Giichi eventually decided to fly home, absolutely winded after today. A grocery trip turned flight throughout Starveil. Soaring through the air idly, too... exhausted... to care about who sees her now. She's already spent most of the day just flying, after all, anyone who wants to see a flying girl could have already seen one.
The girl lands gently on the ground in front of the building, a massive gust of wind blowing out from underneath her upon landing. She begins to walk up the steps, but bumps into a wall because she forgot to retract her wings. Instead of actually putting away the wings, Giichi begins to walk sideways up the stairs in an elaborate maneuver that takes even more time and energy.
"Oh. Giichi, you're back!" Papaya exclaims, peeking out the door to see Giichi crab walking past.
Giichi looks to Papaya as she was passing by, her eyes narrowed with the word "tired" plastered all over her face. She didn't recognize Papaya's voice at first, but about five steps later and three seconds to remember that she was holding the entirety of her groceries.
"... oh!"
Giichi- shakes her head, and realizes there were no tacos! No burritos, no drinks! She also didn't have her groceries?! W-When did she drop those?! Did she have them when she- oh no, there's just bags of groceries and Mexican food lying around in an alley somewhere! "S-Shoot! Papaya, I got the- I got the tacos, but I left-!"
Papaya just giggles and shakes her head at Giichi. "Nyx came by and brought us the taco stuff you got, like, a couple hours ago. You're good."
"O... Oh," Giichi noises, smiling. "That's- good, then-"
"More importantly, have you... just been- flying? For the last, like, two couples of hours?" Papaya asks, gesturing to the wings.
"Uhm- yeah, and I forgot my groceries," Giichi comments, shrugging with her empty hands. "I might need to-"
"Actually-" Papaya interrupts, slowly pointing to the... groceries... dangling from Giichi's shoulders. "Aren't- those your groceries?"
"..." Giichi slowly looks to her shoulders to see the bags hanging from them. "Oh. Wow. Plastic bags get stronger and stronger every day."
Papaya covers her mouth and giggles. "Okay, okay. Giichi, you're obviously tired. Gimme your keys, I'll put your stuff away for ya. Just- come on in and take a seat. Sent Caspian on a pizza run for dinner, told him to get three and all."
"Oh, okay..." Giichi tells Papaya, pulling the grocery bags off of her shoulders, taking out the keys to her apartment, and holding all of it out to Papaya. The younger twin's words taking a while to process in her head, before it clicks: Caspian.
"... wait!" Giichi exclaims, remembering that the police were actively looking for him. "Caspian?! H- He can't be out right now, the police is-!"
"There is an outstanding trend with people in this apartment being completely clueless to recent events..."
Giichi- looks to the voice in the apartment, seeing Peritzal's disembodied head stuck to the couch. "... oh, Peritzal, didn't see you there. Did you, uhm... get a... haircut...?"
"Yes, that is correct. I have cut my hair recently," Peritzal responds, looking to Giichi with her usual dead-eyed glance as the remote to the TV levitates off of the couch cushions. The channel is changed with the press of a button, before the remote lowers back down and Peritzal continues. "And in further news, by the way, Caspian has been cleared of all charges. He was deemed innocent once another victim was spotted."
"Huh..." Giichi noises, feeling herself nervously sweat a little. Staring at Peritzal for a really long time as she enters the apartment. Closing the door while leaving it unlocked for Papaya, Giichi just- enters, and sits down on the couch.
The two just sit together on the couch, a wordless silence shared between them as the TV was showing an advertisement for later tonight, an upcoming late night drama: The Talking Pine Apple. Following the gay news reporter Eddie Pine and his magical talking apple, the latter of which recently fell in love with-
"Okay, Peritzal, I'm not gonna pretend I don't notice this, I clearly do and we're not talking about it, so- let me start over," Giichi speaks.
"Very well. Go ahead," Peritzal responds, her eyes remaining on the TV screen.
Giichi then takes a deep breath, preparing herself to address the elephant in the room. Immediately turning to look at Peritzal's flying, disembodied head with wide eyes. "P-Peritzal! W-Why are you just a head?!"
Peritzal blinks for a moment, looking down at her lack of a body. "... ah. It appears I still have the suit on." Her head moving away from the couch as a few clicks sound out, followed by the sight of pure condensed light covering and coating where Peritzal's body should be.
Now, Peritzal's body was back, with a black tracksuit laced with wires inside of it. Spontaneously regrowing her body?
"Still have the suit on..." Giichi mumbles, a metaphorical loading wheel spinning in her head as she really thinks about it. How her body was, like, invisible or something. A suit... that makes... Peritzal's body... invisible.
Giichi thinks about this for the next two minutes, giving Papaya enough time to just- walk in as the dragon girl was really thinking about it.
"... Giichi, do you require-" Peritzal begins to ask.
"No, no, let her think, Peri," Papaya immediately interrupts Peritzal as she walks over and calmly tucks Giichi's keys back into her pocket. "Give her a chance at least."
"Mm." Peritzal redirects her gaze forward to the television. "So, Papaya. You simply missed an advertisement for the drama we are apparently fixated on. I want your guess, is it likely that this 'Eddie' will be able to engage in combat for his apparent crush's affection?"
"Well-" Papaya noises, tilting her head from side to side. "As much as Count Narvald's face is punchable and unlovable, Jacob is a pacifist. Eddie would never muster the courage to fight."
Peritzal ponders on that statement for a bit, judging Eddie's character. "... yes, but the inherent conflict is that the apple is an absolute imbecile. The combat is likely, given that the apple will coerce Eddie into-"
"YOU MADE AN INVISIBILITY SUIT?!" Giichi loudly exclaims, interrupting the twins' conversation about the show.
"Oh, geez-" Papaya noises as she looks to Giichi, covering her ears. "Giichi-"
"Sorry-" Giichi immediately apologizes, looking to Papaya with worry before turning back to Peritzal and whispering her question at an outstandingly quiet volume.
Peritzal looks to Giichi as she whispers at an inaudible volume, then nods to her loud question. "... indeed. I have made an invisibility suit. That is why I requested a 12V battery earlier. The systems are powered by this battery, and create a sort of universal camouflage designed for portability and travel."
Giichi blinks for a moment, receiving the explanation that was... actually pretty simple to understand. Camouflage, travel. Battery. "Huh... that's really interesting! So you made a suit completely powered by just one- car battery?"
"Indeed. Unfortunately, it merely holds a charge of ten minutes. Statistically, it has a 95% chance of draining the battery of all its sustainable energy, rendering it completely useless and obsolete."
"... and the other five?" Giichi asks.
"Spontaneous combustion, as the battery explodes from the inside out and hurls all of its bits an pieces everywhere in a fiery inferno."
"Goes kaboom," Papaya simplifies. "Had to clean it up a bunch- really explains the burnt toast smell, right?"
Giichi blinks idly at this, hmming. "That... does explain that, yep! Huh. But if I needed to get you the 12V battery, how did you-"
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A man promptly kicks open the front door of Apartment 207. Dressed entirely in a suit, wearing a black fedora. Yet another gangster barging into the apartment, one that had escaped an arrest and ended up following the flying girl that busted everyone.
"The don sends his regards!" the gangster shouts, whipping out his pistol and aiming it at the three. "Prepare to di-!"
Giichi and the D'Erricos watch as this man draws a gun on them, and then - mid word - his entire body spontaneously flashes a bright green light, suddenly poofing. His entire body turned to a pile of dust, a mix of incineration and vaporization inflicted upon him in a span of a split second.
Giichi stares at the resulting ash, taking her time to register what happened. Her eyes blinking at the sight, the metaphorical cogs in her brain creaking and turning before she lets out a gasp. "H-HUH-?!"
Peritzal idly looks to the side after that entire display, sitting up from the couch with an idle look on her face. Unlike Giichi, she showed little to no energy in response to the sight. Almost expecting that to happen, really, staring with light contentment.
"Holy-" Papaya noises, her eyes wide as she leaps right up onto her feet. A sort of surprise, albeit subdued with the same "oh, okay" energy that Peritzal exuded, until Papaya ultimately felt an overwhelming urgency at the fact a random man was spontaneously and instantly killed in their apartment. "D-Did any of you know who that was?!"
"... a pile of ash, now," Peritzal responds, getting up from the couch and tugging lightly on the wrist of her jacket as several drones fly out of her sleeve to scan the resulting dust. "This is quite satisfactory. The system is in working order."
"W-What the hell was THAT?!" spontaneously exclaims Rosemary, who is now speaking for Giichi. Giichi, the girl that just watched a man disintegrate and immediately fainted moments after upon this gruesome discovery. Giichi's eyes now a bright red, with the mist taking control temporarily, glaring straight at Peritzal in absolute shock. "D'Errico, I need an explanation before I absolutely lose it over this!"
Peritzal subtly nods to Rosemary. "It's simple. Our new security system, which is outputting very satisfactory results. The targeting system has identified the unidentified man breaking into our apartment as a hostile threat, and appropriately fired transparent beams of light to highlight his various organs, disintegrate his skeletal structure, and incinerate the rest of his physical being as necessary."
"... y'know, that sounds really bad now that you say it out loud, Peri," Papaya chimes in, a worried look as she glances to Peritzal.
"Indeed. I will have to calibrate the systems, make it so a prompt is asked before-"
"Shut up, not the point!" Rosemary shouts, tensely getting up and crouching near the pile of dust. "D'Errico 2, can the body be recovered?! We need this guy back to life. Guy was sent here by a don, a criminal leader! We need to get answers outta him before more like him come here!"
"Well- I mean-" Papaya stutters, looking between Rosemary and the dust with the sense of urgency still overwhelming her. "W-We could try, but-"
"But we don't have the proper organic matter to reconstruct his body," Peritzal explains, shaking her head in disapproval. "Even then, recreating the brain is a lengthy process out of our hands, and- he is vaporized. We have done the impossible before, but this is on a level beyond our usual impossibility."
"Seriously? Ugh...!" Rosemary groans as she stares at the dust, an urgently stressed look of pure tension on her face.
Papaya reaches to pat Giichi's shoulder, smiling faintly to the gaseous entity currently controlling her. Trying to smile through her own urgent panic with intent to comfort the entity. "Hey, Rosemary- we're the D'Erricos. Between me and Peritzal- heck, now you, even, the three of us can come up with something to get us out of this mess."
"..." Rosemary takes a deep sigh, a puff of herself exhaled out of Giichi's mouth. "So what's the plan?"
Papaya smirks at Rosemary, staring at her with a delighted look, and the three girls get to brainstorming.
"And so that's why we need you to impersonate this man and replicate his blood so that we can clone his body, wipe all memories related to why he kicked open our door, and avoid being arrested for murder charges," Papaya explains to Quade.
Quade was in the midst of sharing a drink after today's events, called over as an emergency, and has been listening to Papaya and her entire explanation.
Quade just stares at the picture of the man in question. Taken right before his vaporization, his full body in sight for Quade's supposed usage. Then Quade stares at the pile of dust that used to be some guy, and then finally blinks at Papaya actively.
The day he's had, and it continues like this.
"... I got several questions to ask, but I'll hold off on 'em and give you one answer: no. That ain't how my powers work."
Rosemary stares at Quade with an annoyed look. "B-But aren't you effin' able to turn yourself into, like, anyone just by looking at them?! What kinda 'not how my powers work' crap is that?!"
"That's the thing, Giichi-" Quade begins to speak, acknowledges her red eyes, and then corrects himself. "... Rosemary. It works by sight, sure. I can shapeshift all I want based on look, but it'd still be me. I can't grow a new body, even if the man's still in tact. I'm simply just reshaping my body, and taking my blood or DNA in any sorta form would just getcha another me... if you'd even be able to clone me in the first place."
"Unfortunately, he's correct," Peritzal explains. "Reminder, our organic material is limited. Our capabilities for cloning are heavily limited, near impossible if we attempt to create anyone with a special ability. We need the DNA of the in-tact, unnamed, generic human being in order to clone his consciousness and physical makeup to an exact replica."
"Peritzal, I need ya to explain how you know that entire explanation," Quade immediately speaks up, a look of concern on his face.
Peritzal clears her throat, and dodges the question. "So as of right now, we will be needing your... assistance... to conduct alternative solutions to remedy this situation. This problem is beyond all of our minds as scientists and Rosemaries."
Quade holds a hand to his forehead, and lets out a sigh. "... okay, okay. " he reluctantly speaks up. "We'll figure this out. We just-"
"So what happened while I was gone?"
The twins, Rosemary, and Quade are drawn to look to the voice, seeing Caspian returning with three boxes of pizza over his right arm.
Appropriately, Quade and Caspian are welcomed into the apartment, and Papaya explains the whole incident again to Caspian after closing the door. The five of them now setting up for a pizza dinner.
The three pizzas Caspian brought were a cheese pizza, a meat lover's pizza, and a veggie pizza. Papaya enjoying the cheese, Rosemary enjoying the meat lover's, and Peritzal deliberately choosing the veggie pizza. With Quade now present, the man was offered two slices from each of the twins' pizza and one single slice from Rosemary's.
"... okay, so let me get this straight. In the time I was gone, a gangster kicks the door open, threatens you with a gun, and his body is just- poof, gone," Caspian speaks, gesturing his hands appropriately.
"That 'bout sums it up," Papaya comments, holding a slice of cheese pizza. Taking a bite out of it and chewing.
Caspian takes a sip of his soda, and just... nods. "Sounds about right. Body's vaporized, can't do anything- I guess the plus side is that there's no trace remaining...?"
"Buh fuh hugsh bad shide ish-" Rosemary explains, speaking with her mouth full as she was in the midst of chewing her slice. She pauses to swallow, then continues. "... the man's a gangster, he was sent by a don! We need to get him talking and all, in case more decide to come and kill us or something! So what's your whole- dumb dumb idea regarding that, huh?!"
Caspian sighs at Rosemary, then thinks. "... I mean. There really is no threat. It was just one guy, right? Not like there's another one bound to break open the door. Even if there was, can't we just... y'know, talk to THAT guy?"
"Huh..." Quade noises. "Y'know, that sounds like a plan. I'm down to stick 'round, see if y'all are really being targeted by a whole mafia."
"Oh, yay," Papaya speaks up. "Sounds like a whole sleepover and all. Alright. Though, if a guy really does show up, we need to have a plan to-"
Papaya is immediately interrupted as their front door is kicked in again. She and the other stare to see... another man breaking into the apartment.
"You!" the gangster shouts, looking to Giichi (Rosemary).
"... oh, god, Peri-!" Papaya exclaims, looking back at her sister.
Peritzal reaches for her tablet, racing against time as she forgot to turn off the security system.
The gangster follows up his exclamation by taking out his pistol and pointing it at Rosemary. "Prepare to die, you dirty-!" the gangster shouts, before he is promptly hit by the system as well. His body lighting up, a loud scream echoing out as he poofs into dust alongside his dust-ified cohort.
"... oh sh-" Caspian begins to speak, his jaw dropping as he sees the vaporization for the first time.
"M-Mother of God, that was worse than the video!" Quade exclaims, tensing up as he- covers his mouth and gags. Managing to prevent himself from throwing up... just- taking a few breaths.
"D'Errico- what happened to adjusting the system?!" Rosemary exclaims.
"I would have done that later, after the dinner, had an intruder not arrived as suddenly as he did!" Peritzal exclaims, reaching for her tablet and tapping away at it. "Here, I'm turning off the system, so if any more of them show up-"
"We're waiting for a third guy now?!" Caspian exclaims, visibly annoyed and pissed. "Damn it, guys, men don't just grow on trees!"
"If they did, we wouldn't be having this problem, now would we?!" Peritzal exclaims, glaring at Caspian. "Papaya, close the door, the system's going offline now!"
Papaya- nods as she goes up to the door, closes it, and takes out her multi-tool to begin fixing the door that was kicked in twice already. "Yep- okay... Rosemary, can you get Quade some water?"
"W-Why do I have to?!" Rosemary exclaims, shaking her head as she snatches another pizza slice and gobbles it down angrily.
"I- I'm- I'm alright, just..." Quade mumbles, slumping forward and staring at the ground. "... I think I lost my appetite..."
"Pizza's still yours whenever, dude..." Papaya responds. "If water's not enough-"
"Thank ya, but... water'll do-" Quade speaks up, just- calming down. "... I'll just- get it myself..."
"No, now I feel bad," Rosemary interrupts, getting up as she wipes the sauce off of her lips. "Just sit tight, I'll getcha a glass-"
Immediately, a foot is heard kicking against the door.
Another gangster... trying to kick the door open... and failing to do so. Aggressively kicking at the door over and over again.
Every single person in that room had the most serious of looks on their faces, aware of the fact that a third gangster is now about to threaten them with a gun. One of two things was going to happen the very moment that gangster breaches the door. One gangster versus five people who have fought demons, as well as a potential security system that vaporized two men before him.
"... security is offline," Peritzal comments, sitting back with her arms crossed. "Let's let him in."