Welcome to the IDPD (Chapter 2)

"Welcome to basic training, maggots! I'm Sergeant Blazkowicz, but to all of you, I might as well be a god." The two-headed, granite-skinned instructor yelled across the sixty recruits gathered on the field before him. He stomped along their lines and glared at each one of them equally.

"Uwah, what dimension is he from? That's so cliché." A boy with bluish-gray skin and white hair whispered under his breath in the second row.

"Must be a military otaku." Mari replied with a suppressed giggle.

"Did I say something funny, recruit Nova?" Blazkowicz snapped one of his two heads around, an angry vein visible on his muscular neck. His physical appearance and attitude were the very picture of a military drill instructor. However, in this profession that supposedly valued individuality, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

"She said that you must be a military otaku, sir!" The recruit standing right next to Mari, a lean human-looking man with a soldier's buzz cut, snitched on her with the self-righteous attitude of an honor student.

"You can't be serious." Rolling her eyes, Mari glared at the man before realizing that the sergeant was coming toward her.

"We don't appreciate your kind here - Doyle!" To everybody's surprise, Blazkowicz snapped both his heads toward the snitch. He had just stopped in front of Mari and looked like he was about to chew her out but subverted her expectation magnificently. "Do you like to dive into toilets, Doyle?"

"Sir?" The recruit named Doyle stood as straight as a flagpole but dared to look down at the slightly shorter sergeant in confusion.

"My eyes are here, Doyle!" Using his left hand, Blazkowicz pointed at his right head's eyes, further confusing his opposite. "Do you like to crawl through sewers?"

"I-I don't understand, sir." With increasing bewilderment, the recruit could only stammer.

"This is a simple yes or no question, Doyle! Do you like to shovel shit?!"

"No, sir!"

"Then why are you crawling up my behind as if you were looking for Paimaxian Dust in an illegal mineshaft?!" Roaring into Doyle's face with both his mouths, Blazkowicz delivered the punchline of his thrashing. "If I wanted a rim job, I would have asked Recruit Lynn!"

"That's sexual harassment, sir." An incredibly tall woman at the very end of the group, presumably the recruit named Lynn, announced in a matter of fact tone.

"We don't like ass-kissing snitches down here unless it's on a Mastean drug deal!" Ignoring the interjection, the sergeant continued to blast Doyle.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Staring up into the air, the latter attempted the best soldier impression he could manage under the circumstances.

"What universe are you from, Doyle?" Blazkowicz calmed down and asked in an unexpectedly level tone. It gave the recruit hope that his reaming was over.

"Universe 46, sir!" He responded in an energetic tone.

"That was a rhetorical question, recruit! Mastea is the illegal drug planet of Universe 46! Snitching on a deal there is as useful as screaming murder in a deaf neighborhood!" Bursting forth with another tirade, Blazkowicz came down on Doyle even harder than before. At this point, Mari almost felt sorry for the man who tried to gain some brownie points at her expense. But then the sergeant turned to her with one head. "And you, Nova, you think this is a joke?"

"Well, it was funny for a while." She replied with a casual shrug. "But you're overdoing it a little at this point, sergeant."

"The only reason she could presume to talk to the instructor like this was that she thought they weren't allowed to dish out physical punishment." Suddenly, a sullen-looking girl with tired blue eyes in the second row right behind Mari began narrating. She was short and had a skinny build, standing with slack shoulders even though she should be at attention. Her long purple bangs had been cut messily as if in a last-minute effort to free her vision. The rest of her chin-length haircut was bed head.

"Wait." Mari glanced at the girl and then back at Sergeant Blazkowicz. 

"But this was the Inter-Dimensional Police Department. The only laws they upheld were the ones they made themselves." The girl continued, expressionless like a doll.

"What?" With increasing worry, Mari watched as a grin slowly formed from the sergeant's one head's ear to his other's. It looked incredibly genuine, but that was more terrifying than a frown.

"Thank you, Recruit Memory." Blazkowicz expressed his gratitude to the narrator girl. Then, before Mari could react, his two powerful hands grabbed the dog-eared girl's head. With a bone-creaking, vise-like grip, he lifted her off the ground and held her in midair.

"Recruit Nova, fifty rounds around the complex, and no dinner for you!" The sergeant declared Mari's official punishment and let her go, dropping her on her backside. Just as she was about to get back up, a karate chop came down on her head that knocked her lights out.

Mari would forever remember breaking down from exhaustion after finishing the more than two-hundred-kilometer-long marathon around the training complex of the IDPD that day.

"Have some water." A voice Mari had heard before spoke to her, and her eyes fluttered open. In the next moment, something hot touched her sweat-covered neck, and she jumped up in pain and confusion. Before her kneeled Memory, holding a comically ancient-looking brass kettle. It was still steaming hot.

"Are you bullying me?" Mari complained while stumbling backward. Her legs were shaking from her earlier exertion, and she fell on her bottom after two steps.

"I'm trying to be nice." Memory replied in an emotionless tone. Her eyes suggested complete disinterest, but her actions looked suspiciously like those of a passive-aggressive bully.

"Don't worry about it." From behind Mari, another girl spoke in a bubbly tone. She was slightly chubby, sported purple hair and pink skin, and her clothes looked like somebody had dunked her into a sticker factory's rejects bin. Even though they shouldn't be allowed to, she had modified her outfit to the point that it could barely be recognized as a recruit's training uniform. "Memory lacks a sense of hot and cold. She just made a mistake is all."

"Oh, this is a hot tea kettle." With slightly widened eyes, Memory remarked in a mockingly emotionless tone. "I had no idea."

"Oi, that's so obviously a lie!" Mari roared in anger, but then began coughing. She had been running without a single break for the last six hours. As such, she was dehydrated beyond the limits of health and safety. "W-water..."

"Here." Unrepentant, Memory handed Mari the tea kettle and skipped away as if proud of herself.

"I... I'm going to get you." Trying to push herself up, Mari declared with a painfully parched throat. Then her strength gave out, and she fell on her face.

"You poor thing. I'll get you something to drink." The bubbly girl drew up her violet eyebrows in an expression of pity and turned to leave. Then she swiveled back with a beaming smile that extended all the way to her big, rose-colored eyes. "By the way, my name is Deisha. I got some nice Pepper Fig juice, so wait right here."

"Just... cold water... please." Turning her head sideways and raising a shaky hand to stop Deisha, Mari barely forced out those words. Then darkness embraced her.

The next time Mari awoke, it was from finally getting the cold water she was asking for. Only that instead of gracing her lips with their quenching chilliness, it was splashed in her face.

"Bwuh?" Sitting up in shock, Mari looked around with water dripping from her head. Standing over her was the boy with bluish-gray skin and white hair, replying to whose joke got her into this mess in the first place. He was carrying an empty bucket in his hands from which water still dripped. Anger rose inside Mari, but all she could do was complain weakly. "Is everybody here a bully or what..."

"Here, water." However, to her surprise, the boy picked up another bucket from next to him and placed it in Mari's hands. "There's a general lack of common sense in the IDPD and those who want to join it. Don't hold it against them."

"Water!" Without listening, Mari lifted the bucket to her mouth and began downing its contents in big gulps. The coldness running down her parched throat felt like a life-giving elixir saving her from the brink of death.

"My name is Vega Mellor. I'm from Lov-71 in Universe 8, and you're not listening." The boy began to introduce himself but gave up halfway when he realized that Mari was too engrossed in nearly drowning herself with the water he had brought her. He sighed with a wry smile and watched her until she was done.

"I've come with Pepper Fig juice... oh." The bubbly pink girl returned with a tiny promotional aluminum bottle of the promised drink that had a big label reading 'extra spicy' on it. The fact that she brought this as a serious attempt to help Mari was exactly what Vega had been referring to. "I suppose water is alright, too."

"What time is it?" Lowering the empty bucket, Mari asked nobody in particular.

"I don't even know how time works here." With a shrug, Vega replied. He pointed at the sky, or rather the lack thereof; streaks of purple and black mixed like ink above them, moving across where the sky should be like a churning river. They were between dimensions, a place governed by the Void Gods whom the IDPD were subordinate to. "There's a signal for everything though, so-"

"Is dinner already over?" Jumping up and grabbing Vega's collar, Mari demanded to know.

"Did you forget that your punishment was to skip dinner? Not that it matters; the mess hall is already closed for today... or tonight?" Sighing almost apologetically, Vega gave Mari the devastating answer.

"Tomorrow!" With an enthusiastic exclamation, Deisha made a very Deisha-like attempt to contribute to the conversation.

"Oh nooo." Sinking to her knees, Mari held her growling stomach. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. "They forced me to join, and now I get treated like trash. This is unfair!"

The only reason she could complain so openly was that Commissioner Gorgon wasn't within earshot. She would never dare to voice her true feelings before the cosmic being that had forced her into this job. Anybody else would get to feel her reluctance on every turn, as long as she could get away with it.

"They can do that?" Vega asked with an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"So, you're here because you want to?" Eyeing the white-haired boy with suspicion, Mari considered his earlier statement that people joining the IDPD generally lacked common sense.

"Well... my father is a captain of the IDPD, and so was his father before him. It was a natural development for me." Explaining with a sigh, Vega looked into the distance. He wasn't wholly opposed to becoming a career officer, but he didn't want to go into the field.

"You're a Lovian, right?" Mari scrutinized Vega with a thoughtful gaze. "How did your father make it to captain? I thought the IDPD was physically demanding?"

"Stubbornness - and inheriting a contract with a Void God from my grandfather." Vega revealed with a shrug. People from Lov-71 never grew beyond the appearance of fifteen-year-old humans, and they had the physical abilities to match. However, most of them were stubborn to a fault.

"Which one?!" Deisha suddenly jumped into the conversation, inquiring with glittering eyes.

"I'd rather not say." Averting his gaze, Vega muttered as if it was a touchy topic. "Being favored by a Void God isn't such a good thing."

"What are you saying? I'd love to have one of them as a patron!" It appeared that Deisha had a particular interest in the unfathomable rulers of the void between dimensions. But Mari could understand Vega's doubts about the matter. She had been dragged into the IDPD by one such Void God, Commissioner Gorgon. They were one of the rare individuals that personally involved themselves in matters of the material plane rather than making mortals dance for their amusement.

"If you met them, you wouldn't be saying that." As if a past trauma was speaking through him, Vega replied with a thousand-yard stare.

"What are you still doing here?" The voice of Lynn called out to them across the training field. Everybody turned their heads to find the tall woman approaching them with a measured gait. However, the clothes she was wearing caused them to stare with their eyes as round as saucers.

Even though Lynn appeared to be an honor student - a different kind from the snitching Doyle - she was now clad in a baggy jersey that hid her form. They were allowed to wear whatever they wanted after training hours, but it clashed with her image of the always serious kid on the block.

"Oh, did you finish your punishment, Mari Nova?" Lynn asked with a sardonic grin that revealed her pearly white, blocky teeth. The girl in question looked up at the towering woman, only now realizing how tall she truly was. Her fair skin looked like sandpaper from up close, glittering slightly from different angles.

"You're a Vacharan?" Vega asked with widened eyes when he noticed that fact. Then, a shiver ran down his spine when she turned her attention to him and bent down to get a closer look.

"And you're a Lovian, huh?" Licking her teeth with a segmented tongue that looked like it was made from metal, Lynn scrutinized the boy with obscene interest. "If you want some fun, come and visit me in my room later."

Lovians were as weak as they looked, but they had sheer limitless stamina - especially in bed. It wasn't rare to find them in brothels across their home galaxy, but they never lasted long in menial jobs. On the other side, Vacharans had extreme sexual dimorphism, with females growing to over half a meter taller than their males. It was natural for them to seek short men, and Lovians were perfect partners for their tastes.

"N-no can do." Shaking his head vehemently, Vega averted his eyes from Lynn and stuttered a response. Her cleavage was showing when she bent down, and she appeared to be well aware of that fact. "M-my life is on the line, so please don't ask."

"Hmph, boring." Straightening her back, Lynn shrugged and then glanced at Mari. "And you, doggo? Have you learned your lesson?"

"For a moment, I thought you wanted to invite me." Mari replied in a snarky tone.

"You wouldn't be able to keep up with me." Bending down and looming over the dog-eared girl, Lynn asserted with a broad grin that showed off her blocky teeth. She snapped them once demonstratively as if to say that she was a biter. Vacharans ate hard minerals rather than organic food, and they could easily crush rocks, let alone human bones.

"Not after running two hundred clicks, but I'll take you on any other day." Standing up with the empty water bucket in her hand, Mari declared fearlessly. Her legs were no longer shaky since she had rested a little and rehydrated.

"Hah! I like you, doggo." Lynn announced with a hearty laugh before turning to leave. Then, as if remembering something, she looked back and sneered. "Come see me after tomorrow's course, if you're still alive."

With those ominous words, she walked away toward the barracks. Mari turned to Vega, who brought his palm to his face and sighed. Deisha looked at Lynn and then Mari before giving the latter a beaming smile.

"You're even braver than I thought." The bubbly pink girl stated with a cutesy tilt of her head.

"Did I miss something again?" Shifting her gaze between Vega and Deisha, Mari blinked her eyes in confusion.