August investigations (open)

[detectiveofthewest]

Battleshots fired

Evening in the Black Bear Tavern, and someone had set up what looked like an oversized game of Battleship on one of the tables, with one major exception: all the ships had gleaming shot glasses carefully set into them at even intervals.

The bar was dark. The board was illuminated. There were cheesy underwater sonar noises involved. And Heiji stood on the other side of the board. "So. You ready?"

Handy Battleshots board here. Gameplay video here.


Battleshots works like Battleship. You and your opponent each have your own ocean grid, which is hidden from your opponent. You secretly place your ships on your ocean grid horizontally or vertically.

You and your opponent then alternate calling shots on the grid (for example, A1 or D5). If you pick a spot that your opponent has a ship in, it's a hit. Your opponent must then announce the hit and drink the appropriate shot off their ship. The middle shot on each ship is tequila served in a black cup.

Gameplay continues until you annihilate your opponent's ships, force a surrender, or someone passes out.

Groundwork (throughout August)

Heiji could be found throughout August in regular libraries throughout the city -- and libraries-underneath-libraries as well, looking through records and old archived newspapers. Or, occasionally, falling asleep with his face in a book or pressed against a handy keyboard. His topic of investigation? The East End Pack, and in particular one Derek Hale. It was all a matter of public record, which meant this was A-OK and totally aboveboard, right?

Right.

Reconnoitering (mid-August)

Lewisham was not a particularly safe place for the faint of heart -- in fact, it was a no man's land, a veritable hive of scum and villainy. But during a few evenings in mid-August, there was one extra supernatural beastie about: a black fox the size of a full-grown tiger, lurking about the rooftops and getting the size of the activity there. Heiji was doing a little reconnaissance work, though he could also be found scoping out the neighborhood in Havering.

[Or lemme know if you want anything in particular o7]

Comments

[rules_winter]

It probably said something about Mab's character that she wasn't terribly concerned about the dangers Lewisham posed. She seemed to take great delight in walking those streets, observing what she would be tasked with cleaning up or not cleaning up as the decision was still up in the air. She had laws she would most definitely be enforcing but those would come after she'd laid claim to the land. It shouldn't be much longer now. She glanced up as she felt a familiar presence, walking through the streets that evening, hand pressed against a solid brick wall where she was closing a stray door a lesser fae had opened.

"Lord Heiji." She murmured, not stopping her work though she did smile just a little. "How nice to see you this evening."

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji leapt easily down off a chimneystack perched high atop one of the buildings. As he landed, he shifted back into his human form. The transformation was accompanied by a wreath of blue flame that licked at him briefly before disappearing, spent.

"Nice to see you, too. Surveying the battlefield? There're quite a few outcasts out here, but I don't think they'll be able to mount an organized resistance to... anything, really."

[rules_winter]

The fae did enjoy their grand entrances, Heiji was no exception, shifting to human in a quick blaze of blue flame. She took a moment longer and then removed her hand from the door that was again solid wall and surveying him. "In a manner of speaking, yes." She agreed.

Her fingers flexed once, like she was stretching them after spending some time at one task and she glanced down the street absently. "The dredges of their specific societies. You would be amazed at how quickly the lost can fall in line." She smiled mostly to herself and looked back at the fox fae. "You were doing the same?" She doesn't specifically thank him for his assistance but there is something like gratitude there. Even if he was simply repaying her for her own assistance during his claim.

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket, handed it to Mab. Inside was a series of sketches: maps, containing information on the flow of nighttime commerce in the area. Foot traffic, concentrations where criminals, dark witches, vampires, and all sorts of unsavory sorts gathered.

"These are the patches you'll need to worry about the most."

[rules_winter]

Heiji was remarkably organized. She took the book from him and flipped it open. Where Mab had memorized what she needed, he had documented everything and his maps were passably readable which was not the case for Grimalkin. She had noted a few of the places he had as well. Once she had control of the territory she planned to make an announcement to anything supernatural in the area. She had few rules but some were iron tight. She had alliances to keep, after all.

"The dark witches are broken." She murmured, looking at the list, "I anticipate no problems with them. They may even prove grateful if they are introduced to Mistress Widdowson." The vampires could be more problematic. She flipped pages, taking in his observations. "You have been doing remarkable work."

[detectiveofthewest]

To be fair, it probably wasn't easy to draw maps with giant fuzzpaws.

"I always do remarkable work," said Heiji easily. "But I thought I might as well since I'll have to mind the house this time around." By which he meant standing guard over their existing territories to make sure no one tried a sneak attack while their main force was elsewhere.

[rules_winter]

Mind the house. Heiji could sound very domestic when he chose to. "It is always wise to leave a guard." She agreed. It would really be annoying if someone came around and tried to snap up their territories while they were off cleaning up Lewisham.

"There is a small nest at the Brockley and Ladywell cemetery." That was wasn't on the list but that just meant Heiji had been covering other ground when Mab came upon it. And it also didn't look like it would present her any specific problems. She had planned to go and deal with them in the evening. Glancing up she realized that wasn't actually far off.

Groundwork

[blind_badass]

After the beach party, surrounded by apparently a number of supernaturals, Snake went back to his job, teaching and researching physics. All the while in the back of his head, questions lingered. Decisions needed to be made. The biggest one he'd need to make for himself.

Another involved talking with Heiji. He dithered over the exact message to send for a few days. So instead, he send a voice-to-text message to meet him at the quiet work rooms in the London library if he wasn't too busy. If trying to write the question, gave him a problem, perhaps just asking the question would be simpler.

[detectiveofthewest]

Snake's message had been a bit on the mysterious side, but one thing Heiji enjoyed was getting to the bottom of a good puzzle. One quick text message and a jaunt to the library later, he was looking around for an immaculately-dressed instructor with a head of wavy grey hair.

"Hi! Hope ya didn't want too long. I came as soon as I could."

[blind_badass]

"No, not at all." Snake recited the last of his psychics notes into the voice function of his laptop, saved it and asked it to turn itself off, which it did. He genuinely had been doing research and he knew no one wanted to listen to him talk into his computer. Hence the quiet study room.

It also made for a good location to interrogate someone. "I've been thinking about something, Heiji, that I need your input on because it directly involves you. When you took me to that beach party, it was a friendly gesture. However, only while I was there did I realize the...kinds of people at the party. I have a lot of speculation on what this means but I'd like to hear it directly from you." He squeezed his shut-tight eyes a bit more. "Why did you bring me to a gathering of supernaturals?"

[detectiveofthewest]

"Wh..." Well, he certainly hadn't been expecting an interrogation. In fact, he was taken aback by the directness of the question; Heiji hadn't really meant anything by asking Snake there. Maybe he should've kept a closer eye on Snake, made sure no one blabbed too freely.

"I didn't invite you to a 'gathering of supernaturals'. It's just that there was a beach party and it sounded fun. It just happened to be run by a bunch of witches, that's all." If anything, Heiji's ulterior motives were more along the lines of getting Snake to come to the beach with him and enjoy a motorcycle ride.

...And also getting Snake to hug him. He could admit that.

[blind_badass]

So it wasn't some ulterior motive about supernaturals then? It did mean that Heiji didn't do it purposefully because he knew what Snake was. He'd be a little alarmed if someone just picked that out of nowhere. True, he had actually admitted his power to Maera, but she admitted what she was first. It had been...refreshing to admit it to someone who'd understand.

Snake relaxed his shoulders and his voice. "Well, the reason I ask is that I met a few of them there. Delightful people. I wasn't aware that you knew any at all." Did that mean maybe Heiji had some kind of powers? Asking would be pretty rude. "Do I need to swear and oath or give a secret handshake to show that I won't breathe a word to other people?"

[detectiveofthewest]

Maybe not ulterior motives about supernaturals, but definitely ulterior motives. "No," he said, furrowing his brow a little. "Though I'd appreciate it if you didn't go spreadin' it around everywhere."

He couldn't quite figure out why he was getting such a weird vibe from Snake about this. Snake was a metahuman, after all. But it seemed like he didn't make distinctions about type. Someone was supernatural, or they weren't. Didn't they have similar communities in America? Maybe there were less distinctions because it was more egalitarian?

"...I'm one of them, you know. You are, too, right?"

For Sylvia

[detectiveofthewest]

There was one question which Heiji had been mulling over for a little while now -- one question that was glaringly obvious to him, but which he knew that not many of his own kind would think to ask. (Or care to?) Either way, when Heiji decided he should do something, his follow-through was invariably swift.

Thus whether at one of the many parties that seemed to spring up in the supernatural community in London, or simply between appointments for her duties at the Redbright Institute, eventually Heiji would find an opportune moment to approach Sylvia Redbright, ask:

"'Scuse me, Ms. Redbright. Do you have a minute?"

And be reasonably sure the answer would be yes.

[brightwitch]

It was at the Redbright summer camp, in fact, on the closing days when Sylvia made an appearance to check how things were going. Though she remained devoted to the school, it was perhaps understandable that she'd had other things on her mind recently. The fae were more active than she could ever recall before, and it was surely no coincidence that their increased boldness had occurred around the same time as Abigail Widdowson declaring her new Midnight coven.

It was all rather troublesome.

So it was with a distracted smile that Sylvia turned to the young man outside the main tent, and she had to blink a couple of times to place him.

"Yes? Oh – you came to ask me about our summer school program, didn't you? How are you finding it?"

His name was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't quite remember it. Something foreign.

[detectiveofthewest]

The question took him a bit off guard; Heiji had almost forgotten about that conversation, though perhaps he, too, had had other things on the brain lately. And besides, she probably ran into a million different faces a day. It wasn't as though he was expecting her to remember him at all. "Oh, yeah! Ended up not having the time to sign up. But that's not actually why I'm here today."

Heiji fiddled with the brim of his cap absently as he spoke -- just one more youngster who used summer as an excuse to relax his wardrobe a bit. "Truth is, I'm fae."

[brightwitch]

Sylvia wouldn't have remembered it either, except that she always made a point to remember people with strong magical potential, and she had sensed that in him. There was also the fact that she had met him at Abigail's party which was absolutely overrun with fae–

Speaking of.

She suppressed a sigh. Great. Now if he was an outcast, then Sylvia had all the time in the world for him; she knew how difficult their lives could be, shunned by their own kind. But if he was part of the Other Realm lot, who had been causing so much mischief in the south-east... well.

She shifted, folding her arms. "I'm listening."

Not pre-judging. She'd judge him after he had said what he wanted to say.

[detectiveofthewest]

Hmm. Well, she hadn't tried to set him on fire, which he counted as a positive. So he simply nodded in quick acknowledgment and got right to it.

"As I understand it, you're the head of Circle Daybreak. I'm here to ask you to reconsider Circle Daybreak's policy of sealing off the Other Realm and driving the fae from its territories in the southwest of London."

And that was the whole of it, wasn't it? He doubted he could convince her that the fae were a positive force (he would argue they weren't entirely negative, either, but humans rarely wanted to hear that). Nor was he actually in the position to offer her some amazing boon in return; in fact, he suspected that being here at all was skating on some fairly thin ice. All he could really say for himself was that he was polite and direct about it... which wouldn't count for much in Court.

[brightwitch]

She blinked. "Why?"

It was almost a reflexive response to a request she had not expected. What did he or his kind care when they had the entirety of the Other Realm to play in?

slides in on a groundwork option

[eternull]

Libraries were often a refuge for Kate, especially nowadays with her awkward sun allergy, and it wasn't exactly rare for her to be found scouring the aisles for various bits of random trivia. There's always time to kill when you're immortal, after all.

Except on this awkward night, she stops halfway through a page, phone dangling idly in her off-hand, because someone's already sprawled out on the table she'd planned to claim. Hm. "I didn't realize this one was taken. My apologies."

It's a new one on her, admittedly, but something feels off about the air in here. Worth sticking her nose into? Hell yes.

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji was only halfway dozing, so he managed to haul himself into a sitting position without drooling on the table. He rubbed blearily at his eyes with one hand, and sort of shoveled his research materials over to his side of the table while he was at it in a groggy show at being polite and not. You know, taking up the entire surface.

"Nah, sorry. Must've dozed off." He was crinkling up an old newspaper, which detailed in a story (not a front page story, but the tale had still gotten some publicity) the death of someone named Laura Hale. It was part of a larger feature on how London was going down the drain, tsk-tsk, so many murders lately...

[eternull]

Heiji gets a nod of thanks as she drops her book-stack on the tabletop, one hand still aggressively marking the page she needed because she's not letting gravity ruin her work, damnit. And if it's an excuse to creep on whatever this stranger'd decided to pry into, then it's worth it all the more.

"It wasn't a hassle, really. But it's appreciated all the same." Laura Hale? Pity that she's never heard the name before, but it's still worth idly needling him over. "Though I'm told passing out on books gets rather uncomfortable. Doing some last-minute homework?"

[detectiveofthewest]

"Well, I mean the main thing's having to worry about getting print on your face, but yeah, they ain't exactly the best place to rest your head." Did Heiji have print on his face? He checked quickly in one of the library windows, but didn't see any ink. Bullet dodged!

"I look like a student, huh? But nah, I'm just doin' this in my free time. I like to snoop once in a while, y'know?"

Was that normal? Sifting through old newspapers and records as a hobby? Hmm.

[eternull]

Kate rather comically squints at Heiji while he checks himself in the window. Hey, if he's distracted, then it's the perfect chance to study him out of sheer curiosity. "You do look like one, a bit. But then again I'm also an awful judge of character. I do hope it didn't offend..."

It's only a tiny lie, but it's not exactly a harmful one. Misdirection for fun and profit: everyone should try it. "Interesting hobby to have. Most people would pick something that allows fresh air, but I suppose there's value in learning what you can these days."

[detectiveofthewest]

Oh no, mistaken for a teenager... stop staring at him, Kate.

"Hey, I got other ones, too!" he protested, though with a quick smile to show that no offense had been taken. "Got a Hayabusa I like takin' out whenever the roads are clear. Drove it out to the beach the other day. It was nice."