.
"You sure it wasn't Dox?" Mephiles asked annoyed as he thought Para was still locked up.
"Well no, but HE seemed pretty sure." Bltizo said shrugging.
"Scarecrow." Mephiles said with some venom in his voice.
"Sorry." Blaze said softly.
"Para said you arrested him for no earthly reason, 'kept him locked in the cellar all damn night'…" Blitzo doing a bit of impersonation on Para's voice before continuing in his normal voice saying "He said you tortured him. Which…I don't know that kind of seems like a breach of your legislative duties." Mephiles glares at him. The imp approaches him and adds "Mephiles, come on, you can't be so dumb as to…"
"Blitzo for crying out loud, find the off button for you mouth for once. Now." Contessa said to him.
Blitzo looks at Contessa and Red Hood and said "What is it with you two? You and Hood are all, 'let's get a posse together,' when there's no one around, but as soon as the Dark Shadowry Demi-god walks in your tails go between your legs. Meowth got your nerve? What happened?"
"What happened? I'm tired is what happened." Contessa said annoyed
"Tired of what?" Blitzo asked.
"Of trouble, Blitz." Contessa told him firmly "I'm sick and tired of trouble. I don't want anymore. So just stop revving his motor or wait outside or get lost, I don't care which."
"Blitzo…" Mephiles said firmly glaring at him
"What?" Blitzo said annoyed and then said "Mephiles….look…two fictions are dead. And darn it, Red Hood's sister…"
"Contessa's sister." Red Hood said correcting the imp's mistake.
"Contessa's sister has been missing for, what, a few days now? And we haven't heard a word one about it from anyone." Blitzo explained.
"Actually…" Contessa speaks up concerned and asked "Have there been any updates. On my sister?"
Mephiles and Blaze look at each other sadly. The dark hedgehog then tries to be gentle as he said "I…don't know how to say this to you, Contessa. The woman we found in the river…"
"Who was it?" Contessa asked worried.
"I think you know who it was." Mephiles said sadly.
Contessa looks away sadly as it really dawns on her the identity of the body is. She looks sad as she doesn't face anyone.
Blitzo looking at this and also realizing sheepishly said "Geez me and my big mouth really walked into that one."
"If you say one more god dang thing, just one more thing…" Red Hood said glaring at Blitzo. The imp looks at him and shrugs and walks away. Red Hood then looks at his drink and said "God damn it!" He looks to glare at Blaze and Mephiles "Of course the dear Princess Blaze the darn Cat is all safe and sound!" Blaze looks away while Contessa gets a drink and glass out he continues "Where were you when we reported this weeks ago, huh? Where are you when we ever dang need you?!"
Red Hood gets up and approaches Mephiles as he continues, unaware Contessa was shaking as he keeps going "If you'd given one ounce of a damn about her, about any of us, she might've been saved! She might've been cared for! She might've been…" The sound of glass breaking gets him to stop.
Everyone look to see the glass and bottle Contessa had were smashed as she crushed them in her hands and all looked sadly at her. Red Hood even looked ashamed at himself, his friend just learned her sister was dead and all he did was let his anger get the best of him to get on his soapbox to berate the system instead of consoling his friend.
"I'm sorry, Contessa." Mephiles said sadly "I'm sorry we found your sister this way, and I…I wish this had ended up better." Red Hood sighs.
Contessa sighs and moves out of the bar and goes to see on a chair in a corner. Blaze concerned goes over to her and said "Contessa?"
"Get the heck out of my bar." Contessa told her not looking.
"I just want to…" Blaze began to say.
"It should have been you." Contessa told her "It should have been you and it wasn't." She looks at her glaring, but sees Mephiles next to Blaze and just looks away.
Blaze approaches Contessa and pulls out the Spider Broach and hands it to Contessa saying "We recovered this from her personal effects. I thought you might like to have it."
"I…I didn't know she still had this." Contessa said surprised taking it and looking at it. She sighs and said "The copper was from an Underdark mine…it's very rare….and very old."
Mephiles looks to Blaze and said nodding "That was decent of you." Blaze looks back and smiles at the approval.
"Hood." Contessa said to her friend.
"Yeah?" Red Hood said nodding.
"Take off for a bit, would you?" Contessa asked him.
"Are you sure?" Red Hood asked. Contessa looks at Blaze smiling and then nods. He nods and leaves and motions to Bltizo to leave too. Both of them leave the bar giving the three privacy.
Contessa goes to the bar and gets a glass out and as she explained "I don't know that much about her life…honestly we didn't talk often." She downs the glass and sighs sitting down as she continued "She was lost here, in the city. She just got swept away by it."
"Did she have any friends?" Mephiles asked her "Anyone who could tell us what she might have been doing? Why, she'd be a target?"
"I don't know about her friends…she hung around where she worked, mostly." Contessa said with a shrug. "She was hooking. To pay down debt. It ate me up to see her that way." She looks down sighing "Eventually, the only people she owed were at her work, you know, that lousy club. The Ink & Thinner." Mephiles listens more "The owner, Aran Ryan, with all his lousy 'fees,' it's a bunch of junk. It's how they kept her under their thumb, really." She sighs looking down said
"Contessa, it's okay." Blaze said to her "If it's too much, we don't have to do this."
"Aran, huh?" Mephiles said thinking "That's not the first time, I've heard that name. What do you know about him?"
"Only thing I know about him is he was a former boxer in the Punch Out circuit back in the Homelands." Contessa said shaking her head.
"We can just go and talk to him." Blaze said to Mephiles "We've got a lead, maybe we can take it from here?"
"Muffet…" Contessa said sighing.
"Well, you've been a tremendous help, truly." Blaze said to her.
"Is she…where is she?" Contessa asked them.
"She's at the Business Office." Blaze told her. "She's taken care of."
"I'm going to have to go down their and get her. Dang it." Contessa said sighing.
"Please, we can handle the funeral arrangements…" Blaze said to her.
"No, no it's a kind of, it's a formality with Spider people" Contessa explained "We burn our dead by sunrise or…I don't know. Some old world thing will mess your soul up."
"Of course." Mephiles said nodding promising the body, they didn't really need the body so in his mind it was okay.
"Okay, good." Contessa said nodding.
"Let's go down to the business office and start making the necessary preparations, alright?" Blaze said to her. Contessa smiles at Blaze and Mephiles smiles too. Conessa stands up and begins to leave. Blaze follows but stops and says to Mephiles "That club?"
"I'll go down their now, see what I can find out from the owner." Mephiles said arms folded.
"You were good with her. I'm impressed." Blaze said with a smile. Mephiles rubs his head at that compliment. "Really. Thanks. It just made everything easier." She then goes to follow Contessa out the bar.
Mephiles looks around and nods, it was time to find out what this Aran guys know and get some answers to this mystery.
Well that went well, no fists raised this time. Now Mephiles is going to the Ink & Thinner Club and learn what the owner Aran knows.
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