Yellow versus blue, Viscus versus Azul. It would have been a battle of the ages if it wasn't for a certain blond shivering. Azul didn't move his face away from Viscus, and the blond didn't have any more space to lean back to, lest he lost his balance and fell onto the floor.
"Come on, what do you think?" A toothy grin was drawn on Azul's face, but Viscus was in no shape to reply. If one had a glance at the blond's mind, they would have been assaulted by a myriad of curses and death wishes. "I… I…" The stutters of Viscus were the only responses he could give, the pressure he was feeling incomparable to Mr. L's. Out of nowhere, a chuckle escaped the forgotten faunus in the room, causing the gang leader to turn his head. The faunus had his hand covering his mouth, his smiling eyes betraying his actions, and soon enough, the gang leader started laughing. "The look on his face."
As the pressure eased, Viscus's expression twisted. The fear turned into anger from the humiliation, but he did his best to rein back his emotions into place. In this small exchange, the blond realized how outmatched he was, and to prove it even further, the System gave him a fair warning just to solidify his point.
[Azul (Human) Lv. 31]
It was a tasteless joke, or so it appeared to Viscus since the two gang members were still laughing. With his body back to function, he prepared to pull out a dagger from his inventory the moment he saw himself in any form of danger. The laughter died out, and the gang leader looked back at Viscus. "You still haven't answered my question." The pressure bore down again on Viscus, but this time it felt weaker. More manageable. "Why would the paper be about me?" The blond asked himself, and he couldn't come up with an answer.
"I don't know." He stared Azul in the eye, albeit barely holding back the shivering. "You don't know?" The room became heavier every second that passed as the gang leader's grinning face turned blank. "He says he doesn't know." The leader's tone became deeper while he pointed at Viscus with his thumb to the faunus. The pressure didn't ease off even a little as Azul looked at Viscus with caution. "Let's take it from the beginning, shall we?"
The blue haired man separated from Viscus, only standing still a meter away. "What does an information broker deal with?" Azul asked rhetorically. "Information." The answer began to click in the blond's head. "And what information broker hands some random kid of questionable origin a paper with vital information?" Viscus wanted to yell at his past self when he finally realized why it felt so unnatural. How could he suddenly gain a job like this without anyone to vouch for him?
"Why do you think you were sent here?" The answer was clear. "He was... testing me." The gang leader clapped in response. "Bingo." It then brought to question, if this was a test, then "Did I pass?" The Azul's brow lifted in confusion. "Pass? No, no." The gang leader put both of his hands in his pockets. "You weren't accepted to begin with." Alarms rang in Viscus's mind as the state of the air changed. Bloodlust permeated from Azul, causing the blond to take out his dagger and poise it. "Quick on the uptake, eh?" He took his hands out of his pockets, this time dressed in spiked brass knuckles.
"I'll spare you a beating if you answer me honestly." He cracked his neck. "Do you think an information broker in this day and age would give out information through paper?" The idea made Viscus pause. "Isn't it more secure to do it that way? Ph- Scrolls could be intercepted, right?" To the best of his ability, the blond tried to keep his voice stable, and the blue haired man scoffed. "That would have been true had burner scrolls not existed, no?"
While Azul was unmoving, Viscus's eyes swam around the place, noticing that the faunus wasn't preparing to do anything, but leaning on the door instead. Yet, out of the corner of his eye, he found something very important. "And even when you think about it, a guy like you would be easier to intercept, and scrolls are quicker and easier to send out the information." The fact that Azul was entertaining Viscus's idea only meant one thing. "He's toying with me." The blond thought.
"Tell you what, I'll give you two choices here." He put out his hand with one finger raised. "One, I'll let you join my gang. People of your kind are few and far in between." Viscus became confused for a moment, but the offer itself caused Viscus to grimace. He liked the idea of a delivery job since it should have been bloodless and shouldn't require any fighting. "Two, leave. Don't bother Mr. L or us again. Find some other employer." Azul held out a second finger, causing Viscus to glare at him. "Neither?" The blond's reply was silence, causing the gang leader to sigh. "Okay." The man drew a leg back and poised himself. "If you can leave this room alive, consider yourself hired." A smirk grew on his face as he stared Viscus in the eye.
What he expected was for the blond to run at him to fight, or run at the door and try to push the faunus away to exit, which wouldn't have worked. What he didn't expect was for Viscus to throw his dagger at his face, dash just behind it, jump to Azul's left as he blocked the dagger, then run straight and crash through the window behind him. "Did he just.." The gang leader stared wide-eyed at the broken window, to which the faunus spoke in disbelief. "He did."
-CEM-
Some part of Viscus wanted to ask out loud, "Hey, have we ever ran that fast before?" If he wasn't busy with the act of running in of itself, the blond would have pulled out that part and punched it in the face for the unnecessary question. His heart was beating as fast as it had when he fought the grimm, something he thought would have only happened from then on through simply running and not the "running for your life" version of it.
Buildings passed by in a flash as he ran aimlessly. Unconsciously, he lost himself to the sound of his breath and the rush of the wind until he found himself in a new part of the city where the telltale stench came back in full strength with the dirtied streets in full view. A quick glance at the minimap told him that he ran away quite far, through a route the minimap could only describe as erratic. He stood in the middle of the road, huffing, before fully understanding what he had just done.
"I'm an idiot." He clenched his teeth as the memory replayed in his head. The whole thing could have been avoided from the beginning if he wasn't so hopeful. "I got complacent." The moment he found himself in civilization, he let down his guard, and would have lost all his possessions if not for the blessing of the inventory. That should have been indicative of what came after, but he still naively went through the underworld to "find a job". Viscus felt pain as he was reminded where he was. The information broker warned him constantly about moving in this path, telling him that it was dangerous.
"-Wait.." Looking at it from an outsider's perspective and with all the current information available, wasn't this an attempt at discouraging him? Mr. L's warnings, Azul's 'offers', the "you weren't accepted to begin with", all of them lead to one thing : they were treating him like a kid out of his depth. While that wasn't wholly incorrect, it was still infuriating. He didn't have to work for the broker, but he had no other lead. The Grimm didn't drop Lien like they would nearly always do in Gamer-styled stories, and he barely defeated one with all his arsenal the first time around, so at the very least he wanted to come in prepared for the next time he fought them.
Disregarding the filth, Viscus sat on the sidewalk and held his face in his hands. He needed to take a breath, to collect himself and find out what his options are. From the start, it felt like he was being pushed around in a certain direction. Kill the bandits, find the map, which coincidentally led to civilization, find the location of the broker, which also coincidentally had its own map despite the supposed secret nature of the pub. It was an elaborate route that made him feel less lucky and more led by the nose. A heavy sigh escaped him as he heard quick footsteps coming toward him. A quick glance showed a little boy carrying a bouquet of flowers.
"Hey mister. Would you like some flowers?" The voice was young and somewhat high pitched, though Viscus chalked that up to age. The boy stood silently, staring at the seated blond who took to ignoring him. "One flower is 5 lien." The boy tried to capture Viscus's attention but to no avail. Seeing that the boy wouldn't go away, the young man motioned with his hand, his face scrunched up in annoyance. "I don't want to buy anything, leave me alone."
The boy left without saying another word, leaving Viscus back to his own world. The blond was already in a bad mood, and being charitable was not one thing he was about to be in this situation. He was already on a limited budget, and the boy expected him to pay 5 lien for a single flower. It didn't make sense. Viscus didn't hate the kid - if anything, he felt that the kid was pitiful for having to rely on people's charity for a living, especially in this disgusting city. Strangely, no one was trying to pickpocket him at that moment. In fact, it seemed as if they were avoiding him, which was something he enjoyed so his mood wasn't going downhill.
"Right." Just as he was about to stand up to look for any solution, shadows loomed over him. He froze half-way through the motion, though the owners of these shadows took matters into their own hands and pulled him up. Three men taller than Viscus of differing body types glared at him. "Heard you came here and thought it best not to pay the toll." One of the three spoke up, the remaining two flanking Viscus's sides. Realizing the problem but not its origin, the blond tilted his head in confusion . "I think you are mistaking me for someone else."
The three didn't reply. Only, Viscus's eyes took a glimpse of the young boy spying on him from an alley. It made sense once he connected the dots. "I've been set up." The thought was maddening, but he felt it was best that he paid the lien and carried on with his life. "Sorry, I'm still new in town. How much was it?" Alarm bells rang in Viscus's head when one of them smirked. "Too late for that."
Out of sheer instinct, Viscus took a page from the Jackalope's book and rammed head first into one of the thugs. Taken off guard, the man tripped with Viscus falling over with him. The two thugs quickly hurried to attack the blond, but a dodge roll straight ahead allowed him to swiftly get on his feet. With one currently on the ground, the two remaining made a joint attack from Viscus's left and right. Unlike the movies and cartoons, the Gamer didn't try to go for the bold maneuvers, opting to minimize risk and continue dodging.
Fortunately, Viscus's first move allowed him to stand in the middle of the road so as not to be cornered. Yet, his lack of action allowed the fallen thug to recover and regroup with his companions. They repeated the same tactic, surrounding Viscus in a three-man circle, but this time poised for if he tried to knock any of them down. A frown grew on the blond's face, the thought of pulling out a weapon to scare them off incredibly alluring. Before he could make up his mind, a thug on his right pounced on him, this time aiming to get a hit on his face. Backing away from that only gave the opportunity for the thug on the other side to score a kick on Viscus's back, a grunt coming out of the young man's mouth.
Without hesitation, the previously tripped thug shoved the off balance Viscus backward onto the ground where he was most vulnerable. Before any of them could follow up, the blond tugged onto the shirt of one of the thugs on his right, pulling him down along with him. Quickly, Viscus abandoned all notion of dodging and went for a counter attack while they were both falling, striking the thug with a loud smack in the face. Surprisingly, the man got knocked away a considerable amount, but the victory was short lived as Viscus finally touched asphalt and found himself trapped between the remaining men. They started kicking the blond in his face and sides, leading him to latch on one thug's legs with both hands and forcing them to the right. With no room to react at the unexpected force behind the action, the man fell on his side, shoulder then head onto the ground.
Sounds of pain came out the man's mouth as the still standing thug took the blond by the hair and smashed his fist in Viscus's teeth. Holding back a yelp, the Gamer mustered all the power he could to attempt to break his opponent's skull by slamming both of his fists into his opponent's head at the same time. The thug let go, stepping back whilst clutching his head before dropping onto the ground. Still crouching while breathing heavily, Viscus suddenly found his face speeding toward the ground, one of the thugs recovering enough to slam the blond's head down, his nose twisting painfully.
A telltale sound of glass breaking echoed through Viscus's ear, before he felt something break on his head, red bits of rock flew about. This time, he couldn't help but groan as the thugs followed up with a kick soccer athletes would be proud of to his side, knocking him away by quite a bit. This caused him to be facing up where he saw one thug with a bloodied, broken nose and another clutching his own left shoulder. "He's still awake after you smashed his head with a brick?" One of them, the man cradling his shoulder, asked in disbelief. Viscus struggled to roll away to try and recover. However, they refused to let him stand up, ruthlessly throwing another kick to the head. This time, the blond felt his brain rattle violently, tears unconsciously coming out of his eyes.
"By Oum, he's still awake." The adrenaline began dissipating as Viscus felt the pain intensify. He wasn't bleeding nor did he have broken bones, but the System didn't numb the pain. They didn't attack him again, fearing that any more would kill him. Silence permeated through the air as any passerby deemed it best that they avoid the altercation, only the sound of footsteps being heard when one of the thugs went to check up on their fallen companion. The thug who had his nose broken stood still, staring at the groaning blond. After making up his mind, he crouched in front of Viscus and spoke with a deadly glare, "Move a muscle and I'll break your bones."
The thug hauled the blond to his shoulder, then faced his companions. Viscus couldn't see since he was facing the other side, but behind his rough breathing he could hear steps and mutters. "Call for someone to get him, I'll carry this one back home." The thug who Viscus was on spoke, then started walking. The trip was uncomfortable, but the blond was able to enjoy 20 minutes of rest before he found himself in an area filled with graffiti and smokers. The stench turned from filth to a defacto second hand smoking factory. There were a couple of shops a block or two away, but this location appeared to be mostly residential.
Out of seemingly similar buildings stood one out as being both larger and manned by sentries at the top carrying rifles in their hands. The front gate was made of two solid steel doors that only opened when the thug banged on it and a camera that Viscus barely took a glimpse of picked up on the request and unlocked the entrance. Whilst the blond realized how he lost his opportunity to escape, he also came to appreciate how these gangs and criminal establishments appear to be highly efficient and secure. It made Viscus wonder how deadly it would be to try and fight one in its turf.
Trying his best to memorize the route that the thug was taking was daunting due to the uncomfortable movement and the blueprint of this building. The one that designed it must have had a maze in mind and the one who decorated it must have liked the color gray since every single wall was painted with it. Soon enough they both went underground and the blond found himself in front of what he could conclude to be jail cells with steel doors as thick as the gate's. The thug threw Viscus on the ground then swiftly restrained him along with a gang member who was guarding the cells. He was quickly patted down and had his shirt stripped from him.
The only reason Viscus wasn't retaliating was the dangling pistol from the jail keeper, and maybe the fact that he was inside the lion's den. Considering he was unable to fight three unarmed thugs, he doubted he could do anything if he fought against 4 or more. All because he didn't buy a flower. He clenched his teeth when they pulled him up by the hair and threw him into a jail cell with people inside it. He could only glare hatefully at them as the door closed, the two gang members speaking about something while staring at him.
Inside the room was a faint light coming from a light bulb lazily connected by a wire from the ceiling, while its occupants were apparently gang members from the Blues dressed in the distinct arm bands with blue stripes. It only told him that this gang and the Blues were at war, which didn't seem all that surprising, but not any less horrible. A sigh escaped from him as he found himself a corner to lean on, and no one tried to provoke him. After all, "Guess we're all in the same boat, huh?" he chuckled hollowly to himself, but there was no answer to follow.
Oh Viscus, you poor guy.
On another note, thanks for the reviews. I'll address them all in one of the upcoming chapters, but trust me, I do read all of them, and take them to heart (along with maakl2001), especially yours, Guest. You know who you are.