Apathy

The sun hit like a deadly laser ready to induce skin cancer at any moment.

With the pollution levels today, it had a certain level of truth to it. Even though the Empire, and the Emporer, funded a lot of research tasks to reduce pollution and the effect it had on the population, it was still yet to bore fruit.

Now, if technology from the 2100s, which is regarded as the Golden Age of Technology, was still present today, there might have been a significant change.

Still, what happened had happened. After suffering from several catastrophic events either caused by the will of the world or humanity's ignorance, technology suffered a major setback.

It was still on its path back to improving, but the current progress was not enough.

Eve stood still for a second, basking in the sunlight. 

The windows had been covered in a layer of gel that absorbed UV radiation a bit, making it different from the natural light.

And so, Eve felt the real sunlight on his face. 

'Sorta burns. Hot too. Now I get why sunscreen was advertised so much. If I were to stand outside for hours in this light then my skin would have suffered quite heavy damage.'

Arco glanced behind her, seeing Eve standing still like a dummy. Infuriated and frustrated, he turned around to go back and give him a reminder that he had to stop wasting everyone's time.

Melina stopped him with her eyes, signaling Arco to leave Eve alone for a while.

Arco knew that a person simply does not become a monster for the sake of survival. Sure, people do messed-up shit all the time for the sake of living but those who do the worst things, and extract joy from it one way or another, are always twisted in certain ways.

He knew that, because he met a lot of people like that in his past life. 

In the future, he would become a gang leader and a notorious one for that.

Any gang that manages to persevere in the Empire deserves to be feared as the security is tight.

In order to beat that security, he recruited some truly fucked up individuals.

Most of them share a common feature.

They were not edge lords, they were not cold as ice, they had emotions and knew how to express them and they were humans.

However, they possessed a similar feature: Apathy.

People who feel incomplete, people who feel hollow, and people who lack a certain aspect from the outside view tend to complete themselves with their actions.

They are the ones who are supposed to be feared and rightfully so. They didn't pursue any grand goals but only served their desires.

The underworld is swarming with them as they were the ones who felt compelled the most to commit crimes.

Eve fit the exact criteria, which was the sole reason he was targeted by Arco's animosity.

'He didn't become the Ravager because he was forced to kill in self-defense, he was bound to do something even if nothing happened.'

Other than that, he had no bone to pick with Eve. Anyone Melina deemed worthy of working alongside her, he was fine with them.

The twin idols

The emo kid

The doctor

The officer

And of course, Arco himself.

Eve didn't fit the group.

But Melina didn't think like that. Seeing Eve appreciate mundane things like the sunlight made her hopeful.

She sent a thin wave of soul power through her fingertips, small enough to not harm her storage in any significant way but nonetheless, Arco noticed it.

"What are you doing?" He hissed at Melina.

"Practice, it's practice." She nonchalantly replied.

Her soul wave passed through the air and touched Eve, before covering his entire being in a very thin layer of transparent soul power that blocked the harmful effects of sunlight to a staggering degree.

She did the same for herself, not forgetting to take after her skin.

"Bet I can keep both of us covered until we get there."

Melina smiled, but the mental struggle to keep two separate barriers at once can be seen deep in her golden eyes.

Arco shook his head before walking up to Eve and lifting him up, towing him on his right shoulder like baggage.

As soon as Eve came in contact with the iron grip of the man, he knew it was pointless to resist.

Arco walked past Melina and said, "Let's go." Much to Melina's displeasure.

But her mind changed upon how calm and composed Eve was and how he hung loose on Arco's shoulder like a person who had accepted his fate.

It was not anything particularly humorous, but Melina found herself giggling.

It seems her new family were going to be entertaining.