Tim groaned in relief as Frank yielded, his 200-pound frame rolling to the side and giving him a chance to catch his breath. He could spend all the money he wanted on shock-absorbing materials as he wanted, but the laws of physics would still ensure he would feel the impact on his back for a few days. Quite frankly he’d gone a bit overboard for a spar, but in his defense, he really wasn’t thinking straight. No matter how much of a struggle he had with his anger issues, he would never genuinely try to harm people he cared about. But using his own body as collateral to get the victory sounded like the kind of thing he’d exactly do.

His psychiatrist had tried to prescribe him all manners of medicines to help him get over the pain and anger that acted as a stumbling block whenever he tried to move forward in life. At the end of the day though,it was a personal choice that a patient had to make, and Tim had immediately refused.

Not because he had some misconception about medicine or a fear that he’d turn into a different person- No, the truth was much simpler. He didn’t want to forget or dull the pain, nor the anger that threatened to consume him from the inside… whatever it was, it was part of him now. Once in a few days, he’d wake up drenched in sweat and hurriedly look around his surroundings as if he were scanning for threats. The nightmares were slightly harder to cope with, but it wasn’t as if he was going to die from a bad nightmare. So far, he had drowned (which was curious, since Tim hadn’t done much swimming in ages), been eaten alive by a shark (he could feel the shark ripping apart his innards to shreds, and he definitely hadn’t had that experience before. Dreams were truly a curious phenomenon), been killed by a man wearing a hockey mask as he ran down a poorly lit street, strangled to death among other terrifying experiences that he couldn’t properly recall after waking up. Some of them had been very interesting, with a wide cast of characters that somewhat resembled people he knew, but as for the contents of the dream… they were forever lost in a part of the mind he had no access to. There was also one last dream, the only one that really, really got to him, because part of him still wished that it had been him driving that day and not her: death by a car accident.

Leaving those depressing matters aside, for now, Tim got up and dusted his shorts and then gave Frank a victorious smirk. “Lost to an amateur, Frank. Wonder what those ‘vicious criminals’ of yours would say now, eh?” Tim asked, trying to elicit an irritated response from Frank.

“Impossible”, answered Frank, to which Tim responded with an offended glare. “Hey, honest question asked, honest reply given. Though the win is yours, and you did something beyond my expectations. What else do you want, a kiss on the cheek?” Frank sneered in continuation, and a bit of irritation at his unexpected loss could be sensed there. Easy victories could go to the head, so the next time they sparred Frank would make sure to utterly crush Tim and remind him of his place. Not out of pride, but because overconfidence was the greatest sin a practitioner of martial arts, or heck, any discipline that required hand-eye coordination and reflexes. For Frank knew as well as anyone else, that there was always someone stronger out there.

For now, though, Tim could enjoy his victory.

“What’s lunch looking like?”, asked Tim as they slowly walked back to the mansion’s entrance.

Just as Frank was about to answer, a white flash of light suddenly obscured Tim’s vision. “WHAT THE HELL!?” he yelled instinctively, slamming his eyes shut and wondering if some rival drug cartel had ordered a hit on him, or maybe that fucker FBI agent actually managed to get dirt on his father and ordered his capture. None of the explanations really made sense, but that was all that came to him at the moment.

“GET DOWN!” echoed Frank’s voice from behind, who was as confused as Tim was but that didn’t affect his reaction time. Whatever the fuck this was, it was no stun grenade or flashbang Frank had ever heard off. Firstly, no sound accompanied the supposed grenade and neither had Frank noticed or heard anything that indicated a perimeter breach. The second odd thing that he’d noticed was that it wasn’t just the sound of the flashbang that he was missing, but he couldn’t even hear the rhythmic sound of his own breathing, nor could he hear the sound of him throwing his body to the ground. Either he was dead, or this enemy had access to a terrifying level of technology not yet revealed to the world.

With such an enemy, it was logical to assume that if they wanted Tim dead, he’d already be dead. The use of a ‘flashbang’ indicated that their purpose was incapacitation and capture instead of murder. However, Frank hadn’t given up just yet, and he had no intentions of playing by the enemy’s rules. If they wanted a 100% success rate, they should’ve used knockout gas. He crawled towards Tim and planned to rouse him and bolt towards the East, where there were certain contingency measures that he’d arranged in case of the worst-case scenario. He had expected darts to sail past his location, or maybe even rubber bullets dependent on how far their enemy was allowed to go, but without sound, there was no way to confirm his hypothesis. The bright light still persisted, and Frank had a feeling that if he’d open his eyes right now, he’d go blind from the exposure, so they remained shut for now. Besides, Tim was a civilian, there was no knowing how he’d react to such a situation. Best he remained in the dark for now.

Unfortunately for Frank, the world went dark a few moments later and his extensive military training didn’t prevent him from slipping into unconsciousness, as defiant as he may be.