Chapter 60: Detective
///Lost'sForward/// 100 Power Stones = 1 Chapter
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Miles woke up underneath a tree.
His head hurt and his ears rang.
In the distance, he heard the sound of excitement.
Men laughing together, making jokes, and for once enjoying the beautiful scenery that encapsulated them.
Miles heaved himself up.
"Oh! You're up!" A happy voice said.
Miles winced at the loud noise, but he ignored it and looked to the man sitting beside him. The man was one of Miles's few friends, another one of the six Isaac decided to train.
"What—" Miles rummaged through his distorted memories, "What happened?"
Without skipping a beat, the other man replied.
"What happened?" He chuckled, "Olive kicked your ass again!"
The moment Miles heard this, the memories rushed back into his head.
Olive's apathetic demeanor.
Her uncaring gaze.
And the roundhouse kick that ultimately sealed his fate.
Miles's blood pressure spiked. He dug his nails into the soil and clenched the ground with fury.
He simply couldn't accept it. He lost to a girl twice now. And the girl in question wasn't even using her Abilities!
Olive wasn't buff or huge. She had no physical advantage over Miles.
His reach was greater. His height was greater. His weight was greater.
So how?! How could he lose twice?
The man beside Miles stood up.
"Well now that you're up, I better get going. I don't want to have to wait until nightfall to get a drink."
The man started to walk away, but the word 'drink' echoed inside Miles's head.
"Wait!" Miles stopped him, "Drink what?"
"Oh right. Sorry about that." The man scratched the back of his head, "Olive found water. Apparently that's where she's been all this time."
The man left Miles alone after that. Meanwhile, Miles still had his mouth agape.
'Water?' He thought to himself.
Immediately, songs of praise appeared within Miles's mind, but the praises were not for him. No. Instead, they were for Olive.
In his mind, they paraded Olive around camp. They carried her above their heads, tossing her into the air with triumphant shouts!
That was when reality hit Miles.
To the rest of the camp, Olive is the hero.
Meanwhile…
'I'm the villain.' Even when said in his head, Miles hesitated.
'Me? The bad guy?'
The thought felt inconceivably foreign.
Miles was homecoming King at his school. He played on the varsity football team. Sure, he wasn't the quarterback, but he was a wide receiver! He was popular! Sociable! Friendly!
'What happened?'
Miles stared into the palm of his hand where dirt and shredded follicles of grass lay.
Back on Earth, he had watched the United Nations announcement live. His whole family did, in fact, since they watched it together. And from the get-go, Miles wanted to be summoned.
He imagined himself swinging through buildings and flying through clouds — he envisioned himself a hero so… where had that vision gone?
Lost in thought, Miles stirred his mana and his nails slowly extended. They grew long and curved, eventually melding into a single fine point.
Miles lowered his hand into the grass. He ran his claws through the green stocks of life and, without any added pressure, his claws severed the grass instantaneously.
He looked at the hill and the camp they built atop it.
He saw a line of men patiently waiting. At the front of the line, Isaac and Olive distributed water. They even hired the fat-boy, Clark, to help them with this endeavor.
'Even that pig is treated better than me!'
Miles wanted to race up the hill and say something, but he stopped himself. What good would that do?
'Do they even notice I'm gone?' He thought.
Miles's heart ached. An insane idea sprouted within his mind, but maybe it was so insane that it might actually work?
His heart didn't ache for agony. Rather, it ached for hope — hope at the mere thought of his insane idea coming to fruition.
Miles looked up at the hill one last time. Then, he turned his back and entered the forest.
***
At the same time, Cain was leaning over the edge of a building. He was currently on a roof, six floors up, and below him across the street stood another club owned and operated by the Rose familia.
After Cain slipped up the last time, he dedicated himself to taking more precautionary measures.
For one, don't enter any building, site, or space related to an adversary without first gathering intel. Basically, Cain was scoping out the second club.
Due to his amateurish behavior in the last one, and his ridiculous lack of intel especially pertaining to new age technology, Cain decided to fully engross himself in a detective persona.
Not only did he watch a night's worth of videos detailing the major technological advancements in both the public and private sectors, but he also read up on the process of detective work.
As a result, Cain constructed a minor plan.
First, he needed to find Emilio, but obviously finding a single man within an entire city was like finding a needle in a haystack — and the one thing Cain knew really well was odds and his odds of finding Emilio willy-nilly like that were abysmal.
So then, what was he supposed to do?
In the file given to him by the UN, various names and photos were included beyond Emilio himself such as close relatives, servants, officials and more. By utilizing that list, Cain was hoping to find someone who will lead to Emilio rather than find Emilio himself.
Thus, the club across the street — "Violet Night." What it actually says is "Noche Violeta," but due to the System all languages are instantly translated so — Violet Night.
The club is two stories high, larger than the last, and it's surprisingly not in the ghetto found in the outskirts of the city. Instead, it's near the heart of the city; four blocks away, to be precise.
The reason Cain chose this club among the thirty that Emilio owns is simple: his sister runs this one.
His sister by the way, the woman who saved drug addict Manuel over ten years ago, is not as kind as Cain expected her to be. Although she vouched for Manuel's life, she herself is no stranger to violence.
In the past two hours alone, through the windows of the second floor of the club, Cain watched her backhand two of the dancers employed at Violet Night. One dancer was fifteen minutes late while the other could barely fit into her corset — both good reasons, apparently, to get smacked across the face by a collection of vibrant (and sharp) rings that adorned Miss Rose's hand.
Maria Rose, Emilio's sister, was thirty-nine years old and she had long, luxurious black hair and so far — Cain had only seen the woman in high-heels and tight-fitting dresses. Tight-fitting only due to her breasts as they're as large as grapefruits.
Even from across the street and five floors higher, Cain could still see them slosh around her chest, begging for a single breath or some leeway to move around, but Maria's dresses were the tightest Cain had ever seen.
He had been observing the club for over two hours now. The sun hung directly above him, its scorching heat beat down on Cain's pale skin — but he remained unaffected.
Also, after granting mercy to the human slaves kept in the jaws of the other club and effectively blowing up its basement, Cain kept an eye on that property for a couple of days too. In those two days, neither Emilio nor anyone from his family investigated the collapse.
The Brazilian police were notified, they showed up about an hour after Cain left either from the kidnapped girl waking up in the hospital and calling them or from one of its patrons — regardless, the police shut the club down and arrested all of its employees.
According to the news article released a day later — a gas leak unceremoniously ignited below the club and destroyed its basement.
Obviously, that was a cover-up, but the fact that it was a cover-up meant that the Rose family knew about it. What did they know specifically? Cain didn't know.
All he knew was that the Rose family definitely knew someone ransacked their club and destroyed their trafficking ring; beyond that, however, Cain was in the dark.
Another piece of evidence to suggest that the Rose family knew, beside the public cover-up, was the increase in security for their other clubs such as Violet Night. To be more specific, eight men arrived in front of Violet Night this morning from the back of a white van. The men carried assault rifles across their chests and kept two pistols on each side of them.
In Cain's opinion, they looked like special forces.
Especially with their stupid sunglasses that they refused to take off, even in-doors.
Cain lowered his binoculars. He was tired of watching the dancers perform the same four moves in different orders. Even more so once he figured out that the pole itself spun. That fact specifically rubbed Cain the wrong way. Why?
It effectively reduces the skill of the dancers in Cain's mind. If the pole itself spins, then the show boils down to a visual illusion and as a slight-of-hand magic practitioner — Cain saw no real technical ability at play.
'They're just shaking their ass while the pole spins.' Cain commented.
'Anyone can do that!'
Then, a van drove into the alleyway situated behind the club.
Due to his angle, Cain was unable to see the van's doors open and close. What he could see, however, was the driver before he stepped out of the vehicle.
And in the passenger seat beside the driver, a woman Cain recognized applied her makeup dutifully.
It was the mature woman from the previous club.
The woman who, Cain speculated, lured the gorgeous girl into the jaws of the Rose familia.
Unable to spare a single moment, Cain raced across the roof and stormed down its emergency fire exit. He moved just slower than a blur and arrived on the ground floor in under a minute.
From there, he bolted across the street and hugged the wall leading to the alleyway.
He tip-toed closer to the alleyway then gently poked his head out into the open.
From where he stood, Cain could see into the back of the van, but the van was empty.
Whatever was in it must have already been transported out.
Suddenly, the driver of the van, an experienced man with a thick mustache and prevalent gut, exited the club's back door and returned to his van. He opened the driver's door and ignited the engine.
He looked into his rearview mirror.
The van's back doors were still open!
Cain could see the annoyance spark in the driver's eyes through the rearview mirror.
He grumpily opened the van door and stepped out, but before he could close the van's backdoors, the club's door opened again.
Nobody left the building, but the van driver suddenly stopped and turned towards the door. With his back to the alleyway, the driver engaged in a conversation with someone still standing in the club.
Cain's eyes flashed.
A brilliant idea came to him!
Cain sprinted down the alleyway with steps as soft as feathers. He hid behind the passenger side of the van and waited for the driver to slam the backdoors shut. In order to get the timing right, Cain watched the driver's feet shuffle underneath the van.
When the driver closed the backdoors, Cain opened the passenger door and swooped in.
He slithered around the passenger seat and tucked himself behind the driver's seat.
Then, the driver's door opened and the mustached man entered.
He turned up the music and shifted gears before driving away from Violet Night with a new package secured mere inches behind him.
///LostNoteFound///
Thank you DevilGod_of_Chaos and moofin for the stones!!!!!!!!
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