smash_logs | Snooping as usual I see

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Snooping as usual I see

Who: Mona and YOU! Anyone is welcome.
What: Interrogating FDC citizens about the earthquake.
Where: Various locations within Final Destination City, starting at the cafe onwards.
When: Entire day of July 23rd.
Warnings: Probably none.

Earthquakes weren't exactly a big to do back where Mona came from. Forces of nature seemed mundane in terms of the bizarre and strange happenings that popped up around Diamond City. Visitors from outer space, ninjas battling thousand year old demons, Satan shopping for fresh basil at the grocery store...no wait, that last one was a pretty normal by Diamond City standards too.

Nothing of the earthquake screamed unique to Mona to catch her attention other than it stealing the thunder from her photo booth back on prom. However reports she overheard of the strange happenings around the academy were a bit of music to her ears. The sweet music that had 'news scoop' written all over it in bold lettering. So what was a photojournalist such as Mona to do about a potential scoop? Investigate of course! The red head wasn't going to sit idly by and let her fellow students take all the glory in their adventures. She'd snag the juicy details right from under their noses when they weren't looking.

Well, a few of their noses. Final Destination was a huge city, nearly as big as Diamond, and she was but a mere lone woman with a Vespa. There was no possible way she could successfully canvas an entire city and interrogate passerby on the streets by herself. Okay, maybe it would be possible, but that's stretching the truth a little. For one, she lacked the proper resources for such a large scale project and two, it would take months investigate every nook, cranny, and person. By that time, the trail would likely be stale news, leaving Mona with hardly any leads. The job needed to be done proper, professionally, and on the pronto. Therefore around the academy flyers were hung from hallways detailing the requirement for a few hardy people with a keen eye and sharp hearing to help with such a grand endeavor.

Which brought Mona to her present state of leaning against her red Mona Cycle with notebook in hand outside one of the cafes. The portly owner of the cafe stood near her with gesticulating arm movements as he described events from his point of view. Mona, nodding every now and again kept pace by scribbling down furiously his story, interjecting the owner only to throw in a question or two to elaborate a particular point of interest. The two had been in deep conversation for nearly twenty minutes.

"That so?" she murmured. Mona closed her notebook and tucked it under her arm, beaming the man a smile of thanks as she passed him her calling card. "You've been a great help sir. Please let me know if you notice something out of the ordinary or anything weird in general." With a tip of her hat the interview came to an end.

Just in the nick of time too, she noticed. Pulling her cellphone out of her pocket revealed noon was right on the dot. The indicated time her other investigators would be clambering into the area for their meetup to swap notes and chow down on pizza (brought on specialty by Mona. Can't let her team go hungry now can she!) before heading back out on the streets for the afternoon run.

"Wonder how the others are faring?" she said to no one in particular, looking once more on the avenue square for any sign of life. And they called her tardy! She hoped they would hurry up soon, the pizzas she carried on her motorbike wouldn't stay warm for much longer and she eager to rack up the morning reports.

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Despite delays and a crappy turn of events the investigation had taken, Mona found it within herself to ease into a smile along with a slight laugh. The demonstration Knuckles had preformed was a cute gesture, allowing herself to beam back to her usual cheerful self. Least Knuckles was taking the misadventures in stride.

"Not sure if my hair makes the same sound, but here goes!" she exclaimed. Throwing off her hat, Mona followed the lead by leaning over and shaking her hair out furiously in a similar manner to the dreadlocks. The difference being hers sent out a fountain of water to splash down on the planks of the dock and whatever poor soul happened to be walking by her vicinity as she shook. There certainly wasn't a clattering sound to accompany it either.

"A towel wouldn't be a bad idea either...I'm sure there must be a few laying around. I mean, it's the docks, people have towels when they take a dip. We can borrow one for awhile and return it later." she added sheepishly through the damp orange tendrils of hair plastered damply to her face upon up righting herself.

"There you go!" Knuckles replied, jumping backwards to avoid the spray. "See? Easy. Been drying off that way since I was a puggle."

It's a real word! Look it up!

"C'mon, let's go see if we can find you a towel and then figure this whole mystery out." he said, starting back towards the docks on foot. "You wanna find a safe place to park the Mona Cycle?"

One longing glance at her bike was enough to seal the difficult decision. With a slight nod, Mona replaced the tarp back over her vehicle as a safety device to protect it from the watery elements of the nearby dock. From a standpoint, the camouflage made her wheels appear part of the rough and tumble scenery the shore had to offer.

"Honestly I do think she'll be quite snug and safe hidden under the tarp. She's out of the view of wandering eyes, specifically of the long arm of the law kind" she said in completely confidence. With having retrieved her notebook and a few other small items for their investigation, Mona caught up with Knuckles and stayed a steady pace by his side.

"Out of sight, out of min-Oh! Yeah, I wanted to ask you something really, really important." A sudden thought flooded her mind with an earlier conversation from her encounter with the store keeper. "How good are your animal senses? Like, whatever you folks can pick up that we cannot. Does it apply for animal people like you?"

"Oh, you mean like... smell and stuff?" he asked. "Uh. I smell pretty well. I pick up stuff a lot of Humans don't, especially when it comes to being underground. I can navigate my way through a cave so dark, I can't see even an inch in front of me, and I do that by smell. My hearin' ain't that great though and my eyes are pretty much the same as yours."

He shrugged.

"I'm not like.... crazy sensitive. Like the Martial Arts teacher. I think he can hear a complaint two miles away and smell a dirty look."

"Close to the answer I wanted. I think?" she shrugged her shoulders, laughing a bit on the fact about their Martial Arts teacher. Maybe he'd have been a better partner to take up on the investigation considering he could hear every sort of whisper. Or so Knuckles had claimed. Mona could even imagine how helpful John's abilities might be in one of her stakeouts back home. Overhearing the criminal's conversations, homing in on suspects...

Mona suddenly shook her head to rid the thought. Now wasn't the proper time to be daydreaming possible scenarios to make her life on the job easier. There were bigger fish to be fried. Of the lake monster fish variety.

Fried fish didn't sound like a bad idea for a meal either! A seafood dinner to end the day sounded just about right.

"So, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a big fat no on the whole 'my Echidna senses are tingling!' possibility?" the enthusiasm seemed to be slipping from her voice. "Not even picking up anything odd about the shores here? Other than the obvious fact the water is higher than should be, I mean." Mona motioned her hand out to the body of water. When she'd taken her dunk in the drink, she found it unnerving her feet had not touched the bottom. Being close to shore meant the sandy bottom to be shallower than the deeper one trekked out to the ocean. The farther one went, the deeper it went.

"It's way deeper than I expected. My feet didn't feel a bottom when it should have. Could have sworn if I'd gone deeper to find the bottom I'd be covered in twice my body length over my head!"

"Nope. No tingling here." Knuckles replied with a sigh. "I DO Have an additional sense I can use - I can sense Chaos Energy. From Chaos emeralds or shards of the Master Emerald. But I don't feel anything like that at all. At least I know this rising water level has nothing to do with Chaos, the God of Destruction. I saw him flood a city, one time..."

Now THERE was an awful memory. They'd won in the end of course, but still.

"Uh, anyhow, I don't see much that's different. Less boats on the water than I've seen before but that could mean anything."

"Neither do I. Yet everyone back at the school was freaking out over the high water levels. Making molehills out of mountains..." she sighed. What a waste of time this had been. A great photojournalist like herself would be arriving back at the academy empty handed on the story front while everyone else around her were reveling in stories of their investigations. It wasn't fair!

A pair of voices suddenly caught the attention of her ears, body pivoting to trace the sound. Mona reached out and grabbed Knuckles by the shoulder, spinning him in turn to her outstretched hand pointing to a pair of figures.

"Hold the phone, our luck might have changed for the better." she voice bouncing back to her cheerful nature full of life. "Fisherman dead ahead! Should anyone know of lake monsters and the ways of water it will be those guys!" Without so much as another word, Mona patted the Echidna's shoulder before taking off at a break neck run, waving her arms wildly at the pair of anglers.

"Ciao! Boy, are you two a sight for sore eye. Do you mind taking a minute to help answer a few question my assistant and I might ask?"

"...and then the Halibut says 'I haven't seen your Tiger, kid, but I sure Sea Lion!' Haha, Geddit?"

Both Fishermen erupted in laughter before they noticed Mona and Knuckles approaching. It appeared to be lunch time and the pair were enjoying a couple of sandwiches and some bottled water in between rounds of hole in the wall comedy club level joking around. The day had come over kind of hot by now and the pair looked sweaty and a little grimy from the morning's work.

"What can we do ya for, little lady?" asked one.

"Your dog's an odd lookin' wee fella." said the other in a manner that was genuinely good natured. "He friendly? Here boy, here you go! C'mon!"

Knuckles stared indignantly as a corner of a sandwich was torn off and offered in his direction. It had meat in it. The Echidna's nose wrinkled.

"...you better do the talking, Mona." he said through gritted teeth. "I don't wanna wind up spoilin' the story by socking a dude into the ocean."

"Easy there Fido," Mona teased, placing herself between Knuckles and the two men. Last thing she needed was for the Echinda to do something stupid and end up with the cops hot on her tail again. What she needed was for these two lovely gentlemen to spill the beans on the lake monster.

"See you two good sirs are working as hard as ever. Good, good!" she cheered. Butter them up with pleasantries to make an impression before she got down and dirty with her question period. Make the situation comfortable for all parties involved, as if talking among old friends.

"Name's Mona! Photojournalist for the Diamond City times. And this here is Knuckles. We're canvassing the area on the behalf of a lead we've received and we're hoping with your co-operation you could help us out."

She continued on her tirade, notebook at the ready for a moment's notice to scribble. "Have either of you noticed any suspicious activity as of late? Bizarre happenings? Maybe even, oh I don't know, sea monsters by chance?" she hinted, giving Knuckles a sly wink. As if to say 'See? this is how you people properly!'

"F... fido?"

Knuckles was raging on the inside, about ready to burst a seam. He wasn't a DOG! Not even close! His species laid EGGS!

EGGS!

"Sea Monsters?" replied one of the Fishermen, shrugging and swigging from his bottle of water. "See 'em every day, darlin'. I'm a good fisherman, y'see. Yellowtail, Marlin, Relicanth, Gyarados. You name a leviathan and I bet I've caught one."

"Miss, I'd like to report some suspicious activity - this guy's Fish Tales and the fact that they're all made up. He hasn't caught so much as a Magikarp or Mudskipper in days. I know, because I haven't caught squat either and If -I- can't fish these waters, there's no way -HE- can!" said his sprat scented co-hort.

"Now, if you want to hear a lie, that would be it." the first guy replied, turning away and scowling. "....well, actually, no. He's right. Water level's gone up a few meters, and my catch bucket is as empty as my heart on those long, lonesome nights at sea..."

Knuckles' teeth ground together so hard, it was audible over the sound of the water sloshing against the pier. Rising water levels and fish scared away from shore? THAT had to be bad news.

Much as Mona enjoyed hearing a tall fish tale, one without any credible source but fabricated lies that could possibly be used as a rumored filler for a gossip magazine, she felt as if these men weren't taking her seriously. On the other hand, their claim of empty hauls of precious sea jewels of the edible variety did sound like a push for more information.

"No fish? Not even a mackerel nor a dolphin?" she pondered, eyeing Knuckles with a raised eyebrow. High water levels usually brought a plethora of sea life near the shores to feed.

"About roughly when did you first start noticing the lack of fish life in around the waters?" she questioned, all ears for an answer.

Could a lack of fish as food had brought the lake monster to land, or had Knuckles fabricated his own fishy story to send her on a wild goose chase?

"Few weeks back." muttered one, sounding a might bit depressed.

"It's like they all went on vacation or somethin'." the other replied. "I keep saying we should set sail for Delfino Isle or the Sevii Islands. See if we can find anything worth finding there."

"Aye, well, if you want to sail for warmer shores, you're welcome to it. Me? I'll stick to Final Destination City."

"Suit yourself. Does that answer all your questions, Little Lady? Our lunch hour is almost up."

Knuckles, still bristling at being thought of as a dog left the responding up to Mona. He, more than anything, wanted to reply by punching a hole in each of their boats.

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Snooping as usual I see

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