The battle on the street raged on, chitin covered monkeys dodging out of the way of large blobs of moss charging at them. Kain and Luna ignored them and flew from the fifth story of the circular tower down to the roof of a 3 story building across the street. They floated down to the roof and Kain softly landed from atop Luna’s shield. Looking back, they saw a glow radiating out from the bottom floor of the tower. Orange flames spread quickly, bathing what they presumed to be the front lobby of the hotel in fire. Walking away from the edge Kain gave a short sigh of contentment and sat down. “Well, that was close. Too close, to be honest. But either way, we got over 500 of those necklaces and we are safe.” he declared. “Now our only problem is figuring out what we should do now.”

“Well, we are trying to go back to Earth.” Luna began. “But we need to wait for that ball thing to fill with Ether. Speaking of, does it actually absorb Ether while in the amulet?” she asked.

Without responding, he pulled the large contraption and opened the top. In it, he found the Ether density to have risen ever so slightly. Although the increase was small, it was similar to the average accumulation of Ether previously. “Yep, looks like we can just leave this in the amulet and let it charge. Come to think of it, I was looking at Dea a while ago and it did have more Ether in it than before.” he mentioned. He pulled the knife out from the amulet and examined it. During the time it was in the amulet, it had accumulated even more Ether and had become stronger still. He had little doubt that his other weapons, Grand and Mouse, were also strengthened. He put Dea away and took a glance at the buildings around the hotel-like skyscraper.

It was, by far, the tallest building in the general area, dwarfing every other building nearby. The other buildings were all similar to small stores Kain had seen in cities in the past. They all had something being showcased in their front windows, be it clothing, food, even weapons or armor, or some sort of injectors with colorful labels on them. Above the stores, the buildings became featureless, none possessing windows. Luna, having made sure that she had not lost anything, floated next to Kain’s head and looked at the stores. “What’s that stuff?” she asked, puzzled. “Why’d they put that stuff up like that? It seems impractical.”

He pointed to the presumed hotel. “You know what a hotel is, right?” he asked, receiving a nod from Luna. “Well, those were most likely shops or stores. They’re so close to the hotel so they could make it easier for visitors to buy stuff. It’s odd that they would put weapon stores so close to a hotel, a place one would presume foreigners would be, but it may have just been some sort of custom to always carry weapons or something.” he concluded.

Luna went wide eyed. “Wait, there are places where you can’t carry around your weapons? Why!?” she cried.

“Well, the whole point of a city is to be a safe… -ish place for the creators of the city to live. On Earth, most cities have a functioning police force that stops most crime, are loud enough to scare away any animals that could kill a human, and have a functioning military to protect the citizens from any invading armies. In most cases, weapons are unneeded.” he finished.

“Well, the word ‘most’ keeps coming up, so there’s a catch, right?” Luna pressed, causing Kain to laugh. He sat on the edge of the building, dangled his feet over the edge, and looked down at the pavement below. Unlike every other building, which had seemingly been made of the same chitin that came from the armored monkeys, the roads were cobbled, looking like an old European town. Soon after he began to study the pavement, the brawl in the street reached a turning point. One of the armored monkeys lost its footing and was caught by a moss blob. It was pinned against the cobbled pavement as it thrashed around, making loud cries and roars in an attempt to call for help. Despite its cries, the other armored monkeys pulled back as the other moss blobs piled onto the hapless monkey. Soon, some sort of grinding sound was heard and though their bodies covered most of the monkey, the moss blobs shifted every so often, showing Kain and Luna what was happening underneath. As the cries of the monkey reached a peak, they saw that the moss of the creatures was essentially sanding away the light brown chitin and revealing the bluish-pink flesh beneath. Before long, the grinding noises gave way to wet sounds of flesh being flayed and bone being crushed. The monkey gave its final, painful death throes and finally passed. It was a brutal murder if Kain had ever seen one, but he felt little sorrow. He knew that he was no stranger to killing -he had killed plenty of animals in both his childhood and in the week he had spent in the forest- but they were all either clean things without suffering or desperate struggles for survival, so he felt better about it. This was not that. It was a slow, tortuous death and one infested by mindless brutality. Despite that, he felt nothing from it, not even the slightest queasiness. He found it odd, but also a bit reassuring; he knew that he could stomach almost anything that was thrown at him. Luna eyed the moss. “That’s some strong moss. Must be tough to get, though; that monkey was pretty strong. I could sense it.” was all she had to say.

He ripped his attention away from the scene as the moss began to charge at the other monkeys, leaving the puddle of blood, bone, flesh, and gore behind. “Anyway, yeah, you’re right about the exceptions thing. There are plenty of places where violence rages despite the police presence. Poorer areas, slums, seedy alleyways, and even some of the more rich areas see crime. Which, I’m assuming, is why at least some people don’t want to give up their guns: they wouldn’t feel safe without them. Of course, there’s also a lot of people with other reasons, but they’re unimportant.”

“So if there are reasons to use weapons, why even have the argument about whether or not anyone should carry them? By the way, what about other weapons like swords, bows, and the like? You haven’t mentioned those.” she noted

“Well, swords and the like are incomparably less dangerous than guns when in a world without Ether. Now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be entirely inconceivable to think that Ether wormed its way into Earth… oh well. But, while swords are unregulated, bows are. Bows are mostly used for hunting, so you won’t find someone carrying a bow around in the streets.” he concluded. “But, back to the main point. Honestly, it’s more of an argument between people who think that large scale gun ownership is a good thing versus the people who think the opposite. I understand the points on both sides, but some parts of each side are really stupid.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So what do you think of it?”

“Can’t tell you.” he laughed. “That’s for you to discover on your own without me influencing you.”

“I think you’re just pussyfooting around it.”

He froze for a second before laughing hard. “I didn’t think you knew something like that! Though, I suppose it could just be some sort of translation business going on with the necklaces.” he said. “But with me pussyfooting around it, I meant what I said. I don’t want to influence you biasedly. That, right there, is the death of interesting conversation. But if you want my opinion regarding whether or not guns should be banned, unregulated, or somewhere inbetween, take this into account: I worked as a weapons designer back on Earth. That means that a higher demand for weapons translates to more demand for me, which means I start to earn a hell of a lot more.” he quipped.

“Well, I think that the whole unregulated weapons thing works better. It helps you defend yourself.” she posited.

“I don’t think that’s the main point people who advocate that would try to emphasize, but it’s your right to believe it.” he remarked.

Luna put a paw under her chin and thought of a question with the backdrop of the battle in the street. “Wouldn’t you want to make me agree with your side? I mean, I’m not the master of the human mind here, but you’ve implied that people’s opinions do actually matter. That means having one more person on your side is a good thing, right?”

He grinned. “Democracy is a word and concept we can talk about later, but I honestly believe that forcing someone to believe in something is a fast track to disaster. You will either have the group that believes in everything you say without question, people who will change their tune at the slightest provocation, or you have the people who pretend to be convinced, who will react violently as soon as the thing forcing them to conform is gone.” he continued, losing his grin halfway through. “Either way, forcing a belief system onto someone is a bad idea. That is the only thing I’ll force you to believe.” he joked.

Luna turned her attention back to the street. “Hmm.” was her only reply. “Hey, the fire in the hotel thing went out.” she exclaimed, pointing to the hotel. The front lobby had become extremely wet while they were having their dialogue. It looked as if a flood had rushed from the hotel, as the lobby area was completely wet and the area around the front door was in a similar state. From within the structure, they saw movement all over the walls, ceiling, and floor. Suddenly, the fifth floor was entirely consumed by moss. It grew all over the central room and even grew out of the gaping hole in the glass, speedily spreading down the side of the building. “I don’t think that’s good.” Luna murmured.

“Agreed. Should we clear out or stay to loot? That’s hard.” he mused. “Alright, I vote that we stay here and wait to see how that stuff continues. If it stops, then we can just go loot the stores. If we just accidentally poked a monster better left undisturbed, then we run.” he offered.

“Disagree. We should loot while we can. At the rate that it’s growing, it’ll reach here in an hour or so. Though, I would have run if it was growing like it was a few seconds ago.” Luna replied.

“We’re at an impasse, huh? How about this, I give you my amulet, you find a way into the building from here and loot everything while I watch the moss to make sure that it doesn’t get close to us. Deal?” he offered once more.

“Deal!” she eagerly accepted. Without a moment’s hesitation, she left his side to search the roof.

*=====*

Alright, this is the 49th chapter. I want to make number 50 special, so look out for that. Anyway, as always, thanks for your continued support.

Also, yeah, I know boo politics, but it serves an integral purpose I’m sure some of the astute members of the audience have already figured out. (Hint: the forced beliefs bit)