Two weeks after the mysterious group was found at the campus site and forced to leave, John and Matt had recovered from most of their injuries. A letter arrived from the Police Office, letting them know that they were summoned by the General to report incident. While John and Aaron were putting on their jackets, they went over the plan for the day.

“Matt. Unlike last time I’d like you to come with us.” John recommended, leaving Matt with a startled expression. “It’s just that I don’t want you to be out of sight. You will just have to hide near the General’s office though.”

“Do you really think that those people would come here just to snatch me away?” Matt wondered.

“I’d rather not take chances.” John finished buttoning his jacket and checked himself in the mirror.

“You aren’t going on a date John,”Aaron snickered. “you are fine as is.”

Unimpressed by the joke, the blonde detective checked if everybody was ready and stepped out of the door, yelling “Let’s go men!”

“Yes, Sir!” they replied in sync.

There was a horse carriage waiting for them outside their doorstep and after climbing inside they went on their way to the office.

Once they arrived, Matt immediately hid into the shadows to stay out of the police’s sight while the two men walked inside, following the corridor straight through to the General’s office. They knocked on the door with slight insecurity, fearing that the General might be disappointed.

However a loud “Come in!” came from inside, seemingly shattering their hopes of a good mood.

With a view beyond the wooden desk, they saw him smoking his pipe just before he extinguished it and put it down. “Sit down, you two,” he said, pointing at the tiny chairs in front of the desk.

After shaking their hands and looking at their report papers the old man took a deep breath and sighed. “Truth be told, I think you know that you didn’t exactly do well back there and that your mission was an utter failure, correct?”

“Yes,” John mumbles, already gripping at his detective's badge. “We never really found the missing people and the one person we retrieved, was shot by one of their own.”

“Correct. That said, the mission was never expected to be a success,” the General left them in surprise. “We wanted to see what you could do and how you would perform in an undercover environment and we believe you did fairly well. However, the information you brought us was by far the most important.”

“Information?” Aaron interrupted.

“Yes. You provided us with information on the criminal’s plans which is necessary to apprehend them. Although, I must ask you, why did you cut the information on the gun wielding man so short? The one who is still alive,” the old man twirled his mustache.

As the atmosphere became tense, the two partners looked at each other. A slight nod from John was answered by the swift shake of a head by Aaron but then followed by a sigh, “Fine, go ahead.”

The General calmly waited while John collected his thoughts, seemingly ready for a monologue.

“Augustus, I’d rather not involve you into this, and I am saying this as a friend and not as a subordinate,” John warned, trying to come towards Aaron’s idea of not speaking about it.

“Too bad that this meeting involves me as the General and you as the subordinate. As such I order you to reveal all information you believe you need to keep away from me!”

Those sharp eyes, topped off by his thick gray brows and their strong shift inwards left John no other choice but to talk. With an unruly stomach he began to open his mouth, “Very well then, General. Please allow me to go back a bit in order for you to get the entire idea. You remember the incident with Iron fist Gregor? He was jailed but later when I acted as a bodyguard for Kimberly he was the one behind it all, although the newspapers stated that he had been executed.”

“What do you mean to say by this?” the General began to light his pipe.

“I cut off his arm at the train back then, but he had a steamworks arm that day too. I will return to this in a second but before that, remember how Detective Sterling died?” his expression turned more serious with every word.

“He was shot by a military sniper, that’s the official statement that was given,” he answered.

“Indeed, now remember when back at Brinston we were attacked by a man with a military top notch steamworks rifle?” He pointed his index at him.

“Yes, but it was too unbelievable so we decided to bin it and write it off as a medical hallucination at the time due to your serious injuries.”

Aaron sat frustrated, not being able to stop John. He was told of this theory but never truly believed it, as such he merely held his hands in front of his face.

“To be honest it did seem fishy at the time but I can assure you that with what happened at the campus that it is no mere hallucination. I had to face the gunner and he shot his own camarade in the head, only to make me remember something. He said he killed the first Sterling, and he has me in his sights too, he said! Now why is a person who was part of the military suddenly with a criminal organization? Wouldn’t it be possible for someone like him to have access to new state of the art weapons to hunt me down?”

“You are referring he is the same man from Brinston?” the General interrupted.

“Yes, he is. I can second his statement on the gunner by the way, it shocked me too when I heard it although it still seems unbelievable,” Aaron supported as he began to understand the situation.

“What I am trying to say is that there may be a person in the head branch controlling these people, the gunner and Gregor. After all, as for Gregor it would be easy to fit him with a new arm and fake the news, it would also be the only way for this to be possible,” John took a deep breath before continuing. “ Do you now understand why I wanted to keep this information away from you? I didn’t want you to accidentally lose a word about this and get involved into something ugly.”

John clawed his fingers into his knees, knowing that what he said still makes little sense and that the General would most likely begin to laugh now. In his favor, however, he didn’t laugh.

“I see now how serious this entire theory is. I must say it seems very unreliable but if what you speak is true, then this might be someone staging something behind the scenes,” he mumbled with his pipe between his lips. “But there is no need for worry,, I will keep this a secret, but you still have something else to explain to me, regarding Brinston.”

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The two men knew exactly what he was hinting at. Aaron lifted his eyebrows at John, asking him what to do but John was too captivated by his thoughts, knowing that this was something that he really didn’t want to talk about.

“Sir, would you please open up the window? The smoke is really making my throat scratchy,” he said, coughing.

Without further ado the old man turned around and opened up the window behind him. “It’s alright now Matt, you can come inside,” John said loudly.

The General turned around, confused by what he had said but saw Aaron panic, mouth wide open.

“Why would you do that John?” Aaron shouted, pulling at the blond man’s jacket.

“It’s not like we can hide him forever. We might as well try it,” he answered with his fingers carving into his knees even more.

A small boy came out of the brush in front of the window and jumped inside through the window in his dark attire. Cloaked in black cloth with snow white hair and scarlet red eyes, making the General jump backward into his seat. The boy walked between the two men, not even questioning this decision.

“Come lower your head for a second,” John pulled a twig out of Matt’s hair. “There you go.”

“Explain yourselves!” the General’s eyes were wide open.

“Well, Sir. This is the murderer of the Mansion case, the one who nearly killed me,” John jokingly said with a depressed undertone.

“So that’s is why you withheld information about the culprit back then, but why is he with you?”

“He saved us from the gunner back then in Brinston. Actually, he saved Aaron’s life back then and decided to accompany us home since he felt regret for what he had done. So I gave him the option to live with us and help us out,” John’s eyes looked towards the carpet floor.

“I know it must seem ridiculous but it is the truth, no matter his past he is trying his best to make up for his actions,” Aaron added.

“That doesn’t allow you to bend the law! You know that no matter the age, he is a murderer and needs to go to jail. To think that a detective acted like that when you are supposed to uphold the law, it is truly a pity,” the old man said, leaving them almost to throw up. “Or rather that is what I should be saying, but I can understand your actions.”

Their eyes began to tear as they heard those words.

“Then you won’t call him out?” John asked, wiping off his eyes with his sleeves, redding the skin around it.

“To be honest, I would have been disappointed had you not acted the way you did. But like father like son, I suppose even if you aren’t his blood he’d be more than proud of you,” he bent over and patted John’s head. “Though I am a little angry that you didn’t tell me sooner, I understand your fears but please take the chance you have to see me as an ally rather than your boss.” He tapped his pipe to empty out the ashes. “But that isn’t all I am angry about. Why are you taking this young man with you on such dangerous jobs? I read your report as well as the reports of the campus and if I am correct the poor boy was severely injured!”

“Please don’t be so harsh to them, Sir General, Sir,” Matt spoke for them. “It isn’t their fault. It was my own failure, I was too weak and got caught but that won’t as easily anymore! To be honest, even if they told me to just stay at home to be a child, I wouldn’t listen because.... how could I possibly atone for what I did by enjoying a peaceful life while knowing that my selfish actions probably caused a man’s family to suffer…”

The old man pushed himself back and sighed, “Great, another stubborn one.”

The three of them looked at him, wondering what was to come next.

“Well fine then. That would sum up that business,” he pulled out a paper from his pile of documents. “Here, this is your new mission. You are to start today.”

“Wait, that’s sudden!” John whined. “Not even sugarcoating it, you are just going to hand us this and nothing else?”

“Well, I think we all had enough for one day, but you also need to hurry to get on the site. You are to accompany a cargo ship and bodyguard it. It’s nothing fancy but we wanted to give you an easier task this time since there was no way you could have recovered enough in two weeks, so look at this as a cruise.” He chuckled.

“Why would they need the police’s company?” Aaron asked.

“We don’t know. The Captain came here and asked us so I thought I’d do you some good, but he never stated why he needed it but I suppose it’s just that he wants to protect his cargo.”

“Fine, I guess we will see when we arrive there. Is that all?” John asked, wanting to leave.

“Ah, yes of course. Have a nice trip and take care of the boy!”

They shook hands, Matt jumped back out of the window and the two men walked back to the carriage where they met up and headed home. There, Aaron packed their clothes while John was more busy putting on his sword and repairing Matt’s claws.

“This time around John, I plan on not being useless in case something should happen,” Aaron showed off a little pocket of daggers.

John broke in a laughter, “I am sorry, I take everything I said about fencing foils,” he was barely about to breath as his chest began to hurt. “These are the real toothpicks!”

“At least I am not making up for my size with a ridiculously large sword!” Aaron barked back.

“Why, you!”

“Shut up, both of you! Or do you want me to scrape you apart with these?” Matt interrupted, showing off his claws.

Flailing their hands in the air they surrendered and finished packing their clothes before heading out to the harbour of the city where they already saw a large ship waiting. Its main frame was wooden but reinforced with rifled steel, almost like hundreds of cogs. On the bow hangs a large brassen angel.

Men were already loading the goods into it while a very short old man was already waiting for the arrival of the detective.

As they got out, John yelled, “Hello!” But was met with an even louder, “Shut up ye runt and get on board already!”

Stunned by the greeting John offered him his hand, “Sorry old man, glad to be working with you.” Yet again, the Captain shouted, “It’s aye! Besides I don’t want to touch ye dirty landrat hands! Just get on aboard my baby!”

With that, they all slowly walked onto the ship in awkward silence until Aaron asked, “Captain, excuse me but why did you order bodyguards?”

“I like yer attempt but you are in no position to question the Captain! Have some patience, then the fish will come to you on its own! Meanwhile, drop off yer things in the cabins and trodd around the Grand Maria to get familiar with it!” he yelled.

As they went to the cabins, both John and Aaron had lost their motivation already while Matt suppressed his chuckle.

“That old fart sure has some nerve,” John mumbled.

“Indeed, how does he expect us to work if he treats us like that,” Aaron said.

“Well, I suppose he holds his authority high. Look at it like this, to his men he has to show who the Captain is and that this is his territory. If he was to soften up for us strangers he’d lose his face,” Matt lectured them, leaving them astonished.

“Aaron, what kind of books did you give him to read? He just said something smart!”

“Well, to be honest, that is not a great feat but he even topped me so I suppose Doby Mick wasn’t the greatest book to give him,” he joked.

After unpacking they went to the kitchen hall. Lighting inside was poor since there were only a few smoldered gas lamps hanging down and small round windows shaped like gears.

“Let’s see if we can get something to eat here already. I haven’t had a bite since breakfast and the day is almost over,” John whined.

“Well, had we taken a steamworks car we would have been quicker with the traveling, but you wanted to save money by paying a horse carriage,” Aaron snarked.

“Anyway! I hope they have fish here, I always wanted to try some!” Matt said with a smile on his face.

They walked toward the counter but the flickering shadow in the corner caught their attention. With curiosity they strained their eyes to make out what stood there until the person standing within stepped out. His dark cloak and black hair, paired with a rapier on his hip made them step back. “Why if it isn’t you people again. It’s been two weeks right?”

Before them stood the brother of Ewin, Larson. A member of the criminal group from the campus was on the ship with them, as past angers began to boil within John.

Why is Larson with them? What are they supposed to do on the ship? Find out next Chapter!