revivalproject | Kidding Myself, Turning Wrong Into Right

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Kidding Myself, Turning Wrong Into Right

WHO: The worse jr. detectives and we'll see where this goes
WHERE: Around Temba
WHAT: Who let these kids try to solve a murder mystery?
WHEN: Jinkies!
WARNINGS: N/A

"Oh for the love of coffee, don't you people ever sleep?!"

Amusing, coming from the turtle who consistently neglects such.

Reviewing video footage is such a tedious job. Who knows how long Donnie's spent staring at a split-screen of camera views, and that's after coming up with a filter that scrubbed through footage for him until it found activity. He'd asked Scuttle to go through things for him but not ten minutes into things, the bot was found absent, his locator pinging him somewhere off by the beach, harassing the lobsters again, no doubt.

"If you want something done..." And so it had gone.

He's consulted with Leo, and while they had pinpointed the originating device, Eddie himself had been in the ship the entire time. But then so had Stu, up until a point. In any case, speaking with Eddie was at the top of the list.

As soon as they can locate the guy or his approximate whereabouts, Eddie might expect a couple of green teens dropping in. Maybe even literally if Leo's feeling up portaling.

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Of course Leo is feeling up to portaling! So Eddie can definitely expect the two of them popping up from literally nowhere. Or not expect, as the case may be.

“Alright!” says Leo as he steps through. “Where’s our perp?”

Eddie starts in surprise, guitar cords screeching unpleasantly and he moves to turn the amp of.

"Uh...hey? Welcome to my room I guess?? Also...the fuck?" he asks, shrugging his guitar strap off over his head and carefully setting his sweetheart aside. "No seriously, what is this? You heard of knocking?"

"...no. No we have not." Why would they need to knock? It's not like they have people they visit on a regular basis.

Simultaneously as he speaks, Donnie points Eddie out for Leo, not that it needs be done. "-possible perp, or at the very least a co-conspirator. Hey Eddie, we're here to ask some questions, starting with what data point you currently have, if any."

Whoa sick guitar-

Wait, no, that’s not what they’re here for.

“That’s right, Eddie, if that is your real name.” Leo moves to block off the door, very (not) subtly. “Answer his question and there won’t be any trouble.”

Has anyone told these two exactly what “good cop bad cop” means?

This feels uncomfortably familiar, and Eddie narrows his eyes.

"...and why exactly am I going to be answering questions?" What was this even about? Richie got attack recently, but that obviously wasn't him. He was-

He frowns and crosses his arms defensively.

"If you punks have questions you can ask them like normal people, or you can get the hell out."

"Ha-ha! Do we look like normal people?"

Donnie folds his arms. "But, since you are going to be difficult about this, and I'm sure you know what the matter is, then allow me to educate you. See, someone contacted Richie to draw him out prior to the attack, and that contact has been traced to your tablet. The ID had been inexpertly changed and then changed back."

“And!” adds Leo excitedly, holding up a finger accusatorially, “you have the same fashion sense as the stabber! Very 80s chic, I like it.”

He folds his arms. “But it’s a point against you, hoss.”

"..." How the hell is Eddie being accused of being a murderer again? And by a pair of fucking turtles.

He looks between them, trying to figure out if they're serious or not, a defensive scowl on his face.

"What do you mean it was traced to my tablet? I didn't even know that was a thing you could do. I'm Engineering." And Leo gets a pointed look. "Yeah...I'm from the 80s. Are there like, adults helping you with this, or are you two just playing detective and ambushing everyone around town?"

"Adults? Why?" Eddie, you're talking to two teens that have literally gone through most of their life without proper adult supervision, that card is useless.

Donnie shakes his head. "Well, I'm informing you now. 'Someone' used your tablet with or without your permission, because they did not want to be traced so easily. If you're Engineering then you wouldn't be able to alter the settings, which is why I was asking." He pauses, folding his arms again. "If that's true, anyway. Have you been lending your comm out to random people, Edward?"

Leo looks equally as perplexed at the idea of asking adults for help. Why would an adult be any better at this than them?

“Is the tablet here now?” he adds. Knowing who even has the tablet could help.

"Because I'm not getting interrogated by a couple of teenage...turtles." It was weird enough back home that all the heavy lifting was being done by a group of kids, but a regular old not psychic monster murder attempt should be handled by cops. Or at the very least a competent adult.

"It's Eddie. And who are you two exactly? Busting in here without a warrant or anything. Do I need to get a lawyer involved before I keep talking, what is this? I plead the fifth."

Eddie's response clearly isn't giving them any reason to pull back on how they're handling things. Donnie holds up a hand.

"Law doesn't exist here, so that includes any type of enforcement and lawyers, which is why some psychopath- potentially plural- has decided it would be cool to attack someone and leave them for dead. So I don't see why you aren't willing to answer questions because it is just making it look like you're guilty, compadre."

He folds his arms, frowning. "And if anyone else is working on trying to figure this out, I have no idea. Shaw, maybe. I don't know."

Leo snorts, because it’s cute that Eddie thinks there is anyone to appeal to here. What’s he going to do, call 911?

“Seriously, dude, you might as well answer us. Because we haven’t told anybody about it being your tablet that lured the victim to his almost death, but we can make that info public any time.”

"Oh, so you're blackmailing me, shit you really do sound like cops now, good job," Eddie crosses his arms right back. He might not be able to call 911, but what's to stop him from walking right out? He moves towards skirt around them to the door.

"Unfortunately for you, I don't talk to cops."

This is sure to make D&D nights awkward.

Donnie blinks, then moves to position himself in front of Eddie, even if he is shorter by a handful of inches.

"It's not blackmail, you're being pointlessly difficult! Aren't you the least bit concerned that someone could be potentially trying to frame you? And if you're not, then I don't see how this removes you from the list of possible suspects."

“Not to mention if you didn’t do it, you could be leaving your friends at risk.” Leo closes rank next to Donnie. “It’s your tablet. It’d be so easy to use it and lure Chrissy or Robin next time.”

"Right now it sounds a lot like you're trying to frame me," Eddie points out. Sure they'd come and just asked without doing a pretty literal play act of junior police raid, he might've been more cooperative.

"Are you gonna move, or am I gonna move you?" he asks, and his eyes narrow at what he perceives as a threat to his friends.

Donnie looks at Eddie, exasperated. He glances at Leo before looking back at the human again, doubling down.

"What, so you're just fine with this? You're at this point an accessory to a crime until proven that you may have had more of a hand in this. Are you not listening to Leo, because he surprisingly brings up some good points. Also, I might add, if you weren't knowingly lending out your tablet, that means someone may have been in your stuff, you consider that?"

The surprisingly warrants a sharp look from Leo. He’s going to circle back to that later when they aren’t putting up a united front!

Regardless, he isn’t moving out of the door. Good luck moving him, Eddie - he’s pretty heavy.

“Yeah, Donnie has managed to make a good point, too.” Okay, maybe he can be a little petty right now. “You can run but you can’t hide from the facts, Eduardo. It’s a pretty small town.”

"Just because I'm not gonna talk to some kids who burst into my room demanding answers like I was some kind of criminal doesn't mean I'm fine with this. Richie is my friend. And I didn't fucking hurt him. Now move." Eddie tries to shove his way through the pair of them.

Sorry Leo, Donnie will be Donnie. He doesn't manage to throw a look back because Eddie is just not cooperating. This isn't how it's supposed to go!

"So why don't you want to help find whoever did-?!"

Part of him didn't actually think that Eddie would follow through with his threat. Unfortunately Donnie's battle shell doesn't do much favors for his balance, so once he's shoved, no amount of flailing helps to right it as he tips backwards.

There it is again. Why does it even matter that they’re kids when they’re the only ones doing anything!

Before he can protest on this point, Eddie shoves through. Leo stands his ground, but Donnie falling distracts him.

“Dee!”

He forgets Eddie for the moment, instead trying to keep Donnie from falling flat on his shell, or, failing that, at least helping him up.

Shit, he was just trying to elbow past them to the door, not knock one of them on his ass. Eddie hesitates for half a second before committing, out the door and trying to figure out mentally where Steve would be at this time, chest tight.

"Ow," Donnie grunts, not sure what hurts more, his posterior or his pride. Sometimes it's a toss-up as to whether his battle shell's helpful or not, but at least he hadn't been hit hard enough to fall on his back. That's always a fun angle for his neck to deal with.

He starts to get up with Leo's assistance, catching a glimpse of Eddie as the guy leaves. "Hey-"

That...had not gone at all as planned.

It definitely did not. Leo sighs, folding his arms.

“So what now?”

Donnie echoes that sigh, running a hand over his face. "Well...that was our only direct lead. Not sure where it would have got us though. It's not like we have fingerprint records to match people with..."

He could go for some coffee right now.

"....what if...we head them off at the next attempt." Maybe he's morbid for suggesting there'd be a next time but if there's someone, perhaps even more, then if they manage to get away with things once, they'll probably try again. Way to shake up a boring, quiet place like Temba, right?

Head them off at the next attempt, huh? Well, on one hand, they are heroes. And Leo isn’t really worried about getting stabbed himself. Not unless this killer can get the jump on him and attack his head…

On the other hand, well, what if they get overpowered and stabbed in the head?

But if investigation isn’t going to get them anywhere, then this is probably the best way.

“Can’t say it’s a bad idea. But how do we know when they’re gonna strike again?”

"I don't know what the motive is here, but if they've found out that they can exploit the weaknesses in the network, they may use it again. I'll just have to code something to monitor any changes. And then there's all the security feeds, but that'll be tedious to watch..."

Donnie huffs a sigh, gesturing for Leo to follow as he heads towards the ship's replica of the Whale Come Sent Her. Since they've got data points conveniently installed here, he can just swap here.

"...wait."

He frowns. "The ships aren't covered in the security feeds. Another blind spot."

Leo follows, listening to his brother’s technobabble with his characteristic disinterest. Or at least it should be disinterest, but he’s starting to know what Donnie is talking about and now that it makes sense it’s harder to tune out than it used to be.

This place is ruining him.

“Do you think our guy knows that? If the ship’s a blind spot, and they have a way of moving without being seen…”

If Donnie only knew, he'd be so happy. Thankfully he's too focused on working out this problem to realize that Leo hasn't asked for any explanations or made any comments.

"I...actually do not know how widespread the knowledge of the installed camera network is around the city. But it's separate from the ones employed by the Agrii and our mystery audience. ...hm. I wonder if the Agrii might have information."

Thank goodness, his reputation is safe for now.

“I think we should plan around the assumption that they know about it. If they don’t, good for us, but let’s not rely on it.”

Though he looks skeptical about that thought.

“Who knows… but you know them better, so maybe Te Mi will tell you.”

"Yeah..." Donnie frowns. He looks less than convinced about being the one who knows the Agrii better, but he can't really argue when it comes to Te Mi.

"Can't hurt to ask. Someone's usually watching, unless things have gotten even more intense with all that faction stuff that was happening." Hopefully not, but it isn't like the Agrii have been very forthcoming on their personal matters. He sighs.

"Well, I'll contact him and see what's up. And I'll tackle that codework. What about you?" An open invitation although he doubts Leo will volunteer to do code anything, but Donnie also knows his brother's generally better with people so...maybe he'll have a different angle of approach.

Leo’s still edgy about doing any kind of codework since the pod. And anyway, he’s not the type to stay cooped up inside all day.

“I think I’m going to make my services available, to protect people. May hear more that way… and if our guy does attack again, maybe I can stop it.”

Donnie nods at that. "All right. Sounds good," he says, hesitating. "...be careful, okay?"

He knows Leo can take care of himself, but things are weird here and what if the attacker turns out to be someone they know? The thought doesn't sit well in his stomach, and he barely manages to keep it from surfacing on his face before smoothing it out into something more neutral as he lifts his hand, offering a fist to Leo.

Leo sees that hesitation, and in response he offers Donnie his most carefree smile, reaching up to bump knuckles.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry! We’ll catch this guy and everything will go back to… relative normal.”

He drops his hand. “Try not to stay up all night working on the code, alright?”

With that smile, Donnie can't help but pull up his own in return. Leo will be Leo.

"Haha, right." Relative normal was at least slightly better than having a mystery killer running around, he supposes.

He turns, waving a hand as he heads off to get a mental update. Such a love-hate relationship with those data points. "No promises."

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Kidding Myself, Turning Wrong Into Right

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