[Saga] Enter, Searchlight Touring Division!

"When you're a marine, you don't know when a mission might go sideways, when the stakes are always too high to just quit, when you can't just give up half-way and come back with nothing to show for your effort. Yes, this division was founded on the principle that we will never, ever, ever stop looking for our targets even if it means we don't return to headquarters for months, or years, or ever! If we find even one missing person, it's worth it, because that's one life that would have otherwised never been saved. Other marines save the many with their efforts, and we fill in the gaps by saving the few, that is why our work is so important and we can't cut any corners."

"Okay, but why are you taking my wallet?"

As Captain Henry Connivis gave his whole speech about the wondrous morality of his division, the citizen questioned his actioned again even though he had just given the speech! Surely this must be some sort of defective model of citizen, because normal citizens could not be this stupid. But Henry didn't mind, simply clicking a few of his internal gears together and setting himself on repeat as he continued to search through the citizen's wallet for missing persons while collecting 'donations' to the marine cause along the way, which he was certain any upstanding citizen would not be opposed to.

"When you're a marine..." Henry began as he automatically did the speech again, perfectly word for word and tone for tone like he was just a recording. Meanwhile, he took a headcount: Dorian, Aoi, and Maru were all in sight aiding in this investigation after a tip that a missing person was hiding in people's belongings. This tip came from Maru, of course. The bounty hunter may not have been a marine like the rest of them, but darn if this guy did not have a lot of connections! He was the source of 95% of their tips, even if most if not all of them turn out to be total busts!

They were currently at the gates where the main road within Toroa met the large port town of Avar, checking anybody coming in or out of the area. The walls were high, especially high given the island culture, but the local lord, Duke Tater, explained that his financial success had the other cities jealous and they would often send brigands after him, making such security measures necessary. It sounded reasonable enough and no reason whatsoever to look into that, since Tater was a good lord who supported the marine presence in Toroa.

Stationed at the gates of Toroa was a crew known as the Searchlight Touring Division. It's more or less a military group that travels around the world, finding missing persons to reunite them with their families or friends, by force if necessary. Their captain Henry Connivis was passionate about finding these missing persons, giving a speech to a civilian of what the searchlight division was all about app while checking through the man's belongings. Maru was a resident missing persons hanging around with the marine group, he got a tip from his Genie that there was a missing persons hidden in someone's belongings. Their Captain, trusting Maru's tip from his Genie jumped at the chance and started to check everyone to see where the missing person was hiding. Taking a few donations for their noble cause while he's at it, Maru made sure no one came in or out of the gate without being searched. Hands resting on his stomach in case he needed to call upon his Genie to grant him a wish or two.

"Do not fear civilian! We are looking for a missing person hiding in someone's belongings!" the masked man yelled, putting his hands on his hips. "I Maru, the mystical human lamp, was told that by my great and powerful Jinn herself! Who can't trust a Genie's tips, they are magical!" Maru exclaimed, hearing his Genie giggling in his head. His face turned sour, responding to the giggling by hitting himself in the head a few times but the guy didn't seem convinced.

"If you have a Genie can't you just wish the missing person to you?"

Maru laughed. "The gods will have my Jinn banned if they could grant wishes like that, they can only help you find someone not teleport them to you." he explained. His Genie was powerful but it had so many rules you have to follow you'd think it's one of those fairies from that Fairly Odd Parents show. Only instead of granting a wish to the best of their abilities they often purposely screw it up if you aren't specific enough. That's how Jinn's realistically, guess the gods were sick of people wishing for wealth and decided to nerf their abilities to grant the crazier wishes so they'll be a supernatural helper. With the explanations out of the way, Maru went back to making sure the people that they had to check were in a single file line, keeping an eye peeled for any pirates in the area just in case they will have to battle. Even if this turned out to be a trick by his Jinn at least they'll have the donations which usually comes out of their taxed anyway.

“What’s this?” Aoi said as he drew a worn blunderbuss pistol from a small knapsack. He carefully inspected the firearm before turning his attention to the owner of said bag: a small boy no older than eight or nine years old. “Alright,” he began to cautiously remove the bullets from the loaded weapon. “What are you doing carrying something like this around?” He sternly asked; eyeing the child suspiciously. “Umm…” began the boy. "For my protection?” he said; smiling as if proud of his answer. Aoi sighed before signalling for the boy to step to the side. “I’ll hold on to this. Please just go stand over there for now. I’ll get to you in a bit.” The young marine pointed over at a group of men and women standing off to the side of the mighty gate. He would ignore any direct attempt by the child to protest the confication.

Up to now, Aoi and the rest of his crew had been checking people for what genuinely felt like hours. Apart from the people in the “questionable group” he’d set aside, he had yet to come across anything too serious among the people he checked. To top it all off, the bright sun was out in all its glory; blasting everyone with its rays. Needless to say, he'd likely be complaining about the heat if it weren’t for the cool sea breeze sweeping the area.

Aoi hoped this wasn’t another one of Maru’s red herrings. They’d practically grown accustomed to those.
“Can we get a move on?! I have things to do!” yelled out a random citizen from among the crowd. Others joined in voicing their displeasure with the situation.

“Everyone just remain calm and make a single file, please. We also want to get this over with as soon as possible, believe me.” replied Aoi, motioning for the next person in line to come forward; this time an elderly woman. He speedily rummaged through the lady’s luggage before nodding approvingly; it was nothing but clothing and standard accessories. Most of the luggage he checked today was much the same. “You’re free to proceed, ma’am.” Aoi said with a smile that the elderly woman would mimic. He adjusted the standard-issue marine cap he’d decided to dawn for today before repeating the process.

“Next in line.”

"I need to inspect your bag, sir, you're beginning to obstruct our investigation..." Dorian faced a mule of a man, his obstinacy grating on the Marine like nails on a blackboard. His face was stoic, impassive, betraying nothing. Whatever he had to do, Dorian would get this man out of his sight, whether it be willingly or kicking and screaming.

"I would prefer not to have to use force." Dorian states, a neutral tone with a hint of a threat, at the peripheral of notice.

"I don't get why I need to go through this anyway. I've never had to do it before, I'm not harbouring anything illegal!" It seemed to do the trick. The man had finally spoken more than a sentence at a time, but he was beginning to go on the defensive. Follow up with a gentler tone, move away from pushing him too far, but deflect him from answering more questions.

"I'm afraid that's-"

Cut off from dismissing the man's enquiries as 'classified', Dorian restrained himself from grinding his teeth into dust as his... Well, as Maru shrieked about following a tip from a jinn so loud the dead could hear it. The man was a nuisance at the best of times, and his squawking and buffoonery hardly helped the professional image Dorian strived to uphold. Although, to be fair, a quick side glance showed his captain was hardly much better, with his pocketing - ahem, collecting - from people.

"We're investigating the possibility of a criminal hiding among people's belongings. It's possible they own some manner of Devil Fruit that allows them to shrink to such a small size, so we mustn't leave any stone unturned. Now, your bag? Thank you." At last, victory. A quick rummage through revealed no tiny criminals.

"You're free to go, sir. Thank you for complying. Next!" Did this queue ever end? It seemed to fill with twice the amount of people they managed to check.

"Your bag, please, for inspection."

Henry was glad to see everybody doing their job properly. Still, the citizens were getting antsy... too antsy, as if they had something (or someone) to hide. Henry didn't get hunches now that he was a clockwork person, just a few gears click in his head, but this was one of those moments.

"Everybody, the missing person is definitely here, double our effort!"

With that order to the rest of his men, Henry stepped in front of an arriving wagon, raising his hands to slow the horses to a halt. It was a well kept wooden cart driven by two burly farmer types, a man and a woman. The man had his face down with a cigarette in his mouth while the woman looked up and smiled at Henry.

"Problem, sir?" the male farmer asked.

"Just new and one-time routine inspections, no need to worry," Henry explained as he gestured for Dorian to come over. "Dorian, why don't you search for the missing person hiding in the wagon!"

At that sentence, the farmers stiffened up. Henry tilted his head, noticing that their breath was held for 0.2 seconds longer than before and their natural twitches seemed to increase by twofold. What an odd reaction to a perfectly normal inspection... unless... that had something to hide. Upon this conclusion, Henry would ready certain programs in his body, gears realigning themselves to set into motion the automatic process of shooting these two farmers at a moment's notice. Suspicious, suspicious... of course, until Dorian unveiled what they were hiding, Henry would stay his hand in case it was some sort of silly misunderstanding.

Maru looked over when Aoi seemingly found a weapon on a nine-year-old's person, confiscating the weapon and telling the child to stand off to the side of the gate. Maru decided to aid in the search by randomly searching people he was most suspicious of since he knew in his gut that they will find the missing persons in this random search, the bounty hunter raising his hand to a lady in the crowd with a large red leather purse. "Your purse madam. Hand it over." he demanded politely with his hand raised and the young woman hesitantly obeyed with a few eyerolls. Maru opened the purse up, rummaging through its contents as he asked the lady a few questions. "You don't have anything that'll poke me in here right?" he asked while he continued rummaging around through the purse. The woman assured him that there was nothing in there that was illegal and demanded for him to hurry up with his search. Maru flicked his hand dismissively at the woman.

"You can move along lady if you want. But I think I'll confiscate this purse for safe keeping." he said.

"YOU'RE GONNA CONFISCATE WHAT! BUT I HAVE NOTHING ILLEGAL!" the woman yelled.

"Look. You have a lot of lipstick, feminine products, and a lot of other things in this purse. The missing person we are looking for is most likely a devil fruit user. How to I know they aren't a purse, a wallet, barries, or even a…. Shoot gotta be PG but you get the geist." Maru explained. "I'm a human lamp, so if I can be part lamp someone could be a purse. Don't worry, I'll return it if you have your I.D in here. Next! Pretty woman with a purse please!" he screamed, the woman stomping off without her purse. Maru took the berries  before throwing the purse into the pile of things they confiscated. Captain Henry was sire the missing person was here, telling the crewmates to double their efforts which meant Maru got to take more purses from beautiful women so he'd have their berries and their IDs should he felt like… seducing a few.

Maru ended up collecting a lot of berries that was until a wagon rolled up which made the masked bounty hunter squint. 'Hey lamp! You're about to go bananas in a minute!' Maru's jinn mocked him in his head which he responded by hitting himself in the head to quiet the genie down before putting his hands on his stomach in case Dorian might end up being blown up. "Don't worry Darwin! Maru, the Mystical Human Lamp, shall keep you covered!" Maru declared, blowing a puff a magical smoke out his ears like a train as if prepared for something to jump out of the wagon even though he didn't know exactly what he was getting himself ready against. 'Alright don't do something stupid, you're gonna go bananas in exactly 60 seconds, you have one whole minute to just stand here and be cool. Avoid wilding out like you always do and the Jinn's fortune won't come true. 61 seconds. 61.'

“You’re good to go, sir.” Aoi said as he allowed another person past the gate. The next citizen in line walked up to him seconds after. It was a young woman and her infant child this time. “If you don’t mind,” she started; handing Aoi the bag she was carrying with one hand and holding the child’s hand in the other. “Mind telling me why it is that everyone’s luggage is getting checked? I overheard a couple of different reasons while in the crowd, but I can’t really tell who’s right or wrong.” The young adult sighed before responding.“Well, let’s just say we’re looking for someone. We haven’t had much luck though, unfortunately…” Aoi trailed off for a moment as a wagon caught his eye. He quickly went back to checking the lady’s bag as he saw that Henry and the rest of the fellas were taking care of it. “All clear here. You’re good to go, ma’am!” He said with a smile.

“Thank you… er…”

“Aoi” The young man interjected.

“Yes, Aoi. Say bye-bye to Aoi, Roger” she instructed the infant.

“Bye-bye!” said the baby; waving as he and his mother walked away

“Bye-bye!” he would respond; waving back.

Aoi briefly looked back over where the wagon was to see how things were going. He  considered going over to join the others for a bit, but figured it was likely for their target to slip through if everyone was distracted. Not just that, but he doubted the civilians would appreciate having to wait much longer than they already were.

“Oi, mister.” Aoi turned to find the child from earlier at his side once again. “Can I get my gun back? I’ve been standing against the wall for hours.” The young adult shook his head. “It's barely been fifteen minutes. Your sense of time must suck.”

“Fifteen minutes is a long time for us kids!”

“Yeah... I’m sure it is. Next in line!”

Nothing, nothing, and still yet nothing. Dorian's other civilians in the queue were less tenacious than the man before - praise be. There was still a level of impatience, though - understandable, given how bottle-necked the search had made the entrance. “How much longer will this take?” “What is this search even for?” Dorian thought he heard in the murmurs of the crowd.

“Next!”

From the corner of his eye, Dorian notes a wagon trundling up to the entrance - perhaps a better lead than the monotonous rummaging done previously. And technically, the wagon was a belonging… maybe this is what the tip-off meant?

At the captain’s request, Dorian walks up to the wagon and begins to take a look inside. A surface glance revealed… bananas. Quite a lot of bananas, at that, perhaps enough for a person to hide amongst. Leaning further in, Dorian begins to rummage, arms swimming through the sea of yellow searching for something suspect. And yet, still nothing. Could the culprit have a banana Devil Fruit? The prospect wasn’t off the table, but proof was… tenuous. And how would it be proven? Destroying every banana, one at a time? Messy at best, destruction of property at worst.

“I can only find bananas, Captain. I don’t think the missing person is in here.” Back to the grindstone it was then, though Dorian waits for any further comment or instruction before wandering off.

"Bananas? That's... rather innocuous, I have to admit," Henry said, a little disappointed by the simple discovery of fruit. That said, something wasn't right here. He was certain that these fellows were hiding something, but even beyond that something was profoundly wrong with this. Could Maru's tip be wrong? Impossible, the captain wouldn't even consider the thought! The clockwork man instead made his way to the back of the wagon to take a look himself, not that he didn't trust Dorian. It was just as he said, they were just bananas, ripened to that nice yellow-green point... wait a moment...

"Where did you say you were coming from?" Henry asked the farmers, whose dilated pupils and stiffened breathing told him they knew exactly where they were going with this line of questioning.

"We didn't. Came from Asin, booked it double-time for the profit, you see," the farmer answered, a single drop of sweat rolling down their cheek.

"Yes, I thought it odd to see bananas in Avar. Closest banana plantations are in Asin, as you say, which are at least a week away. Bananas would surely go rotten by the time they reach here, but if you went double-time as you say, that might just make this trip plausible, except..." Henry paced rhythmically around to the side of the wagon, pointing at the wheels. "the lack of wear and tear on these wheels don't match your story, so why don't you save us the trouble and tell us who you are?"

Like a cowboy, Henry brushed his hands against his holsters, flexing his fingers. "Aoi, Maru, get over here! You and Dorian search these liars. Maru and I will cover you."

As Maru stood there perfectly still, not doing anything as Darwin went to search for the wagon hoping that he wouldn't do anything to mess anything up. When Darwin searched the wagon, the bounty hunter waited with his hands on his stomach to see what the Marine had found which made his heart sink. 'B-Bananas? He found ACTUAL bananas?' this changed everything! So it wasn't Maru who was about to go bananas, the banana wagon was a clue to where the missing person was! Maru could see Captain Henry was having his doubts of the missing person being around here but the bounty hunter decided to speak up on the hint that his Jinn told him. "Captain Henry, I believe the missing person is using the bananas somehow. My Jinn told me that I was about to go bananas in a minute…." Maru gritted his teeth getting serious as he looked towards the farmers. "Sixty seconds later, Darwin says he found bananas. Look closely at the wagon Captain you'll see why I'm suspicious!"

Maru slowly approached the wagon to take a look inside but also to defend the Captain should an ambush happen. He saw the bananas, they were all perfectly ripened without the slightest hint of bruising which on its own was suspicious and his captain must've noticed it too. Maru remained silent when Henry questioned the so called farmers who were trying to cover their tracks by stating that he booked here which could explain why the bananas were in the condition that they were in…. But Henry could see through the man's lies, exposing the fact that the bananas would've gone bad traveling that far and that if they booked it 'double-time' as he told them there would be wear on the wheels. The Captain was convinced that these farmers were lying to them so he ordered Darwin and Aio to search these clowns while Maru and Henry covered them. By now, it looked like it was Genie summoning time so Maru began to rub his stomach in a circular motion, the room going dark and his stomach began to glow a dull pink light before- POOF! Maru's Jinn appeared with a puff of pink smoke holding a giant halberd. Floating behind Maru like a bored goddess was a pointy eared tanned woman with lavender hair made into a ponytail with a gold scrunchy, purple eyes, and wearing a rather revealing pristine violet two piece bikini with her top being held together by a gold diamond shaped accessory. The Genie also had gold stars floating around her head, gold diamond shaped earrings, a violet choker with a red eye amulet on it along with matching violet sleeves which had stars and gold wristbands that had some ancient arbric writing on them.

Maru's Genie Gaki popping her bubblegum, spinning the halberd in her hands giving Maru one of her 'I told ya so's' "See you just gotta trust me lamp. I know what I'm doing." said the Genie. Maru kept his eyes on the farmer with a serious look. "You move or twitch the wrong way Ol' MacDonald and my Genie obliterate you!" Maru threatens. "Was that a wish?" the Genie asked, poking Maru with the sharp objects. "No just a threat, I'll let you know what I want in a moment.

Aoi left his post and made to walk over to the others when called over by Henry. There must've been something about what was in the wagon that caught the attention of his comrades; especially if it required the attention of all four of them. "I'll be right back folks, sorry!" He said addressing the remaining crowd of civilians as he walked; receiving grunts and yells of displeasure in response. Sure enough, Aoi came to realize what the discovery was once he strolled over to Dorian's side. A large heap of bananas; all of them in surprisingly good condition.

"This is all they have with them?" He said aloud; all the while reaching for one of the yellow fruit. Once grabbed, Aoi brought the fruit closer to him for further inspection; now holding it with both hands. One thing that did seem off to him off the bat was the banana's weight. Was he mistaken? Or was this the heaviest single banana he'd ever held in his life?  

"Oi, Dorian." He'd say holding out the 'fruit' to his comrade. "You were the one to discover this right? Doesn't their weight seem a bit... off?" Giving Dorian a chance to see for himself, he addressed Maru and Henry. "Something's strange about the weight of these bananas guys! Here!" He tossed one over to pair keeping an eye on the farmers.

The shadowy lies surrounding these bananas were peeled away one by one by each of the marines - and bounty hunter. The keen insight of the captain set off a chain, starting with discrepancies between the transporters' story and the wear and tear of the wagon. Despite his idiosyncrasies, Henry's aptitude was a saving grace for Dorian. His habits were somewhat aggravating, but he was competent at his job.

Then the perfect ripeness of the bananas, pointed out by Maru. It was clear they weren't ordinary bananas, at the very least. A special breed designed to ripen slowly didn't make sense, either - why would it be kept a secret from the Marines? Rival merchants would make sense, but this was the law. Maybe his genie - and if he'd learn the right name, Maru himself - could be counted as a somewhat credible source. There was something to be found in this lead, at the very least.

Finally, the weight. Catching the 'banana' thrown to him, the jigsaw pieces fit into place. The weight was familiar, and the shape bared a resemblance... shifting his grip on the banana to a similar way one might hold a gun, Dorian confirms his suspicions.

"Hm, I see. Aoi, could you tell the civilians to keep well away? I'm concerned something might break out." Taking a few steps towards the farmers, Dorian levels the banana at one of them. His grip tightens, before he switches his aim to the wagon and attempts to fire.

"Would you like to explain why you're bringing a wagon full of guns into this city, then?"