Chapter 1: Something Wicked...
The real thing that bothered Erol was that they had warned the people countless times that nothing good would come from public demonstrations of any kind. It was a well-known fact. What was so hard about that fact that so many chose instead to gather in public places? They would gather like tiny white moths to a freakin' flame shouting out threats against the Baron's rule, anger and frustrations over Erol's treatment of the people, the Krimzon Guard's unorthodox tactics…blah blah blah.
This started the same way as all the rest. A call came over the commander's com-link with an "urgent request" that he assist with a suspicious gathering of the citizens of sector five of the city slums.
"Brilliant," Erol thought glumly as he hoisted his slender frame onto his zoomer, "just where I wanted to spend this Saturday afternoon, hunting down a band of annoying and filthy slum rats."
Erol grumbled unhappily, not because he didn't enjoy hunting down slum rats, but rather because he preferred to do it on a day when he wasn't scheduled to practice on the city's race track. "And I'd been looking forward to meeting that cute new mechanic girl they just hired." Erol strapped his mask down over his face, revved his engine, hit the gas and took off at the reckless speed he'd made a reputation out of.
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The first thing Erol saw when he arrived at sector five of the slums was a gathering…of about ten people. The rest of the citizens of the slums were continuing to walk past a small group of teenagers who were singing and dancing right next to one of the Baron's talking promo-monitors. A small group of Krimzon Guards had surrounded the "unruly group" and was attempting to persuade them to break up and move along. One guard with a yellow mark of higher rank saw the commander arrive and broke away from his men in order to escort the commander over personally.
"Civil Disobedience sir, normal except the kids won't move, they won't even respond sir. It's like they are on some odd kind of auto-pilot…except…"
"Except people don't have an auto-pilot." Erol finished harshly, barely suppressing his disdain at having been called in to aid in a civil disturbance issue. "And you require my assistance why? Just shoot the blasted kids."
"But, they're just kids." The solider said it meekly, as if he thought it needed to be said, but also that he knew it was worthless to bring it up at all.
Erol raised one slender red eyebrow at the solider, a mini debate over whether or not it would be smart to shoot him instead of the kids. No, he had better not, not with the Baron still angry from last week's escape from the DWP still fresh in his mind. Erol turned back to the situation, he watched as the kids swayed unevenly, singing in voices that lacked rhythm and pitch; off-key screeches produced from underage throats that coupled with unseeing eyes that never blinked once. It was actually slightly eerie, but only slightly.
Erol had never felt a twinge of compassion in his entire life, and he didn't start now. He simply raised his hand to the small squadron, pointed at the still unaware teenagers and simply said one word, "Fire."
In the space of a gunshot there were ten less mouths to feed in Haven city.
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"I can't get enough, I can't get enough, I can't stay on the ground, I can't get enough, I can't get enough, this is taking me now. It's taking me higher, higher, higher off the ground."
As Erol barked orders at the small squadron to dispose of the bodies and clean up the mess, a small figure could be seen dangling its small feet over the edge of one of the slum's roofs. The face was shielded from the slight wind and the stink of the city by a red scarf, the eyes were tinted a light orange, but that was fading quickly back to the shade of light brown. The figure was slender but obviously female, and the slick white pants and orange top did little to hide the figure if anyone had bothered to look. The thing was, in Haven City, no one bothered to look.
"What's wrong lap-dog? Don't like my music?" the figure snickered slightly as she watched the Krimzon Guards slowly load the bodies onto a transport to be recorded and disposed of by the city's coroners. "I guess rebellion just isn't your tune. What about demolition?" The figure leaned down slightly, as much as she could without tilting over the edge from a seated position, "Or there's always my favorite…despair." The figure giggled, it was a bubbling sound, the kind of laugh one might make when they received a rather pleasant gift. It was defiantly not a laugh that went in the same space of air as the words demolition or despair.
By now, Erol had left, and the squadron had long since removed the bodies from the scene, and was currently pressuring the surrounding citizens to "move along or die." The figure stood up then, stretching limbs that had grown tight from being bent in the same position for hours on end. She smiled a dark smile, one that would have been at home on an alligator, but looked out-of-place on her light and slender face.
"I suppose now's time for a rest. Nothing to do now but wait, wait and see what you'll do next, dear Baron."