"Man, it's 2 in the morning, what could possibly be so important that requires you to wake me up?"

Keith somehow managed to mutter those words somewhat properly even while still half-asleep. Obviously annoyed by the call at this hour, he repeated himself to know what was up without slurring this time.

"Chief Oliver asked me to call you up, the only detective he trusts, on this case that just came up." said the voice on the phone.

"Alright, give me like, 30 minutes and I'll drop by."

He stayed in bed for about 5 minutes, sighing and rethinking his decision. Couldn't this wait until morning? What was SO important that would need him to get out of bed? Without really thinking about it any further, he got up and jumped in a freezing shower to wake up properly. Looking at himself in the mirror before heading out. "I'm gonna have to shave that but I don't exactly have the time for that right now." Keith was slightly above average height and pretty broad for his size. His facial hair was somehow always unkempt and rough-looking, but he took pride in it, saying it's basically one of his best features.

Driving down to the location, he listened to the radio, hoping that somehow that new case would be breaking news, but as he found out, nothing came out of it, only regular music and one late night talk show.

"I guess that's to be expected if it's something big, wouldn't want to scare anyone up at this hour would we..."

The place he ended up going to seemed like a normal house at first glance. "If that's what you can call a house anyway, what a shithole this neighborhood is. Can't believe I'm out here in the middle of the night"

Keith slowly walked up the pathway that lead to the front door, surprised at the lack of police presence for something that was deemed so important. Things were suddenly a bit more suspicious. He stood still near the front door, listening carefully for any noise coming from the house. He reached down to his hip only to realize he forgot his gun in his car. "Shit." He thought to himself.

"I'll just go back to my car and call up the chief directly because there sure as hell ain't anyone nearby."

As Keith turned around and started walking down the path, he heard the door slowly creak open behind him, prompting him immediately to duck behind the small brick wall along the driveway. After a minute or so passed, he peeked over to look at the door, only to see faint figure with long hair and a glint of metal zooming by to hit the ground near him.

"Ah shit oh fuck, I don't have anything to defend myself with. Whatever is in there is definitely out of arms reach and not happy to see me."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

He looked down to what had hit the ground right next to him, which was, without a doubt, a blade. Dangerously sharp. Without thinking, he picked it up and threw it directly at the presence in the doorstep. Unsurprisingly, it didn't exactly land anywhere near it. The figure, as it got distracted by the thrown blade, didn't see Keith running for his car.

"I'm about 99% sure that throw was terrible but hey at least I made it right?" He thought.

Trying to be a bit stealthy as to not attract unwanted attention, he very slowly opened his car door and grabbed his gun. With a swift motion, he aimed his firearm at the front door, only to realize it was now closed. Not about to let this go to waste, he dialed his superior's number.

"Keith? Is that you? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?" Oliver asked, obviously confused.

This confirmed what Keith was thinking, it wasn't actually anything the police was involved in, yet anyway.

"Oh uh... Sorry about that sir, I received a call earlier about something you wanted me to investigate, I guess? Anyway, when I got there I got greeted by a mighty fine dagger if I do say so myself. Most likely from some launcher if I had to guess. Nobody throws that hard"

Whatever that was, it sure wasn't happy that someone showed up.

"Okay, but I never asked you to investigate anything son. Look, we'll see in the morning when you come into the office, but for now, I need my beauty sleep."

Oliver hung up, Keith sighed. This was one hell of a setup if that was one. He looked at his call logs to see a number he didn't recognize.

"Just who called me earlier?"

After a few hours passed, at the station, explaining everything that just happened to his boss.

"Alright, so you're saying you got a call from someone at 2 in the morning, and it told you to go down to this building?" Oliver asked.

"That's pretty much it. I figured something was off when there wasn't any patrol car nearby, but to think that I would get attacked from someone inside that house was totally unexpected. I was hoping you could run this number that called me into the system and see if it finds anything."

Keith yawned while the chief was doing his thing. "I don't really have much to go on with, from the impact the knife had, it's very likely that we're dealing with someone that has at least a launcher mounted on their arm, or maybe even just a straight up prosthetic arm beefed up with cybernetics. I wonder, I really do."

Oliver cleared his throat, bringing Keith back from his sea of thoughts.

"Yep, this number does come from the house you were at this morning. I don't know what it means son. You might have a secret admirer."

Keith scoffed, got up and walked through the office door. "I'll be going back to sleep if you don't mind, tell me what our next course of action should be, because I definitely want to see the bottom of this. I want to tell that person that throwing knives is a big no-no."

"And maybe I'll have to pay a visit to the doctor. Because the way I see it, my reflexes implant might be fucky, considering I almost got a free haircut earlier. I wonder if they missed on purpose. Nah, that would be stupid. Would only lead to an investigation against them. Who sets up someone and doesn't actually go through with the deed?"

The more he pondered, the more questions he had for himself.

"Bah, I'll just think about it after I've had some sleep." He said to himself, not noticing the woman standing nearby and glaring at him.