Chapter 18

Before retiring for the night, Peter was asked to pay a visit at the station the next day. Alexander didn't get an answer at the time but he hoped the boy was sensible enough to pay attention.

Peter would go there, just to be polite, but he didn't plan on paying attention to whatever they were going to tell him. He would visit mostly because it was on the way on the daily walk anyway.

He arrived at home a few minutes before midnight and was surprised to find everyone still awake. When he stepped through the door, he found James and Helen drinking while Sarah and Manda were furiously searching for something on James' computer.

Not wanting to ruin their fun with his bad mood, he headed towards his own room. On the way he passed by Anthony's office where he found the man quietly working on some documents. He stopped in front of the door for a while before speaking.

"Thanks, dad."

That was all he said before going on his way. Anthony just smiled and went back to his papers. Turns out his disguise wasn't as good as he thought, but he somehow couldn't really feel bad about it.

The next day Peter made his way to the police station alongside Sarah. The building was unnecessarily large for its purposes, other than that it was a fairly ordinary building. The siblings went inside and identified themselves, after which they were rushed to the top floor of the building.

They were guided to a room where Alexander was already waiting for them. The room was spacious with almost no furniture other than the police chief's table and a few chairs and the walls were full of decorations, mostly awards to the owner. The man himself looked like he hadn't got a minute of sleep last night.

"I was worried you would not come. I am glad you listened to my request."

He was speaking a lot more politely than at night, probably because he was scared of the half-naked man. Peter didn't really care about the chief's worries so he just tried to move the conversation along.

"Just tell me why you wanted to talk. I presume it has something to do with what happened yesterday."

"Yes, originally I wanted to ask you to leave the fireflies alone. They dealt with every bounty hunter around here with pretty gruesome methods and I wanted to prevent you from meeting the same fate. Now I understand why you were not concerned about retaliation, but I would still like to ask you to leave them alone.

Even if the ones around here cannot do anything to you, they have stronger allies and angering them is dangerous no matter who is protecting you."

Peter understood the man's intentions but he had no idea why those strong allies would put any importance on him and he had no idea how stubborn some people could be.

"Thank you for your concern, but I don't think I can do what you ask."

And with that he started walking out. Sarah, who was looking at the various wall decorations so far, ran after him.

Outside the building they saw a large group of people coming towards the station. All of them were wearing a red uniform and were led by an intimidating large man, Gregory Brann himself. When he saw the kids he stopped his group and a slightly crazed smile started to appear on his face.

"Just who I was looking for! I don't care who's protecting you, I'm going to kill you right here and now!"

He motioned his men to attack but before they could get very far, a gunshot was heard and the man leading the charge fell over, dead. The others stopped where they were and looked towards where the shot came from.

Helen and Manda were standing by the side with a group of green uniformed men behind them. The shot came from Helen, with the gun falling apart in her hands.

"Looks like we're just in time. I was afraid you would start things without us!"

The fireflies didn't move for a while. Some of them were scared, most of them were simply confused. The most dangerous weapon around fell apart in front of their eyes so they didn't really feel threatened they were just shocked and were waiting for their leader's orders.

Unlike what people would expect from him, Gregory was eerily calm. He slowly looked towards the uninvited party, the people he had been in conflict with for years now, took a deep breath and addressed the lady boss directly, with almost no emotion in his voice.

"Do you have any idea what this means?"

Instead of being intimidated like a normal person, Helen was standing proudly, with no hesitation in front of the man who the entire town feared, and gave her answer with a mad grin on her face.

"Of course I know. This means war!"