*BANG BANG BANG*

"Heroes! Open up!"

Rose listens for a moment for a response, and I perk up my ears to try and find any noise from the apartment within.

We're at a dingy apartment complex, not unlike my own except with more mold. Zachary rents out this specific apartment on the third floor with one person named Milo. The landlord said that they're quiet, kept to themselves, and always paid on time.

Shuffling can be heard inside, and the door creaks open, held back by a brass chain. A…blue haired man opened the door. Thin, tarnished, metal glasses hung low over his fox-like eyes.

I mean, well, he also has a blue-haired fox tail and ears to match, so saying he has fox-like eyes is like saying I have wolf-like eyes…which I do.

I'm being redundant.

"Can I…help you?" Rose and I both radiate disgust immediately. Our skills, Clairvoyance and whatever angel stuff Rose has, both told us that this man just checked us out. Now? He's at half mast.

Dreamer, please eat this man.

"Yes," Rose spits with a scowl. "We're looking for a Zachary Vanzetti. We were told he lived here." The fox beast-human tenses up, just for an infinitesimal moment, but relaxes as quickly.

"He's not here right now," he lies. I can feel it. Fear, anger, and a plan forming that at the same time is boosting his pride. He feels…prideful at his own intelligence. That's sad.

I link to Rose. 'We need to teach this guy humility.' She shows no expression at my sudden intrusion. 'He might be our mastermind; he's already planning something." Rose gives a slight nod in affirmation.

"May we come in?" I smile, flashing my pointed, non-vampiric fangs. With my white hair and pale skin, he might think I'm a vampire, or at least, a dhampir. If it were night, and the moon was out, then I'd also have a stat boost. Then, I have the weakness in daylight.

…Correlating information noted. And set aside for later…

He raises an eyebrow. "Why not?" The door closes, and Rose and I stand there as we wait for the eventual chink of the chain moving. I impatiently tap my foot and share a knowing glance with Rose, Clairvoyance not even needed.

Rose pulls out her rapier, then looks at the solid-looking door. Yeah, I don't see that working.

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I swing a punch at the hinges, cracking the frame and copper metal. I'll— Uh, I'll convince the guild to pay for that. Most of our funds go towards insurance policies anyways.

I shoulder-charge the door, sending it flying. Rose pulls up behind me with her sword still drawn and vigilantly looking around.

*Clatter* We turn towards a doorway leading into a kitchen. Looking inside, we find two males—Zachary and Milo—unsuccessfully attempting escape. It seems that our not-so-sly fox is not that flexible.

"Ah! AH! My hamstrings!" Milo screams in pain. His leg propped up on the windowsill above their sink.

"Get through you fucking fox!" Zachary pushes on Milo's ass to force him through, but that isn't working out that well. Or at all.

"Uh…you're under arrest?" I…tell them with a shrug in Rose's direction. She shrugs back and pulls out a pair of handcuffs from her cape-cloak-thing.

Zachary turns to me with a glaring scowl on his face. What? Did he not expect us to come in? "What are you doing in here?! You need a warrant!"

Rose begins chuckling which eventually turns into full-blown laughter. I explain in her stead, "Actually, heroes don't need warrants. We just need justifiable cause." I'm not going to explain how I learned all of that, like, today.

He quickly morphs into a panicked state, and I feel something try to breach my mind. Actually two things. Something similar to my Coercion from Zachary and something similar to the feeling you get before you fall asleep.

Hypnogogic, I think? Like how drowsy you feel after taking a melatonin.

So…it's both of them, then. I eye Rose out of the corner of my vision; she looks tired, but is managing to shake off the feeling.

*SHINK* The sound of metal piercing flesh and bone rings through the kitchen. Faster than I could see, Rose had practically teleported in front of Zachary and thrusted her rapier into his shoulder. He won't die, but he won't be feeling good either.

Blood slowly drips onto the floor. It accumulates at the same rate.

Milo's fox eyes narrow…somehow. With impossible agility and flexibility, he charges not at us, but at Zachary…and bites his shoulder.

"AHH!!!" Everything finally catches up to Zachary: the piercing and now the chunk taken out of his shoulder. Clutching his shoulder in pain, he collapses on the floor, weeping.

Milo, meanwhile, has gone feral. And, like a feral animal, clutching it by the neck seems to work wonders on ruining their attacks. It probably helps that I'm twice as strong as an adult human male, and fox beast-humans have a more magically-inclined constitution.

"Let's, uh—" I look around. A man bawling his eyes out on the floor with part of his shoulder missing. Another being held by his neck as he thrashes about. "Let's take these two to the hospital and see if we can get some answers."

Rose gives a slightly tired nod.

————————————————————————————————————

"That was the stupidest interrogation I have ever done."

Rose and I stand over a water dispenser, cups in our hands, chatting over what just happened.

"Yeah. I don't have much to compare to, but that just seemed sad."

Milo, the prick, had defiantly refused to explain anything to us. A few threats of making him forget his parents, and he cried like a rooster.

Rose also threatened castration via The Holy Light. Whatever that meant.

Milo and Zachary were kind of poor, so they signed up for an experimental procedure where they would test some newly manufactured Skill Stones. Milo got Somnolent Induction, and Zachary got Magical Coercion—the magic version of my Synaptic Coercion.

A lot of events happened in-between, but throughout their adventures, Milo's inner beast got…unlocked? That's the best way to describe it. Something inside that had been locked away for generations revealed itself, giving Milo boosted stats in return for sanity.

Like a Berserker would do. Unfortunately, this also gave Milo a taste for human flesh. Oops!

Zachary, at the same time, basically stalked his former crush, and with a plan hatched by Milo, they tried to…capture her.

It went…almost without a hitch. Put the original mugger to sleep, which made Coercions a lot easier to manage. Have him rob the girl, then put her to sleep while she was panicking.

Then, Milo became cannibalistic. Actually, is it cannibalism if he isn't human? Eh, semantics. Anyway, to cover up the mess. Zachary had the mugger put a bullet in the two victims and left a tooth he stole from a set of dentures from his time as a receptionist.

They tried to pin the blame on a dentist.

They also didn't realize how little effort it took to catch them.

It hasn't even been a full day since the two victims died.

Rose and I tried to find the company that ran the trials, but it seems to have disappeared into thin air.

After a little back and forth and a little corroborating of testimonies, we went to City Hall. And, now we wait, nonchalantly chatting over water.

The doorway at the end of the current hall opens. There's our suspect.

"Hello, Senator Wilcox," Rose greets with a smile.