badfic_manor | Conan Edogawa - Case 030

anytime something comes up in the news-it's much harder now that Occhan won't let me read his paper.

2006, Cardiff. [Here - you can scroll down to where I gave it a heading for now that's bolded, and there's the part at the end of that with the idea of what made it into the news. The killer's name was Kurt Loxby, recently drug out of the muse.]

[He's rolling up his sleeve cuffs, too; there's a couple ragged scars on his wrists/the heels of his hand on both sides, like the flesh on the outer parts of the bones got scraped off pretty good at some point.] Can you figure out how I got these during that case?

Edited 2010-11-24 13:24 (UTC)

Of course I can, but what are you getting at?

I didn't find his lair - I got drug down to it after I'd figured out what area it was in, because he'd noticed me snooping around, and I was there for two days before I had some opening to get away. There's more scars, they're just not so easily visible. It didn't help that the way things were normally, I could be out of communication for a week or two before someone would notice I was missing, so there was no help coming in time. The three other survivors? There'd been four people there when I was hauled down. If the one person with an idea what area I was in hadn't made the connection on the church bells going off at the wrong time, and hadn't managed to get one of the cops there right then - Hell, even another five minutes - I would've been dead, the blood trail I'd left would've been cleaned up, and his list of victims would probably be approaching a hundred or so by now. They found me hiding in the bell-tower scaffolding with him trying to get me down, and I only had a grip to stay there on adrenaline and fear alone.

I only deal in the usual incidental murders - jealous husbands, bitter siblings, work rivals - if they come up when I happen to be hanging around the police station. I'll often not hear from family for weeks at a time, I'm not that close with the cops, I didn't have anything like friends until last year - I never had half the safety net you did, and I dealt with complete predators as a habit. Gin has a special tier of that, I'll admit, but as brilliant, skilled, and connected as he is, he's a human predator.

Gin's the first person to actually push you into a corner, he made you half-helpless in the process, and he's kept you there for what, a year now?

You have no idea what's it like-to have to lay there, unable to move while while your body heats up faster and faster until finally it feels like your insides are on fire and your bones are melting away and before it's over you pass out-and there's no way to know if you'll wake up again.

--And then you do wake up. And for a moment a thought of hope hits 'the poison didn't work?' And then you realize everyone is so much taller then they should be and they can just lift you up without any effort and call you a little boy- you get taken back to the police station and you try to tell them what happened-but they just laugh and then it hits you your clothes are too big-and going over to the mirror you don't see your own reflection-you see this beat up little kid. Then other guys that are normal sized now that you know you're the one that shrunk- are talking about taking you to Creche.

So you run off and try and get back home-only apparently those guys are idiots because they send the dogs after a supposed six year old- dogs that are suddenly bigger then you and could tear you to pieces.

Going home doesn't work either-you can't reach the gate-suddenly you're too short to even get in your own house. You just don't know.

[He gives a minute, and continues on, mostly slowly.] And suddenly you're much smaller, much more fragile, much weaker, and nobody listens to you, or thinks you might have something useful to say unless you jump through hoops to make them listen; and whatever safety net you had, has been abruptly cut out from under you for the most part, and the predator you just narrowly escaped is still out there and still hunting.

[Conan's eyes narrow and he looks away -bingo!]

.....

And since you've never actually been pushed into a corner, and actually had to deal with being desperate, fearing for your life, and not being able to easily make a predator who doesn't work like a normal person go away, being shoved into the deep end of the ocean on it has you trapped in a very small box - they're the first case that took you more than a week, and it's been what, a year? Your first real kick to your confidence was a savage beating more than a kick, and you've had things too easy before to be willing to admit how afraid you are.

...It's been nearly two.

And now he's got you running scared enough, and refusing to admit it to even yourself, that you're slipping up, doing careless things out of frustration, reacting to any sense that there might be a way to stall him or beat him with 'you don't know what he's capable of', and jumping to conclusions while snipping at allies.

If I hadn't expected you to be a prickly, lashing out mess, this probably would've turned into a very ugly argument.

I'm not that scared.

You've taken at least five shots at me since I got out here. Probably more, if I were to think it over, and I doubt you even realized half of them. You wandered outside alone in a tiff without any thought to where you were going or how long it might take you to raise backup if something went wrong, and DIDN'T check to make sure the area was secure. I was standing behind you for five minutes and fourty-two seconds before you noticed me. You know my record and don't know a thing of my reasoning on him, yet anything I say about him is met with 'you don't know what he's capable of', as an assumption, before I've even said a word about why I'm not panicking. You gave me a half-second of a landed fish look when I mentioned that I'd called him out on being an assassin, and turned my back and walked away unharmed - did you actually stop to think about how I did that, or why, or did you just handwave it away that I hadn't directly been a problem to him yet? You've already run yourself in circles - You trust me to act, but only if I follow your directions, you say I'm capable of thinking for myself, but that doing anything actively is probably 'trying to get killed'; you know my record and a bit more about what I know about being helpless and up against someone much more dangerous than me, who has far less connections than Gin, but automatically assume that I wouldn't have a clue what I'm doing.

He does have you that scared, and he's probably working to reinforce it, because one day, that's going to make you easier prey for him.

It's not that.

[he sounds a bit irritated now]

It's this. [he flips his watch up and presses the button-aiming at Hakuba]

It's empty and I'm out of soccer balls. If I have to stay level headed while being trapped with the man that essentially took everything from me-I want to be armed.

Hm. [He glances down at that.] There's a lab in the manor basement, yes?

Yeah, but I don't think we can access it right now.

The "refuge in audacity" plans rely on some kind of system in place; stunts like the helicopter work because normal society can only plan for, and guard against, so much, so if you're fast enough and coordinated enough, you can get away with things they can't guard against that go over the top. Right now, things are up in there; if he doesn't get an opportunity, he won't come hunting, not for Edogawa Conan, who isn't so much on the black list as on a personal vindictive "target of opportunity" list - he could've followed the the same trail of blood I did to find you; you weren't important enough.

By the time we have access, I can probably do something; I was going to make more of my smoke grenades anyway.

I'd feel much better if I could more means to defend myself...

More weapons won't help you - it'd be a false sense of security.

I hunt predators as a habit when I'm not on heists - and I've never carried more than the revolver and a couple of the knockout grenades.

Allies and how you handle yourself are the best defense, right now.

[...he's quiet a moment before offering a small smile and starts to bounce the ball on his knees and head-the more he thinks the faster it bounces]

Yeah, I guess so.

I can probably make darts for that watch; it might be a different sedative - I'm not sure exactly what was used originally, what I work with tends to act a little longer and hit a little harder, but that might be an improvement.

I was thinking about "anonymously" offering the design for the grenades to the court group; nonlethal way to disable someone. There's a bit of aftereffect that's apparently like "a bitch of a hangover", but it fades over a day.

[And he thinks.] You could use a few more allies outside of just us, particularly ones that may not have as many responsibilities as Mello-san.

What was your take on the ones that picked you up here?

Edited 2010-11-25 09:28 (UTC)

It's just an anesthetic needle-it's also what I use on Occhan.

[he continues to bounce the ball- visibly starting to calm down]

My take on that is that I don't know them well enough to have an opinion, yet.

...I wonder if it'd be at all possible to force Gin into using all his bullets up. No one here would give him a refill I'm sure-but I'm also sure he carries at least three guns on him at all times-I know Vermouth does.

Simple enough. As I said - I'd have to do some more research to figure out what anesthetic is normally used for it, and it might be a little longer-lasting than normal for a while.

Altruists can be useful, particularly if they're reasonable ones; I might have to see what I can find out about them. [He sighs a little.] I'm probably not going to be helping with the courts directly so much - it seems like you need a mediator more than another detective.

We'll have to introduce you to Sable - although I'm not sure about her helping with Gin; she can't fly, and I don't know if she's familiar with firearms.

[Thinking....] The gun I saw him with was a semiautomatic; larger clip than what I've got - that could take some doing.

Well, we know he's use one bullet already--though even after that gun is out of rounds, I'm sure he has more ammunition on him.

....

[he looks up and the soccer ball hits his knee and rolls against the wall]

...What exactly is Sable?

Edited 2010-11-25 10:16 (UTC)

So basically, we need someone that could get him pissed off enough to unload at them a few times, who'd survive it.

[..Oh, that should be easy. >_>; ] Assuming he falls for it enough to work.

[Pause] She's a dragon. We met her in Paris and ah - sort-of wrecked a toy store. [Sheepish >.>; ]

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[HAET CANON TIMELINE AND WHAT IT DOES TO 'GURUS TIME-OCD.]

/PATS

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Surpise second comment :D

Re: Surpise second comment :D