Disclaimer: I do not own the show or characters from Young Justice or Tokyo Ghoul. All rights go to their respected owners.
Everybody had believed the boy who cried wolf, they believed him right up until he was actually telling the truth, but nobody believed Cassandra; the woman who was seen as a liar by the people of Troy and her own family. These stories show that sometimes lies and hoaxes can be perceived as true, other times truth can be called a hoax. Perhaps it was for this reason that we got into the mess we are in now. Or maybe it was simply foolishness.
*oOo*
Old rumours had resurfaced. Tales of man-eating people that were brushed off as "just another scary story". Videos of proof from Japan were labelled as hoaxes and much like Cassandra wasn't believed, the videos were not believed. By the time the "hoax" found its way, or rather revealed itself, to America it was far too late.
News anchors were going wild with the revelation. All over the world, radios and televisions were screaming warnings; instructions to "Stay in your homes!" and "Make sure all doors and windows remain locked!" The world was in a state of panic and crime increased. Riots and thefts began in all areas, it was like the beginning of an apocalypse.
There were creatures amongst us, and apparently, they had been for centuries. Creatures that looked like people. Only it was different now. Now they didn't have to hide, they didn't have to be careful, and they were loving it. The Ghouls owned the world.
*oOo*
Everything had changed. Curfews were introduced in all areas and anyone left out after dark had to hurry home, or face death. That made being a vigilante both different and far more dangerous. My adopted father and mentor had made the decision to pull me out of the job, but I convinced him to keep me as his crime-fighting partner. Which, in hindsight, was the best decision I've ever made. He did, however, pull me out of the Team.
He wasn't the only one either. Both Flash and Aquaman decided it was far too dangerous to allow their protégés the freedom to go out at night, and pulled Kid Flash and Aqualad out of the Team, leaving only Miss Martian, Superboy, Zatanna and Rocket. Artemis had decided to leave of her own volition, for her mother's sake.
The Team had disbanded a few months later; after Martian Manhunter and Icon had joined their colleagues in the 'it's too dangerous club' and pulled M'gann and Rochelle out. The Team was no longer operational with only two members and Mount Justice swiftly became a mere hang out. It was unfortunate for Rochelle, our newest member, as she had only been on the Team for a few months before it was forced to disband.
In the midst of the chaos, the American government had passed a law stating that any and all meta-humans, vigilantes and extra-terrestrials were to join an execution force, which was government-run, within a month.
*oOo*
A month passed and unsurprisingly no one had joined the execution force, which led to the Hero Prosecution Act of 2013 which stated that any of the aforementioned persons that had not joined the U.S.G.E.F. (United States Ghoul Execution Force) would be hunted and imprisoned for "Evasion of Service".
The following three months were chaos. Along with the added riots, multiple missing person reports had made their ways to police departments in at least fifteen states. Eventually, these reports made their way to the Justice League, who responded by finding the missing people, who were mostly teens or young adults that had tested positive for the meta-gene, and placing them in the League's protection program.
The U.S.G.E.F. was quickly dubbed a failure. In response, the government decided that non-metas could also join and only then did the execution force grow. The laws regarding metas and co. were abolished and the missing persons were quickly found. Most were reluctant to leave the League's protection program and stayed in protective custody for a few weeks more.
The Team stayed inactive until later that month, by which time things had calmed enough for us to operate as we did before, with an added need to err on the side of caution. That's not to say that it was the same for when we were each alone or with our mentors; patrolling Gotham was significantly harder than before, though not anything Bats and I couldn't handle.
The Team hadn't had any run-ins with ghouls while on missions, and we were thankful for that. We had seen enough from news reports and, for me, finding victims on patrol to know that ghoul attacks were not pretty.
Bats and I had to start escorting Artemis home, everyone (including Artemis) had agreed that it was better to be safe rather than sorry; oddly enough, Gotham seemed to have the least amount of Ghouls, though this was merely an assumption. We were still learning about them and, thankfully, Japan was kind enough to release the information they had on them to the public.
Overall, Ghouls were seen as monsters, as less than human, by mostly everyone. When I say mostly I do so reluctantly, as its people like Joker that see the Ghouls as help or, creepily, a way for humans to evolve further. Thankfully, people like that were part of the minority. Others just saw Ghouls as people, and the opinion became far more popular when it was revealed that Ghouls had to eat humans to survive as their stomachs were incapable of digesting anything else.
The Team got a lot of missions regarding missing persons for a while, most of them being related to Ghoul attacks. They were stressful. We always expected to come back with nothing. So we were all excited, and need I say relieved, when Batman came to us about a gang that was causing trouble in East Metropolis.
*oOo*
We could never have guessed what would be waiting for us when we got there. Nor could we have guessed how much Ghouls scared us. None of us could.
AN: Well, I'm back and I'm very happy with how this turned out. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the next chapter up by December (I know that's a while away but I need time- I'm planning on writing two chapters during that time.)
Please leave a review if you enjoyed it and let me know if you found anything I can improve on in future chapters.