[Regular] Journalistic Integrity (Franz + Janice + Nerissa)

[candy lamb]

Janice Fitzpatrick had given Franz St. Germaine her number with the echo, call me any time. It was a good thing that they were both incredibly literal people, because -- unlike the rest of the normal human populace -- he called her, at any time. The first call was at 2:30 AM: she had answered oh? So it's you as though it was perfectly normal that you call up someone out of the blue in the graveyard hours of the morning.

This had persisted. Sometimes Franz snuck out of Hillworth entirely to get cellphone coverage, grubby notebook tucked under one arm and scribbling on it as she transcribed the Crystal Academy directories to him. Sometimes they just talked. Sometimes they played Noughts & Crosses, over the phone. Sometimes they continued games of Noughts & Crosses that lasted one too many phone calls that a game of Noughts & Crosses should.

Howl thought he was sneaking out for the Sound. He was partially right.

"Fitzpatrick," said Franz, one 1 AM, without bothering with the niceties of hello. He was leaning in a phone booth outside Hillworth, bracketed up against the cold, eyeing the buzzing light that dimly illuminated the crappy handset. "I've decided. We need to go out, conform to the ethics of war journalism, and find one of those sailor senshi. I am certain all the mysteries of this city barring the mystery of mayoral tax evasion or capitalist roading links back to this. There will be blood. You in, or are you out?"  

[cibarium]

One of those games of Noughts & Crosses happened to be decorating the margin of a notepad page lying on Janice's bedside table on this very night. And by "decorating the margin of a notepad page," it was more accurate to say their most recent game was cramped in there amongst dozens of other neatly aligned X and O-filled grids on it. She pretty much had ended up devoting most of that little book to pen-and-paper games with Franz, with tiny bulleted notes of their more interesting conversations snaking into empty spaces.

There was, over the span of half a dozen or so pages in that notepad, nothing but a dizzyingly long list of random terms and items, from a game of word-association that had lasted literal hours. It had ended with "later" being associated with "goodbye."

Janice was annotating some sheet music when her phone rang, and even though it was sitting across the room it still took the expected half-a-ring for her to answer it - and as usual, she immediately asked "What's on your mind?" as if they were continuing a conversation rather than starting a new one. Neither of them bothered with the niceties of hello very often; that had been taken care of their first phone conversation, after all.

After Franz explained his motive behind his latest call, there was a short moment devoid of response. If Janice were anyone else, this would have been her trying to think of the best way to tell him this was an incredibly stupid idea; in actuality, and the boy on the other line would probably be able to pick this up, she had put down her phone so she could throw on a black turtleneck and pull out her shoes. Snatching her phone back up from her desk, she responded, "You know I wouldn't miss out on a chance to look under the folds of a government coverup. Just tell me where we're meeting, and I'll be there as soon as I can."  

[candy lamb]

"Meet me on the corner of Fifth and Picton," he said. "Codeword is pharmaceutical." (In these troubled times, it was agreed they needed a codeword just in case their security was compromised.) "Go with God, Emma Goldman. St. Germaine, over and out."

They met at the corner of Fifth and Picton, and shook each other's hands agreeably with a low-voiced, pharmaceutical. Both Franz and Janice had long ceased to greet each other. Hello was unnecessary; goodbye, moreso. Those were terms people used who were not on the same wavelength. Franz had long ago come to the conclusion that he and Janice were so much so on the same wavelength that their brain waves probably showed up in the same static blips and waterfalls, the same lively pattern of synapses firing.

They both wore turtlenecks, and looked like spy beatniks. This was also, simply, a thing.

"Packing heat?" said Franz. He pulled out a steak knife from one of his pockets and held it out to her, blade lightly cupped in his hand, offering the handle. "Pacifism notwithstanding, the revolution will only come with knives. Anyway, our lives are precious, and this place is dangerous."

He winked one golden eye at her, as though this was debonair or something. "I figure we lurk until something comes up, Fitzpatrick," he said. "Any better plan? I respect your brain, you know. It's a thing. That I respect."  

[cibarium]

Janice took the steak knife the very instant the handle was within arm's reach. She seemed utterly unsurprised that he had managed to find one in the first place, and had no questions about how he must have had to sneak into Hillworth's kitchen supplies to get it. Really, and strangely, she was more interested in how the handle was still warm when she closed her hand around it. It was... pleasant. She wrote it off as it being a nice break for her fingers from the chilled autumn air.

"To stand around and wait, or to actively search," she pondered, her thumb idly caressing her impromptu weapon. "Either way we'll probably have the same chance of witnessing or missing something, wouldn't you say? If any of the sightings are to be believed, sailor senshi seem to be in near-constant motion."

With her free hand, Janice produced a small foil package out of her pocket, working it open as she talked. "I say waiting is the better option, if only because it's more energy-efficient. Speaking of which, I thought you might like a Pop Tart."

Package successfully opened, she held it out to to her accomplice. The buzzing, flickery streetlamp above them provided just enough light to make visible the frosting and brightly-colored sugar sprinkles.  

[candy lamb]

"Excellent, perfect," said Franz. "High-energy, low fuss."

He took the Pop-Tart and ate it companionably with her, only taking a brief time to marvel at how Janice seemed to always know what the best and most likely option was. Her brain was an arrow that pointed from A to Z while slicing through the rest of the useless vowels and consonants. Also: he loved Pop-Tarts deeply, and had never needed to tell her of this fact.

They chilled underneath the streetlights, sticking to the shadows near an alleyway and lurking near a dumpster. The early October air was brisk enough to keep them awake but not cold enough to really be unpleasant, and they leant on opposite sides of the narrow alleyway as he ate his Pop-Tart and she ate its twin.

"So," he said, "Fitzpatrick..."

Their budding conversation was rudely interrupted by a thud, thud, thud on the roof overhead. On the brick building up above, someone paused before leaping down lightly (and it was still a hell of a drop) onto the fire escape just above them. It was a girl, wearing what appeared to be a leotard with an enormous blue butt-bow wafting gently in the breeze behind her, crossing her arms and leaning down over the fire escape as she looked at them. She was wearing a tiara; also, impractical high heels.

"Yo," she said, "whassup, is this a party?"

"I'm disgusted at how right you were," Franz told Janice.  

[cibarium]

Knife in one hand, Pop-Tart in the other, waiting for something interesting to happen... truly, a fine way to wheedle away those witching hours. Janice normally loathed waiting, for anything, ever, but in this scenario she was mollified by the fact that this was waiting she was doing For Science. It was the one exception she made for her impatience. That, and Franz happened to be standing right across from her, and he had a tendency to make the waiting game unheard-of-levels of tolerable.

He was a godsend at crosswalks.

When the first noise of footsteps trampled gracelessly over Franz's approach to a conversation, Janice immediately lifted her body weight off the wall, taking on a more alert stance. Those were decidedly human footsteps, and unless they were suddenly bystander characters in a Marvel issue it wasn't very often that people ran around on rooftops during any time of the day or night--

And there she was. In plain sight, clad in nearly all the bells and whistles needed to make it obvious, wearing a slacker smile. Janice might have said something sooner, but she was occupied finishing the last bite of her Pop-Tart (it was wildberry. No person, sane or insane, would not take the time to savor a mouthful of wildberry).

Flashing a momentary grin at Franz, she turned to face the quite-possibly-a-senshi, saying, "Yes, we'll buy the drinks if you bring the property damage. Is it normal for you to stop and chat with civilians like this, or are we just that lucky?"  

[candy lamb]

"Oh, I'm just supermassively bored," said the senshi, who was winging her way down the fire escape. This close up, she was either a senshi or someone going to a costume party -- and senshi was the arrow Janice and Franz were pointing to. This close up, there was something fascinating about her: a kind of luminiscence off her that was almost a glow, a superhuman element, an unusual brightness. She ruined the mystique slightly by holding out a fist; knowing the signs (he was a boarding school boy) Franz daped her knuckles, and she held out her hand for Janice to do the same.

"You two aren't carjackers or anything, right?" said the senshi, more than a little lackadaisical. "I'd probably feel, uh, inclined to do something, and it's pretty ******** cold, so. Don't mind me."

"No, we're just interested bystanders," said Franz, after exchanging a glance with Janice. "I have to ask: are you a Sailor Senshi?"

"Guilty as charged," said the senshi. "Damn. Does anyone else smell Pop-Tarts?"  

[cibarium]

Janice was sure she had seen a movie that had a scene along the lines of what the mood of this encounter was right now, and she pondered this while she briefly bumped fists with the senshi, noting with substantial curiosity the strange aura she had. It was definitely not an effect someone could get from a few tubs of Edward Cullen body glitter, as much as they might try. This was a decidedly non-synthetic radiance, almost... divine in nature.

Ah -- there she had it, it was Dogma. This as-of-yet-unnamed senshi reminded her powerfully of Buddy Christ.

"We just had a couple while we were waiting for you to show up," Janice replied. "Long gone by now, unfortunately."

She peered at the sailor-suited bluenette for a couple more seconds, before flicking her gaze back to her companion. "Franz. Does she look like a university student to you, or... perhaps a bit closer to our own age bracket?" There was suddenly a notepad in one hand, held against the handle of her knife, and the other hand was already jotting down objects of interest with her usual ballpoint pen. "The 'university prank' explanation never held much ground anyway, really."  

[candy lamb]

"Hard to tell," said Franz practically, who'd pulled a notepad out of his own pocket in record time. Both Janice and Franz had whipped out notebooks so quickly it looked as though the things had just magically apparated into their hands. "I don't think that Destiny City U is that bored with its time, frankly. Late teens, I'd say -- early twenties at most."

"Whoa, there, little doggies," said the senshi. "It's pretty douchey to just suddenly guess at someone's age."

"Are you going to tell us how old you are?"

"Uh," said the senshi, "probably not, sorry."

"Then I'm afraid we just have to estimate," said Franz, scribbling down 17-21 on the page. The senshi was craning her head over to look at what both were doing, squinting in the half-light, adjusting her tiara on her forehead. "So. Tell us. Are you a terrorist?"

"No, to be pretty frank about it," said the senshi, scratching her pierced nose. A long chain ran from her nostril to her ear. "If you want to buy a vowel, I'm actually fighting the forces of evil -- believe it or not. It's okay if you don't. I know it sounds pretty, I don't know, weird or self-indulgent. -- You two got any gum? I have a serious jonesing."  

[cibarium]

"Gum?" Janice asked, and, surprisingly, began rummaging around in her pocket. There were a couple of good reasons she kept gum around once in a while, or so she thought: for one, it was a wonderfully entertaining way to annoy Audrey Collins when she desensitized herself to the pen-clicking. A moment or so of searching later she had produced a pack and held it out so Franz and the senshi could take a piece, saying, "It's caffeinated. I hope that's not a problem."

She unwrapped a piece for herself (not seeming to mind that it made her knife wave around dangerously closely to her wrist) and chewed at it with the speed of a motor, momentarily glancing over to her companion's cramped scribblings for the sake of comparison. Then her gaze darted back over to the girl the notes were being written about.

"Back on topic." she started. She said that at least once or twice in every conversation. "You said you were fighting the 'forces of evil.' Care to give us a description that's less... vague?"  

[candy lamb]

Franz had taken the piece, popping it into his mouth with unseemly haste when he heard the word 'caffeine'. The senshi took more of her time about it, unwrapping it very carefully, then with ritual slowness biting bits off the wad piece by piece. She chewed these thoughtfully, like a mule in briars.

"'Forces of evil' is a pretty, uh, evocative descriptor, guys," said the senshi.

"What defines evil?" said Franz. "Are we talking the evil that siphons money away from children with cancer, or are we talking the evil that runs through the streets covered in blood and cackling? The spectrum of evil is wide, ma'am. 'Evil' itself is a weasel word."

The senshi was chewing. "Blood and cackling," she finally said.

Franz was disgusted. "What a cliche."

"Dude, it's classic," said the senshi. "Better blood and cackling than all evil corporate monopoly stuff -- I'm a sailor senshi, not a sailor lawyer, ladies and germs."  

[cibarium]

The disgust worn on Franz's face was a perfect mirror to Janice's own. It must have been a little bizarre for the senshi, standing more or less in between two individuals who, despite their differences in appearance, were carrying themselves as if they were two projections of the same person. The girl had opened her mouth to speak again right when the boy started, and judging by her expression she had been planning to say, essentially, exactly what he had said.

She'd looked more pleased than surprised, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

"Blood. And cackling," she said, making it the fourth time that particular wording had been used in the last thirty seconds. "Classic, honestly? I suppose so if you like a horror movie with no storyline." She crossed her arms, looking more disappointed by the second. "Unless this supposed evil actually has a motive."  

[candy lamb]

"Yeah, sure it has a motive," the senshi said. "The motive is killing me, I kind of don't need any other motive than that. Maybe some people are interested being the hero who's gotta be fast, strong, fresh from the fight, etcetera? Not me."

She was snapping her gum. Franz was scribbling down in his notebook; his and Janice's expressions were still hilarious bookends of each other, the exact same curl to the mouth and narrowing of the eye. "So what we have here is, I postulate, an anti-hero," he said.

"Holy s**t," said the senshi. "No. This is more just like... me moonlighting, okay? Think of me as a heroic substitute."

"Like cheatloaf," Franz said.

"Something a little less disgusting, T.B.H," said the senshi. (She'd articulated "t.b.h" out loud.)  

[cibarium]

Janice worked her pen over her notebook, her hands working independently of her eyes. She was a touch typist of handwriting; she kept her foglights-in-algae gaze fixed on the senshi, and the thorny vines of ink she produced stayed neatly balanced on the lines of the page.

"I am starting to think," she started, "the type of hero you are, in particular, is not relevant. There have been eyewitness accounts of multiple senshi." She pointed her pen squarely at the senshi's tiara. "Your individual personality profile should not be taken as a satisfactory definition of what they are. It doesn't change why they exist." Janice had, however, noticed the implication that at least this one wasn't battling "evil" full-time, and she stopped jabbing her writing utensil into the air so she could write that down.

"So," she continued, her eyes narrowing, "you battle this 'evil' primarily to preserve your own lives? Have you noticed that you cause massive property damage while doing so, potentially wounding or killing untold numbers of civilians?"  

[candy lamb]

"Damn, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition," came the reply. "Look, I'm kind of not interested in being my own attorney here, but -- you do know the other side is making with the M for Murder like it was going out of style -- "

"Come on," said Franz. "How do we know this isn't just some kind of short-skirted propaganda designed to make us other the side you're fighting? Maybe you're some kind of Fight Club wanting to bring down the government through excessive urban destruction." (Franz had a good imagination.)

"Oh man, I love that film," said the senshi.

"Chuck Palahniuk is a raving misogynist," said the Hillworth part of the team. "Come on. Give up the truth. You put people's lives in danger every day: how are you going to respond to that?"

"Uhh, I could stop," she said. "If you, you know, like being jacked by a bunch of guys in op-shop military costumes -- don't quote me on being melodramatic, but we're kind of your last best hope for not being totally whak by a bunch of crazies. That's it. That's my piece, guys." (She snapped the gum again.) "Believe it or not. Or move to Fresno."