Graveyard Shift., On the hunt for cadavers!

[Kitanna]

Rebecca Kitborough had finally managed to get a vacation from her work over at West City's military HQ.. shortly after the hunt for Scar had ended.

She had taken the time to spend her twenty-third birthday at home with her beloved family in Central and had spent as much quality time with her little sister as she could; letting her know all the juicy details of what had happened in the western region lately.. however she had made sure to leave out the bit about her studying up on Necromancy.

The young blonde felt bad for doing such a thing.. but considering the circumstances of her second job, ignorance was definately bliss!

During her last week of the vacation, she had decided to go to East city and visit the old grave-yard in the dead of night... why? .. to do a little bit of body-snatching of course!

' Back in West City, it was easy to get the bodies needed for revamping due to that Paradise Law..' she thought to herself.
' Here however, will be a real challenge..and Skye did say that I could try a little experimenting if I wanted to..' she stepped slowly through the slightly over-grown grounds of the grave-yard.

" Someone really needs to get a gardner here.. all of this under-growth is hardly being respectful to the dead.." she muttered as she held her trusty lantern out in front of her so she could see where she was going.
That light only lit up so much in front though.. which didn't do much for her anxiety.

" All I need to do is find a grave, dig up a body and then try and find a way to send it to Skye.. hopefully with it remaining in one piece.." she grinned nervously.
" Simple as that.." although she sighed as she looked around.

" Although now..I kind of wish I brought along some help.."

[Styx]

There wasn't any point in heading back to that incredibly dreary apartment at this time of night. In fact, Colonel Frank Archer thought it'd be best if he spent his time in the great outdoors in the dead of night, just to clear his mind a bit. There was a lot on there, and when his mind got crowded, it wasn't a wonderful place to be. When he got like that, suspicious people started to look like moving gun targets, and Frank was the sort who loved to test his weapons.

The cemetery was a great place to stop his nocturnal jog temporarily and catch his breath. Zolfe Kimbley wasn't out of shape, but Frank Archer felt like he was on the verge of going to seed. He wasn't in his twenties anymore; that was for sure. That meant a slower metabolism, a slower cell recovery rate (if Dr. Shou Tucker was to be believed), and a faster chance of losing muscle mass in exchange for lipid mass. Not here; not now; not ever. However, those freaky pale eyes of the Colonel's caught sight of a suspicious person in the cemetery. "You!" he called out, drawing his gun with rapid reflexes (ha! Those weren't going to seed yet, thank God!). "You have ten seconds to explain why you're out past city curfew! Where's your permit?"

[Kitanna]

Out of all the choice words that went through Rebecca's head at that moment.. only one seemed to surface.
" Hu-huh?!" was all she exclaimed as the young blonde spun around to face Frank, her blue-grey- green eyes widening in shock as she noticed that he was holding a gun..and currently aiming it at her!

In a panic, Ms. Kitborough started to blurt out her response.
" I'm te-terribly sorry sir, I had no idea th-that there was a cu-curfew in this part of town at ni-night!" she quickly fumbled in her trouser pocket, searching for something, her identity card.. then quickly whipping it out and holding it out towards Frank.

" I'm Pr-Private Rebecca Kitbrough.. fr-from the West City military's investigations department, I was just looking through this grave-yard since I'm trying to find some information on a post-mortem case!" she replied, gulping slightly.

[Styx]

Yes, by all means, the gun was aimed at Private Kitborough. Sometimes, a name wasn't enough anymore. Since there was reported to be a homunculus who could shapeshift at will, Archer honestly needed to exercise further precautions and make sure all soldiers carried their identification papers with them, too, just to make sure they were the real deal and not Envy's cheap imitation. 'For all I know, it might have infiltrated my ranks by now...God knows I nearly lost a few in that nasty rut in Dublith.'

"This is East City, Private; you should know that we exercise a curfew in this city, and the only ones who are allowed out at such an hour are those with permits." Oh, yes; the Colonel had his permit nicely tucked away in his front pocket, just to make sure someone would have to manhandle him before he surrendered the document...the same for his identification papers...and folks with dangerous guns constantly clutched in hand were the last sort of person people wanted to fondle. It was a good thing Kitborough had her ID; if she hadn't, the Colonel would have (to be Frank, in both senses of the word) had permission from a higher authority to turn her into Swiss cheese.

'I didn't know West City had folks in their Investigations Department; Brigadier General Tannheuser must be putting that city's nose to the grindstone.' Not really; Skye Tannheuser had her own vendetta and folks simply wanted to do all they could to make sure they didn't make it on her Black List. "And, you'll have to pardon me for this, but it seems very odd that a post-mortem case in this city would be handed over to somebody in such a new branch as the West Investigations..."

[Kitanna]

Now this was an interesting predicament that Rebecca had gotten herself into.. how would she be able to get out of it?

This definately required some quick thinking.. although how quick it would be was another question entirely.

" Well it's more as a result of a discovery I found while looking through some copies of State Alchemist records that we have stored over at West H.Q" well this was partially right.. just before she went on her holiday, Ms. Kitborough had been reading through a document that covered the records of both Central and East City's State Alchemist's from the past.

And one name that she had found while reading had almost got her to choke on the cup of tea she'd also been drinking at the time.

" It concerns a Mr. Jacob Tucker.. apparently he was a State alchemist that came from the East district and was under the jurisdiction of General Lucretia Fortenbras around twenty years ago or so.... until he was found dead in his home, hanging from the ceiling near the staircase and a good lot of his research was found, burnt to ashes"

The young woman kind of wondered if the Colonel would actually care about any of the information she was telling him.. but as morbid as the subject was, it had kind of piqued her interest.

" People questioned if it was either murder or suicide.. but in time, the investigation just dwindled down to nothing..so as a person working in the Investigations department, I'm seeing it as a duty to get the case cleaned up"

' And perhaps get a cadaver to test out what I've learnt on mortuary alchemy, while I'm at it'

[Styx]

Again, Frank Archer was surprised anything at all could be kept on archive in West City. He'd been stationed there before during his Second Lieutenant years, serving under (at the time) Major General S. E. Lohengrin (the Quicksilver Alchemist), and knew just how wild a place the Gun Frontier could truly be. The weather, people, and very atmosphere of that place made him sick to his stomach; he preferred East City, even if there were fewer choices for adult entertainment in the evenings. Generally, he was a very tight-laced fellow (on the surface), but enjoyed a little corruption down below.

As Kitborough continued her story, Archer's ice-blue eyes narrowed a bit in interest. 'So, there was another Tucker who held a State Alchemist position...how very interesting...' Shou Tucker hadn't mentioned anything about that during his time under Archer in East, nor had he spilled any such knowledge to Zolfe Kimbley prior to that. Speaking of that, Kimbley needed a little check-up in a bit, but that wasn't as pressing as getting to the bottom of this grave-robbery.

And then Lucretia Fortenbras appeared as a name...the Lieutenant General really did have her fingers in a lot of holes. 'But this is impossible; that woman's only in her mid-thirties...right? She'd have to at least be twice that old to be involved with a case like this.' "Continue, then; however, I would like a copy of your findings delivered to my headquarters as well. After all, everything that goes on with military personnel in this city reflects back on my name."

[Kitanna]

Without any idea on what she was about to agree to, Rebecca Kitborough merely gave a nod and did a right-handed salute.
" Understood sir! I'll get those copies sent to you as soon as possible" she replied with a confident little grin.

Briefly glancing back over to the uncared for grave that sat in front of her, she then sighed and cracked her knuckles before looking back to Frank.
" So..I..I have full permission to dig this grave up?" well.. she just had to make sure ^^;

[Styx]

"I'll allow that once I see a permit with a superior officer's signature on it," Archer snapped, growing a bit impatient with this girl. At least he had something to do now, even if it was merely nagging at an incompetent private who fell under Tannheuser's command rather than his own. "You better get to it, then; I need to have the word of a Brigadier General or higher that you're allowed to do that."

[Kitanna]

Jumping slightly at the snap, Private Kitborough just gulped audibly in response and nodded, looking down at the ground out of embarassment.
" Of course sir.. you can count on it; at sun-rise tomorrow I'll head back to West City and get the copies together"

[Styx]

"Or..." Archer countered, folding his arms. "We can head back to my office at this very instant and see if General Tannheuser will give you approval for this particular act. If it's for an autopsy, I don't see any problem, but there's this one coroner we have in the military--I think he's a Major General, but I could be wrong--who's done some pretty disgusting stuff with corpses over the last couple of decades."

[Kitanna]

At that suggestion, Rebecca looked back up and nodded almost eagerly.. but she only just managed to stop it from looking like that.
" Yes sir, that sounds like a good idea to me"

Despite wincing as she wondered what kind of disgusting stuff this 'Major General' had done to corpses, Rebecca couldn't help but raise an eyebrow slightly.
' Hmm? which Major General would that be?' she thought to herself.. but didn't really say anything as such concerning it.

[Styx]

As Kitborough and Archer headed back toward East Headquarters in an attempt to phone in Tannheuser, who was living in the other Amestrian timezone and was therefore an hour ahead, a lot of commotion was going on in the halls, much to the disgust of the Colonel. Just as he was heading out toward his office to make that call, a voice interrupted. "Hey there; long time no see, Frank...what're you now, a Colonel? I'm impressed."

'Well, you should be impressed,' Archer thought to himself until he recognized the person who spoke to him as Sargeant General Lucretia Fortenbras. "General? What are you doing here?" When Fortenbras explained that the Fuhrer wanted to send at least one General to every important base (North for Sartoris, South for Lohengrin, East for Fortenbras, West for Tannheuser (after all, that was an experiment to see if the military could control the Gun Frontier; Tannheuser was probably more dispensable than the others), and Central for Guildenstern), Archer saluted Fortenbras immediately, stating that it'd be an honor to have a soldier of her caliber here in the eastern front.

[Kitanna]

Rebecca Kitborough had been following suite, the hallways of East City's HQ making her just a little wary at all the commotion.. even though she never admitted it, crowds really did scare her.

Upon seeing Lucretia Fortenbras, the young Private did a right-handed salute; this being her first time of actually meeting the Sargent General in-person.
" A pleasure to meet you ma'am" was all that managed to come from the blonde's mouth, the twenty three year old still being slightly bewildered from everything that was going on.

[Styx]

Fortenbras smiled back, but there wasn't much warmth in that action. Her jade eyes gazed around the area, then froze when she saw the shovel by a particular grave. "This man..." she murmured under her breath, her voice sounding far older than her body suited. Despite her semi-youthful appearance (for the General looked to be in her middle to late thirties), her voice sounded like that of an old woman. "What were you doing to this man's grave? I'll have you know he was a subordinant of mine."

[Kitanna]

' Oh great.. I just put myself into even more hot water..' Rebecca mentally told herself as she pulled an expression that almost seemed to mirror a child who had just been caught with it's hand in the cookie jar.

" I..I know ma'am and I re-really do apologise" she stuttered nervously, desperately trying to pull herself together while in the presence of a higher-up.

However she was just going to do a basic explaination this time, there was probably no need to repeat what she'd said to Archer.
"..But this is all to do with a case that was never solved all those years ago, even though the reasons behind it were rather dubious.."