Later that night at the 20th precinct, the Demonology Intelligence Unit was working hard as the night shift has already started. A part of the evening shift was their commanding officer Capt. Christopher Mercy.

One of Capt. Mercy’s top detectives are a nephalem female with waist-length black hair and red slitted eyes named Suiyōbi Kobayashi; her specialties are shadow manipulation and Kenjutsu.

Nephalems are derived from the daemon species. Most nephalems are human in appearance yet inherit the main powers of their daemonic ancestors. Elemental control, teleportation, telekinesis, and telepathy are common, as are enhancements of regular human abilities, such as strength, sight, and hearing.

Suiyōbi is saddled with a patrolman turned rookie detective who is a male timber wolf kemonomimi with short black hair and dark eyes named Johnathan "JoJo" Peterson; his specialties are marksmanship with a sniper rifle and various sidearms but has no superpowers.

While Suiyōbi was doing her paperwork, Jonathan couldn’t help himself staring outside of his captain’s closed door. Intently, he watches the silhouette moving back and forth in the room.

Of course, Suiyōbi saw this behavior and decided to get his attention, “Hey, Jonathan.”

She got no answer as she tried again, “Are you listening to me, Detective?”

Still staring outside the lieutenant’s door, Suiyōbi became more forcible with Jonathan, “Are you deaf or what?”

“He’s in there…,” Jonathan answered vaguely.

“Who’s in there?” Suiyōbi probed.

“You know who. Don’t pretend ‘he’s’ not in there. Between him and his daughter, they always get his undivided attention,” Jonathan clarifies.

Suddenly, Christopher opens his door and calls out to his to detectives, “JoJo, Suiyōbi, come in my office.”

Immediately, Suiyōbi went to his office as Jonathan took his time. Naturally, him being the last person to arrive, Jonathan shuts the door behind him. In the room, there was an older gentleman who looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

Christopher made this man known to his detectives, “We have found a witness of the ‘funeral of smiles shooting’ over a few weeks ago. The suspect’s name is Lynn Noah Reese, 55 years old.”

Flynn looks up to the two detectives and gives them a nervous smile.

Jonathan was already disgusted by him, “How peculiar for him to give up so easily...”

“He has just confessed where the rest of the Red Arrow members are holding up. In an abandoned warehouse, about fourteen blocks from here. I’ve already assembled a strike team, and they are coming up with a plan to breach the warehouse even as we speak. We are going to wait until nightfall.”

“As well as the Assistant District Attorney for her photo op?” Suiyōbi teased.

“Shane is in the hospital right now nursing a few broken ribs and a black eye. I think some time away from the camera is beneficial to her. Besides, this man has become our only lead,” Christopher announced. “Speaking of which, I am sending him to some get medical attention. So after you have done that, I want both of you to suit up and get ready for tonight. The uniforms are waiting for you to escort him to West Breckenridge Hospital.”

“You got it, sir. Okay, Reese, up and easy,” Suiyōbi agreed as the witness out of the chair and out of the room

“JoJo. Stay here for a moment,” Christopher ordered as Jonathan stayed behind. After Suiyōbi had left, it was the perfect opportunity for him and Jonathan to talk, “later in the day, I heard you got into it with some YouTubers on social media about those ‘hunters’ in Spain.”

“They had questions, I had answers. Not my fault if they didn’t like what I had to say,” Jonathan admitted. “And it not far from the truth, playing support roles and caregivers.”

“We are here to serve and protect, JoJo. We are here to instill tolerance and cooperation with others to better our community,” Christopher reassured. “This must be hard for many of them. Trying to regain their former glory if you can call it that. They were times where people revered and feared them. But not anymore. That is why now more than ever we must unite as one.

“My daughter and her friends didn’t walk out of England in one piece after best the both the Third Revelation and Royal Nephalem Order not because they were the strongest and the smartest. It was because they depended on each other. Everyone knew their role in a didn’t step out of bounds and get into anyone’s way. They had the power of belief and believed in each other,” he lectured.

“And we don’t?” Jonathan questioned as Christopher shook his head disagreement.

Of course, Jonathan always had his beliefs and his own pretty much mirrored Jocelyn’s. He kind of felt that his own Police Captain had been very lenient with his policies as of late and even went out on a limb to question his competence. Christopher pretty much knew that he would have his detractors when it comes to making the most difficult decisions. But in the end, they were selfless decisions he was comfortable with.

And just like many others, Christopher scoffed at the wolf boy’s arrogant ideas, “Do I really have to answer that? I mean that Memento Dark kid has no ego. He doesn’t care about fortune and fame. Even if he ends up losing everything tomorrow in the stock market, and he would be just as happy. To me, that is intimidating because he knows exactly who he is and what he is. Especially in the world where everybody always wants to be something else. He is willing to admit mistakes and correct them. He is ready to step back and let somebody take over even if it means giving full control of one situation. He will find an appropriate role for himself and act accordingly.”

Jonathan lets out a depressing sigh, “still, I do not trust Memento Dark.”

Christopher sits back down in his chair and faces Jonathan with conviction, “you will soon enough.”

Even though Christopher already knew that Jonathan is a diehard fan of Jocelyn’s, he will never see the bigger picture until he receives a rude awakening. Hopefully, what happened to Jocelyn last night will be just enough to make him realize that the world can’t go back the way it was anymore.

Even before the incident back in England, people had on their rose-colored glasses on and pretended that everything was fine, but it wasn’t. The world was on the brink of another world war, and hopefully, that ever happened. Jonathan was grateful, but still, he felt like the lines of good and evil were utterly blurred in the process of this newfound understanding.

In a world where nephalems and nether-users want to be treated with respect and don’t want to be hunted down like monsters. And not a day goes by he sees some bleeding heart on twitter or on Facebook touting out about his or her feelings. Typically, it would be a human being who has little to no experience of being different.

Being a different color or having a different accent or speaking a foreign language was not considered to be different anymore. Humans were humans, as they should have been. But now humans have found another thing to become prejudice about.

He dealt with such prejudices as well as his senior partner, Suiyōbi. As the detectives are driving en route to West Breckenridge Hospital, which was only a few blocks away from the precinct, Suiyōbi was driving faster than usual, and Jonathan realized it, “Looks like there is a jump in your step. What, are you excited to see your future ex-husband all dressed in purple again?”

Suiyōbi paid attention to the street as she spoke, “Look, I know you’re pissed off about a lot of things, and you know what, I would be too. But please, do not take it out on me. I am not your enemy.”

“No. We just enable them now,” he bullied.

“She isn’t your enemy either,” Suiyōbi defended.

“Andrea hates cops, and she hates me because I called her out on her crap. And now, she is the talk of the town like some comic book hero. She’s an embarrassment…” Jonathan’s office.

“She is not,” Suiyōbi flatly denied.

“Like hell, she isn’t--”

“She’s not!” Suiyōbi interjected.

This has been a hot-button topic for the NYPD. Andrea Mercy is not only one of the few people who knows about demonology, but she is also practically the only known magician in the entire force of the NYPD. Her own existence in the force has led to a lot of speculation and doubt. Most people think that it was her father for making her so reputable in a short time. Many others say that she is a fraud and is only cashing in on the recent events for publicity.

Suiyōbi is indeed one of the skeptics, but is optimistic, “Right now, nobody knows what she wants out of life.”

While Jonathan is extremely doubtful, “She has gotten to you, didn’t she? She never cared about anybody’s feelings before. She never really cared about my brothers in blue. We all protect each other in the end.”

“Well, last time I checked, the feeling was mutual throughout the precinct. Throughout all the precincts. Yet over in time, she has proved herself to be very useful out in the field. She has closed a lot of cold cases with her abilities. And the higher brass feels that she is more of a gateway than a publicity stunt. Everyone else has warmed up to her in time. The only person who has a problem with it now is you,” Suiyōbi lectured.

All Jonathan could do is shake his head in disgust, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Who knows, partner. Not that I want to wish anything terrible, but she might have that opportunity tonight,” Suiyōbi being hopeful.

“Well, I believe she’s doing a wonderful job,” Lynn interjects into the conversation. “And that boy you call, or should you say, ‘the Guardian angel of New York City?’ He saved my life the other day--”

“Why don’t you keep your fucking mouth shut, old man?” Jonathan ordered.

Ironically enough, Lynn kept talking, “you know, Detective, I can tell you are a young guy who doesn’t really know much about how the world works, and that is okay. Some youngsters do while others don’t. It doesn’t make you any more remedial than the others. But I can sense that you, that counselor, and many others are jealous of people like Memento Dark and Andrea. Think about it, kid. If you had the opportunity to be Memento Dark, you would give up everything that you own just to do so.”

Lynn was somewhat right. Deep down, Jonathan was just like everybody else who hated them; he was jealous of Memento Dark and Andrea Mercy.

They were doing their jobs better than they were. And to be quite honest, a part of Jonathan was a bit interested in what would it be like to be in his shoes for one day. To have high-ranking officials speak significantly of you, to have all these smoking hot women lust after you… It must be great… If he only knew the sacrifices Memento Dark goes through daily, no one would be that envious.