Meanwhile, somewhere else, 2 cars were driving towards an old, seemingly abandoned building. Sitting inside one of those cars were the police duo Rick and Fari. The former staring out of the car’s window while the latter was doing some last second briefing.

“They call themselves the Herders. A group that has slowly been growing. The previous gang we caught gave us all the information we needed on them. As usual, we need to be careful. I couldn’t get a lot of men to help with this. I’m mostly relying on you to arrest them, and for the rest to take them away.” Her monotonic voice spoke.

“Got it.” Rick responded.

“All you have to do is get inside with the codeword, observe for a bit, and then arrest them. You know the codeword, right?”

The tall man nodded in response.

“Good.”

Resting on Fari’s lap was her signature megaphone. Rick turned his gaze towards it.

“You’re not planning on using that, right?”

“…What if something happens to you?” The usual monotone in her voice broke for a second.

“Remember what happened last time? You can’t use it anymore. Don’t worry, I trained for this. I’ll never leave your side.”

Fari said nothing in response, although a very small smile cracked through.

“We’ve arrived.” The man driving the car said.

They were in a street were the lights were barely working, flickering on and off continuously. The building itself was in a sad state. Windows that were broken, graffiti adorning the brown bricks. This was somewhat usual for the lower half of the city.

Rick put on his shades, gave a thumbs up to Fari and began walking towards the building. With a few knocks on the wooden door, someone slid open the small metal peephole, their brown eyes staring at the large man wearing shades at midnight.

“What’s the password?” They asked.

Rick cleared his voice.

“Does the sheep count the sheep?”

The eyes squinted.

“Wrong.”

The lid closed. Silence filled the street once again. Fari sighed heavily, Rick scratched the back of his neck, looking at his partner. She knew exactly what he wanted to do now and raised her left thumb, right index and middle finger in the air. A secret code they created that meant “Do it your way, but discreetly.”

Rick knocked again, the same brown eyes greeting him once more.

“Go away.”

Rick took a few steps back, the street light flickered off, causing him to seemingly disappear in the night. Right before the person behind the door closed the peephole once again, they saw the same man running towards the door.

“What the-”

Rick busted right through the wooden door with a lot of ease. The poor person that once stood behind it flew a few meters back. The wooden door was busted right off its hitches. The building inside looked surprisingly well maintained, clashing with it’s bad state on the outside. This way of entrance was anything but discreet; it was very effective however.

Rick had a few seconds to observe the building before more members would come to check what was going on. He heard the sound of wooden stairs being ran on.

The noise caused 3 members of the group to walk out of one of the rooms and check what was going on. All they saw was a tall man standing in the hallway, and one of their members out cold.

One of them tried to attack Rick before he could even say anything, being knocked out by a single punch in response. Rick dashed at the other two, grabbing one of the members and slamming them into the other member before they could even shout for help.

Rick quickly walked outside, signaling Fari and the squad to come towards him.

“This building is hiding something!” He said, walking towards the door where the 3 members came out off.

As it turned out, there were stairs that led downstairs. This building had an underground hideout. Rick signaled his partners to standby at the entrance, in case anyone tried to escape. Fari gripped her megaphone, still feeling a bit nervous.

Slowly walking downstairs, all that waited at the end was another door. Rick could hear the muttering of various members. Even though he tried to be silent, one of them walked out of the door and saw him anyway.

Thinking quickly, Rick jumped down the flight of stairs and dropkicked the poor member through the door. Now standing face to face with about 12 members, the police officer was surrounded. Even with the odds stacked against him, he remained unfazed.

“You’re all under arrest. Don’t try to resist.”

This caused one of them to laugh and tauntingly walk towards their unwelcomed guest. Standing face to face, the man was almost as tall as rick.

“Are you the leader?”

“I am the leader’s personal bodyguard, they call me the Wall. You made a stupid mistake coming here all on your own. No one is going to get arrested tonight.”

“4 members already have.”

“No one else is going to get arrested tonight!” The Wall was absorbed in his own hype.

Cheers from the crowd echoed, all telling him to knock the opponent out.

“End this quickly” The leader said.

Rick had no time for this, and was admittedly irritated by this charade. The Wall raised his fist, but before he could even land a punch, Rick tensed up his right arm’s muscles and punched the Wall repeatedly. With only a few punches, the Wall was knocked out. Every single member of the group was flabbergasted.

“DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY?” Rick shouted angrily.

He expected almost everyone to now fight against him, which was usual for such a group. This would be the part where they would all pull out knives and flail wildly. However, every single member just raised their arms. Their will to fight was shattered when they saw the Wall fall.

‘That’s new.’ Rick thought to himself.

With a signal, the rest of the officers came downstairs and promptly arrested everyone. Fari walked up towards Rick and complimented him for a job well done. She also gave him a handkerchief because his nose was suddenly bleeding.

They investigated the hideout together. Fari initially thought they were a group that did human trafficking due to their name, but as it turns out the group only did a lot of money laundering.

Stacks of fake money rested in the office of the leader, alongside a few recipients to who it would be sold too. There wasn’t a single clue that could tell her about the Gods of the city, which pissed her off. However, there were a few names on the list that caught the eye of Fari.

The group was extremely sloppy due to being new, and that sloppiness helped the prodigy in finding even more people to arrest, which in turn could help her figure out the bigger picture behind this city. The only reason she kept going, aside from having Rick by her side.

“What’s this?” Fari said out loud, picking up a few poker chips, the name of the casino proudly engraved on them.

“All-Stakes Casino? What’s a name like that doing here?”

A lightbulb started burning inside Rick’s mind.

“I’ve heard of that place before. I’ll investigate them tomorrow. I know my way in, used to go there a lot back in the day. You can’t come, they’ll instantly kick you out.”

Fari nodded in response. She didn’t like it when Rick would go off on his own, but there was nothing she could do about it.

‘So he might be related to this after all.’ Was a thought that shot through Rick’s mind.

Fari looked at her watch, the hands indicating that it was 6 A.M. A sigh escaped her, and a feeling of tiredness weighed on her shoulders. Having pulled another all-nighter the day before, she felt defeated. As the car drove away to her apartment, she unknowingly fell asleep against Rick’s shoulder.

Not waking up after they arrived, Rick opted to carry her to bed. After thanking the driver for another job well done, he opened the door and walked towards Fari’s bedroom, which was a mess. Tucking her in, she instantly turned around, laying on her stomach. Rick put her megaphone on the desk in her room.

Rick saw that the apartment was a giant mess of papers and rubbish, so before leaving, he cleaned it up a bit. Saying goodnight to Fei and Flour, the man left for towards his own place.

He almost never slept at Fari’s place. With the excuse that he never earned that right. Although he couldn’t deny that some feelings were brewing for her, he needed to keep it professional. Much to the dislike of Fari.

Rummaging throuh the pockets of his outfit, he realised that he had lost the badge that Fari had made for him years ago. This ruined his night, as he entered the run down shed where he lived.

The night turned into the morning, and the beeping of an alarm woke up a gardener.