a/n: I've been thinking a lot about how to explain my absence to you people and I've settled on this, I LIVE ONCE MORE, in other news I'm probably going to be spending a while fixing all the bad shit in the previous chapters, which is most of the words and all of the dialogue.
September 12, 80 AGW, 2:50 pm, Wednesday, beacon academy, diplomatic commander's office
My wife was the perfect woman, smart, strong, and dear god was she driven as all hell. For the rest of my time with the legion I was on and off looking for her, I tracked her through several masters but I lost track of her when she murdered her owner and disappeared into the white legs. I figure the white legs were temporary though, i did find her eventually but that comes later for now back to the legion.
Magnus: POV
Why in the name of Caesar's smooth head is a school the center of the government. It doesn't make any sense. It's a school, it's not even a bureaucratic center, it's just a school. I think I might never understand these people. In the same way why the fuck is the main communication system tied to all of the worlds nations cooperating, if one goes down then the whole system does, this is a huge vulnerability, what the fuck is this world.
There's a knock on my door, it's probably the aide here to tell me about another meeting, another thing these people seem to love, meetings.
"Come in"
The door opens and it's the aide but with the stack of papers and books, history, police reports, and science, I'm honestly surprised I didn't have to sign anything for these but that's probably more for the students benefit then for mine.
4:37 pm
One of the news paper's headlines catches my eye, "6 police officers found mutilated, and nailed to light poles in the south eastern industrial district last night, robbery spree follows." brutal crime, very public, police have no idea where to start, perfect for the old Picus insertion.
The plan goes as follows: first commit a violent and public crime(done but not by me), second help the police 'solve' the crime, third pin the blame for the crime on your political rivals. Real easy way to get people to like you as well as ingratiating you with the local establishment. Picus used it to become a colonel and if he can do it well then I'll be damned if I can't, I guess research can wait.
4:42 pm
"So , I've got another idea to sell you on"
I throw the paper onto his desk, it slides off onto his lap and he picks it up to check the headline.
"Yea I heard about this incident, I assume you're going to tell me what you want to do about it, cause I sure as shit don't have the resources to mount an investigation."
"How's your departments funding going again"
"Well it basically hasn't been going for the last 10 years, the government really fell into Ozpins 'hire hunters' policy hard for most things I do, you know police, army, border patrol, only thing that even gets near enough is the navy and it's still only just enough to keep them in the water and eating."
"Exactly and how do you think the other councilors would feel if, say, some random upstart tribe was able to solve a high profile case before those hunters, probably pretty embarrassed right"
"So you're saying that you want me to hire you instead to embarrass the councilors and convince them to give the police and army more funding, that's all well and good, but what do you get out of this, i cant believe that you're just doing this out of the good of your heart."
"Open roads make for easy trade, but safe roads do a hell of a lot more"
"Fine but I'll personally help you, show that the police can deal with cases worse than burglary, plus I need more exercise. Office work isn't kind to me." he ain't wrong, he's pale as all hell and while he's not hard on the eyes he does look like his position has sucked his soul out of his ass.
"isn't that a security risk, plus don't you have work to do"
"Yes but one I don't have the funds to send an officer, two death is preferable to spending another minute in this office, the heating doesn't work so in about 3 hours its going to be cold as the moon, three the paperwork is never enough to keep me busy for more than a few hours and four i don't trust you enough to do this on your own''
"I'm insulted that you think so low of me, sure let's head out" shit
5:36 pm
The first three were hung in a clump in front of a precinct, the others were in front of research facilities, one is a cybernetics lab, another astronomy, and another is a virology lab, all three of these were also robbed the same night.
The cybernetics lab has the front window broken, door to the main lab blown off the hinges, looks like by a shotgun, best to just search the other rooms around the main lab before heading into it as they look relatively untouched
"So it sounds like your not a fan of your job"
"Eh it's not that I don't like it, it's just that i don't have the materials to actually do anything and spending the day rejecting requests for basic equipment that my guys should have is soul crushing"
"What's even taking up all the funding, based on what I've seen you get enough money?"
"It's mostly the SDC price gouging us to hell and back, the greedy bastards but even then the dust the government buys mostly goes to the school"
"Huh, I've been looking at their prices and they do look a bit much but is the price different for you?"
"Yea its almost three times as much for us as the civilian and hunter populations, we're stuck in a contract with them for the next few months, its honestly a massive stroke of luck that you came along when you did, a fresh source of dust without those fuckers at the SDC might make it so that we can afford guns for all of our officers." it is fucking refreshing not having to deal with people who hate my faction and me by extension
"That looks like it's about it for my section, just the same eye carving that was on the body's foreheads." he stands up with some pictures of the carvings and motions towards the door of the main lab "please, guests first"
The lab is trashed, papers thrown everywhere but most of them missing, the machines are either stolen of they could be or smashed and the remnants stolen if not, of what I've read cybernetics are expensive and delicate to construct but much more general purpose then what was around on earth filling a prosthetic role mostly.
"Holy shit" he whispers to himself, the walls of the room are covered by the eye carvings from floor to ceiling. "Well I guess we know the eye thing is fairly significant, I'll have to look into that when I get back, good news is we have something to look for, bad news is that this is probably more then a simple gang of crooks, but we already knew that from the bodies"
7:23 pm, beacon virology research lab
Astrology was a bust most of what was taken appears to be data and telescope lenses but not much else, but virology looks more promising, all of the rooms were broken into instead of just the lab or data storage.
"So anyway that's how I got this job," he says as we step out of his car.
"Shit that's a lot of lube though how did you swim through that."
"The trick was in the flippers, but that's a story for another time, how bout you tell one of your own."
"Sure, how about i tell you about the guy who taught me most of what i know about diplomacy, Alexi Morozov, quick backstory around 200 years ago there was a big conflict and one of the groups sent a bunch of spies into the enemy's territory, but fell apart so the spies just got together and decided to form a small town in the boonies and act like they had always been there"
"Around 40-50 years ago I'm not sure this Alexi was born and decided to take up the job of his parents-parents-parents and turns out he was REALLY good at it, but that's not the point." we step into the broken building and begin looking around for any signs, with some gas masks on incase of contamination
"So for this one he was ordered by his boss to deal with a base of these guys called the Nova Carthago Republicus" ha "so he brought me along with some of his other students to show us how he dealt with it, when we arrived at a hill overlooking the camp he had us sit down and try to figure out what he was going to do, and as i and a couple of the other initiates threw out ideas from sneaking in with one of their uniforms to taking them out from the hill with a rifle."
"So what did he do" he throws a glance my way, clearly intrigued, "well I'll tell you, see he brought us back to the hill, he made us bring our own food and water for the trip when there was a perfectly good river running by that the base got its water from, I think you can see where he was going..."
"But he wanted to give the initiates a show so instead of just putting poison in the river he put hard core laxatives in the water and planted some bombs under the lavatories, then we just walked in ,arrested the survivors and took the fort."
He lets out a laugh, "holy shit man that is brutal, and I bet the fort must have stunk to high heaven. So what happened to that guy"
"No idea, after a few years he disappeared without a trace, not even any documentation proving he ever existed, after that he became a bit of a legend among the people who were close to him and the people they taught. Nothing new over here, just the same as other labs"
"Yea same over here, looks like our only lead is the carvings but that seems too obvious." he stands up and brushes of his pants, "hey we're basically finished here, so do you want to go to this bar I know, real chill place"
"Yea sure, sounds fun"
8:21 pm, the ursa claw bar
This is honestly not a bad bar, fairly cheap, good atmosphere, and the music and patrons aren't too loud, only problem is that I have no idea what i'm doing, you spend as long as i have either in character or suspicious of everyone around you it tends to affect your ability to be comfortable being in a casual setting with someone.
The bar doesn't have many people in it, it's basically just me, Gregory, and a few drunks scattered throughout the bar, the drinks have just arrived when I break the silence. "So what's with you and the SDC, you talk about them like the devil and even with their price gouging it seems a bit much."
"It's not just that their shit is expensive, didn't used to hate them this much either, but since you pointed out that their probably charging far more then the dust is worth, I've begun to get, a bit frustrated with them, that pricing is the reason that I'm unable to get the equipment I need for my officers"
"And it's all because my old man made a twenty year contract with them, which yes did secure a stable source of dust but" he slams his fist on the table and takes a drink from his glass
"he overpaid without thinking that the economy could stagnate or the budget could go down so they're charging us triple the civilian rate while we have a tenth of the budget, because we have no choice but to buy from them, and to make things worse this puts us half way under Atlas' thumbs even though we beat them in the great war" a grimace washes over him as he mutters "80 years changes a lot huh"
"Hey don't get shit stomped about it yet, this job might get you a bit more money in the next budget, and you'll have a new source of dust soon enough, the way I see it things are looking up for your department." he chuckles and slaps my back, "pre-she-ate it bud but that's all future stuff and so far these problems are in the now, so I will be miserable now and hopeful when that starts to happen." the rest of the night is just banal stories and jokes, it's only when i get back to my quarters when I realize that I probably shouldn't have told him my teacher was a spy