Little Lost Dog. Find my dog! D ranked mission

Lokian always did like dogs, big or small it didn’t matter dogs just reminded him as to what loyalty and duty should look like. That is why when someone’s dog came up missing he didn’t have any problem taking a part of his day looking for it. The dog was named Ming and was an adventurous miniature Pomeranian. The dog’s owner gave Lokian the general direction where Ming was last seen.

The area was one of those places in the Village that didn’t know what it wanted to be. It seemed to be an amalgam of apartments on top of sports shops and ramen houses mixed in with some industrial places and even a small office or two all scattered around a park and a few vacant lots here and there and in between; just really a hodgepodge of different buildings and purposes. It was in one of these vacant lots where Lokian first found the adventurous Ming.

The adventurous Ming had found her self a play thing in the form of a bag floating on the breeze. The breeze’s current let the bag float in slow circle as it bobbed up and down. When the bag was floating in a higher position the adventurous Ming would raise up on her hind legs and follow it her tail wagging vigorously and when the bag would float lower she would ~yip~ jump at the bag and do a spin trying to catch it but she could never get the height.

This was if nothing else was a moment of abject happiness and Lokian felt privileged to watch it. Squatting on his heels he was content to watch the puppy dance and play with the bag for a bit. He had found the dog and as long as it was occupied there wasn’t any thing wrong with not catching her right then.

But wouldn’t you know it, the wind changed and the adventurous Ming’s friend flew away. After watching the bag disappear from view the puppy’s eyes fixed on Lokian. The dog cantered her head and in a gentle voice Lokian said “Well come on Ming.” The adventurous Ming recognized her name and cantered her head the other direction with her tail wagging at almost a blur. Giving a playful ~yip~ Ming darted off to a series of barrels and trash cans and hid behind one of them.

Lokian gave chase trying not to step on the adventurous Ming as she began a game of hide and go seek. The puppy would circle around one barrel and ~yip~ playfully behind Lokian and then circle another barrel and do the same thing. But the puppy out smarted her self when she circled into a place where the barrels were too close to fit through and Lokian had her cornered. Making a ~snarfing~ sound the adventurous Ming hopped one direction but was blocked by one of Lokians giant feet; she hopped the other direction and was blocked by the other one.

Leaning down Lokian cupped his hands in an attempt to capture the adventurous Ming but she jumped through his arms and under his legs. The last thing Lokian saw was an orange streak as the puppy made her way to a different part of the block as he stumbled into the barrels making a racket…Yeah not exactly ninja there.

In every society there are bullies, some coward that will take advantage of, harass and terrorize something smaller than they are because they don’t have the gall to try it with something challenging and will hide behind any justification to do it.

Ming had gotten her self in a bad situation and was chased in to a trash can by some unpleasant foul smelling piece of humanity that had taken to smacking the side of the trash can with a piece of pipe. Ming was cowering; her ears pinned back and tail tucked in between her legs and was alternately ~ikeing~ and ~growling~ at the bully having that argument every one has had in her mind; between succumbing to her fear and using what little she had so she would growl and then cower stuck in a very scary situation.

About then Lokian caught up with the adventurous Ming and happened on the situation and shouted “HEY!” The bully startled and froze Ming darted out of the trash can and was gone again. Lokian instead of chasing Ming decided to teach the bully a lesson picked up the trash can the Pomeranian was hiding in and stuffed the bullies head into it after that Lokian took the piece of pipe and smacked the trash can enough times to make the bullies ears ring. Shouting from the outside of the trash can Lokian said “Feels good don’t it?”

Lokian left the bully to figure his own way out of the trash can and started looking for this adventurous, small as a mouse, crafty Pomeranian doggie that was slowly starting to give him some grief.

The adventurous Ming didn’t go too far as she was having too much fun playing catch me with you can with Lokian and he was grateful for that cause it made it easy to keep a track of her. The Crow had been up to this point been watching from the air and followed Lokian loyally waiting for him to give a command.

Ming had found an open place where it would be hard to be cornered and started wagging her tail ~barking~ and ~yipping~ at him to see what fun new game he was going to play with her.

Looking up Lokian ordered “Crow stop the dog” pointing at the Pomeranian; the Crow than flew down on the other side of Ming opposite of Lokian.

The adventurous Ming found her self trapped between a human and a big black crow. Mustering up her courage she gave a ~bark~ and jumped at him with her head down and ~barked~ again. The Crow hopped and extended his wings and flapped a bit, Ming’s tail wagged and she ~barked~ again than ~growled~. Not to be out done The Crow hopped at her and ~squawked~. Well Ming used up what was left of her courage tucked tail and streaked off towards the near by park.

Lokian looked at The Crow and asked “Why’d you squawk?” and chuckled this might be a pain in the neck mission but it also had its fun parts. The Crow squawked and cawed as he began to flap and started flying while Lokian started chasing the adventurous Ming in to the park.

The park was broken down in to two parts the first part was a large square of freshly mowed grass big enough to accommodate several regulation soccer fields and then there was a place where trees were let to grow naturally. Herons, sparrows, starlings, blue birds and robins all made their nests near by, ground squirrels, rabbits and other small animals where out playing in the shadows and there was even a small fishing pond where ducks and geese were gliding across. Lokian thought to him self ~”If I wasn’t on a mission I would feed those creatures.”~ But he was on a mission and it was turning into an adventure if nothing else.

To make matters even more fun for the adventurous Ming because there was a soccer game going on between little grade school kids. Parents were sitting on the grass with their littler children cheering on their soccer players. The cantankerous puppy had a field full of play mates as she sped into the first field and chased the soccer ball. The referee’s were blowing whistles and trying to stop the game as Ming began pushing the ball through the field and ~yipping~ at the soccer players with the entire spectators laughing at the commotion one tiny little puppy was causing.

Now the hard part of catching a small creature is not catching up with it but keeping from hurting the small thing cause all it would take is a small misstep and then creature could be stomped. So to add to the joviality of the situation was Lokian waddling behind the Pomeranian. It was not the greatest ninja moment in his life.

Another hard part of trying to catch little creatures is that they can get in to places that a larger being such as Lokian can’t get to. The adventurous Ming was capable of doing just that, the puppy had crawled up a hollow log and wedged her self in the top of the hollow and started barking at the birds through the hole on the other end. Knowing full well that his arm would not reach the Pomeranian he tried to make a grab for it any way. His fingers stretched all the way out were still two feet from even touching the puppy let alone grabbing it.

Trying a different approach Lokian working his way through some brambles he stepped around to the other end of the hollowed out tree. Stepping up on a log he reached in to it only to find that the adventurous Ming had left the log and was chasing several rabbits barking happily and watching them scatter.

Lokian had to chuckle at the dogs rambunctiousness especially when she darted into a rabbit hole. It wasn’t too long until the adventurous Ming was sprinting out of the rabbit hole her ears pinned back and being chased by a big moma rabbit that was thumping the ground at the danger. As she sped by Lokian shouted “bit off more than ya could chew didn’t cha?!” He could hear the squeals of excitement as she was recovering from the scare; but before long the doggie was back to chasing the animals rabbits and prairie dogs.

Another scare and the orange fur ball of a puppy was streaking back across the soccer fields in a dark orange blur. If Lokian didn’t know any better he would think that this rambunctious puppy dog knew how to open the 8 gates.

Lokian chased the adventurous Ming through the park as she sped away and disappeared into the crowd. Having lost the puppy Lokian slowed from a run to a fast walk in the general direction hoping to catch a glimpse of her and start off again there but no such luck. This was a dilemma as he didn’t know where to look. But any good ninja had tricks up their sleeve when it came to this sort of thing. He would go person to person asking “have you seen this dog?”

Lokian was patient but even he can grow tired of the way humanity acts in large groups. Thinking to him self ~”the Carpenter was right people are like sheep…slow witted in large groups.”~ The idea made him chuckle as he started speaking to one of the parents at the soccer game. This was a short mother wearing a visor her pony tail sticking out the top carrying a sports bottle and her skin was super tanned from long hours in the sun. Lokian liked her immediately. The conversation was a swift one. “Have you seen this dog? Lokian held up a picture and pointed in the general direction that it went.”

The soccer mom shook her head answering “no, I was too busy watching the game.” She quickly turned back to the game and started cheering on her son.

Some time later after asking several more people “have you seen this dog” Lokian found some one who knew something. Stepping up to a man that was of medium height and stocky with a shiny ball head and a bad mustache that when the guy laughed reminded Lokian of a cat he asked “Have you seen this dog?”

The man pointed in a direction and said “Yes, if you go this way there is a light green house between two white ones and in the front yard there is a dog that looks just like the one you are looking for.”

Lokian thanked the man and made his way to catch the dog.

Finding the light green house with two white houses on either side of it Lokian easily found what looked to be the adventurous Ming but some thing was different. First of all the dog that had spend a good part of the day playing chase with him wasn’t running from him. While that was odd it was explainable she could have just finally lost her stride.

Another thing while he couldn’t get a good look at the name tag it looked as if this tag was a slightly color. It was at this point another little niggling feeling crept up the back of Lokians spine and into his neck. He wasn’t sure what it was though.

Picking the dog up for a closer inspection Lokian couldn’t remember a white patch on the adventurous Ming’s tail and wasn’t Ming a female…Yup this was the wrong dog and the niggling feeling crawling up and down Lokians spine wasn’t going away. As he placed the dog back on the ground the reason for the feeling appeared.

Lokian was staring into the blood shot eyes of the most hideous thing he had ever seen. The creature from the bathroom lagoon; her hair done up in curlers looking like horns, big ugly gold plated ear rings hanging off her ears, a face covered in thick green paste, mouth contorted into a visage of bitterness and breath that reeked of gallons of sake and in a voice that could curdle fresh milk she hollered “LEAVE MY DOG ALONE!” and began smacking Lokian with the brush end of a broom obscenities and curses flying out of her mouth like arrows from a bow.

If Lokian was going to finish this mission with any dignity left it would be a miracle.

Lokian finally caught up with the adventurous Ming near a small farmers market. Oh what fun was the little puppy having meeting other doggies and people always letting some one pet her but dodging when some one tried to pick her up and oh what a happy day when her favorite play mate showed up. Her tail wagged happily when Lokian made to pick her up and she began playing hide and go seek again this time using the booths as places to hide as she ~yipped~ at Lokian.

She would scurry under one table cloth run around quickly, stick her head out and yip before scurrying under another stand. It was almost like a real life game of whack a mole for Lokian as he searched for the playful Pomeranian. The real trick came when the adventurous Ming would dart from one side of the market to the other causing Lokian to have to weave through the people looking at and buying produce.

Lokian finally thought he had the adventurous Ming cornered. She had slipped under a wooden table that had been walled up on three of its sides and covered with a table cloth but as Lokian made a grab for her the puppy slipped under a crack just big enough for her to fit. The Pomeranian than circled around the table and barked several times at Lokian causing him the smack his head on the bottom of the table. Struggling out Lokian looked at the adventurous Ming and said “You’re lucky you’re cute little dog.” Ming barked happily and took off again what a fun day the rambunctious doggy was having.

The adventurous Ming didn’t go far finding a small metal culvert going under the street. It was big enough for her to run through and light was shining on the other side. She barked and what she herd delighted he it sounded like there was another dog on the other side of the tunnel and so she barked happily, the dog at the other end barked happily. Elated she ran as fast as she could to the other side to meet the other dog only to find that it was gone. She barked again looking for her new friend and some how it made it to the other side of the culvert with out her seeing. Again she ran to the other end of the culvert and much to her disappointment the other dog was no where to be found.

Giving one last bark she heard the other dog again on the other side of the culvert but than she realized ~”that other doggie sounds just like me…It is ME”~ She didn’t care how it was happening only that it was fun. Every time she barked she heard it on the other side and began running back and forth through the culvert barking and yipping joyfully from one end to the other playing with her own echo.

The adventurous Ming didn’t notice right away that her play mate wasn’t chasing her but it slowly came to her that she hadn’t seen Lokian in quite some time and she was having so much fun with him. Growing worried she began to look for him heading in the general direction of the park.

Meanwhile Lokian had taken to a different strategy, for such a little creature the puppy was causing a lot of trouble. Taking a seat on a near by bench he began to think about all the ways a person could catch a small dog. He could set a trap but that could catch a lot of other dogs before he could catch her. He could try to run her down but that risked stepping on her and he didn’t want to do that because being stepped on hurts especially if you’re small. Tranquilizers were an idea but the adventurous Ming was such a tiny creature that the tranquilizers could kill her.

Than Lokian chuckled than began to laugh and laugh in earnest a long full bellied laugh it was one of those oh duh moments people get in life especially when a job is taken seriously but has an easy and fun solution. ~”How do you get a dog to come to you?”~ was the question and there were two answers food or give the dog a ball to bring back to you.

Getting up off the bench Lokian made his way to the nearest pet shop and found a small ball the size of a golf ball but made out of tennis ball material. That was all he needed to finish the mission. Stopping at a near buy phone Lokian called the adventurous Ming’s owner and let her know the good news and where to meet them.

Ming was still looking for her play mate and becoming more dejected all of the fun she was having up and disappeared with out a trace. Then she heard a whistle looking in the direction of the whistle something caught her eye but what was it. Looking up higher she saw some thing that made her hear swell with joy, happiness and delight. It was round, it was yellow and it was beautiful as a calm spring day. IT WAS A BALL!!! To make things even better it was just her size and was tossed to her fast enough to be fun but slow enough for her to catch it. The adventurous Ming leaped up and caught the ball and did a flip in the process what a perfect day!

Ming was so excited that she galloped right to the one that threw the ball it was Lokian who threw. Dropping the ball at his feat the puppy began walking in between Lokians legs her tail wagging fast enough to propel a small boat as she waited for him to throw the ball again. As soon as Lokian threw the ball the Pomeranian sped to it as fast as her little legs could take her.

This time though when the adventurous Ming brought the ball back there was another surprise! Her master, the one that fed her, gave her treats and gave her pets. The one who she comforted and gave company to! Forgetting about Lokian Ming galloped right for her master who gathered her up in a hug, pets and squeals of joy at Ming’s return, Lokian smiled when he saw the doggies tail wagging.

He always did like happy endings.