Prototype : A New Start

Interlude

Mercer stretched his shoulder after dealing with some ruffians who thought they had a lucky break when they cornered him on a random corner. Of course, a switchblade hardly scared the virus, he was almost tempted into morphing his armblade to compare the size they are packing.

Almost.

A few bruises was more than enough to teach them a lesson. He knows that criminality on Detroit is the highest amongst all other cities on the state- Maybe even the country. But curiousity got him, the predator left his territory to wander around in hope to see just how long it would take for him to get mugged in Downtown Detroit.

He was not disappointed.

Damian returned home with a lot of books that he was not even sure if he really borrowed them from the Public Library or just outright stole them. It covered a lot of subjects, but it seems to be those for high schools.

He asked the blonde evolved whether he had made up his mind. Apollo simply passed the Olympus High brochure with a tendril to Alex as both of his hands are technicslly full. While he looked at this particular school paper, the blonde has retreated into his own room at the second floor.

"Did you really picked this school just because of the name?" He shouted upstairs, no response. The bioweapon sighed, cursing under his breath as he folds the paper and pockets it deep inside his jacket's pocket. He'll definitely have to look at this one later.

On a more serious note, Detroit might not be the best place to live at. The amount of homicides occuring in the city is so ridiculous that you need to combine multiple cities murder rate just to be on par. He would've called it humanity's flaw, but Damian would smother him to death with those cartoon girl pillows he saw online.

Yeah, fuck. He would actually do that, wouldn't he?

Putting aside his housemate's antics, Mercer did his own personal digging about Detroit's decline in noon, surfing through the internet... What he found was pretty surprisingly disgusting.

"The problem is the lack of vision..." Damian thought outloud in his room, laying down on a hammock he made out of biomass, multiple opened books were held up by tendrils while printed papers about the city's past were simply glued into the ceiling of his room with biomass. There were eyes on his tendrils, he was so bored of reading them one by one he decided to simply read them all at the same time.

Detroit thrived through its limited industries, but expected that it's economic boom would last forever. It was also torn by racial conflict. Once reality settled in, people just left. Detroit became a shadow of its former self as attempts to revive the city leads to nowhere. Those who stayed had a much harder time trying to make a living out of the city compared to those in the countryside. Violence and corruption is rampant. A failing school system with only a quarter of high schoolers graduations... and almost half of the population is unemployed.

Unemployment created poverty, poverty created crime, and crime led to... well, problems. The blonde huffed, finding how difficult it is to learn about the city's history he printed off articles and wikipedia while checking the subjects that he would possibly be facing in class.

Thanks, Gentek Scientists that he consumed, your involuntary, valuable help is surely appreciated!

Anyway, back to the point... Detroit is a shithole. An agreement that both evolved made unanimously despite never talking about it from the first place

Damian drops down all the book unceremonously to the floor while the other evolved- Mercer, finds himself falling off the Renaissance Tower just like the former did days ago. Mentally doing the whole 'Yep, that's me, you're problably wondering how I got here' thing.