Welcome to the IDPD (Chapter 1)

A deformed figure in the dark ran through the alleyways sparsely lit by the neon billboards reflected in the puddles of stagnant water. The man's feet splashed through one such puddle, spraying its contents everywhere. The surface soon grew still again, the scattered droplets flowing back into the depression from the surrounding pavement.

Another figure, slender and graceful, dashed through the alleyway without even disturbing the water surface. Whereas the previous one's footsteps were audible even to the people in the surrounding houses unaware of the chase, this one's were light tapping sounds like drizzle on an umbrella.

"Angle! I need an angle!" The man wrapped in a long trench coat cried desperately. Even though he had been running from his pursuer through what felt like half the city, he wasn't out of breath.

It was his bad luck to have come to this particular place, as he couldn't find a single sharp angle that was big enough. The people had built this place with sleek futuristic curves since long ago, and only the ancient alleyways still had architecture from a bygone era. Yet, he was unfortunate enough to not run into a single usable one.

Finally, he stumbled over a glass bottle and tumbled across the ground before skidding to a halt with his trench coat's buttons snapping off. It revealed a black synthetic bodysuit underneath that hid every inch of his skin. Bad luck appeared to be following him today, as this particular bottle was one of the few that remained in this world after the plasteel revolution. It could fetch a high price with collectors, but that was the last thing on his mind.

"Stay away!" Instead, he grabbed the glass bottle with a four-fingered, gloved hand and threw it at his pursuer with a fearful cry. The figure in the short jacket and torn leggings caught the makeshift projectile with an almost casual gesture before stepping through the light falling out of a window. It was a girl that should have been in high school rather than chasing people through the night.

"If I stay away, I can't rip you to shreds." She growled in response, glaring at the man on the dirty ground with purple eyes. The moment she left the circle of light, they began glowing in the dark once more, drawing a trail after them as she stepped forward. Her shoulder-length orange hair swayed as she sped up to catch her prey once and for all.

"Please, at least tell me your name before you kill me!" The man tried to crawl backward on all fours, but in this state, he couldn't hope to outrun the girl who had been able to catch up with him while he had still been on his feet.

"All you need to know is that you killed Sara, my one and only friend." With a merciless reply, she bridged the distance to her quarry in three blindingly quick steps and delivered a kick to his head.

From the force, the hood drawn deep into his face was blown back, revealing a terrifying visage. An elongated snout and sharp ears gave him a passing resemblance to a dog, but it was as if he was rotting while still alive. He had no eyeballs and lacked all skin, and it was as if his flesh was ready to burst from the inside with pus. Still, it was only the way it appeared, and the kick that would have facilitated such a disgusting outcome did no such thing.

The deformed man crashed into bags of trash, ripping some of them open and spilling their foul contents. Struggling under the pain in his temple, he attempted to get back up but was met with a stomp to the chest that pinned him to the ground.

"You won't get the easy way out." The girl lifted her foot off the man and brought down her knee. With a crunching sound, something broke in his chest, and he screamed in pain. "You'll feel what you did to my friend."

In the next moment, she grabbed his head with both hands and slammed it into the ground. His consciousness flickered for a moment, but a sharp pain in his right arm returned it right away. As he looked up, a horrifying scene unfolded before him.

The girl had ripped open his bodysuit and was sinking her teeth into his warped forearm. She bit into his flesh with all her strength, and her last words before banging his head against the pavement replayed in his mind: He would feel what he did to the girl's friend.

He had eaten her friend alive; now, she would inflict the same unto him.

"Martha! Alice! Jane!" He desperately screamed out any names that came to his mind while trying to punch and kick the girl away. However, over the past two days, he had exhausted all his options to escape his pursuer - only to end up in her clutches anyway.

As if hearing those names only infuriated her further, the girl bit down hard and ripped off a piece of his festering flesh. With a crazed glare, she punched him in the face to keep him from struggling while swallowing the putrid meat.

"You insane bitch!" The man howled in pain. If he had tears, he would have cried them by now. He understood that this was his end, and neither his abilities nor his physical strength could get him out of this situation. It wasn't how he had pictured his end, so he had to keep struggling. "Jenny! Anna! Olivia!"

"Are those your past lovers? Or are you thinking about all your victims now?" In a hate-filled snarl, the girl mocked him before sinking her teeth into his arm once more and ripping another piece off. The yellow blood that burst from the wound smelled like petrol; its stench permeated the alleyway as she continued her grim feast.

She had to hold back the urge to vomit but would see this through to the end. Finding her one and only friend in this world dead and half-eaten gave her the resolve to become a monster herself. His struggles grew weaker from loss of blood, and his attempts to come up with any names turned into senseless muttering, but she continued to avoid his vital parts to prolong his suffering.

"Stop! Step away from the man immediately!" A young man's voice suddenly echoed through the alleyway, accompanied by a flashing red and blue light.

The girl looked up in confusion, not understanding why the police would stop her righteous revenge. Her hair, face, and clothes were covered in foul yellow blood, and her purple eyes were glowing with the same intensity that her hatred burned for the man underneath her.

She stared at the officer, a man in a dark blue uniform and a helmet of the same color. His shoulder pauldrons were emitting the characteristic red and blue police lights. He was wielding a disintegrator gun rather than a taser, which told the girl that he knew she was a full-body organic. Electric shocks were far more devastating for the locals who all had implants in their bodies.

"Get off of him now! If you do anything else, I will be forced to fire!" The police officer warned her in a professional tone, but there was a hint of anxiety in his voice. His gun was trained on the girl, but it was quivering slightly.

With blinding speed, she went straight for the monster's throat and ripped it out in one fell bite. She would rather skip the torture and end his life than risk him getting saved here and surviving to go free again one day. If she had to die afterward, it would be a small price to pay.

The deformed man's body twitched in its death throes before it suddenly burst out into steam and dissolved into an orange mist. All the blood on the girl's skin evaporated as well, leaving no evidence of her depraved deed safe for his now empty clothes.

A split second later, the flesh inside her stomach dissolved and burst forth as a loud burp, accompanied by the same orange steam. Then she emptied the contents of her already hollow stomach on the trench coat underneath her. She had endured until now, but the sense of nausea caught up with her after all.

"Damn!" Lowering his gun, the young police officer took a step back and cursed under his breath.

"Damn indeed, boy." A reverberating bass voice rumbled through the darkness. Moments later, a grizzled man with grayish-green skin stepped into the light, towering more than a head over the younger officer. He wore no helmet and was bald. A prominent underbite with tusks protruding from between his lips that were drawn down in displeasure identified him as a space orc. The crow's feet around his eyes were evidence of a sunny disposition, but none of it was noticeable now when he glared at the girl. "Mari Nova, you're in deep shit now."

"I did nothing wrong." Standing up on unsteady legs after her fetid dinner and the subsequent rejection, Mari declared while raising her hands in surrender. Revenge murder was legal on this planet.

"It doesn't matter that you killed him. It matters in what manner you killed him." The orcish police officer replied with a grim expression on his face.

"He was a monster." Mari remained unrepentant, putting her hands on her hips in a defiant pose. "And he deserved to die the way my friend died. If you had done your job-"

"Silence, girl!" With an angry roar, a third, female officer suddenly interrupted her from the other end of the alleyway. Her appearance was accompanied by a burst of flames that lit up the twilight for a moment, revealing everything about her in blindingly bright detail. Two backward-curved horns emerging from her forehead between bobbed black hair, glowing golden eyes, and crimson skin marked her as a demon. "You just killed a Time Hound."

"A what?" Tilting her head, Mari inquired with a skeptical look on her face. She knew that this monster was not from this world, but the galaxy was vast, and she didn't care what he was.

"You ate its flesh and killed it. That let you inherit its power." The female demon walked forward within arm's reach of Mari and stabbed her finger at the latter's chest. She stood almost a full head shorter than Mari but behaved as if she were superior to her. Maybe her big breasts, disproportionate for her diminutive height and slender build, made her feel that way.

"To hide inside sharp angles?" Mari looked around curiously as if searching for what the Time Hound came into this back alley and failed to find. If that were the truth, she would want to try using it right away. It was the reason he had been able to elude her for the past two days, but a combination of his luck running out and her perseverance paying off let her catch him in the end.

Suddenly, her gaze brushed past the first officer, and she realized that his uniform was unlike any she had seen on this planet before. He was not a member of the local police, and neither were the other two. Something felt very wrong, and her mind raced to think of a way out of this situation.

"Tell me again what police department you're from, officers." To buy herself some time, Mari resorted to a diversion. "And I never heard a name from you either."

"We're from the IDPD, and I'm-" The young man and first on the scene began to identify himself, but was interrupted.

"Stand down, officer." A fourth voice echoed through the alleyway, although it sounded like a male and female voice speaking in near-perfect unison. "You too, sergeant."

"Commissioner Gorgon." The demon sergeant did as she was told, taking two steps backward from Mari and standing at attention. The others followed her example and did the same.

Coming into view from behind the young officer was a man or a woman, standing as tall as the orc or as short as the demon at once. Their true form eluded the mind as if one's gaze were repelled to a point beside them like magnets of the same pole.

"Miss Nova, choose." Mari's entire body stiffened at the tone of this being's voice. Even though it was exceedingly calm, it exuded a deadly threat. It felt as if she had to listen without interruption, or her very soul would face annihilation. At the same time, there was infinite beauty in the combination of their unfathomable form and their inscrutable voice. "Come serve under me in the IDPD."

Extending a hand that looked like an angel's palm and a devil's claw, Gorgon gave Mari what felt like a smile. Their face thwarted one's gaze, but she could tell that they were inviting her warmly.

"... or?" Mari scraped together her willpower before this unknown being to ask.

All she received was an even broader smile, an abyss-like grin that was both a promise and a threat. There was no choice. Free will was an illusion. She would do as she was told, and there were no alternatives in this universe or any other parallel timeline.

Having died once in her previous life in Japan, Mari had lost her fear of death after experiencing this galaxy. She had been discarded right after her reincarnation and had grown up surrounded by death. In this life, she only ever had one friend to call her own - Sara, the girl that this Time Hound had killed and eaten. Being thrown into such a world from a peaceful world would have broken anybody's sense of right or wrong. Mari wasn't entirely sane anymore.

But even she understood that what awaited her if she should refuse the offer wasn't something she could even begin to imagine. Therefore, there was no choice, only acceptance of the path laid out before her. She would take the proffered hand and eat whatever it gave her.

"Oh my, the effects are already showing." With a charming tilt of their head, the commissioner of the IDPD looked above Mari's eyes.

She raised her hands and touched her hair, only to find that two furry growths had appeared where there had been none until moments ago. Turning her head, she sought her reflection in one of the round glass panels in the walls beyond which lay one of the filthy rooms of those who could afford no better. In the sparsely illuminated alleyway, she saw herself, purple eyes glowing in the dark, light brown hair down to her shoulders, and a pair of floppy dog ears above her human ones.

"For the cute little dog, a nice collar." Commissioner Gorgon suddenly announced, and before Mari knew it, a black collar with a metal ring had already been placed around her neck. "Welcome to the IDPD, Recruit Nova."

"What is the IDPD?" Mari asked curiously, skipping her sense of indignation over this degrading treatment altogether. She knew better than to complain.

"The Interdimensional Police Department, of course." Putting their form-defying hands together, the commissioner replied in a joyous tone. "Now, come with me to finalize the paperwork, and then it's off to basic training for you, Miss Nova. Great things await you at the IDPD."

In both a motherly and fatherly tone, Gorgon put a nebulous black arm around Mari's shoulder and nudged her the way they came from. A mind-bending rift in space tore through the alleyway before her, and the commissioner guided her toward it. She knew that she was now in the hands of this shadowy being, so there was no fear about stepping into the hole in reality.

Her life was no longer her own; there was no longer any reason to be afraid of whatever awaited her.