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In Lily's words...
LET'S GET THIS BULLSHIT STARTED
....Welcome to arc two
In Lily's words...
LET'S GET THIS BULLSHIT STARTED
....Welcome to arc two
The Thomas family has been known for causing trouble, but the head, Anita's, recent invention of a new element known as Mestusium, has pretty much topped it, excepting the invention of a twisted robot known as Boomer. This new material has sold very well, seeing as it has the ability to contain the abilities of none other than Gifted Humans. Thus, seeing as Mestusium is a relatively cheap product and easy to get one's hands on, Gifted Humans being sold on the black market is more common than ever before. Little do sellers know that there has been some deus ex machina to help encourage the trade; yes, the Lord Hades himself started the rumor that Gifted Humans work ten times as efficient as regular humans, genetically modified humans, and cyborgs combined. While this has never been scientifically confirmed, slave traders and capturers do not necessarily care as to whether or not this is true; they are receiving good money for the Gifted Humans they sell.
In other news, the time loop that plagues Hell City has been temporarily expanded by two weeks thanks to the many efforts of one of the instigators of the time loop, Rika Furude. The timeline is set to restart on July 21, 2044, at 6:30 PM. As of now, however, it is July 12, 2044, 9:31 AM, Timeline #76. It's to be a very bumpy ride, but one can hope that it will finally end.
It is a sunny morning, but the weather report calls for there to be light rain later today, at approximately 4:30 PM.
Let us begin this chapter of Hell City.
Good luck surviving.
His shirt was slightly unbuttoned; his face was a bright shade of red. He backed up, slowly and carefully, until his back hit the general store wall. He was breathing heavily, his face redder than if he had run a one-mile marathon. He seemed exhausted, but if anything, a little embarrassed, sweating profusely. At that point, Bismarck looked nervously at Luce through his terrible eyesight, squinting slightly. Luce, with his sharp features, white hair, and piercing blue eyes, was holding onto his round glasses; he pressed his other self against the wall, looking him in the eyes. "Take it," he demanded abruptly. His usually calm and easygoing expression was now dead serious. This wasn't a joke. This was real life, and who knew what would happen at this point?
For all Bismarck knew, in the next five minutes, they'd be making out, Luce having absolutely no control, Bismarck not having enough strength to hold him back.
Bismarck bit his lip, looking at the ground bashfully, then back at Luce. He wasn't sure what to say in response, but as he thought, he could feel his face growing warmer and warmer. This was definitely the real deal. Definitely what he had been warned about. And here they were, Luce holding his hand to Bismarck's chest to check his heart rate. Bismarck carefully pulled Luce's hand away, giving him the "I'm fine" look.
"I...I can't guarantee that it'll be easy...." he stammered.
"I don't care. I need it."
"I-I know you do, Luce, but.....but why me of all people...? I-I've got kids, a wife—y-you know, I have a lot on my hands—"
"Bizzy, please!" Luce looked pleadingly at Bismarck. "I don't know who else to go to. Besides, you're skilled at this sort of thing."
"I—" Bismarck reddened. "I-I'm....flattered....but...how? It's impossible to do! Besides, think of how much trouble we'd be in—"
"Bismarck, please. I know it's at your expense, but I can't control myself right now. I need it, and you're the only one who can give it to me. I trust you, Bizzy. That's why I'm asking you."
There was a pause as Bismarck thought. This was definitely at both his and Luce's expense, but Luce was relying on him. No, he had come to him hoping he would do it, and he would do it. After all, this was his best friend, the guy that he had trusted ever since he was six years old and the person that he had been friends with since he was six. He could trust Luce's word and know that he wasn't doing this for any bad reasons; he was asking Bismarck that way he could be free of what was going on right now between him and Hades, and Bismarck would do just about anything for Luce. He would strip naked for him. He would allow himself to be publicly humiliated for him. He would die to make sure he was okay. Therefore, he could trust Luce. He slowly held up his hands in surrender, then in front of him, smiling warmly.
"Okay. Take me away."
The two stepped out into the warm sunlight, Bismarck with mestusium handcuffs, Luce marching him down the streets. Neither said anything; they just kept walking, ignoring the stares they received. The stares were just the beginning, however, as the two of them cracked up. Bismarck, laughing, grinned up at Luce, receiving the same familiar smile back. "I—I'm sorry, but that whole conversation sounded so wrong...." he snorted as they turned a corner. This was definitely the wrong time to be laughing, but based on the fact that they had said that right in front of Maria and Chuck just made it more embarrassing. He would have wiped away a tear of laughter, had his hands not been behind his back. "S-So...you want me to get your starball, right....?"
Erika had no regrets in what she was doing.
No, she enjoyed it, knowing that Bernkastel had gotten exactly what was coming to her; torture. Absolute torture. Somehow just watching her former anti-Reaper wince as her bare, toeless feet touched the stone ground made Erika smile. Listening to her scream somehow gave Erika the most pleasure she had felt in years, as though a weight on her shoulders had finally been lifted. Bernkastel sat down, defeated; Erika was howling with laughter, banging on the table that she was assigned to sit at and keep watch of the prisoners in this cell block. She received the familiar glare, but for once she didn't care, for she was victorious. Victory was sweet. Victory was a toeless Bernkastel glowering at her, rather than Erika glowering at Bern
"When I get out of here, I will personally take your soul and hurl it into nonexistence!"
"'When I get out of here'. Bernie, Bern, darling, you're never gonna get out of here." Erika smirked. "You are going to suffer just as I had--"
"You're funny."
"Oh, really? Explain to me just how funny it'll be when I take everything you loved--everything you cared about--and throw it in the trash."
"I'm so scared. I think I just shit my pants."
"And then--and only then--" Erika ignored her old enemy, continuing her monologue. "Then will you know what it feels like to be taken under someone's wing, to be loved, to be treated like a daughter, and then thrown AWAY! How do you feel about that?! Is this what you've always wanted?! Tell me, Bern! Tell me a story! Tell me a story, Bern!" Erika clung to the bars of her cell, looking in at the prisoner. Bernkastel was merely smirking.
"Say what you need to say," she said calmly. "I may be the one behind bars, but you have gone nowhere. At least I'm going somewhere. And, what's better, you've made an enemy of two gangs."
"I don't care!"
"As is expected of someone with the mentality of a thirteen-year-old. Poor Erika," Bern crooned, pursing her lips mockingly. "Poor little baby Erika, finally got her rattle. Isn't that cute~?" she asked the people in the cell next door. Erika's face reddened.
"Don't you dare--"
"Oh, I dare." Bernkastel's crazed smirk widened; she knew she had hit Erika right where it hurt. "I daresay that you, Erika, are not a detective, but a baby, crying all the time because she got kicked out of the playground. Boo hoo hoooo. You lost your rattle, Erika? You want it back? Too baaaad, Erika, you can't play with the big kids. Look at that face, it's red as a beet," she commented to the Leolams, laughing contentedly before continuing. "Look at you now, putting all the big kids into their playpens so you can play at the big kid table. Go on and sit there. Play with your detective toys." Erika stiffened. "Go on."
While Erika was being Erika, Lily, her fellow guard and the more reluctant of the two, was skulking in a corner, holding a flask of wine loosely in her hand. She was dressed less formally than usual, her long ebony black hair held in a lazy braid, her blue eyes exhausted as she watched the antics of her fellow guard. She didn’t want to be here--mostly because she didn’t care--in the slightest. If Lily had a choice, she probably would be elsewhere, sipping the most pristine wine and relaxing in an armchair of sorts. But Lily had no choice, for she was a slave to her occupation as the Grim Reaper, and the duties that laid with being Hades’s servant. Being an Underworld, she had to keep up appearances and the family honor, therefore leaving her post for any reason was out of the question for Lily. One might say that she was a prisoner, but the one holding the keys that lead out of the prison was also her. She wouldn’t dare admit such a thing, of course, but it was the truth.
And so, there Lily sat, a prisoner but not a prisoner, sipping on her flask as Erika shouted at Bernkastel, pretending that she didn’t care of how undignified this was or how improper Erika was acting. Had she been in a less professional setting, she probably would have punched Erika in the face, or perhaps said some rather rude things to her to try and prove that what she was doing was absolutely indecent. However, this wasn’t an informal setting, and she had to act like a proper Grim Reaper, and an example to her fellow aristocrats.
Breath in--so. Lily inhaled rather loudly, causing a couple heads in the cell block to turn. Breath out--so. And refrain from having your knuckles make contact with the Furudo girl’s stomach.
No, I do not care how her skirt is hitched up in a way that I can see the pattern on her stockings very clearly.
Nor do I care that she has an obvious jam stain on her cheek that I definitely do not want to grab a napkin and wipe off before she drives me insane.
I am future head of the Underworlds.
I am completely calm, composed, and a lady, most importantly. Ladies do not punch other ladies in the face.
Ladies. Do not. Punch. Other. Ladies. In. The. Face. True story. Sighing, Lily turned to a very old-fashioned radio, deciding that the best way to refrain herself was by playing some music. The Chicago soundtrack was set to play for the next couple hours, as she had put that particular CD in for her own amusement.
“Come on, babe, why don’t we paint the town--”
“And all that jaaaaaazz!” Lily joined in. “I'm gonna rouge my knees and roll my stockings down
And all that jazz…..”
~ THREE MINUTES LATER ~
Lily was dancing on the table, screaming out the lyrics to All That Jazz, and repeatedly playing the song, much to Erika’s irritation.
“WHAT THE FUCK, REAPER?!”
“OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH, YOU’RE GONNA SEE HER SHEBA SHIMMY SHAKE! AND ALL THAT JAZZ!”
“SHUT UP!”
“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO--OHHHHHHHHH, YOU’LL SEE HER SHIMMY TILL HER GARTERS BREAK, AND ALL THAT JAZZ!”
“WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE GUARDING, NOT BURSTING INTO MUSICAL NUMBERS!”
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW YOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUU, I’M THE GRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM REEEEEEEAAAAAAAPEEEEEERRRRR!”
As the chaos ensued, Hades Libitina, the man who had instigated this mess, sat alone in a mansion he had bought, enjoying a cup of tea. In the other hand he held a glowing blue orb, looking at it, mesmerized, as he spun it among his fingers. So this was a starball, a kitsune's life force, he thought, humming as he tilted it to the left and observed it boredly. It was a pretty thing, he thought, turning it over again. By now the owner of the starball had most likely retrieved the requested target, a pretty little man who could summon beings from another dimension. He had been careful to close all the loopholes as he requested it, so he knew that the owner had no choice but to follow. Placing the starball back into a case and locking it, Hades smiled lightly, leaning against his chair as he observed it.
"What secrets do you hold?" he crooned, running his fingers through his long black hair. "What will happen when I expose all your secrets? You'll be angry, won't you, prideful Kouki?" The god chuckled lightly, his black eyes alight in curiosity. "You aren't as brave as you look, though, are you? I brought up that rat and you immediately surrendered. What does he mean to you, Kouki? It must be awfully important~..." There was a pause, then Hades laughed his musical laugh once again. "Oh, I will find out, one way or another, Nakano Kouki. Whether you like it or not."
"How amusing," Hades added to himself, tapping his chin. "I can't wait to crack him open......."
She was covered in diamonds from head to toe. A sleek evening dress the color of pure white doves. A cream-colored hairpin. Red lip gloss and smoky eyes. And, to lower the otherwise pretty young woman's beauty, a metal arm. She looked boredly at those surrounding her, mostly a bunch of scapegoats and black market sellers. Celebrating her. Praising her for her wretched invention.
Metal that could contain the power of Gifted Humans. Anita Thomas sighed glumly, looking into her glass as she thought of how this had happened, and all in the span of two weeks. Perhaps it was the bad chemistry experiments (trying and failing to be her little sister again, goddammit), or the tinkering (boredom was her master, and it encouraged her to do something). Either way, this was the position she was in, and a very uncomfortable one too. Another soft sigh from the cyborg as she thought dreamily of what life would be like if she had never tinkered, if she had never dared to allow her curiosity to soar and see what happened. That would be a different story, she thought, taking another sip out of the glass.
"Anita! Tell us again how you came up with the idea for Mestusium!"
A third sigh; Anita shook her head, staring at the man who had asked with deep blue eyes. Almost....sad.
"I was tinkering and it happened," she merely stated. Raucous chatter. Oddly annoying. Had this been a different situation, Anita would be part of the chatter, perhaps gossiping of the latest drama in the city or telling people of her endeavors in building bombs. But this was different. This was not her crowd.
They're all....like robots. They're not whole. They don't have hearts. Her other failure came to mind; watching Yozaku turn into a completely different being, a being that she had created to protect her friend. Now the enemy. An entity without a heart. Her hands trembled, then finally, she stood up, looking the beasts dead in the eyes. "I have to go," she muttered before stepping away. Her heels clicked with every step; Anita took them off, violently flinging them in the face of a slave trader. There was a pause as she watched him yank the shoes off his face, then his expression turned into a loving one. Growling in frustration, Anita swung her left arm out and punched the man in the face before walking away. "Sicko!" she called over her shoulder.
Out of the damn nightclub. Into her car, parked and waiting for her. Anita looked into the backseat; bombs, bombs, guns, and more bombs. Almost automatically, she took one in her metal hand, then switched to her human hand so she could feel the beautiful round explosive in it. She smiled gently at it, then, almost in slow motion, threw it at the nightclub.
B O O M.