The Guardians of Light

Zero To Hero

' Aito is down. It looks like The Godzilla is going to remain undefeated. '

Ryan: Sensei. What are your insights on my yesterday's performance?

Sensei: You were taught well, but you are used to fighting people of the very same style, and you are finding it challenging to face the combatants of other forms.

Ryan: Any suggestions?  

Sensei: Every fighting style is the same. They may differ in timing and action. Just take your time, read your opponent, and surprise him.  If your enemy is the sky, you be the ocean. Don't let him read you.

Ryan: I would like to be the 16th contestant. Do I have your permission?

Sensei looked at me, and I looked relaxed and confident. He was surprised or may be shocked to see my willingness to still participate in the contest even after seeing their best student getting knocked out.

Sensei: You have my permission.

I slowly walked to the stage.

Mia: What the heck is he doing? Why the hell is he going towards the stage? Oh, God, please put some sense into him.

' There we go. We have our 16th contestant here. He is surprisingly calm, seeing what had happened to the last 15 contestants. Let's see what he got. Fight 16 starts. '

The Godzilla taunted me to hit him, but I stood in my position and held my ground. No matter how much he mocked me, I stood firmly. He lost patience, and he swung his leg on to me. I defended and rotated and gave an elbow to the neck.

He again tried to punch me. I crouched and landed a blow to his stomach. My moves were deadly, but he was too strong compared to me. I kept dodging and attacked whenever possible.

My attacks only caused minute damage to him. Nevertheless, I managed to survive for the first minute.

By this time, I am able to predict his moves, but his blows were too powerful to handle, and even knowing in advance didn't matter sometimes.

I tried to avoid all his deadly moves, as I have seen what they can do. It was only a matter of time before the Godzilla goes berserk, and I had to be ready to face a crazy big guy.

I survived for the other 30 seconds, and the crowd started clamouring my name. That's my cue.

Godzilla started screaming as soon as he heard the crowd chanting my name. He seemed lost in that moment as if he had given into madness.

I thought this is my chance to go offensive. I rushed forward and caught his head and gave a knee to the nose. That should knock out any opponent, but Godzilla became dizzy.

No matter how strong a person is, a blow to the nose always weakens them. I started to punch him hard and quick as if he was a punching bag. I landed punches continuously for 30 seconds straight.

Exactly at the end of the third minute, Godzilla touched the ground. Not only I had survived for three minutes but also triumphed over Godzilla. 

' The Godzilla is down. This all still feels like a dream. Contest 16 had managed to take down the mighty Godzilla. The undefeated champion has finally been defeated. It looks like Sterling High got itself a new champion. '

Mia remained awe-struck and all the audience were chanting my name.

Ryan... Ryan...Ryan...Ryan...

The Sensei was looking with his head held high. His pride restored.

I felt like a hero at that moment. Standing on a platform surrounded by hundreds of audiences who were shouting my name.

They presented me with a medal. Mia also looked extremely happy and baffled at the same time. She showed the watch, indicating it's time for her play.

I signalled her that I will be on time.

After being congratulated by many people, I took off the uniform I was wearing and changed into my casual clothes and went to watch the play of Mia and on the way, I saw my picture on the notice board with the title, " Zero to Hero. " I felt so happy seeing people's admiration towards me.

Anyway, I finally went to the drama and found a seat for myself. To be frank I wasn't that interested in plays. I was only watching for Mia. I was only paying attention to what Mia was saying and blurred out the rest of the characters in the play.

[Play]

Allegra: You are too busy looking for the faults in people around you that you are missing the flaws within yourself.

When I heard this dialogue, it helped me shed a new perspective on the case. I immediately rushed home and took a sleeping tablet. I went to sleep in no time.

                                                                   -----*-----

I opened my eyes and checked the ST, which was blinking. Oni-234 had sent me some information related to the targeted residences. The owners registered a complaint to the sanitation department because of the leakage from the manholes which was inside their property.

That's it. That's how the thief entered and escaped the property. Since he is using the manholes that are inside the property, the security cameras couldn't capture him and he successfully evaded the capture.

 He was using the sewers for his escape. Now, I have narrowed down the houses to very few. All I had to do was look for residences that had manholes inside their property.

I immediately went to the Knowledge Room to check for such houses. There is only one such house apart from these four. I am glad that I had found it soon because if this residence gets robbed, we wouldn't have any idea of what he is going to steal next.

I checked the details of the owner. To my surprise, it was the same old lady who offered me water. I put a mail to the Protectors association for some stuff that I required for the job.

After half-an-hour, a guy approached me in the Knowledge Room, who looked like a delivery guy. He gave me a bag and said it's all there. He used a scanner and scanned my ID and left.

I took my bicycle and left to the lady's house. I reached the location and hid the cycle in the bushes. I did it so because I didn't want the thief to think that something is odd.

I knocked on the door. After a minute, the lady opened the door.

' Hey, young man, it's you again. Come inside. '

' Thank you, mam. I have something to talk to you about. '

' Well, sit down first. Let me bring you a glass of water. You must be tired from all the work. '

I took a seat and waited for her to bring the water.

' So, what did you want to talk about? '

' I guess you have heard about the thief who is robbing houses, right? '

' Yeah. I live alone here, so I feel tensed sometimes. '

' I have done some research and came to the conclusion that yours is the house that he is going to steal from next. '

' What are you saying? How can I even believe you? Maybe you are that thief.  '

' There is no need to panic, mam. Here have a look at my ID. '

' I see no name or photo of yours on it. '

' I am an intern, and that is a temporary ID. I am here to protect you and prevent your house from being robbed. '

' How are you supposed to do that? '

' I am going to stay here for a few days. That way, we can surprise the thief when he shows up. '

' How long do you intend to stay here? '

' Till he shows up, I guess. I know this may seem hard to you, but trust me, you are safe. '

' Thank you, I guess, Protector. I'd like to put my faith in you.  '

Now, I wondered how many days I had to be awoken if he doesn't show up.

I felt it in my guts that he would show up soon because he committed 4 robberies in just two weeks.

I came out of the house and checked for the sewer hole. It was near the back door. Now all I had to do was wait for him to show up.

I wanted to inform my fellow interns, but they made it pretty clear that they wanted to work alone.

So it is up to me to catch the thief now. I was both thrilled and afraid as I had been tasked with such an assignment and I'm still a newbie.

The old lady went to sleep early that day. I turned down all the lights in the living room and sat on the sofa. I had night vision goggles, but I was afraid of, what if he also had one. He could easily spot me sitting in the dark.

I plated a small camera in a flower case covering the view from the back door. I waited in the upper floor. Hours passed by, and I spotted nothing suspicious.   

I realized keeping surveillance is very tiring and monotonous. Waiting at the same place for hours and hours, not even sure of whether they would arrive or not.

Since it's my first field mission, I shouldn't mess it up at any cost.

At 12'o clock,  I saw the sewer hole moving. Somebody from under was trying to open it. A sudden sense of dread surrounded me. I started to panic. I immediately opened my ST and called for backup.

Thank God, there was an option for back up. The thief slowly came out of the sewer hole. He definitely had his night-vision goggles because the darkness didn't seem like a problem to him.

He approached the back door and unlocked it with ease. Thieves appear to be more talented than Protectors, I thought. As I already knew, he targets valuables I anticipated that he would try to c***k open the safe.

The safe is located in a room beside the living room. As soon as he went into that room, I lost visual. I now had to go to downstairs.

I still couldn't believe that I was in the same house as The Ultimate thief, and that I have to catch him, but I was afraid to face him.

The weeks of training didn't seem enough. Anyway, I put myself together and went to the living room and hoped that backup would reach in time.

I took a small peek inside the room. The thief had already cracked open the safe and was transferring everything in the locker into his bag.

Attacking him now didn't seem like a good idea to me. So I decided to wait by the door and sneak up on him when he comes outside.

The thief had finally emptied the safe and started to come out. I gulped.

I could feel my sweat drenching from my chin. I waited there in silence.

When he finally came out, I jumped onto him from behind. He might have worn some electrical suit because, as soon as I touched him, I felt a mild electric shock.  

I withdrew my hands from him. Before I felt okay, he had already gone past the back door. Ayami arrived at the scene.

I yelled not to touch him, but she did and experienced a shock. She fell to the ground, and the thief escaped through the sewer hole.

I turned out the lights and went out to see how Ayami was doing.

' Watashi wa yakunitatanai ' She said.

' What? '

' Nothing, we just missed that bastard. '

' Don't worry. We can still find him. '

' How? '

' When I touched him, I planted a chip on him. Now we can track his location. '

' Inshō-teki. '