Showing Her The Truth

“Have you hit your head?” Olivia asks when I explain to her the idea. I can’t help but laugh a little at that. “I can’t say I have, no.” I reply. Olivia shakes her head. “At best, this is insanity. At worst, utter stupidity. The two of them are not powerful enough to go to the city. The four of you were three times as powerful and you barely made it out okay.” She reminds us all.

Paige is left out of that assessment because she joined our guild after our disastrous visit to the city, but she understands too, having heard the story. “We can protect them both, no problems at all.” Mia says confidently. “You do not know that.” Olivia shoots back icily. “Yes I do.” Mia says plainly. “Look how much stronger we all are.”

The lady of the beasts groans. “That is beside the point. I am not aware of anything that may have changed since you were last there, which means I cannot advise you properly.” She turns to me. “Where in the city were you thinking of taking them?” She asks me.

“Central Station Sanctuary. I’m hoping she’ll be convinced if she just sees the effects of the gangs rather than the gangs themselves.” I say. Olivia sighs again, falling silent to think. “It’s not the best, but there are worse places we could go.” Ivy offers. I look to Skylar who is shaking her head. “This is a risk we can’t take.” She says.

I nod, acknowledging her view. “Paige?” I ask. “W-we’re not strong enough to defeat Mathias yet, are we?” She asks. “No.” “Yes we are.” Olivia and Mia reply at the same time. Olivia turns to her. “Where is this coming from?” She asks. “Belief in us. We’re strong, we crushed every mana factory we came across and every dungeon we’ve done since you started training us.” She replies without hesitation.

Olivia shakes her head. “That does not mean you are strong enough to face Mathias.” She argues back. Mia opens her mouth to respond, an annoyed look on her face, but I interject. “Okay stop, this is getting us nowhere. Mia, I don’t know if we’re strong enough to fight Mathias yet, but I very much doubt it. The guy we fought at the Opera House was implied to be over level 140 at minimum. Ivy and I are the two highest level here and we’re only level 103.” I remind her.

Mia sighs and looks away. I turn to Olivia. “I do still think we should do this. We are a lot stronger now, and we weren’t attacked at all in the sanctuary.” I tell her. “Just because you were not attacked before, does not mean you will not be this time.” She replies. It’s my turn to sigh now.

“I agree, but the alternatives are to either miss out on two new guild members, potentially powerful ones, or put pressure on them that I’m not comfortable with doing. Emma wants to see what’s out there, I think the least we can do is go along with her to make sure it’s safe.” I tell her. At that moment, Lena walks into the room, her and Emma having been outside while we discuss this.

“If y’all don’t go with her, she’ll explore on her own. She’s stubborn like that.” Lena says. Apparently she heard a bit of what I said. Olivia rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Kids.” She mutters. “Fine. What’s the plan Gemma?” She asks. Everybody turns to me, and I lay out my thoughts on the matter.

The five of us pile into Emma’s car. It’s nice having another person who can drive and has a car. We have Lena and Emma, obviously. Ivy, because she’s the healer and pretty powerful in her own right. Olivia, because she’s the best all rounder, and me, because I’m technically the most powerful there, and can coordinate with Ivy.

Mia wanted to go, but I asked her to stay home. Five people is the maximum we can take in one car, and two cars makes escaping quickly and coordinating properly a bit hard. Skylar and Paige both wanted to stay home; the former on account of not wanting to relive our earlier trip if she can avoid it, the latter because she doesn’t want to subject herself to the danger she’s heard about.

I don’t blame either of them. I wouldn’t be coming either, but I don’t think there’s a better way to do this. We need them in our guild, because we need as many people as we can find on our side. Even if neither of them end up being very powerful on their own, every extra member in our guild is an extra person to fight with us for Sydney’s liberation.

We drive in silence the whole time. Nobody speaks a word. We’re all tense, wondering what we might find, hoping that we won’t run into a gang on the way. Lena and Emma are in the front, while Ivy, Olivia and I are in the back. I’m in the middle, and I hold hands with Ivy while Olivia stares out the window.

Luckily for us, there’s a parking lot right next to Central station, our ultimate destination. It’s expensive as hell, because it’s in Sydney, but I promise to pay Emma back. We park, exit the car and walk up to the station. I lead us to one of the platforms, remembering the lack of structures built on this one. “Remember, if something’s going down, we exit the barrier and get out of here.” I remind Emma and Lena. The two of them nod.

I count down from 3 with my fingers, and on zero, we all raise our hands and enter the barrier. We enter the Central Station Sanctuary barrier and as I look around the place, I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as it seems like nobody hostile is around. I can see a few fresh structures, some broken down ones, indicating there’s been a raid sometime recently, but no sign of any gangs or whatever.

Emma and Lena look around, absolutely horrified, Emma especially. I grimace sympathetically. I know what it’s like to see this for the first time. It’s a brutal awakening to the realities of the abyss. Emma covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes filling with tears. “People are living like this?” She asks, her voice trembling.

I nod solemnly. “This is all they can do.” I answer. “But why don’t they leave?” She asks. “Their spirits are broken. This place used to be a proper sanctuary. Now it’s reduced to this from constant gang raids and ****. Everybody who can muster up the will to fight or leave has already been captured, killed, or else gone somewhere else. Those that remain are those that are too tired to do anything but accept it.” I sum it up for her.

A tear rolls down Emma’s cheek as I explain. Without a word, she takes off running towards the people I’m about to go after her when Ivy stops me. “She needs to see.” The healer says softly. We watch as Emma sprints up to the closest group of people, a group of three playing cards. “Hey! Hey! Are y’all okay? Do you need help?” She asks.

One of them makes an angry gesture at her to go away. Emma looks taken aback but doesn’t give up. “Can I do anything? Please, this must be horrible. How can I help? Do you need money? Food? Anything?” She asks. The same person tells her to fuck off and Emma deflates. She rushes over to the next group of people and asks the same questions.

I can see the tears coming more freely now. When the third group of people shoo her away, she seems to shrink further. Just then, I see the same old hunched over man that we talked to the first time we came here, hobbling over. He touches her arm gently and says something inaudible. The two of them go sit down on a seat to talk.

Lena for her part, just watches the scene play out with a sad expression on her face. “I knew it was bad, I didn’t know it was this bad.” She admits. “This is why we’re training and fighting. So people like this can have a safe home.” I reply. Emma’s shoulders shake as she sobs from whatever the guy is telling her. He awkwardly pats her shoulder.

They speak for a few more minutes as Emma manages to stop sobbing, then he gets up and hobbles away. Emma sits there for a few seconds more, before getting up and walking slowly back to us, her shoulders slumped. “I believe you now. This is horrid.” She says, her voice breaking, her face red from crying. “Let’s get back home.” I say as Lena wraps her arms around her girlfriend and the two of them share a much needed cuddle.