Out-Foxed (Hunt)
Jul 22, 2019 18:56:07 GMT
Post by Tadayoshi Teppei and Silence on Jul 22, 2019 18:56:07 GMT
Another Sunday. Another day at the office. Another crisis, another resolution, and another undesirably high stack of paperwork. And yet, Tadayoshi loved his job anyway. We're operating at full capacity here. This is a lot of agents to pay, but no one can say we don't need them. And that was the easy part. At the moment, Tadayoshi's cubicle was buried in incident reports, threat assessments, time off requests... I need a break.
Ring, ring! Who the heck could have been calling Yoshi's office phone? No one called his office phone. It seemed like digivice-to-digivice communication was the preferred method between AEGIS agents and anybody who knew about them. The phone ringing was a very rare occasion usually reserved either for talks with reception - usually unauthorized personnel asking entry - or with telemarketers. Why is it a secret privately funded organization can still be auto-dialed? Oh, well. Either way, the boy had to pick it up. "Teppei."
It was reception. "There's a young man 'Dakota' here asking to come up. He says he's here to see his mother."
"Mother?" Yoshi narrowed his eyes skeptically. Do we even have anyone old enough to be a mother?
"Sir?"
"Tell him you think he has the wrong building, please."
"Well he's very insistent, sir."
Yoshi buried his face in his palm and sighed. "What's his mother's name?"
"...he doesn't know."
"Look, I know she's here!" was what a young male's voice could also be heard calling over the phone. "I have a photo."
A moment's pause. Then, "Sir, you should really come down here."
Well, I did want a break from sitting down. Tadayoshi took a second to stretch his legs when he stood up, followed by his arms. He wasn't in a rush to meet with a poor kid, but the boy did feel a little bad. I bet this is some desperate door-to-door search by an adopted kid. Probably has no idea where he is. Worst case, security will gently escort him out, or if I'm lucky I can just let him down gently. In either case, it wouldn't do to bring digimon with him. This wasn't really AEGIS business anyway so much as an unusual but completely mundane interaction.
One flight of stairs later, Tadayoshi found himself standing front of a caucasian boy about his own age. Medium black hair, very messy. Baggy jeans and a white tank. Worn out sneakers. Runaway? Was Tadayoshi's initial judgement. Could be. That doesn't rule out the adoptee theory, though. It's a tragic thing to happen either way. When the two made eye contact across the room, Tadayoshi became committed. Shake his hand, wish him well, send him on his way. On meeting, the boy respectfully bowed and held out his hand. He started to introduce himself as, "Hello. I'm T-" which was when it happened.
Bzzzzt! A couple of sparks, a couple of buzzing noises, and 'Dakota' wasn't Dakota anymore. Yoshi jumped back as some sort of machine blew, but poor Dakota couldn't manage it because it stuck on him. A little circular machine worn behind the head, Tadayoshi recognized a holosuit when he saw one. What he didn't recognize was the person under it: Dakota was still built about the same as Yoshi, maybe a touch taller, but now he was barefoot, furry, covered in belts in odd places, gloved on the clawed hands, and overall more vulpine. The jeans remained, though. Strabimon. "What is this?"
"Oh, come on!" The Strabimon snapped his fingers in frustration and took a look at his little disguise machine which was still sparking. He grumbled to himself, "No more secondhand holosuits," before carelessly depositing it in the nearby garbage. "But I'm in the right place, right? You know about digimon already? Listen, I think my Mom works for you here."
"You're mistaken," Tadayoshi continued to insist, but now he did so with an audible decline in confidence.
"No, I'm not. Here..." Strabimon locked eyes with Tadayoshi intensely as he reached for his pocket. It was almost suspicious how slowly the wolf reached in there without being told so, like he knew Tadayoshi was going to suspect something. Dakota was right, too. But Tadayoshi was wrong to be suspicious. All he extracted from his pocket was a photograph. "Just answer me this, and I'll go home. I heard she skipped town and wound up with some human who works for AEGIS. Everyone knows you're right there from the portal, so I knew the way. Just- look at this please. Have you seen her?"
Well, the human facade was false, but apparently that was a reasonable deception given that 'Dakota' was being honest about everything else. The photograph suggested he was. The subject was a bit hard to discern among a crowd, but Tadayoshi was able to distinguish the figure among it that the Strabimon wanted him to. His jaw dropped. "Is this real?"
"You have seen her!" Dakota exclaimed excitedly. "I knew it! I smelled her here. Where is she?"
Slowly, Tadayoshi reached in his own pocket for his Xros Loader and spoke into it. "Renamon, can you come down here? There's... someone I think you should meet." Dakota's eyes lit up. But there was no response after sixty seconds. "Renamon, where are you?" Still no answer. Does she know? Come to think of it... I haven't seen her around all day. "All callsigns, has anyone seen the Spymaster?"
"No, sir."
"Nope."
"Uh-uh!"
"Nah.
"Negative."
"Not me."
"Not here."
"And I've been in here all day!" Rashi moaned from the Loader.
"Then find her!"
"I got this!" With a gentle but determined push, Dakota slipped past Tadayoshi and started sniffing the air.
"What are you doing?"
"Hey, kid, you got something that smells like her? Somethin' she kept close, some place she spent a lotta time?"
"Sir, do you understand where you are?"
"Is it normal for her to just disappear like that?" Well, no, it wasn't. Tadayoshi knew that Renamon loathed most everything about the human world and hardly ever left HQ. The boy was given pause. "You wanna find her, too, right? Come on, man, let's help each other." The Strabimon wasn't demanding. It was more like he was appealing, insistent but still honest and reasonable. That was why after a pause in the conversation and the wolf continued past reception, Yoshi radioed in, "I'm sending a guest upstairs. Somebody show him to Renamon's room."
A few minutes later, the captain, the General, and the bunny were gathered with the Strabimon inside the general's room, that combination chosen because they would all hesitate least to respond to sudden hostility. But the wolf only wanted to sniff around the place, get her scent. It didn't take that long at all. "OK, I got it." They proceeded to follow him and make sure he didn't stray into a restricted area, which thankfully Renamon didn't either. The group just followed the young digimon's nose straight back down to the second floor. "I know you said she never leaves, but I think she left. She went... here." The wolf stopped next to one of the windows facing the train station and opened it. "Actually managed to close the window behind herself, she was definitely alone when she jumped." He started to snick his nose outside and poke around. "She didn't go left or right. She crossed the street."
"You can tell that from this distance?"
The Strabimon smiled. "My nose knows, my friend." He tapped his own snout with a finger. "It's kinda hard to tell on the other side, but I think she went into the station." Tadayoshi sighed and crossed his arms. The guest noticed. "Ya don't think she jet off to pick up some ice cream, do ya?"
"Renamon's relationship with the team has always been tenuous. The only reason she's stayed this long was she thought it was safer than living on the run from-"
"-the Black Army." So this stranger knew about that? "I've been on this trail a long time."
"-but recent events may have changed her mind."
"So I came all the way to the human world and got just that close?"
"Sir, I think-"
"She really chose today to run off? And you expect me to believe that's a coincidence?" As the Strabimon turned toward Tadayoshi and showed his teeth, the soft click of Commandramon's safety disengaging gave him brief pause. It did not, however, frighten him. "Relax, marine. I ain't gonna touch your boy. I'm just mad. You would be, too."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not mad at you. Unlike her, you actually came to see me."
"If it helps, I haven't seen her all day. I can't imagine it was anything but bad timing."
"You're not helping."
"General, sir!" That was Jetmon flying inside, perching on the window sill. "Urgent report from Analysis."
"Lieutenant, now isn't really-"
"-No, no, you guys... you do you. You said urgent." The wolf digimon was still rubbing his face with his paws and struggling to keep it together, but he respected he was an interruption to these people's important jobs. Jetmon looked to Tadayoshi for permission to speak in front of him, but he gave it with a little nod.
"They've been tracking a pattern of electronic disturbances around the city. Anomalous spikes in machine repair needs have been occurring in small pockets with an unusual frequency. The machine failure clusters seem to be form a linear pattern when sequenced chronologically. The pattern starts close to the Shibuya Train Station and gradually ventures farther away from there, which Analysis claims suggests a digimon. They also believe a related failure cluster has popped up again about an hour ago in a high-rise."
"But surveillance hasn't picked up a digimon?"
"Suspected counter-surveillance techniques. It may be the digimon can bamboozle more than just washing machines."
"But we-" Yoshi looked between the Strabimon and Jetmon a couple times. He had to do his job, but Strabimon was both a security risk if left alone and, equally important, having a really bad day. It seemed unwise to take the call in any case, but the Strabimon read and preempted his thoughts.
"I can show myself out."
Tadayoshi and his team, still discreetly tucked away, were eleven floors up when the boy asked via comm link, "Any new activity?"
To which the lieutenant remotely replied, "The eleventh floor is a hotbed, but I can't get you minute-by-minute locations without camera footage. The best I can do is let you know if the subject has moved on."
"What kind of rookie or lower digimon is so good at avoiding detection that-"
"-The kind you'll never catch, copper!"
"What?"
"He's listening in on us!"
"Lady figured it out quick, huh? Bzzzzzt. The chase is on, bzz!" Something whizzed past Tadayoshi's head too fast for him to catch, but as he looked behind himself he caught the glint of metal.
"Deploying, sir." Commandramon let himself out of the loader and started to sprint down the hall toward the stairwell. It made sense to pursue with a digimon because, "I can still sense him even if cameras can't. Stairwell, going up."
"Captain, you cannot start a fight in here!"
"Going cold."
"Well if you're muzzled, I'll just bzzt do this!"
Tadayoshi didn't get to see what the mysterious digimon had gone and done, but he took off running to the aid of his comrade with the understanding he was in trouble. That was what made the sight in the stairwell, almost to the twelfth floor, so confusing: Commandramon was on his knees, and his rifle was on the floor so he could cover his ears and grimace. However, the one who left him in that state was already subdued. Someone else's foot was pinning down a tiny little rookie digimon, Searchmon.
"Two on one isn't bzzzz fair, you mangy little mutt!"
"Neither is messing with humans, bug boy." While the Strabimon nonchalantly pinned Searchmon with his foot, he preempted Tadayoshi, "Ya don't gotta say anything. Figured I owed you one. Thought I'd help out. Don't like it when digimon mess with humans either. 'S not sporting." The wolf started to press down with more weight, earning a howl from the bug. "Met a human girl on the road once. Nice kid. Anyway, this guy's all yours, 'cept whatever he's doin' is hittin' your guy a lot worse than me." Strabimon winced, indicating some kind of pain. Commandramon howled, though, seeming to be feeling it much worse, particularly in the head. Yoshi couldn't see or feel anything himself. "Give it up. You're busted."
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! I ain't never hurt nobody! Just- just a few pranks, that's all!"
"What do you wanna do with him? We gotta move him, right?"
Yoshi crossed his arms and considered a moment before deciding, "I'll decide what to do when we get him back. Could I ask you to help us escort him?"
"Yeah, sure man."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I ain't goin' to prison or nothin' am I? Ya ain't gonna send me back, are ya? There's gotta be some kinda deal we can make, eh, boyo? You're the first guy to get me in the act! Bzzzzzzz! That's the real deal! I betcha we could be pals, eh, buddy-boy?"
"We can talk about deals if you come with us quietly."
The Strabimon sat across from Tadayoshi, the captain, and the lieutenant in HQ's conference room once that matter was handled. There was still another. "Normally Renamon would have been choice for that kind of close-quarters, stealth-imperative engagements. I shouldn't be praising you sneaking around like you have been, but your timing was pretty good."
"Like I said, it's no big deal. Just the decent thing to do."
"And I'm very sorry about... the circumstances."
"Yeah." There was an uncomfortable pause, and the question that ended it didn't ease much of the tension either. "She just doesn't like being tied down, does she?"
"No, she does not."
"I mean, who the heck walks away from a gig like that? Bein' with humans is awesome! People dream about that kinda thing."
"Well, our arrangement wasn't exactly... amicable."
"I know about it. I still say she got a better deal than she deserved."
"That's rather hard. You never even met her." Tadayoshi paused a moment before he understood. The Strabimon gave him the time he needed for it to sink in. "Ah, yes, I see... that's your point."
"Pretty much."
"So what do you plan to do?"
"I'm starting to think Mama doesn't wanna think about anything but Mama." The young wolf bit his own lip before proceeding, "You got an open spot now on your team, right? I mean, I did take down your bad guy for you."
Jetmon couldn't help scoffing. "You squished a bug, boy."
"Let's... sleep on it." Tadayoshi shut his eyes and stood up. "You can spend the night here tonight. I'm going to assign you a detail as a security precaution - it's just that this is a sensitive place, and you haven't really been cleared for access to this point."
"Makes sense."
"The team will talk over your request tomorrow and let you know." The boy held out a hand. "Does that sound acceptable, Dakota?"
The young wolf's expression softened. His smile wasn't complete relief, but it was still sincere. The boy wasn't surprised when Dakota took his hand, but instead of shaking it Strabimon instead pulled Tadayoshi into a quick little hug. "You're the best, man. Thank you so much, whatever you do."
"Well, your chances for certain can't be worse than the Searchmon's."
Word count: 2,604
Acquired: Xros partners Dakota and Kamushi