A/N: HELLO AGAIN! :D After a week (or so) I bring a new chapter of The Koala and the Porcupine! :D I have a bit of a headache right now, so I'll make it brief. Replying reviews:
MysteryousMadame: Hahahah, hell yes, I did! LASPOD Colonel Anaija is based off of you! ;) Munro being Ash's godfather is a bit too much for my heart. Love it!
mrLapin: Thank you! Enjoy this chapter! :)
Bookreader525: ... FUNRO. O. You know your story's good when people start shipping your OCs XD Also I know, right? :/ Munro's just giving free, precious info to the crook. MUNRO YOU IDIOT, TURN ON THE CROOK RADAR!
Phoenix: Thank you so very much! *heart*
"Freeze that one. Enlarge. Can you make a face outta that?"
"No, sir," the rookie koala says, running the image through the system. "Can't even identify his species."
"Damn. Alright, play."
Frisk's eyes are just this close to totally snapping shut and allowing him into blissful sleep. He lost count of how many hours he has already spent in this room, looking into 10,800 hours of footage, from 15 different cameras. Speed 4 was now too slow for him. The windowless room made him lose track of how the sky outside looked.
"Frisk? Frisk!" Munro says, leaning in and lightly shaking the otter. "Officer, on the ground, 20 push-ups!" He belts out, pushing him to the ground. "Begin!"
Frisk jolts awake, falling off his chair. He plants his two hands on the ground, beginning the exercise.
"Faster, you lazy fart! One, two, three, four! What comes after four? Restart! One, two, three, four! Uh... restart! One, two, three..." Frisk could hardly believe it. Was Munro serious? If he couldn't count past four, he'd be down on the ground doing push-ups forever! His arms are just about to give out when the operator pushes him down on the ground, making his body crash with a loud thump! "That's enough! Are you awake now, officer?!"
"Y-yes..," he replies, faceplanting into the ground.
"Are you, now?! So do another ten, now! Position!" Frisk weakly puts his hands on the ground once again, already quivering. "Alright, begin! One..!" And just as he's about to say 'two', Frisk collapses, panting. Munro kneels down, sending his hand crashing down on the otter's back. "Go home 01, you're weak! You'll never make it in here!"
Frisk props himself up with his arms and looks up at him. Where the hell had all of that come from? He's gasping for breath and is, quite frankly, mildly terrified. Munro was an old guy, and old guys typically don't sound like police instructors! And aren't as scary as them, either! He slowly stands up, still trying to breathe. "What… why do I gotta… leave..?"
Munro stares, once again pushing him down. "Because you are weak!"
"Ow! Stop it!"
The senior pushes him back into his chair before laughing. "Damn, I missed doing this!"
The rookie koala in charge of the projector laughs along. "Good training days. I was so afraid of Miller!"
Munro's gasping for breath as he laughs. He tries to stop it, but an even weirder sound comes out. Frisk watches the entire scene confused. The more he tries to suppress the sound, the weirder it comes out. "Did you… did you see his face? I missed seeing this face! I used to terrify rookies pretending that I couldn't count!"
"Wait… what?" He gets pulled into his laughing partner's arms in no time. "What was this about?!"
"This..." Munro begins, wiping a couple tears of laughter away. "Was you being pranked, my buddy!"
"Oh, come on!"
"Also, a free sample of how we treat our recruits. Iron fists. Welcome!"
"Why would you do this?!"
"Old instincts kicking in," he simply replies. "I'm sorry, but not much! Let's keep looking at the images." His phone vibrates in his pocket, so he picks it up. "You may want to let your wife know you're alright. Laura's already calling me."
"Outside, please." The rookie pipes up. "It interferes in the projector."
"It shouldn't."
"It's old."
"So am I! Alright, outside we go." He opens the door, rushing himself and his fellow officer to the outside of the room.
"Bathroom, where is it?" Frisk asks. Munro points to a door at the other end of the corridor before turning to the other side and answering his phone.
Just as he begins talking, Frisk goes down the hall, but not straight to the bathroom. He walks down the corridor slowly, peeking into every room with an open door or glassy walls. From what he makes out, there is a training room with many operators practicing, a break room with a couple of them chilling out (sleeping, he notices), but most of them are on the first floor. Seniors chatting away or coordinating exercises, rookies practicing. A few steps later, there is the dispatch center, and straight ahead, the bathroom.
But before that, there is another room. Enclosed. Shady, if you ask Frisk. No identification on the door, but you don't need to be experienced to know what it is. He even thinks about walking past it. However, he can't forget why he is here. He scans the corridor from one side to another. The animals who had been training were now gathered in a circle of some sort. Special Operations thing, he figured. Sure, on the other side of the corridor there is Munro, but he's too immersed in his phone conversation to mind whatever that is happening around him. Slowly, he touches the knob. Then turns it. Click. Uh. No sirens, alarms, or animals running in his direction. He takes this as his cue to go on.
He hit the jackpot. In front of him, there is a small table with a computer, and behind it, a closed door. On its side, a button pad. Well, just like in the conventional precincts, the evidence room is guarded with a password.
"What are you doing here?!" Frisk freezes like a deer in headlights. He slowly turns to the source of the sound. "Are you deaf?!"
He slowly shakes his head as he lets the appearance of the animal in front of him sink in. Nowhere similar to any other operator he had seen there. He seems… weak. Fragile even, though fully dressed in the black operational LASPOD uniform. He bares clutches, and a lower glance allows Frisk to see why: the operator, an otter just like himself, is crippled. He doesn't have his right leg.
Frisk looks up once again, straight at the animal's name tag. Maj A. Fergunson. Oh, a Major. Senior operator. A rank higher than Munro. Well, it explained the greying brown fur and the injury too. He did have a long time to get hurt. He slowly looks up at his face again. Fergunson is staring at him as if he had grown a second head.
"What… what happened to your leg..?" He finally asks, pointing down. The other otter follows his finger, looking straight at his own leg.
"Shot. Straight in the knee." With a swift move, he balances himself on one leg and draws his gun. "Who are you and what are you doing here?!"
Frisk is taken aback by this, quickly jumping to the ground as he raises his hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down! I-I'm a cop!"
"What precinct?!"
"T-the LAMAOD!" He goes down on his knees. "Don't shoot! I was looking for a bathroom!"
"Does this look like a goddamn toilet to you?!"
"N-no, I'm sorry! I'll go, just don't shoot me!" He begs. The senior slowly puts the gun down back in its holster.
"Stand up!" he commands.
"Yes, sir!" Frisk replies, quickly following the order. Well, the guy pulled a gun on him when he wasn't close to being a threat. Imagine if he was angered at him.
"How did you get here, LAMAOD officer?"
"I-I'm with Munro, sir… u-uh… Captain Belleville..?"
The man lets out heartfelt laughter. "Munro 'Belle and the Beast' Belleville is here?!"
"Y-yes, sir, in the projector room," Frisk confirms. "Do you know him?"
"Know him? I worked with him for 27 years! He's the best strategist I've ever seen around here."
"I-I'm sorry, a quick question..? Two, actually?"
Fergunson sighs. "Be brief, recruit."
"What is this room?"
"It's an evidence room. It works in the exact same way your precinct's does. It's thick walls holding a crapload of evidence."
"What kind?"
"Evidence from all cases that get here." Frisk isn't quite satisfied with the answer. The operator notices that, so he goes on. "Let's see… gang mugshots and their record, some murder evidence, murder attempt files, drug dealers case files, among other classified info." Frisk's eyes are a mix of curiosity and not being fully satisfied. The other otter sighs. "Wanna take a look? I just can't let you read anything still open. So you'll basically see case files from 'me with my leg' days."
"That would be cool!" Frisk says enthusiastically. He quickly thinks it over. "Well… not the leg part, sorry about your leg. W-well… it'd be awesome!" Turning away slightly, he grabs a small recorder, then puts it in his shirt's pocket. The operator doesn't pay much mind to it, being busy with his own locomotion to the closed door. Frisk is quick to offer him an arm. "You need..?"
"I've been doing this for thirteen years." Frisk retreats. He reaches out. "But this one time, I'll take it."
"Right away, sir." The officer quickly moves over and takes his arm, slowly walking him to the door.
"Thanks, recruit. Now turn around." Frisk does as told. The operator types an eight digit password into the pad, which beeps. All sounds are being closely captured by Frisk's recorder.
Frisk walks in, carefully turning off the recorder in his pocket. Well, he doesn't have a tape with the password, but he has the distinctive sound each key pressed made before allowing entry.
"It's not much different than a precinct's room," he comments.
"You don't have to lie to me." Frisk looks down. "It's a mess because no one has the patience to organize all this old crap. And also, cases here are bound to be way more exciting than the ones you see there. The older they are, the deeper into the room." Frisk motions to a big pile of papers, then looks at him. He nods. "Go ahead."
"Fergie, you dog!"
"Belleville! What's up, bud?!"
"You found my officer friend."
"Yeah, and I pointed a gun at his face too." Fergunson laughs. "Just trying to make him feel at home."
"You did well. Officers need a shock of reality every once in a while. Showing him our old stuff?"
"What else?"
Munro peeks beyond his longtime friend, straight at the officer. "Look under 'B'! You may learn a thing or two from my old cases!"
Fergunson turns to the other otter. "Don't count on it. Many of them are in huge files mixed with other stuff, and probably many more are missing. Much was lost in the 1989 fire. Seriously, somebody's got to sit down and organize this. Put it in the computer. We'll end up losing our record because of this!"
"There was a fire?" Frisk asks. Both seniors nod. "But police stations have smoke detectors."
"Do people point guns at officers in police stations?" Munro asks.
"No, sir."
"Are officers in police stations organized by military hierarchy?"
"No, sir."
"Are there operators in police stations?"
"No, sir."
"So this isn't a conventional police station and shouldn't be treated as one. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," Frisk replies.
"The governor didn't seem to mind the fire at all, anyways. There aren't any smoke detectors still."
"True. Even getting that old PC with Windogs 95 was a battle. We should require more modern equipment from the governor," the other operator pipes up.
"Won't work. All white collars in Calatonia hate the police. And you double that hate when we're talking about Special Operations. They think we're savages and don't need that stuff. It's good in a way. It shapes our men to value all the small commodities from their lives out of here. And since our training is so hard, too…"
"True," his friend confirms, giving him a thumbs up. "Combatants forged in fire to defend and protect."
"Special Operations, oorah!" They say in unison, then let out a laugh. Frisk joins them.
"Well, as soon as I'm Chief, I'll see if I can spare some erm… how did you define it, commodities, to the LASPOD."
"Go on and do that." Munro gives his shoulder a friendly pat.
"If I ever become Colonel, I'll happily receive it," the Major jokes.
"'If you become', of course you'll become." The other operator laughs.
"The cases in these files around here are how old?"
"Thirty years, some fifteen. The physical evidence and papers on shelves are around that old. As for newer cases, like I said, we have that old Windogs PC in the back. Why?"
No smoke detectors, all files in the same room… very, very nice. "No reason. Just curious."
A/N: That's it, I'm done! If you like it, please drop a review ;)
