My Improvised Academy

About a week has passed, thankfully without much trouble. With all the cohorts, Dark Elves, Orcs and humans having successfully passed their physical tests, we launched headlong into tactics and policy training. The keyword here being, without MUCH trouble. From the very first day, the Orcs broke three tables, mostly due to not knowing their own strength.

Patrick, our resident old timer, was an invaluable help to us. The Orcs respected him like a god, and everyone else knew better than to question him. Except me, of course, because Patrick’s ideas of law enforcement come from 1950s England. When we reached the Use of Force lessons, I caught Patrick telling this classroom with 50 Orcs in it something I couldn’t let slide.

“When a suspect gives you grief, give him a good whack upon the head with your baton. That will shut those rabble-rousers up right quick!”

The Orcs grunted in agreement, nodding vigorously.

“No, no, no no. Patrick, a word.” I gently pull him aside.

“We can’t do that. There are standards here. I don’t know how it was back in your day, but where I come from, we use an appropriate, measured amount of force and try our best to de-escalate the situation.”, I whisper at him, desperately.

“But Chief, that’s exactly what plonking the uppity bastards on the head does! It de-escalates them, right onto the floor!”

This is going to be a long day. Having racked my thoughts to try to find a way to explain this, I face my classroom. The Orcs all sit up.

“When you encounter a suspect who’s actively resisting you, you’re supposed to use appropriate, carefully considered levels of force. This does NOT mean ‘plonking him on the head’ the moment he gives you trouble. Do your best to be gentle with suspects, especially humans and elves, as it’s very easy to do irreparable damage to someone without realizing it.”

The Orcs look uncomfortable, eyeing around at eachother. One of them shouts out.

“WEAK!”

They erupt in agreement.

“WEAK, WEAK!”

“IT MAKE US WEAK!”

A vein pops out on my forehead. It occurred to me later that at this moment, I looked pretty terrifying.

“SILENCE!”, I shout at the top of my lungs.

“Our job is to bring suspects before a judge, not to be judge, jury and executioner on the side of the road. Even the most heinous criminals need to be handled with professionalism and respect. That is the core tenet of policework that rises us above common, petty bounty hunters. If you expect to remain here in my department, you are to follow this creed to the letter, and God help you if I find you’ve violated it!”

The Orcs are visibly shocked. I really let loose at them. Belated, gentle grunts of deferential agreement fill the room.

The human recruits are just kind of sitting there, uncomfortable, and I don’t blame them. It’s not rocket science to know what this job is about. But, with Orcs, it’s best not to be vague.

The tactics and policies went from arrests and detainments, to searches, to firearms and weapons, and a new subject I’d never had to teach before, magic. Leia, thankfully, stepped in to assist with the science-y parts, and some small-scale demonstrations of each type of magic in person kept the boys engaged. I noticed, the Dark Elves typically preferred to remain invisible, but took the most careful notes of all the recruits. It was heartening to see their pencils moving, floating in mid air, working busily.

As there had been previous police chiefs brought here before my time, thankfully, the laws were drafted in a Western, typical style, directly addressing most major crimes. As before, the Magic section was the one that really intrigued me.

There were laws on the books specifically prohibiting the use of certain kinds of magic surrounding the College. The obvious ones: No instant-kill magic, no poisoning magic, no element-altering, no time magic, no recursive magic, no void magic. Even the post-facto discovery of use of any of these without explicit licensing and permission from the Royal College of Magic results in a prison sentence.

Recreational magic use for legitimate purposes is enshrined in the law as a right for all citizens. Citizens also get the right to erect barriers on their own properties and businesses in the interest of deterring crime, however, the Royal College has the final say on construction and details of the barriers.

Self defense, in contrast to where I’m from, is not codified anywhere in the lawbooks. Citizens are expected to call for help or flee instead of taking matters into their own hands. I take issue with this, and quickly jot a note down to explore this further. Perhaps it’s less of an issue here, but this bothers me a lot.

A few more busy days of this pass, and my confidence grows that this rag-tag group of ne’erdowells may actually have what it takes to do the job. We progress to one-on-one drills, putting the theory into practice. For fun, I decided to pair up the strongest human candidates with Orcs. It was certainly something, seeing Conan and the 7 baldheaded, mustachioed “Firemen” staring face-to-face with these green giants. The drills were “takedown drills”; one plays the role of a suspect resisting arrest, the other plays the officer. We decided to give the humans protective gear at their insistence.

The result was somewhat unsurprising. The Orcs essentially could wrangle their way out of any situation, or forcibly bodyslam suspects with impunity. Even these great big lads couldn’t put up much of a fight, though one of the Firemen did manage to pull a sweet judo move which sent his green opponent down, flat on his face. The lesson, from a command perspective, was very clear. When dealing with Orcs, bring more Orcs, or about 20 of the biggest guys you can find.

Midway through this sparring curriculum, I got a call from Hue. Those eggheads from the College who worked on my weapons have arrived again. I can barely contain my curiosity as I meet them out front.

They’ve got great big wooden crates with them. I quickly had them stage them for me in a separate gymnasium. As soon as that first crate popped open, my eyes lit up. Beautiful, fresh, new rifles. A box of seemingly endless Glock handguns. Box after box of magazines for ammunition, and then thousands of rounds of the ammo itself. Maahnn is going to flip out when he sees this.

It’s time for weapons trials. I made an executive decision at this point; I wasn’t going to give the Orcs firearms. Not on account of them being irresponsible, but rather because they are already pretty lethal as is, and if we’re dealing with a ranged lethal threat, they already know they’re not the right tool for the job.

First up, our humans. Everyone with the exception of Conan’s little sidekick scored adequately on the pistol trials; the standing shoot, the multi-point running cover shoot, and the off angle, off balance shoot. Once again, our old timer Patrick surprised me as one of the most accurate of the bunch. It’s obvious he’s had time to train, and used it wisely.

The rifle trials went similarly, however, I added a physical component to it. Retrieving the rifle from a crate, setting it up, rushing to a designated spot (determined at random) and sending shots downrange. This is where the hiccups began. The vast majority of these people had never held a firearm before. Even fewer could grasp the AR-15 at a glance. The Glock was easy, point, shoot, keep your thumb out of the way of the slide. We had a few dedicated familiarization drills for the rifles and things began to smooth out. Even the old timer was bitterly grumbling about how “we didn’t need rifles back then”.

At some point, I turned around, expecting to see the Dark Elves standing in the neat row I had lined them up in earlier to watch these proceedings. They’re gone. I spot them clear on the opposite side of the courtyard, as far away from the noise as possible. One of them jumps up in front of me and profusely apologizes, saying the gunshots are scaring them. They’re sensitive to loud noises and can’t stand being near them.

Fantastic. Looks like suppressors are on the menu too. Just great. Really.

My frustration at navigating my not-normal students aside, today was a really good day. Any day where you can bask in the sweet smell of gunpowder is fine by me. Once the trials were over, old Patrick dared me to do the course myself. That salty old Brit, he knew exactly that this would puff up the morale of the boys after all of today’s stress.

I ran through the course like I was on fire. Stacking rounds, swift, sharp, tactical movements. It felt great. I finished in the top 3, to generous applause and cheers. Then, the moment I relaxed, my lower back returned fire with its all-too-familiar stabbing protests at what I’d just put it through. Ouch. I gingerly shook hands with the men and finished out the day.