A few months had passed, and Rey, as he preferred, felt that he was fitting in surprisingly well. Despite his scrawny appearance, he kept up with Ran during the physical part of his training. He was a decent shot with a pistol, and an even better shot with a sniper. Unfortunately, when it came to the paranatural, while he listened to Kia's teachings attentively, he kept drifting back to asking about Creepypastas. A subject which was kind of obvious everyone in the squad was quickly growing tired of hearing about.
Rey entered the headquarters in a rush one day, heading straight over to Aelfrun, who was standing next to the case board, writing up new information about the Ritellic case.

"El! I need to talk to you!" he called out as he stopped behind his squad leader.
"What is it, bairn?" The Halfborn replied, turning slightly to observe the newest member of the team.
"You and the others are being called into the main building to talk to the Chief about you guys harassing another detective." He reported, catching his breath.
"Oh? That's interesting." Aelfrun turned away from the board. "RIGHT YOU BUNCH OF GODFORSAKEN ANIMALS! WE'RE BEING CALLED INTO THE MAIN BUILDING! DAMN KAREN REPORTED US FOR SUPPOSED HARASSMENT!"
Rey flinched slightly at the sudden increase in volume, but it was something that he was gradually becoming used to. The rest of his new squad drifted into the case room, each looking equally displeased at the prospect of having to head up to the main building. Ai was messing with its hair, having only recently ‘woken up’, Ran was pulling on a T-shirt, his body glistening with sweat from the workout he had just come from, Kia was tying his hair band around his head, and Mal was on their phone, headphones on, like always, keeping tabs on various paranormal activity in the city.

As they walked, a companionable calm fell over the group. Aiken had decided quickly enough that it didn’t feel like walking, and had clambered up onto Randall’s shoulder, where it was talking the werewolf’s ear off about the newest horror novel it had read. Ran had a small smile on his face as he listened attentively, occasionally complaining about the human writer’s inaccurate description of werewolves and their full moon turnings. Malin had gravitated towards Aelfrun, who had dropped their arm protectively over the younger’s shoulders. They both were watching something on Mal’s phone, the music playing quietly as the team made their way through the streets.

Rey felt slightly excluded, once again being reminded of how long these five had been working together, as he fell slightly behind. Suddenly, a hand landed on his shoulder, making him jump out of instinct. “Hey bairn.” Kiandra appeared at his side, wearing a noticeably more masculine face than he was yesterday.
“Hey.” Rey responded, still slightly on edge. Partly because Kia was wearing the face of someone he recognised as the main suspect in a string of murder cases a few years back. Said suspect had suspiciously disappeared and the case was closed and marked as solved. That aspect of working with a faceshifter who had government permission to collect faces from the dead still hadn’t settled in yet.
“So, how’d you end up with us?” Kiandra questioned “Because I doubt anyone would voluntarily join our team.” The casual tone the question was posed in didn’t do much to hide the slight snide directed towards the human members of the police force.

Rey debated how to answer this question. Kiandra was right, no one had volunteered themselves, but they had all volunteered him. After all, who else better to join the team of Paranatural misfits then the human kid raised in a faery orphanage? “Hmm… I guess you’re right, no one volunteered.” Rey decided to just be as honest as possible, without revealing too much of what got him bullied in the first place. “But they all volunteered me.”
“They all volunteered you? Why would they throw one of their own under the bus like that?” The honest confusion in Kia’s voice reminded Rey that the Faceshifters were notorious for their sense of loyalty. Something that humans were sorely lacking in nowadays.
“Well, who else to send than the new kid.” Rey responded, attempting to sound flippant. “Not like anyone liked me anyway.” He added afterwards, under his breath.
“What was that?” Damn Paranaturals and their heightened senses.
“Oh, it was nothing, don’t worry.” Rey responded.
“Ok, if you insist.” Kiandra stayed by his side, and Rey felt weirdly as if he was more a part of the group than he was a few minutes ago.

Once they had reached the main building, they had been escorted up to the chief's office. The burly man sat behind his desk staring at the Diamonds as they entered. He pointed silently at the six seats in front of him, and waited for them to sit before speaking. "So, I heard that you attacked a detective?"
"It was well justified." Aelfrun responded to the question with a fluid shrug of their shoulders.
"Oh?" The Chief's interest was piqued.
"She tried to take off Tuiste’s mask…" Malin piped up quietly. Her mouth clamped tight suddenly when they realised everyone was now looking at her, Aelfrun simply placed their hand on Malin’s head, and the Vampire relaxed into their seat.
Aelfrun continued for them. "Firstly, Detective Smith denied us access to the crime scene that had been assigned to us, and acted disdainful even when she eventually removed herself and her team from the site. I was also told by Kiandra and Aiken that Smith then tried to reenter the site when I was casting my detection spell, which would not only have impeded the progress of the investigation, but would also have been a severe breach of my privacy. She later showed up at our house, and tried to force me to remove my mask. When I refused, she reached out for it herself, and that was when my magic reacted and removed her from my immediate vicinity. I took the time that she was restrained by my magic to give her a brief history lesson." Aelfrun concluded their short speech, and waited for the Chief to speak. He sighed.
"Unfortunately, we cannot remove her from the police force, as this has been the first time that any of her abusive and rude behaviour has been reported, however, I will talk to the other paranatural members here to see if they have any more evidence. If we get enough of it, then I can strip the Detective of her badge, and have her removed from the force."
"Thank you Sir."
"Anyway, before I dismiss you, how are you managing in that case you mentioned?" A sigh was collectively released from the gathered members.
“I swear, the next time we have to do a background search on a person with literally no history, I am packing up my stuff and moving to the middle of the Amazon.” The moan came from Aiken, who for someone made exclusively of lacquered wood and magic, was managing to somehow encapsulate the very definition of ‘sleep deprived office worker running on caffeine and pure will’. “A widowed military wife with two dead half-fey children was murdered in the middle of the night by faceshifters. You would think that it would be kinda easy to find information on her, but no.” Kiandra joined the conversation, shooting a glance at Aiken, as if to remind it to watch its mouth.
“All previous records of her seemed to have been removed from all known databases. All we’ve had to go off of is that which we could pry from the Paranatural crowd at the local soup kitchen.” The faceshifter sat straighter in his chair, as he continued his report. “And even then, information is scarce. Turns out Ritellic kept to herself, and rarely left the kitchen to interact with customers.”

“So, any leads yet?” The Chief of Police asked, his fingers steepling on the desk.
“Not really. I’d like to go back to the house, but apparently Detective Smith has been hanging around there a lot recently.” Aelfrun’s displeasure was evident, even with the mask secured firmly over their face. “And Babd knows I don’t want to deal with her anytime soon.”
“I understand, sorry to keep you all for so long. I’ll let you on your way now.” The Chief stood up to see out his guests. “I’ll see what i can do about the house too.” Aelfrun nodded as they rose, their team quickly following suit, a remark of:
“I’m sure you will, Chief.” thrown over their shoulder as the group left.