2 Ikebukuro 10am News

Before we get to "Strike one" let's just step back a little and look at ikebukuro at it's peak slimey smooth atmosphere. At this point you might be going something like 'man I don't want to see some shitty town I just want alien' but I assure you. Ikebukuro is a town more bursting and entertaining than any possible alien invasion. After all, Ikebukuro is the only free town on earth.

There's no police. No government. No city hall. Only music. Music permeating the atmosphere sneaking in between every corner and bursting out of every corner.

Can you hear it? It makes your foot steps dance as you walk down even the plainest of alleyway.

With no police and government and only music you might have a vision in your head of a lawless hell overrun by crime and human shit stains. But as I said, Ikebukuro is music. And music is harmony. There is some dissonance here and there, as is in any song. But aside from that it's total harmony. Every man, woman and child grow up learning to defend themselves. No one is responsible for you but you. You grab your own weapon and you swing it at your own volition, but you also face the consequences all alone.

The city is loosely divided into regions each region dominated by each gang. Most of them are run by us and Titular. Any murder, theft or anything in between that happens in any of those territories they answer to us. We only move at request. If you hurt someone and that someone comes to us asking for help then god help you. We keep the ship will maintained. There are businesses here and they're thriving. There are food stalls, flower shops, diving shops, adult toys shops, gyms and anything you can think of. Ikebukuro may be lawless, but it's as far from a hellish landscape as you can imagine. If anything it's the definition of heaven, albeit a slightly rougher version.

I could remember just a few weeks back before the start of the invasion we got a peculiar request.

"Please, Racer, help my son." The man screamed at me desperately as he stood in front of me, his legs about to give way as he hunches down on his knees with sweat dripping on the floor and veins about to pop.

"Calm down, explain to me but slowly." I told him, I was used to that sight as I got a lot of requests like those before, usually most requests are handled by my henchmen but they often let me hear firsthand the more pressing stuff.

"It's my son..." he catches his breath then continues. "My son, he...he fell into something strange, please I need you to help him."

"Calm down old man, be more clear, he fell into what? You mean like some hole?"

"No! What I mean is he's addicted to something. It's drugs...I think it's a new drug." He said frantically.

"Hey stop blabbing nonsense old man, there is no way someone would distribute drugs in Flow-ers region, that's be suicide. You sure he wasn't just poisoned?"

"No! Didn't you hear me? It's drugs I told you." He shouted.

"Hey! Mind your manners in front of the boss." Shouted Dal, he was my right hand man and my friend, he went everywhere I went, he did everything I did. Dal was the name most tied to my own, Racer. Dal was a tall gigantic brown man with a bald head, his looks were often terrifying to strangers. But to those who knew him he was as soft as marshmallow.

I signaled at Dal to calm down and looked back at the man.

"How did you know it was drugs?" I asked.

"I wasn't always from ikebukuro, I moved here a few years back because my son had gotten involved with bad friends and ended up an addict, so I moved here with him 'cause I heard drugs were a thing of the past here in the town. I know how he looks when he's onto something, and he hasn't looked worse in years. Yesterday I caught him sniffing some blue-ish material in the bathroom and when I confronted him he panicked and ran away." The man stood up, looked me in the eye and shouted. "Please, he's a weak kid, you have to help him. You promised there was no drugs here but there is. You broke your promise. You broke it!" He shouted and started moving promptly towards me. I'm sure he meant no harm he was just high on adrenaline. But the poor man couldn't close two meters from me before immediately being tackled and restrained by Dal, Dal had previously been standing just by the door which is about 100 meters away from where the man was, but Dal could easily clear 100 meters in less than a second. I signaled Dal to lay off him again.

I approached the man in front of me who was just recovering from being tackled.

"Name."

"What?" He asked.

"Your name, your son's name, your house address, his friends you know of, where he hangs out, his habits, a photo of him; the more recent the better. Write all that down on a piece of paper, bring the picture then give to my friend Dal over there. I'll handle your son's case personally. Until then I want you to remain at your house at all times until we're done. Is that clear?"

"Th-Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much." He started weeping.

"Easy easy man take it easy, that's what we do."

He shook his head and was escorted out by my men.

"I assume since you brought me this it means it isn't just ramblings huh?" I said to Dal.

"This isn't the first case we had with that same description, we even heard word of it from overseas, it's definitely not ramblings. There seems to be a drug going around town." He replied.

I giggled. "Who'd knew there's still an idiot brave enough to bring drugs in Flow-er territory." I sat down at my chair again. It was just a shitty chair in the middle of some warehouse around the city, we didn't really have anything you'd call "a main base" the entire city was sort of like our small house so we normally bunkered down in random places all around town. The chair this time was kind of shitty but it wasn't the shittiest so I didn't mind. "Overseas?" I asked

Dal nodded.

"Think this may be more than just a random junkie?"

"Probably."

"Man." I sighed. "We already have our hands full with Titular, now there's this annoyance as well. But I guess that's not something we can ignore."

Suddenly I heard my smart phone ringing, I took a look and it was Christen, one of the boys who worked under Dal.

"Boss, we got it."

"Good. Let's go then." I said then shut down the phone. "Dal, Christen got the info, let's go poke some holes."

And we drove. Driving around Ikebukuro at night is always a heck of an experience. At night Ikebukuro really comes to life. As you drove through it you could find couples swaying back and forth on the streets, billboards coloring the grounds in all sorts of intermingled shades; if you peeked through each and every person and event you'd find infinite stories to tell. But for now we're only interested in one of them.

The man said his son often frequents a wine shop by the Shi station called "Wine'up." I actually know the owner so I thought I'd pop by and ask him myself.

In the car was Christen on the driver wheel, Dal in the back and me riding shotgun. After a half an hour drive Christen pulled up the car near the store and me and Dal got off and went to see the old man, we usually left Christen in the car for those events, he was a bit....peculiar, he'd just make things too complicated.

Me and dal went through the shop's revolving door into it's wooden orange interior.

"Welcome to my sh....Oh Racer is that you? Been a while." He said boisterously

"How are you doing old man, not still injecting wine with water are you?" I laughed.

"No. No. That's old McGregor, I'm new McGregor. All honest and clean." He smiled.

"Man I can tell from your voice you're up to something." I sighed. "Just don't do anything too wild alright?"

"Oh definitely definitely." He said smiling. He was a sneaky old man, but he knew his way around which often came helpful in situations like these.

"So McGregor tell me, have you seen a boy who looks like this?" I bring out the son's photo from my jacket's breast pocket and dangle it in front of him.

"Oh yeah of course that's Ian. Why do you ask? Has he done something bad to you Racer?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well it's just...he often came here to just buy some wine bottles for his father but lately he's been showing up with bigger groups of friends. He also looks much paler now, so do all of his friends, I'm worried he's into some unsavory business. He's good boy but lately I'd been hoping he won't stop by my shop anymore to be honest."

"Hmm...You wouldn't happen to recognize any of his friends by any chance would you?"

"Oh, now that you mention it I do remember my friend Tryu se...you know Tryu right? Short dude, messy black hair."

"Yeah I know Tryu." I smirked. "Tell him I came by today and tell him I asked about him, if you can, also try to take a picture of his reaction for me." I laughed.

"Yeah I imagine he probably crossed paths with you a time or three" he laughed. "Well anyways...what was I saying?"

"Pete walked in once."

"Oh oh yeah. So he walked in once when the boy was with some of his friends buying double tinted wine and...."

"You sell that crap?" I interrupted.

"Yeah...." he giggled "it's all the rage right now."

"You know that's Titular's processed wine right?"

"Y-yeah I know...but they're really good at all this science thing, the additives they add to their wine is amazing, you should try it once Racer." He smiled.

"I'll pass." I said with half-shut eyes and receding posture. Titular's stuff were so popular they were even sold in the middle of the rival gang's territory. It wasn't news to me, just seeing it in person....that's a different feeling. Maybe we are just muscle-heads like everyone says.

"Oh...w-well anyways back to point. So yeah they were buying doub—wine when Tryu walked in for a chat. After they left he told me to be aware of those guys as he knew them back from his night club days when he worked as a stripper."

"What night club is that again?"

"Oh it's Sizzle, it's right by fuku—"

"I know where it is." I said interrupting him. I knew very well where Sizzle was, that's kind of what I was fearing. I really should've just brought Sizzle down long ago. But the place was so popular that I couldn't take it down without just cause. This thing was starting to look like a blessing in disguise. It was only later when I'd find out it's an erupting volcano disguised as a blessing in disguise and counting the seconds until it can blow up in my face.

"Ok old man, I owe you one, also....how much does the double tinted stuff cost?"

"19 Sievert."

"It's even cheaper than our stuff?! Man....capitalism is hard." I said, disappointed as I left the store.

But at least now I knew where to look. So I wasted no time. Me, Christen and Dal headed straight to the club ready to bust down on some idiots.

We were definitely not prepared for what we were about to find. But that just made it all the more excited don't you think? After all like I said...

Ikebukuro is anything but boring.