OF JUSTICE

It’s the 1890’s, and you’ve just been stolen by bats. Wherever you were, whatever state you were in, it was fast, and confusing. It was black as night and there was not a spark of light until your eyes opened and you could see cavern lights glimmering above you. The last of the bats flit away and you’re left standing in a quarter of the underground city, with only your clothes and what you hold left to your name.

Traditional entry to the Fifth City usually involves getting thrown in prison. It’s a bit of a rite of passage for those not born here. Some unlucky fellows may end up that way yet! The constables saw the bats and they’re looking at you funny. Strange newcomers often get mishandled at first. Can’t be too sure with all the crime around here y'know? But worry not as the prison in the stalactite above has some…interesting holes in its security.

Worry more about the brief searing touch of the Echo Bazaar on your mind, body, and soul. Worry more about something shining distant on the horizon, and the dark waters close at hand. Worry about how you got here, as well as what even is here…

And perhaps worry about the weird book in your pocket that’s writing in itself.

Welcome to the Neath, to Fallen London; the Bazaar, the Masters, and many others, extend their warmest of welcomes.

Your instincts kick in fast as you see this swarm approaching. Fighting these guys were not an option, you’re in a huge disadvantage here. I mean you could wrestle a shark no problem, you probably can do it with your bare hands if you wanted to, but like there’s a whole bunch of them and there are fish people with tridents riding them. You also have a civilian with you. What do you do, big guy?

>Leave the kid and book it.

NO! Try again!

>Okay fine, be the fucking goody two shoes hero.

Without thinking for another second, you fireman carry this kid and book it. His weight overwhelms you a little, garnering a buckle in the knees there, but one at a time your feet begin to move and now you’re running. Thanks to this kid’s perception, you get a headstart, but you can’t run forever, you gotta think of a plan.

KOUTAROU: Do you have any ideas?!

    IDEAS. You can be good at those, given the time, but you always seem to freeze up whenever you need to think of some. As Amon carries you, you turn around to assess the situation. Your SYLLADEX no longer contains your IMPRESSIVE LANCE COLLECTION, rather EMPTY CAPTCHALOG CARDS of FALSE HOPE. Your adversaries are armed to the teeth and mounted on sharks.

    SHARKS. The scientists may have disarmed you… but what did they say about abilities again? It can’t hurt to try to C♉MMUNE with those creatures. You’ll just need to get your head together and try to think straight even though there’s WATER in your FROND HOLES…

      ♉ cREATURES OF THE SEA, uHH, hEED MY, pLEA? ♉       ♉ fORGET YOUR RIDERS, aND, cOME WITH ME, ♉       ♉ nICE ONE, tROLL DOCTOR sEUSS, ♉       ♉ (wOOPS, iGNORE THAT LAST PART, wRONG SEND,)  ♉

    Albeit VISIBLY CONFUSED, the sharks buck like bulls, trying to dissuade their once-masters like toreadors. One by one, the merpeople are knocked to the ground, and left in the BUBBLE DUST of their mounts now seeking new guidance. You scream, muted by the water, as they rush at you, but once you come face to face with their SHARP FEATURES, they don’t seem to be pointed at you.

    If you could SIGH OF RELIEF underwater, you would.

[ ♉ ] TAVROS: oKAY, [ ♉ ] TAVROS: tHEY’LL BE FRIENDLY, [ ♉ ] TAVROS: lET’S GET ON ONE EACH,

    The merpeople glare at you with toothy grimaces of their own.

You pick up your steed – a Great White, which is the only one that can carry a big guy like yourself – then hightailed out of there. The merpeople doesn’t take too likely to land dwellers who grand theft auto their rides, so to save little face and restore pride, they start throwing spears at the both of you, and boy do they have good aim.

This is so silly, you feel silly. You’re breathing underwater and riding on sharks (which isn’t comfortable). It’s like a kid’s fairytale, highly contrasting to the reality you’re used to. The bloodthirsty merpeople are probably the only ones that give you a sense of ground. 

    You try to move your legs, but they barely budge. Every time you attempt to step through the water, you feel your upper torso losing balance– it’s like the first time you tried to walk with these things, only much much worse, and you can’t help but feel…

    HOPELESS. 

    You are going to be the first to die. This was no random fate, no; the scientists knew what they were plunging you into, and it would be the MURKY DEPTHS in which you wouldn’t be able to navigate– not DISTRICT MU with which you were familiar, nor DISTRICT KAPPA with its walkable paths. They wanted you to drown with the possibility of breathing. 

    And what of Bunji? Where did they put her? She’s strong, far stronger than you, but you can’t help but imagine them dangling her from OLYMPIA or drowning her in ESSO… 

    The SCIENTIFIC GODS whom you looked up to with gratitude now leave a sour taste in your mouth. When Amon speaks, you have the strong urge to reply to him with ‘THE HUNGER GAMES’. No, this is something different…

[ ♉ ] TAVROS: i DON’T KNOW, bUT, [ ♉ ] TAVROS: tHIS TIME, tHEY’RE DOING IT ON PURPOSE, 

    You wobble.

[ ♉ ] TAVROS: dO YOU MIND HELPING ME– ???: THERE!

    Your eyes lock onto a crowd of Merpeople that look as if they want to rip your guts out, and sharks with similar conviction. You’d move. But you CAN’T. And you hear someone laughing off in the distance, as if this is the sick entertainment of their favorite variety.

[ ♉ ] TAVROS: mOVE!

Your instincts kick in fast as you see this swarm approaching. Fighting these guys were not an option, you’re in a huge disadvantage here. I mean you could wrestle a shark no problem, you probably can do it with your bare hands if you wanted to, but like there’s a whole bunch of them and there are fish people with tridents riding them. You also have a civilian with you. What do you do, big guy?

>Leave the kid and book it.

NO! Try again!

>Okay fine, be the fucking goody two shoes hero.

Without thinking for another second, you fireman carry this kid and book it. His weight overwhelms you a little, garnering a buckle in the knees there, but one at a time your feet begin to move and now you’re running. Thanks to this kid’s perception, you get a headstart, but you can’t run forever, you gotta think of a plan.

Your name is KOUTAROU AMON and you feel like you just woke up after drinking a strong sleeping pill. But you’re not a fool, you drink sleeping pills when you’re gong to sleep and last you remember doing is doing adult stuff like paperwork. 

Your body feels heavy like a large weight’s pressing you down, then you realize that it isn’t the side effects of pills but the pressure you get from being at the bottom of the ocean. 

 You clasp your hand to your mouth and hold your breath in. You close your eyes and pray to god. You look like an idiot. You’re fine. Not as fine as the guy beside you though. 

As you open your mouth to speak, the bubbles that come out freak you out a little. Stop freaking out. 

KOUTAROU: Hey KOUTAROU: How can I help?

    That’s a good point. How can he help? You’re not sure what there is to do in this situation, and what was said before you passed out only barely echoes in your mind. SURVIVAL. This is what your instinct tells you, and what your memory supports; you can’t help but be reminded of that one movie you watched with TROLL JOSH HUTCHERSON in it.

    A bunch of kids plunged into a strange, yet natural arena fighting against their surroundings and the people to survive. But that one was kind of a romance. And from what you’re seeing, your matesprit is nowhere to be found–

    Focus, Tavros!

    ( Is Bunji okay? Is she alive? )

[ ♉ ] TAVROS: uHHH,,,,, [ ♉ ] TAVROS: ,, cAN YOU HELP ME UP, pLEASE,

You start to stand up but cautiously, trying to see if the laws of physics apply the way you think it would. You end up being fine again, no worries, it’s like walking under a pool but at the same time it isn’t. It’s a paradoxical situation but like you live in Hive City, you should stop being surprised.

You grab the boy’s hand and try to pull him up. He’s actually heavier than you thought as you didn’t realize that his lower half’s made out of metal. You grab both of his arms and try again. It took a bit of effort but now he’s on his feet. This shouldn’t be as hard as it would be but then again, when was the last time you worked out?

    Your body finds itself settled on the pavement of REGIA. Except you don’t know it, for you don’t dare to visit the place often– and even then, you find yourself hopelessly ASLEEP, as your teammates did many times during your SGRUB mission. You have a knack for being unconscious when URGENCY is most stressing. 

    Too thick to be air, too thin to be slime, you realize that you sleep not in a bed nor a cocoon and stir. 

[ ♉ ] TAVROS: wH,,?

    What the hell?

    You look around you, and everything is water. The sun filters through the currents and shadows of marine life, reflecting on your person like it did once in Feferi’s SWIMMING POOL, but this is much deeper. And this is much darker. And you try to lift your legs, but you can’t move like the people around you do as they pick themselves up.

    Of course you can’t. Your legs are MADE OF METAL. You’re devastatingly reminded of a time when you basically didn’t have legs at all, and it shows on your face. Panic. Despair. You can feel your throat closing up; why won’t the water drown you out already?

    It doesn’t matter. In a state of unrest, you call for help, the sound barely travelling and your voice cracking under the water’s pressure:

[ ♉ ] TAVROS: hELP,

Your body feels heavy like a large weight’s pressing you down, then you realize that it isn’t the side effects of pills but the pressure you get from being at the bottom of the ocean. 

 You clasp your hand to your mouth and hold your breath in. You close your eyes and pray to god. You look like an idiot. You’re fine. Not as fine as the guy beside you though. 

As you open your mouth to speak, the bubbles that come out freak you out a little. Stop freaking out. 

「 💗: Dude can you move your body out of the way? I’m busy getting chocolate eggs and you sure are not helping at all. 」

Can you believe this shit? Somebody getting in the middle of her fun activities totally bringing down the energy. Had he never seen a bitch minding her business trying to get some chocolate? Fuck, people in this city were so unnerving sometimes.

“Aren’t you acting a little bit childish and extreme in this egg hunt?” Said the grown man who had a basket full of colorful eggs, some tinfoil mixed in there that was the result of said man’s fall into temptation.

    Yamori couldn’t help but feel a sickening joy at seeing the CCG agent board the train.  He didn’t recognise this one, but the ghoul had been dead for some time.  What an awkward place to run into an enemy.  The moment the two men’s eyes met, Yamori simply gave a grin. Nothing was said, there was really nothing TO say.  Yamori would make sure to follow the man where he got off and hopefully overpower him before he reached his destination, then they’d have some fun.

Everyone from the CCG should also know that he had been a quinque for a certain investigator.

But there he was, body and all, casually sitting on one of the seats in the train, an unknowing threat to the civilians around him. Amon decided to move in front of the ghoul, an attempt to trap him and to keep him from doing anything dangerous. If worse came to worst, he always had his quinque ready.

Not My Type | Alright | Cute | Adorable | Pretty | Gorgeous | LORD MERCY