Chapter 13

Petunia's death hit everyone hard.

Sadly, the general populace of Undercity wasn't affected by it due to the frequency that death occurs here.

Currently Vander and the kids were mourning in The Last Drop.

The atmosphere heavy with dread and grief. On one of the circular corner tables sat the kids and teenagers.

Harry, even after a night of sleep, is still lost in his own head. Sitting alongside him is Vi, who is patting Harry on the back with a pained yet understanding look. Claggor, who stared down at the ground clutching his hands together not knowing what to do. Mylo is sitting on a bench close by, keeping quiet.

Vander stares at the group with a pensive, beaten look. He has lost many friends and even family in the case of Silco, so he knows that currently the only thing that can help them.

As the oppressive mood continues, the doors to the pub squeak open and Benzo steps in with two kids following behind. He walks in a few meters and finally takes in the room.

Vander had sent out a message through the pneumatic mail system telling Benzo to come as soon as possible.

"What happened? What's with the message?" Benzo asks quickly growing fearful of what could have happened along with the two kids, Dudley, and Ekko, behind him.

Vander takes in a large breath, trying to prepare himself to tell them the truth. Unfortunately, it gets caught in his throat as Dudley scans the room and picks up on the distinct lack of his mom.

"Where's mom?" he asks bluntly.

Harry freezes up for a second, looks up at Dudley as tears start prickling at his eyes.

Vander has no words to say, so he instead just walks up to Dudley and hugs him.

"Wha, where is she?" Dudley stutters as he questions again confused at the sudden hug.

Ekko sneaks over to the other kids to try and figure out what happened while Benzo quickly realises what happened goes to the bar to get a drink.

Then Mylo decides to speak out, "She's dead," only to get quickly hit in the back of the head knocking him off the stool onto the ground.

"What the fuck man!" Vi yells out holding her fist up behind where he just was.

Mylo rubs the back of his head as he grimaces up at Vi, "what, it is better if he learns now."

Vi just sighs exasperated knowing Mylo is only trying to help by ripping the band aid off.

Dudley looks up at them all with eyes quickly cycling through emotions spanning from shock, confusion, terror, and sorrow.

His eyes quickly flash back to Harry searching for any sign that it's a lie.

Harry looks at Dudley realizing what he's looking for responds with a croaky voice, "a, an enforcer did it," as he says it tears slowly flow, "there were two."

Dudley feels his entire world shutter at its seams. Dudley had for as long as he remembered only wanted to protect his family, therefore he asked for his weapon to be a shield. He only wants to protect those he loves, and yet, without him there his mother died.

'Why wasn't I there?' He asks himself. If only he was there, then mom wouldn't be dead…

Dudley wallows in anger aimed towards himself.

Vander hearing this for the first time is instantly drawn to anger, he made a deal with Grayman, Enforcers shouldn't've attacked them. But the attack happened in Uppercity, and the deal was to stay away from each other.

Harry continues, getting up from his seat away from the others shuffling over to Vander and Dudley. "They came up to us and were going to attack us because we're fissure trash!"

Was he wrong, did Vander make the wrong choice allying with Grayman back then? Even after years of us not showing any reason to be despised and hated, the Pilties still did.

A thought echoed out through his mind like lighting, 'Was Silco right? Is there really no other way to get their respect other then fighting for it with tooth and nail?' His thoughts stay on that as his face scrunches up and he grips his fists tightly.

Harry thinking about what happened quickly spirals, "They attacked us so I did the only thing I could, I attacked back!" He screams, "is that why she died? Because I was stupid and weak?" His thoughts turn inward, 'she died because I made a mistake. Wait, do they all know that? Do they hate me too?'

His eyes frantically look up to Vander and Dudley, seeing the look of anger present on both their faces has his young mind, which already hates itself, assume that they also follow its thoughts.

'They don't want me, they know I killed her with my mistake," in his terror he runs straight past the two straight to the door.

"Kid, stop!" Benzo yells out from the bar.

Vander quickly tries to grab for Harry and misses allowing Harry to run right out the door into the streets.

Everyone stands there for a few seconds when finally, Vander and Vi start running to the door in order to get Harry.

They run outside to quickly find no trace of him. He was gone, most likely magic helped in his running away somehow.

(IUI)

Harry ran out of the pub and decided to use magic to get as far away from them as possible, so he dedicates himself into the well-trained process of dictating his entire mind to his goal, which was currently wanting to be anywhere else.

Harry found himself in an unpopulated small fissure, the air in this fissure stinks of the toxins.

These small fissures exist everywhere around Undercity, most were created by streams of the lake. Even with Janna cleansing the main fissure and the Undercity of toxins all those years ago, there are still these fissures with polluted streams filled with the toxins.

The reason for this is that she is a spirit of wind and thus couldn't cleanse the lake's water of its toxins.

Harry, now finding himself in a place he knew from hearing horror stories of the toxins and once seeing how Vander's arms each have terrifying purple cuts on them. Starts trying to find a way out of the fissure.

He travels down the stream only to find a connected cave full of purple flowers obviously feeding on the toxins.

A single metal door sticks out like a sore thumb in the cave.

Harry starts walking towards it only for the door to swing open just before he reached it slamming him onto the floor.

Harry looks up towards the now open door to find a skinny, yet tall man with a sharp unnerving face dressed in brown shirt, pants, and a very dark brown topcoat jacket.

He stares back at Harry with apathetic, calculating eyes, "Interesting."