Wake up, Sheeple (3): A viral video: a security camera aimed at a door in a back alleyway. A dark-clothed figure looks like they are trying to break in. It’s almost comical in how desperately they are yanking on the door, and then, in a fit of rage, they take a step back and their hood falls off. The face is obscure and impossible to make out, and suddenly it looks like a lizard person. They attack the door once more and then scramble off with an over-exaggerated run. Is this it, real proof of an actual lizard person?? Is it a youma? The internet says it’s a hoax, and it’s hard to take it seriously anyway, even if there is something strange about it. It’s become something of a local joke; people have made memes about it and are dressing up as lizards and posing in similar alleys. And yet, there have been a string of attempted break-ins, with strange claw marks around the door handles.
Being someone who spent almost their entire day in front of a computer, it should come to no surprise that Harvey came across a video that went viral. Throughout his workday he would pass a few minutes casually browsing Google, just to help clear his head or allow himself a distraction to help him relax from some frustrating obstacle or another. When it came up he raised a skeptical brow. The video’s title screamed “these people are just bored” to him, but it had gone viral for a reason, he imagined, even if that reason was people all over Destiny City were equally as bored and looking for something, anything, interesting to bring some excitement into their lives.
He wasn’t among them, no. The reason he clicked it was out of pure curiosity. If there was anything in this life that he definitely didn’t want or need, it was excitement. The man was perfectly happy with things as they were.
Minus, maybe, the oddly outfitted Knight version of himself. He could do without that, too, but at this point he didn’t have much choice in the matter.
A sigh escaped him as he watched the video load, wondering in passing what in the hell was going on with his router again. Or maybe it was a problem from the ISP end of things; at least half the times he had internet problems it originated from the source and not from his own equipment. Finally, after several seconds too long of waiting (in his opinion) the video started to play.
His brows knitted together slowly as he watched, irritation beginning to rise out of him as he watched some cloaked figures try to break into a building.
“You’ve gotta be ******** joking…” he whispered, now very annoyed.. “I’m wasting my time on th--”
He cut off as the figure stepped back and off came the hood. It was unclear at first, but then…
“Oh, you’ve got to be ******** joking,” he whispered again, only instead annoyed his tone was more akin to shock and disbelief. He leaned in, baby pink eyes squinting at the screen as though that would have an effect on the fuzzy image quality of a none-too-state-of-the-art security camera. He paused it at a certain point and leaned in, closing the distance between his eyes and the screen. It looked...like a lizard-person. And knowing a bit of what he knew now, he was hard pressed to believe it was just a hoax.
Over the next few days he kept up with the local news on it, or what counted as news. Most sources only brought it up once or twice since it had gone viral, and then it slowly faded away into the background to allow more pressing matters to be addressed. According to the internet it was just a joke, and a few more of these “sightings” were just assholes dressed up to poke fun at the video, but slipped into the chaos of it all he spotted a few articles that sounded like actual news.
“Bad break-ins, claw marks on the door handles…” he whisper-read aloud. He re-read the word “break-ins” a few times, focusing on the fact that it was a plural. As in more than one. As in it could still be happening and those morons dressed in lizard suits could actually be in danger if they managed to find themselves in the wrong alley, at the wrong time.
The question was, was all this enough to make him want to call his “weapon” and power up to offer whatever assistance he could. Considering there wasn’t a whole lot of difference between him now, as a civilian, and him as Kiringul, the knight, the answer to that question was fairly obvious.
“No.”
Kiringul stared dumbly at the alley below him, wondering in passing why he told himself, “No, why bother when you don’t have a way to fight or even defend yourself,” and yet still decided that he should at least make the effort to come and see for himself. Maybe it had something to do with the way his mother raised him to try and contribute positively to society, or at least to try and contribute enough to make her look good in the eyes of her fellow seniors at her weekly mahjong group table. In his opinion she did more than enough on her own to look good in front of her friends. At this point he was just a bonus that she could brag on every once in a while.
And he knew she did.
Kiringul was lost in these thoughts for a long moment before he sensed something nearby. It was the first time he’d ever felt such a thing, really, and it crossed his mind how...odd...it felt. He vaguely recalled the Spider-Man movies and wondered if this was what having the so-called “spidey sense” felt like. Or, as the more recent movies had dubbed it, the “Peter Tingle.” The knight suppressed a snort at the moniker, though he only half succeeded, which caused him to crouch down so he was fully out of view for a moment while he gathered himself. Finding ways to amuse himself while he kept an eye on a pawn shop…
He’d run into Melz how long ago and now his life was suddenly all over the place. Granted, the monotony of what his life had been before they were somehow reunited wasn’t all that great, so really he was more grateful than anything else. Not that he’d admit it, though. And certainly not while he was wearing this outfit.
And then it came again, the so-called “spidey sense” feeling—as much as he would have loved to go with “Peter Tingle,” well, his name wasn’t Peter so it just didn’t work—so he forced himself to refocus. He lifted himself so his eyes were just above the edge of the rooftop and he had a decent view of the down below.
The alley was dark, as most alleys tended to be, with very little of the light the streetlamps offered the sidewalks spilling into it. It caught the edges, maybe, but that was all. Considering the stench that wafted all the way to the low rooftop he could only imagine how putrid it must have been if he were actually standing in the alley. There were few dumpsters beside the various side or back entrances to the buildings, one in particular was parked very close toward the sidewalk and conveniently in front of the door closest to the sidewalk—it was the entrance to a pawn shop.
They were a dime a dozen in this neighborhood, he found, but the “why” behind his choice in watching this one was arbitrary. He picked at random. And considering he was now watching two darkly clad figures make their approach he suddenly felt like he picked right.
Kiringul lowered himself until only his eyes and upward were visible from behind the edge of the rooftop, watching them curiously. He was tense, half of his brain wondering what these two were up to, the other half screaming at him for being so stupid as to come here without any kind of plan. He had work the next day, he had no weapon and no means to fight or defend, so...what? He came all the way out here to watch?
“Bro!” A low-pitched voice echoed up to him from one of the two figures. He blinked, expression slowly changing.
“Dude, this is gonna be epic. And she made you claws, too?”
“Yeah, bro. Check these out!”
“Holy sh- that looks so ********’ worth it, bro!”
Kiringul stood bolt upright at that point, face contorted in absolute fury as he realized that it was just another pair of idiots here to add to the ever growing collection of memes related to that video. He could have sworn he sensed something, but considering it was just these two he passed it off as he was so new he must have gotten it wrong.
He fought back the urge to yell down at the two, one now dressed in a very convincing lizard suit while the other was video taping, to grow the hell up. Instead he took a minute to stomp around the rooftop, trying to get angles at the few other doors in this particular alley, but it was late and he needed to get home so he didn’t spend too much more time there. Once he was convinced that it was clear, which only took another minute or so, he was off.
He was very nearly out of earshot when he could swear he heard screaming, forcing him to glance back in the direction of the shop. It was such a distant, muffled sound, though, that he was convinced enough that it was just the nighttime sounds of the city.
With a huff he turned back around and walked on, a sense of dissatisfaction mingled with a nagging feeling that he’d missed something settling into his stomach.
1509 (gdocs)
