A detective in a world with no crime sounds ridiculous.
After all, a mystery story always needs a crime, no matter how small it is.
However, in Orion's world, crime had become something people only read about in history books.
Or at least, that's what everyone believed.
The truth was buried beneath layers of carefully constructed lies.
The streets were safe. Murders never happened. Robberies didn't make the news.
People called it peace.
Orion Winters called it a lie.
Carefully constructed lies that hid every crime.
Hidden away by the so-called secret organization—the Red Scorpion.
They ensured the country's peace. They intercepted criminals before crimes could be committed, prevented disasters before they unfolded, and erased every trace of their own existence.
To the public, they were nothing more than a rumor that had never existed.
To the few who knew the truth, they were heroes. They were protectors.
But Orion Winters had never been able to call them either. He hated them.
The Red Scorpion lived by one belief:
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
If you chose to bear the responsibility of protecting the world, some bloodshed was unavoidable.
They considered it a necessary price for peace.
Among them were Orion's parents, the ones that had to pay that price—the parents he never got to say goodbye.
The official report claimed they had died in a house fire. The case was closed almost as soon as it was opened.
The truth had to disappear along with the flames. After all, the world could never be allowed to know that the Red Scorpion had ever existed.
Most people accepted the explanation and moved on.
But the Orion from eight years ago didn't.
He believed they were still alive.
"They're alive," he told his little sister, Wren Winters.
No older brother wanted his little sister to lose hope.
"We'll find them, Wren. Once we grow up. Now? No. Nobody will believe us. They are...idiots. They think mom dad are dead. They think the Red Scorpion is inexistent. They can't help us. How do I know better? Well... I AM A DETECTIVE."
No one believed them. The adults called it grief. The police dismissed it.
But Orion made a promise.
That night, the same flames that consumed his home and took his parents away, gave birth to something else.
A detective.