MISSION: Red Rover, Red Rover [Geno & Rei]

[Admin Roc]

EASY MISSION :: Lv1


MISSION SUMMARY
Little Jessi has lost her puppy while following her mom through the marketplace. His collar is still on but there's no telling where he's gone to. After seeing Jessi searching frantically in the marketplace, or seeing one of the lost puppy posters, you decide to help in the search.

The markets of Death City had a lot in common with an open-air bazaar; merchants, selling everything from fresh fruit and clothes to crystal charms and esoteric books about "soul healing" and eastern mysticism, hawked their wares with tireless smiles and great enthusiasm to anyone who happened to walk past. A buffet of smells, from fresh pretzels and slow-cooked meats to incense and aromatic candles, wafted through the air to draw in those who might be tempted by such. More than anything, though, the market streets smelled of money -- it was tourism season and Death City, while by no means a resort or amusements capital, still drew its share of curiosity seekers and sightseers. Everything seemed to be up for sale, as long as the price was right...

... everything, it seemed, except the happiness of one little girl.

She wandered the market, a stack of paper fliers in hand, looking plaintively at strangers passing by. Most ignored her; some took a flier and stuffed it casually into a pocket. The papers showed a photograph of a dog, a small reddish-brown beagle with big droopy ears and dark blue eyes; below the image was the word 'MISSING', the name 'Rolo', and a short line begging for anyone who finds him to call the little girl's mother's number.

A large man walked by, not even seeing the girl as he bumped into her. Flyers spilled out onto the ground in a chaotic flutter, some being trampled underfoot before she could even kneel to retrieve them. The girl's chestnut brown eyes welled up with tears, though her crying was almost silent. She'd been crying ever since Rolo slipped his leash and dashed off into the crowds; her poor exhausted young body barely had any tears left.

[Geno Garon]

A lone flyer tumbled away from the sobbing little girl. It cartwheeled in between legs and carts before lifting off under the influence of a strong breeze. It spun and looped before finally finding purchase against the face of a young man. Geno tore the flyer off with both hands, pulling it far enough away from his face to read it. He stared at the paper for several seconds, reading about the small dog lost by a little girl.

"Well, that's just terrible. A little girl missing her doggie? Unacceptable!" Geno was quite clearly hamming it up, but he was also serious. Given that he had very little else to do today, having only gone out for a walk with Rei. This sounded like a great opportunity to stretch his legs and do something good for Death City. And who knew, perhaps there'd be an adventure in it...

[Rei Inari]

“Well, that's just terrible, a little girl missing her doggie? Unacceptable!”

Rei shot Geno a look of confusion and embarrassment, the words “What the fuck?” were plastered all over her face. Clearly he was acting stupid and “heroic” on purpose, but did he really need to do this in public? ‘He’s so embarrassing.’ She thought, grinning slightly.

“You can’t be serious about this… right?" She questioned Geno as they continued to walk down the marketplace’s path together. “I mean we aren’t actually going to waste our time with this are we?” Her voice had a hint of attitude lingering in it.

Rei, being an animal herself, was never really keen on this idea of owning an animal as a pet-thing. ‘Maybe the puppy was doing itself a favor by running away?' she scoffed. However, she knew her partner in crime would somehow drag her along on this adventure.

Let the fun begin.

[Admin Roc]

In chasing after her lost flier the little girl quite nearly bumped headlong into Geno, only stopping a foot or two away upon realizing he was holding it. Her eyes were still red with crying even though the tears had long since passed and as she looked up at Geno her face took on the most pleading expression one could imagine.

"M-my puppy... mister, will you help me, please?" Her gaze went from Geno to Rei, seeming to take in the pair of potential rescuers she'd stumbled across, then she turned and pointed towards a side alley not too far away. "I was shopping with mommy yesterday and had him with me... b-but suddenly he started barking and jumped out of my arms. I couldn't catch him. He chased something around the market and t-then ran into that alley behind the pretzel stand." Those pleading eyes looked back up at Geno and Rei. "Please, please find Rolo! What if he's cold, or hungry, or hurt...?"

Fresh tears started to pour. This was a girl who definitely loved her little dog. Still, one alley wasn't much of a starting place; Death City was massive, and with a twenty-four hour head start the puppy could be just about anywhere by now.

This... would be a challenge.

[Geno Garon]

The side alley was the least of their worries, to be sure. With an entire day between them and the puppy, Geno's plan of waltzing down a few streets to find the poor pup in a tipped-over garbage can was slim in success. This was going to take more effort than he'd though. And so, he thought.

And thought.

And thought some more.

Only a few seconds had gone by before Geno arrived at an absolutely brilliant terrible idea. He angled himself down towards Rei and spoke gently in her ear.

"Hey Rei, do me a favor and sniff that little girl, would ya?"

Rei's head turned extremely slowly towards Geno, a look of disgust, defiance, and denial spread across her face. Geno continued, undeterred.

"Look, the dog could be long gone, or it could be nearby, but we'll never have a solid lead unless we can track it. Now, I don't know about you, but unless the dog knocked over a can of red paint and traipsed through it before he ran off, we're not going to be able to track him with footprints on a cobblestone road. We'll need his scent, and the most likely place we're going to find it is on that little girl. So whaddaya say?"

[Rei Inari]

Rei’s face had the word “No” written all over it in giant red ink. She puffed her cheeks out in annoyance and glared at Geno. Really Geno? REALLY? How could he suggest such a stupid idea?

“You… you have got to be kidding me.” She spoke calmly in a hushed tone, trying to avoid the little girl hearing her protest the idea. This was such a ridiculous idea he pitched, she was already embarrassed enough about her little transformation, this wasn’t exactly helping.

“Nope” He smiled and pat her lightly on the head. “C’mon, we don’t have any leads and you’re our best bet at finding this little girl’s puppy.”

Rei groaned loudly, she knew he was right, for once; she was their only ticket to finding this dog. “I hate you so much.” those words grimly passing through her lips as she turned away from him. Geno shook his head, he knew better, she was obviously being sarcastic, like usual. Her white ears pinned back in resentment as she walked passed Geno, lightly bumping into him to make sure he knows she’s unhappy.

Rei strolled over to the sobbing child and crouched down so she leveled with the girl’s face. “I know this is strange, but just stay still okay. I’m gonna try to catch your puppy’s scent.” The little girl tilted her head in confusion. Rei leaned in and started sniffing the girl. Eventually her nose led her down to the child’s hands where the scent was the strongest, most likely because the girl pets the puppy. Minutes passed and Rei stood up “I’ve got the puppy's scent Geno.” She turned back towards him and pointed down a dark alley in the distance, it looked filthy and riddled with garbage, not the nicest place. “Shall we?”

[Geno Garon]

Rei bumped Geno on her way towards the girl, but Geno just let it go. He knew this wouldn't go into his Top Ten on the Best Plans Ever list, but it was all he could think of. Hopefully, Rei still retained her fox-like sense of smell in her human state.

She approached the little girl and explained what she was about to do. Geno turned to the side so he wouldn't appear to be staring at the proceedings, and his hands instinctively found his hips. Had it been him, he would have knelt down and given the girl a hug, thereby avoiding having to explain and confuse the poor girl, give her some comfort, and hopefully catch the scent. Still, whatever works, works. Geno waited a moment as Rei lightly smelled the girl's shoulder and arm, before gently lifting her hands and smelling them. Made sense, the hands would have the most contact with the dog...

"I've got the puppy's scent Geno." Rei stood and pointed down a garbage-packed corridor between two tall brick buildings. The end of the alleyway wasn't visible, and Geno wasn't sure he wanted to see the end of it.

"Shall we?"

Geno stood for a moment, weighing his options. On the one hand, he had already promised to help this little girl find her dog. On the other, this was a dingy-looking alleyway in what had to be the weirdest and most inherently dangerous town he'd likely ever known. With people who could turn parts of themselves into weapons roaming around town at will, what if a few of them liked to hang out in alleys like this one and greet passersby?

Ahh screw it...

"Alright Rei, let's do it."

[Admin Roc]

(OOC: Late post is laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaateee! )



The alleyways of Death City were perplexing enough to those familiar with the town and its sometimes whimsical, sometimes stark construction -- to those relatively unacquainted, however, the alleys held some nasty surprises. For one, they were seldom just 'the space between buildings' -- in some parts of Death City the alleys formed vast winding labyrinths that people both could and often did get lost in for hours at a time. These shadowed corridors wove and bent, turned and twisted, warped and wandered, presenting a dizzying prospect for the uninitiated. It was the ideal stalking ground for miscreants...

...but, even more unsettling, some alleys found their way into the old parts of Death City, areas that had never known the touch of modernization. Areas that were sometimes several hundreds of years old, walled off or halfway underground to prevent access. Areas rife with curiosities, surprises... and uncertainty.

And as Rei's astute nose lead them onwards, the pair would find themselves heading into just such a location.

Gradually over the course of an hour, the predictable brick and cement backsides of buildings were replaced by weather-worn stone foundations, the evident age of the structures only increasing the further they went. It was to these archaic paths that the likes of Eruka Frog and Medusa Gorgon had sometimes retreated to avoid the eagle gaze of Shibusen as they came and went; rumors still circulated that, in the age before Soul Perception, ambitious rogue witches had sometimes made their homes in the dilapidated "forgotten" areas, right under Shinigami's very nose, to ply their black arts until they were either killed or driven out. As testified by its sheer size, Death City often found it easier to simply build out or up than reclaim these ancient grounds... and so they sat unwatched, overlooked.

But never quite forgotten.

The puppy's trail was growing warm the older their surroundings got, being freshest right as they approached what looked like the crumbling remains of an old library. This far down there wasn't even any graffiti -- a subtle sign that even petty gangs and "artistic" hoodlums were afraid to come close. There was something eerie about this place... like there were eyes in the shadows, watching, waiting.

Rei's keener ears would've heard it first: a low canine whimpering coming from somewhere inside the old library. She would, perhaps, have also felt the tingle of magic that had settled into this place and suspect that something was amiss. And on the way to this forsaken place her sense of smell may, perchance, have picked up something other than lost puppy on the trail.

Cat.