Watch_Dogs [Vice, Takeda, David]

[Desmond Kurtz]

The daylight was not something that Desmond was particularly used to, especially not the sun that was hanging over Mosaic City. It was a cold sun, a foreign one, its light didn't shine as brightly on Chinese soil as it did back home. Walking through the streets of Mimoza Corner, he saw the remnants of an old way of life, plastered across billboards, sprayed across the walls of alleys, and even inscribed into the lines of the faces of those who lived here. This place was not familiar to him, but thanks to a combination of a natural sense of direction as well as a GPS app on his smartphone, he was able to find what he was looking for.

Desmond was not a dumb man, he was not a man who allowed any detail of a meeting to slip through the cracks. Takeda Akiyama, or Akiyama Takeda to say the name the proper Japanese way. A man with nothing special in his past. Something he'd said during their previous meeting had sparked Desmond's interest. He was something of a kindred spirit, someone who tried to drown misery instead of owning up to his past. It was easy to read men that were drinking. Moreover, upon finding himself fully sober, he suddenly found it quite strange that a bunch of teenagers were suddenly coming to a bar to drink after sensing the most powerful shadow presence of his entire career. Approaching the rest of the people in the bar besides the reporter lady would arouse too much suspicion from the local authorities. Men in their early thirties rarely talked to high school girls with pure intentions in their heart, especially ones that were legal.

His long hair was hidden by a baseball cap and a trench coat kept much of his body warm and hidden. If it was a bit warmer than a few degrees above zero, maybe someone would cock an eyebrow. He just looked like a guy trying to stay warm. Finally getting to the store, he saw the sign he'd been looking for. 'Manga-Max'. The jack brothers held the sign up. It was a corny shop and he knew the place would be almost deserted mid-day. There'd be no students unless they had played sick and went to their favorite manga store. Hopefully that wouldn't be the case. It'd be awkward to try and hold a very serious conversation if there were kids around.

Perhaps Desmond was giving them too little credit. Teenagers were often at the heart of incidents involving shadows and their malleable personalities made them much more receptive to Personas than older individuals. Sometimes, they took a bit longer to awaken. Although he definitely wasn't going to tell Takeda this, he was probably going to make the twenty-something shopkeeper into something of a Guinea Pig so he could study the exact process by which a Persona awakens. Stepping into the shop, he took off his hat so that his distinct haircut, brown eyes, and handsome stubbled face were plainly visible. Walking up to the counter, he nodded. "Hello, brother. Anything you'd recommend for a lonely, virginal thirty-something with too much time on his hands and a lust for animation?" He smiled at the younger man.

[Vice Ysal]

"Christ…"

Sunlight, that damnable source of illumination to the world, had once more reared its ugly head into Vice's face that morning and had, for the most part, ruined whatever good vibes he had gone to bed with the night before. He would've been chipper, and smiling, and even give at least a moment of consideration to the people around the neighbourhood if the flaming ball up in the galaxy decided to not mess him up first thing in the morning. As it were, since said ball of fire annoyed him, Vice felt the need to blow some steam off by being a menace to society. The roars echoed out by his motorcycle may not be as demonic nor disturbing as the annoying rays of light from above but it at least bothered some of the more sensitive people out there. Dressed in his usual outfit, a black biker jacket and pants combo with a clear black helmet to make sure his head was safe, Vice thanked no one in particular for making the roads free to drive on.

Looks like getting up late today did have its uses.

Still, much as he would have wanted to spend the day away just burning rubber and pissing off blokes, he had business to attend to. It wasn't exactly the monetary kind but it would pay off in dividends nonetheless if he played his cards right. Tucked inside his motorcycle's compartment was a small bag he had with him that had been filled with several bound copies and a couple of soft copies of his research throughout the outer circle. He had been able to gather quite a bit more information since the last time that he had met with Seiji in the graveyard battle and this should at least be able to tide over some good graces from the younger fighter. He'd probably have to try and get around to dropping by both Holly and Ran's house to gather more information, and maybe pay a visit to wherever Alisa lives, but that would be later he supposed.

Making his way through the increasing density of society, Vice skilfully drove in order to avoid any random civilian from getting splattered all over his bike. Cleaning it would have been too much of a hassle, not to mention having to maintain the equipment cause some stupid bloke's limb got caught up, blegh, Vice didn't want to think about it. Soon enough, the young man had managed to find his way towards the parking area for motorcycles in the area allotted by the Manga-Max area where he had agreed to drop by. He had even sent Seiji a text this morning to make sure that he at least had an idea that he'd be around here this time. Killing the engine of his vehicle, the young man began to unstrap the helmet he had on before stocking it on his vehicle. Gathering the essentials for this meeting, that being his bag of information, Vice secured his beloved mode of transportation before entering the establishment.

The door opened without a fuss and instantly, Vice's eyes spotted the red hair of the man behind the counter. Shrugging out the fact that there was some one up front already, the teenager decided to just wait in line like a good little customer. Might as well take a quick glance around the place while he waited, right?

[Takeda]

Before the waking of either of the two prospective customers, Takeda had struggled to even lift himself from the warmth of his ratty couch to greet the day. Sunlight during the early hours could barely peak through the window to gleam off of the various beer cans that littered the substandard housing unit, due in part to the fact that the little corner of Mimoza that he and Seiji resided in happened to have dozens of buildings that tended to block out the light, thankfully, but, another meddlesome intruder had awoken the red haired asian from his quiet slumber. The alarm clock. More than about five times had he smashed the plastic ones against the side of the wall in absolute fury, so eventually, Seiji had settled on getting him one he could not manage to break no matter how hard he tried, a little metal number that was so resilient that it had survived about ten mornings worth of constant assault from various hangover induced rages. Now it went without saying that it still hit the wall, but, the shrill cry did manage to rouse him from his slumber. After a shower, the usual morning bits, he went through waking up Seiji, waking up Seiji again after he asked for five more minutes of sleep to go back to dreams about Emma Watson, and then shuttling him out onto the bus before the boy could really protest.

His little half-brother had kept him entertained over the last few days at least, with their inexplicably procured plasma screen television providing them with enough entertainment to kill the dull bits between work and the occasional outing to shadow death land. Every time he readied himself to go back to the daily grind, Takeda always ended up thinking about what would happen should the incident ever end, or grow worse...he'd never let it on to Seiji that there was always the occasional doubt in his mind that this would amount up to anything more than a war of attrition. Nope, that wasn't him. Takeda was just the grumpy clerk, without a care in the world but for his booze. With thoughts racing through his mind on what was going to happen to them should the shadows overwhelm the city, he walked down the wooden stairs to Manga-Max, his own personal hell on earth. 

Weekdays were usually slow, uneventful little affairs that didn't start growing completely intolerable until the end of the school day, at which time Seiji would come home, he'd be stuck downstairs handing out manga, toys, figurines, and the occasional H-game to some hormone controlled teens that thought that a sword larger than a bus was the coolest shit in existence, and that it was the hypest shit to dream about screwing some two dimensional whore with big breasts. What a grand existence he lived. When the school day wasn't over? Typically it would be the same pack of rabid, frothing at the mouth neckbeards that wanted to converse with each other for hours at the counter over which hollow bimbo was hotter, or who was the most kawaii girl in one of their magical girl mangas. God, it made him cringe every time to hear either a bunch of white people, or Chinese people with no recollection of their culture, just blurt that word out over. And over. And over.

Well there it was, the daily grind had just picked up it's first bit of grating, shrill, slurred dialogue as Takeda ended up propping his head up on his hand whilst some white guy with enough body hair to make chewbacca look like one of those shaved cats rifled through the shonen section. Before the arrival of either of his guests, it just got downright annoying when the guy waddled his way over to the counter, and started to speak..." 'Scuse me sir, I was wondering if you had-" And right then, he stopped him. "Sir. If you didn't see it on the display racks, it isn't here. We don't keep any of the H-stuff behind the counter. It has it's own section. If you're looking for figurines, aisle three. Games are four, and are in the H section too. Fourth display. If you're looking for Doujin, well you're out of luck. Now. If I didn't just help you with that, what can I help you with, sir?" Gritting his teeth into a false, patronizing smile, the fat fellow before him didn't seem to quite understand when someone was being a bit snarky, and kept on talking. "I was actually looking for Luna-Oh. It's in Japanese, right? Bagle clown pants chatscript." Welp. He tried talking in Japanese. Takeda's grin only widened as he then started to speak back. "You're a disgusting waste of flesh who wouldn't know a good author if he literally shoved his head up your ass and screamed it out. I hope you toss yourself into a woodchipper, you cunt." Now the guy looked confused...yeah, whitey was just guessing at the title.

After having to point to the copy physically to get lard-ass over there, and having taken the fifteen dollars in change that the guy had dredged up from his damned sofa, Takeda laid his head down on the counter whilst sitting on a stool that had been knicked from a supply closet. Part of him contemplated if it would be easier to just kind of hand out pamphlets to encourage people in the store to talk to him as little as possible about the crap they were buying. Considering the printing costs, the whole thing would fail, but it was worth a thought...then someone came in. Oh boy, another white guy looking for manga that-well...scratch that. Though the guy looked like he was about to flash Takeda his junk, showing up in a trenchcoat and a baseball cap, the guy seemed way older, way better groomed than most of his usual customers. Something didn't seem right about this...guy wasn't here to buy manga, unless it was one of the H-games. Takeda could swear up and down that once he had sold a copy to Mr.T.

Asking him for his opinion on what he should buy, the guy seemed legit enough, though something about him seemed very familiar, probably from one prolonged night of absolute drunkenness...he could kind of remember one cute chick that he drank with, but that was about it. "Not really, but hell, whatever works for you. Just look through the covers and see what stands out...store policy obligates me to tell you to check out "Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly", as it's our top selling bullet-hell title." God, he could not have sounded more bored with his topic of discussion...and then, another one. Now this one he could slightly recall...guy looked like the one that tried putting a cap in the full moon boss. A for effort, though. If he was there to chat him up about Personas, or some other shit, he'd be SOL. If the guy was there to tell him how to get a better gun given the effect his Browning had had recently, that was a different story.

[David Moore]

His entire body ached and he found himself regretting the fact that he had chosen to get out of bed this morning. He had woken up in the hospital after being beaten up by some random guys. He was pretty sure that he was going to die when it happened, but apparently someone had come along and done some damage.

After passing out from his beating, he had woken up in the hospital in what felt like six pounds of bandages. He had found out that the warehouse had apparently burned down and the police had picked him. He managed to convince them that he didn't start the fire, at the time he didn't know what had. It turned out the people that had beat him up had tried to burn him alive inside the building.

They were all getting charged for arson and the police had found out about the whole attempted murder thing. Despite their best efforts, they couldn't get Dave to testify. He couldn't be responsible for someone's imprisonment. It just wasn't right. He'd sacrifice his chance of undeserved vengeance to help lighten the sentences of the guys that had attacked him.

He had been sent home the next day, despite his injury. He had recovered quickly from the worst of his wounds and had stabilized. Now in agonizing soreness, he found himself trudging over to Manga Max's address. School had given him several days to recover from his attack, one of which he was now using to visit Manga Max and its clerk.

He wondered if this was a good idea. As he saw the building his heart quickened. Seiji had invited him to come over, and it would have been rude to never show up. It was only about halfway to the store that he realized Seiji would be in school, meaning it would probably just be him and Takeda in the store.Business would probably be slow during the school day.

He actually had to take a minute outside the building. He hadn't seen Takeda since the bar and he was pretty confident that he had completely embarrassed himself. It was a huge blur that eventually went black once he drank that water. Had there been one of those "roofies"?

He opened the door and instantly recognized Takeda at the front counter, and some guy in a creepy trenchcoat and hat, and... the creepy psycho-waiter. He looked back at Takeda in shock before immediately ducking down into a nearby isle. He fund himself staring at a nearly naked girl that looked twelve as some grinning, shadowy figures surrounded her. Dave quickly averted his gaze to something else, instead seeing the title of Bible Black. The cover was not promising. He looked somewhere else. Boku no Pico. Dear God, what had he done?

He quickly resolved that just staring at his feet was the best answer. It suddenly occurred to him that Takeda might lower himself enough to have interest in the fact that Dave had bandages over his arms and right eye, with the left one being black. He wasn't sure how he would respon to the impending question. Maybe he should think about that.