I took a step. I couldn't hear my own footfalls or even feel my feet push against anything, but I knew I was moving forward all the same. There were sounds of Things slithering and skittering around me, by my legs, by my hair. I knew they weren't really here, at least in any way that really mattered. I stopped walking, I turned back to look at the entrance I came through. The Doorway had collapsed, meaning I only had one way to go. I stepped forward, to greet the troubles that I had came here for.
---------------------------------------------------------------
In a backstreet ally, there was a young man with messy long gray hair who was slumped against a coarse brick wall. His chest was rising and falling. His attire was grungy, baggy and cheap, with brand new additions to the tears and scuffs to his blue hoodie and shorts. Blood dripped from his mouth, his knuckles looked like they had been scraped by sand paper and one of his fingers on his right hand was bent at an unnatural angle, either broken or dislocated. While he was unconscious for the moment, none of his facial features were blown off and he wasn't smoldering or smoking, so he got off lucky.
After a few moments of no movement other than the rising and falling of his chest, his body started to slide across the alley wall until his body met the concrete and his head hit the not so soft ground. The young man was now awake and conscious, still a tad dazed from a combination of the beating he just received and the meeting his head just had with the concrete. "Shhh..." a quiet hiss came out of his mouth as he propped his body off the ground with one arm and used the other to grab his head.
"Fucking… shit." Were the first words to come out of his mouth.
His ears were still faintly ringing from the blow he got from that guy with the eyepatch. He opened his eyes only to see blurry splotches of grey and brown. What little light there was in the alley stung the young man's eyes. When his eyes finally came into focus, the first thing he could make out was someone else across the alley, leaning on the grimy wall. That someone was a tall young man, he was standing and wasn't knocked unconscious like the grungy young man. However he had a wicked bruise below his eye and he was cradling his stomach. The tall young man didn't look like the grungy young man at all, his clothes were simple and chique, but anyone could tell they were expensive from the fine fabrics they were made of. His ginger hair was neatly cut and he had a tall physique that was athletic, all in all in remarkably good condition considering what just happened. As for why both of them where in this alley, that was the neat young man's fault.
___________
A little under ten minutes ago the grungy young man was walking down a street in the Venation District, the commerce center of south side of the city. The colossal skyscrapers of the Venation District were all around him, casting shadows on the clouds. With the occasional aerial screw breaking out from the sides of the minimalistic building to collect any wind that was funneled down by the skyscrapers. No matter how much the young man tried, he was like a black sheep in this district. He was wearing his old hoodie over his stained work clothes that almost looked like they were tie-dyed, totally conflicting with the nearly spotless side walk and absolutely unblemished passersby. If he was anyone else he would try to make himself look small and blend into the waves of the passerby, but the young man was almost the tallest man on the street and had a head of ash gray hair. His head looked like a steel buoy swaying in the ocean of street goers.
"Haa… Almost there." He sighed to himself, knowing he only had a little longer till he reached the place.
He glanced down and lifted up his arm holding the bag to look at the holo-screen projected by his "Smart Centipede Bracelet", the location of the delivery should be just ahead. He raised his gaze to look for the place's sign, having to look up and down the street a few times to reread the signs because they were written in overly complicated calligraphy rather than normal letters. He finally found the right sign ahead of him, though only after deciphering the avant garde writing of each sign on the street. He reached the front door and he waited for the front doors of the building to quietly skitter open.
The hotel he entered looked so expensive he felt like they would bill him for every step he took inside it. The floor tiles looked like they were made of flawless alabaster and the black carpets looked like they were made of silk, he made absolutely sure to give the carpets a wide berth. He was delivering a take out meal for Room 14. Usually restaurants would just use a delivery beetle to drop off food people ordered but high class folk always liked to pay extra for special services. There was no one at the front desk at the moment so he stood in front of the jar holding the "String Signal Cicada" and waited. The sound of quiet and distant footsteps came from the room behind the front desk and quickly got louder. In less than fifteen seconds the receptionist emerged through the door behind the front desk.
"Hello welcome to th- oh a food delivery? Could you tell me which floor this food is for?"
The young man paused and blinked for a moment.
"Oh uh the order has a room number, not a floor number?" He asked.
"Oh I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, this hotel doesn't really have 'rooms', each floor is a single 'room' that can be booked. Now again, what floor?"
The receptionist's speech got faster as he talked, the young man didn't miss the slight lilt of irritation in the receptionist's voice.
"Yeah um, sorry, so it's for floor 14." He answered as he passed the bag over to the receptionist.
"Yes, thank you for the delivery." The receptionist said as he took the food and then raised the "Blue Radio Beetle" to his mouth.
"Can I get someone to run a delivery to floor 14 please?"
The young man put his hands in his hoodie's pockets, turned, and started walking toward the front door. The receptionist walked back into the room behind the front desk.
As the young man was about to pass through the front door he heard the receptionist whisper into his Beetle.
"Can we get someone to clean the entrance to? The delivery guy was a kinda grimy."
As the young man finished that thought another, better dressed, young man passed by him.
The grungy young man almost flinched as he noticed the neat young man. The neat young man didn't make a single sound as he walked, at least nothing that the grungy young man could hear. The grungy young man paused for a moment, wondering how he didn't hear the neat young man, not even a quiet scuff of the his shoes as he walked by.
He was standing there for a moment, trying to figure out how he didn't notice someone behind him. Until he remembered he had to get back to work soon or else his manager would decide he couldn't take home any of the left over food the kitchen had at closing time. So he started walking down the street, flooded with the sounds of cars, delivery beetles flying above the side walk and the "WHAAPS" of the wing beats of massive "Dragonfly ornithopters" gliding above.
He tapped his Centipede Bracelet to wake it up. The centipede then came to life, it's chitin shell turning from a dull gray to a menagerie of radiant lights and began projecting a holo screen. He opened his music app and pressed play on one of his playlists, and his "Earbud Earwig" started playing his music.
He kept walking, but the streets were sparse ahead of him. After walking for about 5 minutes, making turn after turn, the grungy young man finally realized that the neat young man he saw at hotel was still in front of him.
He decided to pay more attention to his surroundings and he turned down his music to listen more closely. Still no footsteps came from the neat young man, but he noticed something behind him. Within the noise of the street and the sounds of passerby, there was something off. At first he wasn't sure if he was being paranoid, but after 2 or 3 turns he was sure of it. There were two sets of footsteps that were following behind him. The sounds of the footsteps didn't change and even the cadence was consistent.
As the grungy young man was mulling over all of this information, a small weaselly looking man turned the corner in front of him and the neat young man. There were only a few people walking on this street and the grungy young man's eyes were flicking between each person he could see, but the weaselly man stood out from the crowd.
It's not that he looked out of place, rather he was setting off alarms in the young mans head, his gut was telling him that he wasn't just part of the crowd.
The weaselly man seemed nervous about something… but also determined to do something. The weaselly man put his hand to his mouth, but due to the fact that the sleeves of his grass colored hoodie he wore were much longer than his fingers, the grungy young man couldn't tell if the weaselly man was holding something.
It was then that the grungy young man noticed something ahead of him and the neat young man. This street had an alley between two buildings. Out of sight of the main street and between two old and derelict buildings most likely full of the kind of people who wouldn't respond to anything that sounded like a lot of trouble. The young man was anxious, but he was really hoping he was wrong.
For a few nerve wracking seconds, everyone just walked. As the neat young man was walking by the entrance of the alley, the weaselly man had just reached him from the opposite direction. Then everything happened at once.
The weaselly man lunged at the neat young man, arms poised to push him into the alley. The neat young man saw and reacted without a second of delay or a hint of surprise. He grabbed one of the weaselly man's arms, and then twisted his torso and took a step back with his back foot and used all the rotational momentum to throw the weaselly man to ground. The young man reacted to the first surprise, but he was so totally focused on the weaselly man's lunge that he couldn't react to the burly arm that sprung from the alley. The burly arm grabbed neat young man's shoulder and yanked him into the alley with such force one of his legs left the ground. The only sound that came out from that who exchange was the sound of the Weaselly man hitting the ground and the resulting yelp he let out, the neat young man was totally silent even under duress.
The grungy young man stood and stared at the entrance of the alley for a second.
That's when the grungy young man was totally caught off guard when one of the thugs following them kicked him from behind.
"The shit!?"
The grungy young man yelled out as he was thrown forward by the heavy kick. His back was roaring in pain. To stop himself from falling and slamming into the concrete he threw out his arms. The first arm to reach the ground buckled and lead to his elbow smashing into the concrete, but his other arm successfully braced the impact. Without regard to his aching elbow the young man hastily attempted to stand up. He knew that this wouldn't end in just a kick and being on the ground was the most dangerous place to be in a fight. He sprung back to his feet and tried to turn to face the two men behind him, only to be pushed away while he had only turned halfway. He staggered to the side while staying on his feet.
"Hey who the fuck are you!" The young man eloquently inquired.
The two men that had been following behind the young men were large, but neither in same way. The man that was closer and was the one who had likely just shoved him was large in width, his stomach was bulging and his face was rather round, wearing a brown shirt with a logo the young man didn't know and some blue gym shorts. Yet from the way he moved you could tell he had an abundance of muscle under his squishy fat. The man further away and the one who probably kicked the young man was large in height and had wide shoulders, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and baggy, ill fitting jeans with a gray belt.
"Hey Aten! Let's grab this one to be safe!" The tall man yelled out.
The young man barely had a blink of an eye to think about what the tall man said before he felt something land on his shoulder. Not a second after that he was pulled backwards into the alley as his heels scraped across the ground. The young man lost his balance as he was dragged into the alley and could only teeter on his sliding heel as he was pulled and thrown into the alley. Absolutely confused, he barely registered that he was rapidly hurtling toward a dumpster, with his forehead in a perfect trajectory to cleanly hit the edge of the dumpster.
He acted on reflex, his hand shooting out toward the dumpster and one of his legs firing down to support himself. His hand caught the edge of the dumpster and stopped his impending crash, and his leg ended his descent and kept him from floundering onto the concrete ground. However he was now kneeling in a filthy alley surrounded by several men with unknown intentions.
The grungy young man turned to look at the group of men, most of them had a relaxed posture. It could be assumed that this wasn't their first rodeo. In this assorted gang, there was the Lanky man, the Heavy man, the Weaselly man and two other men that the grungy young man hadn't seen before.
One was an absolutely roided up mass of a man, he didn't just look well built, he was well constructed. He had a bald head with a tattoos running from the dome of his skull down to his neck, shoulders and exposed chest, covering his exposed upper body was an open leather windbreaker and a pair of grey sweat pants covering his legs.
Finally was the last man, he was the best put together and probably oldest of all the men. As if to show off his age he had steely grey hair that was cut short and stuck up with some kind of gel or something similar. He wasn't as tall as Lanky, not nearly as wide as Heavy, wasn't as constructed as Burly, he had totally average measurements, maybe a bit above average height. But even if he wasn't the largest in this gang, he had a strange presence that made him seem much larger. His outfit was more refined than the other men. He was wearing a grey collared button up shirt that was tucked into his black dress pants, neither his shirt or pants had a single mark on them. His most striking attribute was the eyepatch over his right eye, it was well crafted and it had an odd purplish color made it look like it was made with some kind of exotic leather. It looked more expensive than all of the outfits of the other men combined. The grungy young man's guts where telling him that this man was someone to stay clear of.
The neat young man was behind the grungy young man. He was just watching the group of rough men, specifically he was keeping an eye on the old man with an eyepatch. But he wasn't completely still, the neat young man was doing several subtle stretches, like he was priming his joints and muscles for a fight.
The grungy young man took a breath in to calm himself, stuttering would probably make these guys bolder. The grungy young man acted first, trying to start a dialogue before any fists flew.
"Can any of you guys explain why I'm being dragged into this, you already got Richie- uh the rich guy. I'm just trying to get to work, can I leave?"
After he spoke up, all eyes turned to look at him, causing him to twitch his head slightly due to anxiety.
Every man had a different reaction to that question. The neat young man tilted his head at the grungy young man, not that grungy young man would be able to see that quiet question. The Weaselly man's head swiveled between members of his group, specifically the Lanky man, the Burly Man and the man with the eyepatch, he seemed to be looking for some sort of direction. The Heavy man's mouth rose into a small amused grin, as if he found the question humorous. Meanwhile the Lanky man let out a small breath and slightly shook his head back and forth, as if the question was stupid to ask at this moment. The Burly man looked at the grungy young man for about half a second, gave a small shrug and looked at the man with the eyepatch, seemingly waiting for him to answer.
The man with the eyepatch stared at the grungy young man for a moment, looked up and to the side, and subtly nodded his head a few times as if he agreed with the question asked. Then the man with the eyepatch spoke.
"Yeah young man that seems reasonable to ask. To answer your question, we're just doing some work, you seem like you would know what I mean."
His voice was deep and graveled, he didn't talk down to the grungy young man and seemed reasonable.
"Work, um yeah, I get it. But I'm guessing this is all about this-"
The grungy young man gestured to the neat young man behind him.
"-guy."
He knew the kind of work these kind of men did. But he also knew that they wouldn't send five guys after just him, it was overkill.
"I'm not related to this guy at all, and I'm not the kind of guy to keep expensive stuff on me, so can I g-"
"I understand that young man. And I would let you go under normal circumstances, but this ain't normal work."
The man with the eyepatch interrupted the grungy young man.
The grungy young man's breath got caught in his throat and his brow started to sweat.
"When we were asked to do this work, and all the details they told us was 'find the young man leaving the Silver Costa hotel and get him into a secluded location'. No identifying details, just 'young man'. And while I know you're not the kind of young man to be involved in this type of business, you fit the bill of a young man and I'm not willing to take any chances. I'm sorry for being a little cautious, I hope you can understand?"
"..."
Understand? He was completely stunned by the older mans shamelessness, he and his crew had just abducted him off the street and was asking him to be understanding!?
That's when his body start heat up and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
While the grungy young man was screaming his imaginary lungs out in his mind, the neat young man opened his mouth for the first time.
"We all know why we're here, I don't want to waste a lot of time on this." The neat young man said, with just a hint of exasperation. As if being jumped by a gang of five grown men was as inconvenient as waiting in a line at a store.
All of the thugs, even the tense Weaselly, scowled at the neat young man. Vexed that they were being belittled by their mark.
As if on queue, the man with the eyepatch clapped his gloved hands.
"Alright boys, to work."
The four men then lunged at the two young men, seamlessly splitting into duo's to rush both of the young men, as if they had rehearsed for this scenario. Heading for the neat young man was Burly and Weaselly, and for the grungy young man was Lanky and Heavy.
However due to the alley's cramped dimensions, the thugs could only approach the young men one at a time.
Burly reached his target first, once the neat young man was within striking range the burly man threw his left arm forward, not with a closed fist for a punch, instead with an open hand ready to grab onto the young man.
Instead of retreading back or raising his arms into a stance, he instead stepped to his right, avoiding the grab, and shot his right hand forward to catch the burly man's hand.
To just about every person, trained in self defense or not, this action is ridiculous. While the neat young man was tall and muscular, he was beyond dwarfed by the burly man, trying to beat the beefy titan in might was suicide. But the neat young man wasn't trying to overpower burly man.
As the neat young man stepped to the side, his hand moved like a flash and grabbed the wrist of the burly man's left hand. While the burly man was surprised by this odd maneuver, he tried to lunge forward toward the neat young man again, only to feel a blinding pain coming from his left wrist. This pain was caused by the neat young man of course, he had begun to curl his arm toward the ground, rotating his wrist, elbow and shoulder to gain leverage to force the burly man's arm to the ground. Even if the the burly man was physically stronger, he couldn't overcome the principle of leverage.
The technique the neat young man had used on the burly man was called a "Wrist Lock", using the leverage from your whole arm against your opponents wrist.
On the other side of the alley the Lanky man had already approached the grungy young man, Lanky brought his arms up into a stance and started to throw out some quick jabs at the grungy young man. While the grungy young man had never been properly taught any self defense or martial arts, his life in the Scutell Borough had pushed him around till he learned to push back harder.
The grungy didn't know the exact stance the lanky man was in but it looked like the stance he saw boxers in, and when the lanky man started throwing those fast jabs the grungy young man thought he was right on the money.
The grungy young man was outmatched in term of arm length, as soon as he tried close enough to connect his own strikes the lanky man had already thrown his own punch, almost hitting the young man and stopping his advance.
The grungy young man knew that trying to punch the lanky man was a losing bet, so he decided to mix up his approach. He bent his back forward to make it harder to hit his stomach, brought his arms up to his face to protect his head, and he dashed forward.
The grungy young man was rapidly charging the lanky man when the lanky man responded, launching a kick forward, trying push the grungy young man back and halt his advance. The grungy young man didn't stop for a second, he faced the kick head on and the kick landed on his left arm. Instead of being forced back or slowing down, the young man twisted his body to the left, letting the kick slide off his body as he continued to rush toward the lanky man.
"Ah! You ass!" The grungy young man barked out after being kicked.
The lanky man was now well within the young mans range and they both knew it. Lanky threw out hooks and uppercuts while taking steps back. Some landed and others missed, but the young man wasn't pushed back, he had one goal in mind. With a twist of his hips to push his right arm forward, the young man threw out his hand and latched onto the lanky mans shirt
Now the grungy young man had him in his grasp, he began repaying every hit he received from the lanky man. The lanky man began to life his arms to protect his head, but he had neglected to protect his stomach. And the young man made him pay dearly for that by sending a heavy hook to the mans unguarded liver.
"Gaaaahaaa!" A howl of pain escaped from the lanky man's throat.
Then came another hook, and another, each as forceful as the last. But the lanky man wasn't fully stunned, gritting his teeth through the pain he caught the young mans fist before he could launch anymore gut punches. The young man struggled to move his arm back, trying to get it away from the lanky mans grasp, both groaning from exertion and pain.
This was not a regal or clever fight. It was a crude and clumsy brawl.
The young man stopped pulling his arm back and instead reversed its motion to surge toward the lanky mans shoulder. Still dazed and in pain, the lanky man failed to react in time to stop the young man from getting a hold of his shoulder. Now that both of the young mans hands were holding onto the lanky man, he primed his body for his next move.
He twisted his right hip back, he extended and straighten his arms, and put all his weight on his left foot. With all that preparation done, he launched into action. All at the same time, he quickly curled his arms in, twisted his right hip forward and brought his right leg up. The young man's knee savagely struck the lanky mans stomach.
The lanky man only choked out a gasp, and his legs gave out from under him, causing him to fall and kneel on the ground.
The lanky man had let go of the young mans arm and was doubled over in pain, but the young man knew that leaving an opponent conscious while you were fighting multiple people was just asking to be taken off guard. So he clasped his hands together, raised his interlocked fists over his head, and ruthlessly brought it down on the lanky mans head.
With that strike the lanky man was down for the count, knocked unconscious. As a reward, the pinkie on the young man's right hand was pulsing with pain.
But he didn't have much time to languish over that act, as the heavy man was drawing closer to him.
"You little shit! That was too far!" Angrily yelled the heavy man.
The heavy man didn't apply any complex tactics or get in defensive stance, he just barreled toward the young man at full force, fully intending to just ram into him. The young man had no chance to evade the charging man, he didn't have enough room to maneuver around him. So he readied himself, first he crossed him arms together to from an upside down T in front of his chest and then he bent his legs.
Right before the heavy man was about to ram into the grungy young man, the young man unbent his legs to spring up into a jump. This jump wasn't high enough to bound over the heavy man, but that wasn't the young mans plan from the start. The heavy man's shoulder bashed into the young mans crossed arms, and due to the fact that the young man was airborne, most of the force of the resulting crash didn't injure the young man, instead it simply pushed the young man away.
"Hoooof." A groan was pushed out from the young man.
The young man had been launched farther than he had expected, and the bones in his arms where groaning in pain from blocking the massive man's charge. But he had to focus! The heavy man moving in once again, but this time he wasn't wildly charging in, instead he had taken up a stance as he approached. The heavy man entered a low stance, bending at the waist and his knees and putting his arms forward. While the young man wasn't completely sure, it reminded him of the stance that he saw wrestlers take, so he could guess that the heavy man wanted to grapple him to the ground and beat him blue and black and bloody, but the young man wasn't just gonna let that happen.
The heavy man wasn't moving in right away, so the young man made the first strike. He stepped forward and threw out a punch at the heavy man's face. The heavy man couldn't react to the punch quick enough so he couldn't fully jerk his head out of the way of the punch and was socked right on his cheek.
The young man threw fist after fist at the heavy man, little finesse could be found in the punches but that didn't lessen the power behind each one. The heavy man brought his arms up to shield his face from the flurry of blows.
Punch after punch, the young man's knuckles hurt more and more. His knuckles started to bleed, the skin on his fists had split open at some point. The heavy man's arms were splattered with the young man's blood, each strike leaving a fresh stamp. The smell of iron was getting stronger.
<... It hurts. This hurts… why am I doing this?> The young man groggily wondered in his mind.
He knew why he was doing this. He knew fighting hurt, getting hit, hitting another person, it all hurt. He didn't know if he would have been in less pain if he didn't fight back, if he just surrendered and gave up, but that didn't matter. He wouldn't just lie down and give up. He wouldn't forsake himself to run from pain. He fought back to protect himself, and his fragile 'self'.
The young man at this point was just throwing punches on reflex, not giving much thought to each movement, only thinking of putting the heavy man down. His breath were getting ragged, his legs strained to keep himself upright and his punches were getting slower. This was what the heavy man was aiming for.
The young man threw another punch, but he was so drained that he failed to retract his left arm back. That's when the heavy man moved one of the arms that were protecting his face, and hurled his hand out to grab the young man's left arm.
"Now I gotcha, you punk!" Bellowed the heavy man as he strengthened his grasp.
Shaken out of his trance like stupor, the young man realized that he was in a dangerous situation. Being brought to the ground by the heavy man would be the end of this fight, so he had to do everything he could to keep that from happening.
But the heavy man tried to reel in the young man in by pulling his arm right after he spoke. The young man tried to plant his left leg onto the ground to keep himself from being thrown around. However he was nearly immediately pulled forward against his best efforts. Now he was up close and personal with the heavy man, and up close he was daunting, the young man wasn't sure if he had much of a chance, but he well beyond throwing in the towel. So the young man decided to bet it all on one last Hail Mary.
No one else heard it from all the fighting, but the man with the eyepatch's Centipede bracelet began buzzing. The man with the eyepatch checked who was calling him, and when he saw the caller ID he answered right away.
"Hello sir, I've already started the operation and things ar- oh I'm sorry, you first." After a short sentence he went silent and simply listened to the person on the other side.
As the young man was being heaved toward the heavy man, the young man brought his free right hand low, bringing it as far back and as low as he could get it. The heavy man had raised his other hand and used it to get a hold of the young man's scalp. It was now all or nothing for the young man.
That's when the young man used all the strength he could muster to bring his right fist skyward as fast as he could, adding whatever forward momentum was left over from being pulled in to the punch.
The uppercut flew toward the heavy man's chin and struck true. The heavy man's chin shot upward from all the force, his vision going fuzzy and stars appeared in the corners of his sight. Yet the heavy man still had the young man in his grasp and wouldn't let go. So the young man concluded that he needed to deliver one more strike, at least one more hit, to say he never gave up.
"... Yes sir, understood. I'll wrap things up on my end." The man with the eyepatch spoke again to the person over the call, and promptly ended the call.
And the young man saw a perfect opportunity. The heavy man's head didn't shoot straight up, instead it was thrown back at an angle, and due to that his left temple pointing straight up. The young man raised his right hand, brought it above the heavy man's head, and brought it down into a hammer fist.
Had the young man been more focused, taken more time to examine the heavy man, then he wouldn't have made a mistake. But he didn't, he was hasty and didn't think his plan through.
As he brought his fist down, the heavy man returned his head to it's proper angle, unintentionally changing the part of the skull that was in the path of the fist. Instead striking the temple, the hammer fist landed directly on the middle of the heavy man's forehead.
"AAAAAA!"
His right hand was in agony, it felt like his pinky was on fire. His mind was on fire. That fire caused him to let reason go and just go wild. He stopped caring, he just wanted to beat and break everyone in this alley.
Even though the heavy man seemed to be going limp, the young man didn't care, he just wanted to hurt him more. He deserved it, he was the thug.
"Alright I think we've done enough work." The man with the eyepatch said while passing by the grungy young man.
The grungy young man didn't even know what the man with the eyepatch was saying. Before he could even turn his attention, the man with the eyepatch struck the young man's temple with his elbow.
The grungy young man was knocked unconscious just like that.
_________________
That's everything the grungy young man could remember. He had no idea what happened to the neat young man or where the group of men went. But it felt like he was only out for a minute or so, meaning the neat young man was roughed up and the men left the alley in less than a minute. It seems like the men had to leave quickly, leaving the two young men alone in the dingy alley.
The young men glanced at each other. Both were scrutinizing each other for the first time. It seemed like each of them were wary of each other after what just happened.
The grungy young man knew how this looked, the neat young man was followed (by accident) by another young man after leaving his hotel, and was then cornered into an alley way and jumped by several thugs. Even if the other young man was also assaulted, it could be a ploy to get the neat young man to lower his guard.
Honestly, at this point the grungy young man didn't know if he was making any sense or if he was slipping into a nervous spiral after this whole unlucky affair.
So the grungy young man blathered out.
"Hey man I swear I'm not a part of thi-"
"I know you're not a part of this, don't worry. I have a good idea who pulled the strings behind this, and while they would have someone tail me, they wouldn't have set up something like this to trick me." The neat young man interrupted.
That's when the neat young man took a quick glance up, as if struck by a sudden thought.
"At least they would have directed it better…"
… It seemed like the neat young man didn't suspect the grungy young man of having any had in this.
"Haaa…"
That caused the grungy young man to let out a sigh of relief.
"Thanks, this has been shitty enough, being blamed for all this would make it sooo much beeetter."
The grungy young man said with puuure sincerity.
"Really? Well then I do think you were in on it then. There do you feel better?" The neat young man said while wearing a small smirk
"Huh?"
The grungy young man was slightly startled by what the neat young man had said, but he quickly noticed the neat young man's smirk.
"Yeah yeah, ha ha funny joke… But thanks for not pinning the blame in me."
"Still, what was those guys deal? How do you know they were hired or who hired them?"
While the grungy young mas was asking that question, the neat young man started to riffle through his pockets. After a few seconds he starting taking out a some items that the grungy young man couldn't identify.
There was a few small metal flasks tied together by a purple string and a black molded-chitin box. From the row of flasks the neat young man untied two of them, then from chitin box he picked up two small things that looked like pills. He put one flask and one pill in each of his hands and extended one hands down to the grungy young man.
The grungy young man quizzically looked up at the neat young man's hand, not sure what the neat young man was doing.
"Just take what's in my hand, it's a medica for your bruises. And I'm sure your head is still reeling, so this tonic should help with that."
The grungy young man looked back and forth between the neat young man's outstretched fist and his face. He was hesitant to take any charity from wealthy, most the time they would then demand something absurd in return for their 'act of selfless kindness'.
But the grungy young man didn't see that 'kind' facade on the neat young man's face, the neat young man's face was almost blank.
"Sure."
The grungy young man decided to trust the neat young man, and extended his open palm below the neat young mans closed hand. The neat young man dropped the flask and pill in his hands into the grungy young mans palm.
"So you have to take these in a specific way. Put the medica pill on your tongue, then drink the tonic and let it soak into the pill for a moment, then swallow. You get that?" The neat young man explained.
"Umm… yeah, got it." The grungy young man didn't fully understand why taking some medicine was so complicated, but it would be smarter to follow his directions.
The neat young man went through the process he just explained, he popped the pill into his mouth, poured the tonic into his mouth, waited for a moment, and swallowed.
The grungy young man carefully watched the neat young mans every action. He knew that there was almost no chance that neat young man had given him anything toxic, but he was still apprehensive about taking some mysterious medicine.
But the young man decided that there wasn't much to lose so he followed the neat young mans instructions and took the pill and tonic.
In just a few moments he felt a change flow over his body. His aching joints started to calm down and the leftover pain radiating from the blows he took lessened. The best change was that his head stopped ringing and the little light in the alley stopped stabbing at his eyes.
"Did that help?" Asked the neat young man.
"Hmm? Fuck yeah that helped, best part is that it didn't taste like shit like the vending machine potions." answered the grungy young man.
"Vending machine potions? That can't be good for you."
"I mean yeah they taste like piss but the worst side effect is only kidney failure." The grungy young man stated with a smile, as if that was a positive.
"That's… I'm just gonna stop asking. Here." The neat young man put his face in his hands from exasperation for a moment, seemingly baffled by the grungy young man. Then reaching his hands out to the grungy young man.
"Thanks." The grungy young man said as he took the neat young mans hand.
"No problem, this is my mess you got caught up in. By the way, my name is Savidstan. Yours?"
The neat young man, Savidstan, pulled the grungy young man to his feet. The grungy young man teetered to the side for a second before regaining his balance. Now facing Savidstan, he said.
"My names Zolsho."