Broken Badge (Pokemon Fanfic)

Broken Badge CHP 1: First Call

If it hadn't burnt itself into my retinas then, it certainly had now. Inconceivable amounts of blood stained the room, along with the hundreds of bullet casings splayed out all over the floor, the only remaining signs of a living nightmare that I had endured. I knew at that point I had left the light of the Lord and was heading face-first into Lucifer's dreaded sanctum with nothing to lose.

To understand my situation, we have to go back a good month before the city's dark underbelly exploded in my face. My life beforehand had been working the night shift for the Castelia City Police Department, patrolling the parts of the metropolis it didn't want you to see. Far from the glimmer and shine of the harbors on the tip of the peninsula, my shift involved me snaking a rusty Crown Vic through the streets of Northwell Heights, the worst place in the city. Back in the 60s and 70s, it was the epitome of hippie culture. Rainbow-colored buses, Guitar players at every street corner, and even the occasional war protest used as a ruse to throw an LSD-Fueled bash. However, once the drug crisis in the 80s came, the borough got choked out and became pale white. The hippies were either driven out of town by their waning culture or began peddling more than Acid to make ends meet. Northwell eventually became a civilian casualty in the war against drugs; a mixture of failed federal stings and a line of corrupt mayors left the district rotting away like a dumped corpse in a ditch.

The night everything began was a carbon copy of those before. The sky was pitch black and cloudy, smothering the stars above like a pillow to the face. Apart from a minor skirmish with a drunk driver, my shift was unusually quiet, with only the sound of the old Ford's engine providing music to the silence. The streets were somehow peaceful at this time of night when it would sound like a warzone on any other. It was still a surprise that people opted to live there, but considering that Northwell Heights had essentially become one big plot of Section 8 housing, most families here really didn't have a choice. I was parked in the shadow of a burnt-out clothing store when the call came out, right as the clock struck midnight on the cracked center console.

"Units in the vicinity of Northwell Heights, we got a caller on the line reporting a possible 10-52A on 29 Camp and 4th Street. The caller has reported intense yelling and breaking noises coming from the floor above her. Any takers?"

"10-4, This is Officer Johannes. I'm near the area. I'll take that."

"Acknowledged, respond Code 3."

The drive to the other side of the district went like a blur, with the only exciting part of the ride being pushing the cruiser to 50 in a 30 zone as the sirens blared and the engine heaved under the increased torque. Every light on the way was green, openly inviting me to what lay ahead with an open maw. I had dealt with domestic disturbances before, but I could tell something was off as I pulled the patrol car next to the address. The air changed the moment I stepped out and shut the car door behind me. Whatever stageplay I was in at this point, the sense of calm was beginning its exeunt omnes.

The street the address was on always seemed to have problems, I had been called out here multiple times for every drug offense under the sun. I could see why; this stretch of asphalt was essentially no-man's-land between The Blue Monarchs and The Quaglia Family. Their feud had been going on since the early 2000s. The history of it was foggy; something about a hijacked weapons shipment and a failed drive-by had to do with it. Whatever it was, after the towers fell, it pitted Durante Luca Quaglia "The Iron Don" and Leon Barns' "The Royal Kingpin" against each other. Almost two entire decades later, their argument had ripped the city apart and turned Northwell into a warzone.

Cutting back to now, I could hear the shouting the caller reported loud and clear. These weren't normal screams; they had the mix of the angst of a domestic dispute and the hysteria of a drug trip gone horribly wrong. The screams were out of hell, and I would discover why. I opened the front door of the dilapidated building, greeted by an empty, dimly lit hallway that led to a staircase. The floor tile was cracked and got colder with every footstep. The stairwell faired no better. Wooden splinters jutted out like knives, each one of them wanting to stab the bottom of my feet repeatedly as I climbed the stairs.