RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 9] Enzo's Lady of the Night

"I won't," Zeta replied. "We are dealing with a sicko that cut people inot pieces. There is torso flying in the room. This all is bloody buggered." She sighed and then looked at Luca. "Let's head on." She said.

Mr. Smith's face remained impassive yet curious in a way only a man in a suit with tinted glasses could. "Really now?" Smith asked Zeta, pressing on. "Could you at least describe the scene then? You mentioned a torso? No head or limbs attached?" The Origin Rep scratched his chin.

"This is...interesting. Just what kind of enemies did you make Mr. Bortelli?"

Zeta's eyebrows almost joined in frown non-visible to others. "Your interest in dismembered woman is slightly disturbing Smith," she said and started walking down the corridor.

"mmfhfh," Was all Luca was able to relate to Zeta and Robert audibly when he was asked to keep on moving. To get the message across, he made an A-OK symbol with his right hand. He motioned to the door which lead to the bridge and advanced towards it, finding that it was unlocked and pushing it open.

The bridge appeared to be as Enzo had left it, with his chair intact, his ashtray overflowing and his personal effects in an almost uncannily familiar arrangement. However, something was disrupting the harmony of the 'Den of Enzo and Company', and it was note shaped, taped to the dashboard.

To Enzo said:

Let it be known that your (or Enzo's, if you aren't him) trickery ends here. They're coming for you (or Enzo) and whoever you've decided to send into here, Enzo (or whoever you are).

May whoever you worship have mercy upon you, because the Police won't. I paid them extra to make you all scream.

Click to expand...

Luca's already emptied stomach lurched again. It was a trap, but no bomb could deal the amount of damage needed to destroy a reputation or bruise an ego. Years to make and minutes to unmake, he had to work fast.
He decided to tap his visor to bring up some camera options, and sent the image to Enzo with the words:

"We're in deeper than we thought. They're framing us and using the cops to pick us up and kangaroo court us. All of us." He then decided to answer why he wasn't able to talk, "Mouth full of vomit from the torso earlier, too. Not sure which is worse."

-

Meanwhile, as the ship got closer to the still deactivated, the IFF started to identify itself, it was indeed a registered Nepleslian police vehicle.
"Oh, for fucks sake," John swore as he looked over to Sebastian, his face distraught, "Lower weapons, disarm, do whatever!"
"What?" Sebastian said, "Why are the police coming for us?"
John blinked as he swerved off of intercept trajectory and the Crimson Kestrel did the same, "They aren't after us, they're after Enzo."

-

"Enzo, if some bent cops are after us, who would have the strings to pull in a favour that big, just against us?" Luca was semi-furious as he tore himself up over whether killing a corrupt cop would leave a stain on his conscience. After all, before they were corrupt, they were just, "Either way, tell the others not to hold back. They're crooked."

He sat down at the console (messing up Enzo's groove) and looked about, looking for some sort of ignition or power on. He pressed buttons, flipped switches and hammered his fist against the interface.

When it did finally spring to life with a little help from Naoko's thoughts (thank goodness for thought activated technology), with all of the lights turning on one by one on the dashboard before the main lights started to tell him what was turning on and turning off.

Eventually, the life support systems and artificial gravity activated, prompting Luca to take off his helmet and eject what'd been staying in his mouth for the past few minutes on the floor ungraciously.

"This day keeps getting more and more interesting..." He mumbled, before coughing a little and standing back up, "Enzo," He radioed at last, "Your ship is back online, but the crooked cops heading towards will be a problem - the shuttle has some firepower in it, as does the Kestrel and the Big Bird."

He then radioed John, "Kill the cops, they're crooked."
On the other end of the line, John and Sebastian blinked, "What?" The pilot questioned.
"They've been hired like petty thugs to take out Enzo in a personal vendetta. They've forfeit their right to not be shot at."
Sebastian frowned severely, eyeing the speaker, "Son, you're out of line."
"So are they, and if we don't shoot back, we'll be out of many lines at once, and dead!"

Zeta was angry very angry. THey mutilated some woman just to get revenge on Enzo? What did he do to make someone create this plan. WHen she finished reading the note she sweared and shouted "It's a trap!" into the comms. She will be probabyl stated as captaing obvious later on but that was not important now. Important was that this was deathtrap and coppigs were onto them.

She then waited for Luca to finish his talking to toher. "Skipper I suggest to power down all our comms and let them shoot first. We will be rady for them and make shishkebab of them after their shoot. If they are crooked they will shoot. As fat as it all goes, me and Rob have videos. They can see we did nothing. We just boarded our friends ship with opening codes and found a corpse here." She then waited a little more. "All the better, I suggest you calling the coming cops right now saying that you want to report murder. We then have communication logs which we can show some uncrooked cops. Technicaly they have nothing on us. We came to ship owned by one of our members and found a corpos. WHen cops came by out of sheer luck we called them and reported it. As far as law goes, we have all the aces in our hands. And if they attack we can defend ourselves. And they have no reason or right to arrest us. Enzo is there any bad contraband on the ship? If yes, how much and do we have time to move it onto the shuttle? They can look on the ship but they would need warrant to look on any of Luca's ship." Her brain went full power. She lived on Funky city and knew all about crooked cops and that only thing you can do is to make them look stupid. Steal any reasons of theirs to arrest you.

"If all goes wron we can just call bloody IPG on this or something. It will be risky but it can save us from being stated as cop-killers and without bounty on our heads. You are high-alert target skipper. If you get state bounty on your head IPG will come after as and that won't be very nice." She finished her quick monologue with deep breath.

Enzo seemed rather nonplussed, considering the situation. He at least made the effort to cock an eyebrow at the events as they unfurled into a large pile of shit-stew. Without a thought, flicked a few switches on the radio control panel and opened a channel to the oncoming police ship.

"Alright, which ones of yous scumbags is it? I gots dirt on everyone of you fuckers, an' I thoughts we agreeds on a 'You don't bother me, I don't bother yous guys' policy." He rambled on, "Who put you assholes up to this little stunt, eh?"

He sheathed his knife and turned off the radio, leaning over to Smith, "Ya gots ta be firm with these crooked beats, they's a lot likes little dogs and whatnots, see? Ya wanna go over theres and sets up the targeting computer so's we cans dust the motherfuckers if they come arounds again?"

He pointed to the fire controls and opened up the team's channel again, "I dunno who's powerful enough to does this kindsa stuff to me, Cap'n Pavone. But I ain't afraids of no crooked beats, I delt with 'em before. Whoever sets up this little shindigs thinks I'm afraid of a little green an' blue? They must not know me very well."

“I don’t know who turned the power on, but, domo,” came the voice of the small, slight Nekovalkyrja in the doorway as she entered and came to stand somewhere near the captain’s chair, to the right. As she leaned sideways against the chair, she flexed her hand, apparently more concerned about it than about the bloody gore that she had to have passed to reach the bridge. The bleeding had stopped, but close observation revealed that the bones hadn’t completely knit again. Her fourth finger was moving at an odd angle.

The note caught her attention. As if she hadn’t already been listening to the comm.. channel, she read it over with affected interest. It amused her slightly to know that the police – the Nepleslian police – were on their trail. It wasn’t an emotion she voiced, of course, because most of the crew were Nepleslian or with Nepleslian ties. That would have been genuinely sloppy. Instead, she gave a low, thrumming sound, akin to a hum, but decidedly more feline. Her knee jerk reaction to this mess was to kill the police, and modify their ships sensor logs to reflect some more natural occurrence. In order to do that, she would have to get aboard the Nepleslian ship. Who knew what sort of information a Nepleslian police cruiser would have aboard? Perhaps, the pass codes to their criminal database.

And that had a particularly nice ring to it. Perhaps she would have her payback for all this absurd doll nonsense, after all.

“I have a different idea,” Naoko stated, leaning further over the captain’s chair. “Why don’t we let them board? If they want to capture us, and frame us with this evidence, they’ll have to come onto this ship sooner or later, ne? Then, we can ambush them from some of Enzo's hiding spots. I'm sure he has enough we can fit in. Good, ne?”

For some reason, Smith wasn't too surprised. It pretty much explained just how messy the corpse sounded like (judging by how everyone was acting) and made perfect sense; as far as he knew, there weren't any particular cults around that were into this thing. Or, at least not anymore. Plus, professional criminals didn't have much reason to make a mess, unless it was for something like this, or clean up. An oddity; things got messier before they got cleaner.

She kicked him into the fiery exhaust of the shuttle engine. Only half of him vanished without a trace. The rest simply splattered on the bulkhead as it went with the wind. The Neko turned back and looked at him with mock horror, a hand covering her mouth. She eventually adjusted the engines to finish the job.

Speaking of Cats, Naoko was right. That was one of the better options on the table right now. Minus the killing part. They were simply more useful alive. "Miss Zeta Five, please forward me the footage of your entry onto 'The Lady of the Night' so I can hide it from the crooked cops." Smith's hands quickly danced over the console in front of him. Perhaps it was better he didn't go after all. "That way, if we decide to ride them out like you said, they can't destroy our evidence so easily." He'd done this before, and it was made even easier back then with a few pulled strings.

Smith unconsciously pushed his glasses up again; he was genuinely bothered this time around, but didn't show it. Loath as he was to admit, this second option It had mentioned worked fairly well too. "If we decide to go with Miss Aihara's plan, I highly recommend we keep as many of them alive. We need a Name after all." This option...he had to do it a lot more than the former. Good connections were not always available.

'She even said sorry to the guy before turning him into something less than dust. Like she could feel that.'

They tended to be oh so efficient in their dealings, big or small. This bothered Smith immensely; it was something he and they shared, and he hated the idea of sharing something with them.

"We were tipped off to the location of this vessel after a few days of pursuit. We have reason to believe the owner of this vessel was responsible for the kidnapping, rape and dismemberment of a few people," The officer replied, voice stern and convinced, "The second part of the tip told us that the killer loved heading back to the scene of the crime, and look who we have here..."

"That. Is. Bullshit," Luca replied sternly, catching the officers off guard by jutting into their conversation with Enzo, "Enzo Bortelli is a conman, liar and thief, but not a murderer," Luca wasn't entirely sure about the second to last part, but at least he knew what he was dealing with, "There. Whoever sent you this tip was probably someone he screwed over and wants revenge, framing him and making you clean him up for it."

A pause took place for a moment, "Are you certain of this, whoever you are?" Asked another police officer.
"No shit, do I sound like I'm ordering a pizza with this conversation?"
Some shuffling could be heard on the other end of the line with the microphone off, "...check the files..." After a tense minute, they said:

"Enzo Bortelli. According to your patterns, what our tip described seems too... disjointed. You're more used to conning people for quick bucks and whoever does try to physically assault you usually comes out alive, but scarred," The police officer admitted, "We're going to change our tack. We haven't eliminated you as a suspect, Mr. Bortelli, but whatever your ship was used for needs investigation."

Luca paused, "If so, come unarmed. The last thing both of us want is a bloodbath on our hands."
"By the way, whom am I talking to?"
"Captain Pavone. You might've heard of me," Luca replied, shamelessly name-dropping, and hoping that his prestige would make the officers reconsider.

Luca then opened a comm. line that didn't include the police, "Guys. Co-operate. We look very out of place here," He then thought for a moment and asked, "Enzo, did anybody have any reason to nick your shuttle, do torture porn in it, lay the blame on you and call the cops in? - Aside from being a villain out of a Z grade movie for shits and giggles with a huge dislike for you?"

"He's touched in th' head, 'ooever he is!" Melissa replied.

-

The officer's ship slowed down, and a shuttle was sent out, giving the two other shuttles one more for company. To say the least, it was more than a bit crowded.
Eventually, two EVA suits of Nepleslian design could be seen floating towards Enzo's vessel, and eventually made their way inside.

"Show us the crime scene," One of them asked as he took off his helmet, removed his EVA suit and pulled a folded up fedora out from under his armpit, straightening it and putting it on his head. The clothing he was wearing underneath his suit did not look like a police uniform.

This man looked as though he'd stumbled out of a film noir set by accident, wearing a waistcoat, tie, slacks and scuffed dress shoes, along with the unmissable fedora. He had hawkish features, scruffy black hair, blue eyes and stubble. He didn't have a visible badge either, "Enzo must be pissed if this is a frame, as he alleges."

"Who're you? How do you know Enzo?" Luca asked, waiting against one wall.
He grinned and nodded, "We used to stack cargo twenty years back. I owe him one for saving my ass. I can't believe he fell in with you, Mr. Pavone."
Luca seemed visibly upset by this, tilting his head and leaning against the wall, "You know me too?" Then again, his name was in the limelight for a while after assistance on Drift.

"I knew Sebastian. How's the old codger doing anyway?"
Inwardly, Luca grumbled at this. He wanted to know what his Father did to garner such attention, "...Fine." He said, nodding.

Something was just not seeming right to the captain. It was the general mood of things. Before the team got to the shuttle, it was jovial. When they got onto the shuttle and saw what happened, it was terrifying. When the cops showed up, it was pants-shittingly terrifying.

When this detective who claims to know Luca's dad, and worked with Enzo showed up, it went from pants-shittingly terrifying to kind of clammy, with doubt and circumstance hanging in the air too high.

Something still wasn't adding up, and it reeked.

Robert stood behind and to the right of Luca as the cops entered. He kept a distrustful distance between him and then. He followed Luca staying close and never relaxing his grip on the weapon. He hit his internal comm link and send a private signal to Zeta. "I don't like this, Z. I don't know what it is, but something seems...off. Tell me I just haven't seen to many horror movies lately."

Oh, Enzo thought, grumbling to himself in the now smoke-filled cabin of the ISC PHoenix, Everyone gets to get aboards my ship, that I been missin' for ages and looks around in it except me.

The conman sighed, not wanting to raise a fuss until after the police had gone through and torn everything up, taken all of his drugs, gone through all his porn, and stolen all his liquor. He considered that his bribe to them for leaving him alone after all. So, Enzo returned to cleaning his fingernails with his switchblade, singing softly to himself an eerie-sounding folk tune in a minor key.

"So, you fools who do not know me,
They sing my name way up North,
Now, you fools will come to fear me,
I'm the Butcher who makes the People-Pork."

"Every day, it's the same for me, baby,
I keep my cleaver in my black suitcase,
Every day, my work is lazy--
Except, except the part where I take chase."

Zeta turned of her helemts speakers and replied to Robert. "Yeah I don't like this either Rob." She then looked at the policeman. She still has her fatboy in her hands, though she aimed at ground. Not like she could holster the weapon anyway.

"Wesley I need something from you, take few shots of Mr. policeman here and send it over ot Sebastian would you?" SHe said to her Ai and hten opened secured line to Sebastian. "Mr. Pavone? In few moments I will be sending you a few pictures. Did you meet that man?" She asked.

Upon sending the picture she turned back and walked few steps back into the cockpit looking outside. She was being paranoid again. Few cops might be sneaking on them outside as Luca and cop spoke. She was also angry at herself for not buying some drones with her Impulse.

(Again, sorry for disappearing and reappearing so suddenly.)

Uriel Hisshana had been keen to avoid any duties that involved going near or aboard Vincenzo's ship- Hell only knew what sort of things he'd find there. What was strange was just how much worse it was than he'd expected; judging by the descriptions, Luca's team had stepped into the darkest depths of Nepleslia's Red Light district. His reaction was to tightly grip his Xiphos and fend off the desire to launch a crusade. In a sense, he'd been leading a personal crusade all his life: he regularly fought off the urge to scour the Universe for Scum and Low-lives. He'd decided long ago it wasn't worth it, but if ever he crossed paths with such individuals...

His chances were going up that just such an encounter was on the horizon- mayhap in the shuttle that had just engaged the Phoenix, upon which he was. Crooked cops. If they were crooked cops, they weren't going to live very long. Uriel held no quarter for liars or scum and any scum that lied about upholding the law was the lowest form of dregs. It would've destroyed someone in Elysian culture and severe wrongdoings were punishable by death.

These thoughts and many very similar ones crossed his mind between the time John announced the arrival of police and the police shuttle making contact with the Phoenix. Until then he'd kept his distance from Bortelli and Smith- the former because of his questionable behavior and the latter because something about the man wasn't right. The two were polar opposites, he also noticed: Enzo made himself very clear in word and deed and held back very little, if anything at all; Matthew, on the other hand, hid behind his uniform and "perfect" appearance and formal mannerisms.

With the latest developments he could no longer avoid them, and made a presence in the cockpit just in time for Mr. Bortelli's little tune. It was... well, it was just like him to try and put a "homey" touch on something so vile. It only lowered the man in Uriel's mind, but there was no time for that.

And it seemed he wouldn't be allowed to dispense some hard justice, either. At least not immediately. How irritating. So he made his intentions clear to the crew members at hand. "Seems we'll be playing along, then. If only Nepleslians had some sense of honor, this wouldn't be a problem." He momentarily noted to himself that he was fairly certain Enzo was Nepleslian and it wouldn't be much of a stretch if Smith was as well. Oh well. It was truth, and he wouldn't apologize for the truth.

Smith listened to the deranged little tune Enzo made as they loitered. There wasn't much to do, so that was not unexpected. What was unexpected though, was for such a man to openly broadcast his character for anyone and everyone to notice. His loss. Soon enough though, Uriel, the Elysian of the crew, joined them on the bridge. "Mr. Hisshana." Smith spoke, politely acknowledging Uriel's arrival and presence. He soon turned his attention back to the speech slowly wafting over the comms though, ready to act at a moment's notice.

This turned dull once again soon enough, and Uriel was quick to provide the latest dialog. For some odd reason, odd even from Smith's point of view, it got his attention. "Perhaps Mr. Hisshanna." He spoke economically. "But from experience, it appears that Honor creates just as many problems as it solves." He soon found himself thinking back to blurry, unpleasant memories.

'If I had those problems with Her solved, what problems would I be laden with today?' he wondered.

Uriel snorted his disagreement, and perhaps his disbelief as well. He already knew what Mr. Smith had in mind, but could only imagine the "experience" he had to result in such a claim.

"The Yamataians and Nekovalkyrja don't understand honor either. No, I've seen their form of 'honor,' and it's dirt. Honor is nothing among them except some pseudo-class system, a game to keep their elite and their dignitaries occupied. The word honor is tarnished by all their people, even their royalty. The mere fact that they would see me lynched for such words is proof enough.

"Honor is not something earned and lost on the battlefield or gained and lost by way of marriage. That is pride and arrogance, both of which are found in abundance among those people. Even Luca has succumbed to it, though he's certainly better behaved than most."

Back on the captured ship, Naoko had done everything in her power to avoid looking at the police, or being seen by them, which meant that she had found a room to settle herself in. There weren't any bodies in the pantry. She sat comfortably on a sturdy shelf halfway off the ground, feet propped up on a crate of apples that had gone beyond smelling sour. They now smelled a little like they were fermenting.

She closed her eyes.

Listening to Uriel had reminded her of the war that had created her. They were not particularly pleasant memories - but they were not really unpleasant either. 'MPS' was the term used back then. Mass Produced Soldiers. Killing machines with basic personalities and one goal in life; serve Yamatai. Even now, thinking about it sent a minor pang through her, and stirred an ache that had started the moment she had chosen never to return. The ache knew where it belonged very well. Naoko felt like a sword that had lost its sheath, and that disturbed her, but what disturbed her more was hearing Uriel talk. Sure she was evesdropping - it wasn't like the comms channel was closed, and she was connected to it. For once, she had heard something she wished she could have ignored. It made her remember.

It made the ache hurt very much.

"You don't know what it is like," replied the ship's intercom testily, right beside Smith's hand. It buzzed slightly, as if some static were getting in the way of clearer reception, "Your view of honor is very naive, yo."

The intercom crackled again.

"I saw something; there are gardens in Yamatai. Everywhere you walk. And there was a pond near the base where I was born. As a sentry, I would stand for hours in view of this pond, watching the fish. When the Elysians came, they destroyed the pond and everything around it, because that is the price of war. It is strange how those little things can mean so much, ne?

"From that point on, I fought because of that pond, because I loved my way of life, and hated to see it destroyed. Yamatai has a respect for beauty, for health, for perfection, for quality of life that is lacking in all other places. It is a paradise. I am a machine, with hands made to hold a weapon, and my reason for living is to kill, but even I appreciate there was a greater purpose. I lived and died for others, and selflessly gave everything I had, to fulfill my reason for living.

"But when you fought, you fought for arrogant words on paper. That is alright, with me. You have your book still; and Yamatai still stands. But that thing is like a poison, Duplicarii, and its pages are far bloodier than my hands could ever be. Don't talk about Yamataian honor being dirt, when Elysian honor destroyed your race."

Enzo frowned down at the intercom. He hated seeing Naoko upset. To top it off, he was tired of hearing the word 'honor' spoken over and over again. It was an annoying word to him with its little silent 'h' and repetitive vowels. The amatuer linguist in him hated it along with the criminal in him who hated its very concept.

So, he put in his idea of the disgusting, harsh-awakening truth. "There's no such things as honor, people." He began, dusting off his knife as he talked, "It's just an ugly little words what says 'I gots enough balls not to play dirty.' That's all it is. Complain about Nepleslians ain't gots it all yous wants; it's just a different kind of creature. Ellies fights like dogs, Yammies fights likes cats, an' Neps fights like rats. An' all of 'em fights. Uriel, don't get your toga all bunched up because of the facts of life. Now, apologize to Naoko for fillin' in her lake, bird-back."

Smith. He remained silent. Not because he didn't have anything to say, he always had something to say, with the same going for pretty much anyone, but because he wasn't exactly happy. Why? The Neko thought the same thing he did. Why couldn't it have a different opinion that he could disagree with? Why did its reasoning have to make sense? He hated them and the rest of their kind with a zeal; the fact that it was more personal than logical sat in the back of Smith's mind, neglected like the little nerdy kid that nobody liked. Hence, his current chain of thought.

It wasn't fair. Why couldn't it have a different opinion from him so he could hate it even more? He didn't want to 'kiss-kiss and make up' as a Kindergartener Teacher may say to little children. Outwardly, none of this was betrayed, except for a hand raised to his chin in a thoughtful pose. He shrugged.

"Honor. It's a strange thing. Something that is honorable is not necessarily right." He cautiously ventured, speaking carefully. "Nor does honorable mean profitable." Smith added, regretting the faint hint of bitterness that followed. "...I suppose. 'Honor' is just an idea. Not actually tangible, like Mr. Bortelli said."

'Damn you and your honor. I wouldn't be in this position if it weren't for it...'

Uriel gazed at the intercom, Enzo, and Smith in turn. His grim visage never wavered, and when they were all done, he answered them all at once. "If any of you have a problem with me, now is not the time. Once we've seen this through, however, feel free to lay it all out on the table."

Of course, the lowest of the trio deserved a little extra attention for his ignorance. "And Mr. Bortelli while I don't expect you to understand the definition of honor among my people, Kleos, I do expect you to shut your mouth when addressing topics beyond your knowledge. Furthermore I will not apologize for an event of which I had no dealing. You accuse me of making grand and sweeping claims, but I have already made it clear I view Naoko an exception- and then you turn about and put the decisions of my entire race upon me, the two of you. Keep your hypocrisy to yourselves at least until our work is settled."

Maybe he had been right before. This ship might not be the place for him.

Daxle had been listening the whole time, feeling kinda useless. When the body was found, he was quietly listened to their description (and then the cops came). He went to his comm terminal and secured his line to the rest of the team.
"Say, uh, I don't suppose you guys might feel up to bringing me that body to take a looksie at. You know, in case there is anything for me to see?"