Gunter gets woken up with the sound of baton hitting bars. As he opens his eyes and looks, he sees a guard standing there. A gruff, grizzled man, clearly a man that's served for a couple years. The man looks at him and says "Get up inmate. You've got a court date today." With that, Gunter sits up while swinging his legs off the bed, dusts himself off, cracks his neck and knuckles, stands up, and puts his arms through the bars. With that, the guard brings out a pair of shackles and cuffs Gunter. As Gunter retracts his hands, a magical chain forms between them, locking the mage in place and nullifying magic. Gunter can sense his magic, which was already weak, completely shut off due to the shackles. With that, the guard opens the cell and says "Follow me, inmate."

Gunter's lead outside of the dungeon to a wagon. He is pushed inside with the door closed behind him. In front of him is a man in red and white robes. This man looks at him, and looks back at his documents while mumbling to himself "Destruction of property, murder, war crimes, attacked two light guilds..." as the man mumbles on about various crimes that Gunter committed, Gunter stares out the window. He sees the various townsfolk look in awe and wonder at this ye olde wagon. A bag of shit is thrown at the wagon, and a few speckles get on Gunter's cheek. The man doesn't even look up, he simply, while reading off the list, grabs a handkerchief from his pocket and says "Look presentable please, we're on a schedule." and tosses a handkerchief at Gunter. Gunter takes it and wipes the shit off his cheek, and tosses it out the window.

This ride seems short to Gunter, even though it was a long one. About twenty minutes, but to him it felt only five. The days went by so slowly in the cell, but whether fast or slow, Gunter knew he'd be out soon. Whether it be serving his time... or not.

Eventually, he was escorted out of the wagon into a waiting area. Gunter was left there waiting for about three hours, with a small platoon of guards from the city and Rune Knight officials watching his every move, swords drawn. Eventually, the man in the white and red robes comes back and says “Alright, prisoner #46571, I need you to follow me. It's time for your court hearing.” With that, Gunter follows the man and a small platoon of guards follows Gunter. Eventually, Gunter is brought to a room where it's primarily dark, there are a few seats with what seem to be high-up VIP political figures, but that's just Gunter's assumption based off their clothes; a tribunal of cunts, as it were. There is a seat specifically for Gunter, where as soon as he sits down, the chains on his cuffs attached to the table, and new shackles appear at his legs through some magical means.

With that, the figure in the white and red robes walks over to the tribunal. There is one older gentleman in the center, a younger gentleman with a scar going down on his left eye, and a woman on the left. Gunter wished it was a sexy woman, but it was in fact some old bag who not only looked like she had one foot in the ground, but half her torso in the ground. As if she were about to put on her pajamas and climb in the coffin. Before the tribunal even says anything, Gunter blurts out “Couldn't you at least get someone more attractive? Fuck me, it's like staring in the face of death.”

The older gentleman says “Open your mouth again and that's what you'll get.” Gunter leans back with a face that gives off the expression of “Fine, cunt.” without saying it. But Gunter's not the type to back down, so he says “The next time I open my mouth after this will be to say 'Good job!' as you suck my left nut.” The man in the center snaps his fingers twice, and a guard comes over, looks at the man in the center, who nods, and the guard slams Gunter's head against the table. As Gunter leans his head back to recoil, the guard then plunges a dagger into his left hand. Gunter looks at the knife stuck in his hand, looks at the guy in the center, and says “That fucking wakes you up better than coffee! Alright, jokers, why am I here?”

The man in the center looks at Gunter and says “The reason why you are here is due to this laundry list of crimes you have committed. You came into this country illegally, because you have no family connections at all. When you came here, you joined a guild called Penumbral Guard, and as you were in that guild, you continued to break the law. Doing quests for less legal people in order to profit from it. The reason we know it was you is because you signed off on these while in that guild. Now eventually, your bounty was removed due to a long, convincing argument from one Aegis, protecting the actions of you and a Mr. Tomoe Tanaka. And after he spent all of that time convincing us that you guys would change, less than 48 hours later, their guild is ashes! It's like I tell my wife. Sometimes, you have to put a dog down. No matter how cute it was, it's fucking feral. But we still have that chihuaha. Moving on. After your, well, short-lived time in Penumbral Guard, you continued to break the law, doing various other quests for, well, black market individuals. You burned some farms, you killed innocents, and I mean a lot of innocents. So many that we're still getting reports. I believe we're somewhere in the 50's and 60's.”

With that, he looks at the old woman. “Is that right? No, no, we're at 70 right now. 70 counts of confirmed murder. It just keeps piling on. There's apparently a kidnapping of a child, his bones were found at the bottom of the Penumbral Guard bridge. How they got there I don't know, because that child was from Hosenka, and they were found there 48 hours later. I'm going to assume that was due to your short, recent purchase of a flying monstrosity. Where you picked that up I'm not going to ask. There's half a hundred dozen cases of assault, every single bartender is reporting sexual assault of their wife and/or daughter regardless of age.”

Gunter smiles and says “Part of that was the Dardian. He eats kids.” The man in the center's eyes widen and says “That explains the bones.”

“No, no, not all of that was the Dardian.” Gunter says. With that, the guard slams another dagger into his hand and Gunter recoils and says “Hellooooo!”

“Moving on. The last few cases we have are building destruction, we have reports at a few mass genocide cases where we found bodies littered, buildings broken, and a theater where apparently you were hired to help. There was another case where some 'accident' where a man broke his neck falling off some upper level while doing some play. We're just finding out that you had something to do with that.”

Gunter gives a shrug and says “What can I say? I'm a man of fine arts, but not idiots in tights. Should've had two ropes.”

“And finally, we come to your most recent crime. The destruction of the Fairy Tail guild, the putting of their dead members on pikes, which is desecration of the dead, and the final crime of public indecency as you pissed on the ashes of Fairy Tail and your Dardian friend rubbed Fairy Tail's flag between his dirty ass cheeks. Does that about cover it?”

Gunter leans back in his chair, looking up with a face of pondering as if he's thinking about it. “No, I think I also worked for a sheep prostitution ring.”

The man in the center looks at him with eyes wide and says “I'm not going to question it, write it down on paper. Bestiality and prostitution, I don't care.” With that, he slams a book on the table where he was reading off these crimes, and says “You've committed so many crimes that honestly, half the populace of Magnolia, not to mention everywhere else, wants you dead. Not to mention the families of the mages you needlessly slaughtered from Fairy Tail and Penumbral Guard.”

There's a bit of silence that lingers in this room for a bit as this man in the center just thinks on everything. He then says “But, it seems that someone against their better judgment, has pulled strings. And some people higher up don't want to see your head rolling for some fucking reason. Pardon my language. So you are to serve an extremely lightened sentence relocated in the Era Dungeons, in an area known as Site 36, where you will be doing community service and every hour worked is a year taken off of your sentence. Now, I personally have never heard of this Site 36, and I don't want to stick my neck out to look into it, but that is where you are heading. So, someone will eventually come and get you, but I'm done for the day. We have another two hours in this court hearing, and you are going to sit there like a toddler in a corner and think about what you did, while I go get coffee with my colleagues. And the next time I see you cause any shit, and you end up back in Era, you better hope you have friends in high places, or you might just have an accident.”

With that, the man in the center gets up and walks out. Gunter, sitting there in his chair, knives in both of his hands, with a great big smile on his face inhales deeply and says “Maybe this city ain't too bad.”

---

Word Count: 1,690/4,200

After the two hours were up, the door opens and the guard and three tribunal officials walk back in drinking their coffees. The guard puts his down on the table while the three officials sit down in their seats. The man in the center looks at Gunter and says "Alright, we've signed the papers. This hearing is adjourned and you'll be escorted back to prison to your new home of Site 36."

With that, the guard grabs both of the daggers and wipes the blood off on Gunter's clothes before putting them back in their sheaths. The magical chains deform and Gunter is escorted via the small platoon back to the cart, where the man in white and red robes is waiting. The man in robes hands Gunter a piece of paper on a clipboard and says "I need your initials, and you can go home." Gunter looks at the man and at the document, reads it over quickly, more like skimming because he's not interested too much. He signs it, the man in robes takes the clipboard, steps out of the wagon, and closes the door behind him. The wagon goes back through the streets towards Era Dungeons.

Upon Gunter's arrival at the dungeon, he's met by a man in a nice business suit. The man says "I expected you to be a bit bigger for your size. Kind of a lanky fuck, aren't you?" Gunter steps out of the wagon and looks down at the tiny man in the suit and says "I need me one of those suits, I'd look fly like a son of a bitch." The small man simply says "I'm sure a man like you could get it at any store... without paying." Gunter simply responds with "Alright, remind me to take a quick stop at some high end clothing store when I get outta here. Maybe I'll even take one the king's fancy robes."

The man in the suit says "Yeah, that's cute." The man in the suit has Gunter follow him, where he's escorted to an elevator. The man inside says "You'll spend the rest of your time down in Site 36. Where you'll be doing community service in the form of being the subject of magical experiments. Right up your alley. Do try not to get your ass pushed in though."

With that, the doors of the elevator close just as Gunter's pushed in. Gunter waits in the elevator as it goes down, for the next 45 minutes, before it finally opens again. As it opens, Gunter steps out of the elevator and looks around at one big, massive cell. The elevator closes behind him and goes back up. He's met with concrete walls all around him and a single metal door at the other side of the room. In this massive room, he sees two tribal tattooed prisoners playing cards, one scrawnier prisoner carving pictures into his chest, and a clown who does look familiar to Gunter. But Gunter can't quite seem to remember why.

Gunter just heads over to one of the closest corners by the elevator and takes a seat, observing everyone in the room as they observe him, being that he is the most recent new arrival to their little world under the ground.

Time passes as the various prisoners do whatever they do, and eventually the metal door opens up and a man missing a good quarter of his skull as if it was dented in, comes slowly walking out, and just sits on the floor. Gunter looks at this man, and this man looks braindead, easiest way to put it. Like he's some walking coma patient, a drooling idiot. This is when Gunter realizes that he's probably not going to get a long conversation out with any of these rejects.

A guard steps out, looks around the room. Looks at the two troubled warriors playing cards, and says “I need help moving something.” The two card players get up and go with the guard. As time passes, Gunter sees something strange. The dented section of the drooling man's skull pops out like a blow-up balloon. It's not as if the man got smarter, it's just odd. Eventually, the two tribal warriors come back and so does the guard. As the two tribal warrios sit down, the guard looks at Gunter and says “You're new. Come with me.”

Gunter stands up and walks over to the guard, and follows him through the metal door. As he enters, he's met with a familiar smell. A smell that he knows all too well. The smell of blood. Gunter follows this guard down a hallway, seeing metal doors on each side with small windows. He looks through them, seeing strange individuals in white or black robes, injecting prisoners with some sort of serum. The guard looks back at Gunter as he's looking through windows and says “Keep your eyes forward, or you'll end up in there.” With that, Gunter decides it's probably best he follows the guard's instructions just for now.

Eventually, Gunter's brought to a room where he's told to take a seat on a medical bed. With that, the guard leaves the room just as a doctor enters in a white lab coat. Gunter says “So doc, what's the prognosis? Do I have cancer? Don't tell me I have AIDs.” The doctor says “Humor's the first thing to go. But anyways. You've been signed up for a bit of community service, so I'm going to simply test a few things on you.” In the back of Gunter's mind, he's thinking how wonderful human experimentation is and how it's up his alley. Gunter says “Don't let me stop you. It's not like I have rights.”

The man injects Gunter with a black liquid in a serum that has bits of what almost look to be metal or something like that. It has a silver color to it and a silver sheen, whatever it is. The man injects it into Gunter and says “I'm going to ask you some questions, and you will answer them to the best of your abilities. What is your biggest fear, and what's your motivation for doing what you did?”

“Well doc, my biggest fear is puppies. They scare me. Tiny, fluffy little bastards that are gonna rip my nuts off one day. And my greatest motivation would be, the reason why I do what I do, is to see how fast I can swing my dick around. Oh, and to smash a noblewoman. Yeah. That's a big one, right up there.” Gunter's joking of course, but he doesn't care what this doctor's asking. The doctor says “Very well. I will be back in an hour to administer your next dosage.” With that, the doctor leaves the room and locks it from the outside.

Being that Gunter has somewhere around an hour to kill, he takes a look around the room to see if he can find anything. In this room, there's of course the metal door and the medical bed. The walls are made out of concrete, and as he picks at the concrete with his fingers, not hard or enough to break a nail, just wants to see if it's loose... he does this along the walls, and doesn't find any cracks or weak points at all. He wouldn't be surprised if there was a metal sheet or slab on the other side of this concrete. During this time, he thinks about Tomoe, wondering what he's up to. But it's probably not much.

Eventually, the doctor comes back in and administers another dose. He asks the same questions, which Gunter jokes about again. The doctor leaves and says he'll be back in another hour. After thirty minutes after the second dosage, Gunter starts feeling a slight pain, as if it were a headache behind his eye in his left temple. Whatever they're injecting into him, seems the side effects or perhaps the effects themselves are starting to kick in, but no matter what this is, he's going to bite his tongue, take his time and eventually get the fuck out of here after community service is done. He doesn't know if this is some toxin or some psychological way to reform devious, dastardly prisoners. But whatever it is, it's not going to break his spirit. Maybe his mind, but not his spirit.

The doctor comes in, administers the third dose, and leaves immediately without asking any questions. Gunter starts thinking to himself about why there were no questions. Why weren't there any questions? Why no questions? These phrases and curiosities ramble around in his head for five minutes before he wonders why he even cares. Afterwards, he dismisses the thoughts.

Eventually, the doctor comes in again, administers the fourth dose. The doctor then says “Oh! My apologies. I forgot to ask you the questions last time. We should do that again, shouldn't we?” Gunter now has a pretty decent pain in his left temple, and says “Oh, yeah, I didn't even notice. You got any painkillers or something? My head's killing me.” The man reassures him that there's something he could get on his way out. “Anyways, about those questions. What is it you fear most, and what's your motivation for what you did?” Gunter jokes again for the last time, but changes it up just a bit to incorporate kittens as well instead of puppies. The man looks at Gunter, nods, and says “I see. I'll be back in thirty minutes this time, and double the dosage. And I will be administering it every thirty minutes from now on. See you then.”

With that, the doctor leaves. The pain in Gunter's temple has spread so that it's also hurting the back of his neck and it's starting to creep over to the right-hand side. He's starting to feel uneasy, his left eye has a twitch to it now, and he starts cracking his knuckles. He keeps trying to crack them constantly. Eventually, thirty minutes is up, and the man comes back in, and injects Gunter with four vials. He then says “Change of plans, we decided to increase the dosage a lot more.” The man would leave the room after that, and say that he's done with questions for now.

This pattern of vials and the man entering and exiting after dosing Gunter, continues on for a while. Currently, 35 doses have been applied. At this point, Gunter is unable to sit still. He feels paranoid. And the walls are starting to move. He's starting to see things, hear sounds of prisoners screaming and the ripping and tearing of flesh, the screeching of some creature, the sound of bones being broken. And even though these sounds would normally give Gunter no fear, he feels absolutely terrified due to the paranoia. The doctor comes in, and administers the last dosage, pumping 36 vials into Gunter. He then looks at Gunter, and as Gunter looks back at the doctor, he can see the doctor's face melt and contort, looking as if there are teeth in the man's throat like some kind of leech. As this man talks and says “I will be back in thirty minutes, and I will ask you questions one last time. After which, you will be released. For now, we observe.”

The doctor leaves the room and locks the door, and Gunter is left in this room as it begins to warp. He gets strange, horrific visions like he did oh so long ago on a bridge in Hosenka, at a moment of what could have been death. The walls, bed, and everything around him turns black with sparks of silver creating almost stars and a void. Gunter can see black tendrils wrapping around him, like strings on a puppet. Before him, in this vast void, is a single eye staring at him. With massive tendrils in this vast void of despair, it stares at him as if to judge the very existence, not of Gunter, but of the species that he represents. Humanity. Disgusting, vile, putrid, shit-slinging apes. In that moment, whether it be due to the vials or perhaps it was Gunter's psyche finally cracking, more than it already was, he realized that perhaps what he was motivated for and his fears and his goals were all wrong. In this moment, the man who he was, was cast aside like a madman into the void. Who he became? Now that would be a real monster.

Eventually, after Gunter had his psychotic breakdown and moral dilemmas due to drug-induced shenanigans, the doctor came back in the room and asked Gunter the two questions that he has been asking since Gunter's arrival to Site 36. The doctor started off by saying “So tell me. What were your motivations for doing what you did?” Gunter looked at the man and said with a very calm demeanor “I did what I did to show exactly how rotten this world is. The fact that it took the destruction of two guilds and the butchering of their members before someone would rise up against me, shows how weak and rotten this world is. I did what I did to see if a hero would come out of the woodwork and stop me. And I'll be honest, I'm not impressed.”

The doctor then says “What is your biggest fear?” Gunter takes a deep breath, and says “Failure. In the task that I must do.” The doctor asks “What is that task?” to which Gunter replies “Bring true peace to the world, or let it be devoured by the void.”

The doctor then leaves the room while informing him that a guard will escort him back to his cell, and thanks Gunter for his help in the study. “You have been a vital help to society for this.” the doctor would tell him before leaving the room.

Gunter is escorted back to the elevator. As Gunter takes the elevator back up for the next 45 minutes, he is calm and collected. Upon reaching the top of the elevator, he's escorted back into his cell. The guard tells him that he'll be released in anywhere from a day to maybe a week after the hours shaved off his service from experimentation. And with that, the guard leaves. Gunter spends the next period of his time in captivity doing push-ups, and just thinking. Gunter just continues thinking and doing push-ups for the rest of his first night, getting a bit of sleep after his experience.

In the morning he hears an alarm. This is the first time Gunter's heard the sound, and it confuses him ever so slightly. A guard walks by and opens the cell. The guard tells him that it's time to get out of his cell for rec time, to get out into the yard or wait in the kitchen for lunch. And that it's best not to cause trouble, unless Gunter wants to be thrown in solitary. Gunter steps out of his cell and just heads to the common area. As he gets there, he sees a lot of prisoners hooting and hollering, staring at him and calling him new fish. Gunter looks at them with zero interest whatsoever. He notices an older gentleman sitting in a chair at one of the tables, smoking a cigar. The guards never took away his pack of smokes, so Gunter wanders over and lights one up.

Gunter looks at the man and says “How long have you been here for?” and the older man replies “A few years.” Gunter takes a puff of his cigarette. A long, deep, slow inhale. And exhale. As him and this random man sit at this table, smoking, he observes the various convicts roaming around in their little cliques like this was high school, playing their card games, selling their drugs. Eventually, Gunter finishes his cigarette and decides to head over to the kitchen as an announcement comes on that lunch will be served in ten minutes. He heads over to the counter, and asks one of the kitchen workers what's for lunch. The kitchen worker tells him that slop is to eat, with a side of corn.

Gunter takes a seat at one of the tables, and waits for this apparent “food” to be served. As he sits there, a man walks over, a bald man, bigger than most with a scar running down the left side of his neck. He puts his hand on Gunter's shoulder and says “You're in my seat. Get the fuck up and go somewhere else.” Gunter casually and calmly turns his head to face the man and says “Unfortunately, sir, I did not see a reserved sign on this table. As such, I will have to assume that it is, in fact, open for any and all to sit at.”

The bald man, not relenting at all, says “Get the fuck up, move somewhere else, or I'll knock your teeth out on this table. And you can eat your teeth instead of this meal.” With that, Gunter stands up and says “Very well. I apologize, good sir. Have your seat.” The man pushes Gunter aside and sits down. As he sits down, Gunter grabs the back of his head and slams him into the table, causing the table to dent at the sheer impact of the man's skull hitting it. As the man falls over, unconscious, Gunter simply kicks him aside under the table and sits down, resting his feet on the man's neck. With his hands on the table, waiting for food to be served, just as the other inmates and guards come walking in. Eventually, lunch is served.

Gunter goes up to wait in line to collect his slop. He then sits down at a different table, so that he's not sitting above an unconscious man under the table. The man's buddies, to Gunter's assumption, notice him under the table and scream out in shock and surprise asking who attacked him. Gunter just keeps eating. As guards come in and take the unconscious man away, Gunter finishes his pig slop of a meal, maybe that's why they gave it the name, and waits to be excused from the room by the guards. It's not polite to leave the table when not everyone is done.

Gunter continues this process of working out and sleeping in his cell to getting up and spending time in the common area and eating meals while this bald man stays out of his way. Eventually, a guard comes to his cell and says “Alright, paperwork has gone through, you're free to go. Head to the front to collect your things.” Gunter leaves his cell and starts walking to the front. Before he gets to the front, the guard that let him out says “Oh, and do try to be a good boy this time. Otherwise I'll toss you in with the rapists next time.”

Gunter heads to the front and collects his gear. His bloody cloak remains, and he looks at the guard and says “Burn it. I don't need it.” With that, he walks out of prison, still in his prisoner outfit. As he gets outside, he is met with a crowd of angry citizens holding signs and screaming how he's a monster and outraged at his early release. Gunter calmly and casually walks down the steps towards the crowd of angry citizens. He looks at the one in the front holding the biggest sign, clearly trying to be the main representative, and says to them “Get out of my way. Or I'll send you to meet your friends.”

Suddenly, the ground starts to shake, and Kratos pops up and says “How's it going boss! Heard you got an early release, nice. Was about to come out and bring you long johns. Last thing I remember was getting my shit rocked, forgot what happened. So what's next, we gonna burn down Blue Pegasus? Kick Fairy Tail's ass again? What's the plan?”

Gunter puts a hand on Kratos' shoulder and says “Good to see you, old friend.” Kratos being confused, with that being not how Gunter usually talks. “No problem boss.” Kratos says. Gunter would continue saying “First, I need new clothes. Then we eat. Then we go tracking down a familiar face.” Kratos says “Alright, two seconds.” and reaches down and pulls up a sack that's moving inside. He smiles, and they take off on a new adventure. As they get outside of town, Kratos eats the kid that was inside the sack.

The two get out of there to enjoy new freedom.

---

Word Count: 4,200+/4,200 Sentence served

[Exit]