Black-Market Taboo

chapter ii

-------- Chapter Two

     Will's POV 

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     "Eh! William, my boy!"

     I whipped around infuriatedly after looping my bag around my two shoulders and sent a hopefully terrifying glare towards the large, burly man dressed in armor standing at the doorway entrance with heavily armed weapons. An unusually abundant amount of weapons. . Ignoring it, I reverted my attention. "What, dad?" I groaned. In great reluctance, I kicked my foot off the balcony ledge again and reentered the room instead of visiting the outskirts of Slayor.

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     I lived in the infamous Slayor sector, where Queen Aramilla; our supposed ruler had been residing for the past thirty or so years, I believe. In fact, I lived with her- as in in her home. I literally lived within one staircase away from the Queen, whose reign had yet to end.

     See, my father was a Chronxia Realm militia leader (a quite strong one) and because of his 'remarkable strength' as Aramilla liked to call it, he just happened to be assigned as one of the infuriatingly protective guards of the Queen's palace where we eventually (after two days of his assignment distribution) moved into thanks to Aramilla's rare respect.

      And there I was, sneaking out of my room as I did every night with intentions of exploring, and possibly evading this sick rule. However, as always, my dad just had to interrupt me.

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     "We've got'a problem down in the Abryss Sector, you lookin' forward to coming, yeah? Luther must be comin' down, his father be workin' wid me now!" My dad exclaimed in his annoying brogue, frantically waving his leather-covered gun around. His armor jingled every step he took, at every word he said, at every single movement down to the blink of his eye. I never really understood how he was able to sneak up on someone with that noisy toy constantly on him.

     "No thanks," I murmured, pinching my palm. I had better things to do than watch an eighth of the guards take down some simple conflict that would do me nor Luther any good. "I'd rather-"

     "Ah, come on, boy! It'll be fun! You get'a watch ya dad do some'n fun for a change. C'mon now, it's urgent!"

     My eyes perfunctorily rolled at the mention of this particular conflict being 'urgent'. "All right. What's so urgent about this peculiar situation? Innit just another one of your take down missions where you stop a robbery, or something?"

     "No, boy. It different! I be taking down some'n way larger! A black market. . Run by some teenagers," he finished off, clicking his belt into place. His head flicked up to look at me. "Now, you comin' or not?"

     A black market run by some stupid teenagers? No thanks, it wouldn't have taken more than two soldiers to ruin their plans of market; so if I went, it'd probably be boring anyway. Sighing, I let a word escape my lips as I lifted myself back onto the ledge. "Not," I said bluntly and there was no more to that conversation, other than the small, upset goodbye of my father's and the sound of the rest of the guards filing out of the manor.

     After they'd all left in the airship, I hitched my foot below one another, brick after brick, metal bar after bar until my feet felt the warm, heated asphalt. Looking around, I found the streets of Chir (the street that the Queen's manor occupied) crowded with people walking slowly and courteously just as every other day on Chir and overall, throughout Slayor streets. 

     Women dragged their outfit ensembles behind them, constantly adjusting their corsets or shadowing their face with masculine top hats or berets. The men, as usual, were dressed in suits or engineer uniform, dragging loads of material crates behind them or driving miniature steam engine carriages. And that was the norm around Slayor, except tonight, the majority of the bridges were being shut off. As in completely unusable.