[ OOC: I've been reading through your posts and am blown away by not just you but WCC2 in general's skill level. I haven't RPed in years and I don't think I was ever at this level, so please bear with me! Feel free to critique me & do anything you want to Blue. I'm also still not 100% there with the PI culture so if I get anything wrong let me know. Lastly, I hope I assumed the right character, since you didn't mention his name lol ]

Blue's initial reaction was silence. While not her intention, curiosity and the smell of blood drew her in like a net, and it turned out to trap her just as effectively. Blue was fresh out of her Trainee days and had never spoken directly to the nemesis before, much less be alone with him. While not a nervous cat by nature, she was certainly a bit shell-shocked to find herself in this situation, especially since it was unintentional. She should have recognized his sent from fox-lengths away. She was used to the reek of blood - that it masked the scent was no excused. Embarrassment warmed her ears to tail tip.
"Funk E-tan," she bowed her head, "Shall I clean this up for you?"
She needed a reason to be there, and clean up was a good a chore as any, as laughable as it was. The dead kittypet was nearly twice her size, after all, but she'd figure it out one way or another if that was her directive. Part of her wanted to be dismissed. Another part of her was deeply curious about why the murder even occurred. Kittypets were hardly a worthy opponent - he may as well be smothering kits in their sleep. She would have asked any other cat for the details.

[ Thank you for the warm welcome... and advice! Haha ]

Blue's ears swiveled back. Did he.. not recognize her? She didn't really stand out, sure, but it had only been a couple of moons since her ceremony. Before she had a chance to offer her name, Funk began to carve into the corpse, and she dismissed the thought.

While somewhat unsettling, it was pleasing to watch as the nemesis's razor-sharp claw dredge its way through its target. Her eyes focused on the small drops of blood that welled at each stroke, like lines of deathberries maturing on their stem. It was clear the poor kittypet had not been dead long. Upon closer inspection, she noticed the corpse seemed uninjured, aside from the wounds Funk was scoring before her eyes. Did he somehow kill it without leaving a mark? The thought made her shiver will equal parts fear and curiosity.

The seemingly delicate tears blossomed into gruesome lacerations as Funk progressed. She wanted to look away, but if she wasn't watching his paws, where else would she look? Not in the eyes, that would be a challenge, and not away, that would betray weakness. As the blood pooled, she began to hold her breath, becoming more and more uncomfortable, but also increasingly curious. His comment about Corax gave her his goal, but how he would get there was a mystery to her.

The silence may have continued forever had not Funk pulled "Black" from her reprieve.
"Blue," she corrected, a reproachful tone in her voice, "My name is Blue."

She paused for a moment and shifted her weight from her left paw to her right, "I intend to continue my patrol if you do not need my assistance... however.. I won't ask you to explain, but... do you mind if I, uh, observe?"

[ I'm sorry it took so long for me to reply! My sister's bachelorette was this weekend, need I say more? lol ]

"I'm not going to throw up." Blue affirmed quietly... while her stomach did somersaults. Funk should have never asked her what she thought, because whatever she answered would be wrong, and he would think her a fool. It's not like she could be blamed for her lack of knowledge; she'd never been trained, after all. Yet, it was not in Blue's nature to give up without a try, so she smothered her insecurities and took a step closer to the body. She flinched ever so slightly when the still-warm blood soaked her paw pads and took a deep breath.

The kittypet's corpse looked like any other; pudgy, soft, un-scarred. Its collar had one of those singing pebbles on it, bright and silver like a fish scale, which at least clued her in that this cat was not stealthy. He would have been a particularly easy kill. Lifting her paw, Blue carefully moved the cat's neck from side to side, but didn't get any resistance or hear any crunching. She removed her paw, leaving a small red blossom on his cheek. His neck had not been broken. His eyes were unseeing, but still bright, no gunk or tear stains. She couldn't bring herself to force open his jaw, although she fiddled with it for a moment before changing gears and looking at his paws. Pink and un-calloused, like a kit. He didn't smell like a sick cat, but the sweet rot of death had already started to cling to his pelt. She closed her eyes and leaned closer, taking another whiff, but she didn't pick up anything alarming. It was unusually difficult with this corpse, since he was a kittypet; every kittypet had a foreign element to its scent that she could never hope to recognize. It was like a smokescreen. She would have had better luck detecting abnormalities with a Clan cat.

Blue had avoided looking at the guts up until now, but surely Funk had been carving up the cat for some reason. She looked briefly at the Nemesis's crimson handy-work which exposed this kittypet's stomach cavity. The only time she had ever seen anything like it was when she dissected a mouse for fun as a Trainee. She didn't understand it then and she certainly didn't understand it now. Blue let out a quiet sigh and stepped away from the body, a little unsteady.

"I do not think this kittypet died by your claw," she meowed evenly, her eyes unfocused, deep in thought "It had to be something like deathberries, although I didn't smell anything funny. Who knows what it ate or drank, stupid cats drop all the time by eating whatever twolegs leave out for them." 

As light came back to her blue eyes, she quickly bowed her head low to the ground, ears pinned back, heart rate increasing ever so slightly,"I apologize for speaking to you so casually just now, Funk E'tan..."

[ my goal is still to post at least once a day - sorry for the delay again !! I started this one a couple different times but nothing felt quite right, hopefully it's not too boring lol ] 

Blue hesitated for a moment, frazzled by Funk's sudden touch, but soon registered what he had asked her to do and took the opportunity to step away from him and closer to the body. She peered at the exposed stomach cavity, successfully choking back her unease... at least in the moment... and tried to understand what she was looking at. Blue was not sure what to call what she saw, but to her they appeared to be several different lumps of flesh, all different shades of colors, textures and sizes. It was hard to make sense of it, especially in light of what she was looking for - what had Funk meant, look at what it ate? Nothing in here looked like food to her, despite the fact the moments ago she had compared it to a mouse... something about knowing this was another cat made the idea of eating it totally ludicrous. Blue had no idea how some cats did it. She had to be be sick in the head to even lick the blood from her paws.

Focus. She had been standing still and staring for too long, her thoughts wandering off topic. From what Funk had last touched, she could safely assume that the largest bag-shaped one was the one he wanted her to cut open. Was that where the food went? She felt her own stomach anxiously twist. Blue lifted her paw with precision and - much more delicately than Funk had done it - attempted to cut a horizontal slit. However, the flesh she was cutting was stretchy - she left little more than a scratch. Embarrassed, she went over her original mark again, but made it deeper, and the slit became wide enough to smell something foul on the inside. She felt bile rise in the back of her throat, and choked it back, she would not throw up.

"How does it... I mean, uh, is that enough?" Blue said, "Actually, wait a moment..." She realized now that she should have mimicked her cut the same way Funk had done it. It would have made it much easier to look inside. To make up for her oversight, she carved another slit to form an "x" shape. She pulled back the flaps to improve the view. Well, Funk's view. Blue had been holding her breath until now and hardly looked at the contents.

[ very true ! lol I now realize that there's a user that goes by Blue because I was researching Corax, so at some point, after some big character development moment or something, I will change her name or just let Funk do it ]

Blue's ears were swiveled toward Funk while he spoke. She was listening intently, and actually watching, too. While still objectively disgusting, as Funk described what he was doing and how this particular organ worked, she become less and less repulsed by it. Learning more about the unknown made it less scary, after all. This wasn't all that different than exploring new territory. Just messier.

She found it fascinating that this one sack, the stomach, had so many components, which naturally lead her to wonder about the others - what did they do? If the acids were still digesting food even post mortem, were there other organs still working, too? If any were working at all, wouldn't that classify the subject as living? No, to think the body laying in front of her was anything less than deceased was ridiculous. There must be one organ in particular that either worked or didn't that defined life or death. Whatever that was, it was certainly dead in the case of this poor kittypet.

The small black she-cat was clearly lost in though, her rapt listening at the start having become more passive. She was aware that Funk had found a berry and was evaluating it, but she would not have been able to quote him. In fact, she had gotten herself so caught up in her own musings that she had momentarily forgotten her paws were literally inside of a corpse.

"Oh, you can stop now." She heard Funk say, dragging her back to the moment. She did not hesitate to step away as directed, but she misjudged her footing, causing one of her paws that was still in the stomach cavity to lose its grip and slide right into the digestive mire. Blue stood still as a frightened rabbit as the seconds ticked by.

"Yuck!" She finally yelped, yanking her paw from the fluid, little droplets of acid flying. She dashed a couple fox-lengths away, where wrenching sounds could be heard shortly afterward. Another few more minutes passed before she sauntered back with her ears pinned to the back of her head, completely beside herself with embarrassment.

"Did you figure out what that berry was?," she mewed, very quickly, she had been reciting the line. Blue noticed - first by smell, then by sight - that some bile had gotten onto Funk from her momentary freak-out. It looked very much like what she had just buried around the corner... If she'd been religious, she would have made her peace with her creator back when she was burying her sick. If he's going to kill me, at least let it be quick.

[ I kinda wanted to change her name from the get-go - my character's personalities usually change a little bit once I actually RP them. I figured once she was more fleshed out I would give her a name more apt. I gotta say though, I read Funk's bio on your characters thread and you clearly don't have the same problem I do! Just from this roleplay alone, everything lined up perfectly with that bio, I'm impressed lol ]

"Yes sir." Blue agreed immediately. She had picked up on the change of tone in Funk's voice. She knew he was the type of cat that didn't really show anger, but she thought she sensed some hostility. She hoped she had imagined it...

Even though she had agreed with no question, she didn't know what to use other than brute force to break the ribs. Breaking them that way would likely damage the organs underneath, which was obviously what Funk's wanted to inspect. The small black she-cat leaned over the corpse again to view the ribs, no longer hesitating, it wasn't like she could throw up again and, besides, she now had a new-found confidence thanks to adrenaline. Blue reckoned that the point of curvature on the rib was a weak point, as it was one of the places she had been trained to target in a fight. The only problem was that they were curving the wrong way to make an easy break.

Blue decided her best bet would be to slide something under the ribs, then push down from the outside. This would raise them above the organs as to not damage them when the break happened. Her options were fairly limited in this regard, as the only thing long and thick enough to do the job would be a stick or some sort of twoleg post. The stick would probably break before the rib. So, she'd have to find something twoleg-related, and a specific item came to mind. Unfortunately, it was several houses down and would take some time to reach it... but Blue wasn't one to hesitate. She'd take a sure-fire solution now rather than waste time trying to figure out something else.
---
She returned to Funk's side after ten or so minutes had elapsed and dropped a long, flat, silver stick at Funk's feet. She was panting heavily and already felt soreness in the base of her neck from carrying such an awkward item for so long. 

"This should work," she said with more confidence than she really had. 

[ this one took me some time to think it through, not sure if this was what you were thinking, I will not be offended if Funk tells her it's stupid lol ]

[ thanks, I will let you know! I want her to be more hard core later, I'll put her through hell sometime. She's a little too kind hearted for a PI cat imo lol ]

"No, that's not what I was thinking. I'll show you," Blue mewed a quietly, but with boldness that had not really been present up until now. She padded over to Funk's side and pulled the silver stick out of the body, then carefully laid it parallel. It was a little wider that she'd like it to be, but she was still confident it would work.

Awkwardly, but with finesse, she slid her tool into the body like a sheath, careful to keep it as close to the ribcage as possible. She felt some push back and forced her way through, feeling a slight tear, but at this point there was no holding back. She pushed down on the rib closest to the handle. The whole body moved, more than on Funk's half-hearted attempt, but the rib didn't break.

"Let my try one more time.." This time, the small she-cat reared on her hind legs, and pushed down with all the force she could muster on the same spot.

Snap!

Just one rib. Blue was not a strong cat. She backed away from the body and turned to Funk, a look on her face like the cat who finally got the canary, "See?"

[ Okay I'm at work so I can't really reply BUT here's my wonderful sketch, hope it clears things up just a lil. Is it something that could actually happen? Who knows, but I wanna roll with it... I'll really reply when I'm off work around 1900 central ]

(aw i loved your picture)

Quite the opposite, Funk walked away for a bit as Blue cracked the ribs. Stepping into the sunlight again, he stretched, tense muscles finally loosening. It was a mildly gruesome task, which made it all the better for grunt work. For as much as he didn't mind doing his own work, he really ought to actually flaunt his power like a leader. This little experiment had gone on longer than he expected, and he rubbed his bloody paws against the damp grass. In the background, he caught the faint snaps of ribs, counting to himself quietly. Once a sufficient number had been removed, he made his way back into the grove, appearing suddenly back behind Blue as she got the last one.

"Good work." The lungs and heart were a good bit beat up, but Funk didn't really care. His somewhat clean paws were quickly muddied again as he stepped up towards the head. Leaning over, he slashed one of the lungs opened and peeled them apart. Moving the kittypet a little so he could look all across the emptied cavity, a hum brushed it's way out of his mouth. That's what the berry was, huh. "Great, our little experiment is done. Not bad for only throwing up once."