Prologue 2: You Thought It Would Be Chapter One, But It Was Me, Exposition!

While the three men were very uncomfortable with the idea, Majima ushered them down into the manhole he'd sprung from, waving his hands and scowling when it looked like they'd stop and ignoring any complaints from the trio. The sewers were surprisingly spacious, with wide walkways on either side of the rivers of waste water surging through them. The railings were clearly marked with luminescent tape, and there were a more than a few grunts milling about as if guarding the area.

The trio trailed after Majima as he led them deeper into his underground abode, Johan and Alphonse having no real trouble as they'd taken off their ATs while Trent had more than a little trouble due to keeping his on. The Mad Dog eventually led them to what looked to be a refurbished utility room, taking a seat behind the desk that clearly was brought in by him and his men. The foreigners glanced at one another, then made themselves comfortable in the folding chairs he had provided for them to use as his gaze shifted over each of them in turn.

Clapping his hands as he saw them all seated, the eyepatched man spoke, "Now, what say we get down to brass tack then, eh boys? Y'all tell me how ya know about Kamurocho and what all's happening around here, and I help you lads with funds and papers and such."

"Hoo fuckin boy, where do we even begin?" Crane muttered under his breath, quite unsure of the answer. He glanced at the other two, pleading with his eyes to not be the first one to start explaining.

"Not it," Johan deadpanned, consigning the Canadian to the underside of the proverbial bus without hesitation.

Blackmore, ever tactful, sighed and began, "Well, we know Kamurocho, because there's a Kamurocho where we come from, though likely rather different from the one you're familiar with." He leaned back in his seat, taking immense care as he crossed his legs. "As for what's happening he—"

"Now wait up kid, I wanna know more. How do you guys know Kamurocho, if there ain't one in this world?" the Yakuza asked, eye narrowed in suspicion.

The Canadian swallowed a grumble before answering, "Well, much like you Mister Majima, we're not quite from around… Here, as it were."

"Trent, for god's sake, stop dancing around the point," Johan interjected. "It ain't that hard to say 'we're not from this version of Earth'. See? I just did it."

"Fuck you, pay me. And besides, saying it makes it feel more real. I really want to go home, so excuse me for wanting a little bit of denial. Is that so wrong?" the Snow Mexican growled, feeling more than a little put out by the exchange. Johan flinched, but didn't have a chance to reply.

Majima meanwhile, nodded. "Ah, I getcha, you lot're like me then. Ended up here for no reason, and tryin ta figure things out. Well, I've been here a while, seen those ATs you got on your feet there around. But you kids seem ta have some idea of where things're headin'. Why not share with the class?"

Crane took a deep breath to try and calm himself. He didn't want to say things out loud too, but airing things was something that needed to be done.

"Put bluntly, to shit," he began, the second the words left his mouth he had no choice but to keep going. "Some bastard called Sora is going to give everyone a horrible time. He's going to get help from the American military to try and get something called the Sky Regalia, and in doing so, he starts the mother of all gang wars, kills people, brainwashes others, including his pregnant girlfriend who he later tries to kill just so he 'has nothing to hold him back', and literally burns Kyoto to the ground."

He couldn't believe he just said all of that in one go, but he did it. Go him.

"Fuck that guy," Johan muttered through gritted teeth.

Trent looked between the others before looking to Majima, and shrugged, "Basically, the only things he won't have done by the end are genocide and cannibalism… and he was winding up to do the former by the time he's stopped." With a decisive nod of his head, he declared, "As Johan said: fuck that guy."

"And I'm sure the bastard would eat somebody if he thought it would mean more power or would get him closer to his dumbass goal, which is nothing more than to stand atop everything and everyone," Johan added with no small amount of venom in his voice.

"Sounds like a pretty shitty guy," Majima, master of understatement, remarked while nodding his head up and down. He considered all of the information and then asked, "All of Kyoto? Really?"

"With mechs, even," the Canadian confirmed.

The Yakuza winked, "Really, mechs? Tha's pretty rad."

Nodding, the canuck continued, "Agreed, but, as we said, he's kind of an issue. Also, there's his murderous twin brother who tears people apart and basically laughs about it. Said twin brother is also creepily obsessed with a girl and nearly rapes her."

"A real pair a' dirtbags then," the cyclops agreed, not looking too put out, mostly just intrigued.

Trent then sighed. "And then of course, there's our technical allies in our goal of stopping Sora, the Sleeping Forest, except, they could have stopped all of this years ago. Their leader's an incompetent when it comes to killing people, as he could have killed Sora but he didn't!" The Canadian was nearly shouting and continued to ramp up. "And let's not forget their pet psychopath, who likes to take off people's faces and wear them as a shirt! But not kill them! Nope, gotta leave them alive!"

The yakuza looked to the other two men and asked, "He serious?"

"He fucking is," they replied in tandem. By this point Alphonse was hunched over on his chair, stewing in a mix of rage, fear and annoyance. Meanwhile, Johan had taken the opposite option, slumping back with a hand massaging the bridge of his nose.

Letting out a whistle, Majima leaned back in his chair, "I can dig why you kids want ta get rid a this Sora guy. Any reason why you're plannin' on workin' with these Forest guys?"

"Less working with them, and more the fact that we're both aiming for the same goal. Gotta take every factor into account, y'know?" Trent replied, having taken a moment to come down from the high of anger he achieved over Sleeping Forest's incompetence.

The cyclops hummed, "Makes sense, I guess."

Trent offered another shrug before moving into the next subject. "After all of them, would be…Kogarasumaru. They're essentially the catalyst for everything moving into motion, as Sora uses them as a smokescreen in order to move undetected for the longest time. They're essentially a group of kids, who just want to use ATs to fly."

"And yet, despite them being a bunch of normal kids, their leader's dreams, his wings, are so great that he challenges Sora himself...and is victorious." Johan gave a faint smile. "Ikki's a huge dork, but he pulls through when it counts."

The Canadian then chimed in, "There's also the fact that Sora, a number of his followers, as well as most of Sleeping Forest, are a bunch of super powered science experiments that were basically designed to ride ATs."

"Ah shit, that entire thing about the Gravity Children and the Sky Regalia..." Alphonse muttered under his breath and after a couple seconds looked over at the other two foreigners. Seeing how they didn't say anything, he sighed. "Fuckin'...ok, I'm going to skim over this since I actually didn't get it but anyways… The members of Sleeping Forest, Sora and his twin are all part of this huge secret experiment to do...stuff in zero gravity? Whatever, point is they're test-tube babies who got raised to do weird shit we normal humans can't. The entire project was called the Gravity Children project and thanks to it, we have ATs and AT based technology in this world."

Taking a deep breath, he continued.

"Now, the Sky Regalia. It's a pair of wheelies that can let the user control other AT and AT tech. I think the entire point of spreading AT tech was just so some jackass could control the world using them, I dunno. It's some stupid reason and it doesn't matter!" Crane ranted on, his voice getting more heated as he spoke. "At some point though, shit went wrong, the facility where the Gravity Children were kept went down while they escaped, the Sky Regalia was abandoned waaaaaaaaaay down in the ruins of the facility, and everything was fine...until it wasn't because Sora decided to be a cunt and leak the info about the existence of the Sky Regalia to the entire world, starting this goddamn mess in the first place!"

By the end of his tirade, Alphonse was seething and slammed a hand into his knee. This entire situation was stupid as hell, started over stupid shit and would continue and ruin or end several lives for a stupid reason. It was all too much: his morals couldn't abide by or tolerate any of that fuckery.

Majima, decidedly rather disgruntled by this, looked between the three of them and inquired, "So, how is it that all'a ya know this?"

Johan decided to field this question, as his two associates were both coming down from rant-induced adrenaline rushes. "Well Mr. Majima, the answer to that is a bit crazy, but so is suddenly finding yourself in another world. Simply put, we read about it in a manga."

The yak thought on this before motioning for Johan to continue, rolling his hand at the wrist.

Johan swallowed, then continued. "In our world, there's a manga called Air Gear. It details the rise of one Itsuki Minami from a middle school punk to the King of the Storm Road, vanquisher of that fuckboy Sora. There's a lot that happens, but Alf and Trent covered the main points."

"He didn't kill Sora, just beat him," the only blond amongst them asserted, feeling the need to get pedantic about this. "Honestly, that was a terrible idea. Ikki should have let the fuckbucket fall out of space and die."

"Riiiiight," Majima intoned, looking between them again as if they were crazy. "A manga. Okay, say I believe you, I've seen some weird shit before so I ain't about to discount this, but what'll I get outta helpin' you kids?"

"Well, apparently if you get good enough at them, ATs give you superpowers," Johan mentioned. "Like, there's this kid named Agito who can shoot wind blades from his skates. Granted, he's a Gravity Child's kid so he can do those barefoot, but the leader of this one team called Behemoth can do it too, and he's pretty normal other than weird muscle structure."

The cyclops's eye widened, "So yer sayin those Behemoth brats that I've been fightin for territory down here can do that shit? Fuck, I shoulda got me some of those skates ages ago."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Alphonse looked at Majima in fearful awe as the implications of what he said began to hit him.

"Of course he's been fighting them," Johan muttered, massaging his forehead, "Why would he do anything else?"

The blond laughed, almost hysterically. "This is fucking perfect! This is so fucking perfect! To think, you're actually fucking fighting them!" Taking a moment to calm himself and catch his breath, the Canadian put a hand on his chest. "So, how well has the good fight been going?"

"Eh, been at a stalemate for a while. They surprised me when they first broke out their rollerskates, but I got used to them well enough," the yakuza admitted, nodding to himself assuredly.

"Ok boss, there's just one thing I really gotta ask," Alphonse raised his voice and tried his best to look at Majima in the eye. "Why are you even fighting them? What's the reason?"

The cyclops scowled at the actual Mexican as he grunted, "Who the hell are you callin' boss? I ain'tcher boss. As fer why I'm at war with the brats… It's fer territory! I've been tryin' to take complete control of the underground areas of the city for my group since I got established, and those brats keep gettin' in my way!"

Crane flinched at the first part of the statement. "I guess you just have a very boss-like aura sir, I'm sorry about that, my tongue slipped," he answered immediately without thinking.

"S'fine, just remember, you aren't one a my boys, so you don't call me 'boss.' Got it?" The Mad Dog warned the younger man, pointing at him as he eyed him from behind his desk.

"Yes, got it," the Mexican replied, lowering his gaze. 'Jesus H. It's not easy to deal with Majima.'

Majima nodded at the affirmation before looking at the three foreigners, and smiling as he declared, "So, you kids need papers and money then?"

Trent shared a look with Johan and Alphonse, and the three of them answered simultaneously, "Yes. Very yes."

-x-x-x-

The three disgruntled men hoisted themselves out of the manhole they'd initially climbed down, Trent still fumbling on his ATs as he tried to get used to them in the most casual of ways. They smelled like sewers, but they were happy enough, as the criminal they'd become acquainted with had supplied them with money and papers.

While they'd been rather baffled by the readiness the man had shown with both the money and the forgeries, they weren't really in any place to question it nor would it be polite. After all, the cyclops seemingly had done this simply in exchange for the information they'd provided him.

As they slowly moved through the park, Trent slowly trundling along as he started to get used to his ATs. The sun was still rather high in the sky, and after looking up at it, the Canadian remarked, "We need to find a place to stay, don't we?"

"I'm drawing a blank here. I'm still kind of out of it right now, you guys think of it," Alphonse answered in English to confuse any eavesdroppers. "I still can't believe we made a deal with a criminal warlord."

Johan shrugged helplessly. "It's not like we actually had a lot of options, and as far as crime bosses go, we could do far worse. Majima's got principles, at least."

"I mean, that's true, but it doesn't change the fact that we made a deal with Goro Fucking Majima," Crane continued as he grimaced. "This is just going to bite us in the ass later, isn't it?"

"Nah, s'fine," Blackmore replied as he adjusted his bag on his back and leaned back a bit on his heels to slow a bit. "We make every dirty deal we have to in order to survive, thrive, and then get home."

"Even a deal with Sora?" Johan interjected sceptically.

Trent snorted. "Only if the deal is that he takes a long walk off a short pier. But seriously, you guys get my drift with what I said, yeah?"

"I'm pickin' up what you're layin' down," Johan affirmed.

"I mean...I get that we need to this but it still makes me feel like we're going to regret it later," the Mexican replied unenthusiastically. "That being said, I'm honestly not sure where we should even stay. You guys have any ideas?"

Trent hummed in thought, and then a metaphorical light bulb went off in his head. With a chuckle and a grin, he declared, "Well, Rika and, by extension, the Noyamanos, run a boarding house of sorts. A Maison Ikkoku sort of deal, y'know? Howsabout that?"

"...The fuck is 'Maison Ikkoku? Is that some Canadian code for a love hotel?" Johan asked

Alphonse chuckled at the American's joke before interjecting. "I mean, judging by the context I think I get what you're saying, but what's that a reference to?"

"S'an old mango and animu by the woman who did Ranma and Inuyasha, but to clarify, um…think the sort of boarding house the characters in Sekirei were based out of," the canuck explained, exasperated at the children around him not appreciating the classics.

"...Ok, I know that manga is a thing, but I can't fuckin' remember for the life of me what it was called or what it even was about," Alphonse replied with a shrug before addressing the important part of the conversation. "That doesn't seem like a bad idea, to be honest. It could also help us find out just…when we ended up in."

The Mexican scratched at his stubble thoughtfully. "Behemoth is still a thing, so we have some time before Sora gets up to his shit, but how much do we really have?"

"Mm, a while at least, but until we have a solid timeline, we shouldn't count our chickens…" Trent answered, trying not to dwell on the subject overly much. He knew they had some time, no idea as to how much, but he was going to use as much as he could to prepare. "'Sides, all we can really do is prepare."

With that, the three sauntered into the afternoon, driving off the crowds with the pungent stench of the sewers stuck to their clothes.