The Pale Prince

Indigo Twilight

The humid Tokyo breeze brushed through Fortress's dark fingers as he looked over the cityscape. The sun was setting in the horizon, colouring the sky with blues and pinks, the indigo splotches forming a beautiful, almost thought out mess of colour and emotion within the skyline. The Rainbow Bridge within Japan had begun to flicker on, the Solar Energy being collected during the day finally being put to use in powering the light effect. Fortress smiled, narrowing his eyes and looking towards the bridge - his superhuman feats of vision almost forcing him to forget that he still stood at the wrong end of the city.

Sighing and taking in the beauty of the city, the young man found himself almost having trouble believing that he had been here 70 years prior to end the most costly war that man had ever known. Looking upon the modern architecture - primarily of Japanese design, though there was a large quantity of buildings that seemed to share the huge marble white designs that buildings in other states of the US Tri-State utilised; there was even a few buildings that shared Russian Architecture, looking like they had been pulled from Leningrad or Moscow.

Listening careful, Fortress slowly turned behind him as he observed a black and blue car pull up behind him, the hero raising his left hand in greeting. The door upon the right side of the car popped open and a tall, thin-yet-sinewy man walked out, standing at full mast and smiling warmly towards Fortress before spinning around and slamming the car door - leather trench-coat bustling in the winds.

"Konbanwa, Mr Fortress." The man spoke, his accent giving away his multi-cultured background of both the State of Japan and another State in the US, being part of the Japanese baby-bomb in response to the country's economic and liberal growth when incorporated with the rest of the United States.

"Good Evening, Detective Felphs." Fortress nodded towards the man, smiling at him. Watching the Detective pull out a cigarette from his pocket and light it, the man cringed to himself. "You know, those things do bad stuff to you." The foreigner paused for a second, continuing to pace back and forth. "Like, you know - kill you."

"Yeah, I know." Felphs took a drag from the tube of tobacco, puffing outwards and releasing the built up smoke effortlessly, breathing through his teeth as the warm air sent the grey air drifting away with the clouds. "I wouldn't smoke them if I didn't." Taking another long drag, the Detective flicked at the cigarette with an amused expression, watching as the lit tobacco flared up and burned bright and orange, flecks of the burning material floating slowly towards the floor before being engulfed in the tufts of grass that sat upon the hill - the green layered over with the cherry blossom of Spring just gone. "Plus, I'm pretty sure that I'll be fine, I've been smoking these things for 10 years and I'm still here."

"You know, I could have a look for you if you'd like." Fortress paused, pursing his lips as he looked towards the Detective.

"No," Felphs muttered, shaking his head in refusal and taking another inhale of the cigarette before putting his hands to his sides, resting against the car as he looked out upon the scenery that had only just beguiled 'The Invincible Man'. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" The man spoke, taking one last inhale of his cigarette before flicking it out towards the grass and stomping it with his boot like a man to an ant, grimacing at the burned, smoky taste that he found himself so very much addicted to. "How even someone as powerful as you can still find time to marvel at the world."

"I'm pretty sure I do enough marvelling Sir." The Detroiter laughed. "Still, there's nothing as breath-taking as the Tokyo Skyline."

"Oh I'm pretty sure the other States have a lot of sights to offer." The Detective chuckled in unison, running his fingers across his dusty car door before frowning and picking a lone baby-pink cherry-blossom out of the windscreen wipers upon his cruiser, the brightly coloured petal contrasting against the black and blue colouration typical of the TPD.