How I remembered our school's doc, he was weird, but I doubted he would do something this crazy, though I couldn't say for sure, because it doesn't take much to change the human heart, I had seen it, no, I had experienced it myself, the feeling of grief or anger could leave a permanent scar to one's soul, I was grateful that I could heal and move past it.
The doc's case was odd however, he had a family, a loving one, I had seen them around the school park, he had a loving kid and a wife, I wondered what could have gone wrong.
"He was a passionate man," Jasmine said, wrapping her head with a scarf, strings of her curly hair peeking out of the sides of it.
"All seemed fine, until that moment..." We listened attentively, patiently awaiting the next thing to come out of our teacher's mouth.
"Berkan was accused, or maybe he really did do it, who knows, but he was kicked out for violating the school's regulations, which was human experimentations under the school lab. Or rather, that was a forbidden law in the whole country." We were surprised, Jun's suspicion might have been right, and this very well aligned with that theory, but why? I thought to myself but realized listening to more of the story would probably give me a better view.
"It was all a shock to me when I came to the school in the morning and a dozen of police cars were parked in front of the school gate, a crowd of people, students all gathered, watching something, I quickly passed through the crowd and what I saw was unbelievable, 2 cops were taking someone, a man in a white lab coat, his short white hair flowing with the wind, his blood red eyes still gleaming even at a time like that, he was cuffed and was being walked towards a police car." It was astonishing how fast people could change, it hadn't been that long that I left school for work, or maybe doc didn't change, perhaps he was the same all along, but trying to understand him was futile, he was an incomprehensible man, that's what made him dangerous, that's what I thought always.
"I ran towards him and asked him 'why?' to which he replied with 'you wouldn't understand, even if you did, you'd probably ignore it, so don't worry.' I was frustrated, the feeling of distrust was always annoying to me, and that coming from a colleague who I had been working for so long with? I felt like trash." The tone of her voice switched from her usual relaxed one to one that had sadness, annoyance and anger all at the same time.
"Apparently he was making a drug of some sort, that would significantly improve the Rukh capacity of a person, a drug so dangerous it could either help out the country or destroy it completely." It all made sense now, the reason for the superhuman look and strength that the person I fought was a drug, that scumbag, 2 of his previous students died because of this, and one was in a stage between both life and death, I slammed my hand on the table, with complete disgust in my face.
Jun and Jasmine's faces turned towards me with concern, I joined my hands together, all my fingers tips from each hand touching together, looking down, my hands slightly below my face, barely not touching it. "Continue." I said while my thoughts went from one place to another.
"Well, that's pretty much it. They didn't give me details on the drug besides it being dangerous, I'm sure that's the same for the rest of the teachers so don't bother asking them." She said, getting up, moving her curtains and looking outside the window.
"Is that so?" I got up and signaled Jun that we were going. "Thank you." I said while walking towards the exit, "Oh and one thing, the most important detail, Berkan escaped the police the day he was caught, getting help from 3 guys in robes." My face turned in shock, "What?" Was all I could say at the moment.
"I know you'll try and find him now, as a fed but most importantly, as his student. And I won't try to stop you but don't push yourself." Her serious face turned into a soft smile, her eyes looked tired now after the conversation, must've been a tough thing to talk about for her, "Yes." We nodded and went out.
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The only clue we had towards the disappearance of the Doc was that he got away with men in black robes, shady people basically, so I had a pretty good idea of where people like that could be, it was really obvious, the underworld.
Or that was it was called anyway, the underworld, a place where most ruffians gather, those who can't make a living on the surface reside there, all kinds of shady business happen there out of the control of the government, well not entirely but you got the point.
If looked hard enough, assassins, thieves and such could be found there, so undoubtedly there would be people who'd want a skilled doctor and a scientist in their possession, and what he had produced right before his disappearance would've surely attract the eyes of some people, it'd be good if we found him first.
"You know where to go right?" I asked Jun who was walking beside me, "Yep." He replied with a relaxed but excited voice, "The underworld, or that's what they call it anyway, what it really is, is a black market, with barely any rule of the government, sketchy people selling whatever they have." I nodded looking at him, "If we want to find a sketchy doctor, then that place is the first we should look into." I said while stopping to stretch my body, my hands joined together and raised up.
"Sooo... How do we get there?" I looked at my friend, confused "I always thought you knew how." I replied "Like hell I do, you think my parents would allow it? They'd beat my ass if I tried." I looked at him but then faced away and sighed "Guess we'll have to go by my theory," he looked at me curiously "You know the abandoned Rashomon District right?" He still looked at me curiously but nodded, "I've heard people hear noises come from there, from the ground by the nearby district at least, and since the sounds come from the ground, it makes sense why they'd call it the 'The Underworld' every large district has an underground shelter, big enough to fit the entire city, it would make sense if the shady people made their nest in there. You get it?"
"Yeah... That does make sense." He nodded while placing his thumb, index and middle finger of his right hand on his chin. "We're going." His expression changed, "Wait, for real?"
"Of course, it's still just sunset, we've still got around 5 hours till the day is over, so we might as well make the most of it." I said stretching parts of my body, as if I was getting ready for a run, actually I was, I was planning to run there, I didn't know if it would be smart or not but for some reason I was feeling like doing it, "Up for a race?" I said looking up at my friend, smiling.
He looked at me with surprise but quickly scoffed it off "Why not." He got into a running stance, and so did I, "This will end like it always did, Alan." He said mockingly, "We'll see about that." I replied in a similar manner.
"We'll start when this hits that tree," I pulled my middle finger back and used my thumb to hold it while channeling Rukh to my finger, my finger glowing bright right as if blood was boiling inside it, pointing at the tree. I waited for 3 seconds and finally released it.
Boom! The sound was made and the small amount of Rukh I sent to the three, exploded, turning into white smoke, and so we started running, we were fairly keeping up with each other, the wind blowing through my entire face as I ran as fast as I could, my hair was flowing so fast that the plastic I had tied my hair with opened and flew away, but one thing was for certain, it felt amazing, the competition, the weather and everything felt so good for the first time in a while.
After crossing the sidewalk, we turned left and continued sprinting my way through "See ya!" He boosted his speed and got far away from me in a short moment. "You ain't going anywhere!" I shouted as I channeled Rukh to my feet, activating Sol technique: Droméas, my feet got lighter and my speed increased, and barely, I caught up with Jun, an excited smile on his face, looked like he was truly enjoying it and so was I, this competition that had our bloods pumping was an old thing we had been doing ever since our school days.
We had passed 3 kilometers in under 2 minutes, losing track of time by this lively race of ours, and it seemed that our speed had significantly increased too, the sensation felt from this was outstanding.
Suddenly Jun stopped, and so did I because of him, we were panting but we recovered quickly and stood up "We're here." Jun said looking up at the huge gate chained and taped by the government, "Keep out." Written all over, suddenly a scent ran through my nose "Burning." I muttered, "Yeah." Jun replied, fixing his glasses "Let's go." He said getting his fingers inside the cage like fence that covered the area, I nodded and quickly followed.
We climbed the fence and the place was silent, though I couldn't feel it myself. I could tell by looking at Jun that the temperature was low here, and all that combined with the smell of burning wood, perhaps it would make sense for someone to burn wood to warm themselves in this cold weather.
After stopping to look around for a bit, we started moving towards the place the smell was coming from, the smell getting stronger every step, quickly to filter out the smoke that was getting close to us.
Walking forward, we noticed the fire that was making the smoke, around it were 4 figures, 2 standing up and 2 sitting down, the ones who sat were warming their hands with the fire and the 2 other two were walking around it, looking everywhere cautiously, obviously they couldn't notice us, we were masking our presence using our Sol techniques.
We watched them for a brief moment but then decided to approach them, and on a closer look, they had firearms in their hands, which they immediately pointed at us, the other 2 that were sitting were alerted and they got up and did the same "Who are you, and what do you want?!" The one on the right asked nervously, we raised our hands "We mean no harm." I said calmly, not a single shred of fear in my voice.
"We'd like to ask a few things." I said giving the one who spoke a cold stare, "You don't think that would be free, do you?" My eyes shifted to the one on the left, a muscular man with a heavy voice, he had covered his face with a cloth but it couldn't cover his long brown beard. "No we don't, we can pay if you want." I said smilingly.
"Then leave it here and get lost, brats." He said gripping his assault rifle tightly.
"Don't get it twisted. We're not the ones vulnerable here." I said, my tone switching from cheerful to serious as I slightly tilted my head to the right and gave him a death stare that shook him off.
"That look...! fire, now!" He shouted signaling his other two comrades to do the same as what he was about to do.
Two of my fingers raised, I waved it forward, signaling my friend to not stand by anymore.
Sprays of Rukh made bullets came flying towards us but the fact that they were made of Rukh is what gave us an edge, we could easily sense it even at point blank range, parts of our bodies moving swiftly, dodging the bullets as we dashed towards the armed men, "Don't over do it!" I told Jun.
We reached the men in about 3 seconds and grabbed their guns, channeling Rukh through my hand that strengthened, hard enough that it bended the AR the man held in his hand.
I looked to my right and Jun picked up the guy in the right, one hand on his weapon and the other right below his left shoulder, picking him up, he turned around threw him to the ground, meanwhile he used his unique Sol technique to put the one in the middle under a temporary illusion that scared him enough that the weapon he held fell on the ground.
I placed my palm on the bearded man's stomach, and twisted it the moment I grabbed it, the man screamed in agony as I transferred my own Rukh to disrupt the flow of his, but I did make sure that I wouldn't over do it, otherwise I would've been a hypocrite because I told Jun not to do so.
The man was completely immobilized, and fell to his knees as he couldn't properly move his body anymore.
Just to be sure, I thought and gave Jun a sign with my hand, he nodded. I dragged the big one meanwhile Jun dragged the other two, unlike the bearded man, the other two weren't paralyzed, though one was completely traumatized by Jun's illusions, the other was fine but it would make sense to assume that he simply submitted because his leader was defeated.
We put all of them together, with their backs to each other, we closed every one of our fingers besides the index and the middle one, holding it around as high as our chin.
Rukh came out from below our feet and covered their bodies like a rope, binding them.
I got down on one knee and looked at the most stable and looked him right in the eyes "Now, will you answer our questions?" I titled my head slightly to the left and smiled at him with my eyes closed.
"Of- of course!" He said nervously, I opened my eyes and stared him right into his, "Very well."