Author's Notes: Alright, before you start getting any ideas, let me answer them for you. This story began almost half a year ago as an obscure concept, and sort of grew from there. To tell the truth, I'm actually surprised that nobody's created something like this. (I'm wrong, aren't I?) It was actually going to be an L.A. Noire crossover or something, but I decided that would be too much. Instead, I'm giving the singular onset of a pure fanficky mess. Most of this was written over the course of months, so not everything was thought up in a matter of days. In fact, I almost dropped this story completely, but I had a dream that finishing it would somehow grant me with wisdom beyond compare.
Actually, I just had nothing better to do.
I'm Skippy by the way, if you'd like to read my other stories, go on ahead. (Yes, I am a terrible person for doing that) I don't know how far this story will go, or if anyone will like it. I'm also not the kind of guy who needs the positive opinions of others to solidify my own, but… if you'd like… EnJoY!
~X~X~X~X~X~
Detective Tyler watched as the sparsely placed raindrops stroked themselves across his office window. Outside, the grey clouds obscured most of the Cornerian skyline. Today was the most boring, uninteresting day he'd experienced within the past month. The cases had become progressively less involving, as many times he was forced to resort to saving children that got caught up in trees. He hadn't actually accepted a job that made his blood pump in over two weeks, and with the political tensions rising, he was waiting any day now for a good old riot to hold back.
Ever since he left the military, Tyler had slowly begun to hate police work. Sure he loved the exhilaration of chasing down criminals, but he found it much to restricting, and almost never did he ever get to use his weapon. He wished there would someday be an opportunity where he could use his power freely, unbound by the agency's rules.
The bored wolf reluctantly returned to his desk, much to his dismay still filled from side to side with paperwork. All his recent antics would continuously be showered with confirmation forms requesting he follow proper protocol the next time around. He held up another document questioning his full understanding of the correct procedures. It didn't matter how much they tried to pound it into him, he'd always tackle suspects to the ground, there was no way they'd stop him from doing it his own way.
He casually glanced above the scattered reports. There he saw the erratic panther that had the pleasure of being called his partner. He was standing around with a dumb look on his face, which was unsurprising. Every morning he'd run over to Tyler and ask him if he'd been secretly promoted in some private meeting he'd been left out of. But today he was strangely quiet, not a peep had been heard out of him.
The black cat whistled to himself as he looked around the darkened office. He seemed to be pretending Tyler didn't exist, as he gave no attention to him whatsoever. He held a lukewarm coffee pot in his hands, which he hastily placed on the table over to the side of the office. "Its uh… Papetoon brew… your favorite." He said, strategically avoiding eye contact with Tyler. Within a split second, the nervous panther swiftly turned around and headed for the door.
"Walter, I know you didn't come in here just to get me my coffee." The panther froze once he heard his friend speak up from across the room. "You're hiding something, and I know it."
Walter slowly turned around to face his partner. He was definitely keeping something from him. "What do you mean… hiding something?"
"Don't play stupid with me Walter." Tyler got up from his chair, and walked over towards the now shaking feline. "The only time you ever voluntarily bring coffee into my office is either when you're pulling a prank on me, or when you know there's a case ready for us." He said, folding his arms. "And I can already tell you're out of ideas after last week's supposed living toilet incident. So what is it this time; theft, scandal, teenagers?"
Walter raised his hands up so that Tyler could see them. "Ok ok, you got me. There just so happens to be a case lurking about. Real high profile and all, but I'm afraid the chief really doesn't want you in on it." He answered, backing away from the intimidating figure in front of him.
"The chief huh?" Tyler grabbed his chin. "Now why would the chief want to keep something from me? Is it because he wants to solve something on his own for a change?"
"Well… he just told me to keep you here and not disturb him… and his important… oh I give up!" Walter threw his arms up in frustration. Tyler's plan to stare at him until he revealed the truth worked like a charm. "The chief really didn't say anything, I just didn't want you go put yourself in danger with another homicide case!" The panther ended his sentence with a series of long, pulsing shouts. He obviously didn't like the fact that Tyler continuously took the most dangerous cases against his partner's will.
"Another homicide eh? It's about time we took another one of those." Tyler nodded his head as he walked back over to his desk. There sure was a lot of paperwork still to do, but another case to break the routine couldn't hurt that much. "When was the last time we had one of those again?"
Walter cringed slightly before giving his answer. "It was a couple months ago… when we found that woman lying dead in a large vat of shampoo ingredients. I still haven't gone back to using that brand."
Tyler smiled as he skimmed over the unfinished files. He was ready for a new case; nothing would keep him from learning more about the new job. "So, fill me in on the basics." Tyler motioned for his partner to take a seat on the opposite side of the desk. He sloppily stuffed the remaining paperwork into an empty drawer, the only one that wasn't filled with an assortment of emergency candy bars.
"Well, most of what I know is that it's really high profile case. Whatever wacko committed this one clearly didn't aim for subtlety."
"Are you sure it's a murder?" Tyler asked with a skeptic tone. He knew that sometimes, things that appeared to be horrific murders turned out to be either just accidents or acts of the victims own accord.
"I don't remember the last time there was a car bomb suicide."
A spark of interest lit up inside Tyler's mind. A car bomb? In Corneria? Never had such an event occurred in the modest city. Perhaps this would be the fascinating case he'd been waiting for so long. "Alright now you've got me hooked."
"I know you really want to do get more into this, but I seriously don't want to go on another wild goose chase with you. The last time we did that, the goose turned out to be the good guy all along." Walter shrugged as if he were unsure about what to do in the situation. He may have been unsure, but Tyler sure wasn't.
"Where did the murder take place?" Detective Tyler asked. He didn't hear any noises this morning, and the entire police station seemed pretty quiet for a slow Wednesday.
"Down at Fifth District, a good ten minutes from here with decent traffic."
"Did you catch the exact time it occurred?"
"I didn't really get that part; all I know is that it happened earlier this morning." Walter answered with a surprised look in his face at how Tyler was reacting. He watched as his canine partner got up from his chair, grabbed his tan fedora, and headed out the door.
"Wait, what are you do- no way! We're not going to just accept this case like its nothing! You can't just waltz out of here expecting me to follow you! Oh come on!" Walter reluctantly began to follow in his friends footsteps, trying to somehow convince him to stay away from the case. But he knew once Tyler made up his mind, there was no way to bring him back.
The confidant detective walked through the nearly empty police station. He turned his head around to face the confused panther heeding in his footsteps. "Walter, you're car's the one with those delightful seat warmers, correct?"
"Well yes… but… why do you ask?"
"Because I feel like taking yours today." The lupine said, giving a pleased smirk as he headed for the parking lot.
~X~X~X~X~X~
"Please, everyone stay back. This is a police investigation, no one's allowed in… sir, I'm going to have to ask you to put some pants on." The frustrated badger struggled to hold the curious crowd from going past the police line. A substantial amount of Cornerians gazed over towards the smoke filled street. They all wanted to know what lied behind the barricade of police cars.
"Everyone listen! You're not allowed to come any further! This is…" The badger's radio beeped furiously. The crowd had become so loud that it was now easier to communicate through the wireless receivers than it was to yell directly to each other across the street.
"Harrison, come in: You're now authorized to enforce code 7, its no longer possible to keep them back by conventional means, over." The voice on the radio said.
The surprised badger shook his head. "But… sir… I could just call for backup… or-
"No need Harrison, this' gotten more serious than previously thought. It is imperative you don't let anyone through, over."
The badger hesitantly brought the radio back up in order to reply. After a brief pause he mustered the willpower to speak back. "Yes sir, I'll make sure nobody… breaks through, over."
The crowd was now steadily growing, if any more started to squeeze onto the street, he'd surely have to follow through with code 7. He slowly reached for the spray tazer lying above his real sidearm. Taking it out, he breathed heavily as he took in the scene before him. He really didn't want to inflict such pain on the citizens, but if some mentally insane creep broke through, he'd hold no quarter on the poor individual.
~X~X~X~X~X~
"Great… how are we going to get through all this? It's as if a free brownie stand opened up in the middle of the damn street." Tyler stared into the large group of people blocking the way to the crime scene. Apparently, half of the entire city decided to cram into the one tiny little spot as if it were New Year's Eve.
Walter closed the door to the driver's seat and made sure it was locked. "I was thinking about driving in a straight line through the onlookers, but that would be painfully difficult to clean up." He noted, wiping his coat off. "I suggest we head onward through… more practical means."
The two slid their way through the maze of Cornerians, trudging through endless hallways of furry and sometimes scaly tails. The crowd closed in on them every once in a while, making it difficult to move through.
"It would've been much easier to have dropped in with them." Walter said, noting the small news aircraft hovering above the ominous pile of smoke.
"Not really, I hear channel 17 doesn't like the local law enforcement."
"But wait, isn't channel 17 a system wide network?"
"They really don't like us."
Eventually the two reached the point where the crowd was finally beginning to thin out; the area in front of them had small barricades keeping interested observers at bay. An officer standing on top of his vehicle holding a taser yelled at the crowd to keep quiet and just go home. Tyler made his way over to the occupied badger while keeping his distance from the cluster of Cornerians.
"Oh… thank god you're here detective." The now relieved badger said, finally showing some signs of content. "You think you can give me a hand with this?" he pointed at the massive gathering of people in front of him.
Tyler scanned the area over to the right of the barricade, where the blue shirts begun to get more frequent. The highly concentrated number of officers blocked his view of the full scene; all he could make out was a bunch of people either talking near the chief or watching the horrifying scene up close.
"I'm afraid I have other matters to attend to Harry." Tyler said, implanting a deep sense of hassle into the poor badger. "But I'm sure Walter here would be glad to help you!" He said, opening up towards where his partner was idly standing.
"Wait what?"
"If it makes you feel better." Tyler shrugged as he easily moved past the breach in the barricade. "I'll let you know when your part comes in." He said, leaving his partner trapped in the unfortunate position.
"I hate you…" Walter sneered, turning his head away from Tyler as he grabbed a megaphone from inside the car. It didn't worry Tyler at all that his best friend just admitted to disliking him to a great extent; he always spoke like that, and it really didn't matter since they'd usually be hi-fiving each other within five minutes time.
"Attention everyone, shouldn't you all be at work? I mean seriously, it looks like you all abandoned your garbage collection jobs in order to check out the column of smoke coming from the corner. Just return to your daily lives, or turn on channel 17, you're sure to get a much better view than what you have now." Walter's amplified voice slowly faded away as the lupine detective headed towards the snobbish eagle known to him as his chief.
He slowly approached the engaged bird, thinking of ways to avoid his ever watchful eyes. 'Maybe if I stay real quiet any walk out of his line of sight, he won't notice me.'
"Ah, detective O'Donnell, I didn't expect to see you here."
'Damnit.'
"Uh, the feeling is mutual chief…" Tyler said with the best fake voice he could comprehend.
"It's a good thing you arrived here, I was going to call you, but I figured you'd arrive on your own." The chief replied, looking above the tall Cornerian buildings surrounding them. "And with half of the force vacationing to Zoness this time of year, we need all the help we can get."
"All the help you can get? You mean I'm not enough?"
"Excuse me?"
"Nevermind.,, just forget what I said." Tyler shook his head in confusion; he certainly didn't want to look foolish in front of the chief. Despite his continuously unsavory attitude towards Tyler, the eagle seemed to be at an understanding with him at the moment. His frequent shifting to and from the crime scene seemed to bring something up in him.
"Uh, yes well, I'm sure you want to get to examining the evidence as soon as possible, but I also want you to talk to the victim's… eh husband." The eagle sputtered with short intervals of hesitation. He grabbed his collar and lifted his beak as he motioned over towards the sealed off area over to their left. "He may be able to… fill you in on some details… get you familiarized with the case setting and all." The intimidating avian sighed as he turned his head over towards a nearby house.
"So I… will be heading over to the crime scene, correct?" Tyler asked, hoping the chief would let such a simple task go by unnoticed.
Without warning, the rough eagle lashed back at Tyler with his hand molded into a fist. "Just… just make sure you don't get your damn paws all over my crime scene." He scoffed, retracting from the stunned lupine with his arms folded. "Other than that detective, it's all yours."
"That's… it?" Tyler felt a smooth sense of relief now that he was being let free.
"Why yes, now will you leave me alone to my own duti- well there is one more thing Mr. O'Donnell…"
Tyler stopped in his tracks once he heard his boss change his intention mid-sentence. "And what would that be?" He asked, preparing his mind for an entire range of unfortunate answers.
"Your nephew… keep an eye on him will ya? I just don't want him getting into any more trouble if you know what I mean."
Tyler knew exactly who the chief was speaking about. Little Wolf kept getting into more trouble as he grew older. At times, the detective would have no choice but to return the poor vulpine back to his home after encountering him at the police station.
"Alright, I'll be sure to do that…" He answered, raising his hand as he turned away to leave the worried avian. "Oswald…"He smiled as he walked closer and closer towards the obscured crime scene.
He ducked under a line of police tape encircling the destroyed vehicle. It was only then he began to take in the full extent of the scene. In the center was a charred mess; burnt and twisted steel made it difficult to tell what the car looked like before. The whole vehicle was now bent completely out of shape, even the manufacturers would have a hard time telling which piece is which.
"Shame," Tyler noted as he walked around the destroyed hunk of metal. "I bet it was a nice car. Probably would've loved to drive around the city in tha-
He gazed over towards a couple officers carrying a black body bag away from the crime scene. "Nevermind…"
He sighed and took a couple of nitrile gloves out from his pocket. He put them on and proceeded to open the hood to see what lied underneath. "Ahh!" His face was met with a quick release of smoke and heat. It couldn't have exploded that long ago.
The smoke eventually cleared. Now was the time to get to work. He examined the different nooks and crevasses around the dysfunctional engine. He reached down as far as he could; the gaping hole inside the front of the car made it easier to move about. Now if he could just find the broken remains of the bomb.
"Uh, excuse me?" Tyler was startled by an inquisitive voice behind him. "Are you ok detective? You seem a little bit twitchy, most likely due to the low amounts of Iron in your diet." Tyler recognized the voice as none other than Ulrich Shaffer, the lead forensics officer as well as physical health critic. He was in charge of examining large amounts of dead bodies every day, which probably led him to believe that all of Lylat was out to get him.
"Hello Ulrich…" Tyler said, watching the wide eyed lizard examine every inch of his body.
"I see you've been getting good amounts of exercise. Strange, since this is on average the least active time of year."
"The case Ulrich."
"Ah, yes." The lizard nodded as he observed the car in its entirety. "Well, since you've obviously figured out this is a homicide by now; let me fill you in with the details." Ulrich said as he took out a notebook from his pocket. "Vixy Reinard McCloud, aged 24 years old, murdered at around 7:18 this morning when the car exploded upon startup. The last person who saw her before she died was eh…" Ulrich turned over toward a nearby house. "Her husband." He leaned his upper body over towards a particular part of the house, one where Tyler could see a crying vulpine standing next to an equally sad hare.
"Do we have any suspects?"
"At this point," Ulrich moved over towards a collection of shrapnel positioned a few meters away from the car's front side. "Anyone with access to a class 3 explosive device is a suspect. This certainly wasn't your average ordinary dirty bomb, no. Whoever did this not only has access to class 3 explosives, but has a strong disliking towards Vixy."
"So now we're looking for personal enemies, correct? Ones who have access to such weapons?"
"Precisely, and the best way to find personal enemies is to speak to somebody very close to her. But of course that's not MY job." He smiled as he nudged Tyler on the shoulder. "And it's certainly not my job question anyone about the case. I only look into the evidence, I-
"I get your point." Tyler interrupted. "I'll go talk to him, but we'll keep in touch, ok? If any one of us finds something important pertaining to the case, we'll discuss it with each other."
The lizard looked down at the ground. "Very well detective, I'll make communication a high priority. I'm sure there's more to this case than meets the eye." He said, making a sad, miserable, and downright failure of a secret handshake soon afterwards.
Tyler awkwardly stepped back from Ulrich as he faked a smile. He then turned away and didn't look back. As he ducked back under the police tape and away from the crime scene, he could still hear him faintly whispering 'more magnesium… more magnesium…'
Over to the side of the nearest building, Tyler saw a couple of officers standing near what he presumed to be the victim's nearest relatives. A decently built vulpine leaned over a much smaller duplicate of himself; holding the small child tightly against his body, they both cried in unison as they tried to look away from the crime scene.
As Tyler walked closer, he could hear the voices of a couple officers alerting the vulpine of his arrival. "Mr. McCloud…" The deeply saddened man turned to face the officer. "Someone's here to see you." The vulpine let go of his terrified child, and made eye contact with the detective.
Tyler took a deep breath as he approached the formidable vulpine with seemingly undying ease. "Mr. McCloud, I'm detective Tyler O'Donnell from the CCPD, and I'd like to ask you a few questions… if you're up to answering them." He asked, subsequently being replied with a fragile nod from the vulpine. "Good, well I'd like to start off with asking you if you may have any idea who'd want to murder your wife. Did she have any personal enemies with a strong amount of hate directed at her?"
McCloud shook his head. "No I… have no idea who would do such a thing. She certainly didn't have anyone that would go so far as to kill her!" He yelled at the general direction of the smoldering car, but retracted, and fell back into a saddened state. "No… I don't know anyone who would be so cruel."
"I see… do you know of anyone who may have planted a bomb inside your wife's car?"
"My wife's car? No no no, its wasn't hers, it was… it was mine."
Tyler raised an eyebrow. Interesting to say the least; they were now standing on the possibility that the murder had unintended consequences.
"Her car wasn't starting for some reason, we'd been getting it repaired many times over the past month. So this morning she asked if she could…" he laid his hand over his head, directing it down at the ground. "If she could use mine…" The depressed vulpine began to shed more tears, as he recollected the very tragic events.
"I'm… very sorry for your loss Mr. McCloud. I'll try my best to get to the bottom of this." Tyler said, trying to comfort the disheartened vulpine. His efforts to alleviate the vulpine's pain proved futile.
Without any warning, Tyler felt a strong hand grab onto his shoulder. "Please… find who killed my wife. Whoever would do such a thing… deserves an equal fate. If you've got your gun aimed at him," he leaned closer to the detective. "Take the shot."
The detective gave a grim and somewhat unsure nod. It was obvious from the looks of it that he was serious about bringing capital punishment to a conspirator of first degree murder. He'd killed before in the line of duty, but all it brought him was a lot of shame, paperwork, and a nasty reputation of being a renegade trigger happy madman.
Whoever he was dealing with this time however, was probably not a shoplifter.
"My condolences Mr. McCloud," Tyler said with a pat on the fox's back. James ignored his comforting gesture. "I'll find the murderer eventually."
With that, Detective O'Donnell left the weeping vulpine with his colleague, returning to the scene of the crime where he met back up with Walter.
The smoke from the explosion had all but cleared completely. It was obviously planted with military grade explosives, the air gave off a smell distinct to a Phoenix based manufacturer.
"Yes, that's right, we need a residue sample examined immediately." Walter told a highly observant Ulrich as they both scanned the twisted piles of the vehicular remains. "Ah there you are," He said once he saw Tyler approaching. "Good news, I asked Ulrich to run a quick chemical sample, and it appears the bomb originated from a-"
"Phoenix? "
Walter looked back at him, surprised. "Yeah, how did you-"
"I was with an Explosive Ordinance Disposal team during my time in the army; I know this wasn't made it some mercenary chemist's basement."
"Right, well from what we can tell, the bomb used here is similar in form to a smart bomb. It has a minimized yield; however, if done right, it could disable a tank no problem."
Tyler looked at the crime scene once more. "No fragments?"
"No, the only fragment of this bomb's existence would be in…"
"The sales records!" Detective O'Donnell exclaimed. "Brilliant idea!"
Walter shrugged. "I made a quick check, and apparently, the nearest facility is 43 miles from here. It won't take too long to…"
"Great, I'll tell the chief!"
"Bu… wait." Walter was too late. The detective had already assumed responsibility.
Tyler set his wrist communicator to reach the chief's frequency.
"What is it detective? You do realize you're fifty feet away from me…"
"No time Ozzy, I think we may have our first lead."
"Well than get to it!" The eagle demanded. "And don't call me again unless you've either found more clues or if you've killed someone. Just because you aim for the legs doesn't mean you won't kill them."
Tyler neared the communicator. "You don't need to worry." He said before turning the communicator off. "And I said I was sorry for that!"
All that was left now was for the two to continue their mission, unaware of what would lie ahead.
"You ready?" Detective O'Donnell asked.
"Ready to go sunbathing on Fichina." Walter answered with a half faked smile.
~X~X~X~X~X~