maskormenace | 002

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002 | Voice

[This communicator has been hacked.

Attached to the broadcast is the alias LUNATIC, a name some of you may have come to know by now, though most of you will not have. Not to worry, of course. There will be plenty of opportunity in the future...]

I have been watching.

[The speaker's voice has been manipulated to sound both artificial and faintly hollow.]

There are sinners in your midst. [You know their names, don't you? Perhaps some of them even spring to mind: Lucifer, The Manipulator, Annie Leonhart, Reiner Braun, Bertholdt Hoover...and so on. It's possible you even sympathize with some of them, though it's clear the speaker does not.] You answer their crimes with rewards of friendship, forgiveness...and freedom.

Foolishness.

[What follows is clearly exasperated, but spoken in such quiet tones that it forces listeners to be all the more attentive.]

As expected, heroes...your idea of justice...is weak.

But that is why I have come.

[The speaker pauses, perhaps for dramatic effect, for when he begins again there is a certain zealousness to his tone.]

My name...is Lunatic.

[Do not mistake him for a hero.]

I will strike down the evil that has arisen. For the wicked ones...there will be no escape. The time for them to atone for their atrocities is now.

They will hear the voice of Thanatos.

[Those listening closely may hear the crackling and hissing of flames in the background...it grows louder and louder before the communication is suddenly cut and the line goes dead.]

[OOC: Please note that icon links have been broken. This broadcast in no way reveals the connection between Yuri and Lunatic.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Will's good at bait. At luring. He's good at swimming along bloody trails in dark water and finding the source. He wasn't aiming for video, the fact that he gets it when no one else from what he's snooped has doesn't please him, but it doesn't surprise him.

He debates the merits of letting Lunatic see who he's talking to. Will's at his shop, dressed in plaid, his name tag on, wearing a stupid hat calling him the WORLD'S OKAYEST FISHERMAN, unshaven, sitting in front of a wall of plastic, fake bait. It could be offensive, a guy like that getting his goat. But it could also been as extremely rude for him not to return the favor, even if this is the only bit Lunatic means to give Will in regards to face time.

He opts to turn his own camera on. He doesn't sound or look confused, amused, mocking. He's serious, seriously glum, and glumly aware of how this is not what he should or wants to be doing and yet here he is anyway. A pointer points, even when it turns into a happy domestic house dog that never went hunting. Natural. This conversation comes naturally, like breathing. How glum.]

There are plenty of sinners who have not told us their crimes. [Will's been exonerated, so he's never done anything wrong. Nope.] When the ones who have burn...how will you find more?

[Little like being in the barn again, only he's not hallucinating this time.]

[The wearer of the mask cocks his head to the side, the motion seemingly heavy, like that of a marionette whose string has been snipped. Though the lidless white eyes do not move or blink, as his head rolls from one shoulder to the other, they appear to watch Will, never leaving him.

And in fact, the eyes behind them never do.

The World's Okayest Fisherman might be more offensive if he were actually making a point to be offensive. Presently, he is a man like any other, separated from Lunatic by an electronic network and...well, he'll map how much city later, if possible. For now, however, it's not important.

The flames dancing from finger to finger, swirling in the palm of his hand, blink out. No smoke wafts upward into the air. No last glimmer of life sparks upward. There is nothing, just the blanketing shadows of an already dark room, now darker for its lack of light, and that mask, illuminated by the glow of the communicator interface.]

They will reveal themselves. They always do.

[He doesn't care much for eye contact, he's the first to say. But he holds it, keeps it until he focuses on the flame disappearing, and since his are not lidless, he blinks when he has to. He's human, a man just like any other. It happens.]

Might be less inclined now that someone's out there, talking about burning them. [Or more inclined.] Unless you know how to tell sinners apart, even when they don't confess?

[It's a chilling thought, the ones who say they can tell. The ones who say they could tell, that they got the confession before they went through with it. Who refuse to believe they're wrong, who force a false confession, one that springs out of a victim's hope that if they confess, they'll be spared.

Then what kind of crazy is he!? plays in the back of his head.]

Edited (missing bracket, come home) 2014-08-13 03:33 (UTC)

If they are less inclined and criminal activity lessens...or even ceases altogether...that would not be a terrible thing.

[Oh, it would make identifying certain criminals more difficult, yes...but not impossible. Lunatic means it when he says they'll reveal themselves. Oftentimes, criminals always do, even if only by accident. Clues forgotten, loose ends left untied, or even just for throwing caution to the winds and abandoning all care. It happens. Like blinking.

Humans can only be humans, and humans are not so solitary as they might sometimes have others believe. Eventually all rocks will weather, and secrets will rise to the surface...]

They will reveal themselves.

[He does not need to do much more than observe. Keep both eyes open. Never turn a blind eye.

Sometimes, and only sometimes...do some of them require a little prodding.]

[He lifts a hand to his face, scratching his nose as he puzzles it out. Has he been reading along? Goddamn right he has.]

And then you can atone once they've done that? [It's not judgment, his voice not calling Lunatic crazy. He's following along as best he can, the gears are turning, the cogs are moving along, he's working to understand him as he is, not understand him to pass judgment or better mock.] Porter sends people back where they're from and pulls them in just the same. You'll never be able to atone like that. They'll keep coming. If you're not immortal, it won't do anything. World keeps turning, evil keeps being born. You wanna burn yourself pure so badly, might as well just go ahead and do it.

[That is not said or meant as a command. Observation. Backwards, right on the fiery target...?]

How quick you people are to presume I am in any kind of hurry.

[He has only ever stated that, when his time comes, he will not run, that his own atonement is an eventual inevitability. He has never said that he will need to atone here, that this place, this world, will be the destination of his final stand. He has not said it because he does not believe it.

As Will pointed out, people come and go, go and come, and it is an endless cycle never to be broken in this universe. Of course, if that is true, and it appears to be, it also means that Lunatic's brand of justice must also continue...and so it shall.]

Criminals must be judged. So long as they exist, I will fulfill that role. There is no other reason for which I was brought here.

["You people"—the rest of the imPorts here (the majority), everyone not Lunatic, criminal profilers, sinners, what? There's plenty of profiling going on, he's sure, educated or otherwise (from Baltimore, even, Chilton never rests). Is he tired of it, or is he craving it?

He's craving something, by God. He might be saying justice, but there's far more than that at work.]

If you're not in any kind of hurry— [The way Will repeats those words back at him is not in Will's voice, not exactly. He doesn't modify it to sound just like the one he hears, but the tone and timbre, the cadence? It's all Lunatic's, not Will's, and not as mockery.] —they have schooling for people who want to judge criminals. Pass it, become a judge, then you can burn them all. Legally fulfill your role.

[~He puts on his robes and judge wig~]

[Ahahaha...hahaha...ahaha...ha...]

The legal system is faulty.

[He almost smiles. He almost laughs. Almost.

He has experience with the legal system, that much is obvious.]

All systems are faulty. [Because they're made by people and if there's one thing he's noticed in his time here, it's that even the people who are aliens or not human in any other way still act just like the humans he's familiar with. It's almost like even Lucifer is human in his own way, like how people write him in books and movies and stuff reflects that he was written by a human so he's got human qualities. Shit, it's like everyone, regardless of where they're from, is still human in some way it's like everyone here is A FICTIONAL CHARACTER THESE DEMONS AND ANGELS ARE PRETTY FUCKING HUMAN, LUNATIC.] Burn first, atone later seems pretty faulty. But I'm sure you're tired of hearing that by now.

[Look at all these meanie heads.]

This just a PSA or something else?

[Confession?]

[One needn't have excessive experience with the law to come to the conclusion that it is faulty, of course. And that is precisely the reason Lunatic provided the answer he did. Even those who have done no more than protest can be said to think along those lines. In fact, every imPort who protested the detainment of the Soviet spies and their lack of trial can be said to think that way, too. It hardly narrows down the suspects.]

You can think of it that way if you want to.

[Which isn't to say yes and it isn't to say no.]

[The law is messed up, it's true. What is really justice is difficult to decide and sometimes damn near impossible to properly dole out until something drastic happens, and then some people have their own idea of justice that doesn't care about systems and oh look

he's talking to one of them.]

PSA, confession, warning, had a day off and nothing to do, fishing for more sinners—really, it could be just about anything. [He could put it in one box, sure. He could also throw it in every box, dump the boxes out, and then donate them to people moving like a total not sinner.] Trying to think of it like you do, that's all.

[Fishing for another clue.

Fishing honestly.]

Are you profiling me, Will Graham?

[His eyebrows lift at that. He's still getting used to people not knowing who he is, what he does, how odd a question that would be to ask him back where he's from.]

If I was profiling you, that would imply you were a criminal. [Tastes bad to say it, but Lunatic has no real way to know why that would be (does he?). He's not going to give him one now, Will's tone explanatory and nothing else. Teaching. Almost sounds impersonal, his pesky profiling career, like he can come home and get undressed, take a shower, have dinner, and leave it all behind, same as anyone else.] But you're not, are you? Not a criminal. Not unknown.

[No bodies left behind. Yet. Or does he leave charred bodies in his wake? Or maybe piles of ash with chunks or bone? Nothing at all? As long as they're not Ripped, he can find a reason to stay away. Stay away for good, no Jack Crawford to go for the weak spots. He's safe from that here, if nothing else. Or so he thinks.]

And I'm not a profiler anymore.

[He owns a bait shop.

That's his story, his new job, and he's sticking with it.]

It would imply you thought I was a criminal.

I am not. Justice is neither here nor there...but a razor's edge. Though there are many who would waste their breath in their haste to argue that point.

If you're not a profiler...then why seek to understand me? To think of this the way I think of it?

Is your own head so terrible a place to linger?

[Rude.]

Finished my crossword puzzle and business is slow. ["I'm bored" is such an easy thing to fall back on, isn't it? He'll risk it sounding insulting if it gets away from the topic of his head. That is not a welcome topic. Ever.] If you're not a criminal, you don't have to atone, do you?

[Pulling apart lines of lunacy in between customers and feeding crickets, like this is child's play or something.]

I am not a criminal, but my hands are unclean.

No one has clean hands.

[Which, funny enough, brings them back to the beginning.]

Everyone's a sinner. I don't know Thanatos so well, but...kind of a broad word since it means everyone.

[Born in sin, come on in. Give me what I want and I'll go away, only he doubts that's the case with Lunatic, since he wants...well. Not something that's anyone's to give.]

That is true, but not all hands are stained in the same way, by the same sins.

But they're still sinners. We're all sinners, every single one of us. Good reason for none of us to have cast the first stone, because none of us can.

[He should not be getting this into the conversation, he really should not.

But Jesus Christ, it's been a while since he's gotten one like it.]

If Thanatos isn't here, you can't, either, can you?

Who said Thanatos was not here?

[One shoulder lifts a little, almost uncomfortably as opposed to a shrug, and he waves his hand.]

I...read most everything on this network and I've never seen anybody going by it.

[Him.

It's him. He says it. He says the thing.]

Someone like you would not.

["There are no men like me"—nah, too egotistical. He does wrinkle his nose at it, just enough to be seen.]

Not reading enough, then?

[Ha ha ha.

He reads everything.

It's sort of a problem. He has a fever, apparently the cure is more stalking. Healthy choices.]

No, reading has little to do with it.

Thanatos is simply not among you.

[Aha oh God.

That just.

Yeah, this won't be fun. Not that he'll do anything about it, because law enforcement is a world away, but aha. Haha. Welp.]

Not yet among us, you mean.

[That's not a question.]

002 | Voice

oh no uncle yuri noticed him, VIDEO right back

Video...still! oho!

DANCING WITH THE RUSSIAN DEVIL ON VIDEO 5EVA

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