Mimic
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Post by Special Agent Cox on Jun 6, 2016 18:49:40 GMT -5
It was a bit of a long road down to his destination. It had taken longer than he anticipated trying to drive over to the forest than he thought it would have taken. The further down he drove down the more hazardous the road got, and the slower he had to drive just to be safe. It never felt nearly as long walking here as it did to drive much to the man's surprise. But maybe he was remembering it wrong. It had been awhile since Jesse had taken a little journey through the local woods. Back then he had always walked down the path, it wasn't as taxing as he thought it would have been for someone of his size. Then again, he hadn't been by himself when he came here either. The man frowned as thoughts of Gil entered his head. There had been a time in his life that he wanted nothing more than to get rid of his troublesome hellhound ward, but when the time came for Gil to leave he missed him. He missed him badly. The house felt empty without him, and even his PIDA work was just not the same without Gil. The hound was more than just some guy that he had to keep an eye on. Gil was a friend, a roommate, his loyal partner. They had worked together so much that Jesse couldn't even think about finding an new partner to work with.
And that was what brought him here. PIDA agents normally did not work alone. It wasn't an official rule that agents couldn't work cases on their own but for some agents it was necessary. Jesse loathed to admit this, but with the kind of powers and just how reliable they were in the past he was the kind of man that needed a partner. More so to keep himself from getting into trouble than anything else. For the longest time Gil had been his partner but with Gil gone it was only a matter of time until a certain nosy british companion of his noticed and forced him with someone. The only problem was the new partner. John had briefed him about the woman he would be working with before giving him their first case. Rikutsu Hakumishi, the PIDA's one and only Inukami was a stubborn, uncooperative woman that didn't work well with people, and was notorious for skipping work most of the time. Neither he or John had heard about Rikutsu until recently but John gave him a bit of what he did know from the reports he had read. Some how John got it into his head that Jesse would be a good match for her. Jesse managed to turn Gil into a passable agent so why couldn't he do the same with this one?
John must be losing it, but after a few hours arguing about it Jesse finally caved. At the end of the day he trusted his friend enough to follow his orders. So knowing that his new partner wouldn't show up at work today Jesse got into his car and drove all the way down to the forest to go to her house. Jesse drove as far as he could possibly go before parking the car. He grabbed the work files with him and made his way deeper into the forest. He had a rough idea of where he was going. He had been in the forest enough to get a good idea of the layout. He even remembered passing by an old beaten path that probably lead to the house Rikutsu was living at. The journey to his new partner's place went by a lot faster than the drive here had. In no time at all he found the house. Jesse double checked the address to be on the safe side before he went to knock on the door. Hopefully she would at least answer the door.
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Inukami
Special Agent
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Post by Rikutsu Hakumishi on Jun 9, 2016 7:52:54 GMT -5
The call had come through the evening before. Rikutsu had just stepped into the house when the landline began to ring - what was up with that? Was the PIDA psychic? Well, with their employment roster, there was that chance. Normally, the Inukami would have ignored the phone and let it ring, but this was one of the few times she decided to answer. She greeted the person on the other end of the line with her usual grumpyness, prepared to tell them that she didn't care if they were 'concerned' that she hadn't shown up for work that day, but the words the other person spoke caught her off guard. What? They took the liberty of assigning her a what? The speaker never got the chance to finish his sentence. She hung up the phone. The rest of the evening was spent brooding and moping around the house. There were at least three angry holes in the walls and she was certain that she would be in need of a new coffee table.
The PIDA sure were pushy, weren't they? Well, they could take their advice and suggestions and shove it all where the sun don't shine, she decided. Like hell was she going to work with someone else. A partner would only get in the way. And somewhere in the back of her mind - although she would never admit it out loud - the Inukami was actually worried about losing her temper and injuring any partner she had. Or worse, getting them killed in the midst of a fight.Despite her rough exterior and show of uncaring, Rikutsu did in fact have at least some morals. And those morals included the laws of partnership. A partner was someone you worked with and protected if the time called for it. And she took having a partner very seriously. With her recklessness, she was more than certain that, if she had a partner, they would wind up either dead or seriously harmed. Either by her reckless nature or by her own hand, should she lose her cool. So no. There was absolutely no way that she was going to accept a partner. And neither that person nor the PIDA needed to know the exact reasons why.
When morning finally broke, Rikutsu remained in bed, determined to sleep in. And perhaps skip work, as usual. Everyone already knew that she came into work on her terms. They should have expected it from the start. After all, it was the organization that offered her employment. Not the other way around. Yeah right. Offered. She had been one of the supernaturals on the PIDA's hit list. It was either work alongside them or be labeled a threat. Rikutsu didn't really want to have to spend her life here dodging bullets. She could, but it got tiresome. In any case, she didn't understand why they were so worked up over her behavior. It was as if taking in a wild fox and expecting it to behave like some purebred, well trained house dog.
A knock at the door drew the coyote woman from her slumber. She sat up, glaring at her half-open bedroom door, as if that alone was enough to send the interloper away. Of course, it was not, and with a yawn, she slipped from the bed to answer the door. She had no robe to put on, descending the stairs in nothing but an oversized jersey. And she didn't care, either. Her 'guest' was not going to stay. She would send them away with a sharp glare and maybe a few harsh words. That always got the job done. With the end of her tail twitching in annoyance, her ears flattened back against her skull and lips pulled back from her teeth she appeared the perfect picture of a wild dog baring its fangs at a trespasser. Swinging the door open, she barked out, "What do you want?"
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Mimic
Field Agent
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Post by Special Agent Cox on Jun 9, 2016 13:30:40 GMT -5
Jesse waited patiently at the front door for some kind of response. What kind of mess was he in for today? Knowing John, or rather, the PIDA in general Jesse knew that he wasn't sent here because they thought this would be a nice change of pace. The PIDA had always had this way with fucking with their employees. From the time Jesse had started working for them the agency had at the best of times ignored him, leaving him and his friends to fend for themselves on missions they had no training for, and at worse deliberately put his life in danger. He had dealt with his fair share of shit, he had put his life on the line, he bled for this organization, and he kept taking in all of their shit. He did it all, as much as he hated and complained about the crap he went through he always followed his orders. This would be no different. Jesse didn't feel like he was ready for a partner yet but if John insisted he take on this person as his partner then he would deal with it.
How bad could Rikutsu be? He had no idea what kind of person that his new partner would end up being. If she was anything like his former roommate was then he was more than prepared to handle them. Gil had been a handful for the entirety of their relationship. Even when the two could get passed how Gil tried to kill him on several occasions, and the few times Jesse had lost control of himself and nearly killed Gil too in his hellhound form they had managed to pull through somehow. Ms. Rikutsu couldn't be any worse than that...right? She sure was taking her sweet time. Jesse was just about to knock a few more times when the door suddenly swung open.
The moment that Jesse laid eyes on the lady he immediately understood why John had asked him to partner up with her. “Well aren't you a little ray of sunshine.” Jesse said, his words just dripping with sarcasm. Today was going to be one hell of a day. “I think you know why I am here, unless someone back at headquarters forgot to give you a call. If so I will make this brief. I am your new partner, my name is Jesse Cox you can call me Jesse or Mr. Cox, whichever you prefer. I am only here to introduce myself and give you the run down on our assignment. So we can do this two ways, the easy way or the hard way.”
“The easy way being you can invite me then we can get settled down to discuss what we are going to do. Or the hard way, you snap at me till you slam the door in my face which it looks like might be your instinctive move. Forcing me to hang outside banging on your door for the next few hours and being a constant annoyance for the rest of the day, and every single day from dawn till dusk until you either give up, or the head of the organization comes down and deals with this mess by force. Trust me when I say this because it was the big man himself that sent me all the way out here, he's not as big of a bastard as the guys you had to deal with in the past but he can be a giant prick if things don't go his way. So tell me miss, which way is today going to go?”
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Inukami
Special Agent
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Post by Rikutsu Hakumishi on Jun 18, 2016 17:50:14 GMT -5
She had expected another supernatural that the PIDA figured could match her strength. Or one with high amounts of charisma that they thought could be used to sway her. A vampire or demon, perhaps. Even a kitsune. Rikutsu had most certainly not expected the person standing upon her doorstep to look so...human.
She wasn't fond of humans.
Humans were weak and easily killed. So fragile. If this guy was a human, there was absolutely NO way she would accept him as a partner. What were the PIDA thinking? Assigning a weakling to partner up with HER? Were they insane?
The man kept his cool in the face of her wrath, immediately stating his business here and what would happen should she refuse to let him inside. That was surprising. She had to applaud him on his ability to keep a level head with an angry Inukami in front of him. It wasn't enough to get her to let him in, however. Alright. If her display of aggression wasn't going to work...
Almost instantly, her snarl and irritated stance vanished, replaced by an unnerving calm. "They called." she replied evenly, crossing both of her arms and leaning against the doorframe. The end of her tail twitched, mimicking the way a cat's tail moves when stalking it's prey. He wasn't going to get inside if she could help it. "I hung up on them." That was her way of telling him that she didn't give a damn what the PIDA had to say about the situation. Let the big dog himself come down here. See if she cared. She could kill him just as easily as the next person. Unless he brought a mini army of agents with him, then she would just have to escape, but whatever.
Molten hues met his own; in the canine world, a challenge. He was on her turf. This was her territory. If he attempted to win such a stare down, it might drive her into attacking, but winning could at least earn her temporary cooperation. IF he won. She was currently trying to frighten him off. "I could kill you, you know."
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Mimic
Field Agent
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Post by Special Agent Cox on Jun 19, 2016 11:16:21 GMT -5
Boy did he have his work cut out for him. The moment his soon to be partner answered the door Jesse was immediately greeted with hostility. Man, did this bring him back. Jesse was finally starting to get a good idea of why John asked him to handle this woman. She was like Guillotine. A smaller, female version of Gil with ears and a big fluffy tail, but they were pretty similar in attitude. It had taken a lot of work and patience to form a stable working relationship with Gil. Riku wouldn't be much different. Two seconds in and Jesse knew that today was not going to end well. He didn't know just how dangerous Rikutsu could be but she was going to be a handful to deal with just from what he could see.
Jesse was having none of it.
It wasn't the smartest of moves but Jesse took the gamble anyway and gave Rikutsu the run down of how things were going to go from now on right in her snarling face. He had come too far and was going to get too much shit afterwards that he refused to just give into this woman. Sooner or later she would have to deal with him and he let her know that. He gave her a choice, she could either swallow her pride for the time being and give him a chance, or she could struggle with him until she was forced to give in. What would her answer be? The instant after he spoke Rikutsu's attitude changed. She had stopped growling, her stance was much more calm but she still was looked at him like he was beneath her. Well it was a start. Not a great start but still something.
He actually managed to crack a smile when she told him how she hung up on the person who called her. “Why I am I not surprised?” he chuckled. “But that didn't stop me from coming here. Even if you slam the door in my face now I will still keep coming. I am not going to give up that easily. Call it stupidity, or stubbornness, or whatever you want. I am not going to rest until we at least discuss this case one on one.” Jesse was well aware of what the inukami was trying to do with him right now. He knew well enough by now that when a canine was staring down at you they were giving you an unspoken challenge. He was playing a very dangerous game here by keeping his gaze steady with her. He couldn't give up now though. He had come too far to show any signs of weakness. He could already tell that she thought him weak so he had to prove to her otherwise. What Rikutsu said next made the man blink but he didn't seem all that phased by what she said.
“Lady, you are not the first person to tell me that and you will not be the last. The last partner tried to do just that. I even got the scars to prove it.” Jesse rolled up his sleeve to show the pale bite marks Gil had given him on the day of his capture. “I was forced to live with the guy that did this to me, who could have easily killed me in my sleep plenty of times, but I am still standing. Maybe you are stronger than he was, I don't know, and honestly? I don't care. If I was worried about dying that much I would have not started working for the PIDA. The risk of death is just part of the package. If you want to try and kill me I won't go down without a fight. I might be a human but that doesn't make me weak. I do have the power to fight back if I need to. But I didn't come here to fight. Or to force you to lower yourself for me. But we have to work together one way or another, personally I would like to do so as equals. Would you at least see me half way?”
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Inukami
Special Agent
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Post by Rikutsu Hakumishi on Jun 19, 2016 14:41:03 GMT -5
Apparently, there was nothing that she could do to drive this guy away. He was going to persist no matter what. Why? Why did this matter so much to him? So what if he was told that he was supposed to be her partner? It wasn't worth risking his life over. Right? What a stubborn, stupid human. She could kill him before he could even finish speaking. And he sure talked a lot, didn't he? It didn't matter to her if he had faced off against and worked with someone who could have easily killed him in his sleep. She barely glanced at the scars he reviled, keeping her eyes locked with his. He wouldn't need to be asleep for her to take his life.Fortunately for him, while Rikutsu had much of the same attitude as this previous partner that he spoke of, she wasn't as violent. When it came to other PIDA members, she was able to show restraint. And although she would never admit it out loud, he was starting to impress her. For a human, this guy had a lot of guts.
For a moment longer, she only stared at him, golden eyes narrowing. He hadn't broken eye contact this entire time. This proved his resolve, and he had enough courage to meet her challenge head on. How reckless. Reckless, but very brave. It was enough. He would at least be given the chance to discuss whatever case he was talking about.
Rikutsu turned her back to him, a way of ending the staredown without either one of them admitting defeat. It was a canine's way of saying that she was confident enough in her strength to leave her back unprotected and walk away from him. "Fine." was all that she said, stepping into the hall and making her way toward the kitchen. She didn't check to see if he would follow - she expected that he would - and kicked away a broken slab of wood from the poor coffee table she had demolished earlier the previous evening. The kitchen was a bit of mess, too. Oh. Had she broken that many dishes in her fit of anger? She had forgotten about that.
Instead of sitting, the Inukami took up a spot in front of the sink, where she leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms. Another sign that Jesse wasn't quite on equal grounds with her just yet.
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Mimic
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Post by Special Agent Cox on Jun 20, 2016 15:47:17 GMT -5
Jesse Cox has always been a stubborn man. When he set his mind on something he would do whatever it took to get the job done. Having to work with this dog girl was not his idea but he had agreed for his best friend's sake to give it a try. That was what drove him to be so forceful this time around. If it had been anyone else maybe he wouldn't have felt so strongly about this, but since this was for John he would give his all. And damn was he giving this his all. Jesse didn't flinch once while confronting Rikutsu. He stood firm in the face of adversity to convince her to give him a chance. In truth the man didn't realize what exactly he was dealing with. He did not have much time to look into the kind of person he was asked to partner with, so he didn't know just how bad of a reputation she had within the agency. But he wasn't an idiot. Jesse was well aware of the power gap between him, a human, and any supernatural creature he had ever come across. He was useless in the eyes of most of them, super powers or no super powers. Even with powers he was at times more of a burden than of any use at all.
But that never stopped him from trying. In the end he would get stronger all he needed was to be given the chance to prove himself. So far he was doing fairly well at that, though he didn't realize that at the moment. While Rikutsu was staring daggers at him she wasn't being completely dismissive. The longer she allowed him to talk her down without slamming the door in his face or physically assaulting him the more confident he was that he might be getting through to her. Finally after awhile Rikutsu turned her back on him. For a moment he thought she was finally going to tell him to go away but she didn't. “Fine.” those were her only words for him as she walked away, leaving the door open behind her. It was the closest thing he got to an invitation inside. Well at least it was something. Jesse closed the door behind him and followed Riku inside into the kitchen.
The kitchen was...well...it was in total chaos. There were bits and pieces of debris and broken glass here and there from an obvious temper tantrum. Jeez, did she get that upset when she got the call? Jesse couldn't help but wonder what kind of mess he had gotten himself into. Why was Riku so damn upset about getting a partner for? Did something bad happen in the past to make her not want to work with anyone? He was tempted to ask but he held his tongue. There was no way that she would tell him anything personal at the rate they were going. If he really wanted an answer he would have to be patient, or go looking into her past on his own time. For now he would stick to what he came here to do, a debriefing. There was no point in trying to get the inukami to loosen up with him today so he wouldn't beat around the bush. He would stick to business. While Riku made herself comfortable, Jesse pulled out the files he brought.
“Okay, I will try to make this quick for the both of us. This particular case has had its ups and downs but its pretty simple.” Jesse offered the first of the mission documents for her to look over as he explained the case. “About six months ago a group of kids got attacked by two people. One of them got seriously injured in the attack. On the surface it seemed like a simple assault case but the kid that had to go to the hospital claimed that one of his attackers had burned him with her bare hands.” Jesse looked through the files he had for the pictures of the targets they were looking for. The pictures were only artist renditions of the suspects in question, one boy and one girl. “The first two agents working on the case before us didn't find anything special about the guy here. He was a local drug dealer. A minor threat but nothing special. As far as anyone knows he's skipped town, but the girl though she's another story.”
Jesse thought back on what John told him about the case he was handing over to them. There was a lot more to this than a simple assault. How was he going to explain what he had heard to Rikutsu? He'd have to figure it out as he went along with it. “There is a good chance that she is a Solaris, I don't know if you ever heard of them before. They are basically people with fire powers. Unlike her drug dealing buddy she was seen in the city not too long ago so there is a good chance that she is still in the city. If that's the case we need to find her. This won't be a simple capture mission though. I know that the file says that but there is more to the case than this. According to one of the guys that worked on this before had reason to believe the this attack was instigated by the victim, and what this girl did wasn't meant to harm but to save the victims life. This might not be conventional but if possible I would like to question our target first and decide afterwards whether we should take her into custody or not.”
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Inukami
Special Agent
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Post by Rikutsu Hakumishi on Jun 25, 2016 11:59:22 GMT -5
Jesse's bravery in the face of her wrath was impressive. He wasn't exactly staring her down, but he didn't turn tail and run when she was the one staring him down. For that, she had to applaud him.
This human. Was his determination the reason that he had he been chosen for her partner? Didn't John have access to all the PIDA members records? She was certain that he did, and because he did, he would know just how dangerous she was to humans. No matter how brave or determined they were. So why, out of all the employees working for the PIDA, did he send a human to her? These were the thoughts running through the Inukami's mind while she stood in the kitchen - she didn't care at all what the human might think of the mess, either - with one such a human, who was currently giving her the rundown of the mission that they had been assigned.
Taking the documents that he handed over to her, she flipped through them briefly, listening to him speak with only half an ear, not really paying that much attention to him. To her, all the little details didn't really matter. She did what was ordered and that was that. For the most part, anyway. A Solaris, was it? Rikutsu had heard of them maybe once or twice before, but she had never met one. They used fire? In that case, it would be fun to see which fire burned hotter. Hers or the flames of this Solaris?
"Talk to her?" the Inukami tossed the file that she had been handed onto the kitchen table and crossed her arms back over her chest. She was staring at Jesse again. "The PIDA wants us to bring her in. And that's exactly what I plan to do." Even if the Solaris put up a fight. In fact, Rikutsu was looking forward to that.
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Mimic
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Post by Special Agent Cox on Jun 26, 2016 16:17:40 GMT -5
It seemed like Jesse's determination had pulled through today. Some how, some way, he was able to convince this inukami to accept their forced partnership, and even allowed him into her home so they could discuss the case. Things were not going to be easy between them just yet but it was a start. Jesse was a bit pleased that he was able to convince Rikutsu to play along with him for a bit, but overall he wasn't too psyched up about this. Deep down he didn't want a partner. It might be foolish for him to think he could just carry on working for the PIDA going solo but he felt it was just...too soon for him to be doing this. Despite his feelings he did it anyway. John had asked him to do this. Not only did John trust Jesse so much that he asked him to take on a problematic co-worker, but he was trying to help his friend out in the long run. For that Jesse was willing to throw away his issues and get down to business.
The question now was could he convince Riku to let him handle the case the way he wanted to. From the time that Jesse had been working at the PIDA he and his friends had a habit of not always following the rules to a T. They weren't rebels, or deemed to be problematic, but whenever it came to following orders or going with their gut they always followed their gut. The longer he and his friends had been working with the organization they had noticed a big flaw with how the PIDA handled their cases. They were too quick to judge suspects. If a supernatural was suspected of being any sort of threat they were treated harshly regardless of whether they had actually done anything or not. Suspects were either thrown into confinement or forced to become agents when the higher ups felt like they needed more 'useful' members. Things needed to change. While one of them were in a position to help change how the PIDA functioned it would take all of them together to help force things along.
This case was just one of those ones that made Jesse second guess their orders. There were too many things that were pointing at this Seraphina kid being relatively harmless. She was still a thief and all, but with how hard it was on the younger generation of supernaturals to not get into shady things he was hard pressed to judge her on that. He wanted to find out for himself if she was dangerous enough to put in the system or if there was a better way of handling her. He told his new partner what he wanted to do but was quickly shut down. The man sighed, well he couldn't expect her to just agree to handle this outside of protocol but all the same he couldn't just give up now. “I know what the standard protocol on this is case but that might not be the right thing to do. If you are worried about getting in shit for this don't. This isn't my first time going off the books. I have been able to get good results the way I have handled things and have yet to get penalized for going off the books. You can just tell our superiors I am to blame for it and I will handle the consequences.”
“Before you shut me down again let me ask you somethings. Why did you join the PIDA? Did you come of your own free will or were you forced to?” Jesse knew what the PIDA was like when it came to supernaturals. While it was founded with the idea of keeping the peace between humans and supernaturals, when the founders had left the people left in charge had lost their way. Those that weren't humans that were employed there weren't always treated the best. “Whether you came here willingly or not I want you to think about this carefully. Are you really satisfied with the way things are handled? I know I am not and I have a strong feeling neither are you. The PIDA is suppose to be the bridge between our sides so we can all coexist with each other. But that never happened. What we got instead is a group that locks away anyone they think of as a threat. I did not join this group to do that. I did so to learn more about the powers I have and to use them to help people, and I plan to do just that. Since this solaris kid as far as we know hasn't killed anyone I would like to make sure she's not dangerous before shoving her through the system without a second thought. You might not agree with me on that but that is how I feel.”
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