“I still remember my first murder scene.”
“My commanding officer at the time ushered me in to the heart breaking sight of a man’s head blown to pieces, blood coating the walls, brain matter in the carpet. I was horrified, distraught at what I’d seen.”
“You’d think my supervisor would be the same, but he met the scene with a smile. Not just a smile, but a chuckle as he pointed to the corner and said ‘Keep an eye on that’.”
“I followed his gaze to the remains of the victim’s eye.”
“And, you know, I laughed.”
“Because when I asked him why he joked about something so terrible, he simply said you either make yourself smile… Or you lose your mind in this job.”
“For a long time I thought he was right, you know. Either you find something to laugh about, some way to force a smile on your face, or you just might go crazy. In a job filled with so much pain, sadness, and strife, you had to find a way to keep your spirits up.”
“The thing is, though, the longer I trained under him, the less I believed the smirk etched on his face. You could see it in his eyes. He was tired, he was weary, he was dead inside.”
“It took me a while to realize it, but forcing yourself to smile no matter what? It’s not natural, it’s soul crushing.”
“You know that feeling all too well, don’t you, Sunshine?”
“See, you just want Arcadia to smile, to see the brighter side of things! But Arcadia isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and you know that, don’t you? It’s corrupt, it’s depraved, and it’s home to the worst that humanity has to offer.”
“Yet you try to force everyone you meet to paint that same fake smile onto their faces.”
“Forcing them to hide their emotions deep inside. I saw what you did to Nox, I saw how you destroyed his lab and stole his notebook simply to force him to fake a smile. He’s not a good man, but you tried to ruin him in a vein attempt at curling his lips upwards.”
“Hugging him tightly to try and make his anger and hatred subside.”
“You got your hug, but the emotions were still there.”
“Begging to be released.”
“We all want to smile, Sunshine.”
“But I refuse to smile until I’ve earned it.”
“I can’t simply sit back as my family is brutalized by Zeus’s lapdogs. I refuse to joke about the blood stain my mother’s head left on the wall. I refuse to deny my anger, my sadness, and my rage.”
“I’m not scared to frown, Sunshine. I won’t smile at depravity, I won’t laugh at death.”
“And I won’t cover up how I really feel.”
“Our match isn’t a time to smile, Sunshine.”
“Olympus isn’t a place to laugh.”
“It’s where I’m going to make you face reality.”
“Nobody is above the Law.”
“And I am the Law.”