Rats of the City

In the Backstreets

"Hey! Hurry up and scrape them up, now! Those Zwei goons might arrive any second!"

Three people are together in a dark alleyway, one is keeping watch while the other two are harvesting organs from someone. If one were to look closely, their target is not dead, and is still alive during this process, merely unconscious.

The three are clearly at the bottom of the barrel. They are unwashed and unkept, their clothes seem to be found from the trash or outright stolen. The two harvesters are a girl and boy, seemingly in their teens with the girl being younger. The one who just shouted is a man older than both based on his features. His name is Pete.

"I'm doing my best here!" Shouted the girl back at her companion. It's clear that these three are just amateurs. The name of the girl is Lenny. "I-I just can't seem to get a clean rip of his guts, the contents of this guy are weirdly different. I've never even heard of a body modification procedure that does this."

The boy with her nods. His name is Mang-chi. he looks at their harvest with worry.

"Something's off about these organs. They're looking really strange-"

Suddenly, the trio begin to hear footsteps coming their way. They also begin to hear shouting.

"Find them! If news of this gets out, our Section's rep will be at stake!"

"I'm sure they went this way."

Hearing this, Pete cursed.

"Damn it! They're getting closer."

He then looks to his companions and barks orders.

"Forget about clean cuts! Just pull 'em out and take 'em!!"

The two hastily follow his orders.

"Tch. At this rate, our heads are gonna get nicely chopped offa our bodies."

While harvesting, Lenny noticed something while getting the organs.

"Huh? Why does he have this kinda stuff in his body-"

Her thoughts are cut short as they hear the footsteps getting closer.

"Whatever, just take 'em! We're out of time!"

"Just about done!"

The two got all they needed into the bag.

"Now, run!"

******

In the Backstreets, Rat's hideout

The trio quickly ran for their lives. Eventually, they got far enough that they decide to rest and take a breather.

"Phew... That was close." Said Lenny, she kept looking back for the off chance someone saw them.

"You're a bold one, Pete. Going for a gut-harvest in a territory managed by the Zwei."

Mang-chi was really surprised that not only did Pete plan such a thing, but it somehow worked.

"There are the only jobs we have left. We have to climb up by any means, whatever it takes..."

Pete then looks to the other two.

"You know my dream, right? To become one of the Fingers of the Backstreets."

"I'll admit man, it's rare to see someone with a dream these days. Let's sell off these guts first. We gotta prepare enough cash to offer to the Syray Dogs."

However, there is worry on Mang-chi's face as he and Lenny saw what their harvest was unlike Pete who was acting as lookout at the time.

"True, those guys take promises too seriously... But this could be our chance to finally join an Urban Legend-class Syndicate."

Pete smirked, already imagining their ideal future.

Seeing Pete's enthusiasm, Mang-chi and Lenny ready themselves for what's about to come.

"Alright! Time to check out the harvest-"

As Pete opens up the bag, he sees their harvest and his mood immediately dropped.

"What the- Hey! Is this a joke? You sure you scraped up the right stuff?!"

Inside the bag are what was supposed to be organs. But in their current state, they can longer be considered as such. It's more accurate to call them burnt trash.

Seeing Pete's frustration, Mang-chi decided to stay silent and simply let him vent, but Lenny was always more confrontational.

"I told you! This guy didn't have a single proper organ inside him!"

Pete continued to analyze the harvest, trying to figure out what happened to it.

"I expected innards soaked in drugs like Enkephalin at worst... These... These are damaged too badly! It's almost like someone already blew them up."

Since Mang-chi and Lenny were in charge of neutralizing the target, he quickly turns to them for answers. Mang-chi was unwilling to be blamed for screwing up their harvest. He puts his hands up in defense and explains his and Lenny's innocence.

"We only doused him with anesthetics! Didn't do no harm."

Seeing that they didn't do it, Pete looks back to the organs and continues to try and analyze the situation.

"This... This doesn't make sense... How could he have even walked around with these messed up organs?"

Mang-chi tries to help and remembers some things he's heard.

"Hey... What if it's one of those? Y'know, rumors say that there's a guy who skewers and threads people alive to turn them into dolls..."

"Yeah, I've heard of that too. But look at the state of these things! Not the case at all!"

Pete epmhasized the look of the organs to disprove Mang-chi's theory.

"I hear those dolls are made by threading flesh and bones together. But this sonofabitch didn't have any scars or stitches showing outside!"

Lenny and Mang-chi try to look into thier memories to see if there was anything they missed.

"...Now that I think about it." Said Manh-chi, he remembered a detail he ignored at the times. "There was a round orange symbol on the back of his neck. I just thought it was a tattoo at first, but he didn't seem like the type ro have one. He was a desk-working dweeb."

Pete digest Mang-chi's words.

"Symbols?... Tattoos?... Damn it! Please don't tell me we poked the wrong beehive..."

While Pete has a dream, that doesn't mean he's willing to provoke just about anyone for it.

"Besides that..." Lenny goes into the bag and brings out the thing she saw earlier when harvesting. She shows it to her companions.

"He also had this envelope in his body."

"What the hell is an envelope doing in a human body?! Shit... This keeps getting worse... Gimme that!"

Growing both frustrated and worried at how the situation is progressing, Pete takes the envelope out of Lenny's hand and reads it for information.

"An invitation to a library? What's this about?..."

Mang-chi looks over Pete's shoulded to take a look as well.

"Books? Ordeals just for some paper stuck together? Man... what a bunch of nonsense."

He got disappointed at the contents of the envelope.

Lenny was expecting more as well, she sighs in depression at their current predicament.

"Man, it was a flop after all... And the payments if due tomorrow..."

Unbeknownst to the two, Pete ignored them and stared hard at the envelope. His current thoughts unknown to his companions.

"We've got 7 hours, to be exact.*sigh* That's too little time for another run of gut-harvesting-"

"We're going to the library as the invitation says."

""Eh?""

The two look at their leader to understand his plan.

"I don't know what kind of books need you to fight for it, but we're out of options. We gotta take any chance we get."

Seeing Pete taking a huge gamble, Mamg-chi tries to warn him.

"Wait Pete, isn't this just suicide? We don't even know what kinda place it might be!"

"Can't be any worse than dying to the Stray Dogs or the Zwei Association: we're screwed anyway! Shut and follow me if you want to live."

The two shut up at his words. He was right, they're damned either way so it's better to take a gamble and hopefully succeed.

"Find a pen so we can sign our names."

Unbeknownst to the trio, their actions have been monitored by the very library they'll enter.

******

In the Library

The video shuts off and the book it was projecting from closed before disappearing into a burst of light.

Roland, confused at what just happened, turned to Angela.

"Um... What was that we just saw?"

"Fragments of the invitation process. We can take a peek at the stories of our upcoming guests."

Roland raises his eyebrow at Angela's nonchalant expression.

"Huh, didn't take you for a peeping tom."

"Well, it's more convenient to know what kind of guests will visit us, isn't it?"

Roland shuts his mouth as he has no argument to Angela's answer.

"And besides, this is the invitation's will, not mine."

Roland is impressed by how a mere envelope can do such a thing.

"*whistle* That's a splendid thing you got there, ma'am. Pries upon people and kidnaps them too. A perfect tool for crimes."

Suddenly, a thought came to him.

"Heck, if the invitation can do all that, why don't we just skip the whole reception part? Can't we just, like, teleport them right into a room full of traps or something?"

'With that, I don't have to risk my life.'

Unfortunately, Angela shakes her head and immediately shoots down this idea.

"I cannot do that. We can only take a peek when it has been decided that the guests are coming here of their own volition. And besides, the invitation's power isn't wholly mine, either. I am simply borrowing it."

Roland is dissapointed by this new information.

"Yeah yeah, no way anything can go so smoothly in the City."

'But that last bit is highly worrying. She borrowed it's power? Hope that doesn't bite us in the ass later.'

If Angela said she 'borrowed' the power, that must mean she got it from someone else. Either with or without the original owner's consent. And Roland doesn't want to meet the original user of such a thing.

Angela thinks back to the guests they'll meet.

"They're desperate guests."

Roland then remembers something that seemed off about the situation.

"Tell me, was the invitation responsible for that symbol and internal damage as well?"

"What?"

Angela seemed offended at such an implication.

"Not a chance, it doesn't have anything to do with what happened. The invitation simply finds a way to those who need it."

"So that means those weird happenings were someone else's doing..."

Roland searches through his mind for any comparisons to what happened to the man whose organs were harvested. Such an event is unnatural, even in the Backstreets.

"I've never seen that kind of phenomenon back when I was a Fixer. It's like something from the Ruins..."

"Ruins?"

Angela, like Roland, is curious about the phenomenon. She asks Roland hoping he knows more about these 'Ruins'.

Unfortunately, he shrugs his shoulders to show he doesn't.

"I don't know a whole lot, either. I only heard stories of it. Should I describe it as...ehhh...magic? That kind of stuff exists in the Ruins, apparently."

Angela nods to Roland's explanation.

'Magic, huh? Is it really magic like the Magical girls' or merely advance technology misunderstood as one? Well, let's put that on hold for now.'

"In any case, we simply greet our guest. They seem to be low class but, oh well."

Angela is dissapointed that due to their status, they won't be getting anything relevant from them. Bit, any progress is better than none at all.

'At least we're now receiving guests.'

"Those guys are probably a bunch of lowly gangsters from the Backstreets.We call them 'Rats'. They're just losers who only think about making ends meet day by day."

Roland suddenly realized what he just said.

"Hmm... I might have just roasted myself there."

Angela catches onto one of the terms  by Roland

"The Backstreets... I know of them."

"You do?"

Roland is surprised. From what he's seem, this woman seems to have lived sheltered.

"*nods* Someone I know was from the Backstreets."

'It would've been great if she can help me currently but, oh well.'

"Oh. Well that's nothing special, really. The Backstreets stretch all over the city like veins. Heck! It might actullay be tougher to find someone who isn't from the Backstreets."

A ringing sound is  suddenly heard.

"That means that the guests are now in the Library. I'll teleport you to your floor, use this."

Light gathered in Angela's hand and soon a sword manifested. She then threw it to Roland.

"Wait, you want me to just use thi-"

*Snap!*

With a snap of her fingers, Roland is gone from Angela's sight.

"Now. Time to greet the guests."

******

On the floor below the two, a portal opened and in comes the Rats. They stare in awe at the place, they never thought they would enter such a clean and prestine place in their lives.

"*whistle* So this is a library? Looks fancier than I thought." Pete hopes that with the books here, he can own a place as gorgeous as this.

"Could be a bunch of valuable things here."

*Snap!*

The Rats turn their heads to the snap, and Angela suddenly appears before them.

"Greetings, dear guests. This is the Library. And I am Angela, the librarian of my role's namesake."

She politely bows her head before continuing.

"You may find what you desire here, but you may so end up yielding your precious possessions to us."

Pete looks at Angela and questions.

"You the owner of this place? We're allowee to take whatever we want here, right?"

"Indeed. You may earn books, to be exact. If you're able of course."

"Um..."

Mang-chi raises his hand to attract Angela's attention.

"Are the books here really worth a lot, though?"

"Pf course they can be, if the information they hold is valuable."

Pete is frustrated at Mang-chi's hesitation.

"Mang-chi! Beggars can't be choosers. We gotta cling on to anything we can find. Show us the ordeal miss librarian."

Angela bows to the Rats and gives her regards.

"Then may you find your book in this place, then."

*Snap!*

With a snap of her fingers, the trio is transported to their ordeal.

******

At the Floor of General Works

The Rats soon find themselves in a different location, with stacks of books everywhere.

"'Sup."

The trio turn their heads and spots Roland with sword in hand.

"Huh, guess you're our ordeal?" Asked Lenny.

"Yep. Name's Roland, Grade 9 Fixer. Beat me and you can get what you want."

"Really? Just you alone? This is easy! Gettim!"

Pete ordered the others, all three brandishing their knives.

Pete rushed forward with Lenny and Mang-chi trying to go for the flank.

"Hey, don't just brush me off so easily."

Seeing through their plan, Roland charges forward and clashes with Pete. Pete is knocked off balance and Roland goes for the hit. Unfortunately, Pete dodges at the last second, Roland's blade merely grazing the left side of his body.

"Dammit! Close call..."

Seeing Lenny and Mang-chi coming at him, Roland goes for Lenny first. Lenny, seeing Roland come at her, tries to take a stab at him. It fails, Roland dodges and uses his legs to trip up Lenny just as Mang-chi was coming right at him. This causes the two to crash into one another.

""Oof!""

Wirh the two disoriented, Roland tries to attack both at once.

"Agghh!!"

He was only half successful, as Lenny's shorter height allowed her to dodge the attack better. The same cannot be said for Mang-chi. A swing came across his chest. Roland follows up with a stab to the throat, finishing off Mang-chi. The corpse burst into light and became a book.

"Shit! Lenny, group up!"

Seeing his teammate's death, Pete regroups with Lenny and attacks Roland at once. Roland parries Pete's attack and dodges Lenny. Seeing the opportunity, he swung at Lenny's arm that was holding her knife as she missed.

"Fuck!"

She screamed in pain as she got dismembered. This left her open for a clean cut to the neck, beheading her instantly. Like Mang-chi, her corpse was turned into a book as well.

"Dammit...dammit...dammit..."

Seeing how he is the only one left, Pete's emotions are growing rapidly.

"NO! I'M NOT GONNA DIE HERE!"

He charges against Roland with newfound resolve. This catches Roland off guard, Pete's mad slashes causing him to act defensive. Eventually, Roland attack back. He misses, and Pete headbuts hum before sweeping his legs. He tries to finish Roland off bit he got swept off in turn. Roland gets up quickly and stabs Pete through his chest, sealing his fate.

"Puff! D-Dammit... I still... For my...dre..."

Despite Pete's protest, his fate was clear. He dies from the wound and turned into a book.

"Man, that guy almost turned the tide there."

'To think I almost got done in by a Rat. I've been off the field for way too long. Thankfully, this Library will help me get back into shape.'

With the reception over, Roland is teleported back down in front of Angela.

"Excellent work, this concludes your first reception. To be honest, I didn't think you can handle the three at once. I thought I would need to bring you back."

"Gee ma'am, thanks for the vote of confidence. I guess we'e got a long way to go?"

"Indeed. These three have no relevant information in the grand scheme of things, but they show we're actually starting now. There will be many more receptions, so put your best game, understand?"

"Sure thing ma'am."

With that concluded, a new phenomenon has appeared in the City. Soon, all shall know of the Library and its pale librarian, alongside her black-suited servant.