Ryan resisted the urge to grin.
A level up.
Five attribute points.
One random skill scroll.
Today had been absolutely insane, but the rewards were worth it.
At least mostly.
He still had to survive the aftermath
And according to every cop movie he'd ever seen, that might actually be the harder challenge.
"Why are you smiling?" Welters asked suspiciously.
Ryan immediately stopped smiling.
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"I was not."
McNab pointed at him.
"He was."
Ryan looked betrayed.
"Detective, I thought we had trust."
"We met six hours ago man."
"...."
One of the patrol officers approached.
"Detective McNab? Captain Holt wants everyone back at the precinct."
McNab groaned.
"The great shouting has begun."
Welters looked toward the sky.
"God help us."
Ryan frowned.
"Is it really gonna be that bad?"
Every officer within earshot looked at him.
One actually laughed.
Another patted him on the shoulder.
"He's still innocent."
"Poor kid."
Ryan suddenly felt nervous.
Maybe dodging bullet's isn't the scariest part of this job
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
One Hour Later
99th Precinct
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The bullpen was unusually loud.
Word had already spread.
Ryan didn't know how.
Actually, he did know how.
Police officers gossiped faster than high school students.
The moment he walked into the bullpen, conversations stopped.
Everyone looked at him.
Ryan looked back.
The silence became awkward.
Then somebody stood up.
A detective with messy brown hair and an expression that screamed "chaos."
He pointed dramatically.
"THAT'S HIM."
The bullpen exploded.
Questions came from every direction.
"Did you really stop a bomb?"
"Ooh , Was it actually your first day?"
"Oooh ,I heard you got arrested."
"How do you get arrested before getting your badge?"
"Ooh ,Did you really throw a coin through a moving car window?"
Ryan looked at Welters.
"Help."
Welters immediately walked away.
Traitor.
The tall muscular sergeant stepped forward.
Ryan recognized him as well.
Terry looked impressed.
Concerned.
And tired.
Mostly tired.
"Alright peralta back to your desk, everybody calm down."
Nobody calmed down.
Terry sighed.
"Okay, that was mostly for me."
The bullpen doors opened.
Captain Holt entered.
Instant silence.
Ryan immediately understood how Holt managed the precinct.
The man somehow weaponized approval and his expectations of everything around him.
Holt's eyes landed on Ryan.
Then on McNab.
Then on Welters.
"Conference room."
Nobody argued.
The two senior officers followed behind him like school kids being escorted to the principals office
That was somehow more terrifying than yelling.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ten Minutes Later
Conference Room
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ryan sat across from Captain Holt.
McNab sat to his left.
Welters sat to his right.
Neither looked particularly eager to be there.
Captain Holt opened a file.
Ryan recognized his own name on the file .
That couldn't be good.
Holt adjusted his glasses.
"Officer Walker."
"Captain."
"Today was your first day and it seems to have been a particularly exciting one indeed."
"Mhmmmm I Guess you could sum it up that way."
Holt nodded.
"Today was also the largest criminal operation this precinct has encountered this year."
Ryan paused.
"...Technically yes but I mean it's just February right?."
Holt continued.
"You located evidence."
"Yes."
"You identified suspectsnin various situations ."
"I saw them get spooked while I was engaging two other suspects , I wouldn't say I identified them."
"You participated in a vehicle pursuit through a crowded part of downtown new York where you apparently did a coin flip "
"That wasn't that impre-."
"You disarmed an armed suspect with a coin from a moving car"
Ryan looked away and coughed
"Allegedly."
Holt closed the file.
The room became silent.
Ryan felt sweat forming.
The file closed and lay still Infront of him
Then Holt spoke.
"Excellent work."
Ryan blinked.
McNab blinked.
Welters nearly fell out of his chair.
"What?" Welters asked.
Holt looked at him.
"Did I stutter perhaps?"
"No sir."
"Good."
The captain turned back to Ryan.
"You , in the line of duty displayed initiative."
Ryan relaxed slightly.
"You displayed courage."
That was nice.
"You also displayed an unnatural amount recklessness."
There it was.
"And a complete disregard for protocol."
There was more.
"You ignored direct orders and ran through a window ahead of your two senior officers ..a window that you were fully aware had suspects after it."
"Even more."
"You entered an active firefight."
Yep.
" not to mention ,you do not have a gun nor have you taken any department mandated tactical classes"
Definitely.
"You nearly caused your training officer to suffer a stress-induced medical event."
Welters pointed to his heart immediately.
"Me that was me I almost had a heart attack because of this kid."
Holt nodded.
"That one."
Ryan sank into his chair.
The captain folded his hands.
"Therefore."
Ryan waited.
"You will receive a commendation."
Ryan brightened.
"And mandatory remedial training, it was a gross judgement on my part for even agreeing to the brasses decision to have you apart of my precinct officer walker , but I will not be putting any of my officers in the line of fire with some hooligan who flips coins and has a pressure point thingy ....according to reports."
Ryan deflated.
"Yes sir"
Welters brightened.
McNab looked satisfied.
Balance had been restored to the universe.
Holt then continued to talk to the senior officers regarding paperwork that had to be filed concerning the events of the day
As the meeting continued, Ryan quietly opened his system interface beneath the table.
If he was going to survive whatever came next in this universe he'd have to be prepared...
He wanted to see what his random skill scroll contained.
With a mental command, he activated it.
The scroll shattered into blue light.
A new notification appeared.
Ryan's eyes widened.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILL ACQUIRED
Shadow Clone Jutsu
Rank: B
Description:
Create physical clones capable of independent action and memory transfer.
Restrictions:
Current Maximum: 1 Clone
Current Chakra Cost: High
Warning:
Host may experience severe exhaustion after use.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ryan nearly choked.
Of all the skills he could have gotten...
He had just unlocked one of Naruto's most broken techniques.
And Captain Holt was still talking.
Completely unaware that his newest rookie had just gained the ability to duplicate himself.
This was going to be incredibly useful.
Or an absolute disaster.
Probably both.