Strawberry425

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Okay, so the supreme court ruled same-sex marriage legal. Right now...I'm just so happy. I was debating on weather or not to make Johanssen an rp character (assuming @Kingfisher eventually gives me the okay to add another character)...and now I'm pretty sure I'll be making her a character. I'm off to sob in some corner now.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Magic is a risky and unpredictable business, with most preferring to use physical means to get their dirty work done. However, a few occult groups exist within Santa Sombra, giving sacrifices to otherworldly beings in return for demonic powers, and the occasional down-on-their-luck gambler will pray to some obscure trickster god in an attempt to fix a poker game. The most common use of magic is in distilled manners, such as placing charms on weapons to increase their lethalness, or reinforcing bank vault doors with protective wards.

@Kingfisher

I would assume the risky business part is the reason.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

I give to you, one hundred internet cookies.

@fantasyfan28

Yummm, internet diabetes is now within my reach.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Meanwhile I'm waiting on Mystic to get their reply post done so I can move on with Andy the zombie. XD

@DJAtomika

You wrote "Andy the zombie" and the first image that popped up in my mind was chubby, zombified, Chris Pratt.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Johanssen and I had farted around the burnt up alleyways for about a total of fifteen minutes before getting bored. Then we had retreated to the corner of the block for a smoke (electric cigar) and a sip of warm beer. I had an entire rack wasting away in my Sedan’s trunk. For the proper amount of authenticity, I had stuffed the beer bottle in a brown paper bag. We looked like a couple of teenagers, loitering around with cigars and poorly disguised alcoholic beverages. I was raising Johanssen in all the wrong ways.

I took a long suck of my electric cigar. The taste was dissatisfying. I missed my real cigarettes, but I was trying to cut out smoking all together. I had decided I would regret the day when my lungs shriveled up and collapsed. So now, I opted for nasty tasting e-cigars and long anti-climactic nights out drinking. Here I come, liver failure.

“Detective.” I heard a voice somewhere in the distance. It would have been just barely perceptible to human ears. I (the werewolf) heard it as though the speaker were ten feet away from me.

“Detective!” A repetition, accompanied by a tone of relief. Whoever was looking for me had finally spotted us. The alacrity with which Johassen concealed her beer bottle was astounding. I nearly teared up. When the time came, she would do me proud.

The cop that had approached us was a young, neat man. I didn’t remember his name, but I remembered asking him to inform us as soon as anything new came up. He was really a young guy; couldn’t have been more than twenty one. He eyed Johanssen, in part with admiration (what with her good looks), and in another part with suspicion (what a weird paper bag), to which she sneered at him, and his jaw jutted out defensively. Johanssen was being feisty, and, as it turned out, our dainty cop wasn’t as much of a pansy as his appearance suggested he was.

“Kids,” I said, waving a hand between them, trying as I may to disperse the tension with the breeze from my gesturing. Johanssen waited for him to back off first, and I wondered when she had gotten this confrontational. He smoothed his hair back, ignored her, and turned his full attention to me. Johanssen relaxed a little, retreating to our crime fighting mobile to hide any incriminating evidence of intoxication.

She arrived back just in time to hear our little exchange.

“Detective Amelio,” I was getting tired of hearing the word ‘detective,’ “Gomez found a witness in the back alleyways. I thought I should let you know. They went to check it…erm…her out.”

I blinked at him once, long and slow. If I wasn’t mistaken, we’d specifically asked to be informed promptly of any new findings. “They” implied that we had not been the first ones reported too. The cop seemed to get the gist of his mistake. He scowled sheepishly at the ground, having trouble meeting my eyes.

“Who’s they?” I asked, blowing watery smoke into his face.

“Gomez and Holton...W-well, no,” He stuttered, “Gomez found the bum. Holton went to go check on her.” He was looking regretful, sheepish, and intimidated all at once.

“Idiot,” Johanssen murmured under her breath, so low that any normal human would have missed it, our young guy included. But I didn’t. I smirked.

Gomez. I didn’t know who Gomez was. I’m not ashamed to admit, I don’t know most of the force’s names, aside from myself and my dear Johanssen. Everyone else is kind of a blur. And yes, it has come to my attention that our constant ostracizing of the force (usually insisted upon by me), has caused the lack of familiarity. Johanssen’s already told me a million times. But, what can I say? I like when its just the two of us working on a case. The dynamic duo.

Holton was a name I knew. He was pretty unforgettable among the SSPD. There wasn’t a man (or woman) on the force who didn’t know his face. Or, whatever was left of it anyway. Which constituted what I thought seemed to be a finely polished ivory white skull. That was as much as I knew about him. So I had to hope that would he do his job swimmingly.

Since now was not the time for unnecessary conflict, I let the cop’s mistake pass. After all, everyone makes mistakes, and I’m no saint. It was good someone would be with her, securing her. She would be one of our only remaining witnesses. Others, alive and even mangled, had dispersed from any crime scenes, unwillingly to intermingle with the SSPD. I didn’t blame them.

We made our way back to the alleys, Johanssen trotting on my heels like a loyal crime fighting German Shepherd Dog. Or an aggressive attack dog. A Rotty, maybe? At this point, I wasn’t sure which one she was. (I took note of the fact that I was being stereotypical about my four legged cousins.)

When we reached the woman, she was in a state of delirium. She kept screeching on about the Grim Reaper, which told the three of us that Holton had probably passed on by. Passed on. He was nowhere to be found, at least not near her.

What should have keyed me onto his location was the unbearable grating of a dumpster lid screeching open nearby. But I ignored it in favor of studying the temporary insanity Runez can cause in someone.

We left the young cop behind with the bum. He was trying his very best to calm her, using his pretty boy charms to fool her into thinking an angel had come to rescue her. Holton hadn’t gone far. His scent was still fresh in the air. I followed it, trying to make it look like I was wandering aimlessly, looking for clues. It was a farce, so Johanssen wouldn’t suspect that my senses were more than natural. To be honest, I was sure she had already divulged the fact that I was not normal. But, to what extent, I had no clue

We followed the trail to that dumpster I mentioned earlier.The sight we found was not a pretty one.

“Aww man,” Johanssen breathed, looking morose.

A goblin, splayed out and bloodied. The corpse had been ravaged, perhaps by the works of hands (read: paws) like mine. The cuts seemed too fine to correlate with the jagged blows of a raging werewolf. But, while it had certainly been sliced and diced in all sorts of unique ways, it was the bullet hole in the middle of its forehead that stood out from the rest of the damage. This was killing blow.

Somewhat reluctantly, Johanssen whipped out a pair of latex gloves and began digging through the goblin’s pockets. I pulled on a pair of my own and began ambling around, searching the walls and ground, not just with my eyes, but with my nose too.

The red brick wall behind the dumpster had been painted dully with tidbits of brain and broken skull fragments.

It took me a little while, but I finally found what Holton had found and chosen to the discard. A business card, imprinted with the face of a tiger. I was vaguely familiar with it, though not interested in the least bit with dealing with it. If you hadn’t guessed by my fascination with the bum, drugs, specifically Runez, was not my specialty. By that extension, I rarely dealt with the Reapers, or their little success story, “the Predator.” From what little I understand, she’s some kind of Reaper, Runez-junkie, prodigy. They’ve probably caused problems for the SSPD before (probably in this context means definitely.) For the most part, I’ve dropped my cases on them. We don’t have the power behind us to fight them successfully.

But, unfortunately, this is situation is different. I can’t fathom why, but the card as our only piece of evidence thus far suggested that the Reapers were behind last night’s massacre. A city wide massacre. Which means, out of the good of my heart, I should at least follow up on this one lead.

Come to think of it, this was Holton’s fault. Yeah. Good excuse. I would hunt that bastard down and help him to the extent that he was willing to go. You know, before I decided it was a lost cause and abandoned him.

"What's that?" I nearly jumped out of my skin. Johanssen stood behind me, eyebrows raised in the image of curiosity.

"I'll tell you later. It's no big deal. A business card for a low class drug dealer," I lied, "But I want to talk to Holton about it. I need to know why he didn't report it."

I wanted to lie to her, protect her. I couldn't have my "heir" so to speak, engaging with the Reapers. These moments are included among some of the many times I've considered turning Johanssen. Into a werewolf, I mean. For her safety. She's like my over sized kid, for crying out loud. And I can't be sure what I'll do if something happens to her, especially if its because of me. I'll send her home. Me and the bonehead could suffer by ourselves in our little supernatural corner of self-pity, once we had gotten a good beating from those Runez injected freaks. Her life just wasn’t worth the Reapers.

I sniffed the card as indiscriminately as possible, passing it close to my face to make it look like I was scrutinizing the picture. It was thick with the scent of our ripped up golbin, but also layered with another’s smell. Female, young, closer to my age than Johanssen’s, and most likely our perp. What I assumed to be Holton’s scent perfumed the rest of the card lightly.

We followed his trail, finding him in a flurry of news reporters to whom he was ignoring.

“Holton!” I shouted before he disappeared again, loping with my long legs to catch up with him. I grabbed him by his arm, momentarily thrown off by the fact that I was mostly grabbing air. I loosened my grip, unreasonably afraid I would break his arm.

Lowering my voice, I raised my hand just barely to reveal the card laid flat in my palm.

"I think we should talk about this."

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Aaaand posted! Poor Brass needs somebody on the force with a... Nose for tracking, so to speak. Golly, I wonder where he'd find somebody like that?

@RIengo

tee hee hee

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Hey everyone, just popping in to say I'm still around. I went shopping all day yesterday...needed a new outfit.

@Kingfisher Nice plot post!

@potatochipgolem

I second that notion.

I was wondering if RIengo was going to have Brass approach Chase or if I should move Chase along, but I haven't seen them around. No rush though.

Also, for future reference, I was pretty active in collab-ing before guild shut down. I don't think (honestly I don't remember) I've done a collab since then, but I still like them. So if anyone would like to collab with my characters in the future, feel free to approach me.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

@potatochipgolem

Oops. What I mean't to say was

On another note, my baby T-rex usually sleeps downstairs, but I've started moving him upstairs at nights since about four days ago. He just saw the sun rising for the first time and he won't stop looking out the window now. What a sweetie pie.

@Strawberry425

Do you see the family resemblance?

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

On the topic of color coding, the times in which it has ever come in handy for me have been when I've had a buttload of characters. So for example there was an rp where I ended up doing about ten characters and color code came in handy for people searching the dialogue of whoever their character was interacting with. Kingfisher has wisely put a limit on how many characters are to be rp'ed, BUT the color code can still be quite useful. For people like me who like to insert the dialogue of others into their response posts, it can make it easy to go through an entire post, see the color, and go "oh there it is." But if we're being totaly honest the only reason I put some color in this post is because quite a few posts before me also had color. I don't believe it's really required in this rp unless others believe it will help them somehow.

On another note, my parrot usually sleeps downstairs, but I've started moving him upstairs at nights since about four days ago. He just saw the sun rising for the first time and he won't stop looking out the window now. What a sweetie pie.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

“Johanssen!” I shouted. I was precariously perched on the scorched skeletal wood remains of the second floor of a cooked four floor apartment. No object had remained untouched by the lashing tongue of the flames that had swept through the neighborhood last night. What little remained of this building was its wooden support system (barely) and the red brick outside, most of which had collapsed inward when the internal structure of the building had been reduced to a smoking pile of nothing.

Charlize Johanssen’s blonde head popped through the empty doorway. The door was missing, burnt to an ashy pile on the floor nearby. Her pink lips pouted for a nanosecond as she looked for the source of my voice, before spotting me on my makeshift roost.

“Chase…that’s not really safe.”

My sweet little junior detective. The daughter I never had. Well actually, she's more like a little sister. Twenty-three seems to old to be my daughter. Long blonde hair, short eyelashes, neat eyebrows, medium lips, nose a little on the pointy side, and big, big, blue eyes. Johanssen's a pretty and loving women and a dedicated detective in training. I'm proud to work with her. She's more prudent than I am, and her concerns for my safety are valid.

But I'm a tough guy, so "hmm" was my only response. Besides, I was pretty sure a fall from this height wouldn’t damage me too badly. Ignoring Johanssen’s look of apprehension, I pointed to the island of singed wood that floated haphazardly in a sea of air and weak support structure.

“There’s a body there. An old woman, I think. Dead, definitely.”

The island is decorated sparsely with the sad remains of what used to be a living room. The couch, licked by the fire last night, had been burned open, its fluffy stuffing pouring out of the ashen rips like butter yellow popcorn. The woman was strewn across the couch languidly, her body a gross husk of its former self. If I could just mosey my way across the wood beam without it breaking I could retrieve her body. I had already heard Johanssen's lungs fill with air, no doubt preparing a speech on my stupidity.

Prepared to ignore her shouts of protest, I straightened myself and averaged the distance between my body and the island. Three long strides across the wooden support beam would land me on the island. I was aware that the correct amount of disturbance would cause the shaky island to teeter sideways and no doubt bring myself and the scorched corpse down with it. Weighing my options, I sighed, shaking my head. If the island collapsed, it would pull a good deal of the rest of the building down with it. Not worth it.

Carefully, I made my way down to the more sturdy first floor of the building. I was greeted with Johanssen's smug face.

"Fuck off, Johanssen."

Her smirk only deepened.

"What'd I do?" She asked sarcastically. I pushed past her, heading for the building entrance and the heavy air outside. When she was sure I had walked a good distance, I heard the teasing clucks of imitation chicken noises coming from behind me. Asshole. I wasn't afraid. Just being prudent, like she was almost 85% of the time.

Most of the smoke had cleared away, but the scent of burned wood still curled thickly in the air. I scrunched my nose, overwhelmed for a moment with what I can only describe as the scent of psuedo-barbecue. Don't ask me why, but I've always associated burning smells with barbecue. Right now the world around me was a feast of destruction.

What was going on in Santa Somabra? The chaos right now was unimaginable. Werewolves, dozens of them, had rampaged through the city last night. I could smell them everywhere. During our multiple investigation for the morning I had been in a constant state of disapproval. I would shake my head every time the scent of another lycan permeated my senses and Johanssen would look at me curiously.

Speaking of Johanssen, by now she had caught up to me. She was chewing on the inside of her cheek, a signature sign that something was bothering her. I looked back at her and raised my eyebrows. Our months of working together had allowed us to develop a silent language all our own. I had no doubt she would stay my partner once she graduated from junior detective to detective.

"First of all," she began, "How come you don't call me Barbara. I've told you a million times you can call me Barbara."

"Johanssen sounds more badass. Don't change your name when you get married. In fact, make him take your name. O..Or her." I stuttered out the last word, remembering this morning's incident.

She rolled her eyes, smiled ever so slightly, and blushed all at once.

"Second question," she continued, trying to brush off the embarassment, "Who do you think did this?" She lowered her voice, squinting her blue lookers and glancing around us. There are always double agents and traitors everywhere, even in the places you least expect them to be. To be very frank, in Santa Somabra, even a friend could be an enemy. Johanssen could be an enemy for all I knew.

But I liked her too much to think of her that way.

Shoving my hand in my trench coat pocket, I dug around for my keys while attempting to answer her question. "I don't know," I replied honestly, "It was a night time crime, but the night is a magnet for crime anyway. It could be the Nyte Kyngs," then in a lower voice, "Or an incident piloted by the Nyctari family."

Of course, I was lying. The smells were greatly made up of werewolf trails. I can't imagine the Nyte Kyngs enlisting a mostly werewolf army to wreak havoc on Santa Somabra. Unless they were playing some complicated game. It could have been the Hunters. But, as far as I knew, the monthly hunting session wasn't for a while now.

When we were comfortably seated in my sedan, I pulled off. We were heading to the more dense area of where the chaos had taken place. It would be crawling with all manners of folks, ranging from mythical, to human, to cops which were like species of their own.

I decided, on the way there, to make small talk.

"So this morning," I started off tersely, "When I barged into your apartment (Johanssen lives in the end-of-the-hall apartment on my floor), you were with...another woman...naked."

She blushed furiously next to me before spluttering out some words, "First of all, I gave you that extra key in case of emergencies. You gave me a key...do you see me just dropping into your apartment unexpected?!"

"Ok! But it was an emergency. Wouldn't you call this entire situation an emergency? And you weren't answering your phone! And I know,usually, you're pretty on point with answering your phone. So I decided dropping in on you wouldn't be too bad of an idea. I thought maybe you were sleeping alte or somethig. Also, not to pry, but if I remember correctly, you were dating a guy about half a year ago."

"Well next time knock before you enter. Loudly," she gave me a hard stare, emphasizing the loudly, "Also I like both." She added on quickly, gauging my reaction carefully.

I nodded, "So you're..."

"Bisexual, I'm bisexual." She nodded back and smiled. A new level of trust had just been added to our unraveling friendship. We had just gone from screaming about unexpected visits to bonding over my discovery of her sexuality. Cool.

"Wow, I would have never guessed. Now we can hit on ladies together."

She laughed, a cheery noise, "Ok, but that's my girlfriend. So, yeah, but just not with her around."

"That's your girlfriend? Nice."

"You should meet her some day....in less explicit conditions. By that extension, when are you going to get a lady friend Chase?"

"Eh, gimme some time. The bachelor life is fun." The rest of car ride passed in companionable silence.

When we arrived to the more heavy scenes (note, multiples) of crime, I was feeling less positive than before. The crowd developing in these areas were dense. Curious citizens who couldn't keep to themselves, mixed with nosy reporters and irritated cops.

Reporters approached us and began badgering us for information we didn't have. A few cops chased them away, giving us room to breath. I searched around, hoping someone would have some updates for us.