Chapter Text
A light switch in a dark room which is only illuminated by the streetlights outside, though the reach of their light is minimal. It’s almost pitch black.
The door opens and the lightswitch is flipped on, a brief hum comes from the single light bulb as it starts.
The floor is a classic grey concrete, the walls are painted a murky green with wood panelling on the bottom half.
Dangeresque walks from the door to the desk, his boots clanking on the ground as he does. He slides a stack of papers onto the desk.
The paper at the top of the pile, a newspaper clipping, separated from the rest of the newspaper, reads “Crime falls as local crook cop puts an end to gang!”.
Dangeresque is holding a different piece of paper, a smaller, yellow paper. Sighing, he seemingly rereads it over and over. He rolls his eyes behind his sunglasses. He slams the paper on the desk. Its contents are unimportantly annoying.
He reaches under the desk, pulling out the nunchuck gun. Dangeresque carefully examines it, appreciating its eloquent design. The way the nunchucks connect to the gun, how seamlessly it all blends together. Oh how he would gladly spend the rest of eternity looking at it.
Suddenly, the red phone on the desk violently starts ringing. Dangeresque gently places the nunchuck gun down on the surface of the desk. He reaches out and picks up the phone.
“Hello?” Dangeresque says, holding the speaker up to the side of his face.
Muffled speech comes from the phone. Dangeresque looks down at the papers scattered on his desk.
“Yeah… I think I can take on another case.” Dangeresque says, calm and confident as always.
More muffled speech from the speaker of the phone.
“A murder-robbery you say? I’m on it.” Dangeresque adjusts his glasses.
Renaldo stands next to the office door, obviously waiting for Dangeresque to come out. As soon as Dangeresque steps out and the door closes behind him, Renaldo instantly opens his mouth.
“Oh Dangeresque it’s horrible!” Renaldo cries out.
“We live in a cruel world, where criminals can just break in and kill a man.” Dangeresque shakes his head.
“What? No. I was talking about my soda! The wind knocked it over!” Renaldo says, confusion evident in his voice.
They both look down, seeing the carpeted floors of the lobby soaked by a brown liquid, still lightly fizzing.
“Well you better clean it up because we have a case to solve!” Dangeresque almost laughs.
Dangeresque and Renaldo sit in the cool car. Dangeresque sits in the driver's seat while Renaldo on the other front seat. The interior is barely lit, the streetlight above it shining directly down.
“So what are we here for?” Renaldo asks, looking over at Dangeresque.
“Robbery gone wrong.” Dangeresque states.
“How are we gonna get to the crime scene with all the good cops there!” Renaldo questions. To him there was no chance they would get in, to his partner there was every chance they would get in.
“They're not here now. Night is crook cop investigation time. The legit cops can’t stop us!” Dangeresque confidently says, smugly smiling at Renaldo.
“Alrighty then.” Renaldo accepts the other’s speech with no question. Despite being younger, Dangeresque knew a lot more about navigating the streets.
Dangeresque and Renaldo stand on the sidewalk in front of an apartment building. Looking up, the building is tall, made of brick. There are many, many windows on it. It looks fairly run down, not a place anyone would willingly choose to live in.
Dangeresque and Renaldo walk into the building lobby. The floor is dirtier than any place either of them had ever been in. It’s stained with mud, blood and god-knows what else.
Deeper into the building there's a hallway with a staircase. They approach the staircase, looking around for an elevator.
“Aw man… there’s no elevator… I guess we just have to take the-” Dangeresque sighs. “-the stairs!” He finishes, his dread extremely noticeable as he speaks.
“Oh the inaccessibility!” Renaldo cries out.
The two begin climbing the stairs slowly, speeding up every step. Eventually Dangeresque is running as fast as his legs will let him.
Out of nowhere, Dangeresque stops, his feet skirting on the floor. The sudden stop makes Renaldo bump into Dangeresque, almost knocking him over but steadying them by grabbing him.
“Floor 6! That’s our stop!” Dangeresque yells out, maybe a little too loudly.
Dangeresque and Renaldo walk through the ridiculously long hall, the former faintly saying the numbers on the door under his breath as they walk past them.
When they get to the end of the hallway they reach a door with the number 67 written on it.
“Are you sure we should do this?” Renaldo asks, unsure of how much of this he wants to be involved in.
“We need to bring justice to this world, Renaldo. We’re the only men in this town who can do that.” Dangeresque responds, placing his hand on the door knob.
The door knob jiggles a little before clicking. Surprisingly, the authorities that had been there before them had left the place unlocked. The door itself creaks open, the light from outside spreads inside, lighting up the formerly pitch-black room.
Dangeresque walks in, his hand searches for a light switch. When he finds and switches it on. He then walks further inside, Renaldo following in his steps.
The apartment is a complete mess, random pieces of furniture are damaged or even completely broken, as if it had gone through some great war of nuclear proportions.
A chalk outline is drawn on the floorboards near the window. Though hastily drawn, it’s obvious that it’s of the body which once lay there.
They walk over to and look down at it. The outline is noticeably missing its arms, suggesting the victims lack of arms.
“What kind of man would do this?” Renaldo exclaims, nearly covering his mouth with his hands but hesitating.
“Eugh… he even cut off the poor guy's arms.” Dangeresque says in a sort of sympathetic disgust.
A strong gust of wind-like noise is heard, making Dangeresque and Renaldo sharply turn around. As soon as they look over, the noise stops. None of the windows were visibly open.
Though a second later the noise reappears, coming from the direction of the door. They both turn around once more. The sight before them is a ghost, with no arms, standing near the door.
“Ah! What do you want?!” Dangeresque almost screams, losing his cool.
“oOOooOOO I want you to-” The ghost loudly whispers. “-solve my case!”
“Whhaaaat?!” Dangeresque asks, though it’s less of a question and more of an exclamation of pure confusion. Ghosts were not real, so not real.
Before Dangeresque could ask anything, the ghost fades out of existence, leaving Dangeresque and Renaldo in stunned silence.