Project CITYFIGHT, Chapter 1: A city not in a bottle

[Arhra]

Halfway up the side of a valley, a girl was perched in a tree. Her hair was a mess of black and white. Feathers stuck out of it. Her outfit suggested she'd picked out its constituent components out of a tornado.

She was steadying herself with her legs, using her hands to hold a slightly tarnished telescope to her eye. She was looking at the city ahead. A city should not be here. This valley was said to be cursed, demons dancing on its hilltops at night. There was a small community of miners that was supposed to be here, but they'd vanished.

Clouds blocked out the sun and a strange haze seemed to cling to the streets of the city. The buildings rose up in the distance, getting higher and higher as they approached the centre. Lightning strikes constantly hit a high tower at the centre, strange glints and reflections coming off the dark shapes of the buildings around it.

She finally focused at the half built rim of its leading edge. The edge of the city was higher than the ground it was expanding over, the city terminated in a jumbled earthern cliff, pipes sticking haphazardly out of it. Strange signs marked with black and yellow chevrons and phrases like 'DANGER', 'CONSTRUCTION SITE', 'KEEP OUT' and 'MEN AT WORK' were hung all over it.

Further back from the edge, just past where the completed houses began there was a small group there, clustered around a snaking black thing. Lia focused a little more. It was a giant black snake, seeming to merge into the black road surface behind it. With it there was a colourless thing in a cauldron, someone carrying a hammer, a lumbering thing made of rubble and metal and someone else - a lady she thought - messing around with the metal trees lining the road side.

Lia lowered her telescope and frowned. "Houses piled up on top of each other like this... I don't trust it all! Where are all the people for it going to come from? What are they going to eat? A city has to exist for a reason, and this one is very suspicious! Even if it exists to exist, why in a haunted place like this?"

"Food, food, food." she hummed. "No fields, no orchards, no animals. It must be a city of thieves!"

She jumped out of the tree, suddenly resolute. "We must confront the thieves at once!" the little spirit declared to the small group she'd gathered to investigate the city.

[batgirl]

Magnolia harrumphed as she twirled one of her knives effortlessly in her hand. "No trees and no grass mean nothing for me to sample. How am I supposed to make the next greatest tea without anything to infuse it? I can't make tea from dirt," she said to no one in particular. The knife was suddenly gone, stashed back into a holster on her belt. She took her top hat off and dusted the top absently. "Doesn't seem like we can just waltz in there and start investigating..."

[Overcast]

"Patience brewmaster, we see only the outermost layer of this place. We yet know what lies within."

Said the man squinting off into the distance, his spectacles not quite offering him the clarity of the Investigator's telescope. Still even without its help he was already beginning to deduce what was wrong with his companion's guess. It hadn't been hard really, she claimed this place a city of thieves, but he had come from a city of thieves, and this certainly was not what he remembered,

"I do disagree about this being a city of thieves. A city of thieves is a mobile, transient thing, like the singular thief it works mostly in small time, taking what they can from others, and escaping before they can be stopped with no aspirations to grow as much as make it to the next day."

He let himself reminisce over those times when he was being trained to become the Mastermind of his own little gang of misfits before letting the perspective of the city wash over him. Massive and ominous, this was the beginning of some great work,

"But this City is drowning in aspirations, it desires to grow. And it will take anything that stands in the way of that growth. No dear Lia this is not thievery. It is expansion. Conquest."

He nodded assuredly before straightening his glasses, his face still more than unsatisfied with knowing even that much,

"But it still doesn't tell us why. Why do they expand so avidly, both horizontally and vertically? Who leads this expansion and to what end do they wish to expand? Thieves or no, this requires investigations, the kind which are not gained from simple observation from a distance."

He adjusted his bag for comfort and took a moment to stretch,

"And whether we can waltz in there or not I plan to try it. For I lack any alternative plan."

And he began walking confident that it was all going to turn out just fine.

[Astral Harmony]

Celverette had been watching the mysterious black city from the edge of the cliff leading down in the valley. Normally she would have one of her hands against her brow to shield her eyes from the sun, but didn't need it since the black clouds in the sky above the city drank all the sunlight away.

Somehow, that disturbed her more than it really should have.

"Houses piled up on top of each other like this... I don't trust it all! Where are all the people for it going to come from? What are they going to eat? A city has to exist for a reason, and this one is very suspicious! Even if it exists to exist, why in a haunted place like this?"

Celcie had assumed that the city came to exist just like all towns and even the Lanluct Composite Sanctuary where she lived in until several years ago came to exist: people gathered in one spot, found it convenient to establish some kind of settlement there, and the rest was history.

"Food, food, food." Lia hummed. "No fields, no orchards, no animals. It must be a city of thieves!"

Celcie blinked. She had heard of thieves stealing livestock and crops, but now they were stealing every single animal and entire fields and orchards? How could a thief even steal a tree, anyways? Celcie knew she was strong, but lifting a tree was far beyond her own muscles, and carrying it off somewhere a Herculean task that not even her grandmother could do.

"Doesn't seem like we can just waltz in there and start investigating..."

Celcie had to agree with Magnolia, but what else could they do? They certainly weren't going to find out who or what this city was built for by watching it from this distance.

"I do disagree about this being a city of thieves. A city of thieves is a mobile, transient thing, like the singular thief it works mostly in small time, taking what they can from others, and escaping before they can be stopped with no aspirations to grow as much as make it to the next day."

That did make sense, though Celcie had to puzzle her way through Addins' words. What did "transient" mean? But he did make a lot of sense. Thieves seldom kept their work in public view, and a city of thieves would probably be a lot better concealed. This city was standing up quite proudly as if to shout its defiance against the world.

"But this City is drowning in aspirations, it desires to grow. And it will take anything that stands in the way of that growth. No dear Lia this is not thievery. It is expansion. Conquest."

That was all the words Celcie needed. If something was going to try and conquer the sanctuary, she wasn't going to sit idly by and let that happen.

"And whether we can waltz in there or not I plan to try it. For I lack any alternative plan."

Celcie turned away from the city. "Your thinking is good. Let us go." she said, and started to follow alongside Addins. She found him to be quite agreeable nearly all of the time she had known him, even though he wasn't quite handsome enough to try and recruit for breeding with the amazons back in the Sanctuary.

In fact, Celcie decided to put that whole manhunting business on hold. She had a feeling she wouldn't be finding any handsome fellows in the black city, and would actually just run into a bunch of things she would need to club over the head.

[batgirl]

Magnolia shrugged her shoulders and replaced her hat securely on her head. I suppose you're right, may as well try." In truth she was antsy to see the city. Something like this had never happened to her on her long travels, seeing a city pop out of nowhere. It pulled to her to see what was going on in there, and also to see if there was anything she could use for her brews.

She made sure everything that was on her was secure, stretched, and began walking behind Celverette and Addins. Her companions seemed to be nice enough, none of them disliked tea so far. Addins seemed extremely bright, Celverette simple but to the point and Lia was amusing in her own right. All in all Magnolia was happy that she ran into this rag tag group of people and decided to stay with them for the foreseeable future.

[Arhra]

Magnolia harrumphed as she twirled one of her knives effortlessly in her hand. "No trees and no grass mean nothing for me to sample. How am I supposed to make the next greatest tea without anything to infuse it? I can't make tea from dirt," she said to no one in particular.

The knife was suddenly gone, stashed back into a holster on her belt. She took her top hat off and dusted the top absently. "Doesn't seem like we can just waltz in there and start investigating..."

"Patience brewmaster, we see only the outermost layer of this place. We yet know what lies within." Addins said.

"Thieves are natural hoarders." Lia offered. "Buildings exist to keep things in and stealing from thieves is only right." The spirit quivered like a tuning fork with anticipation. "There are things lost and hidden ahead." she said, "I can feel them."

"I do disagree about this being a city of thieves." Addins said. He had lived in cities of thieves. "A city of thieves is a mobile, transient thing, like the singular thief it works mostly in small time, taking what they can from others, and escaping before they can be stopped with no aspirations to grow as much as make it to the next day."

He looked at the city stretching out in front of him. It loomed like an earthbound mirror to the ominous thunderheads above it.

"But this City is drowning in aspirations, it desires to grow. And it will take anything that stands in the way of that growth. No dear Lia this is not thievery. It is expansion. Conquest." Addins said, nodding to himself.

Lia frowned thoughtfully and raised her telescope again, trying to reveal more through determined stare and gritted will.

"But it still doesn't tell us why." Addins said. "Why do they expand so avidly, both horizontally and vertically? Who leads this expansion and to what end do they wish to expand? Thieves or no, this requires investigations, the kind which are not gained from simple observation from a distance.

"And whether we can waltz in there or not I plan to try it. For I lack any alternative plan."

And he began walking confident that it was all going to turn out just fine.

"Your thinking is good. Let us go." Celcie said, after reflecting on her companions and the prospects ahead.

"I suppose you're right, may as well try."

They set off down the hill, Lia slow to notice. She lowered her telescope, looked around with surprise and spotted them again a little way ahead.

Pebbles skittered and skidded down the hill above Addins, Magnolia and Celcie then Lia overtook them in a headlong rush that threatened to send her tumbling head over heels down the steep slope.

"How dare they steal dreams!" the unguided detective missile shrieked her new conclusions to the world. "If they're hoarding ambitions, it's no wonder it's spilling over its own edges. It's the nature of those things to move just out of reach. I'll make that city lose its unattainable dream!"

* * *

Stepping down the hill and coming to the city's edge. The low cliff of jumbled earth was easy to climb. Pipe protruded out of it, water and more questionable fluids dripping out. Some stank. Construction signs hung off pipes by chains or were pegged into the loose soil.

It was slowly creeping outwards. Stones and trees it flowed over were being slowly pulled in.

On top were outlines of houses, the ground puckered up and the stone of foundations pushed through like teeth out of gums. They seemed to need help to develop past this stage.

Down the road the houses abruptly became far more finished, where the group they saw earlier was working. The construction crew stopped when they noticed the group approaching them.

Looming behind the construction crew was a massive serpent, taking up most of the rough road they were walking down. It was the road - its body steadily flattened out and became a smooth, finished black bitumen surface some distance behind it.

There were four figures and a cauldron in front of the the snake. Most of the light was coming from the cauldron and the hammer one of the figures was carrying.

He was a slender, handsome, horned devil, wearing nothing on his upper body except a leather apron. Below the waist he was swathed in metal and heavy fabric. He carried a hammer, its huge, blocky head appearentl composed of thick, glowing mist save for the metallic corner pieces. The handle was longer than he was tall.

Something glowing was in the cauldron, providing most of the other light. A bubble filled with colourless fire swayed at the end of a filament extending out of the cauldron. The cauldron itself was plodding slowly forward on three stubby little legs.

The bubble and filament rose higher, revealing it to be attached to the top of the head of a glowing blobby creature that looked at them shyly from over the rim of the cauldron.

The snake looked at them amicably with blank white eyes. It was chewing on a mouthful of gravel, making faint nyam, nyam, nyam noises.

A white haired woman descended from one of the metal trees lining the roads, using the loose end of one of the cables she was running through from 'tree' to 'tree' to slow her descent. She wore a shapeless felt hat, eight beady little black buttons clustered on its front and a fluffy stole wrapped loosely about her shoulders. Some sort of gently curved black strut ran from her elbow to her hands. Similar ones attached to the back of her knees, providing a support like a high heel.

The last figure literally rearranged his expression into a frown. He was a ogre-like pile of rocks, pieces of metal and random junk, ghostly ectoplasm gently steaming off him.

The demon, the spirit and the poltergeist did not look particularly happy to see intruders.

Leading the pack by a hard sprint, Lia skidded to a halt, pointed at them accusingly and drew a deep breath. "Who are you suspicious people dragging a city behind you?!" she demanded.