As expected, Leo woke up the next morning.
If not for his initial reluctance to leave the bed, his morning routine went smoothly.
No extra coffee. Uniform tucked neatly.
Before leaving, he turned towards a picture of Charlotte.
After a moment of silence, a scowl had begun to form on his face.
` Stop. `
He set the frame face-down before he could finish any thought.
Soon after, Leo had arrived at the Reveur Headquarters.
Valentino was the first to see Leo, giving a small wave.
He returned the gesture as he walked deeper into the lobby and towards the small group.
By the time Leo got to Valentino, the group had dispersed.
The bearded man simply chuckled.
"They probably thought you were going to chew them out."
Leo gave his own small scoff.
"If only they knew how little I care about this job…"
Valentino laughed a bit harder this time, slapping Leo on the back.
"Ain't that the truth!"
Leo looked around the lobby for a moment, scanning through anyone passing by.
"Have you seen Desmond?"
He turned from Leo to the hallway beside the receptionist.
"Just down the hall. I think he went to the cafeteria for breakfast."
Without saying a proper goodbye, Leo left in that direction.
It didn't take long for him to locate Desmond, who was sitting and eating with some other young Reveurs.
Initially, he was going to walk up and pick on him, but he was quickly stopped by himself.
Desmond doesn't have any friends near his age.
Even back at the Academy he doesn't remember ever seeing him talk to anyone in this way.
` Best not to intrude and scare off the rookies. `
He turned and left the cafeteria, walking down the hall to find Caspian instead.
Eventually, the doors to the Grand Reveur's office opened.
Caspian looked up from his paperwork with a particularly tired expression.
"What do you want, Leo?"
Leo hesitated for a moment before asking,
"Do you have any work for me? I didn't notice anything assigned to me."
Caspian exhaled deeply and split his towering stack of papers.
"Mind helping me? I'm literally up to my neck right now…"
Leo let out an amused huff before taking a seat and stealing one of Caspian's pens.
"What's all this for?"
"Some budget-cutting with the hospitals in Section Two."
Leo's pen stopped.
Caspian silently gazed at him, weighing his reaction.
He only exhaled before he continued writing.
"Sounds tedious."
Caspian studied him for a little longer before shifting his focus back to his papers.
"Definitely."
The two worked in efficient silence for a while, the only noise in the room being the strokes of pen and flipping of pages.
Due to the repetitive actions, Leo found his eyes wandering around the room occasionally.
His eyes landed on a model ship that rested on the top shelf of a bookcase.
Appearance wise, it seemed to be any other ship. Equipped with large sails.
However, what differentiated this ship from others, was the fact that it was an airship. More specifically, a type of airship called a Dreadnought.
These were designed for moving tons of men towards battlefields.
Usually, they'd be equipped with large artillery.
"Where do the airships go when we're done with them? I haven't seen one since Skovjord."
Caspian didn't look up from his papers as he explained,
"Some hangars in Section Two. Hardly any of them work anymore. Why?"
With his curiosity satiated, Leo returned his eyes to the documents in front of him.
"No reason."
After some time, Leo set his half of the stack on the desk with a deep breath.
Caspian turned to the pile, still filling out his own papers.
"You're surprisingly good at that. You know you could probably move up to General, right?"
Leo gave him a strange look.
"Give it to someone else. There's nothing in it for me to aim that high."
Caspian gave a simple shrug.
"Fair enough."
After a little while of chatting, Leo had left the office to see if Desmond was finally available.
As he walked through the halls, he managed to spot him through the windows of the archive front doors.
He entered silently, trying his best to not disturb the younger rookies studying.
To his surprise, Desmond was doing the exact same as the others. A few textbooks stacked beside an open one that he was actively taking notes from.
With a tap on his shoulder, Leo spoke in a quiet tone.
"Are you studying to impress me?"
Desmond looked up at him and scoffed.
"Yeah I bet you wish I was, huh."
Leo took a seat beside him and gazed down at the material.
He recognized the combinations of letters and numbers.
This was the Cryptozoology Classification System. Otherwise known as, CCS.
Not many people commonly used this naming system, primarily due to laziness, but it was definitely useful to learn.
"Woah. You're really learning the CCS?"
Desmond nodded and leaned back in his chair with a deep exhale.
"Just giving it a shot. I thought Caspian would notice me if I had this down. Maybe even promote me faster."
Leo scooted in to see his notes better.
"Hm. Yeah, I can see you're struggling. Especially since you probably skipped over the explanation of how it works."
Upon completing his scan through the notes, his eyes turned to Desmond with slight disappointment.
"Were you seriously just trying to memorize them? I can tell from your old grades you can't do that..."
Desmond clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"Then tell me how it works, smart-ass."
He backed off of him with a confident smile.
"It looks more complex than it is, honestly. Let's use…" He trailed off in thought for a moment.
"Let's use the Fleshgait for example. Its CCS code would be RA-04. The naming system comprises three parts.
The first letter is the initial of the Cryptid's rank. The second letter is its form, and the two numbers after the dash is the year it was found.
Rhan-rank, Aberrant-form, and discovered thirty years ago in 1004… So it's RA-04."
Desmond absorbed what was being told to him with diligence, his pencil quickly jotting down the foundation of the naming system.
A curious expression grew on his face. He had to internally resist from raising his hand to ask the question.
"Isn't that a bit vague? Surely there could be more than one Cryptid under the same code, right?"
The small smile on Leo's face grew slightly.
Desmond asking questions and participating made him strangely happy.
"That's a great question. You see, in cases like those another dash is added at the end, followed by an 01. Think of it as first come first serve.
The first Cryptid we find that fits the code gets to have it. The next we find would have the extra bit at the end.
So if we found another at the same time as the Fleshgait, it'd be RA-04-01."
Desmond nodded deeply after a moment before turning to write an extra bit at the bottom of the paper.
"Okay… Yeah. That makes sense."
Leo stood up with a stretch.
"Save studying for later. Let's get to training already."
Desmond turned back to him with slight confusion.
"But what about…" Leo quickly cut him off.
"Doesn't matter. You've got enough of Caspian's attention as is. You seriously think he'd turn a blind eye to the only Officer in history to kill a Rhan-rank?"
Desmond's face slowly turned into a smile. A grin that was a bit embarrassed due to the praise.
"Yeah, I guess we could go spar then."