The Beginning

by PandaPjays

It begins with fire.

It always does, really. Someone strikes a light and a new life is born. Like any other life, fire will struggle for survival in even the harshest of conditions, clinging to life with the kind of tenacity that is so often celebrated in inspirational movies. And that life is glorious; that life is filled with beauty and unpredictability and light.

He smiled as the fire slowly consumed the match he was holding. People often forget that, like any being struggling for life, fire will consume and destroy the things around it. Like animals, like people, fire will prioritise its own survival over that of its surroundings.

He licked his finger and snuffed out the flame.

For him, everything ended in fire.

-o-

Robert Jurgen was rich. Filthy Filthy rich. And he wasn't apologetic about it.

Other people in his class (That is, the class most people can't afford the stationary for) had an absurd feeling of guilt. Like they should somehow be ashamed of the silver spoons they'd been born with, of the castle they grew up in and of the incredibly attractive gold diggers throwing themselves at their feet. They tried to appease this guilt through charity work or, God forbid, living like normal people.

Robert generally regarded such people as being a special brand of crazy. He liked that the most stressful part of his day was organising his next tennis match. He liked that he didn't know what the inside of a supermarket looked like.

He also liked the way his status took away any and all risk. No matter what he did, even if his endeavours failed miserably, he always had the money to fall back on. It meant that whatever he did was always purely for entertainment; He did things purely to see if he could get away with them.

Last year it had been dabbling in some good. old fashioned embezzlement. He had delighted in the way that by simply switching a few numbers and columns around he could make money disappear and turn up quite naturally in his own bank accounts. Not that he needed it, mind you, but it was interesting seeing just how easy it all was.

But boring.

Now he was into something that required much more skill, much more finesse.

Art Forgery.

Not that he actually had to dirty his hands with any kind of paint (or turpentine or whatever it is they used. Robert made it his business not to know these things). Oh No. He had people for that. Currently he employed Oliver Polanski, a ridiculously talented Frenchman who had fallen behind on payments to some less than savoury people in the city. He was trading his work and silence for a modest cut and Robert's protection.

When it came down to it, Robert was just the one who brought it all together. He sourced the correctly dated canvas, the paints made and mixed in the same way long dead artists would have done it. He helped convince gullible people that he had just uncovered a long lost Monet or that he had been hiding a Matisse long thought destroyed in his private collection. He didn't handle the mechanics of the business but, without him, it wouldn't run.

And business was good.

His phone began buzzing in his pocket. He sighed and fished for it, checking the caller ID before answering. "Yeah, Johnny?"

"I just got off the phone with that Italian shmuck He keeps asking after the Cezanne we hinted at last month."

Okay, so Robert didn't handle everything by himself. His best friend and partner in the eternal struggle to always find something more entertaining than whatever they were already doing did his part. Mostly that part involved actually talking to people. Johnny had the ability to make people like him simply by flashing his cocky smirk. Robert... not so much.

"French put the finishing touches on that only last week. We still need at least a month to process and check all the details. Stall him."

"If it's so far away from being ready, why did you tell me to start pushing it? There's such thing as too early, you know."

Robert smirked, "If you can't handle it..."

"Oh shut up. I'm not the one who's trying to sell off fake art he doesn't even have." Though his words were annoyed, Robert could hear the smile in his friend's voice. Johnny would take care of it. He always did. "Am I still right to stay at yours tomorrow? I'm flying in at midday."

Robert looked around the huge room he was sitting in. "It'll be difficult finding room for you, it's quite an imposition, you know, but I'm sure I'll manage."

Johnny laughed, "Yeah, whatever. See you tomorrow."

"Goodbye." Robert ended the call and sighed, tossing the phone on to a convenient table. He lay down on the couch he'd been sitting on. He was looking forward to seeing Johnny again. It'd been a few months since he'd last seen his friend. On the face of it, Johnny was coming to collect the latest pieces Oliver had finished. In reality, they would probably spend their time catching up, plotting what they would do next when the world of forged artwork lost its appeal. Robert could already feel the slight uneasiness in the pit of his stomach that often signalled that it was time to move on.

He closed his eyes and relaxed. He even might fit in a few chess games with Johnny. Maybe the Scotsman had gotten better.

He felt the bag fit over his head and a cord tighten around his neck. He cried out and struggled to sit up. Strong arms held him down.

"You did this to me." A voice, too laced with anger to be recognisable.

"What? Wha—" He managed before he felt a prick in his arm. The arms held him down as he struggled against whatever was coursing through his system until his arms and legs wouldn't respond anymore. As his body relaxed, Robert strained to do something anything.

But he couldn't, He could still feel his arms as they were bound tightly to the couch he was lying on. He could feel the way the rope bit into his sensitive skin, the way the hands tying the knots moved with surety and determination.

He wondered dully if he was being taken hostage— how much they'd demand for his feedom. He began to mentally calculate how much money he could lay his hands on immediately. He knew it was more than enough to make even the most self-righteous feel the twinge of greed. It would be enough.

It had to be.

The hands stopped their work and moved to rest on Robert's shoulders, his attacker's lips next to his ear.

"It's your turn now," he whispered before he withdrew. Robert twisted his head, trying to locate his attacker. Where—?

He frowned as he smelled a familiar scent. He couldn't place it...

It wasn't until he felt the flames lapping at his feet that he realised what it was. And began to scream.

-o-

"Really, Rei? Really? This is how you treat our years of friendship and trust? By bartering it away on a cheap career opportunity?"

A warm laugh came down the telephone, "Aw, come on, Mariah. You know how big this is for me. You could at least be happy, you know."

Mariah rolled her eyes. "If you'd gotten the job purely from your own skills rather than through a casual mention that you've got a friend in the police department, I'd be happy for you. As it is, I'm already feeling hunted. Do you know what they do to people who leak things to the press?"

Rei laughed again. "Well, considering they're the police I don't think it'd be harmful to your health. Besides, it's not like you can help that one of your friends just became the official crime reporter in the most popular newspaper in town!" Mariah heard the faint sounds of cheers in the background and refrained from facepalming. "I'm going to be famous!"

"Only if you can rein in that ego a little, Mister," she rebuked. "Look, I am happy for you, I really am. You deserve it after so many years of photocopying and making up the astrology."

Rei made a sound of disgust, "Thanks for bringing that up. I was trying to forget."

"Just pointing out that you've come a long way and I'm proud of you," Mariah said, idly playing with a pencil on her desk. "But we're going to have to talk about this whole 'friend in the police' business."

"Yes, Ma'am! But for now, I'm going to go celebrate by drinking until I can't even spell the word 'crime'! Bye!"

"Wait—" the sound of the dial tone greeted her words. "Gah!" She threw down the phone in disgust.

Brooklyn stared at her, trying to work out if he should say anything to her or remain silent. It was strange, give him a room with a bunch of violent criminals set on first not telling you anything and second on outright murder and he was fine. He'd been trained to deal with situations like that first through his experience as a trained psychologist and second through his time with the police. But trying to decipher one of Mariah's moods was still beyond him.

If he failed to offer any kind of support when she deemed she needed it he would have his ears, and arse, ripped off and handed to him on a grimy paper plate. On the other hand, if he said something when she wanted to seethe instead of talk well... let's just say there was a reason there was a rumour that Mariah's nails turned into claws when she'd had enough.

"We've got a case!" Detective Hiro Granger, Mariah's and Brooklyn's boss and all-around slave driver walked into the room with a grin on his face. "A real, honest-to-God case! One that hasn't been stolen by our esteemed colleagues in the other offices!"

By 'other offices' Hiro actually meant 'better offices'. There were two homicide departments in the city. One of them utilised and excelled at policing. That is, taking the standard route of looking for clues, interviewing suspects and doggedly following every lead until they found the natural and logical conclusion. It was effective and it was the method juries and the police commissioner trusted. It was also run by Hiro's little brother, Tyson. The fact that Tyson's team was so favoured had been a sore point between the brothers for a while.

Hiro's team, on the other hand, excelled at what was uncharitably termed by Tyson 'weird shit'. Hiro had found a team with a diverse range of specialities and skills that, when combined, were uncannily good at solving crimes without the need for the methodical and systematic approach of Tyson's team. It was unconventional but it worked. Unfortunately, due to those unconventional methods they were normally relegated to cold cases. Ones that regular police work hadn't been able to solve. It was rare that they were handed a live one. Or a dead one, as it were.

Mariah perked up. "Seriously? Like, one with a dead body that hasn't already been buried or anything?" The grin on her face said it all. "Today is the best day ever!" She stood and reached for her jacket which had been draped over her desk chair. "What are we waiting for? There could be evidence! Real, live evidence!" She hummed happily as she pulled on her jacket and began to walk out of the office.

She paused and turned to look at Hiro and Brooklyn who were staring at her both horrified and bemused at the same time. "What?"

"...Don't you think you're being a little... ghoulish?" Brooklyn asked, still very aware that he was trying to stay on Mariah's less-bad side.

She sighed. "Brooklyn," she began in an all-too-patient-voice, "I know that dead people kind of aren't your thing. You like them when they've still got some kind of brain function. I get that. But," here she held up a finger, "For the first time in a really long time we get to do something I'mgood at. Be happy for me." She didn't have to add the or else. Brooklyn knew people. He knew it was there.

"Good? Good." She flounced out of the office, leaving Hiro and Brooklyn to hurriedly gather their things and follow her.

-o-

Kai stared at the charred corpse that had once been one of the richest men in the city, his eyes narrowed in thought. Hiro had called him and told him to meet the team at the scene and he was patiently waiting.

Hiro hadn't specified that he wasn't allowed to patiently wait in the same room as the corpse so Kai had let himself in. It wasn't like he was going to touch the body. That work was for the police—the girl they had working for them. He just needed some time alone to think before the chaos of the police in action intruded and destroyed the... he called it ambience but that was only for lack of a better word.

When a murder happened there was a disruption in the order of the world. Things that were supposed to go in this place ended in that place. The uneasiness that makes people unconsciously straighten a painting or correct a mistake in alphabetical order is present in a room where someone has been murdered. And, equally unconsciously, people struggle to right the world, to rid it of the anomaly.

And obliterating Kai's evidence.

Kai closed his eyes and felt the uneasiness and, instead of trying to fix it, he let it guide him. There was a pattern to the world and a murderer had disrupted the pattern. It was his job to recognise the new shape the world lay in and let it lead the way to their killer.

TBC

This chapter was written by PandaPjays for the Beyblade Community Project.

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