Showtime Investigation! [Case File Topic, Playhouse]

As the singing started an expression of anger actually showed up on on Trinity's face, her eyes changing to the green of Alister as he leaned a bit towards Gabe "It's lucky the others are holding me back....what this bitch is doing with music makes me want to slap her..." he whispered quietly before it reverted back to the expressionless visage of Trinity.

"This...music...is corrupted....so is she...." she whispered to him her phone was out, but it was in her lap as she had it recording for the time being, she had noticed all the other people where sitting there transfixed, and she knew holding up the phone wouldn't look right, at least she assumed as much anyway, she didn't have the luxury of turning her head to have a look behind her, but no one in front of them seemed to be doing anything of the sort so she didn't make any overt moments ether.

In her mental construct The pawns seemed to be making a barrier around Her and her siblings protecting them from the influence of the song. In her head Trinity looked to the others as the Pawns protected them.

"It would seem this was meant to control us...or rather anyone that heard it.."

Alister was visibly angry as he nodded in agreement "This is disgusting...Music shouldn't be used like this..."

Even Myrna had a displeased look on her face "However it would seem that the district manager isn't affected....could he also...have the same powers as Gabe Tatsui and the rest?"

Nola sighed a bit as she nodded as well "It would seem like that's what it means, we are lucky our pawn siblings seem to give us the same powers"

Yuuko gave a little huff "Well least we know the others are probably protected...least it seems they are, they don't seem to be reacting the same way from what I can tell"

Lilith then actually spoke up her head lifting as she joined the conversation "there are others....I noticed them out of the corner of our eyes...he is holding his phone up...he seemed to be talking to the froggy one....".

Trinity nodded "Seems your fairly perceptive..We actually missed that...." She said looking to the often quiet sibling.

"I notice...little things..." she said as she returned to hugging her Chibi Tatsui plushy.

“How interesting, It’s like little whispers. To be honest, the music sounds fine to me.  Though, it could do without the extra baggage that the lyrics came with. A disclosure would be nice…”


As Gabe looked around, he noticed another group in the distance, noticing that it was none other than Ryu, Gabe nodded back at him, acknowledging his presence. He also did notice that Gerio and Brittany were there, what a pleasant surprise. He didn’t necessarily know of their reasoning being here, even if it could hypothetically be the same as his and the others. That was yet to be seen, Gabe liked to be a bit discreet. Though he would then notice that Trinity’s siblings seem to be upset about what was going on.  He agreed with them for the most part.


“Raising his phone, he checked to see if the call is still going on. After that was confirmed, he put it back in his pocket. “Selenus, keep some eyes on the leader if you can. “

Soon the singing would come to an end for the Gothic Siren. She bounded away from the people's eyes with pride and smugness as they applauded her for her performance. Some actually adored it enough to start whistling. The woman finished what she came for and it wouldn't be the last for the nights to come. But the show wasn't over as more and more singers and dancers came to the stage to show off their stuff. However it was more or less the same effect as the Siren and there wasn't much to glean from as the shows finally ended.

People began to stroll out of the Hall with each one of them satisfied with the performance. Since there wasn't much there to investigate from this angle, especially with the District Head having already left by then, it would be wise for the team to follow the audience as well. At least they would find several people of interest outside mingling about with the exiting audience.

Investigations:

Though his suspicions were confirmed in that these were no mere songs, thankfully Fenrir’s presence seemed to make Selenus immune to whatever this… additional effect was.  From within the depths of his mind, Selenus could hear Fenrir growling in anger, and frankly, he would be a liar to say that he wouldn’t do the same if it came naturally to him. Both he and Fenrir had suffered so much in bondage that it shouldn’t’ve come as a surprise to anyone with half a brain that anyone trying to suppress their free will again would greatly irk the two; thankfully, Selenus had his wits about him, and wasn’t about to do anything irrational and risk the mission just because he was pissed off. He was pretty confident that the other’s personas had protected them from the suggestiveness of the tune as Fenrir had done for him, but just to make sure he would listen more intently to the call he was holding with Gabe. He suddenly heard static of some sort, as if air and fabric had brushed against the mic on Gabe’s phone; Selenus would take the liberty of assuming Gabe had taken the phone out of his pocket to make sure the call was still active. This was enough to ease his minor doubts for now, and so he would remain on the rooftops until the show was over.

After patiently putting up with several instances of the same crap, Selenus would hear the sound of people walking outside, and – rushing once again to the other side of the roof – he would see the same as people poured out of the concert hall’s doors. Deciding it was about time to put the role of concert outsider to use, Selenus dived down into stairway which he’d gotten to the roof through in the first place, and about a minute later, a somber yet sharp-looking man would emerge through the front door of the building.


Lightly jogging over the blocks of distance from the building he was standing upon and to the outside of the concert hall, Selenus – or, Simon, rather – found himself faced with a multitude of people. Sadly, he couldn’t distinguish any of his friends yet, but if anything bad had happened he would’ve heard through the call. Seeing as they weren’t out yet, Selenus decided to take a bit of a head start by being the first to ask around for leads. He wandered around the crowd for a good bit, searching for people who looked like they might handle information. Eventually, his eyes found repose on a woman whose outfit clearly spelt out business. Being overtly social had never been his strong suit, but as of recently it definitely wasn’t a weakness either; he figured that as long as he maintained a confident and collected aura, collecting information from people should be as hard as asking the questions. If anything, he was hoping Simon's good looks would play a beneficial role; from what he'd gathered, people were instinctively nicer to attractive people.

The woman was keeping her eye on the crowd, but also noting the data in her notebook. She seemed busy until accosted by Selenus. It was a rather strange question to ask, but there wasn't any reason why she couldn't answer. "Huh? Oh, you mean the Boss? I think he came to check on his newest pick. That's what he kinda does these days. You can't go on that stage without his approval. Lots of nobodies like Melissa get picked, but I guess she got the talent if she's able to land on the stage. It's better than cleaning trash in the Karaoke Bar, that's for sure. Hope she lasts longer than the rest. Anyway, I need to do my job."

And with that, she broke off contact to return to what she was doing.

Opening a notepad file in his internal CPU, Selenus jotted down what the woman had replied to him word per word. So far he’d attained two bits of important information: the singer’s name and her previous profession. While neither seemed particularly useful on standalone – especially considering how he was missing a surname – the combination of name and previous job could give him a huge lead; with enough research and asking around, he could possibly learn quite a lot more about both her and the district leader by consequence. Pull a thread and you unravel the dress, he supposed.

Moving on, he would approach someone else that caught his eye; a man who would have had nothing noteworthy going on for himself if it hadn’t been for the gaudy coloring of his… err… if it hadn’t been for his gaudy coloring in general. Probably a fan, maybe an employee, possibly just a passerby, definitely Selenus’s next interviewee. “Excuse me, sir?” He would approach the man, trying to seem as friendly and unaggressive as possible. “Sorry for intruding, but would you happen to know anything about the district leader or the singer Melissa? I heard they were both here a few ago; you’d be doing me a huge favor if you could tell me anything.”

The man was just looking at the crowd. He seemed noticeably perplexed, but composed himself when someone was soliciting him. He raised an eyebrow at the disguised Psyche-Terrorist. His pause almost felt like he wasn't sure what to make of this sudden person, but decided to divulge details. "Well I don't know what you want from them... But, I heard the Head picked her. Just not sure if it's a good thing for her. There's been quite a few murders with all the girls that he picked, the last one was eaten alive. They found the latest corpse near the Karaoke Bar. It's almost as if those girls are cursed to die after their first few minutes of fame. I just wish Invidia took this stuff more seriously, he just doesn't seem to care. But I guess he's leaving it up to the Cadets to handle this since this is their kind of work after all."

What in the actual fuck?! He was certain there was some fucked up shit going on with the district heads, but letting people get eaten while fucking alive?! Selenus was unable of feeling natural physical pain, but he could only imagine the sheer agony and absolute horror that anyone submitted to such a crime would feel. Sure, there may not have been any evidence to trace the cannibalism to the district leader himself, but Selenus’s judgement of the government was way beyond such forgiving logic as “innocent until proven guilty”. If it really was the district leader letting people get cannibalized though, that rewrote his entire conception of what sins the government was committing.

Speaking of sins, “Invidia”? A quick internet search confirmed that this was the name of the Suzie Q district leader; something that, to be fair, Selenus should’ve already known and probably would have known had he not been isolated for so long. Thankfully, there was some superficial information about the rest of the district leaders, but one thing stood awkwardly above the rest of the factoids… these names… “Invidia”? “Luxuria”? “Avaricia”? What the hell was this? These were the names of the seven deadly sins… were these codenames? Selenus refused to believe these were the actual names of the District Leaders, and if they were, he was positive they had to have been legally changed into what they currently were. He had long gone thrown away realistic expectations, but for his main enemies to be so conveniently themed was just past what he was willing to let off as a natural coincidence.



Selenus would move on from the man, realizing he couldn’t dawdle over factoids right now when he was jotting them down and could review them later when in safety anyway. As he jotted down the man’s words in his CPU, he added a footnote on a separate file.


Moving on from what was a disturbing exchange, Selenus would approach the trio of people who seemed to be just exiting the establishment, and proceed to ask them the same question he asked the previous two people he approached, except this time he would also ask about the deaths of these singers.

The trio of men were discussing about the performance. Each one seemed to have enjoyed the performance, but they were clearly discussing something of interest. And that was something they were willing to share when the Psyche-Terrorist brought their attention to him.

"The idol business is cutthroat and brutal. It's a dog-eat-dog world where vanity rules supreme," explained the man in the red suit as he grimaced at the details, "I can only imagine what kind of stuff the idols do to get the advantage over the others. I don't envy that shit, but it gets the revenue flowing."

"The Gothic Siren... I think she's Melissa from the Karaoke Bar, right? I thought her singing wasn't anything special when she was still working there, but suddenly here we are. Wonder what she went through?" the man in white remarked thoughtfully.

The youngest of the three piped up, "I'm sure she worked really hard, y'know? It's competitive and it's the District Head doing the choosing, right? She probably went through a lot to get to that point."

The red suit snorted, "Probably isn't that hard if you're willing to do certain things for him. Not like that isn't rare or anything. But it's not our business. Best of luck for her, I guess..."


There wasn't much people left to ask any more as it has been long enough for the majority of the former audience to completely vacate the area. To continue otherwise would just simply waste more time. This night was over and there is work to be done in the near feature.

[End]

Selenus waited a little longer for his friends to come out from the concert hall, and would eventually be rewarded by the sight of just the trio he wanted to see stepping out of the building. Jogging over, Selenus would kneel and hug Trinity before standing up to properly greet Gabe and Tatsui; then, he would address the group as a whole.