"Being thrown into a completely unfamiliar place is my life. Wake up, don't recognize the surroundings, dick around until we get somewhere, and then dick around in that somewhere. It's a routine, within a set world.
"If the set world changes, however, the routine must change with it. For example, world number one, the homeworld, is a world covered in maddening Fog that makes humans go crazy at high density, or mutate in various ways at lower density. The aforementioned routine makes sense here: there are few places to go and it takes a long time to go between them.
"In world with no Fog, with good visibility and ample life, things work out differently. I've been to towns before, even a city built over a mountain, but I was prepared for those. I saw them coming, knew the basic social hierarchy, and approached on my own terms.
"Here, I'm pretty sure I'm at a mutant shanty, except instead of the almost animal-like...well, dumbness the mutants have to them, everyone looked at me as if I was food, as if considering if they should kill me, staring with bloodthirsty intelligence and consideration.
"Unfamiliar ground exists to be tread upon, however, and I walk in this new, water-level city with my eyes open and head held high."
I looked down at the mutant underneath my boot, a five-foot being somewhat reminiscent of a jackal in its face, laughter and smell. Its skin was a nasty orange, and hair seemed to be growing in patches throughout his little, oddly built body. The final notable point was a crease-filled face and a huge nose, also comically so.
"So, how's that sound?" I asked him expectantly, holding a notebook and a pen.
"Good, good!" He nervously said, somewhat out of breath. Little critter tried jumping me when I got out of the wagon to look around, and was paying for it.
"Now be honest," I said, putting my entire weight on my foot for a moment. He squealed loudly in pain and flailed a bit, but couldn't move.
"Mutants! We're not mutants!" He shouted frantically, and I hummed in approval, something he took as a signal to keep going. "We're Supernatural creatures! I'm a goblin! The big guy who just walked there was an ogre!"
He pointed to the exit of the alley, where a huge being walked across the entrance.
"An ogre?"
"Or ogre-blooded, it doesn't matter! We're the non-humans, the abnormal, the rejects!" He squealed before bending his head a little too far for comfort to look at me. "Like you, stranger."
I instantly snapped my notebook shut and hardened my gaze.
"I reckon you should watch your words."
"I can smell it now, you're not human, not real human," he said almost calmly, any notion of pain gone from his face. "I won't attack again, not one of ours, not a neighbor."
The supernatural, goblins, ogres... I'd read some books about them before. Mostly fiction, but it seems there was truth even in fiction. Non-human critters, not changed by fog or anything, walking the world performing pranks and living under bridges or in closets, or whichever the type preferred.
Basically, they were hooligans.
"I ain't one of yours, and I ain't your neighbor," I growled.
"Not yet," he said before laughing. "But you will, because you "ain't" one of theirs either."
I didn't wait. I took my leg off of him, and with all the strength living in the Fog gave me I kicked him right in the head. There was a snapping noise and his head, luckily still attached to his neck, fell to the ground motionless, a bizarre smile engraved on his face.
I didn't even consider his words before walking back to where I'd parked Slip and the wagon. I got into the wood and metal mishmash and pointed forward, a signal Slip understood. The mechanical horse started a rhythmic clip-clop, and brought us into a mostly deserted street.
I could feel the piercing gaze coming at me from different sides of the streets, though. More creatures like the goblin, probably giving me quarter because of my... well, because I'm a goddamn special snowflake.
It didn't take long before the street became crowded. Some huge, bipedal wolf made to move across alleys, and a guy in armor called out to him. The answer was what you'd expect; full on angry wolf-monster on armored man action. I made to settle in my wagon, until another wolf-beast crawled out of the woodwork to take on the armored guy.
"All's fair in love and war, but that ain't love, and he wasn't calling for war. Slip, get ready to book on my order," I absently call to the horse.
"Understood. With further assistance be necessary?" He answered in a synthesized, boring tone, nosy thing he was. I just ignored him, pulled my Inferno Revolver out of the wagon's overly big holster for it, and shot at the second werewolf.
The shot melted right through, cutting him in half from its side, and kept melting through the street, leaving a red-hot hole where it entered.
"Play nice!" I yelled as it did. "Winner gets a ride home!"
Suddenly, the stealthy looks I was getting turned somehow... deadly.
X=X=X=X=X
"MERCURY?! You little shit, what are you doing here?!" screamed Terumi in both sheer surprise and terror at the prospect of his powers fading completely again.
"Terumi..." Celica said in shock at the newest customer. In front of her was the man who killed her, the man who ruined Ragna's life, the man who killed her sister. Even for her, a person who could find the best in anyone, there was nothing good she could find out about this man. If he was here, it definitely meant something terrible was about to happen for the people of the city as well.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed the manager looking at her.
"How may I... take your order?" She said, in a tone far too serious to fit either her words or her usual demeanor.
For that was all she could do: As an employee of KFC, she had to ensure all customers got what they wanted. And if she was lucky enough to meet someone to deal with Terumi afterwards, she could probably just ask them for help.
