thenearshore | [Closed] You'll never get anywhere / Not without my help

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[Closed] You'll never get anywhere / Not without my help

Who: Schuldig

volksdaemon and Nagi Naoe

cyberfly
What: Prayer Answering: Schwarz Style
When: May 3
Where: Near Shore: all around town, probably
Warnings: Schwarz will complete missions in any way they can - murder, theft, whatever.

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'Hey Nagi, I have a job for us,' he began one afternoon, as if it was nothing at all to speak to him again this way. As if they hadn't been spirited off to the Heavens where he had more power than he ever had and yet not enough. Most importantly, he still wanted to convince Nagi to willingly leave Weiss - something he hadn't been able to accomplish back then.

So to him, the best way to prove to Nagi that he was who he said he was - not trustworthy, but a worthier ally than Weiss - was to take him along on answering one or two of these 'prayers' that could be twisted to suit his needs. They were petty little needs, but they were useful, because the language was loose enough that, like the old Djinn stories about wishes, he could 'answer' them in a way that was Schwarz-like. Jog a memory or two out of Nagi without breaking his brain, get some exercise, stretch both of their new powers, all good things.

He grinned from a distance. 'Are you in?'

[OOC: Prayer #15:
A prayer for business:
No one's stopped by my store in weeks! If I don't get more customers soon, I'm going to have to close down.]

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Out of the blue, the voice echoed in his head, familiar, nasal, Schuldig. Somehow, it didn't really bother him, even though it probably should. He had a feeling this was supposed to be a familiar sensation, even though he had no specific memory of the guy.

Nagi sat -- where else -- at his laptop in the basement passage underneath Diana's temple, working on some things. He continued typing. Nagi was good at multitasking.

'What kind of a job?'

It wasn't an outright rejection. In any case, he was mildly curious.

Well that was a positive encouragement as far as he was concerned - not an outright rejection was all he needed. His grin turned into a real smile. This would be exciting no matter how it turned out. 'An open-ended essay question. The perfect homework for a bright young man like yourself.' He laughed a bit. 'It's a prayer that needs answered. I want to show you what I'm capable of.'

What we were capable of, he wanted to say, but not yet and not so far away he couldn't detect Nagi's deeper reactions to memories. 'So if you want to get a bit further away from that temple, I'll get us down to the Near Shore and see what we can do to complete this mission.'

Prayers, Nagi knew, came in all different kinds. The only one he and Omi went on was a useless thing in his opinion. Omi said they successfully answered it, but that was all on him. Nagi just sat there as Omi did all the work. The only thing he really got out of the whole experience was confirmation that Omi was an excellent liar. Good enough to fool a grieving mother, anyway. It was possible that the woman was desperate enough to believe anything.

He had a feeling this wasn't going to be that sort of a job.

'You do know we can't kill any ayakashi.'

He thought he should at least put that out there.

'Not as we are now, no - but this shouldn't involve one of those things.' Fine, make him spit it out. 'It was something like "I'm going to have to close down if I don't get more customers soon." But I don't plan on standing on a street corner. I'm just a little lazy.'

He got up and stretched a bit, assuming he'd be going out to get Nagi any minute now. 'So come on, genius, let's go figure out what kind of business it is and where the customers are. I'm sure we can persuade people easily between the two of us.'

What kind of a stupid prayer was that? People should learn how to do stuff on their own instead of expecting gods to help. Nagi snorted.

'Sounds kind of dumb.' Maybe his sentiments could be heard in his blunt tone.

Still, if Schuldig was saying he could show him what they were capable of, even a stupid prayer could be a good opportunity. He waited a few minutes before he shut down his computer and answered back:

'Where do I meet you?'

Edited 2016-10-17 01:25 (UTC)

"Kind of?' Nagi would hear the laughter clear as day through Schuldig's mental voice. 'It sounds completely pathetic!' And that was part of the joy for him - used to be part of the joy for them all. Taking a situation filled with pathetic people and using it to their own advantage.

'Glad to have you back on board though! Anywhere beyond about 100 yards away from your temple should be fine. Out of visual range. Before all that though, I have to ditch my close-combat weapon for something long range again. My old handgun wasn't nearly as fireproof as I was, heh.' That should be a fine little throwaway line as far as he's concerned. It didn't include Nagi directly, and he threw out so many random things it could just be another one for all Nagi knew.

'Once I'm properly armed, then we'll be able to handle this without being bonded, no matter what the Near Shore idiots throw our way.'

Well at least Schuldig shared his opinion on this matter. Nagi was pretty sure he wasn't like Omi who, despite his intellect, seemed to find these sorts of missions worthwhile.

He pondered over the tidbits of information Schuldig dropped in his next thought. Clearly he didn't want Omi to see them together. That was fine. Nagi slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and started walking, out the temple and toward the public road.

'I can get you a gun if you need one. But it won't do any good against an ayakashi.'

'I went down there once already and scoped the guy out,' Schuldig clarified. 'No ayakashi in sight. Just rotten business decisions.'

Then, he let Nagi feel his curiosity and anticipation. 'Which is why I need a gun, especially if you're offering, Nagi. You've been doing some scoping out of your own, have you?' Clever little Prodigy. Even without his explicit memories of Schwarz, he was still thinking like them. It boded well as far as Schuldig saw things.

He watched in his mind's eye as Nagi got further away from the temple until and guessed his general direction, then teleported himself closer. Not exactly where Nagi would likely end up, but a lot closer than his own Loki's Hollow was to Bombay's stomping ground.

It wasn't as though Nagi needed a firearm, but he certainly knew how to acquire one. His acquisitions thus far had been more technological nature though, as evidenced by his impressive set-up back at the temple. He had yet to find a suitable safehouse to really hunker down though, so he kept most of his important files mobile for easy access.

'Give me a day and I'll get one for you. Any preference on model?'

If Schuldig expected to have a handgun for their mission today, he should've said so earlier.

Somehow, Nagi had a feeling fore-planning was not Schuldig's domain.

'Ah, not quite as resourceful to have it tomorrow. We'll chat afterwards, then. I'll just have to leave the heavy lifting to you.' He laughed a bit in Nagi's mind, until at last he could teleport to Nagi's location. "Besides - just the two of us should be plenty." He didn't say it out loud because this time he really wasn't convinced that prodding Nagi's mind about Crawford was a good idea. So let him think Schuldig is a bit of a flighty guy; it's not true, he just hasn't had to exercise that particular skillset in awhile.

"Let's get down there, then." He inclined his head to the left a bit and then they were off, two strips of blue light disappearing from the Far Shore and appearing on the rooftop in the Near Shore.

"Time to case the place," he explained nonchalantly. This was business as usual for them -- not often together of course, but one of the typical top priorities. He wanted to impress that upon Nagi. His eyes started to glow white as he probed the minds of the several people in the building below them.

It would probably make a lot of sense if Nagi had the whole picture. After all, how was he to know that their fearless leader was the very master of foresight? That sort of power came not just from psychic ability but an innate brilliance of mind. Yes, a mind that would even awe someone as cool and stoic as Nagi.

Unfortunately, he had no memory of such a man. Still, it was arguable that he had the next best thing: the un-remembered ex-teammate who possessed a mastery of mind of his own.

And if he said guns weren't necessary, that was good enough. Nagi had other things in arsenal, as Schuldig well knew.

Nagi nodded and allowed himself to be teleported to what turned out to be a rooftop. He watched Schuldig carefully as he did his thing.

"Do you hear anything?"

Schuldig nodded. "It's a bakery - a specialty French patisserie." He stood back up and let his powers recede, taking away the glow in his eyes. "There's the one guy and his two helpers, that's it, but they're about to leave anyway. He fired the both of them a few minutes ago."

He rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands in his pockets. "The guy's a jackass, cutting off his two little helpers' only income sources who loved him so much and now he's turning his back on them." He grinned. "I like 'im. A little bit more than before, anyway."

Then he crossed his arms over his chest. "But I've got a plan. These little shits are gonna run off and badmouth him anyway. I don't feel like stoppin' 'em. So the good folk will abandon this place completely." Then Schuldig smirked. "I say we track down some people who aren't on the up and up and need a new place to meet up... clandestinely. That should provide him with all the business he needs."

Well, it would certainly fulfill the obligations of the prayer. Nagi had a feeling it wasn't exactly what the shop-owner had in mind, but that was on him. It was like those deals with the devil people made in the movies: you had to make sure you covered all your contingencies before signing your soul away.

"You know who runs this neighborhood?"

Gangs were such territorial groups. Nagi could easily hack into some police databases to figure out this information, but Schuldig probably had another method in mind.

"Not right now I don't," Schuldig admitted. "I was hoping you'd be able to pick out a group for me. Maybe not even the one who runs this neighborhood - maybe it's someone who wants to and this is on the edge of two rivals' territory." Like Nagi had suspected, Schuldig could have figured that much out on his own, but this wasn't really about answering some prayer. It was about showing Nagi they could work together.

"Once we know that, then I can plant the suggestion in the gang boss's mind and we watch the fun unfold." He moved his hand to hold his chin. "Maybe even convince the gang to bribe the owner instead of extort him. Get him better security equipment for monitoring activity and plant one of their guys as a guard. That should help the gang members feel like stopping in more often. That and adding coffee and booze to the menu for members only, heh."

Then he turned to Nagi again. "Sounds like we could use a forged liquor license to drop in their lap - one better than their little gang could normally come up with. You can make that easily enough I bet. How's that for some interesting work?" Normally this would have supported some larger goal of Crawford's, but this time it was petty chaos causing for the sake of making new memories that echoed Nagi's old ones of Schuldig. That was more than enough.

Edited 2016-10-30 22:27 (UTC)

Forgery and infiltrating a police database. This sounded like a lot of work for a mission that could probably be accomplished by a few email blasts and cleverly placed social media ads. And much of the heavy lifting was on Nagi's part. He wondered whether Schuldig was testing him.

"I can look into the OCD files of the Metro police," he said. "But a forgery will take longer. I need equipment for that."

"Fine, fine, I'm open to suggestions!" He held out his hands dismissively. "I just thought it would be the kind of thing you were good at." He wasn't doing much peeking into Nagi's mind, just superficial stuff for now, so he just decided to reiterate his point. "I care more about speed today. What's a better alternative to a good forgery then?"

He tapped his chin, then snapped his fingers. "Right! I'll find some police officers who patrol the area and convince them to avoid the the bakery for a month or so while things start up. How's that sound?"

"...sure."

This telepathy thing could be useful, he thought. He would need to figure out exactly the extent of Schuldig's powers. And whether or not Nagi would ever notice if the guy tried to plant ideas or suggestions in his own head.

"I can do the hack from anywhere," he said. "Well. As long as there's a wireless."

Japan was pretty forward in a lot of things technological. Wireless internet was not one of them. He could tether his phone's connection, but it would be better to hack into another network.

Good. Nagi was still considering the fact that Schuldig could turn on him. He wasn't wrong. It just wasn't going to be today.

"Alright, give me a second." All he had to was snatch up a dozen random folks from around them in a mile radius or so. "Found one - a nearby business with an... 'unsecured guest network.'? I found it because the guy was worrying about it. That's good, right?" He gestured loosely at Nagi to give him some guidance on that front.

No time like the present, basically. He'd try to get Nagi whatever he could, especially with his new power of teleportation, to get this prayer done as fast as he could. He was after the success, not the 'help' they were providing to just one business. The sooner they got the nefarious group involved, the sooner he could come back and help them cause more significant damage to the area.

"That works. Let's go."

Nagi stepped closer and waited for Schuldig to teleport them over. The hack could take long, depending on how secure the police's systems were. Though he had a feeling it would be easier to hack into these files, compared to others (like undercover databases or internal investigation files).

He didn't need to be told twice. Schuldig teleported them to the other building's rooftop.

"While you're doing that, I'll get the puppets into position." Specifically, those police and special investigators that he could convince them to avoid the area. It wouldn't take very long to make the suggestions superficial, but he wanted these to last, so he made them deeper and that took more effort. He didn't even move from the spot that he teleport, just standing there with his eyes white as he worked on the Telepathic controls.

"All right."

Nagi pulled out his laptop and got to work. The hack itself wasn't as time consuming as he thought it might be. He started from the open case files of the Organized Crime Division and worked his way into the more interesting stuff. Confidential details that the police utilize to build their evidence against them. There was an entire network of syndicates and their inner workings.

He remembers a conversation he had with someone (Youji, but he didn't ask his name) about the hierarchies of society. This is most definitely a hierarchy of another kind, strings that get pulled from behind the scenes. Somehow, it all feels strangely familiar.

And why shouldn't it? People like him and Schuldig, they don't really belong in the normal hierarchy of society, do they? He doesn't need his memories to know this much.

Schuldig appreciated the confidence with which Nagi worked and the fact that he didn't see a problem with any of it. This was the most vague sort of memory-jogging he could possibly do. Schuldig didn't so much 'watch' Nagi work as 'felt' how he was going about it. If it was easy or challenging, if he was enjoying it or not.

Meanwhile, Schuldig twisted the men's thoughts around so that they would find alternate routes around the city, avoiding that particular bakery while they patrolled. Thankfully there were no outstanding criminal problems with the owner, just a lot of outstanding debts. He was able to plant some confusion there, that the guy actually had another 3 months before those needed to be called on again. Plenty of time to get their short-term finances turned around.

He glanced briefly at Schuldig as he worked, pondering for a moment how far-reaching Schuldig's powers were. Nagi usually had to keep a visual on the things he moved, especially if it was a complicated task. Schuldig, it seemed, didn't even need to be in the same vicinity as the things he reached for with his mind.

Nagi's hack took a few more minutes before he was in. If Schuldig was feeling out his sentiments on the work, he might be in familiar territory. Then and now, Nagi approached all his missions with a plan, thorough and meticulous. He understood the job and knew he was good at it. It wasn't really a matter of enjoyment, but he did find some satisfaction when he broke through the firewalls to what he needed to find.

He scrolled through the files, looking for the basic layout of the syndicates in the city and how their territories overlapped.

"I have a few prospects here."

There was a time when Schuldig had convinced himself that his telepathic powers would allow him to learn anything from other people. To some extent, he supposed that was true, but he also figured out very quickly he'd need a mind as astute as Nagi's to actually accomplish it. Now he could only marvel at those skills being put to work and keep hoping for them to come back into good use again and again, today being no exception.

"Awesome." Schuldig blinked and the bright light of focusing his powers dimmed, then he walked over to Nagi. "Want to run through them? Or you can just pick one." He didn't really care, in the end. He just needed one. Nagi was the more analytical between the two of them of course, so he could very well be able to choose one quickly without Schuldig's involvement at all.

He pulled up a map of the city, color-blocked by territory. There was some overlap in certain 'disputed' areas, and a few neutral zones as well.

"The Izumo clan runs this neighborhood here. Their territory spans most of the eastern side of the city from the river all the way up to the financial district. Toujo is the other major syndicate, and they cover the south and western sides of the city, with some overlap over here on the fringes of the harbor near the neutral zone."

There were other smaller clans in the picture, but none of them were of much consequence.

Schuldig is quite pleased and it shows on his face as he invades Nagi's personal space to lay a hand on his shoulder. "Good job, Nagi. I knew you could do it." Crawford would be proud. It was no big deal to Nagi at all. "Seems like Izumo's the group that would be cocky enough to want their own special hangout."

And he knows all about cocky, of course.

"Can you figure out any of their bosses? If not I'll grab an officer or two and shake it out of them. It may only be what the police know, but it's a start. I can find the real boss types from there." He's confident of that. You could say cocky too. He thinks of it as confident being when cocky can back up the power, which he can.

Nagi glances over his shoulder with a slight frown as Schuldig pushes into his space. He doesn't remark on it, however. If it really bothered him, he'd break a finger or something.

"The main boss is named Sanada. His lieutenant is Matsudaira. They've been in control of the syndicate since 2010, when Sanada assassinated the previous boss in a coup. He's looking to expand his territories into Toujo turf."

Schuldig of course was just amused at Nagi's internal threat to the older man's own fingers. What a firecracker Crawford had picked up; he'd always known that, for all the placid outward appearances that Nagi pretended to. His mind was a work of art, including how defensive he was. A good, healthy reaction for any psi over the age of maybe 5.

"Perfect. Let me get on that." Pictures accompanying Nagi's research got him the rest of the way into the minds of perfect strangers at a distance. The light in his eyes returned.

Schuldig reached out to Matsudaira first, just to stoke his own desire to keep up their activities that require active working efforts, if nothing else to placate the rest of the syndicate and any rumors that they were starting to rest on their laurels a little too much since that coup. Sanada meanwhile gets the full brunt of Schuldig's powers, pushing to the forefront of his mind that expansion agenda as Sanada's new top priority. In particular, he gives a small vision of the emptying bakery with the suggestion that they could find a desperate owner ready to get paid for silence and his men to use the bakery as a new outpost. From there, they could safely chat and plan to expand into Toujo territory, then monitor the area once they took it.

Then, Schuldig's power dimmed and he turned back to Nagi. "That's that. By tonight the syndicate folks will be swirling around, checking the place out and starting to put pressure on the owner. By tomorrow that bakery should have a visit from boss man Sanada himself. Ready to go back to the Far Shore?"

That's it? Closes his eyes, sends his thoughts into the void, and done? He doesn't look much winded either, from this exertion of telepathic mind suggestions. If Schuldig is this powerful, whatever does he need Nagi for?

He closes his laptop and slides it back into his shoulder bag.

"All right."

Schuldig's ego fluffed up a bit at Nagi's thoughts. He did think he was pretty powerful. Nagi just made his powers more about twisting truths than what it could've been - like a week of combing the whole city to look for names and faces before he could actually pull this off.

Without another warning, Schuldig teleports the both of them back to the spot where he'd picked Nagi up, then throws the young man a salute. "Much obliged, Nagi. You've still got it."

And with that, Schuldig disappears again back to his temple.

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[Closed] You'll never get anywhere / Not without my help

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why yes I'm using names from WA...

lmao nice

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