Chapter 288 Recovering
?"It has now been two months since our first mission..." Mako wrote in his diary that he had started maintaining since returning from the mission.
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Commander Sable alongside a handful of privates and doctors had reached the the village an hour after Mako had passed out after saving Angela's life.
They quickly scanned the area and discovered the entrance to the underground base. The privates quickly arrested all the gang members who were still on the ground after being knocked out by Mako and his friends.
Pushing through the tunnels, the commander quickly reached the final room where the massive battle occurred. The commander was shocked by the scene and state of the area as the whole room was destroyed with cracks and craters everywhere. The boxes that lined the wall of the massive room full of things that the gang had stolen were broken and in ruin.
The privates carefully maneuvered around the guts of the gang member that Mako had killed and quickly approached the center of the room where Leon, Angela, and Mako were lying on the ground, unconscious from exhaustion.
The commander first and foremost ordered the doctors to check whether their condition was stable and to see how far along had Angela's body been decayed by the poison, only to be shocked by the doctors who reported that Angela's body was void of poison and was recovering naturally.
Commander Sable was quite confused after receiving this information as the group wasn't equipped with a cure that could affect a poison that could put Angela in the state in which she was during the virtual call he had with Leon.
So the question was who could have possibly saved Angela's life?
The commander definitely wanted to get to the bottom of this but knew that he wouldn't get any answers right now and would have to make all the members of Mako's group give a statement to piece together what had happened down here.
He ordered the privates to carry their bodies out of the underground base and have another doctor take a detailed examination of their bodies and administer any emergency care needed to ensure a fast and full recovery.
With that, the commander and two more privates ventured further into the hideout, following along the passage where Bill and Victor had their battle.
Their path was blocked by a lot of rubble, but the commander could sense auras on the other side so he knew that this was not the end.
He lifted his hand forward which began to glow bright and with a single flick of his fingers, Commander Sable blasted the rubble apart revealing the massive hole that had been made by Bill's use of abilities that Victor had continued to dodge. Updated from novelbIn.(c)om
This area was in even worse condition than the area where they found Mako's body and since this wasn't actually a room with proper supports and was on the verge of collapsing onto itself.
The commander started walking through the room with his every step sprouting several earth pillars that stabilized the roof and stopped it from collapsing on top of them.
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In the following week, everyone was able to fully recover including Angela, and they all were called to a board meeting with several high-level military commanders including Main Commander Anderson, Commander Sable, and even Commander Malik amongst others.
The group had to report every single detail of everything that happened and in the end, even though Mako's decision was justified as they had already lost one of their members and if he had listened to the commander's order, all three of his teammates could have wound up dead, the overall consensus of the board was to still punish Mako for inability to follow the orders of the commanding officer.
Even though the Main Commander and Commander Sable himself were against Mako receiving any kind of punishment because they agreed with his sense of reasoning and were impressed by their skill and ability to successfully take down the enemy, the other commanders didn't think in the same manner as they labeled Mako's decision and actions as "Reckless".
They stated that Mako's decision had caused millions in property damage to the rich area of the village as the aftershocks from the powerful abilities hitting the walls created earthquakes on the surface and destroyed many homes.
Other than that the main leader of the operation, Victor Voss had suffered through such trauma and pain that he was now suffering from amnesia and was completely useless in extracting information. All the information in his office was also encrypted with a weird code that most probably only he knew how to read, leaving them with no leads as to who funded and ordered his gang to clear out the village.
For this, Mako and his team were punished by being put under room arrest within the military complex with their special class titles revoked, demoting them back to cadets and putting them in the advanced class.
Angela was punished by decreasing her ranking in the military and got fined but she was still required as an active officer, so she didn't receive any imprisonment of any kind.
The group was heavily shocked by the verdict of the board and looked towards Commander Sable for a way out as they had done nothing wrong and were suffering from a heavy loss, but the look on the commander's face said it all.
The decision was final and the punishment was set to commence after they held a short funeral for Iris where everyone who knew her showed up to pay their respects. This included her parents and close family members as well as Erin's mom and even Andrew, Sven, and Finn.
Bill couldn't even bring himself to see eye to eye with Iris' parents as their sobbing made a deep and lasting wound in his heart. Erin was also banned from interacting with Andrew or even her mom as she alongside everyone else was in punishment.
They had a simple funeral for Iris but they didn't show her body as they said it was too graphic and didn't want to give the parents a heart attack.
Soon after the funeral was over, the group was escorted to different locations throughout the military base, and then their punishment for "breaking" the code officially began.
They were all locked to the confines of their rooms which had a simple living room and kitchen. They had access to the nearest training facility and cafeteria, but due to the sheer size of the military base, all of them were placed so far apart from one another that they could meet up even during training or eating.
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This was the life that Mako and everyone who followed him during their first mission lived for the past two months.
"Tomorrow is the last day of our punishment as tomorrow will be the first day of military school," Mako wrote in his diary.
"I look forward to meeting all my friends again, but I just hope that they are able to forgive me for ruining their careers in the military from the very start."