Chapter 182 - Capable Hands

“I need you to come with me to visit the White Maiden.” Finn said calmly.

His eyes drifted across the empty cathedral courtyard. His mind was already elsewhere as he expected the typical enthusiastic response from Char Char on matters related to the Maiden. However when the young Kumin girl did not respond after a few seconds he paused, “Is something the matter?”

Char Char’s heart was heavy as she struggled to come up with an immediate answer, eventually avoiding the question by asking first, “Do we have to go right away?”

“It would be prudent.” Finn frowned, “After all, were you not just sent by the Maiden to stop the God of Life from reviving?”

“I…” Char Char hesitated, hanging her head, “I don’t know.”

All she could think about was Lyssa’s words, the conviction with which she believed that the Maiden had conspired with Prince Deka to create the conditions for his rebirth.

A feeling of sickness flooded through Char Char as she recalled Hakuya’s tortured, petrified form trapped in the demonic tree.

Finn’s expression softened as he re-evaluated the situation. Though he couldn’t read her mind, he could only imagine what an ordeal Char Char had just gone through. The scene that he had walked into when he had ported onto the giant hand was something out of a nightmare.

She’s just a youth, after all…

“I’ll go.“ Char Char said, her fingers curled around the hilt of Hakuya’s sword as she came to a decision on her own. “Just- give me a minute.”

~

In an inner chamber within the Tye Anne Cathedral, a woman with tanned skin and almond shaped eyes reclined on a a chair, setting her feet upon the desk in front of her. She was dressed in the slate gray uniform, the tailored jacket and pants accentuating her youthful, spry build. She held a pouch full of chocolate covered nuts and casually popped them into her mouth as she stared up at the empty ceiling.

Her eyelashes flickered the door opened at the far end of the room. She didn’t bother looking away from the ceiling as Finn entered the room alone, closing the door behind him.

“How is the Astromancer catalyst treating you?” She asked, “You seem to have recovered quickly.”

“It’s fine.” Finn said, “It’s just as you said. I have a heightened awareness of my surroundings, and my body appears to be much stronger and more resilient than before.”

“What about spacial tear?” She flicked a chocolate into the air toward Finn as she asked the question.

Finn locked his eyes onto the chocolate and snapped his fingers. The chocolate split into two mid-air, falling to the floor.

“It’s reasonable.” Finn said, watching the chocolate halves as they landed on the floor next to his feet. “Smaller objects are easier, also the range is quite limited.”

“It’ll come with time.” The woman sighed, her eyes returning to the ceiling. “Well, you didn’t die on your first mission with me. That’s already worth something.”

From her tone, she didn’t seem to have high expectations for Finn. Actually, it could be said that she seemed to be constantly disappointed. Ever since Finn had made her acquaintance that afternoon, she had an air of boredom and muted frustration.

This person’s name was Gwynn. Specifically to Finn, she was Chief Gwynn, the newly appointed Chief of Special Ops.

This appointment had been made by Bryant Chaser, Lord Noga’s Minister of Security. Gwynn had shown up at the station with a wax sealed declaration and immediately activated her powers as Chief to take command of the Special Ops department and the special investigation team that had been headed by the late Chief Bear.

She then confronted Chief Vox, declaring herself Finn’s supervisor and clearing him of suspicion.

Following this she presented Finn with the option of one of two catalysts to bring him into the realm of Exalted.

These two catalysts were the standard issue paths for Noga’s police officers - Astromancer and Chronicler. Gwynn had given the most simple, half-hearted explanation of the two paths - the former controlled space and the latter controlled time. She hadn’t even given Finn a detailed rundown of the powers he would receive, or the side effects of taking the catalyst.

Fortunately Finn had long known about the two paths and side effects of the potions from his study of Chief Yun’s notes.

In his opinion, Astromancer was the superior option. They received physical boons and situational awareness, which was well suited to investigative work. The ability to manipulate the location and physical attributes of objects was flexible and could be used to great effect in many scenarios. In addition, the Disciple level power Planar Door, which allowed the Astromancer to instantly transport people across large distances, offered incredible safety and convenience.

On the other hand Chronicler powers seemed to be full of restrictions. Their time based powers were extremely localized and short lasting. They were more suited toward clerical and investigative roles, with improved memories and ability to see into the past. At apprentice level they gained the ability to make Stasis pockets which was interesting, but ultimately not as useful as the Astromancer’s object manipulation abilities, in Finn’s opinion.

Therefore, Finn decided on the Astromancer path, and Gwynn unceremoniously tossed him a flask that seemed to be filled with viscous glitter. Finn didn’t even have time to balk at her flippant attitude toward bringing someone into the Exalted realm.

“It doesn’t really matter.” She’d said, “Just choose one. There’s more important things to worry about.”

As soon as Finn recovered from taking the catalyst Gwynn put him in charge of the previous special investigative team.

Each decisive move had been accompanied by the same half-hearted, lackluster attitude that Gwynn was showing in front of him at this moment.

She definitely has someone behind her telling her what to do. Finn noted with a neutral expression as he watched her flick a chocolate in the air and catch it in her mouth. She’s too carefree, yet she’s already accomplished so much in her first few hours as Chief.

“So-“ Gwynn sighed, looking over at Finn, “What should we do next?”

“Yes, Chief.” Finn straightened his posture to a formal pose of attention as he was addressed, thinking he was about to receive orders. Almost immediately he flinched as a chocolate nut pelted him in the cheek.

His posture broke as he looked down at the chocolate that had just hit him, only to see it retrace its path back to Gwynn’s hand.

Both the outgoing trajectory of the chocolate and its return had been clearly influenced by her time-attuned powers.

“Don’t act so formal around me.” Gwynn scowled, “And don’t call me Chief. It makes me sound like one of those old men.”

Finn rubbed his stinging cheek as Gwynn looked expectantly at him.

“Well-“ Finn frowned, thinking carefully, “The major disaster with the God of Life’s rebirth has been averted. It looks like the White Maiden had a large part in foiling that plan. I intend to take Char Char to the Maiden’s shrine and discover what I can.”

Gwynn held a chocolate in between her thumb and forefinger, delicately biting it in half. Her eyes flickered over to Finn, wordlessly conveying to him, “What else?”

“Chief Fang is also wrongly accused of treason by Chief Vox. We need to investigate what happened, and free him so he can resume his duties.” Finn said, pausing to check whether Gwynn looked satisfied, “Finally, we need to deal with Vox himself. Based on his actions he appears to be working with the enemy. If we can detain and question him, we may be able to settle the chaos within the police department, allowing us to focus on external threats.”

Gwynn furrowed her brows, her gaze returning to the ceiling. “Chief Fang? Who is that again?”

“Er-“ Finn hesitated, not sure if this new Chief of Special Ops was being serious, “Head of Triple-P and acting Head Chief…”

“Oh. He was arrested?”

“Yes, last night…” Finn said, doing his best to hide his incredulity. This news was not just all over the police department, but he’d heard it had even been issued in the newspapers. He could only conclude that Chief Gwynn was playing dumb for some reason, because he refused to believe someone promoted to her position would be so out of touch with the current events. “There was a report issued by Chief Vox this morning. Homicide Department Chief Bear confronted Chief Fang with his team of about thirty officers… Chief Fang crippled nearly all of them and executed Chief Bear before being apprehended by Chief Vox…”

“Chief Fang killed Chief Bear in front of multiple witnesses.” Gwynn frowned, “I’m fairly certain killing a fellow Chief is considered treason. How is that a wrongful accusation?”

“It’s the circumstances…” Finn muttered, “Chief Bear was a traitor, looking to silence Chief Fang under false pretenses.”

“Any evidence?” Gwynn asked.

“Well- this was what my partner Zwei Xing was investigating into. I will have to see what he found.” Finn said.

Thinking about it, Zwei never stated his reasons for why he believed that Chief Bear was the mole in the department. He had simply stated it as fact. Finn hadn’t been interested in that aspect of the investigation and so never followed up on it.

“I see. That must be what this is about.” Gwynn picked up a thick sheaf of papers off the desk and flipped through it idly with a bored expression.

The papers had the official seal and was typed on police force letterhead. After ruffling through the papers once, she glanced over to Finn and tossed the fifty-plus page report onto the table, motioning for Finn to take a look. He stepped forward, picking up the papers.

“It’s Chief Vox’s official report.” Finn muttered, “So you were aware of Chief Fang’s arrest already and were just testing me?”

“No, I picked it up earlier but didn’t glance it at.” Gwynn said with an honest tone.

Bullshit! Finn accused her in his mind. How does one randomly pick up such a sensitive document without knowing what it is?

Gwynn seemed to anticipate his thoughts. She paused then asked, “You’re familiar with Chronicler powers, aren’t you?”

“Yes…” Finn said, “Could it be Time Dilation? So you slowed down time and… went down to the station and picked up the papers and returned?”

Even as Finn spoke the words he felt that his explanation was nonsensical. The station was in a different part of town compared to the cathedral. Even assuming that she had some way to teleport over there despite being from the a time-aspected Chronicler path, the fact that Finn hadn’t even noticed her move meant she’d have to have frozen time for the whole trip, which would require god-like levels of time manipulation powers.

“I didn’t use Time Dilation. Like I said, I picked it up earlier… Ah, never mind, it’s not important.” Gwynn couldn’t be bothered to explain herself as she dismissed the topic with a shrug.

She sighed, “More importantly, this paper doesn’t seem reasonable. Chief Bear ran a sting operation against Chief Fang with his team of eleven candidate astromancers, two apprentice astromancers, six candidate chroniclers, four candidate elementalists and two candidate shamans. Since when did the police force assemble such a huge number of Exalted?”

Finn frowned, flipping as quickly as he could through the pages of the report to find the numbers that Gwynn was referring to. The numbers were just like she had said. This raised a number of red flags for Finn as he digested the information.

Even though Finn had never been privy to Exalted numbers in the force, he was fairly certain that their total number across all five departments shouldn’t have amounted to more than two dozen. He recalled Chief Yun complaining once about only having two full six-member Exalted teams, and the Special Ops department should have been the department with the most Exalted, considering their primary purpose was to investigate mystical and esoteric related cases.

Yet there were twenty five Exalted officers involved in the operation against Chief Fang.

At the back of the report was an appendix that had a detailed dossier on each of the injured officers, as well as a medical report detailing their current condition. All of them were extremely injured or crippled and were currently being treated at various clinics close to the police headquarters.

“It looks like five of the officers involved in the operation are longstanding senior officers in the Homicide department, but the rest of them were recruited relatively recently.” Finn said, “Within the past year and a half at most.”

“Okay.” Gwynn said, clapping her hands together. She took her feet off the desk and sat forward in her chair, looking Finn in the eyes for the first time, “That’s our number one priority.”

“What is?” Finn frowned, “Looking into the large number of Exalted officers on the Homicide team?”

“Yes.” Gwynn nodded, “Specifically, where did all the catalysts come from? Spacetime catalysts are carefully controlled by Lord Noga. Where did Chief Bear get them from?”

“I can look into that. What about my previous task to go to the White Maiden’s shrine?” Finn asked.

“That’s also number one priority.” Gwynn said, “Get your teammate to take you and the girl there.”

She grinned slyly as she clasped her fingers together and rested her chin on them, “I’ll leave both investigations in your capable hands.”