The Trash Man! [Dungeon]

Vincent was still getting accustomed to his new powers and was thus not certain if he was ready to take combat-oriented jobs. As such, the mage was happy to accept a job offer put out by the Magic Council and presumably aimed at some of the more… novice mages that Fiore had to offer. Apparently, the “newer generation” of mages had a lack of respect for the towns they represented as evidenced by the lack of care to where their garbage was to be thrown. Cans, plastic bags, and pieces of crumpled up paper littered the streets of Magnolia Town to the point where it was getting out of hand. To this end Vincent as well as another group of mages accepted the volunteer request put out by the Council. They would be the ones to rid the streets of litter for the good of the town. This job wasn’t exactly the most exciting test of his abilities as a spatial manipulator, but that was exactly the point. The wizard, after all of the excitement that ensued after he was kidnapped by Yōkai and nearly fed to the Queen of Spiders, needed a break from combat and putting his life in danger.

Now, Vincent found himself at the center of Magnolia Town. I’m stunned – the reports of littering did not quite capture the full extent of the problem…. I wonder if it really was the newer generation of mages that made this mess. This seems like a bit too much trash, even if there was a hypothetical influx of litterbugs. Hm… The wizard from Crystal Swan was already suspicious given the density of trash in his current area but could not think of a different explanation for the presence of the trash. On this overcast day, the mage decided to simply not investigate the matter further and deal only with what was asked of him. Vincent began with the gutters of Magnolia Town; the sides of the roads were particularly dirty with flyers, discarded magazines, and food wrappers from the local stands. How someone could treat their own home as a dumpster is beyond me. I wish I could catch one of these rapscallions in the act. As the saying goes, “ask, and it shall be given you.” Approximate a minute after Vincent had this thought, he saw a spiky-haired blonde mage throwing the day’s newspaper into the wind.

The breeze carried the newspaper right to Vincent who caught it and then saw the headline: “Littering getting out of hand?” He shook his head at the coincidence before marching right up to the offender in order to offer him some friendly advice. “You, why did you throw the newspaper into the wind? Don’t you see how filthy the city has gotten? I demand that you assist in cleaning up this mess – if you were so willing to contribute to it now I find it quite likely that you’ve contributed to it before.” The blonde haired mage turned around and looked down at Vincent, for he was the taller of the two, before responding ”Hey guys listen to this intellectual. Do you see this, snow white?” He held up his right hand which had the tattoo of Fairy Tail upon it. ”That’s right, I’m a guild mage for Fairy Tail. Do you know what that means? That means I risk my life on jobs for this town, so the least I could do is just throw my garbage anywhere for the sweepers like you to pick it up. It’s just the way things are.” ”Be that as it may, there are rules in the town. You risk your life for the rewards of the jobs, not some noble dedication to your town – that much is evident by your lack of care with your trash. Spare me your moral high roading and assist me in picking up the trash.”

”Is that right, smart guy? You think I’m scared of some volunteer who was too weak to go beat up a few Vulcans for the hicks on the countryside? Please, I’m going to give you a few seconds to beat it before me and my friends toss you into the gutter alongside the trash.” Vincent shook his head. It was always violence with this tough guy types – no sense of diplomacy. In the blonde-haired mage’s defense, Vincent had probably come off a bit strong with the demands, but it had to be done. He wasn’t simply about to meekly acknowledge the perpetrator’s actions and beg for assistance. That sort of behavior was simply beneath him. ”I am only going to say this once. If you raise a fist against me then I will, under the watch of these witnesses, defend myself. You will be barred from your guild and face the legal consequences of your actions.” By now, Vincent and the three mages from Fairy Tail had gathered quite a crowd of curious bystanders. ”It’ll be worth it to knock a few teeth out of that smug mouth!” With a sigh, Vincent prepared to end the fight quickly.

The white-haired mage nimbly dodged a punch aimed at his nose which surely would have fractured it. The blonde-haired mage blinked and then found himself surrounded by five longswords whose points were all aimed at his chest. All of the bladed weapons were slowly hovering and rotating about the body of the Fairy Tail aggressor. ”Are we done here?” Vincent asked, quite sure that the mage would yield at this point. Much to his surprise, a fiery roundhouse collided with his right side and sent him flying into the crowd of people in front of the entrance to a public park all of whom fell over. ”Are we done here? What a joke!” Vincent stood and brushed his robe off. The taunts of the blond-haired wizard upset him. That really hurt – he wasn’t holding back. Is he really trying to kill me? I didn’t sense a powerful magical aura from him, so that must’ve been one of his strongest attacks. Before he knew it, the fire wizard was in his face ready to launch a powerful right hook. Vincent ducked under the blow and commanded his swords to fall upon the fire mage. One by one, the longswords turned to daggers and pierced the spiky-haired legs, arms, and back – one for each. The aggressor collapsed and cursed in his helpless state. ”You’re foolhardy. You were surrounded by sharp blades and you still went through with your attack. It was so shocking I didn’t have time to react. That said, if you were disabling me then you should’ve ended it in the first attack.” ”What did you do to me?!” ”All I did was sever some rather important nerves. Don’t worry, you’ll recover in nine to twelve months if you check into the hospital in the next thirty minutes. Otherwise the damage will be a bit more permanent. You’ll have plenty of time to think about recklessly attacking people while recovering. Expect a visit from the Rune Knights.”

With that, Vincent turned and limped over to the nearest park bench rather ungracefully. He was beginning to think that he suffered more than a fracture as he watched the two allies of the reckless Fairy Tail mage take their friend in the direction of the hospital.  While he sat in pain, he decided to pick up all of the trash in the park that he could see. One by one, the wrappers and loose pieces of paper rose from behind the bushes and trees of the public park and danced their way into their nearest trash bins. He didn’t envy the mages who didn’t have the power to simply control objects in space in some direct way and were relegated to simply picking up all of the garbage by hand. Then again being perfectly suited to pick up trash wasn’t exactly something one would go around bragging about. As he mused about the kind of reaction one would garner from saying that their magic was the best for picking up litter, something peculiar happened. A little shadow ran past a garbage can with what appeared to be a brown canvas bag full of… something. Vincent stood and hobbled over in the direction of the shadow which was now standing still on a grassy enclosure of the park.

His eyes focused to see a little man holding the bag and this little man was… depositing garbage! The garbage that he had just picked up! He was not having this at all. ”Who are you? Are you the one responsible for the massive amount of garbage around the town?” The little man turned around. He sported a blue leotard and was balding. This man could not have been taller than four feet. ”It is I! The Trash Man! I have come to cover the city in trash!” The Trash Man began to cackle loudly. ”I’m going to make this town pay for treating me like an outcast, for quarantining me into the outskirts of the town and looking at me like a freak all on account of my interests!” The wind stopped blowing away from Vincent and he could begin to smell something putrid. I don’t think he was outcast because he has an affinity for trash… was his only thought before shaking his head and covering his nose. ”Listen, you need to stop littering or I am going to stop you. It’s that simple. I was hired to be rid of the garbage in this town and you’re standing in the way of that aim.” ”You fool! Do you not know that there is no power greater than that of trash? Every day the amount of trash grows thus increasing my power. You cannot defeat an endless stream of garbage!”

Vincent raised his eyebrow before raising his other when the little man charged at him. He thought very little of the ability of this crazed balding man until he was grabbed, raised over the man’s head with both his legs draped over the aggressor’s shoulders, and then slammed into the grass. He had just been power bombed. The white-haired wizard’s head was beating in its casing as he reeled mentally from what had just transpired. The Crystal Swan mage had lost sight of the little man and figured that he had absconded until he felt small but powerful arms grab him from behind. Oh no… please no… Yes, he knew what was coming. Within the next few moments Vincent saw the world turn upside down as his back and head collided with the grassy ground of the public park once more. ”You aren’t even worthy enough to feel the awesome might of my magical abilities! Yield to your champion, the Trash Man!” With that last grandiose statement the Trash Man picked up his garbage back and ran to the nearest manhole cover. Luckily, Vincent managed to spatially grabbed hold of the garbage bag which tore when the Trash Man tried to keep him from taking his precious trash.

All of the discarded food and broken machinery spilled onto the street but was quickly transported to the nearest garbage can. ”How did Magnolia Town attract a character like that? No matter, I can’t underestimate him again – he’s a vicious wrestler” the scholar thought aloud as he summoned water from the nearby flora to mend his aching neck and rib. Once he was feeling good as new, he decided that it was time to brave the sewers and put a stop to the Trash Man’s smelly tyranny. With a sigh of reluctance, the white-haired wizard walked over to the same manhole that his enemy had used and lifted it easily using his manipulation of the forces keeping it in place. Once it was off, he climbed down into the smelly depths. He’s going to wish that he stayed underground once he’s sitting alone in his cell… well, maybe he’s just going to get a fine. Still, he attacked a mage acting on behalf of the Magic Council – that needs to carry some kind of greater penalty. In part, Vincent mused on what would befall the Trash Man in order to distract himself from the grotesque smell that he encountered in the bowels of Magnolia Town.

It was dark, dank, and smelled of feces. This was not a place that he wanted to be in for very long. Rats scuttled out of sight as soon as they sensed Vincent’s presence and he was glad – such disease carrying pests were not safe to have around. The maze that was the Magnolia Town sewer system had Vincent lost in no time and, before he knew it, he had lost his way back to exit. Great… now I have to find both the Trash Man AND an exit to this place. I guess if I really must then I could just make an exit, but I’d rather not risk getting caught in the ground. An unfortunately common occurrence with spatial manipulation magic as it pertained to traveling was getting caught inside terrain. It was a quick and unfitting way to die for mages of such a magic. It was not unlike dying while sitting on the toilet. The problem was so bad that some even developed more destructive versions of the teleportation spells in order to completely disintegrate anything within a set distance of the area that the person teleported to, but that came with its own set of problems. Vincent was in a camp that believed that the careful mage would never find themselves within terrain.

Upon finishing this line of thought regarding the dangers of haphazard teleportation, Vincent heard the quick footsteps of a man running. It’s him! The white haired mage twisted his upper body and created a field of force that pressed the Trash Man into the concrete wall of the sewer. ”You saved me the trouble of finding you. Thank you.””A self-respecting champion would never let such common rabble invade their homes. But it looks like you might be stronger than I gave you credit for. As a reward, I will show you the true power of trash!” Vincent could not believe was he was hearing and didn’t notice the apple core that the man was reaching for. Is he going to eat that? he thought. His morbid curiosity got the better of him and he reduced the strength of his gravity altering field in order to watch an old balding man eat trash. Sure enough, he did. What the white-haired mage did not expect was for this mistake to nearly cost him his life.

After taking a bite from the apple core, Vincent felt a surge in the short man’s magical power. Before he realized the sheer scale of his mistake in letting this crazed man eat garbage, the now giant Trash Man wrapped his entire left hand around Vincent’s stomach and jumped up with the force of a hundred rockets. The two easily exited the sewers. Well, exited was imprecise. The Trash Man busted through the floor over the part of the sewers they met in and threw Vincent into a nearby pastry store at the apex of his jump. The Crystal Swan wizard’s body ragdollized as he crashed through the painted window of the shop and broke through a plexiglass casing which had a wide array of colorful sugar snacks on display. Covered with cream, he stood and hobbled over to the broken window. ”I’ve made one too many mistakes against you, Trash Man. I have to thank you for reminding me not to take my opponent’s appearance into consideration when deciding how best to handle them.” The Trash Man didn’t respond with words, but rather by charging head on towards the broken window of the store he had damaged.

Right before the two collided, Vincent stepped forward and ended up behind the giant who stopped in his tracks the moment he realized that his opponent had disappeared. The wizard put a field around the wrestler that made him as light as a feather before wrapping both arms around his stomach and leaping high into the air. ”Let’s see how effective your moves really are.” he said at the peak of his jump, the Trash Man trying desperately to escape the grip. He knew what was coming. Vincent arched his back and the two plummeted towards the stone road upside down. Once again, the space wizard created a field that accelerated their fall to an abnormal degree and they collided with the Earth. When the dust settled Vincent found the Trash Man to be unconscious and a majority of the trash around the area to be dematerializing. It seemed as though there was some kind of magical projection at play and he was shocked that he didn’t think of it sooner. Even so, Vincent knew that his work here was done and decided to drag the Trash Man into the nearest Rune Knight outpost and let them decide what the proper course of action was for his crimes.

To think my initial suspicion of the degree of trash was correct; there was indeed a magical perpetrator behind the density of garbage. I’ll need to remember this next time my instincts identify another situation as beyond the realm of normality… The Crystal Swan mage was quite content with the amount of trash that defeating the Trash Man had cleared, but he still decided to stick around Magnolia Town to sweep up the non-magical litter that plagued the town; it was why he was here after all. The residents of Magnolia Town thanked the Crystal Swan mage from a distance, a gesture that he didn’t take as offensive in the slightest. After that little skirmish with the Trash Man in the sewers and in the street, he knew that he had to smell absolutely repugnant at this point. Once he was through with his volunteer work for the Magic Council he would have to take a very long tomato bath to get this stench off of his body. The work he would need to get the stench off of his clothing was another matter altogether…

WC: 3036/3000

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