Chapter 6- Teardrop Arc 2

The guy at the Tear Spear Lake had told us the journey would take half a day by foot, but the speedy spears would cut the journey down to just one hour, and the old man was right as in the time we hatched some plans and swigged some water, we had made it to Sobbingberg City, the houses were not like any other I've seen on any island.

They were all arranged in rows, they were all made from stone and there was not a single person out in the streets, this all changed as an alarm went off from above, a separate island-like structure floating above the capital, a literal stone castle, all the people rushed out of their houses at once, trying to buy meals or go to work, their lives being restricted by this bell. 

We put Gravi-locks on our spears and let the substance fall into bottles before pocketing them, a few tear spears were seen, as the men of the houses left for work, this whole island was living in a patriarchal shitshow. We walked up the row of houses we were in now and noticed the heavy security, masked guards holding swords, and some holding rifles, my head started to hurt seeing such cruelty, they had all these people confined. It's hard to be evil in a world that naturally makes you want to stick up for the people in society who are vulnerable. 

I was faced with a dilemma, leave the island at the hands of whatever force confined its citizens, or stay and fight back to save these people, should I drop that goal of becoming the evilest, something inside me clicked that day, who was I trying to kid? I was never evil, I resented everything about my past life yet I still found a way to help everyone, I was too nice to be evil, but that doesn't mean I can't be ruthless.

I told my subordinates to book a hotel that I had found at the end of the row, 4 rooms, 3 people in each one and I got my own. I left the hotel and ventured down the bustling streets of Sobbingberg, and the funny thing was that everyone was quite literally sobbing, tears running down their faces, the guards held guns to the heads of those who were not crying and I watched as a seemingly endless amount of people got shot for running out of tears, I was thinking about this when I was stopped. 

"Halt, Foreigner, State your name and reason for presence on this island!"

"My name is Mahatma D Gandhi, just visiting on a cruise."

"Here is your visitor's permit, how many more do you need?"

"Nine more please, thank you!"

I received the permits and waltzed through the crying crowd and into the hotel, opening up the door to my private room and collapsing onto the bed, I would explore the city more tomorrow, and see if I could gather any intel. 

<Next Morning>

Sleep was horrible on the barely existent mattress, the bed frame digging into my back the whole night, which probably didn't add to my mood as I rounded up my ten-man team and walked out into the unknown. 

We were stopped only twice, the masked guards seemed to grow familiar with our presence by the minute, and some even greeted us, however, we were not permitted to talk to the citizens, and that was an obstacle we had to get past, I told the team to split up after lunch but there was not much luck, and that's when we remembered the hotel receptionist. We arrived in the evening and waited around for the sobbing woman.

I had our engineer disable cameras and used observation to look for any spyware or anything similar, but there was nothing, I ran forward, vaulted over the reception counter sweeped the woman to the floor, and ducked under the counter. 

"Look we don't have much time just five minutes, we are with the Marines, what's going on here?"

"W-Wil-Will you help me?" 

"Yes, but we need information!" 

She nodded and relayed everything she knew...

"It's been 13 years since that man came here, the one that made this glass cage around us!"

"Do you mean the teardrop?"

"Yes, before this our city was called Gleeberg, but he imprisoned us and began his rule, you don't see it, but when he arrived he used some power to put sharp things in our tear glands, to make us cry, if we stopped crying, he will kill us, Kill me!"

"Please stay calm, let us handle this, when I go back I want you to act like nothing has happened and just keep sobbing, just a few minutes more, let my doctor check on you!"

I called Reckman, our resident specialist doctor over and he began examining the lady's eyes trying to see what was put in her tear glands. Eventually, time ran out and we all did a perfect job acting like everything was normal and walked back to our floor, we all convened in my room to discuss what to do. 

"Sir, we need to remain covert, leave, and tell a higher-ranking officer, you have ties with Vice Admiral Garp right?"

"And be cowards!?" I asked in a fit of rage, "We are not leaving, we will launch a direct assault at that castle, whoever he is, we must overthrow him!"

"Doc Reckman, what with all the crying?" 

"The maniac has used whatever power he has over glass to put tiny shards in their tear glands, sir, the girl said at the end of the day, they are to collect their tears and give them to patrol guards!" 

"We need to know why he does this, so I guess we need to remain covert, we need to get in with someone a bit more upper class, who we can coerce info from."

Suddenly an idea came to my head, "Roberts, Walters who was that Guard who helped us and said he was the chief guard of that area?" 

Roberts and Walkers looked at each other then at me, an idea was brewing along with the storm of tears outside...