/ / Edit: February 19, 2011 - I decided that the first few chapters of this story were pretty boring and could use some touching up. I don't know how much more interesting I managed to make them, but hopefully they're better ^^ Thanks to KiGaMi for helping me~ Enjoy xD

This is my first fanfiction. I keep bugging my little sister to help me. I wonder why she's not fed up with me yet, and she's watching me type this. Odd much?

But anyways, ~Disclaimer~

Hunter x Hunter and all characters and some dialogue and everything else I might be borrowing belong to Yoshihiro Togashi. But Lucy is mine! (But no, I'm a girl, not some jealous creeper.)

Just to make sure I don't confuse anyone too horribly, the prologue is mainly (but not entirely) about the events that happen in Chapter 102 of the Hunter x Hunter manga. Durham Jets is just a name I gave to the tramp that didn't have a name in the manga. Basically, ten years ago, there was a tramp with no papers or legal documenting that was arrested for murder. According to the records, he simply didn't exist. After being forced to admit to the crime, he confessed that he was from Meteor City. However, three years later, the real murderer was arrested and it was recognized that the tramp had been falsely accused. Shortly thereafter, all the people who had contributed to the false accusation of the tramp were assassinated through suicide bombings. Near the foot of a corpse, there was a message saying: "We accept everything, so don't take anything back."

I hope you haven't clicked X yet. Gimme a chance... you haven't even started reading!

In the beginning, we wanted it; that was all.

Do you know the story of Icarus?

I don't know exactly where the story came from, but it was about a boy named Icarus and his father who were imprisoned for a long time. Eventually, though, they managed to make themselves each a pair of wings – feathers held together by wax. Before they escaped, Icarus' father warned him not to fly too close to the sun, for the wax would melt. But, ecstatic with the ability to fly, Icarus forgot his father's warning. The wax melted, and he plummeted to his death in the ocean.

Like Icarus, Durham Jets was a fool.

Deep down, everyone wants to be seen, to be noticed.

But we were invisible. We always had been.

We enjoyed the shadows in which we lived. They left us alone, and we left them alone. Things were fine the way they were. The glaring spotlight of the world wasn't something we needed.

Nevertheless, we were contradictory.

We were that child who sits in the back corner of the classroom and doesn't say anything at all during class. The child that wishes he were popular, but doesn't want his secluded world to be intruded upon. We wanted to be known, but didn't want to risk losing what we had. We were cowards in a way. Scared. So scared of change, we didn't act on our desires.

But nothing stays the same forever.

The only thing that is truly is eternal is change itself – Change is something that will always come, whether you like it or not. You can't hide; you can't run; you can't escape.

We knew it, and that child would have known it, but neither of us wanted to face it. But it was inevitable, and there came a time when we could no longer be isolated. Change found us. We, who were unknown, became known. But it wasn't how we thought it would have been. That was when the so-called tramp that only existed among the nonexistent, began to exist. Durham Jets was a fool. The day he decided to stray from the darkness, all of us were dragged out with him. He believed we could live in the sun, and maybe we could have, but he flew too close. His feathers wafted away on the breeze until there was nothing left of his wings. It wasn't long before he fell to his death, just like Icarus. It was everything we had been afraid of.

But no matter how foolish Durham Jets was, he was still one of us. We were tied more firmly than a family, our bonds deeper than any other.

And we cared about him, whether we liked it or not. It wasn't like we ever wanted to lose a part of our family, but we had accepted his crimes and execution as the truth. Though we didn't like it, we assumed that was just the way things had to be. But they didn't. Durham Jets was an innocent man. The accusations were false, and what we had once accepted as the truth was no longer the truth. Nevertheless, he was already dead – dead for nothing – and they couldn't do anything to change that.

We knew we couldn't have saved him, but he was a part of us that was had ceased to exist.

We now felt incomplete. The sweet taste of revenge was too tempting, and the idea of retribution spread among us like wild fire. It wouldn't be just our revenge; it would also be his. He was already gone, so we would fulfill what we assumed was his dying wish. What they had taken from Durham Jets would now be taken from them.

And so, take we did.

Ten years ago, thirty-one of us set out, armed with bombs and a deadly plan that no one would have ever expected. They died that day. But unlike Durham Jets, their lives had not gone to waste. All thirty-one of them who had contributed to the false accusation of the unknown tramp also vanished from the world of the living. It was a suicide bombing. Thirty-one of us. Thirty-one of them. Us as sacrifices. Them for revenge.

We were the people of Meteor City- the people who lived in the largest junkyard of the world.

Anything and anyone was welcome. It didn't matter who or what they were. But once something was left here, it was here to stay. Punishments were no exception.

We accept everything, so don't take anything back.

That was the last message left behind by those of us who had chosen to be sacrifices.

It's the end of the beginning!

...

I feel so dramatic now. Review and maybe Feitan will deliver pizza to your house. Wait, is that good or bad?

*If you still don't understand what's going on, read chapter 102 of the manga.