The Hakuryuu, translation White Dragons, and their enigmatic leader the Gokuryuu, translation Jade Dragon, are simultaneously, everybody’s worst nightmare to meet in an alleyway, legends of the outer-city, and living myths.
The Gokuryuu is said to be a dragon of jade, a real Fae dragon lurking amongst humans, while his army of Hakuryuu, are all lesser dragons.
Every other gang in the outer city would beg to differ.
–On the Dragons of Yumekuro, a deep-dive into Outer City Gangs.
***
The persistent, hazy fog had thickened, obscuring the path and the distant view, leaving only desolate streets and forlorn echoes of their boots against tar and cobblestone to accompany them.
Miles was displeased, disgusted and disturbed.
It wasn’t the dryness in his throat, or the vague uncomfortable feeling of dehydration pervading through his body.
It wasn’t even the smell, for Miles had begrudgingly gotten used to the unique flavor of Yumekuro, no, now the problem was the source of the smell.
They were quite a distance away from the alleyway where they had encountered the gangsters, but he was still not freed of the stench of dried blood and cyber rust.
The problem was his suit, and the fact that he had to stomach wearing bloodied, tarnished clothing was extremely stifling.
To be fair, bespoke suits from R&B, Rumple and Bertrada, were anything but ordinary. This particular suit was already in the process of weaving itself back together, the black outer thread moving as if it was alive to re-stitch the cloth which had been ripped through. A sprite essenced enchantment, one that was proprietary, so he was not privy to the specific intricacies.
The suit was even capable of self-cleansing to some extent, which helped, but wasn’t nearly enough to escape his heightened senses.
Back then, considering that the use of re-weaving thread and inlaying ogre skin already cost a small fortune, Miles had decided to save some gold by reducing the strands of naiad hair (responsible for auto-cleansing) sown in, even disregarding the insulted and horrified Mr. Rumple and Madam Bertrada.
In Miles’ defense, it had seemed wise then. He had simply not expected that he would ever have to wear dirty clothes for long.
But, now feeling the bloody stench emanating off of himself, imagining how much of a brigand he must seem like (the Amathaka Obliviation only worked on their faces), Miles definitely regretted it now.
Zhan Shen laughed with a clap upon his back, “Why are you acting like you fell into a mountain of giant droppings Master Miles? It’s just a bit of blood! And the red really brings out the Vampire in you!”
Miles returned a silent, deadpan look. The old butler sure seemed to be enjoying this, and it was profoundly making matters worse.
So, without further ado, Miles grabbed Zhan Shen’s hand and slapped it onto a particularly large and wet splatter of blood over his suit, one that the watery naiad essence was having considerable trouble cleansing, in an attempt to wipe it away.
It didn’t really help, and it didn’t last for long as old Zhan pulled back almost immediately, but that had not been the point.
“Oi!” but as expected, Zhan Shen didn’t seem to mind it much at all, as he simply grinned, “What? You thought I’d be a hypocrite? Like I said, it’s just a bit of blood, and not everybody has your problems,” and revealed the hand in question, just how a magician would reveal a trick, now spontaneously cleansed of blood.
Perhaps even cleaner than it had been before it had been slapped onto the blood stain.
Miles couldn’t help widen his eyes in disbelief, “How’d you do that? You never told me instantaneous cleaning was included in your spiritual bag of tricks!”
He gazed down at his bloodied clothes, and back at Zhan Shen’s spotless hand, “Forget my readiness, and teach me already. Old Zhan, this is a matter of life or death!”
Zhan Shen crossed his arms with a prideful smirk, “Oh really? Enough to give up Vampirism, Master Miles?”
Miles pursed his lips in annoyance, his silence enough of an answer.
Zhan Shen grinned, childish glee at odds with his wizened face, “Tough luck then! Besides, dhara gala is way out of your reach for now, but I could have helped out myself, and now I won’t! No worries though, aren’t you Vampires supposed to like blood?”
Miles paused, seemingly ignoring the provocation, but then he turned back, with a surprising smirk of his own, “Very well then, you have left me no choice old Zhan. I call upon your oath! As the victor of our former bet, fulfill your end of the deal and clean up this blood, and leave not a drop.” Miles couldn’t help but feel pleased, “I must admit that is as useful as that bet could have become!”
Zhan Shen froze, his cheeky grin falling apart at the seams.
He glanced to the side, tasting his mouth several times, before turning back with a darkened face.
“...Fine! I am a man of my word!”
And it was Miles’ turn to grin in glee, but he had more class than a certain old butler, so he satisfied himself with Zhan Shen’s disgruntled expression. The old butlers passed his hand over Miles’ suit, without actual contact, covering the front, the back and the sleeves, and by the time he was done, somehow the blood had been made to just… vanish.
Faery nymph hair be damned, Zhan Shen’s palm was worth a Nymph’s entire head!
Nevertheless, Miles tactfully held himself back from inquiring more about the ‘dhara gala’. It was neither the time nor place, and all it would have done was make Zhan Shen feel pleased as he would have definitely refused to explain in petty revenge.
With that, the wardrobe malfunction was taken care of, and Miles enjoyed the relief of being freed of the stench of dried, crusty blood. And of course, the fashion suicide he might have been forced to commit.
Without the blood constantly agitating him, he even felt that the thirst had lessened to a considerable extent.
Miles, freed of the scent of blood, was finally able to focus now. Even while on the move, he meditated upon his breathing, enough to have get a solid handle on himself and his newfound bloodthirst.
Time passed uneventfully as they trudged along the streets.
Slowly the view had begun to shift, the narrow compact streets trapped between monotonous buildings expanding, wider and more open.
Stolen story; please report.
Miles’ ears perked up, because before he ever saw it, he could hear it.
The hustle and bustle of a crowd, an agitated one, if the shouting and screaming were anything to go by.
This was not usual. Even if there were people out and about during an orc invasion, they should have been considerably more subdued.
Zhan Shen narrowed his eyes in concentration, and for a moment it seemed he was looking at something other than the street they were walking along, but he finally shook his head, “I can’t make heads or tails of it. Something about street rats, something about cyber ware…”
Miles frowned, “The sounds of screaming from near your clinic does not promote confidence in the Faesycian in question, old Zhan.”
The old butler shrugged, “We'll just have to see now, won't we?”
Miles pursed his lips, and they continued, eventually arriving at a scene of… moderate chaos.
Yumekuro’s Commercial Region turned out to be a dark, pensive area packed tight with abandoned stalls, each adorned with garish, mostly unlit will-o-wisp signs. The few that were lit, happened to be the only sources of flickering, unsteady light.
It would’ve been the picture of desolation and abandonment had it not been for scatterings of individuals, scanning and searching the area, looking behind and inside the many stalls with unsettling fervor.
A concrete hut with a subterranean entrance seemed to have been searched so thoroughly, that a couple had climbed and were peering inside the width of eight-foot-tall neon silhouettes of presumably scantily clad, currently unlit and hence not dancing, women.
A barely standing tent, its white tarp dirtied and defiled into a darkened gray. The opening flap weaved in the wind to reveal upended and haphazardly thrown empty cages and unlocked chains of cold iron, as if a storm had rumbled through… from the inside.
‘I suppose, even in the outer city, Fae are popular commodities.'
But whether the Fae in question had been moved by the owner or looted away, Miles couldn't say.
Those few individuals were actually the minority, as Miles’ night vision, and a flickering will-o-wisp sign nearby, picked out a larger number off to a building by the side, near what appeared to be open drainage. They were too packed to see what was actually going on, but they were very obviously the source of agitated shouting, arguing and screaming.
‘What in the Sidhe are they doing?’
Although, neither Miles nor Zhan Shen were of the opinion that the strange mob were any of their business, the matter of Hayato Ryota and the presence of so many people could not be ignored.
So, they halted, next to a dilapidated stall, where a lone man was rushing around excitedly as he filled his pants with packets of CornuCorp’s trademark Sprite Jelly.
Even on the best of days, sprite jelly meant a terrible dining experience, not to mention that these seemed to be poorly packed and left exposed to the elements to the point that a toadstool or two had started to grow upon the gelatine.
Miles tapped on the rusted, steel sheeting of the stall, “Hey, any idea about what’s going on here?”
The man stopped, but started to pack up even faster, as if fearful that they would steal his clearly expired, fae fungi ridden ration jelly.
Miles knocked on the stall even louder, this time bringing out a small blue card from his suit pockets and holding it out, “10,000 credits, if you tell us about what’s going on here.”
At that, the man finally paused, his eyes wavering between the load of sprite jelly yet to be pushed into his pants, and the blue card being held out. Finally, he decided to waddle over, rather uncomfortably.
He stared at the card, nodded as if the offering was acceptable, and revealed a pitch-black toothed grin, “Aye, for that price, anything laddy! It’s a dragon bounty, the Gokuryuu is giving a million to any gonk that brings some bastard in. Alive, or youse the one that’ll have to keep ‘im company.
Words got out that the bastard was spotted around here. Now half of outer city’s punks are running around old Yumekuro to find ‘im.”
He reached out for the card, but Miles pulled back with a frown, “Got a name?”
The man seemed annoyed, but paused in thought, “Some slit-eyed bastard, Hayato–”
“Hayato Ryota?”
"Aye!” the man exclaimed, but then he frowned, and suddenly clawed at the card, “I better be getting paid still!”
Miles snorted, flicked the card into the man’s hand, and walked away.
He glanced back for just a second, to notice the man staring at the card, then look around as if puzzled, only to shrug and get back to stuffing his pants full of expired jelly.
Meanwhile, Zhan Shen was grinning, “What a turn of events! Looks like I’ll be getting that fight after all... and the Faetality booster as well, of course.”
Miles gazed ahead as they walked, growing ever closer to the strange mob.
He could see better now that he was focusing. The majority of them were attempting to force themselves into the closest building, while a very rare few were pushing themselves out, carrying all sorts of items, only to be attacked by those still outside.
There were even a couple people rolling on the floor, apparently shot, or grievously wounded otherwise.
There was also a lone vendor, draped in a tattered coat, very visibly carrying what seemed to be a power revolver on his hip. He had rolled over a meager cart of presumably scavenged medical supplies to the side and was animatedly talking to someone on the ground, occasionally gesturing at his wares.
An opportunistic entrepreneur it seemed.
“It doesn’t look like these people are having much luck with it old Zhan. Unless whoever is screaming over there is Ryota, which I sincerely doubt. Think you can do any better?”
The old butler smiled, “I know I will,” but then he stopped up ahead, seemingly puzzled and looking around, “The Faesycian was somewhere around here––”
A sudden voice interrupted them.
“Are you looking for a ripper-doc?”
Miles turned towards the voice, towards two people he had ignored and grouped along with the rest of the looters, to find a young woman with a hand on her hip and a cocky smile. A dirty tank top revealed extremely muscular arms, to the point that they seemed unnatural.
She also reeked.
Miles sniffed in discomfort, only thankful that at least it was not as bad as the Hakuryuu and there was no cyber rot here.
‘Huh, so maybe those muscles were actually earned?'
And although Miles had sensed two people, he almost overlooked the straw-haired young man that was huddling behind the girl, his presence almost non-existent.
Both of them were wearing clunky, leather goggles that completely covered their eyes. He wasn't even sure if they could see through the dark and murky metallic lenses. It was very unusual for a fashion statement.
There was something strange about the way these two were acting…
Miles raised an eyebrow, “Were you listening in on us?”
The girl crossed her arms, and ignored him with a smile, “If you’re here for Marcus’ clinic,” she gestured her head at the building with the mob, the majority of whom seemed to have made it inside now, the outside starting to clear up.
“He’s over there. Gonk pissed off the new punks around here, they threw him into the drain. You’ll want a new ripper-doc.”
Miles raised his eyebrow even further, “That's unfortunate. But it's not like we were here to praise him for his stellar hygiene.”
“But you wanted him alive right?” she answered, with incongruous satisfaction.
Miles was taken aback, “He died? By falling in the drain? Did he drown?”
“Now that's just bad luck," Zhan Shen muttered almost to himself.
The muscular girl looked at the both of them as if they were crazy. Finally, she shook her head, “Anyway, he’s being looted out of everything he had right now. So, you’re definitely going to need a new ripper-doc.”
Miles stared. He turned to the building by the drain, no, the clinic, being looted.
Most of the looters were rushing out now, in obvious hurry to leave with their misbegotten items. Gunshots still rang out and fights occurred as well, much to the delight of the medical supplies vendor that continued to present and market his wares with flourish.
“How did he die?” Miles couldn't help but ask.
The mob of looters had mostly cleared now, to the point that the view of the previous obstructed drain was clear. Although it was so far away that Miles smelled nothing, even without the flickering will-o-wisp lamps for illumination, his enhanced eyes could see it as clear as day…
Amidst the shadows, barely peeking out of the drains, was… something. It barely even resembled a person anymore. Its form was shattered, like a morbid jigsaw puzzle abandoned to decay.
All that was left was an eerie assembly of disjointed bones, twisted and predated upon by monstrous forces.
“Rats.”
The girl answered with a shrug, as if that explained everything.
Miles was still trying to make sense of the situation when the straw-haired boy interrupted, popping his head out in unexpected randomness, “We can get you to a better clinic,”
The girl turned the boy, put an arm over his shoulder and pulled him into a bear hug. She grinned, revealing the first pair of ordinary teeth Miles had seen in a while, “I'm Inani, this is James. He's a genius.
And yes, we can help you find a wayyy better place.”