In the week leading up to the full launch of the system, there had been an increase in the current crime wave. Or rather an upsurge and refocusing of one of the youth Adventure gangs from the Bronx, as they struck at pawnshops, jewelry stores and rival youth gangs. Whispers echoed that all of this was on behalf of a new leader, though in the fourth day of the skirmishing, that the authorities began to notice the strange and frankly unnatural cast to some of the children's faces, to lengthening teeth, nails that seemed almost like claws, faint points to their ears and in some cases, a wild and shaggy cast.
It was on the morning of the fifth day news that a string a brutal and gruesome murders came to light, of teachers, priests and nuns dragged from their homes by laughing and shrieking children before they were beaten, coated in gasoline, hung from street lamps and then lit on fire. This was of course, merely one incident, as children, teenagers for the most part, ran wild in several parts of New York. Several times, when white people were spotted, the dark children ran them down and proceeded to beat them bloody until they kneeled and screamed that Only Black Lives Matter.
In other places, it was white children that got up to mischief, as they rushed into stores, filling bags and shopping carts as they hooted and hollered and posted it live on social media. Special care was taken, as they looted and trashed poor communities, for them to speak of social justice, of the fight against fascism and for equality. Nothing was said of the quality of their clothes, of how they seemed to be well off as they destroyed minority communities. Not as a pretty young face wept a single tear (while she was slashing the tires of a car) and said this was to fight climate change.
None of that mattered of course, not at all compared to the sudden and senseless butchery of several law firms and government offices! Oh, how the talking heads cried and wept and spoke of the atrocities, as the police? Suddenly it was a bad time to be a criminal so active in the city, as the strange and almost fey members of each band of rioters faded away, giggling as they vanished from the chaos, letting the poor fools and dupes take the worst of it as the establishment bayed and bleated in terror!
How the big apple rushed and tried to stem the violence, as children wept from gas and clubs, as spoiled brats were subdued and hauled off to precincts, parents were contacted. Of course, there was little the children could say, other than the fact that it seemed like a good idea at the time, that some friends (who were not there) made it seem like a good idea and that all in all? The general sense of it was that the youth thought they would not really face any real consequences from their night of fun.
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The disgust and outrage of course, was loud and public and served to mask the cold terror of what had happened at each of the law firms and government offices. Figures from fantasy appeared, solidifying out of mist and fog and called on unnatural powers, walls of ice blocking off exits, as driving hail appeared in doors, battering dozens to death as children with goat like legs and horns laughed, carrying crude swords as they smirked and laughed, clearly making sport of it... even if that was nothing compared to the final and most terrifying one.
She was the beauty of night, of corruption and sin made into flesh, or something similar to flesh. Unbidden, thoughts that were not polite or appropriate rushed across the mind, as even through a camera, there was a burning halo of need, of desire and wild reckless abandon. She blew a kiss... and a cloud of billowing vapors poured out, which based on the way it killed? This was a threat to fashion mighty bastions from the bricks to be shat, as she dispersed nerve gas into the buildings were she was at.
They had wondered why some of the big shots had looked like they burned to death from the inside. They were not pretty deaths, as men and women choked and fell still, as others wandered desperately, trying to find a way out as they tried to hold their breaths... only to end up screaming, flames licking at their lips from inside of their own bodies. Of course, there was another question, an important one that entered into the minds of the politicians and wealthy.
How in the ever blazing hells did this sort of shit escape any form of notice until midnight!
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Chaos and panic gripped the city as the message of doom spread, as fear and panic raced for control of the city, and the rest of North America really, when the blazing black letters appeared in the sky. But in a part of New York City, preparations where being made. Twelve vergestaves were placed in accordance with The Rite of Encompassment, as magic began to hum and throb in the beating heart of the city, mist and fog rising from the Bronx river and wrapping around the boundaries, a procession of devilish children marching along playing pipes and pounding drums.
Oh, how they laughed and danced, making merry as they moved about the boundary. A few brave souls noted that their pipes were made of bone and drums had human skin in place of leather, striking literal faces with leg bones that appeared to be gnawed on. They mocked and winked, even as teenagers, freed from their cells, and children freed from their homes, joined them on their parade as the mists rose and the days shadows lengthened. Not once, not twice but thrice did their parade move them past the Ranaqua: Bronx Department of Parks & Recreation, where two short days ago they had slaughtered, but the NYPD highway patrol unit, shop and 52nd precinct!
What gall some officers roared, as they decided, as civilization was coming to an end, they may as well put paid to some criminals! And so, as they prepared for the ghoulish parade to come again, keen eyes noticed something odd, as space began to warp and twist, as the greenway began to simply not be there, the figures in the mist fading as they laughed, and the final mournful toll, reality altered and changed fully for all.
Soon, all that remained of the living in New York were too busy dealing with the Virophage that used to be the Empire State Building, than the resident fey court safe in their unnatural haven.