002 | Voice

[purgation]

[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.]

Comments

[infomodder]

[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?]

[purgation]

[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.]

[infomodder]

[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.]

[purgation]

Are you profiling me, Will Graham?

[infomodder]

[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.]

[purgation]

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?

[infomodder]

[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.]

[purgation]

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

[infomodder]

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.]

[purgation]

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

[infomodder]

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?

[purgation]

Who said Thanatos was not here?

[infomodder]

[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.]

[purgation]

Someone like you would not.

[infomodder]

["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.]

[purgation]

No, reading has little to do with it.

Thanatos is simply not among you.

[infomodder]

[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.]

[purgation]

I believe I said what I meant, Will Graham.

[infomodder]

[This is not the look of someone who is doing his version of a smile because he's frightened, nor is it the look of someone who's doing it as a bring it on sort of gesture. No, this is someone who is very very used to what he's hearing and what it means, who knows this song and dance like he knows breathing. Someone who's comfortable in this situation despite it not being a comfortable one at all, despite every part of his insides crawling under his skin, heated and screaming.]

I believe you said what you meant, too.

[And Lord have mercy when PSA becomes more.]

[purgation]

We understand each other, then.

[And even if they don't, Lunatic still disconnects.]