#also fun bickering and also la chancla

[prcject-utcpia]

Cedar hits send on their latest text to their "Brand bud".

"Can we meet up? I've got some questions about the city, and I'd rather get the info from someone I can trust."

The past few days had gone rather... predictably. Cedar had made headway. At least it seemed that way. The Moon-bearer had managed to track down and neutralize increasing numbers of the Kingpin's goons.

Each encounter kept pitting them against higher numbers and tighter escape windows as the authorities stayed on high alert, but the scent had begun to thin. The street filth had begun to wise up, and any leads provided by their tactical database were growing less and less accurate.

And so, the Moon-bearer one more needed to rely on help. Speaking of...

"Absolutely! I'll bring Aspen too. They're better with directions from the ground than me >_<" Comes the response.

Cedar snorts at the admission. Certainly the deer was welcome. The more info the Moon-bearer could gather the better, even if it wasn't directional info they needed.

Another text from the Sun-bearer is received: "we're going to the café this time, btw."

The address is linked.

"Ugh, fair enough," they mutter to themselves. In the very least they weren't digging into potentially classified information... at least, they assumed not...

The dragon sat up in their hotel bed. The third such arrangement since arriving. It helped keep interlopers off their back, and made it difficult to keep track of their whereabouts. Especially when being booked into multiple hotels at once, under different names, all on Bloodmoon Tactical's dime.

Cedar threw on their jacket, slipped on their shoes, and, with a weary sigh, steps out of the door to their suite.

"...A little out of the way, isn't it?"

Cedar stood out front of a cozy-looking building close to the edge of the city. The skylights on the sloped roof seemed to run half of the way across the top of the building. And that wasn't even to mention the immense windows.

"And that's why we opted to take the tram," Aspen chides, sticking their tongue out at the Moon-bearer. "Either way, just look at the place! It's gonna be fantastic!"

Silver eyes twitch as they read the foliage-covered sign: 'Sunstone Café'.

"Oh I'm looking, and I'm thinking I probably should've brought sunglasses..." Cedar retorts.

This draws a snort from Maple, who beckons their blue counterpart with a small wave.

"Oh don't worry, there's a lovely little corner away from the Big Bad Sun," the Sun-bearer teases, joining Aspen in their tongue display. "Plenty of shade for brooding dragons of the night."

Cedar rolls their eyes and moves to follow.

"I don't think anything about you could be considered big or bad," the Moon-bearer retorts.

When the trio steps inside, they emerge into a space filled to the brim with all manner of plantlife. Whether in pots, planters, and vases, all seemed to be thriving in such bright environs.

Maple, who had simply ignored Cedar's jab before, looks back to find their compatriot's eyes squinted to hell in the sunshine, face scrunched like they had soap in their eyes.

"...U-um." The Sun-bearer attempts to hide their grin with a hand. A gesture the other clearly notices, based on the flattening of their ears.

Aspen meanwhile, taps the bell at the front counter with a gentle chime, and within a few moments, an ancient, whithered old opossum woman shuffles out from the back. At the sight of the trio, she breaks into an immense grin.

"Aspen! Maple! It is so good to see you, my darlings~!" She effuses, prompting bashful grins from the pair. Maple scratches at their cheek while Aspen's tail flicks as they avoid the woman's gaze.

"And you have brought a new friend!" She notes enthusiastically. She adjusts the tiny glasses at the end of her nose. "...though clearly they are unaccustomed to the sun."

"...Great. Glad everyone's noticed," Cedar deadpans, making a visor over their eyes to see.

The short geriatric gives a jolly guffaw.

"Why of course, deary~! But do not fear, Granny has the perfect seat for you!" She pokes a gentle pointer finger at the young dragon's snout, and leads the trio to a darker corner of the shop, away from windows and surrounded by large leafy foliage.

"Now take a seat, dearie, and I will have Lark come and take your orders!" Granny procures a menu with her prehensile tail, and places it on the table.

As she begins to hobble away, Cedar's face softens at the geriatric marsupial's demeanor. The corner of their mouth threatens to tug into a smile.

At least. Until they turn around and lay eyes upon their counterpart and the deer simultaneously making motions with their arms toward the table.

"Sit, siiiiiiit~" the pair gesticulate mischievously. The Moon-bearer squints at the strange, almost ritualistic display.

"...The hells are you two buffoons doing?" The blue dragon questions, a single pierced ear twitching in irritation. "Has your shared braincell finally shorted out?"

"It's your initiation~" Maple wobbles, their undulating arms waving faster.

"INITIATION!" Aspen echoes, following suit with the Sun-bearer.

The beast-dragon crosses their arms, brow twitching. If their goal was to get on Cedar's nerves, it was certainly working, even if they couldn't help but try to fight off a confused-yet-bemused grin in the process. Though... judging from the order of things, they had a feeling they knew who the ringleader of this clown show was...

A sky-blue blur whips out from behind Cedar, swiping at leg-height and taking Maple's legs out at the knees, sending the Sun-bearer crumpling to the ground in a heap. Aspen ceases their waving immediately, a cry of shock bursting from the deer's lungs as their friend is absolutely bodied.

The red dragon is back on their feet immediately however, hackles raised, and fists clenched.

"What's the big idea, jackass?!" Maple fires, fangs bared. "Here I was layin out the red carpet for ya and everything!!"

Not one to be outdone, Cedar's head is immediately butting against the Sun-bearer's, a wide grin betraying their mischief as the pair lock proverbial horns with each other.

"Really?! I could've sworn it was just the mold spores finally eating what's left of your puny brain, melonhead!" Cedar retorts, fur bristling with static.

"Frosted tips!" Maple shoots back, hair fluffing up with their raising temperature.

"Cocky showboater!"

"Static sourpuss!"

"Coronal egotist!"

A new voice suddenly rings out:

"ENOUGH!"

The bickering Brand-bearers are both whapped upside the head with a rolled up magazine, snapping the pair out of their row.

"No fighting in the café! Now you can either sit, or you can leave!"

Rubbing their heads from the paperback assault, gold and silver eyes look up to see their assailant - a chubby red panda in a sweater and beanie - crossing their arms, jaw set and eyes burning with righteous fury.

"It's alright, Lark!" Aspen chimes in, shooting their new friends a pointed death-stare. "They were just about to sit down and pick out their orders~!"

The deer's stiff smile suggested that if the red and blue dragons were to get themselves kicked out, that the gardener would simply be sipping tea and laughing at them from inside the shop.

The dragons both mutter brief apologies to their server, and slip into the deeply shaded table along with Aspen, with Cedar at the back of the table and the others at either side of them. Lark, seeing this, merely huffs, shoulders relaxing as the trio briefly scan the menu.

"Not to be basic-" Maple starts.

"Too late," Cedar interjects.

"NOT. TO BE. BASIC," the Sun-bearer repeats, enunciating each word slower this time and louder. "But I'm thinkin' of pumpkin spice. Iced, please."

Lark writes down the order, face already aging past their fluffy, red panda youthfulness.

"And you all?" Lark asks, pointing the magazine at the other pair.

"I think... hot chocolate will do for me," Aspen decides. "Thank you, Lark!"

A bemused noise escapes the server, and their face softens. They nod at the deer, before turning lastly to the dragon.

"...I think I'll have what Aspen's having," Cedar decides. The deer nods in approval, and Lark writes the order down.

"Alright," the server states, voluminous tail swaying gently behind them. "I will have the order out soon. Behave yourselves."

Lark steps away, their gaze lingering on the rambunctious dragons before stepping around the corner.

Maple side-eyes Aspen, arms crossed and tail slapping against their chair.

"...Why was I the only one kneecapped, Cedar?" The dragon questions after a moment.

"Thrown under the bus?!" Aspen exclaims, snagging a sugar cube from the bowl on the table, chucking it at the Sun-bearer in retaliation.

"GWEURGH?!" It gets caught in Maple's nostril, much to their shock and horror. Holding the other nostril, they blow through their nose, having the unintended effect of launching the sweetener like a cannon, straight into the side of Cedar's head.

Cedar, catches the nasal projectile, vaporizing it in their fist in a silvery flash of lightning.

"If you wanna take this outside so badly, you could just say so, you incandescent toad!"

"I wasn't trying to hit you, ya self-important knife juggler!"

"FOCUS, damnit!" Aspen forces, drawing the pair's attention. Lark, who had begun to peek around the corner, slooooowly slid back out of sight.

"You had questions, right Cedar?" The deer continues, prompting both dragons to visibly relax.

The Moon-bearer sighs, rubbing their temples.

"What do you both know about the history of Eclipse City?" Cedar starts, their silver gaze moving from Maple to Aspen and back again.

The latter two give each other a look, brows furrowing. Maple's jaw sets, Aspen's eyes scrunch. The red dragon nods at the deer.

"...There isn't a lot publicly available, but we can definitely explain what we can," Aspen starts, green eyes look over the Moon-bearer, seemingly gauging their reaction.

"Hey," Maple chimes, looking between the other dragon and the ungulate. "Either of y'all have a pad of paper? I'm gonna make a rough map to reference."

Aspen nods. "Good idea. I think I have a dinky little- here it is."

They manage to fish a small pad of lined sticky notes from their cargo pocket, sliding it over to the Sun-bearer.

"Thanks, Aspen. Please continue."

As Maple pulls a pen from their jacket pocket, their ungulate friend nods, turning back to the other Brand-bearer.

"...Anyway, so as far as records publicly show, Eclipse City was founded about two hundred years ago."

Cedar's face scrunches a bit, head tilting.

"...Exactly," Aspen seemingly confirms for the beast-dragon. "All records seem to stop at approximately 1924 PFR."

"Post First Razing..." Cedar muses. "But... the city's been around longer than that."

"Exactly," Aspen repeats emphatically. "And to be frank, I only know that much because of Maple."

"The closer you live to the mountains, the more outsiders you tend to meet, and the less people feel constrained by inner-city censorship," Maple clarifies, not taking their eyes from the scribbled map they were working on.

"Maple used to live in Column Ward, next to the Dozen Bet. There was a town there before-"

The dragon's scribbling stops, and golden eyes shoot Aspen a look.

"...before it burned down and was abandoned," the ungulate finishes, prompting Maple to silently continue their amateur cartography.

Cedar mentally notes the strange exchange, folding their fingers over each other.

"Everything available after that is relatively easy to find on Roulette, but to be quick, a lot of the population started out in Anchor and Boxcars Wards, but started spreading quickly toward the Dragon's Hand."

Maple's scribbling stops once more, turning the paper around and sliding it to the center of the table.

"We're here now..." A gilded claw taps a point in the most north-eastern area of the map, labeled as 'Sunstone Café'.

"Aspen and I took the bullet tram to get here from Anchor Ward, here..." their claw taps the secondmost western ward, where a bridge is depicted leading out to the furthest ward to the west.

"Yeah, I flew here. I could gather that much, what's your point?" Cedar questions, raising an eyebrow.

"Just trying to help illustrate the scope of expansion. Did you notice how much of Burn Ward was dedicated to renewable energy production?"

"...Yeah. The entirety of the Dime Line and Felt rivers' northern shores were littered with hydroelectric dams, not to mention the sheer volume of solar panels could constitute a desert..." Cedar muses, recalling the density of wind turbines, as well as the smattering of nuclear reactors dotting the landscape in addition to the other power sources they mentioned.

"Every single project there is under a decade old," Maple elaborates. "Batchburg Enterprises didn't start building visible power plants until Ace got put in charge."

"Up until 2114, the entirety of Burn Ward was practically undeveloped land, with the exception of a few ski resorts," Aspen expounds, giving a side eye to the scaled dragon.

Cedar's entwined fingers mesh and lock together, eyes closing in thought.

"...You're implying there's a conspiracy," the Moon-bearer states frankly.

"We've got a friend looking into specifics," Aspen confirms. "But what we've found so far connects some dots with older public records, all of which referencing an event locally known as the 'Razing War'."

"Y'know how Aspen said Eclipse City expanded from Anchor and Boxcar Wards?" Maple continues.

Cedar nods, brow furrowing.

"Me and them went digging through some old buildings looking for tunnels and bunkers," the scaled dragon recalls, before leaning forward conspiratorially. "We ended up finding a whole damn undercity."

Silver eyes widen.

"...An undercity? With Razing War tech?"

Aspen nods. "That, and some poor fired Batchburg intern set up a cloud server down there filled to the brim with ancient files."

"...They were using Brand-bearers as living-fuckin-batteries," Maple growls. Cedar winces at the very thought. "Ace seemed to think better on just how bad an idea that is after his pops got caught trying to set up a new one."

"...Caught? In what?"

The pair are quiet for a moment.

"...An explosion," the crimson dragon eventually decides.

"...So you both find an undercity," Cedar recaps, hands pantomiming their thought trail. "There's a poorly placed cloud server that you pulled data from, and you found evidence that our predecessors were being used as batteries to power the city..."

The pair nod along as the Moon-bearer collects their thoughts.

"...And... what. You think there's more to discover about the city's hidden past?"

"Aspen thinks there might even be Pre-Razing war records in there somewhere," Maple confirms. "Not much else to do about it but to wait for our guy to sort out trash from treasure."

Cedar exhales a breath they didn't even realize they were holding as their hands unclench. They flop back in their seat, tail swinging below them.

If this undercity had this many secrets hidden within... chances are, there could be ways around the two biggest wards that the assassin had never even considered. If they could find more ways in, not only could they move undetected by locals, it could very well be the break they were looking for in their search. It would certainly explain how Maple and Aspen had conveniently been in the exact location they had hunted those two gang thugs a few days prior...

But even moving beyond the undercity's implications for their mission, it held even graver ones for them and Maple especially... Was that why the Sun-bearer was so hesitant to discuss what they knew? Did they get attacked by someone trying to capture them?

It had to be the reason why they had been so relieved to find another Brand-bearer alive...

'Alive and free'.

Pieces were starting to click together... But ultimately, they were pieces that could wait until after their mission was complete.

For now, however, the sickly sweet scent of cocoa wafted forth from an approaching be-sweatered red panda, and it was calling their name.