What Kela found might have changed everything. She waited patiently outside of a conference room at HQ. Unbeknownst to her, was the heated controversy that took place inside of the room.

“This changes everything!” Hadwyn exclaimed to Teresa, who had her legs up and twirled a pen in interest, a new mechanical prototype she got from a convention. In fact, one she had just returned from not too long ago. Hadwyn couldn't let himself get distracted by a writing apparatus.

“This doesn't mean anything, Hadwyn.” Ben sneered. “So he bled out, case closed.”

Teresa did say anything, which gave Hadwyn hope that she may back his hypothesis.

“He jumped off a cliff.” Hadwyn shot back. “If you were fatally wounded, would you jump off a cliff? That's a guaranteed way to die, and don't you want to live?”

“Maybe the pain was too much, and I wanted to end it all. Case closed. Period. Don't make me reopen this shit, Hadwyn.”

“Shut your trap, Ben.” Teresa finally spoke. “Hadwyn has a point. It is extremely unlikely that both managed to fatally wound each other, not have any healing potions or medicine. And jokes aside, how did he get in the river?”

Benson slumped. “Well guess what? We have no leads, so the case is still closed.” He gave her a smug look.

Hadwyn was about to give Benson a piece of his mind, but Teresa spoke instead.

“Well, since our only suspect is dead, according to the policy, we aren't reopening the case, we're actually opening a new one.” She shot a smug look back at him.

Benson had nothing to say.

Finally the doors opened, and one of the AFHA officers walked in.

“Director Teresa, must inform you that the recruitment and training meetup with the iron legion is happening in two days.”

Teresa shoved the pen into her pocket, and got up to leave. Hadwyn and Ben did too.

She turned around to speak before she walked out with the officer. “Benson, open a new case, and Hadwyn, take Kela and investigate for more suspects. I will set up the meetup.”

“He was really mad. Is he always like that?” Kela asked innocently.

Hadwyn bit back the urge to tell her that Benson was always in a shitty mood.

“I think might have annoyed him a bit.” Hadwyn said thoughtfully. “C’mon we have to find more suspects, the killer could still be out there.” Hadwyn felt an uncomfortable wrecthing in his gut. Up until today, he had been 99% sure that the case was closed, without a shadow of a doubt, and that they would eventually find Nick and arrest him.

But when Nick was found dead this morning it changed everything Hadwyn thought he knew. Sure, they could be chasing their own tails with this one, there was the possibility that Nick had left the scene and jumped into the river, which went down a waterfall. All of this after having his head bashed in, but really, it was about as likely as winning a lottery, then being struck by lightning.

They got to the morgue and Hadwyn fumbled his keys. Curt and Nick’s bodies sat in the middle of the room Hadwyn was relieved that Curts body was still there. Luckily, the entire discovery had happened before the Iron legion received Curt.

The iron guild was entitled to the body after an international investigation, as required by Alten laws. However, Hadwyn could distinctly remember a time when this wasn't the case. In fact, back when the AFHA was the one and only place where you could go to join other guilds, the AFHA could keep evidence as long as they wanted and could even deny any guild of the evidence if they wanted to.

But now were different times, and Hadwyn had to accept the fact that long past were the days of government power over the privatization of guilds. Hadwyn called for one of the workers to come and help him move the bodies to the examination table. They both sat side by side when they were done, then the worker left.

Both were now completely naked, besides the small loincloth that covered their groins. Kela had an uncomfortable look on her face. Hadwyn felt a tinge of pity looking at her.

The first thing he did was compare the bodies. At a glance it sounds stupid, but since the duo has been killed likely by the same person, and since first gen Aldarians usually specialized in one specific attack type, then this made perfect sense.

Nick's head had a huge crack in the skull, from a blade, no doubt, but a very dull blade at that. Maybe an ax, a machete or a…

Hadwyn looked at Curts face, the at Nick's head again.

Shovel…

Yes, while it would be difficult to immediately determine what weapon was used to smash in Curts face, (more tests would be run later) it would make sense that the fault end of a shovel could do the job.

“Kela, go get the R.D swabs.”

Kela looked puzzled for a few seconds until she snapped back to attention. “Sorry, Sir. But do we do this all the time?”

Hadwyn didn't know how to answer the question. “I’m not going to sugarcoat this cob of corn here, Kela, but we have to clean up after other guilds a lot.” It wasn't always like this, Thought Hadwyn. “That means, yes, we have to get out hands dirty sometimes, but any job has its icky, and we must stay focused on keeping peace.”

Kela nodded. “What's the R.D swabs?”

“Over there.” Hadwyn pointed to a toolkit. She grabbed two strips and handed them to Hadwyn.

Hadwyn tore off the strip. “Hand me the activator dish.”

She passed a translucent dish to him. He laid it on the table. He took the cotton sticks and swabbed Curts mangled face. After about a minute, he wiped it in the dish, then he threw the stick into a multipurpose incinerator tube.

He did the same with Nick's cracked skull, as Kela watched carefully.

“HADWYN!” The door slammed open. Benson.

Hadwyn was startled so that he almost knocked over the equipment.

“Hey!” Kela spoke instead of Hadwyn. “Why do you always act like this, huh?! No one likes you! Why are you always angry?”

Hadwyn was shocked by Kela’s sudden outburst, he waited for Bensons response.

Benson glared daggers at her.

“You wouldn't understand.” He said in a low voice. Then he turned to Hadwyn. “Teresa asked me to come and bring you to the meetup preparation. Bring Kela along too, I'll meet you there.”

As Benson left the room, Hadwyn turned to Kela with a look of shock on his face. “Why did you do that?”

“I don't know. If he's always angry, don't you ever wonder why?”

Hadwyn shook his head. “That's not the way to go about it, Kela. Me and the others can get away with stuff you wouldn't be able to get away with.”

Kela sighed. “So you're saying people don't believe in me?”

Hadwyn swallowed. “Yes, the truth is, so people don't think you're up to the task. But I'm not one of those people, Kela. I was like you, started from nothing. So if I can do it, you can do it too.” But these are different times, harder, more unpredictable times. But he didn't tell her that.

That put a smile on her face. “Okay then, let's prepare for this meetup thing then. C'mon. By the way, he said ‘you wouldn't understand.’ What does that mean?”

“I did the same thing as you when I first joined. I questioned Ben for being such an asshole. He never told me the reason why. He just told me that it didn't matter. So I didn't push any further, just accepted that he would be like that all the time.” Secretly, Hadwyn suspected that something horrible happened to Ben or to his family of friends that made him like that.

Kela shrugged. “I'm fine with it if you're fine.”

“Thanks.”