Warning: spoilers for multiple Sagas. Read “A Story For Ants” first, and maybe also “I Can’t Do This All On My Own”.
My name is John Jackson. They call me Old Stoneface.
I’m the Chief of Police around these parts.
Calvin Korkea may call this his city, but it’s been my city since before he was even born.
But I like the bloke.
He reminds me of… well, me, when I was young and naive and optimistic.
Though he sure as shit ain’t naive.
We’ve both got one thing in common:
We’ve both been shat on by the world.
Me, a lot more than him.
The difference is, he sees past the shit.
I need glass half full people like him.
So I can see past the shit.
But we’ve got another big thing in common:
We both care about fluffies.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about fluffies when they first showed up.
My biggest concern was what effect they would have on crime.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but when I first found out about abusers, I thought “Well, as long as they aren’t hurting humans.”
But then my wife Helen fell in love with fluffies.
Not that Helen. Mine’s a redhead.
That’s yet another thing me and Calvin have in common: we have the same type.
He told me what happened with his bitch of an ex, and I can understand why it turned him off blondes.
Anyway, my wife started breeding upscale fluffies for rich ladies like herself.
I didn’t marry her for her money. I married her because she’s a feisty woman with a big heart.
That, and neither of us was getting any younger.
So then I realised that I couldn’t let people get away with abusing fluffies while my wife’s breeding them at home.
There’s a certain tall, dark, thin gentleman I’ve run into many times in my line of work, and he once told me that there’s no justice, there’s just him.
So I decided, if there’s no justice…
I’m gonna make some.
I’d discussed this matter with the mayor several times since my wife started breeding fluffies.
He’s a tall, thin guy. Black hair, dresses in all black too. I’ve heard people describe him as “looking like a predatory flamingo”, and I find it hard to disagree with that.
It was only a few months ago, some time before the giant fluffy tree monsters thing, that he finally relented.
“Very well, Commissioner. I’ll see what I can do. Don’t let me detain you.”
Though, of course, he’s got a fluffy of his own.
Mayor Logan took it to the state senate, and because he’s kind of a scary bloke, he quickly talked them into banning fluffy abuse statewide.
He told me that he’s not gonna stop until fluffy abuse is banned nationwide. That he’ll take it to the White House if he has to. He said he’ll run for the Presidency to make it happen, if the current administration doesn’t do it themselves.
I mean, I know how the mayor feels, but we can’t stamp out all crime.
Not without going full tyrant.
Sometimes I worry that Mayor Logan considers that an option.
Since then, my boys in blue have been working with Calvin’s boys in… whatever colors they feel like wearing, apparently.
Us cops all wear the same color for a reason, Calvin! It’s so we know who’s on our side!
Those battle suits have their logo on them, so it’s okay.
I know they’re technically vigilantes, and that legally, we’re supposed to stop them…
But the truth is that Calvin’s people deal with things that are waaaaay above our pay grade.
I mean, shit, I killed a werewolf once, but I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with a castle full of bloody vampires.
Get silver handcuffs, maybe?
And Romania is outside my jurisdiction anyway.
Point is, my thing is crime. Mundane crime. Murder, robbery, rape, that’s my kind of thing. That’s what I’m good at dealing with.
A shitton of spaceships showing up in the sky and blocking out the sun?
That’s not my kind of thing.
A guy throwing bricks at stray fluffies?
My kind of thing.
A vampire wizard demon stitching dead fluffies together and making a golem?
Not my kind of thing.
So that’s why I’m happy to work with Calvin.
Because A: he uses his power responsibly, and B: spaceships and vampire wizards are his thing. He’s good at dealing with that.
As long as his people don’t get in my people’s way, we can all be chums.
But it needs to be my thing too.
A crime is still a crime when it’s being committed with magic, or alien technology.
And if a wizard flings a fireball at someone in my city, they just committed a murder in my city!
We should probably get some golden handcuffs, too.
The wizards are good at keeping their own in check without bodies dropping, though.
No wizard would argue with Deston bloody Faucheuse.
So in the last few months, there’s been changes around the department.
For starters, we’ve diversified our ranks with dwarves, trolls, wizards, and vampires.
We’ve got NuBlood machines for the last group, because we understand how hard it could be to resist temptation while examining a crime scene.
Though vampires prefer to drink blood from someone while they’re still alive, or at least still warm. Most of them don’t do it anymore, and I would have staked Ianos myself if I caught him in my bloody city.
And while I initially didn’t like the idea of vampires on the force, they’re the people you want on a late night stake out.
Ha!
We’ve also gotten some fluffies on the force, as well. That’s a very recent development, so there’s not a lot to say about it right now.
At the very least, they can comfort kids who were unfortunate enough to witness a brutal crime.
I’ve got a son, too. Probably should have mentioned that sooner.
Right now, I’m in my office with Calvin and his fluffy Marley, who can apparently do everything that Calvin can.
I knew that there are fluffy X-Positives, but I had no idea they could be Omega Wossnames.
This is a friendly chat. Just sharing intel. I don’t even mind him lighting up that spliff in my office. It’s legal in our state, and I smoke in my office all the time. Hell, I’m smoking a cigar at this moment.
Plus, I can’t actually stop him from doing it.
I get the feeling that if he wasn’t so nice, we’d all be dead.
Dr. Pierre Faucheuse gave me this doohickey that just sucks up the smoke, so it’s not a problem.
Calvin takes a puff.
“We found a nest of draaks hiding under that abandoned bar, the Fallen Angel. The one on 7th Street. Didn’t belong to anybody, so they could get in uninvited.”
“Bloody draaks. What’d you do with 'em, Cal?”
“Whaddya think, John? I went in with the Monster Party and we lit the bastards up with sun guns. Samuel tagged along and lit 'em up with sunbeams.”
Sun guns fire beams of concentrated ultraviolet light that is functionally identical to sunlight. Makes me wonder why Calvin didn’t bring any to Bran Castle. Would have made things a lot easier.
Light is fatal to draaks, just like vampires. Draaks are basically embodiments of darkness, and for some reason they like preying on fluffies.
Not in our damn city.
“Tuu bad da dwaaks nu had sun scween, huh?”
I give Marley a smile.
“Nice one, Marley.”
Helen has told me that I should smile more, and when she says it, I listen.
They call me Old Stoneface for a reason.
But Helen also says I’m so much more handsome when I smile.
Honestly, I don’t know why she’s wasting her time with me.
“But John, how are things going on your end?”
I shrug.
“Same old, same old. Arresting idiots who just can’t stop breaking the law. And more people calling in saying they saw a dinosaur in the storm drains.”
“Yeah, we’ve heard that too, we’ve been sending people down to look, but if there is a dinosaur down there, it’s staying out of sight. We can’t exactly track it by smell in the sewers. Otherwise Vic could find it, he’s got a good nose and he knows what a dinosaur smells like.”
I’m not going to ask how Victor knows that.
“And you can’t just use magic to find it?”
“We’d need a name to do that, and that’s if the dinosaur even has a name. It’s a lot harder to find animals with magic.”
“I shoulda known that. A dozen wizards on the force, and I didn’t ask any of them.”
“It nu am yu fauwt, Coh-mee-shun-ew. Yu am jus nu yoost tu habin wizz-uwds awn da fowce.”
I smile at Marley again.
“That’s right, Marley. Please, call me John.”
“Otay, Jawn.”
It’s getting easier. My record so far is six smiles in one day.
“So if that’s it, John, we need to get going. There’s an X-Positive fluffy in Japan who keeps turning any other fluffy she touches into orange goop. I’m just glad she doesn’t have foals. We need to put a dampener on her until we can figure out what exactly she’s doing, and what that stuff is. Fluffies seem to like the taste of it, that we do know.”
I know cannibalism isn’t unheard of in fluffies…
But eeeeewwwwwwwwww.
“R-right, Cal. And I need to go interrogate a perp. We think he’s connected to that fluffy fighting ring. The operation in our city was just a small part of something bigger. They’ve moved out of the state, but they still have a long list of crimes committed in the state…”
“…Su dey am stiww ouw pwobwem.”
I give Marley one more smile before he leaves.
“Right again, Mar. I’ll see you two boys later.”
“Say hi to Helen and Johnny for me. And Errol, of course.”
“Will do. Say hi to Judy and the Quins. And your other fluffies, too. You sure have a lot of fluffies.”
“Well, I love the little guys. And I will.”
As Calvin, Marley and I exit my office, Calvin notices something on my wrist, when my sleeve slips as I reach for the doorknob.
“That’s a sick tattoo, John. When’d you get it?”
I glance at the tattoo on my wrist.
It’s not exactly a tattoo, mind you.
It looks like a round eye with a squiggly tail.
“It’s a long story, Cal. And I just don’t have the time right now.”
“I know how that feels, John.”
well draaks are social beings they have groupies
love their discussions and cases.