Ok, that one was pretty confusing, I'd say. So here's another chappie (again, just for introduction). The timeline is several months (or years) after the Devan Shell incident.


Chapter 2: The Tournament


The next morning, at C.O.R.E headquarters...

“Rebarion Rickard, a.k.a Racer Rebbie. Committed in crimes of bank robbing, mugging, vehicle stealing... A wide range of crimes that I wouldn’t bother listing out myself.” The middle-aged rabbit lady chuckled at her own joke. “Currently his bounty was... wow, five thousand white gems. Quite a notorious one you’ve got here...”
“Thanks, Shayna.” replied Lori. She was standing in front of Shayna’s counter.
“I assume it was your brother who handled the guy, wasn’t it?”
“Err... Yeah. That’s him.”
“Boy does it feel good when you’re young and full of potential.” Shayna took out a seal and stamped it on some kind of a confirmation paper. “Well, that’s it. Just hand this over to the cashier, and your reward will be transferred directly into your bank account. 0Another job well done.”
“Got it. Thanks again. Bye!” Lori took the paper from Shayna, then turned around and walked away.

The C.O.R.E (Corporation Of Rabbit Enforcers) was founded fifty years ago. At first it was nothing more than a group of bounty hunters, but later as the group grew in size, they came to the need of a place to settle and organize their works. Thus the C.O.R.E headquarters was built. It was originally similar to a typical apartment house, so far numerous upgrades over the time had featured it not only more rooms, but they were divided into different sections as well. There were the Financial Dept, where income and expenses are maintained; the Intelligence Dept where news about crimes and bounties throughout the planet are gathered; the Research Dept where some widely used blaster models as well as many weaponry productions originated from; the Training Area and the Office Area for bail agents. After a long series of successful apprehending, politics offered the organization to join the government, and it accepted. Therefore the name of C.O.R.E was adopted, the organization itself belonged to the government but still operated independently.
Rabbits who wished to join the C.O.R.E had to endure a very hard and strict “basic training” of shooting, fighting, gathering information, then they would be further trained focused on a domain by choice. Agents who favored fighting were called “brawlers”, whereas shooters were “snipers”, and “spies” for information collectors. A typical agent team consisted of a brawler, a sniper and a spy, the last of whom was usually a female, since they were considered better than males at this field. But this way of classifying agents wasn’t really appropriate, since nowadays agents tend to become more and more versatile, capable to perform well in fighting, sniping and info gathering; some might even have extra abilities such as hacking, operating/repairing machinery, etc. So today they’re only called “agents” to distinguish them with “researchers”, “informers” and “stingy crones”.

Lori, having received another paper from the cashier, was making her way back to the office. To put it simple, it was Mr. Jackrabbit that had his children work in the C.O.R.E, but Jazz had always preferred the lifestyle of a free agent. Of course he had to be a good boy and listened to his father, but he could easily be found complaining. Like now. Lori was still a few steps away from the door with “Team Jackrabbit” on it, yet she could already hear her elder brother groaning “so boring”. Shaking her head disappointedly, she opened the door and walked in. The first thing she saw was Jazz, leaning comfortably on the chair with his legs placed on the table in front of her. She didn’t complain because she was used to seeing this, instead she just closed the door and walked to her brother.
“Your tedious chorus line again?” Lori asked. It was unclear what she meant was tedious, the lifestyle or the line itself.
“It’s not like I have other things to do.” Jazz yawned.
“There are always things to be done,” Lori said, “And that’s my table, if you don’t mind.”
“Alright. Sorry.” Jazz jumped from the chair and walked away while Lori took his place. He then put his back to the wall and said, “Our work here is to catch the bad guys roaming out there, right? But for me, it-”

The door suddenly broke open, and Spaz came running in. He kept dashing around in circles with a horrified look. Jazz noticed it after a few seconds taken aback, he stopped his brother by grabbing his left arm, a feat that made Spaz slipped out of balance and fell on his back. While Jazz was helping Spaz standing up, Lori stepped out of her table and asked, “What happened, Spaz?”
“Cut... cut... no like cut...”
“Ah,” Lori immediately realized, “You went to the barber’s by yourself again, did you?”
“And got his hair fur trimmed, got totally freaked out because of new look before wreaking havoc on the whole building.” Jazz listed out a series of action as if he was there. “Always the same.”
“I told you, next time at least tell me or Jazz so we can accompany you.” Lori stared into Spaz’s bloodshot eyes.
“O-Ok.” Spaz replied, he seemed to have calmed down. He sat down on a nearby chair.