Guardians 1: Ashes

Chapter 38: Searching

Adam's POV

After I had talked to the king I went to my room and slept. When I woke up, everyone was gone already except for Jin.

Well, time to get to work. I thought as I headed downstairs. I ordered a guard to assemble the knights. When they all showed up at the guild, I told them the plan.

We were to do background checks on all orphanages. Kids who were adopted, and kids who went missing randomly. I want to know the closes exits from the kingdom and the time of the children's last being seen and time of being reported missing. It would take a lot of resources and digging but the king agreed to give me qualifications for it. I knew it didn't matter now, but I have been paranoid that these complaints have been put on, and everyone had just ignored them. How many lives were lost, since we didn't come? To many I thought.

I had been given a list of a total of 125 missing orphans. This was all throughout the kingdom of Kalá, at Uni's specific orphanage, there was 22 disappearances, and their was only one registered 'found'... Cory.

The file said he was 11 when he went missing. He was gone for about 3 days, then brought back badly wounded. I sighed,
"Already know how that story turns out."
I looked deeper into Cory's file, he had been brought to the place when he was 3. His father was found dead in a meadow of Golden Flowers and his mother was found dead on the patio. The investigation was undetermined and the causes of the couples death was unknown. Though, it was believed to be suicide for the flowers the father's body was found in were poisoness.
"Dark." I mumbled and turned to Uni's file. I stamped it and wrote 'found' on it.

Uni was 4 when he came into the orphanage... His parents dropped him off, claiming they would come back and get him, but never did. Cory was brought in 3 years after, making Uni about 7 when Cory came in. 14 when Uni was filed as missing...
"I should probaly ask him what happened while at the Prodótis kingdom. What exactly did they do to them?" I thought outloud.

I put Uni's file with Cory's in a stack, I flipped through the pages and found Rex's file. I marked 'found' on it then continued to read. He was 8 when he was brought in, parents died in a fire. He came 4 years after Cory's arrival that makes Uni 10 when Rex came and Cory 7. Rex was reported missing when he was 12. I finished reading his file and stacked it with Uni's, and Cory's.

"3 down, 122 to go." I sighed.
I stared at the stack of papers. I should really get Uni or Rex to help with this. They probably knew some of the kids and that would help narrow down the list. I put Cory's, Uni's, and Rex's files in a bag along with the files of kids from their orphanage that went missing and walked out the room.

It had taken some time, but I found Nick, Cory, Rex, Uni, Shelby, and Ross at a lake together.
Shelby and Ross were building a little sand castle. Nick was moving the water using his element creating massive floating bubbles of water. Rex held Cory's head under water yelling, "Say it! SAY IT!"
And Uni was trying to get Rex to stop.
Nick was the first to see me.
He shouted to me and Rex let go of Cory, and Cory gasped for air spitting water at Rex who whined. Uni walked over to me slowly.

"Are we in trouble?" He asked.

"No, why would you think that?" I asked.

"You are wearing your full armor and have a dead serious look on your face." Uni said pointing to my armor.

"Oh, well I'm doing an investigation of who smuggled all of you into Prodótis' kingdom, so I am doing a background check on everyone and I thought, maybe I could ask you or Rex for those who are deceased and alive." I said nervously.

"You have to ask Rex, he knows a lot about which ones are dead, some from our orphanage and some from others." Uni said glumly, he then signalled Rex to come, and he did.

"What do you need?" Rex asked with a wicked grin.

"I need to know which kids you know are 100% deceased from the Prodótis camp or prison." I said sternly showing him the files I had with a pen.

" Well I can see their faces clear as day." Rex said then grabbed the papers and pen out of my hand he looked through them and called out, "dead, dead, oh for sure he is dead, that kid is dead, wait, oh nope she is dead too." As he said this, he wrote a big X over the children's faces.

"I can mark some more down, but I would need to see the rest of the papers." Rex said, I nodded and urged him to follow me back to the castle. He did...

Uni's POV

It was nice of Adam to look into the kidnappings, but it was already to late. They already had their army of sociopath orphans, and so many children have already been killed. So many killed by Rex.

The only reason why Rex new or remembered their faces or names at all, is because he was the last thing those kids ever saw. I sighed remembering the days Rex would come back doused in the blood of his victims. His main job was dealing with rule breakers. And by "dealing" with them, I mean punishing them. Though, he was also part of the test to see if the kids were ready to move in to becoming a higher rank. Sadly, a lot of them failed, and we're executed slowly and painfully by Rex. They went by a motto, " Kill or be killed."

Cory broke my train of thought and poked my leg with his finger as if he was a child again. I looked down at him. He had a concerened look on his face. I roughed up his hair and he waved his arms in the air objecting my gesture. He settled back down and spoke carfully.

"It's about us... isn't it?" He asked.
I nodded.

"He is listing the kids, isn't he?" Cory asked more nervous.
I nodded again.

"Is Rex going to be executed?" Cory said rushed but clear enough. This caught me off guard. I didn't think about the consequences, after all, Rex murdered a fair amount of kids. But, was it technically self defense, after all, they tried to kill Rex
just as well.

I looked at Cory who had a true face of grief.
"I don't know..."I replied breaking him further.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Cory shouted.

Shelby, Ross, and Nick looked at us, who were now building sand castles together.
Shelby broke the silence, "Is everything okay?"

"Just fine." Cory said biting his lip.
Shelby raised an eyebrow and looked at me awkwardly.

I then turned to Cory, "I'm sure he will be fine on his own."

"You know he doesn't do well under pressure." When Cory brought that up it sent me into a slight panic.

"Oh my gosh, your right." I said and my smile droped.

Nick got up and now was approaching us.
"Hey, what did Adam want?" He questioned.

"Go away Nick." Cory whined." Big Kids are talking" He said then shewed Nick away.
Nick sat back down with Shelby and Ross, mumbled something, then Shelby got up and walked to us.

"Are we gonna do something, or sit here and wait?" Cory asked.

"Wait for what?" Shelby asked.

"It's none of your buisness Shelby." I said.

"It's none of your buisness Shelby." Cory mimicked me in a stupid voice.

"Aye, Cut it out." I said giving Cory a stern look.

Cory stopped immediately with a grin. I sighed.
"We have to go." I said.

"Can I come to?" Nick asked looking up at me.

"It's not your problem. Sorry, but you can't" I said.

"But it's Cory's problem?" Nick asked eyebrow raised.

"Because he knows about it, and you don't want to hear it anyways." With that, I turned around and headed to the castle with Cory close behind.