The Golden Platter Casino.
They had missed the boss, but had caused some damage. At the same time, however, Dr Moller hadn’t issued any particular order to handle the Casino afterwards, and the Pax Septimus Police Department was occupied or corrupt. Normally, any associations with monsters would lead to a post-operation investigation, followed by the closing off of the institution. Here though?
Estelle, in her civilian clothes, on her day off, decided it was best to take a look and see if the Angel’s shootout had done anything in the long-run of purging this place of sin.
And it seemed like it had worked well. Maybe
too well. As tough as The Golden Platter Casino looked on the outside, it had been reduced to a pile of brick and mortar. A building that stood a century collapsed less than a week after the operation. It was the weekend, so there was no one here. But there was a bulldozer, excavator, and a few dump trucks parked beside the rubble.
Being an outsider, Estelle was not privy to what usually happened to operation zones in Pax. Gemini’s espers were vastly outnumbered by their monstrous counterparts. Once Gemini left an area, the organised monsters would return to the area to take what they could. And if not the monsters themselves, then the homeless or a criminal body would do it for them. In extreme cases, the area would be sold to a developer, who would begin “developing” the area sometimes hours after sale of the property. Getting permits to overhaul a location in the historic district should have been next to impossible, or at the very least time consuming.
But the police weren’t the only ones that were corrupt.
Mika stood beside Estelle as she surveyed the scene. While Mika tended to accessorise herself when going to school, she didn’t do so here. Just a t-shirt and some cargo pants. She was wearing her badge-covered backpack, but that would have been a pain to strip down.
"’Oh yea, I thought I saw something online about this." Mika pulled on her straps.
"’They say someone broke in and messed up the place after they closed. They’re going to build a vintage highrise, whatever that is."“Vintage highrise…”Estelle folded her arms, trying to imagine what exactly that would look like. A castle? Or a solid brick-and-mortar apartment-slash-hotel to match the surroundings. A strange thing either way, but stranger still was that every other GEMINI agent that she had met in Pax Septimus was younger than her, some by a great degree. As in, they were all too young to even
vote, and most of them couldn’t even drink.
Certainly they could all still fight though.
“Wonder who’s doing the developing. Considering what hit Pax Septimus, you’d think that rather than tearing down the buildings that were still standing, they’d focus on rebuilding what had already fallen.” A finger placed itself against her chin.
“Good way to bury evidence though.”"You don’t say?" The rubble itself had been sorted. All of the brick and stonework was in one pile, while there were two smaller piles for steel and what had to be an “everything else” pile. Mika walked up to a rock and pushed it with her heel.
"’This pile of metal is worth a lot of money. The homeless are going to pick through this if it just sits here. The smart thing to do would have been to take care of the metal before the weekend. They have the trucks to move it." Mika punted a stone.
"They have so much money they can afford to leave it out here. Meanwhile, we just barely scrape by." Mika turned to look at Estelle.
"We already know this was the work of monsters. Why are we here?"“You didn’t need to come,” Estelle replied.
“I’m just not used to these kinds of loose ends.”It was a day off, after all. She honestly had no clue why Mika herself had decided to tag along for the visit, while the only reason that Estelle herself decided to take a look was because she was on the paranoid side of things. From fighting monsters-of-the-week in her youth to hearing about continent-spanning organisations of monsters during her training, it had been enough of a jump to disorientate. Perhaps it would’ve been better to play ping-pong or volunteer at a soup kitchen or something. Perhaps she could just hole up in the dormitory and veg out on some Youtube videos.
But no, she was here, taking pictures of the machines, of the signboards tied to the rented fence.
“I’d like it if we took the tiger’s head rather than the tip of their tail. ‘Specially when so much of Pax Septimus’s population is vulnerable, and even more so because those weretigers would be hunting to replace what they had lost. And I didn’t really do much in the last operation either. So yeah. Here I am.”"’Did anyone do a lot?" Mika folded her hands behind her back.
“You did a lot, didn’t you? Saved the teller, took down most of the guards, got us the password?”"Well…" Mika averted her eyes.
"I also hurt the teller, and I don’t think I got as many of them as you-know-who and her gun. But I guess I did more than most." She looked back at Estelle.
" That’s not important now. I forget that you’re not from around here. You’ve probably been in more operations than me. But not more operations here. I’ve been in twice as many operations as you have." She held out two fingers to help Estelle visualise the difference between their experience.
"I know I’m not smart, but I don’t see a loose end. We didn’t go in there to kill Tony, we went in there to get Binky back. Cutting off the head sounds good, but there will always be a head to cut off." Mika raised an eyebrow.
"You don’t seem like the head chopping type though."“Eh…I haven’t really been to more operations than you either,’ Estelle replied. “They transferred me here on probation after I graduated from their training facility.”
And her work in her childhood didn’t really count either. It didn’t exist on the same extremes, so it wasn’t worth mentioning.
"...Oh." Mika averted her eyes.
“And yeah, the operation is done. I’m just talking about a separate thing here, Mika. It’s not that I’m saying we messed up in what we did, it’s just that I’d want to do more to help out the people here, you know?” Estelle shrugged. “Just because there’s too many to cut off in a lifetime doesn’t mean it's meaningless to try. And maybe I don’t look the type, but that’s just because I’m selective about it.”
"Okay." Mika eventually brought her eyes back to Estelle.
"I’m not that smart, but if you want to help people… You need to know something." She folded her arms.
"It doesn’t matter how strong you are, how smart you are, or how unkillable you are. If you’re an esper, you’re going to die. I don’t know how it is elsewhere, but none of us are going to get old. The bad guys have more money, people, and power than we do. That’s why we have to kill as many enemies as we can. Because anyone we leave will just make things harder later on."“Kinda grim, huh?”Estelle folded her arms. For a teenager, Mika’s outlook on having superpowers leaned towards the more pessimistic side of things, didn’t it? It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course, but from her own perspective, it wasn’t all that good of a thing either.
“Well, if you’re human, you’re going to end up dying anyhow. Looking at the statistics of premature deaths around the country is pretty depressing, after all.” It wasn’t like there was anything left to examine of the demolition site at this rate. She patted the younger girl on the shoulder.
“But the statistics aren’t all that bad either, and Pax Septimus is an anomaly as well. Not like the rest of America’s in flames here.”A pause. A ham-fisted approach to changing the subject as they strode away from the remains of the casino.
“What do you do on your days off anyhow, Mika? Catch up on homework?”This caused the girl to squint her eyes, as if she really had to think of what she did.
"Uhh, I watch shows… I read comic books… Play with dolls… I have a colouring book too… But I haven’t done anything like that for a while now. Homework isn't that hard either." She glared at Estelle.
"Are you sure you’re new at this? The way you ran up those stairs was like you’d done it a hundred times."“Huh, kinda nostalgic. Don’t think I’ve even thought about stuff like that for…” Estelle screwed her face together, eyes flickering up to the sky as if her memories could be found in the clouds.
“...maybe twelve years now? And as for the stairs, well, did that for four years, after all. Gotta catch the bus, even if the profs don’t care if you’re late or not.”"You’d know better than I would." Mika was just a teenager after all. She wasn’t old enough to look back on her highschool days with the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. Nor did she long for the days when friendships came easy and life was more simple. Though given that Mika was an esper, the days of things being simple were over.
"You don’t do anything for fun then? Or just not stuff like that?"“Eh…back in the training facility, I’d go out bowling or to the movies with my friends during off-days. Maybe some baseball if we could get organized enough for it?” She tucked her bangs behind her ears.
“And further back in university, we’d all gather up in the same dorm for Smash or Mario Party. Maybe the swimming pool or club activities depending on the day.”Estelle furrowed her brow further.
“Was busier during my teenage years though. And I just moved to Pax Septimus right after the Holy Diver landed, so…” She gestured. Empty streets, empty buildings.
“Not much to do here. Unless you know some local secrets you could introduce me to, Mika?”Mika shook her head.
"I’ve only been here a month or so. I go to school, then I go home." She shrugged her shoulders.
”But that was when-" She swallowed.
”I spend a lot of time at HQ now. No reason to go home anymore." After a short pause she added:
”It’s fun to look in garbage cans though. Most of the time it’s just junk, but people throw away good stuff sometimes."“You dorm at HQ then?””I sleep on the couch in the break room sometimes. But if its a school day I drive home to sleep." HQ technically had room to hold a few GEMINI espers, but most of it was dedicated to other facilities such as monster containment cells and Fritzi’s ever expanding lab. Fritzi was probably the only one who spent the bulk of her downtime at HQ and likely had a sleeping quarters somewhere. Mika reached into the garbage can and pulled out a magazine. The cover had a vibrant image of a star exploding.
”Did they give you a home yet?" She flipped through the pages.
“Huh, latest copy o’ National Geographic,” Estelle said, peering over her companion’s shoulder.
“They pay me enough to cover my rent. Got a flat out on the edges. Don’t exactly want to be on the clock 24/7, after all.”"You don’t need to be on the clock in order to encounter a monster." After flipping through a few pages, she shoved the magazine in her backpack. In doing so, a pair of scissors and a bottle of glue nearly jumped out. But it just took some shifting to make everything fit.
"Maybe I’ll go finish up my homework. What are you going to do?"“I’ll walk you back then,” Estelle replied, smiling at Mika.
“In case you encounter a monster on the way."It was just an observation!" Mika turned her head away.
As for what I’ll do after…”Drinking with her underaged colleagues would be a bad idea, wouldn’t it? And she wasn’t sure she liked the vibes she got from the Freelancers in Pax Septimus either. Would be even more disastrous if she went out drinking with the Doctor.
“...maybe I’ll raise a goldfish. Know a pet shop that’s still running?”Estelle’s sudden decision caused Mika’s head to pop up.
"Uh, yes. You wouldn’t think so, but this place over here is doing really well. I don’t know why, but I like animals, so I think it’s nice." She pointed ahead.
"Just a bit further this way. It’s not far from the casino." After walking a bit further, Estelle and Mika were able to enter “Tall Tails.” One of Pax Septimus's many businesses that utilized a tiger mascot.
@Ponn@Majoraa@ERodeThe goal of the operation was to get to the bottom of Finn’s curse. This was very much an investigation rather than a man hunt. But this was also a known monster den, and the Gemini team had to be prepared for anything. That said, it would be far easier to conduct an investigation if everyone wasn’t on high alert. How they would proceed was left up to the agents themselves, with Ashley helming the team again.
A floor plan of Dante’s wasn’t even necessary. The windows by the roadside gave everyone a good look inside. Finn would recognize the place instantly. It was just as worn down as the last time he saw it, with the checkerboard floor peeling in places, along with the paint on the walls. The overhead light wasn’t adequate to light the place up, but there were enough neon logos of beer companies to bathe the place in hues of green and red. It was a man cave in every sense of the word. Even with so many windows to peer in, very little sunlight entered Dante’s.
What might have surprised Finn was that the place was packed. A bunch of bikers had shown up and nearly every seat was filled with someone wearing black leather. Twenty of them were big heavyset guys wearing cowboy hats. Each had a red handkerchief tied around his neck and would periodically scream “Yehaw!” loud enough to be heard outside the building. Then there were about ten tree spirits, or something similar. They were all wearing wooden masks and had bodies that were overgrown with plants. Despite this, they also had some animal features poking through, like a few feathers here or a tuft of fur there. But they were also wearing a lot of black leather, it just didn’t contain their plant-like growths. Then there were about five mage bikers, who wore studded leather suits and purple capes over them. Their faces were just eyes floating in a sea of inky darkness. The last group was what appeared to be five high school girls, who had no business being in a place like this on a Wednesday afternoon. They were all sitting in a booth in the corner looking at their surroundings.
Standing behind the counter was Dante himself. He had ditched the beard, but still had about two-hundred pounds to drop before he was a healthy weight. He was laughing at something some dryads at the bar told him, but then his face ran cold. He looked straight at Finn’s position, even if there was no direct line of sight to him. Then he sighed.
Getting discovered this early was never a good thing, but that was also one hell of a hint something was amiss here.
@VertigoMaverick Alternative had been keeping its head low since the Diver was vanquished. But even before then, the freelancer community had turned its back on them at a critical moment. As much as freelancers liked to pretend that their views on the monster problem were unique, it became increasingly clear that they would always side with power and money. That was something Gemini had in spades.
Or at least it did.
The Diver’s brief appearance did a lot to upset the scales. Many Freelancers were killed, and GEMINI’s forces were scattered around the city. Tentions were escalating, but it was becoming easier and easier to convince monsters to come live in the Bastion. It would not be freelancers, but an army of friendly monsters that would enable Maverick Alternative to take back the city. But an army of a thousand monsters started with just one, and the next one was right in Ciri’s sights.
There had been word of a golden dragon lingering around Pax Septimus. Once a proud and industrious race of alchemists, their number had been reduced to just a few. It was thought that they had all left for other realities long ago, but one wandered the streets of Pax Septimus.
His disguise wasn’t good, but he would be a valuable addition to Maverick’s forces. Only issue was that he was extremely flighty, and would need to be captured by force. If the reports from the water truck recovery were to be believed.
The dragon man sniffed a dumpster as a smile crossed his face. He flipped the lid up, and flies scattered in the wind. There on top of a pair of dirty shoes and a wet tarp was a half eaten burger. It had fermented in the dumpster’s fumes for a few days, and the blue cheese was starting to look a lot more blue. The dragon only hesitated long enough to lick his lips. He reached his arm into the dumpster and shoved the burger into his mouth. He wore a look of utter bliss as the stale bun flaked apart in his mouth.
Maverick espers didn’t plan their operations the same way GEMINI agents did. They had simple objectives and didn’t complicate things with long battle plans. It was up to Ciri how she wanted to handle the situation.
@The World@Nakushita@TaintedMushroom@FamishedPantsAnother day, another paycheck. Gemini was hiring a few espers keep agent Cerberus safe from Oros. It wasn’t clear if this was a meeting or what, but the pay was good. Just an escort mission that possibly involved a brush with the mad esper.
St Bianchi Church had seen better days. No one’s exactly sure why the old structure went into disarray. Maybe the church simply went on hard times as people stopped paying donations. Maybe cultists and squatters took over the place, only to leave once the building degraded. Maybe there was a scandal involved. Either way, the outside made it look like there wasn’t a whole lot going on. Though maybe that was what made it a good hideout for a mad esper.
The front door was barred shut and rusted over. It wouldn’t have been impossible to get through, but it looked like one of the stained glass windows had been shattered. That was probably the easier way to get access inside.
"Huzzah!" Angel flew through the window, carrying Mika bridal style. As soon as she landed, she whipped around and pointed her SMG at her surroundings.
"Nope! No ambush here." ”No ambush yet.” With a groan, Mika pushed herself out of Angel’s arms and straightened her back.
"That’s true, Claudia! We gotta be on our toes here! We’ll inspect the room as soon as everyone else…." Her voice trailed off once she looked at the center of the room.
"What’s that doing there?" With an exception to the circular shape of the church, there wasn’t a lot that separated it from others of its kind. But in the center of the room between several pews was a large generator. It wasn’t making a lot of noise, but it was running. Aside from the broken window, the rest of the place looked clean and tidy. The exact opposite of what one would expect from a place that was being used by cultists or homeless people.
Not ten seconds in and already something felt off.
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