AC: Here is the second chapter. I waited for the site to be fixed before posting it.
Chapter 2: A King's Decision
Crellan ignored the portly boy complaining and how painful it was to go into his code. He carefully checked everything in the code to see if everything was alright, "Remember not to move or it will hurt even more."
There was a light that went on the forehead of the boy. Binary codes went out of the forehead and went in the holographic screen in front of the Codemaster.
"Why is it so painful to see into the code?" Peyton complained between the pain that stroke him.
The Mipedian king was by the side of the boy and simply had his hand on the shoulder of the boy to give him strength.
"Because you are currently in Chaotic and your code is active. This is how it feels to go inside the code of a machine, IA and etc. when it's active," Crellan answered, more focused on his task.
"Got to apologise to my computer when I port back," Peyton hissed as he endured more.
It took a few minutes, Theb-Saar asked, "Is there any way to make this less painful?"
"No. This is the least painful I can be. It will take more time since I make sure not to hurt him. If he turns blue or pink, warn me. Checking in the code might do something like that."
"Pink!" Peyton yelled.
The king chuckled as he imagined the boy with those color. Humans were pretty limited in scale- skin color. He saw the boy frowning at him. He chuckled once more, "Sorry, sorry. Just hold on and we will figure out what happened to you."
"And done," Crellan declared.
Peyton sighed in relief as he dropped his head, "That's- ARGH!"
"And now I'm out of your code," the Codemaster said. He looked at them and saw the boy on the ground and rolled for a few seconds as the pain subsided, "What are you doing?"
"It hurts!"
"You really hurt him when that blue line from his forehead was gone."
"Did he move?" he asked the creature.
"Yes."
"I told you not to move."
"You said done dude!"
"… My mistake," Crellan admitted. He looked at the files and then at the two, "I won't make you wait. I got the result in searching the code."
"I was expecting to see some images, human writing or anything like that. Not those numbers, as you call it. 0 and 1 only," he put his hand on the desk.
"This is the binary code. It's another type of writing in numbers to say everything. It's just more complicated and that is how the code are based. Anyway, I searched everything you got for today and yesterday," he turned the holographic so they could see it, "I cannot say I am that successful. It is worrisome that I couldn't even look into the code for the time you were gone," he saw the glare of the creature. He looked at it, "However, the files are not gone. I just cannot access to the information. You can consider this a kind of memory loss or a seal with your mind. I will try to break through it, but it will take a while. I have no idea what was used to seal those codes and how a creature could do it when no tribes can pull something like that," the Codemaster concluded, "I'll share this with the other Codemasters."
"Any idea who might have done it bro? Because I can see Theb-Saar boiling in anger a little," Peyton warned him.
Crellan saw the creature muscles inflating a little and a vein mark on his hand. It was obvious the creature was frustrated by the failure of a result, "As I said, I will try to open the lock and figure out what happened."
The Mipedian asked, "Do you have any suspicion who might cause this thing? From what I'm seeing right now, I have a feeling that a human might behind it. They know how a code words and created them. It would be logical that they could change it… From what I understand. I do not believe a creature could do something like that… Unless it is the music from one of the tribes. I'm sure it wouldn't be mine, but I won't take a risk if a Mipedian is acting behind my back," he put his hand on the desk and looked in the blue eyes of the Codemaster.
Peyton raised his finger, "Please. Stay chill Theb-Saar. The Codemaster can explain this."
He took a deep breath. His muscles under his blue scales deflated a little, "Please explain."
Crellan nodded, "I am sure it isn't a creature that caused his memory loss. None of your tribes or the M'arrillians could do something like that. Mind Control of the M'arrillians is very limited now and it doesn't affect the Code that deep like this program. As for humans, I can confirm it isn't them or the Codemasters. This is an unknown way of sealing the codes. I would recognise if it was a human or one of my own," he crossed his fingers together, "With those findings… My current answer is that something else got Peyton. Something that isn't one of the five tribes."
"The Elementalists?" Theb-Saar asked as his claws scratched the desk loudly.
"Possible. Maybe there are more tribes we don't know about. We didn't know about the Elementalists and it's possible that more tribes exist beyond the continent. Perim is bigger than we imagined," the Codemaster concluded.
"I understand. More enemies are showing up after we reached the Cothica. Those who didn't reach it are after it," the king concluded.
"It's not the Cothica," Crellan and Peyton said at the same time.
The Codemaster went on, "It is possible. Anyway, I can try something and see if we might have a clue. We can see what happened before you disappeared Peyton. Just the few minutes before you are gone. It is in the Code and untouched," he then pressed on a few things on the holographic keyboard and another one appeared with an image of the desert.
"FPS camera from me!" Peyton said.
"F…PS?" the creature had no idea what he said.
"First Person Shooter. Like a story as what my eyes sees," Peyton wrongfully explained it in a way the creature might understand it.
"We are seeing what he saw before he disappeared?"
"Exactly," Crellan answered.
"Do it!" Theb-Saar ordered.
"Please," Peyton added, just in case it would be no since it was his own memories.
"Okay. I didn't see the details, but I hope we had a least a little clue," Crellan said as he activated the memory.
"Bye Vinta!" Peyton watched at his friend before he left the small camp.
"I don't remember that part," the boy grumbled.
The Codemaster paused it, "The codes remember better than an actual human memory. It is like a camera without selecting what is worth remembering and what isn't. Those codes can record for 48 hours before it erased the most recent one. If you were gone for two days, we wouldn't have this recording. Anyway," he noticed the Mipedian glaring at him, "Let's move on."
"Okay. Now it's time to pay Theb-Saar a visit!" Peyton excitedly said as he walked towards the Mipedian city. He stopped when he heard a strange sound. He turned around, "Vinta?" he asked uncertain. 'Wait. Vinta doesn't wear an armor like that? Maybe it's Theb-Saar.'
"My thought too!"
"Only the strong one."
"Maybe it's Mudeenu…" he thought back, 'No grumpy steps.'
More of the metallic sound echoed by the left side. He turned around and once again, nothing. The bad experience of his friends last year did change him a little.
"Okay. Forget this," 'I'll port out and go straight near the palace,' he decided. He held his scanner when something grabbed him and confiscated his scanner. The boy dropped on the ground when he painfully winced.
Another voice came, "I inject the stuff. He should be-" the voice before too confused to be understood. Then, it was black. The next thing it showed was when he woke up in Chaotic.
Crellan stopped the recording, "He was definitely ambushed…"
"Vinta might have a clue. He wasn't that far away," Theb-Saar thought.
"Weird that this is coming back now," Peyton commented a bit nervously. It was weird seeing memories he forgot or just couldn't remember on his own.
The Codemaster watched it again and noticed something, "I think I see a reflection on the Scanner screen or a second."
He went to the scene and they could see the reflection. It was pretty distorted, but the three noticed the being didn't feel organic at all. The purple eyes shined on the screen and showed silver fangs and a bit of a metallic face.
"Maybe it's a mask bro," Peyton said as he looked a bit closer.
"It would make sense. Like the masks we have on our face… Although it's one of our faces," Crellan corrected himself.
Peyton didn't forget that part. The Codemasters were IA inside of a building of an organisation that he didn't remember the name. He decided it was the Chaotic Headquarter to avoid his brain frying with their overcomplicated name. He wondered what were the real faces the Codemasters chose. Maybe it was the one they already had. He saw the video again and grumbled, "Did they… what did they do?"
Crellan finally noticed the voice at the end of the video and came near the boy. He pushed his hair away and carefully inspected it.
Peyton giggled when he felt the cold finger on his neck.
Theb-Saar knew something was wrong, "They inject something to him? What was it?"
"No idea. A blood sample won't be useful. His body surely already got rid of it or he would still have some effect. Still, I found the injection zone," he pointed at the carotid, "They inject a drug and brought him somewhere. This is kidnapping 101," the Codemaster concluded.
The boy paled at that conclusion. He knew it made sense with the last part about the stuff to inject. Still, it acted extremely quickly.
"I'm starting to think that you coming back here wasn't an accident. The Scanner went too far away. Those who kidnapped you had the scanner away from you. They wanted something from you. Once they got what they wanted…" Crellan dreaded a bit at that part.
"They let you come back here," the blue Mipedian finished what the Codemaster left in the air. He didn't like this at all. He ignored the reply from Peyton as he quickly formulated a solution in the matter, "I'll ask Vinta if he heard or noticed anything suspicious. After this, we will increase security and the defense of Al Mipedim. They might still be around and could target Peyton again," Theb-Saar stood up, "And you will be under watch of my soldiers while you are in Al Mipedim."
"Theb-Saar. I don't-" all words of protest died in the throat of the teenager when he saw the red eyes of the creature fixed on him.
"Those creatures entered in the middle of Al Mipedim without being detected. This is something that I cannot take lightly. They kidnapped you and you have no memories of the matter. They could try it again and get you, maybe once and for all next time," he crossed his arms, "It is only for your own safety that you will be under watch while you are in the desert. Think of it as your friends accompanying in you a scan quest," he let out a small smile.
The teenager grumbled for a few seconds. He wanted to refuse this and just put that aside. He thought more and looked in the red eyes of the king. He had no way to refuse something like that with such a glare, "If I say no? Are they going to stalk me while being invisible?"
Theb-Saar gave a straight, "Yes."
Peyton groaned, but gave in, "Fine. There is no way I can say no anyway," he dropped his head.
"Just accept this until we identify the threat. Are they only after you or the other players?" Crellan asked. He went on his research, "We have no idea, but they might target you and your friends."
The three talked a little more, but nothing else of importance went on their conversations. Peyton and Theb-Saar eventually left the room to return to their friends and told them what they figured out.
A large screen shined in a room. There was a red dot. It was immobile for a long time. Eventually, the red dot moved. It stopped for a while and moved again. Then, it was gone.
"Did you think they noticed it?" a voice asked nervously.
"Those… Codemasters?" another one asked.
A third one came, "Nothing is telling me that they noticed it. It stood at a place for a while. I guessed they tried to figure out what we did. Then, he moved again to the spot from before. Then, he went there and the dot is gone. I believe he ported out."
"So, they never noticed we tempered with the scanner," the first voice sighed in relief.
"Good," a loud voice said behind the trio.
They turned around and saw their king Titanium.
"Cumulate the date on Peyton so we can quickly move on from phase 2," the king decided. He turned around and left the room.
AC: This is the end of this chapter.
Next: Kidnapping.
Kaz went on a scan quest, but he was captured by the enemies of Chaor among his tribe.