Hey guys, ready for some more Tale of The Fallen Thunder?
Well here it is!
Sorry it took some time to complete, some stuff happened in my life that got in the way of writing this and on top of that i have had one heck of a writer's block. (DAMN YOU WRITER'S BLOCK! WHHHYYY!). Also, you better stick around for the next chapter if your an action lover, but you've been warned for this chapter because I think it's one of many feels chapters that I plan to do than anything else...
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the latest chapter, and as always, have nice day!
Chapter 3
The City of the Downtrodden, Part 2
Lucy and Perceous made their way down the deep, dark hole. It seemed to go on forever to Lucy but eventually they made it inside a small room with nothing but an old, rusty looking bank vault door on one side of the room and the ladder Perceous and Lucy had just climbed down on the opposite side. Lucy asked "Perceous, where are we?"
"My reasoning for the thefts I commit, that is where we are..." replied Perceous as he walked up to the door.
He then stopped and asked "Lucy...may I ask of you a favour? It is very important that you accept"
"Umm...o-ok...what is it?" replied Lucy who was now getting suspicious of Perceous
"My favour..., is that you do not react to or rebel against anything that may occur around you..., by all means observe your surroundings but by any means necessary...do not react to or rebel against anything that may occur around you" he then added "Do you accept?"
Lucy was very confused at this, questions buzzed inside her head frantically, "What does he mean? Is he going to kidnap me? Or torcher me? I-I-I...I don't know what to do..., what should I do?" she thought. Despite all these questions she knew that there was only one way to answer all these questions. So she then decided "Ok Perceous, you have my word" Perceous replied by nodding back to Lucy, acknowledging her answer.
Preceous then turned his attention back to the door. He knocked on the rusty, old vault door, with one second intervals between each knock. After the knocks a small peep hole slid open and two eyes then appeared and glared at the two, the voice that belonged to the pair of eyes then spoke "Ah, look what came crawling back! And it brought some company...a sexy one too, hahaha!"
"Please may you grant us entry...?" calmly and almost quitely asked Perceous
The guard replied evilly "Y'know Perceous..., you always seem to leave but you always keep crawling back to this rubbish dump, mind you, you actually belong here, you are a maggot aren't you? Hahaha!" the guard then added arrogantly "Get your sorry self in here, and try not to do anything stupid like last time, or else...!"
The peep hole then slid shut again before the cranking and grinding of the old, rusty vault door opening. As they entered the guard they talked to on the other side of the door said to them "The Boss will come to you're place soon, I hope you have our rent this time, hahaha! Or this sexy lady of yours could be your rent...?" the guard then started pulling pelvic thrusts in Lucy's direction, to which however she ignored as instructed by Perceous.
The two the carried on walking in the environment they were now in, much to Lucy's horror.
The place they were now in had shacks made of different materials and were all unbalanced to the point that they look as if they could collapse at any second. The streets and roads were actually made of a mixture of dirt and waste and each time you made a false step, some of the waste and dirt would mess up your footwear, that left a fowl stench afterwards. The streets were uneven, some flat some on hills and some on very steep slopes.
As well as this some of them were also very narrow while others were very wide. The only light they had was an artificial sun using a lacrima and a very complex mirror system which bounced natural sunlight into the contraption that held the artificial sun to power the lacrima, thus, giving light to the area. The people there looked as if they hadn't changed or washed their clothing or themselves for weeks, some even months. Some of these people were also very much malnourished.
Perceous then spoke to Lucy "Lucy..., This place...is the City of the Downtrodden..., or...The Forgotten City..., but everyone here knows it as the Magnolia Slums"
They then saw a man being forcibly dragged out of his home by three well-dressed men in tuxedos. The man was shouting "I will not let you harm my family, just because you lot want your taxes!" as he was now being restrained by two of the men. One of them just got out a cattle prod and said bitterly to him "Shut up you filthy animal!" and then he stabbed him with the cattle prod, causing the man to cry out in pain.
Lucy just observed in shock and absolute horror. Perceous then added "It is the city..., where those who dare to speak out..., are punished..."
They carried onward and they soon came across a homeless beggar asking for Jewel, but very soon, some more men dressed in the same outfits as the others that were punishing the out-speaker had found the beggar, kicked his bowl over and when the beggar reached for it, one of the two men did the same as the group of three did earlier except with a high voltage Taser.
Perceous added "And it is where those who dare to dream of freedom and hope..., eventually find nothing to hope for..."
Lucy was in much shock and horror, she was speechless. Perceous then broke the silence between them "Lucy..., you wanted to know why I stole...well..., before you lies your answer, I commit these acts of theft in order for these people, my people...to have a little spark of hope and faith, so that one day we may rise up and revolt against The Enslavers. We are all very fortuneless, Lucy..., so do we not deserve true happiness and freedom...?"
They came to the end of a street just as Perceous finished his statement. Lucy then summoned some breath and spoke for the first time since she entered Magnolia Slums and asked "W-Who were those people in the suits?" Perceous stopped. He replied
"Those people Lucy..., are the enslavers of my people. They are known as the Scar Fire Magnolia Mafia...a mafia guild..., they control this entire city and they like to think that they are our saviours...to us however..., we see it as a reign of oppression and tyranny. To them though, whenever we revolt against them, our methods of retaliation to said tyranny..., are nothing more than an illusion that can easily be unseen..., thus we can not react or retaliate to anything that they speak...we are all forced to live in fear. It is this I and my people all around me secretly oppose..., and to further convince you Lucy to my cause..., I shall show you my own residence"
They then entered a medium sized alleyway with two other short alleyways connected to it one with a bend in its path. The one they had entered had a simple large cardboard square piece in the centre of the alleyway and a very basic and simple cooker at the end of it, another alleyway that was connected to the other had another piece of what look like the same piece of cardboard as the one in the centre but this one had a lone pillow and a blanket on it.
"Welcome to my home Lucy" said Perceous, leaving Lucy in disbelief at his living conditions.
"H-How can he live like this...?" She thought.
As Lucy was thinking this Perceous had got the bag from his back and took out one carrot, he grabbed a small pan and placed it on the cooker. He then got out a small piece of wood and grabbed one of his knifes and then used it on the carrot, chopping it up into little bite-sized chunks. He did the same to two medium sized leeks and put both the chopped carrot and leeks into the pan. He then ignited the cooker by zapping it with a little spark of super-heated lightning, which in turn, began cooking the vegetables.
He turned to Lucy and sat down on the cardboard in the centre of the 'hallway' and ushered Lucy to sit opposite him "The meal will be ready in a brief moment, please, take a seat" He said happily. When she did however she could not get comfortable at all "I am very aware it is not quite comfortable, but it is certainly better than a bare floor, especially one such as this"
Lucy finally managed to get comfortable somehow and began to ask the questions that were currently on her mind "Perceous...?" she asked
"Yes, what is it you wish to enquire?" asked Perceous, who was sitting in a very much Japanese etiquette fashion
"Well..., it's just...what strikes me as..., odd, is that you steal so much money sometimes..., but yet you live like this. My only question is..., why?"
Perceous dipped his head down to his feet and then look back up again, after which he replied "It may surprise you Lucy..., but I choose these living conditions myself...True, with the vast magnitude of riches I purloin, one might be increasingly curious on my motives for living in beggarly conditions..., to which, the answer is simple...I have no true motive for living like this, but in fact the truth this is no more than a case of personal preference...My life is far less valuable than those of my fellow people, comrades and friends, that is how I see the world"
This puzzled Lucy, why on earth would someone choose to live like this just for the sake of others and make his or her own life seem so meaningless? She decided to question him further "Perceous, if I can ask..., why do you see your own life to be less important? And...I know it's your own choice, but still, someone with that kind of money would at least have a decent house...so..., why don't you?"
Perceous nodded his head to show he had took the question into consideration and replied with his answer "My answer to both is simple...For your first question, my answer, is a question itself" He paused for a brief few seconds before adding
"Picture a scene..., there are two individuals, one of which is you, and you and the other, who is a complete stranger to yourself, are sat at a table with two cups in front of you. One cup contains drinkable water, the other, a colourless and odourless poison. You are doing this because the two of you fell into this place and only one can make it out alive. If you flat out refuse the task you are both immediately executed. You have many options around this situation, I shall give you the options that I will be able to see what morality you truly are..."
The choices were: Mix the two cups into one cup and drink the concoction, leave it to blind luck, refuse the task, and mix the two cups into one and force the other person to drink it.
Lucy, even through as much thought as she could muster, could not think of an answer. She instead asked Perceous "Since I can't think of an answer, may I ask what you would do Perceous?" Perceous replied
"For me...the choice is simple. I would choose the first option every time..., but then it also depends if the person I am faced with is benignant and favoring, evenhanded and inert or corrupt and damnable" He took a brief pause as he served up his dinner of the vegetables that were frying in the pan even offering Lucy some to her decline, before asking "Is there anything else you'd like to have knowledge of?"
Lucy was starting to make sense of the situation. Perceous would give his own life in order to save another, a truly selfless act in the eyes of most people. There was only one question however that was still in her mind "Yes, I'd like to know if you steal so much...what do you really do with all of it?" Perceous stopped eating while he answered the question
"The money I claim for my thefts is given to my fellow people and yes...I keep some for myself, but only enough to get along...And even then..., times can be difficult" He then put his food to one side before saying "But this life comes with a price..., I have had to make many sacrifices in order to do what is right for my people...Allow me to present them to you...Will you?
Lucy agreed and Perceous took off his shirt. Lucy didn't react because all the while Perceous was showing extreme seriousness as he removed his shirt. And what it revealed was something that no one could prepare for...
When his sirt was removed, you could clearly see Perceous was quite muscular but also very much anorexic as you could see his entire rib cage and spine. Another thing no one happened to noticed was how slim his forearms were. Perceous looked very malnourished and worn. And on his abdomen, he had scars the shape of letters of the alphabet spelling out words, they read...'Scar Fire Magnolia M'. He also had a slash scar going from his liver to his underarm.
Lucy went into complete shock. "O-Oh my...What have they done to him?!" She thought. Perceous just by taking a short glimpse at her could tell what she was thinking
"Lucy...I now hope you now understand the grim reality of this selfless beggar's chosen path of destiny. Each letter scar represents something that the person has committed that The Enslavers find to be incorrect...Which happens to be many things...You are allowed twenty letters..., gain the twenty first..., and may thou rest peacefully in the divine heavens of Halera..." Perceous then fell silent for a moment before placing his top back on and taking his seat.
Perceous kept looking at his feet as he was sat with Lucy almost ready to break down and cry for him but just then a few figures appeared at the entrance of Perceous's 'home' with one calling out in a slight accent... "Vuell Purceous, have you glott our vament...?"