Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 21 Search And Recovery

"That f.u.c.king kid! Where has he gone… If he doesn't have a good excuse when he returns, I'll skin him again..." Jane seemed awfully grumpy in contrast to the respectable face she put on through the day.

"Mhmm… It really is odd for that psycho to be this late. He isn't the type to hang out in the outside world if he can help it. If anything its more concerning that he hasn't even called for whatever distraction could be holding him back..." Atid's eyes narrowed as he thought of what could be holding Sun back for so long, but upon remembering how strong Sun was, he felt a bit less worried.

Atid sighed and said "It seems he won't be returning for the night, so let's just forget about this discomfort until we see him tomorrow. I'll send some people to scout for him if he's stranded in the streets for some reason."

Jane grumbled and muttered curses under her breath, ever-grumpy from the lack of midnight snacks available to her. She exchanged "goodnights" with Atid before leaving to get some midnight street food. Just like that Jane left the dojo, still in her pajamas, with only an umbrella to handle the increasingly bad weather.

As Atid watched Jane leave, he took out his phone and speed-dialed a contact labeled "Contraband." Before the phone rang three times, a person on the other side of the line picked up and Atid could hear "This is Phil's Double Decker Ultra Moonlit Cookout! What can I do for you today?" The sounds of jazzy electronic dance music and noisy chatter spilled and mixed with the voice of the person who picked the phone; clearly, this person was working in a boisterous and popular cookout-type outdoor restaurant.

Atid's face could be seen turning downcast by this ridiculous code he had to abide by, but regardless of his annoyed mood, he responded with "Yeah, can talk to Phil?"

"Oh? And who would be calling at for him at this time?" The person on the other end of the line didn't sound too taken aback. Rather, his tone seemed to match a happy mood.

Atid said "Contraband," and a meek chuckle could be heard coming from the other side of the call. Atid was then transferred to another phone number, and within an underground bunker, a burly man every bit as intimidating as Atid himself could be seen picking up a phone, saying "Yes?"

"Old friend, I know you like to work with codes, but seriously… you should figure out a better system than just asking for some Phil and saying "contraband" is calling. Its honestly humiliating..." Atid's voice sounded as if he was wronged for having to play pretend.

"Tsk, tsk! Atid, what would you know about codes? I'll have you know the system works fine enough as it is. After you get transferred to my personal line, no one will be able to trace or record our conversations, and that goes for all my clients! Isn't that what really matters?"

"Hmph! Luca, I never questioned the security of your system, dumba.s.s! I just don't think such a childish code is necessary..."

Atid could hear through the phone the sounds of a table being struck as Luca entered yet another angry fit. This would happen almost every time Atid needed his friend's help, but he couldn't help but feel the need to try and convert Luca into a less child-like man-baby…

A couple more words of criticism rained down from both sides, until Luca asked "Che! Whatever… Why did you call me anyways? You need firepower again?"

Getting back to the reason for his call, Atid became a bit more serious and stopped his childish fight with Luca too. He said "No, for now I don't really need any more weapons. I just need you to see if you can find Sun as he was been missing for the past couple hours."

"Sun? You mean your adopted son right?" Luca asked in confirmation.

"Who else but him?"

"Mhmm… Its odd for little Sun to be lost indeed. I know he doesn't like leaving your side for training, after you two met."

"Yeah, He was supposed to be doing the dojo's groceries tonight and should have returned by 9:30. That boy doesn't have many friends or really any reasons to be held back from returning on time, and this has never happened before. So, I'm guessing he got caught in some trouble somewhere down the route he takes when he did our groceries."

Atid gave Luca the address to the local market where Sun did the dojo's groceries as well as a time frame that would help in conducting a search. After all the details were exchanged between the two parties and business was taken care of, Atid hung up the phone and Luca began to arrange a search team.

There wasn't much activity going down tonight, so Luca had a team of four Martial Pract.i.tioners proficient in tracking a.s.sembled in less than ten minutes. He gave the team some instructions based on the information Atid gave him and not twenty minutes after Atid's phone call was made, the team was out in the streets searching far and wide for any signs of Sun's whereabouts.

…

About an hour before Atid contacted Luca, in an underground brothel at the city's downtown area, another man was making similar inquiries with different information. This man was tall, standing at a surprising 6'6'', he was dressed in luxurious red robes, and was standing before a gla.s.s wall which overlooked the bustling city nightlife.

With a gla.s.s of top-tier red wine in one hand, and a phone in his other hand, the man dialed a stream of numbers too fast for any normal person to see, and within a moment, the man was connected to the person he called. The man said "Mary, have you seen those four yet?"

From the other end of the line, a terrified feminine voice could be heard almost choking through her words as she said "M-master, t-t-they h-haven't return-ed y-yet..."

"Ho?" This Master character took a moment to sip on his wine before continuing "Tell me, Mary. How do you think we should handle such disobedient children? I gave them such a simple task and they still failed to report back in due time..."

One would almost hear the sounds of hyperventilation permeate through the Master's lavish room as Mary could barely hold herself together on the other end of the line. Mary, at the brink of tears and with a clearly audible stuffy nose sounding voice, said "I t-think any p-punish-ment y-you g-give them is w-what t-they deser-ve."

"Mary. I asked for your opinion, you see? Not for you to pander to me, do you understand?" The darkness present in the master's voice was clearly understood in both literal and hidden intentions, even through the phone call.

Mary's sanity was already at the brink of collapsing just from having to report this failure to the master. Now he actually wanted her, a non-pract.i.tioner, to decide the fate of four people who could slap her to death with one blow? This was the most nerve-wracking experience she'd been involved in since her involvement with the Master, and probably the last as well…

Mary took a deep breath, but her shaky voice remained as she spoke "Y-your right… I sh-should be p-punished as well. We're all de-serving of fif-fifty lashings e-each..."

"Oh? Lashings as a punishment isn't that bad of an idea. Gather a team to find out what those imbeciles are doing and for every hour they take to return back to base, add 10 more lashings per person." The Master's voice quieted down for a second, before he added "Of coa.r.s.e, you won't be subject to punishment, It wouldn't be fair to punish you for their lackl.u.s.ter performance."

Mary's spirit could almost be heard reforming form the ashes, as she profusely thanked the Master for his "benevolence." But then she stopped hoping her outburst wouldn't annoy him into recanting his decision, and continued faithfully waiting for the Master to hang up before working as fast as possible. She knew exactly what kind of man the Master was, and for him to be this good to her better not be wasted, lest she give him a reason to destroy her life through a mult.i.tude of means. Her knowledge of him was exactly what caused her to be so afraid when she had to report a mission gone rouge, as the last time that happened, calamitous events befell on every member of the failing mission's party.

She used her skills in logistics and management to round up her own team of trackers to go after the four people Sun had decimated, and in a similar twenty minutes, the team was out and about running through the night-time streets. The Master's recovery team found the haggard bodies of the four people chosen to kidnap Elizabeth in no time at all, after they found traces of a battle along with Sun's shopping cart still filled with food. After picking up the Level 10 gentleman in white, the other three were found within minutes after the rescue team employed advanced martial tracking skills.

Along with the people they were tasked with retrieving, the team cleared all signs of battle to make the scene look bit less supernatural. The crater like impacts caused by Sun and the white-clothed gentlemen's fight were smoothed out and the bullet holes lodged on the grounds as well as on the building walls were masked with strange martial skills involving earth elements. Three silenced pistols which were near two of the downed men were recovered as well.

The team could have followed through with following Elizabeth's trail back to her house as those traces were still clearly left behind. But, orders only requested for the retrieval of their four members, and time being a critical component of their mission led to them abandoning the four's initial mission, in favor of completing their own mission. The last thing they wanted was to get on the Master's bad side as well...

Unfortunately for the four, they were only recovered in their trashed state just after midnight… meaning each would receive 60 lashings as punishment when the Master came down to the base. Mary was one of the first to see the four after they returned, and as she judged their wounds, she felt all the worse for advising the use of lashings… She had no doubts that the Master could and would oversee them receiving their punishments before recovering. Thus, she could only bless them in G.o.dspeed, before she returned to her post and awaited any further orders from the Master.