It was said that long ago, Carrot Top City wasn't a total dive. It was never an ideal place to settle down at, but it was a place you could live with very little fear or being robbed. No one remembered when this little section of northern Atlanta became so corrupt, rundown, and crime infested, but it didn't take long for it to get to this state, around 3, maybe 4 year for it to become the lovechild of Camden, New Jersey and 1980s and 90s New York. Nowadays it was an all around criminal paradise, hell to the normal civilians and boon to te many gangs of Georgia and hell to the normal people living there and the law enforcement, the city 'protected' by the new gang that had made Carrot Top their home.
"Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty I'm free at least!" But for one young woman, this city, this wretched, hellish city, was home. "Bleep yeah almighty, yeah I'm free! No more school!" She didn't care that he taxi driver telling her to shut up, she was just glad to be off that plane and back home! "Oooohohohooh, I've missed this beautiful slice of ham!" And it was just how she left it, too! The rundown buildings, the graffiti, the homeless and crack addicts lining the alleyways (a bit more of those guys than normal though) it was just so nostalgic! She felt like she was 13 again, getting fleeced for her Little Debbie money and being thrown around like a football!
"So...where are you going?" The driver said uneasily, readying his taser should this crazy kid turn on him for whatever reason. This chick had to be on something, she just has to be! Either that or the poor kid was probably here on a dare or something from her charter school friends. Oh well. The cutest little white girl could die here, the death recorded could get like a million hits on youtube, CNN and all the other news outlets would say this is a tragedy and how she was so pure and innocent and talk about gun control, and no one would do a damn thing. The government fucking cleaned up Chicago and Detroit because of this place, and even Camden! CAMDEN! If this chick died here, no one would care enough to look into it.
"Nope!" She had changed a lot since he left Carrot Top City. What was once a raggedy looking 4'9" African American teenager with dry, ratty hair that had more flakes than the snowy mountains of Russia was now a barely taller 5'0" girl of 17 years , with a fancy black and navy blue prep school uniform with grey cuffs and black loafers, under a blue coat with a long tail end with a long blue skirt that reached to her knees and thin black leggings. Her hair was short and bowl shaped, not a speck of dandruff to be seen on it. And she had black rimmed, blue tinted rectangular glasses that rested on the bridge of her nose, very expensive looking ones too that completed the 'please steal from me or worse!' look she had. Her figure didn't have an ounce of sexiness to it, looking more like a boy than a girls. "I've actually grown up here." She said with great pride. "Graduated with top marks from Lakefield Elementary and Lakefield Middle."
"All the way up in Atlanta?!" The driver exclaimed as he stopped at a red light, three cars in front of him. "That's like 9 counties up from here! You seriously made the commute up there?! WHY?!" He barely paid much attention to the U.S. educational system, but he'd seen plenty of Lakefield on the news, none of it bad aside from a very rare store robbery. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "You're feeding me some bullshit, girl. You ain't a cop, are you?" Oh if the Wraiths found out he was driving a snitch into their city...well, what they'd do to him was too terrible to think about! He'd heard what they did to snitches, and getting stitches would be a mercy compared to what they'd do to you!
"Whoa whoa, no!" The girl exclaimed fearfully as she began lifting up her shirt.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" The driver screeched. "THESE WINDOWS AREN'T TINTED, PUT YOUR SHIT BACK ON!"
"But how else will you know if I'm a snitch or not?!"
"I DON'T WANNA KNOW NOW!" That settled it, this bitch was doped up or something! "Please, just put it back on!" He sighed in relief. 'Hope the camera got all that..' He did not need his boss thinking he was a diddler.
"So yeah, I am not a snitch, I'm clean!" I bleeping hated that bleeping school!"
"Did you just censor-"
" - I just needed to spend my summer break on someplace less uptight, not that many cameras watching me do the number 2, and all that stuff!"
"...You got my money right?" This kid was getting the fuck out of his cab as soon as possible if he had anything to say about it! The driver saw through the mirror that the kid did indeed have the money, saving the brat from being thrown out on the street. Driving all the way from McIntosh to Clayton County to this rathole of a city, the kid better have kept all that fucking money. 'This is for 800 bucks Ian, just don't make eye contact with the freaks outside, and you'll be deep in some fat latino bootyall month long..
"So hows the old neighborhood?" The kid asked happily, as if she just didn't, and probably didn't now that Ian thought about it, see the hooded freaks, the 'protectors' of this shithole, take some old guy away off the streets and everyone else just ignored them doing it! They just, grabbed him and teleported away like some Dragonball Z character! "It's just so nostalgic, isn't it?!"
….Yeah, screw the money and that Latino taint, he was getting the fuck out of here. He drove into a free parking space, a rare sight given how cramped and full the road was. "Alright, I'm done, get the fuck out of my cab! Take the money, take the briefcase, and just go!"
"Huh? What's wro-' And that was when the girl remembered that Oh yeah! this place was dangerous! "Oooh." The girl said, clearly embarrassed as he handed the taxi driver the money, grabbing her stuff before getting out of the cab, getting her briefcase out of the trunk. "So uhh-" Was all she got out before the driver hightailed it out of there with the door and trunk left open, going up the street before making a turn. "Well, that was humiliating. Guess I really softened up in the last couple years."She looked around at the street, the sense of distrust and fear so palpable, she could feel it in the air. She quickly checked her pockets, zipping up the pocket that contained her wallet after making sure it wasn't stolen and that no one planted anything on her. She had been known as a very easy patsy in her youth, well, before she got that weird nickname, but with no way to recognize her, she was probably going to be that same patsy again. It was the reason her sprung for this briefcase, using 85% of her student council paycheck; electronically locked, easily trackable, and with no way for anyone here in this city to disable it. She went into her right pocket and pulled out her smartphone, freshly cracked so that the chances of it being stolen would be lessened, and opened up Google Maps. Was cracking her phone to prevent it from being stolen completely pointless? Yes it was, and she didn't realize it until an hour after she did it. "Let's see here..." She put the briefcase on her back, the thing magnetically attaching to her back as she inputted her destination into the phone.. She already knew where she was going to spend summer break at, but there was one thing she wanted to, nay needed to do. "There we go!" And so she began skipping, yes skipping, down the road, rubbing her stomach in glee. "Good ole Chicken Place, here I come!"
MMMMMM
Meanwhile in downtown Carrot Top, the 'protectors' of the city began to gather in Cabbage Patch Park, one of the more rundown areas of the city. The water tower in the middle of the park had been reclaimed by nature decades ago, a cluster of trees growing out the top. Ghost shaped graffitti lined the benches and trees, with warnings for everyone to keep out, and various vulgarities written spray painted around the park as well with no consistency, rhyme, or reason. No one came here, not stupid teens trying to brave the dangers for street cred or pussy points, The police sure as hell didn't bother going into there, and ,not even the other criminals that made Carrot Top their home bothered, for Cabbage Patch Park was the headquarters of the city's 'protecters', keeping the crime flowing in while keeping the cops impotent and powerless. Their numbers were many, the diversity in the ages of their members vast, from 14 year olds to the fattest 45 year olds and the skinniest senior citizens, these people were competent, efficient, and powerful, easily recognizable by their mostly all black attire: black shirts, long or short sleeved, with spiked black gloves that reached up to their elbows, a skull shaped pattern on the palm of the gloves, the eyes of which glowed when their palms were outstretched. Large black boots covered their feet with large glowing skulls on the front and bone shaped velcro straps in the place of shoelaces. A thin, pitch black bodysuit covered their entire body like a membrane, the way they get into the suit still a mystery. The suit was so black that with the clothes taken off, the wearer's body shape was indistinguishable from the rest of them. Completing this set was the grim reaper-like cowl that covered their face, with a cape that reached to their shoulders or below, depending on preference, and somehow produced a pair of menacing red eyes that glowed brighter than police lights. Whether young or old, fat or thin, these people moved and acted with deadly precision, bulletproof, resistant to the elements, almost inhuman, as if the physical world had no effect on them, these ghosts, these..Wraiths. From Western Carrot Top to Southern Carrot Top and parts of the North and East, the Wraiths were a force beyond anything the police could handle...and today they were called to Cabbage Patch Park for a special reason.
From their windows or on the sidewalk, the citizens watched in horror, and apathy, as the Wraiths ran into the woods of the park, through the unkempt, knee high grass, jumping with agility that belied their height or size, some Wraiths keeping up with thinner ones despite being overweight. There was only one other time this many Wraiths entered the forests of Cabbage Patch Park, and like that time, the swarm filled the citizens with dread:
It was the Meeting of the Ghouls.
As the Wraiths swarmed Cabbage Patch Park , there was only one thing on their mind, one that made them disrupt their daily routines to travel all the way downtown: The Meeting of the Ghouls was the one time during each of the four seasons that the Wraiths returned to their headquarters, no questions asked, and if you refused, you were killed. Normally the meeting was just a get together to exchange their stolen goods with black market dealers their leader somehow got past state borders. In the past it was a good way to make money, and get out of Carrot Top to live the good life. But as the city became dilapidated for many reasons, the Wraiths being a major one, the meetings just became get togethers and swap meets for the Wraiths. Food was good, almost gourmet, and the plumbing was better than anything most of the Wraiths had back home, even if some of them missed the toilet.
So when they filed into the center of the forest, they were shocked the see their meeting place so clean. It was a large building, a former middle school where the park now stood, that was converted into the Wraith's headquarters. The parking that many of them tripped on had been freshly paved over , a delightfully twisted image of Carrot Top's 'finest', along with several hated government officials in the state, being tortured and killed graphically in a gothic art style reminiscent of the art in Notre Dome. The large tree in the center that was home to a large wasps nest had been cut down and replaced with a stature...one that made many of the older Wraiths fearful, causing them to tell the younger curious ones shut their damn mouths when they asked what the statue was. The entrance to the former school was replaced with the head and neck of a black dragon, it's 'uvula' functioning as a revolving door.
The inside of the building looked like actual insides. The floor was muscle red and squishy, the walls lined with clothed skeletons in the place of lockers, some of the clothing a few of the Wraiths recognized belonging to people they killed, and where there weren't lockers, there were vicious, gruesome murals like the one on the ground outside. The Wraiths walked slowly, confused and slightly worried about the budget increase, until they came to the auditorium, where the biggest change met them.
The auditorium was where they ate and traded, and as such was the most well kept area of the building. There were no roaches crawling on the table, no bees or flies to get on your food of the entire school. The floor tiles didn't have many cracks in them, and their leader always made sure that the black market dealers weren't cops in disguise. It wasn't much, but it was something, and they got free food out of it. That little slice of day old ham was gone, demolished. In it's place was a pit, a giant, lava filled pit with an auditorium built around it. It was twelve tiered, each tier divided into three sections by lava channels that flowed upward from the pit into the building, durable glass tubes preventing the heat from coming out. On each tier were a pair of bleachers in front of tables that had, to the shock of many of the Wraiths, floating holographic screens a few inches above each and every table, all showing 'NOT AVAILABLE' in Herculanum font. The chairs were styled like bleachers, looking as though they were made out of human skeletons permanently stuck in a sitting position by some twisted taxidermist and fitted with leather to make sitting on them comfortable. The stairs leading to these tiers were soft and leathery with small spikes on the left and right of them functioning as little lights.
[Come in.] The Wraiths jumped. That was the voice of their leader! [Take a seat, please.] Many of the Wraiths did just that, albeit very hesitantly, while others just stood there in shock and fear. [I'm honestly just as shocked as the rest of you about Phantomgeddon's current appearance, but I have...a somewhat rational explanation, I assure you.] it took a few minutes but the remaining Wraiths felt somewhat comfortable, and sat down with the rest of their bretheren. [Good, good. Now we can start.] The entire area flashed red, and suddenly, food appeared in font of each and every Wraith, all of the dishes made to each of their particular tastes. [Eat, eat.] Their leader encouraged, some of them nervously doing so, the food bypassing their masks entirely somehow. [I'm going to need you all nice and comfortable, because in 1 hour, I will begin the Meeting of the Ghouls, and reintroduce to the world power thought long lost. So basically I'm going to blow your little minds.]
Many of the older Wraiths, particularly the senior citizen ones, gulped in fear, that statue at the front suddenly making a lot more sense. The Phantom surely couldn't have found a way to bring one of those things into the country, could he?
MMMMMMMM
The door to the Ms. Winners on Oakchester Lane opened. "Ah finally." The girl said happily, not noticing the looks of shock and someone that just hit payday that were directed her way, along with some very unsavory looks; not every day a neat rich looking girl like her came into this city, and many wanted a piece of her pie before the Wraiths got to her, and they didn't just mean the money she probably had.
The smell of fried foods slithered into her nostrils and slept there, like a gopher in a burrow. "Oh how I missed that smell." The painful memories of tofu, natto, and other disgusting foods left her mind, replaced with good food like fried chicken without the fat drained, milkshakes for her lactose intolerant stomach, and a packs of shredded cheese from the grocery store. She skipped up to the counter and rang the bell next to the cookie display. "Hello, I'd like to order." She said to the cashier, a short blonde girl with long, shiny hair who was sleeping on the counter in a chair. "Yello?" She tapped her on the hat repeatedly. "I wanna order and stuff.."
"Urghh.." Someone was poking her head. "What is it?" God damn, what does a woman have to do to get some sleep around here?!
"Yello?!"
'Oh fuck I'm at work!' She shot up and greeted her professionally, her blue eyes tired and dull, bags reaching to her freckles. "Welcome to Ms. Winners! I'm Lilliam, what can I get you?"Oh god she needed sleep.. but wow this kid. Something told Lilliam that she was gonna find this preppie naked and bloodied in an alleyway, like many girls, and guys who dressed like girls, and those that thought they c they were better than the people here. She just had this look that said 'I really have no clue what I'm doing here!' 'Heh, just like me when I first got here..' And no one to protect her too. Shame...
"..Are you blushing?"
"W-what?!" The blonde shook her head. "N-no! No I'm not!" Damn it, why was she thinking of her?! 'She's gone Lilliam, and she's not coming back!' As much as she wanted her to. "So, what do you want to order kid?"
"I want a cookie and three chicken breasts. Big tits, I hate the legs. Sooo thiiin.."
Lilliam stared blankly at the girl, mouthing 'what?' as the strange preppy continued. "Some biscuits, no coleslaw, I hate coleslaw, like reaaaally bad. Do you like coleslaw?"
"W-wha-"
"Because I hate coleslaw."
"You just said that." Oh god, she was getting flashbacks of the worst kind now!
"You're blushing again."
"S-shut up!" God, people were going to think she was some sort of lesbian if she lost it in front of every attractive lack black woman!
"So do you hate coleslaw?"
"Yeah sure, whatever! Will that be all?"
"Yep! How much do I owe?"
"Hold on, let me ring it up." She inputted the order into the register, thankful she wouldn't have to deal with this weirdo any longer. Carrot Top was already filled with crazies, and the ones that acted like this were usually the ones that were targeted by the gangs here..or found themselves with freckled Aryans. "Alright, you didn't give me an exact amount of what you wanted, so I put you up for the family bucket. Is that ok?"
"Cool! That's more than what I could get here when I was younger!"
"Wait you've been here before?! I think I'd remember someone as hot- as clean looking as you."
Luckily the strange girl didn't notice the verbal slip up."I've been coming here since elementary!" She reached into her pocket, prompting the cashier to reach for her gun out of instinct, only to take her hands off it when he revealed a wallet. "See?" She opened it to reveal a very ugly little girl, holding up a bucket of chicken with the doofiest expression on herface and teeth that looked like planks on a rickety bridge. Her hair was some unholy combination of ratty, nappy, and frizzy, all in the shape of some bride of Frankenstein looking afro. And next to her was a blonde girl with short hair and blue eyes that was much more attractive than the black girl despite looking filthier than than the other girl, trying to wrestle the bucket away. "See? That's me right there, eating my first bit of gourmet food ever!"
"Oh my god Janey, If I told you once I told you a...thousand...times...And suddenly the memories came rushing back 'No way...' Their first meeting at Ferrington Hill Apartments back when they were 9 and 8. Breaking into their school to get a decent bite to eat. Lilliam learning how to hot-wire a car from her, learning how to make makeshift bookbags and clothes out of grocery bags and reused clothes! 'It can't be ..' But it was too good to be true. "Holy shit." Her eyes stared deep into the blue lenses of the short girl's glasses, a small, shaky smile coming onto her face. "I-It can't be...Janey?!"
"Nooo, my name's Jane!" Urghh, this girl was just like that twiggy one! "At least you aren't calling me Rickety Jane! Those Spanish guys at Forrester Avenue learned what happened when you called me that!"
At that revelation, many of the patrons became somewhat nervous, a Latino man in his early 20s speaking up. "A-and what did you say when you met these guys at Forrester Avenue?" He asked nervously, curiosity overriding his fear.
"Si vuelves a tocarla, te dispararé en los Bleep testículos y arrastraré tu cadáver hasta tu pequeño nido de cucarachas que llamas el nido de una pandilla, ¡y los haré mirar mientras apago tu patética vida!" Jane answered with a cheerful tone. "And then I kissed her with my tongue, just like in the movies! Except we were girls, and there was a car crashed into the house, and there were some dead bodies, and she had rope burns all over her body, and she was crying-"
"Please stop.." Lilliam muttered. "I-I seriously don't need to remember that."
And It was at that point that some of the patrons ran like the hounds of hell were after them, much to the confusion of the other patrons, who quickly began taking what the others left behind, food and all.
"Wait...how do you know about that?" She stared at her. "You're white. And not like 'I'm not sure this Mexican guy is white' white, but like, actual white, a good looking white girl at that! What'd you bleep up to get stuck in this town?!" Lilliam's face was beet red now. "I know three white girls that hung out with the Latino gangs. You don't have any visible tattoos, didn't sell your babies in middle school or give birth in class, so you're not China or Gastasia." She got up onto the counter and up in Lilliam's face, close to her nose, with no regards for her personal space. And once again, the blonde was blushing, her breathing heavy while many of the men sitting down were waiting to see if the two were going to make out. "You don't look like anyone from my old elementary school. You're not pregnant obviously, and I think I would've seen a pregnant white girl at one of my old schools!"
"Get the fuck out of my face!" The woman pushed Jane off the counter. the patrons snickering at the interaction and Lilliam's reddening, all the while scheming of ways to get the most of out of their new target "And no, I don't fucking know you!" God this was so embarrassing! "Look, just pay for the damn order or get out!"
"Alright fine!" Jeez, what was her problem? Jane took out a black MasterCard with what appeared to be a holographic image of the nighty sky on it, and put the chip end into the card reader, inputting her pin and taking the card out once the payment had been accepted.
''Where the fuck did she get that?!' The credit card reader, while functional, was just there because the company that owned the restaurant mandated it. 'What the hell has she been up to all these years?!' "Alright Jane, sit down, and I do mean sit down. Don't move around in your seat, don't bring out your little tape toys, keep your arms and hands on the table, and for the love of god, don't start talking to yourself! We're adults now, act like one!"
"Ok." Weird, that white chick reminded her of that girl that she used to hang out with. Now that she thought about it, she had a similar same name too. Weird. Jane shrugged it off and skipped-
"Walk!"
-walked to an empty table and sat there, setting her briefcase against the wall.
'WHAT?!' Lilliam didn't even notice the briefcase on her back, mainly because Jane was being her usual dumbass self, what was that thing attached to?!
'That girl knows an awful lot about me..' Jane thought.There weren't that many white women in Carrot Top, plenty of them at the academy she was at, really needed to learn how to pronounce it's name, but not here. she'd seen more Asian people here than whites, so she should've remembered her! 'Nothing's coming to mind though..' She shrugged. 'It'll come to me sooner or later, I got all summer break to figure it out! Time for brunch-dinner!'
But as she began to get comfortable, reminding herself not to talk or mumble to herself, she was suddenly bombarded by screaming and cursing from everyone in the diner.
"HOLY FUCK!"
"WHAT IS THAT THING DOING HERE?!"
Jane looked around the diner as the patrons and Lillian began to scramble into the kitchen. 'What is going on here?' Was it a robbery? Couldn't be. Robberies in Carrot Top required a lot more firepower due to the fact everyone and their mother carried a gun here! But she didn't see any of the familiar gangs storming in, none of the fleeing people weren't shot, and the blonde was reaching for her gun before he revealed his wallet, so obviously Carrot Topians..Carrot Topinites...the people of this city hadn't changed obviously. But the fact that her life was on the line wasn't on her mind at the moment "I want my chicken.."She walked a burly black man and putting a hand on his back. "HEY! What's going on here?! I want my chicken titties!
"...What the fu-" The man sputtered before regaining his bearings, turning Jane's head around to see what everyone was running from. "Bitch, you retarded?!"
"Nope!" She answered with a smile. "People say I am but actually the doctors say I'm on the autistic-"
"Look behind you bitch! It's one of Meta-Evil's robots!"
Jane's arm drooped limply, along with the rest of her body as the much larger than him man ran like a sissy as she recalled the name of the most wanted man in the world. "Oooohohhhh...Bleeping bleep."
Dr. Armond, also known as the weapons dealer Dr. Meta-Evil. His name was known throughout the world for his kidnapping, murder, and devestation of cities throughout Africa an the Middle East. Aside from changing his name from Amond to Meta-Evil, He had first gotten his fame when he took over the research of his late professor Hushimoto and fellow student Dr. Atom Aki in the early 30s. The two, prior to their deaths had been working on a revolutionary idea: giving kids the power of military weapons, and making them 100% safe for even a lobotomized child to handle! ...It was the 30s, they gave nuclear radiation to kids back then, for pete's sake!
Apparently they did just that, got it through the US patent system no problem. How well this would pan out in the public sphere no one would ever know, as Meta-Evil took the research and according to many conspiracy websites and leaked White House reports, sold them to countries like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, North Korea, Iran, and China, refining them from colorful, cutesy death machines, to colorful, cutesy death machines for adults.
The concept was simple: the machines were 3 feet tall, and separated into 4 sections: the head, the legs, the left arm and the right arm. Each of these 4 sections could be interchanged with parts from other machines of it's kind, with a built in kill switch to eject the AI and retrieve it. The AI could apparently grow, and be placed in other robots to use it's experience better. Meta-Evil never conquered the world, or even tried to. He sold his machines of war to cause chaos, and nations still bought them even to this day, all except for the US, China, Japan, and parts of Russia. And one of these machines was standing outside, glaring at her. It was red, two-legged, and it's head was that of a lobster head, with even the tail at the back. It's 'face' was jut a blue visor and a black faceplate. It's arms were pincers, the claws black on the top, and it looked as though it had wheels on the back of it's little lobster legs.
"Well this sucks." She said with all the urgency of a child missing an episode of Pokemon on TV. She left all this business behind at whatever her academy's name was! What was a Medabot doing all the way in Carrot Top?! And why was it staring at her? And why is there a black butterfly behind it?
MMMMMMMMMMM
Meanwhile Lilliam was a good half mile away, down the hill leading to the back entrance of the .. The screams of 'Medabot' filled the air, and it was taking every bit of skill she had-which wasn't much- to avoid being trampled by the fleeing crowd. 'SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!' First her, now a goddamn Medabot in the US?! 'This is not my day!' She managed to get onto the sidewalks and climb a street light, panting and heaving heavily. 'Oh god..oh Jesus fucking Christ!' She didn't know what a Medabot was doing in the US, let alone this hole of a city, but she was thanking every god she knew, real or fictional, that the robot didn't open fire, though why it was staring into a chicken restaurant was beyond her. 'Maybe it wanted the cash?' Yeah right! There was barely any money in there! Hell, Jane's clothes probably cost more than whatever was...in...that... "Fuck." And it was right there that she remembered how Jane prioritized things; food came first, even when her life was in danger. "She's back at the restaurant." The blonde realized, an uneasy, nervous laugh escaping from her lips as she slowly slid down the pole, the crowd thinning as people began going into buildings and barricading them. "Janey's probably just sitting there, waiting for food that'll never come, and when she goes to find it, that Medabot will kill her.." Lilliam began walking slowly, and as images of that sweet little idiot's mutilated corpse filled her brain she began walking faster, and faster, until she was at a full run, all the way back up the hill with fear in her eyes. "Please don't be dead!" What was she thinking, trying to forget her? That moron couldn't survive a day without her help!