Long Lost Family
-Chapter 1: A city of sins-
Contains mentions of drug use, prostitution, violence and alchohol
Century City, Saphire Square, 1:00am. Glamourous lights and purple and pink neon fill the streets that still sparkled a reflection from the long rain storm earlier that night. These streets were always filled with tons of people, giving them a more narrow image than they actually were. Even around nighttime the area was crowded, usually with drunk people escorted by the slightly more sober people who dragged their companions home after a brave night of partying. Still many of the nightclubs and bars were filled with these coloufull and exoctic types.
These types formed the image of Saphire Square: the most eccentric part of town, where anything could happen and anyone could be encountered, from cheerful college students who just graduated or turned 16* and wanted their first legal alcoholic beverage, to shifty men on the corners off the streets, selling whatever the Lord and the law has forbidden. If you turned your head to the other corner of such a street, you would see prostitutes looking at you with a sweet-looking face, trying their hardest to 'simply make a living', as they would say, still they would immediatly walk to the man on the other corner after the job, losing the precious valuta she just fucked away from you for whatever digusting pills, bags or needles this man had in the inner pockets of his coat. Turn your head and walk further into a dark alley and you will notice that hooded punks stare at you, ready to catch you off guard and out of authority's side to mug you from the rest of the money you didn't spend on the whore mentioned earlier. If you are lucky, you will simply lose the money, get a beating in turn for it, perhaps a slit to the throat by a butterfly knife, and they would proceed with their nightlife crimes. Otherwise, your journey would end here. Let's say you survived the encounter in the dark alley, you will have probably lost your breath, if it wasn't from the beating then it probably was from the scary experience. Anyhow, you're dry as a desert, and just want a drink. By now you realised you lost your last bucks on the muggers and slowly crawl to the nearest gutter, miserable and defeated. The Lord has praised you, mostly out of pity, as an elderly tiger approaches, dressed in white, with a golden neckless with a cross hanging onto it. He seemed like he just descended out of heaven, ready to pick you up and take you to the sweet afterlife, to free you from your sins and sorrows. The tiger watches you lay there, closes his eyes, shaking his head in dissapointment, yet taking out his wallet with a hopeful look in his eyes. He throws two bills of 10 at you, hoping you will put it to good use. He turns around and returns to the building behind him. You sit up and look at the building, then see that it is a church. You see a flickering neon sign saying 'Jesus Saves' above the huge open door, giving the feeling of a safe haven. You slowly walk up to the building, examining it, but before you enter it, you decide to have that drink first. You wander to the tavern next to the church, and upon entering you find it quite comfortable. It's a small place. Quite modern, but small. It had few people, making it quite relaxing compared to the busy streets outisde. The types that were inside also didn't look like the aggresive and loud drunks out here. The costumers varied: at the table near the entrance you see a young lizard and his wife, a young wolf, both in their 30's or something, reminiscising about their honeymoon. At the bar you see a navy-blue fox clinging to a bottle of vodka in one hand, a cigarette in another. A depressing sight. At the end of the interior, in the deepest corner of the tavern, you notice two strange figures. They don't look like a common race. No, they look more like... half-hedgehogs, half-wolves. They are both dressed in baggy clothes, coloured in purple, like they belong to a certain group...or gang. You decide to order your drink and sit a table near the duo, doing your best eavesdrop on these quite suspicious types. You identify the first one as Daxter, obviously the leader, and the second one as Doug, his younger brother.
"So, are you sure we should do this? I mean, i heard a lot of stories about him. He has saved the world countless times, defeated an incredible amount of robots and aliens, and you know what? The rumor goes, he even once stopped an entire comet from obliterating this world, just by holding onto it and pushing it back to space! Daxter believe me, we have to be catious and think this through. Is it really worth it? I mean the payment isn't that hig-" "The payment is not the most important thing right now!" Daxter interrupts his sibling. "I don't care even if 'E' would give us a bag of shit for this job. What matters is: We must let Shadow the Hedgehog suffer" Doug got goosebumps from hearing that name. During his investigation on their target, Doug heard a lot of stories about this dark hedgehog, enough to give him doubts at least. The older and more experienced Daxter was less gullible. He was the kind of guy who would put himself and his target in equal regards, so as to not underestimate nor overestimate the enemy. And honestly, he was a bit unsure about this job as well. Unlike his little brother, Daxter had actually seen Shadow in combat, during the invasion of the Black Arms. He was in Westopolis at the time, when suddenly those aliens attacked. Because of the red markings on his quills and his grey skin, he was mistaken for one of them and was almost gunned down by a GUN soldier, when suddenly he saw a brilliant flash of dark light, which instantly knocked the soldier out cold. The black/red blur then proceeded to grab his gun and blast down a massive alien, using a green emerald to wipe out the entire battlefield in the process. Daxter, still a young cub at that time, already witnessed the amazing power of the 'Ultimate Life Form'. So he knew that Shadow was a force to not be messed with. "But Dax, if Shadow was the one that saved you from that soldier at the time, then why do you hold a grudge agianst him?" Daxter sighed. "You know damn well Doug. I already told you a thousand times why. He must pay for what he did, and the only way to justify for his actions is to take his life. Now, finish your drink and get up D. Time is running and this job requires precision, so we can't get drunk now." Daxter and Doug grab their coat and walk out. They drive towards their next destination, Club Emerald.
Footnotes:
*I know the usual drinking age in the US starts at 21. However, here in Holland it's 16, so i'm going with that. Not important to the story itself, but people tend to take details seriously.