A red neon sign advertising toiletries lit up the dark Stem City streets. Large warehouses and factories had litter crammed around their doors. Glow-in-the-dark graffiti's light leaked out from alleyways as two women walked down the street.
"This place gives me the heeby-jeebies," Fencien whispered as her eyes nervously darted around.
Clara looked over at the pink-haired Stem Ram with an apathetic stare. Fencien stared back, giving a little smile in return.
An empty soft drink can was smashed under Clara's boot as the duo turned around a street corner. The southwest side of Stem City was sketchy; she didn't deny that. Her rabbit ears twitched as booming music echoed out from somewhere a few streets down. She was decently sure it was a Gwino song, but it was practically impossible to make out its details—not like she'd want to make out the details of that garbage anyway.
"You were the one who agreed to come. If you're scared, you're free to run back home."
Fencien pouted. "That's true," she sighed before going on, "I just didn't think our date today was going to be drug-running."
The rabbit woman rolled her eyes, the laggy digital visor on her face hiding the quick movement. A day a week, Fencien decided to drag her around the noble neighborhood, but now that Clara invites her out to do something, it's suddenly a problem.
"You know, I have jobs to do because I don't get paid by the state, unlike somebody else here," Clara replied curtly.
All Fencien could do was laugh nervously. She knew Clara was right. "I mean, Blema adores you; I'm sure she'd give you a job."
Clara shot her a nasty look, "No."
She tightened the grip on her parcel of Felgoods as Fencien shamefully shrunk in on herself. She couldn't grasp how brainless Fencien could be at times. Yes, let's ask Clara to work for the sadistic whore of a dictator who decided disemboweling her family was an amazing political strategy! Sometimes, Clara wished she could just magically let go of the guilt that caused her to humor Blema's lapdog and tell her to buzz off.
A loose unsigned job application blew across the street in an odd wind. The duo turned another corner on their way to the delivery location. A beaked off-worlder with hooked fingers banged on a tipped-over vending machine. The crouched-down man mumbled obscenities to himself as he tapped the glitchy electronic display.
The two stopped and silently watched for a second as he struggled. Unable to watch the homeless man struggle any further, Fencien clicked the Markcard from her belt and stepped forward. Clara opened her mouth to protest, but it was far too late.
"Do you need help, sir?" The Stem Ram asked, craning her head and giving a warm smile.
The alien's dilated eyes snapped upward and onto the two women. Telltale blue spots of hallupills appeared in his eyes as the light of the machine's display hit them. A nervous feeling crawled up Clara's spine. She tried to hide the parcel of drugs behind her back. For a few seconds, all they heard was the buzzing of the street's neon signs and their breathing.
"Y-Yes," He suddenly shook his head up and down. "I'd like..." The rugged voice's hooked finger pointed towards Clara. "I'd like those, please."
"Sorry, they're already paid for." Clara lowered her voice, gripping the handle of the blade on her belt, "You're always free to place an order, though. Under the Tower isn't picky about its customers."
Fencien retreated backwards and retook her place behind Clara. She wished Clara hadn't been in such a rush to get the order done; otherwise, she would've run home and gotten her fencing blade for potential scenarios like these.
There was a long silence. Clara didn't like to fight. She preferred to stay out of the limelight, only doing what was needed to survive. However, if push came to shove...
The high-off-worlder backed down. "I'll... do that." He stood up slowly and paced backwards down the street without another word, disappearing behind the first alleyway.
"Shit," Clara whispered to herself. Her shoulders relaxed, but her heart kept pounding against her chest. She shot another nasty glare Fencien's way. "Can you try not to get us stabbed?"
The Stem Ram hooked her card back onto her belt and let out an exasperated sighed, "Well, I'm sorry, but..." She tried to come up with some excuse to save face: "He looked hungry!"
"He obviously looked high." The cynical rabbit wasted no time in picking up the pace right where they left off. As they passed by it, she kept a tight eye on the alleyway that the stranger slipped down. After holding various positions as a peacekeeper for over a decade, Clara found it perplexing that Fencien's ability to understand social cues still left quite a lot to be desired.
Clara reasons with herself that she was hired by Blema because of her swordsmanship and not her critical thinking skills. That sounds typical of the regime.
As they walked, the southwestern street's skylines opened up. Off in the distance, the hanging, fully powered signs of the noble neighborhood offered an assortment of cheap jobs. Clara wondered to herself how many off-worlders even had good enough eyesight to see that far, and out of the ones who called the factory sector streets home, who would fall for such obvious bait?
Hitting a fork in the road, a poorly configured blue sign for some sort of sweatshop illuminated the street corner. Not exactly recognizing this part of town, Clara took the sheet of crumpled paper out of her belt pocket and examined the map. She loved Teis dearly, but good lord, did her boss' handwriting need some work.
"We take a left here, then there should be an alleyway on the other side of the road," Fencien said, peering over Clara's shoulder.
Squinting to block out the bright humming light from her eyes, she apparently couldn't see what her acquaintance was seeing. After a few more moments of trying to comprehend the instructions, the rabbit simply submitted to her fate: "I'll trust you. Lead the way."
With a skip in her step, Fencien took the lead. She trotted down the dark southwestern sector's roads with reckless abandon. Clara's eyes shifted up and down the empty street. Considering it was obvious that Fencien didn't care about their safety, it was her responsibility to keep them safe from the gang's rats.
As they got further and further into the slums' streets, she could practically feel the smog trying to pull the last bits of remaining optimism out of her chest. It was awful.
Fencien stopped in front of a thin alleyway. Green and blue graffiti on either wall tried to communicate something, but to the two outsiders, it was nothing but utter jibberish. Holding the parcel close to her stomach, Clara and her comrade ventured ahead as cautiously as they could.
"You been here before?"
"No."
Their boots caused the metal staircase at the end of the alleyway to rattle around. From the warehouse beside them, there were muffled voices and a vague rhythm leaking through the heavy-duty walls.
Arriving at the fire escape door, the ram looked back to the rabbit and asked, "Do we just leave that here, or...?"
Clara shrugged. Double-checking Teis' instructions, she confirmed, "Need to find and hand it off to some guy named Whisk."
Fencien let out an annoyed sigh. She wanted to go eat at a nice diner today, but Clara brought a fair point to her mind before. It was always her bringing Clara places, and the one time that Clara invited her out, she shouldn't throw a fit. She wanted Clara to like her, and she was throwing a fit like that. Well, it would ruin all the good will she's been working hard to build.
Fencien gritted her teeth together and nodded. "Let's make it quick."
The Stem Ram opened the door. Its dull creak was lost in the sea of sound inside. The two stepped foot inside the large warehouse and gazed across a sea of countless off-worlders. Tents and sleeping bags were scattered everywhere across the metal floor as a dozen different conversations took place. Burnt Felgoods and empty hallupill packages were mixed in with mounds of trash. Flickering neon signs with nonsense scrawled on them hung from the warehouse's walls.
The visual stimulation was overwhelming, but the smell was far worse. It was atrocious. Both Clara and Fencien held back vomit as the stench hit them.
A few alien eyes flicked upon the two but quickly focused back on what they're doing. A loud boombox served to barely muddle a small crowd's cheering in the center of the warehouse: "Whisk, Whisk, Whisk, Whisk!"
Clara and Fencien exchanged shocked glances as the door slid shut behind them. It wasn't uncommon for Clara to deliver packages to places like these, little coves of homeless off-worlders living together in abandoned structures, but this is the largest she has ever seen. The natural desire to survive at any cost, mixed with the lack of purposelessness here... It twisted her stomach. It reminded her of herself.
Fencien had never stumbled upon any of the small, homeless towns scattered around the darker alleyways. This was the darkest depth of the city that she fought for.
Bracing herself, Clara grabbed Fencien's wrist and dragged her forward. "Don't make eye contact; we don't want trouble," The rabbit whispered to the ram.
Feeling Clara's grasp would have had Fencien's heart fluttering any other time; unfortunately, they were stepping over empty bottles of rum and hardened feces. The stench was making her head spin around from how unbearable it was.
Shuffling into an empty spot in the lively center crowd, Clara and Fencien peered down at what they were staring at. The denizens had dug a hole straight down into the sewer system below and somehow managed to trap a blue Stem Slime down there. The two exits of the tunnel were boarded up by welded-together iron bars. The flowing sewage served to constantly dissolve the beast's feminine legs as it tried to claw its way up the steep sides.
A buff human, presumably the Whisk that the crowd was cheering on, screamed madly as he beat the slime with a rusty metal pipe. The slime shrieked as it was hit again and again. It coughed and wheezed. Clara had hunted these things in the wild as a child; if it wasn't for the liquid causing it to be in a constant state of regeneration, it would whip around and bite his head clean off.
This treatment was barbaric, but after seeing what they were capable of, Clara couldn't exactly give the homeless men flack for getting their rocks off on the power trip.
The beast stopped struggling, running out of nutrients to keep fighting on. Whisk let out an ear piercing war cry as he stabbed its head with the sharpened end of his brutalist weapon. A wet slap rang out as its gelatin flesh splattered everywhere.
"Sheesh," Clara said, "Barbaric."
"How did they even get that poor thing in here?" Fencien asked.
She was a noble woman, and all that they taught them in Shroom's Academy was that those creatures were two things: vicious pack hunters and incredibly illegal to smuggle into the city. It surely wasn't an easy task to get it here.
A towering reptilian alien looked down at Clara with its three eyes. Its trio of eyes then surveyed her parcel. "You here with the grass?"
Clara stared up at him. "Grass?"
"Felgoods."
Oh, that's what he meant. "Straight from Under the Tower."
The off-worlder looked down the hole and hollored down, "Yo, Whisk! Your stuff is here!"
With a crooked smile, Whisks met Clara's eyes and shouted, "Ahh, Red Rabbit! There you are!"
Clara's back stiffened. Her tail curled. She loathed the fact that she was still called that after all these years.
"Here's your junk." She groaned. With a stiff underhand toss, she tossed the loose parcel down the hole.
He grabbed it with both hands and exclaimed, "Thank you! Tell Teis that I owe her for delivering all the way out here!"
"Will do," she lied, knowing full well she wasn't going to tell Teis that. She'd rather break a leg than get sent back out here and stumble around the smoke-infested southwest for another hour.
"Why don't you stay for a bit? This lass here," Whisks kicked the downed Stem Slime, "Should be up and running after we feed her these!"
Both of the drugrunner's faces contorted. "Uhm, you feed it those?" Fencien asked.
"Yeah, the grass that Felgoods are made out of is rich in protein! We should have her up and ready for a few more rounds within five minutes!"
"No, thank you. Teis is giving us loads of work this week," Clara excused them.
Whisk laughed as he began unwrapping the parcel. "Like a mule, right? Ha! Another time, then!"
Certainly not.
Clara and Fencien pulled back from the crowd and made a beeline back to the entrance. The compressed pop music reverberated around the warehouse's walls.
"This place is..." Fencien whispered to Clara as they shuffled around a sleeping off-worlder, "A lot."
"Normally, I don't deliver out here. That Whisks guy must've paid a lot of Marks to get Teis to send me out to this dump," Clara complained.
A small pod of off-worlders that overheard the two's conversation gave them a handful of shifty eyes. Catching their gazes out of the corner of her own, the anxious Fencien conjoined her hip closer to Clara's. The last thing she wanted was for these people to find out she was a Lawman Enforcer and decide that today was the day that they were going to knock down Stem Tower a peg.
She desperately regretted not bringing her blade when she left home this morning.
The moment that the warehouse's sidedoor was closed, the nigh-silent city streets greeted them again. Clara coughed in an attempt to get the smell of execrement out of her system, but it wasn't working.
"How many of these places are there?" Fencien asked nervously.
"There's little settlements where they congregate, but this is my first time seeing a whole warehouse full of them," she replied, "It reminds me of Gillsway."
"Yeah, but Gillsway has, I don't know, the bare minimum hygenic standards? That place had none."
They stepped foot out onto the open streets of Stem City again. A half-operational sign across the street flashed various advertisements that none of the locals could ever hope to afford.
"I traveled to and from Gillsway for a long time, girl. There are no standards in that dump. The only reason it isn't a complete cesspool is 'cause some of the folk there were born to eat nothing but others' excrement for a living."
Fencien stuck out her tongue in disgust. She didn't want to think about poop for the rest of the day.
The ground started to rumble. Clara stopped first, staring down at the ground.
"You feel that?"
Fencien stopped and waited for a moment before the sensation of shaking crept up her legs. "I do. What is it?"
The shaking came from a violent explosion that threw the two women straight to the concrete floor of the city. Metal shrapnel flew throughout the street around them, landing atop adjacent buildings. Stumbling up and turning around, the two watched as the locked door of the warehouse they were just inside had blown open. A sheet of fire rolled out from the melted doorway. A cacophany of blood-curdling shrieks and distorted pop music rang out.
The charred body of Whisk was thrown out of the blown-open hole.
Pure horror ran up the two girls's spinal cords.
Out of the forcefully opened entrance came a hulking beast. Metallic components stuck out of the massive Stem Slime's body. The face that normally replicated that of a Stem Ram's was replaced by a single iris. Out from under it, the weakened Stem Slime that the hidden-away settlement had been abusing walked out.
Their eyes met. Claws sharpened, and the smaller beast screeched.
"Run!" Clara screamed as she grabbed Fencien's hand, pulling her the opposite way down the street.
The two pairs of frantic, fleeing footsteps echoed around the empty streets. Darting past shady passages and glowing signs, Clara ran.
It brought back memories of the event that led her to this wretched city in the first place. The world became muddled around her as her ability to keep calm slipped through the cracks. Her boots dug against the unpaved city street as hard as they could. Her heart pounded so hard in her ears that her own thoughts were drowned out by its intensity.
The day that the monsterous green slime ripped out her father's spine was one that she never wanted to remember. It was buried deep down in the recesses of her psyche.
Clara's foot caught on an uneven bit of road. They tripped.
Her and Fencien stumbled onto the cold city ground. Her ribs threatened to crack as all the air shot out of her. The skin on her wrist had been burned off from the impact. The world spun nonsensically around Clara as she tried to get a grasp on what was present and what was past.
"Back off!"
Clara looked up to see that Fencien had already stood back up. Fencien wheezed as her labored breath and racing heart tried to calm down. Holding the rabbit's yellow-tinted blade, the ram held a defensive position above her.
Sweat rolled down Fencien's skin. Her single remaining lung felt like it was about to pop.
Down the street, the smaller Stem Slime stood its ground. It hissed and snarled as it hunched its back.
Despite what others thought of her, Fencien wasn't stupid. She knew that these things were dangerous, but this one was weak and didn't have a pack.
An eerie yellow glow of a street sign illuminated them both. The tension in the air could be set ablaze by any sporadic spark.
Without even looking down at her, Fencien ordered Clara, "My radio is on the back of my belt. Flick the red switch on its side."
Fencien's tone was uncharacteristically serious, and her face was focused. If Clara's heart wasn't trying to suffocate her, she would've been impressed. Reaching up, her body shaking as adrenaline pumped through it, the rabbit did as she was told.
The larger Stem Slime turned the corner to find the standoff. Fencien's confident stare faulted for only a moment. She was tough, but that thing was far larger than her. All she had was the hope that she deterred them from approaching. A chilly breeze blew through Stem City's furthest alleyways as the titan approached and stood side-by-side its junior. However, it took no further steps forward.
Clara managed to stagger her way to her feet. The radio's antenna was emitting a pulsing red light.
Help was on its way.
Out of the four, the only one pacing impatiently was the small Stem Slime. It growled as it awaited for its companion to give the go ahead. However, instead of receiving the signal to attack...
"RADIO SIGNALS HAVE BEEN DETECTED. YOU HAVE CALLED FOR BACK-UP?" The robotic beast spoke. The metal orbs poking out of its otherwise blank face glowed.
"Yes," Fencien said, tightening the grip on Clara's blade. She replied, "I'd suggest running while you still can, beast."
There were a few moments of silence.
"I UNDERSTAND."
The giant cyborg slime raised up a balled fist. It positioned it above the smaller one, and with no hesitation, its hand was pulled downwards violently.
Fencien and Clara flinched as the smaller slime splattered across the city street. It was dead.