Chapter 17: Heroes and Villains

“...”

“… and I was even saving to try it out sometime, but I didn’t want to do it alone, and besides, in the end I didn’t even need to because of the discount. But don’t worry, at least now we can get a bunch of them!”

“Eh?… I… Yeah, I agree.” she muttered. “I’m not exactly short on money, either, so…”

Emily became quiet, frowning slightly as she observed Armetta. Something had caught her eye, interrupting her train of thought.

“…Emmy? W-Why are you staring at me like that…? Did I say something weird?” softly asked the ribbon girl, a light shade of pink covering the tip of her cheeks.

“Ah... It’s nothing. Just thinking about stuff, is all. Sorry about that.”

“Okay…”

Maybe it had just been her impression, but something on Armetta’s face looked… off, somehow. There was a faint, whitish stripe on her lower lip, and Emily had also noticed an odd shape in the skin around the girl’s right eye. It looked somewhat swollen, and had a strange tint, like a brush of gray paint had been lightly pressed against it, in such a manner that the paint inconsistently  mixed with her usually fair skin tone.

It looked almost as if she’d been in some sort of fight…? Or perhaps…

(No… She… She must’ve just been in a really big hurry today. An airhead like her… Yeah, she’d be prone to making little makeup mistakes like this. That’s all…)

“... Anyway, thanks for telling me about this place. I’m paying, since I arrived late.”

Considering the obscene profits she made out of the Phantom’s operations, being met with someone else’s charity perplexed Emily, who was used to living in a world where protecting one’s own possessions came first and foremost.

Regardless, she was reminded every day of the reason why she should never, ever mix up those two distinct worlds she lived in. Her relationship with Kay alone told her that much.

“... You sure about that?” said Armetta, furrowing an eyebrow.

“I got more cash to spare than you think, okay? Don’t get any ideas. Besides, I’m not too keen on being in anybody's debt in this lifetime.”

Armetta lowered her eyes, staring sluggishly at the flooring they walked on.

“Geez, Emmy… That’s not fair, you know?” she laughed.

“What’s not fair? It’s no big deal, I swear. The discount will cheapen it, anyway.”

“Alright.” she sighed.

They walked further down the bustling street, turning around a corner. The occasional electric car passed by them on the road at varying, yet astounding speeds. Vehicles should not have been supposed to move so seamlessly in urban areas, but complex internal memory, auto-mapping, acute sensory systems and other, more recent innovations had made it possible for drivers to easily travel without even touching the steering wheel, or worrying about hitting bystanders crossing the road, something which would immediately be detected and trigger the machine’s self-acting brakes. Contemporary technology was oftentimes truly amazing.

The walls of the buildings and other surfaces in that particular street had been notably covered with billboard screens dedicated to advertising, each related to different products. Creams, automobiles, restaurant chains, children’s products, occasional video game and movie trailers and other such things appeared alternately, and vanished after a few seconds, being replaced by the next ad.

“Hey, look, it’s the new Rocket Rider movie!” commented the short girl, pointing towards one of the billboards.

It seemed to be announcing an upcoming feature film. It showcased the premiere date in a minuscule, bizarre font over the background of a desert with a large, crumbling city in its horizon. Over the date and other simple information, the figure of a person could be seen, mounting a light blue motorcycle.

“Rocket wha…? What?”

His face was not visible, though, as he wore an orange full-body jumpsuit that looked like a mixture of spandex and metal armor, including a strange-looking mask that fully covered his features. It seemed to resemble some kind of insect, but she wasn’t quite sure what it could be.

“You don’t know!? He’s the best action hero ever! We have to go see it. I’ll show you how amazing he is!”

“Is… that so…?”

“You don’t believe me!? Let the silver screen do the talking! Then you’ll see what makes Rocket Rider the man he is!! What do you say, Emmy?”

“So, uh… Basically, you want to watch the movie sometime, ‘s that it?”

“Don’t try to dodge! You’re coming too, you hear? No one should ever live the end of their life without watching even a snippet of RR’s incomparable feats.”

“Sheesh, I got it. If you love it that much, I guess it must be pretty good, right…?” sighed the pale girl, unconvinced.

“You bet! I’ll find us some tickets when it comes out next week. Pre-orders are too expensive. And then we can–”

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“Armetta.”

“...Y-Yeah?”

“Is everything okay?”

“Sure, why do you ask?”

“…”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay? You ask some really weird questions sometimes, Emmy.”

Emily took another long, hard glance at her once again. There was nothing particularly strange about her. But even so…

“Right, sorry if I’m sounding strange or anything. If there’s something you want to tell me, though, you don’t have to hold back, you know? I won’t judge, promise.”

“Thanks. But it’s alright, I’m just feeling a bit more… tired today, okay?”

“I see. Sorry for not answering the texts, by the way. I genuinely didn’t notice them until school was over. Didn’t use the phone all that much today.”

“I don’t really mind it. I’m still happy you saw them, though. You always look so busy all the time…”

“So do you. Well, I can see why. You probably have a ton of friends over at Walkers’, anyways. Even if you annoy me a little sometimes, you’re… not that hard to like.”

“... You think so…?”

“Yes…”

“…”

“I still don’t get it, though… ‘Rocket Rider’... What’s your fixation with this cartoon, anyway?”

“That’s because… Well, it’s pretty inspiring, I guess. You can never really meet someone like that… passing on the street or anything. He’s definitely human underneath. He has that special care about him, when he tries to save the enemies he encounters, not just simply fight them and get it over with… Obviously, it’s not that black and white, though. He also fails from time to time, there are some people he can never change. But what matters is he always tries! Regardless of his chances.”

“Chances… Huh…”

The pale girl frowned. To tell the truth, she didn’t quite get it. Even so, she supposed Armetta’s point must’ve come from a deep place, in some way. She wasn’t wrong.

“Emily?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve heard of it, right? All the rumors about what goes on in Seagate City during the night… I know it’s kind of dumb, and people make up a lot of silly stuff, but… but sometimes, I can’t help but believe them a bit.”

Emily’s eyes widened. What was Armetta going to ask her next?

That childish girl still felt like somewhat of a stranger to her, but for some reason she didn’t want to lie to her. Even though she knew she was knocking on a very dangerous door, she could very well come to regret.

She knew many rumors and pieces of information leaked out on occasion, but the board of directors assorted regional managers had countless means of controlling the flow of information around the UDS, just as well as public opinion. As a result, those kinds of things had been mostly passed off and seen as jokes by the general population, to the point of being made daily targets of ridicule by many different websites and news outlets.

“I’m sure this might… well, sound crazy to you right now, but it’s really been bothering me for a while... There’s, like, hundreds of missing people. The news… They don’t look like they’re telling the whole truth about many things. The curfews… Yet, nobody even cares about it… Like, at all. Even though they talk about it sometimes, it’s always so...”

Most adults would evidently know the truth, still, but fear of repercussions wouldn’t allow them to tell the children anything at all, leaving them entirely in the dark. There were always a few exceptions, some of them who managed to precariously venture into the night usually wound up joining gangs and other shady organizations, enticed by the brand new world they’d discovered. But again, that was far from being the rule.

“Sometimes I think, ‘Hey, what if that was true? What if everything we know is actually a big lie?’. It feels kind of scary sometimes.” she whispered, looking sideways on occasion.

Even Emily herself, despite owning as much power as she did, had been barred from many of those secrets she longed for, as the board was still the one in charge. Dwelling around after sunset hadn’t given her any real freedom, frankly speaking. At most, she had been granted a longer leash as a reward for basic competence. It was a sort of awful truth nearly everyone on the gang’s ranks was aware of, but chose not to talk about due to some queer, unspoken rule.

“Being in a bad place, all alone, while everybody fights selfishly and only look out for themselves. Being in a place without hope like that would be terrifying for anybody… Right?”

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