Private Mosquito Bro's Machinations

Yoshihiro sipped on his diet coke as he eyed the warehouse across the street from him. He was sitting in a modest fast food joint, he wasn't sure which one. Did they have Wendy's or McDonalds even on Manta Carlos? Either way, the human teen was busy stuffing his face full of calories to try and meet his daily quota for the day. If he didn't eat enough food he'd be dead wait, eventually literally so. Besides, if he was going to be doing some 'aggressive sleuthing', he'd need to be as ready to go as ever. "Time Cop, calling in." Yojo started, adjusting the black hoodie and sunglasses he wore to try and blend in with the crowd. This was a sting, after all.

"I've followed a trail of informants back to a backwater warehouse near the financial district of Manta Carlos. School got out early so I ate a fast brunch and decided to go allin on a stakeout instead of going to the gym and catching up on my favorite shojou anim- actually that doesn't matter" Yojo whispered to his tape recorder, narrowing his gaze as he saw some bystanders cross the street. It looked like a slime girl and a minotaur girl both talking while sipping on their pumpkin spice lattes from Starlight-bucks. Yojo tried to act natural as they walked past him, with how varied the population of the isles was, he couldn't take any chances of being found out. Back in LA, the only thing he had to worry about was petty criminals and the odd homeless here or there... All that felt so foreign to him now that he was here. The best way he could have explained it was growing up reading about gods in his history books, only to now be learning about them in science and magic class as an adult.

It was a brave new world for him, for better and for worse.

A truck pulled up to the warehouse, rumbling up off the street. Yojo's attention returned to the present. He watched as it turned down a back alley, presumably to the warehouse's garage. With all the info he'd been gathering about a new addictive substance that was becoming popular amongst some of the older students, the teen would have bet every dollar of his allowance that this was the kind of development he'd been waiting for all day. With a final sip of his diet coke, Yojo stood up and gave a final entry to his tape recorder. "I see a truck, I'm following it inside." He paused as he walked across the street, aiming to not run too hastily toward the warehouse's front entrance. "Guide me well, Bruce Willis'." He grunted, a silent prayer to his hero, before flipping the recorder off and placing it in his pocket.

Yojo snuck down the alleyway, halting behind a dumpster and looking from around it at the parked truck, as well as its drivers. A pair of minotaur were smoking some cheap cigarettes as they unloaded large crates down onto the ground. They looked tired, gaunt, and not all too preoccupied with who might have been watching them go about their work. A human man walked out, he was old, wrinkled, but walked with a strange spring to his step. "Ait', thats the last shipment. Here's your cash, and something extra for the late hours." he said, handing the two minotaur envelopes, as well as two baggies full of sickly yellow powder, the sight of which caused the previously-tired goons to grow animated in anticipation. Yoshihiro pulled out his phone to get a picture, but by the time he'd done so, the two labor-wolves had pocketed the stuff. Damn, so much for getting evidence the easy way.

The two goons got back into their truck and drove off, whilst the handler left the back door open, pulling out a cigarette of his own to take a smoke break.

Thoughts races through the teen's mind. He'd faced his fare share of normal criminals and gangsters in LA, and normally he wouldn't have hesitated to bust through the wall... Yet, these were no mere humans. Who knew what he'd find inside this warehouse- could he hold his own in a fight once the supernatural got involved? If he didn't act now, and this handler finished his break, who knew when the chance to get inside would come again. If he went in, though, he'd have no backup- the kind of scenario the MCPD course had warned him about.

Yojo thought for a moment. Who was he kidding? This was what he lived for. It was the path he'd chosen to walk.

The boy waited for the handler to turn away and check his phone before tip-toing behind him and through the opened back door.

@Kada

Yojo, still clad in his sunglasses and hoodie, kept to the edges of the warehouse. The place was busy even though it looked fairly benign on the outside. The teen had squatted down behind some barrels to try and get a better look of the place whilst music blasted from speakers hanging from the ceiling. A large open space filled with tables and minotaurs packing drugs was located in the middle of the warehouse, the dim fluorescent lighting causing the sickly yellow powder to look all the more unhealthy. He had to get some of that stuff as evidence. He couldn't leave here without it. What was the difference between a drug lab in LA an a minotaur infested crack den on a supernatural island anyways?

The teen big his lip as he began to try and make a move on the closest un-manned table, but just as he did so, the door to the office at the far end of the warehouse swung open. A skinny, middle aged man stormed out of the office, approaching a trio of minotaur bouncers, one of which was being dragged by the other two meekly along the concrete floor. "What, the FUCK, happened Ronnie?" the old man shouted, stopping in front of the bruised and battered minotaur.

"I-I'm sorry Big Paulie, I was gettin' chased by some cops and had lost my supply while I was running for my life and I-" Ronnie croaked, his voice full of fear as he was held up by the other two goons in front of the enraged Big Paulie. "Your life? What fuckin' life? You mean the fuckin' life that I pay for? Because the way I see it, you ain't got no life if it ain't with me- who ya' gonna' fuckin' turn to? The cops? The fuckin' vamps or wereshits?" Big Paulie yelled, his nasally and shrill voice filling the warehouse and managing to be heard over the sound of the booming bass. Yojo frowned as he watched the confrontation, this human was fond of swearing. Not an attractive trait in his book, definite villain trope for sure.

Big Paulie sighed, adjusting his tie as he spoke. "All you had to do was not lose your portion of supply, Ronnie. You're a loose end now. You know what that means." the man said, prompting Ronnie to start shaking and thrashing as he was held in place. "P-Please! No! I'm begging you!" the minotaur shouted, a loud mooing sound emanating from him as he tried to break free of the iron grip holding him in place. Big Paulie remained unphased, "This is happening, stop yelling. You fucked up, and now your life is forfeit.... I haven't gotten a drink all week, so pick a god to pray to." Big Paulie grunted.

Yojo's eyes widened as he saw a long, slender, probiscus emerge from Big Paulie's mouth. The razor sharp tip at the end of it embeded itself within Ronnie's flesh shortly after. Yojo's stomach churned in horror as he watched Ronnie's body begin to swiftly shrivel up. It was like the muscles were being sucked straight from the bone, the blood siphoned, the organs liquified and inhaled practically. Big Paulie was sucking Ronnie's innard and organs up like the minotaur was a milkshake he was drinking through a straw. By the time that the ordeal had ended, Ronnie was nothing else besides skin and bones, a lifeless heap on the floor with nothing organic left.

"Well, I take it back Ronnie. You don't taste to bad." Big Paulie muttered to himself before looking at the minotaurs who had stopped packing drugs to watch the execution take place. "Well don't just fuckin' stand there, get back to work!" He shouted before turning around and walking back to his office at the far end of the warehouse... Only this time, looking considerably younger and more muscular than before.

This wasn't any kind of vampire that Yojo'd heard about. This was a human-sized mosquito, and god was it disgusting.

Thankfully, attention seemed to be fully on Big Paulie for now as the other minotaur grunts watched him storm back to his office. If Yojo was going to get a sample from the nearby table and remain unseen, this was going to be his best shot.

Yojo stayed crouched low, abandoning his cover and slowly stalking towards the closest table, his eyes locked on the sickly yellow drug laying there unattended.

Yojo held his breath as he grabbed a refined and packaged block of the yellow powder, holding it tightly as he hustled as quickly and quietly as he could back to the cover he'd been hiding behind. A small sigh of relief left him, even though he felt as alert as ever. Finally, now he could get out of here and hand this stuff over to the-

The teen froze up as a dark and masked figure appeared from around the corner, the black glass goggle eyes staring right into him as he sat there. Startled by the stranger's sudden appearance, as well as her rapid approach, the teen instinctively reached out with a speedy hand to shove her in the chest. It wouldn't be enough to harm her or anything like that, only enough to have her drop down onto her bum on the warehouse floor. "O-Oh shit. I'm sorry, fight or flight response. Shit." He whispered, realizing that, although suspicious to the n'th degree, this stranger wasn't with the rest of the minotaur gang.

"I could ask the same about you!" Yojo hissed, holding onto his well-stolen package as he looked the stranger over. "What's with the mask?" He asked, briefly pausing before shaking his head. "Nevermind. Just, stay calm and stay low and I'll help you out of here. The backdoor should be back that way." The teen said, looking the way that he and apparently this stranger had come from. Having to deal with a third party like this wasn't something that he'd expected. It wasn't as if this was the location for a meetup.com group and they were both the only people who decided to attend!

"Pry every car door? What are you talking abou-" Yojo started, only to be cut off by the angry hissing of the stranger through her gas mask. The virulent rejection of his offer to help escort her to safety caught her off guard, along with her overall demeanor. "Stop fucking swearing you fuck!" Yojo hissed angrily in return, louder than before but still quiet enough to not be heard from behind their secluded corner.

"Wow, okay. From now on, you're getting called damsel. Yeah, this is a thing now." Yojo said as he continued to verbally spar with the stranger as he watched her reload her gun with what looked like tranquilizer darts. "I'm not a druggie, unlike you probably. I'm here for reasons." He hissed, not willing to share with his motivations for spending all day staking this place out in an effort to be that much more of an obnoxious goodie two-shoes.

"Listen, I spent all day staking this place out. Go find your own sketchy drug-filled warehouse, I found this one first." He grunted, looking past her again to where he estimated the back door to be. "Who the hell are you, anyway?" He asked.

Forget this. He had what he came there for, he didn't need to put up with this.

"Hey, which one of you mino-tards tried to smoke some of the merch?" A loud and booming voice echoed from the center of the warehouse... Right from the previously unoccupied table that Yojo had snagged a spare package from as evidence.

Things were about to get a great deal harder than they originally had to be, weren't they?

Things were going from bad to worse, and man, were they going there fast.

Not only was their cover about to be blown, but this girl was really stretching his limits. Yojo grit his teeth, his eye twitching underneath his dark sunglasses and black hoodie. The moment she pointed her gun at him though, that frustration transformed into focus. He could take a bullet to the face well enough, but he didn't want to risk whatever she had in those tranquilizer darts. His mind raced back to that day training with Roldan- and while the officer may not have approved per se of his current actions, the lesson that Yoshihiro learned certainly stuck in his mind now.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't be rash now. We can still get out of this if we stay ca-" the teen started, the gravity of their situation settling in as he heard the minotaur grunts start to fan out around the center of the warehouse in search of the lost package. What really scared him, though, was the sight of a grenade being pulled out of the girl's bag. Yojo's eyes snapped to be fully open behind his glasses. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, the girl's thumb moved toward the pin. Time moved in slow motion as, once again, that fight or flight response kicked in for him.

Unable to trust what the girl would do with her thumb seemingly about to pull the trigger to a grenade, as well as not knowing what powers she held, Yojo instinctively activated his time manipulation abilities. Faster than you could say 'Za Warudo', the flow of time had screeched to a standstill, coincidentally just as a nearby crow seemed to be caw'ing as well.

He didn't know if this stranger had been trapped in frozen time, or if she was merely slowed to a crawl, and truthfully, he didn't care. The time for stealth had come and gone. It was time for him to get out of there and fast.

"1...2...3..." Yojo began to count, leaping up to his feet and running to the wall.

Reeling back, the teen slammed his fist into the side of the warehouse, smashing the concrete outwards into the alleyway to create a small to moderate-sized hole within frozen time. Still counting in his head, the teen leapt through the wall, sprinting for his life through the motionless alleyway.

By the time 15 seconds had passed, Yojo had managed to make it to the sidewalk in front of the warehouse. Sprinting, the teen would run across the street to the fast food joint he'd been staked out at earlier in the day. He had stuffed the package in his bag, but man, he had to do a quick change, hide in the bathroom, and get somewhere away from downtown!

That stranger, the girl, had she managed to get out all right as well?