Melt's heart felt constricted as he was pressed against the damp alleyway corridor.His mind wandered back to when they met at the station, of the fear he felt when he bumped into Wagner. "What are you doing," Melt wanted to say, but his lips were stuck agape and could only make soft squeals. The grip that felt bone-crushing on his wrist shifted to his shoulder. Melt opened his eyes, his wince softened, as he made eye contact with Wagner.
"I pity ya', kid. You ain't the first trainee had to discipline, but I was reaaaally hopin' you'd be the last. I had hope in ya." Wagner gripped the collar of the intricate uniform.
"I-I'm sure we can work this out," Melt started. "Just take me to the Pendulum, a-and I'll tell them there's a misunder--ack!"
Wagner's hand began to tremble as it gripped his collar tighter, pulling on Melt's neck and lifting him into the air. As Melt looked through his hair that'd been ruffled, Wagner's expression returned a glare; not one of anger, but it looked pained.
"Twenty years," Wagner muttered, with an unsettling calmness. "Twenty years ago today, my little sister was taken from me. She wasn't even ten years old. She was taken by them. I couldn't do a damn thing as they dragged a screaming girl by her feet, out of our mama's arms. Mama even offered herself. No one cared. All because my sis was deformed and we weren't."
His words became more gruff, and angrier. There was a cold pause.
"Wagner, I--"
Melt couldn't finish that coherent thought before getting thrown further into the alley, on the mushy garbage bags carpeting the alleyway floor. His once tidy appearance had been stained with odors and sludge, as Melt shivered on the ground, the cold mud stabbing at him.
"Shoulda known that everyone who's deformed that gets into Pendulum doesn't know shit about 'em. You'll just help them. And that makes you one of them...
Wagner started wobbling towards Melt's lying down body. Even if Melt wasn't paralyzed with fear, he couldn't move fast; his leg had fallen asleep due to the cold.
"I shoulda known, I shoulda known. There's no hope in Vaizeir. So we'll have to make our own."
"We?" Melt said nervously, slowly backing up as his outfit got dragged through the mud. As he kept moving back, his head hit a hard bump against something. Melt whipped his head around, to find someone towering over him; a figure with a gas mask and tattered overalls, and a rifle being slowly unholstered. And behind that figure was another, and another until easily fifteen to twenty figures quickly barricaded the exits of the alley.
Melt's mind flashed back to the newscasts on the station from Gaudelier, the smallish town that he departed from. The news kiosks cautioned other small villages and shelters built in mountains, of gang violence from compact groups so small they seemed undetectable. They ranged from groups committing vandalism and defacing public statues, to larceny and petty theft, and even arson. Common signs were varied uniforms, or marks of identification that even Knights wound up overlooking. The reporters seemingly talked about them as if they were tabooed, and even mentioned to avoid gatherings of over 10 people. In hindsight, it seemed very convenient for them to leave out Vaizeir as a hotspot for these groups. They branded them domestic terrorists, giving them the name--
Something bright shined in Melt's eye, bringing him back to reality. Wagner couldn't have been more than 3 steps away, as something beneath his overcoat glistened. It was flat and circular, almost like the Pendulum badge Melt wore on his now muddied uniform. It was bronze, with a lion emblazoned on it. Then, it hit him like a speeding bullet.
"Y-you're in... this is... a Clique."
As Melt uttered those words, every rifle in the vicinity pointed their gun up.