The Red Light District.
Or what remains of it.
As John The Revelator walks amongst the rubble, and Grimskull surveys the land around them, Drewitt speaks calmly.
“It’s true, that what has always been will remain, like the dirt under these paved roads, but I have walked the road of Arcadia many times, and that is not all the Arcadian Censorship Authority need to understand.”
Drewitt walks a little further down the crumbling ruins, Grimskull slowly following.
“Whilst the past will always haunt their efforts, like Mr. Kleen’s history as part of the Kingdom, they are equally shackled by what is yet to come. They have paved their own rules over the ‘dirt’ around them, but as the dirt is exposed…”
Drewitt bends down and motions towards the beginnings of some greenery poking through the exposed dirt.
“A shoot. The beginnings of new life reaching out from beneath the ground, finally able to breathe in the air and take in the light that the paving had so cruelly stifled them of. That is what the ACA need to be wary of, just as much as the past. As the concrete prison of their restrictions begins to crack and crumble, just as the Red Light District did, people will realise what they were missing. People will see a new light, breathe in a fresh perspective, and understand that the ACA don’t stand for what they claim to. You are right, brother, that arrogance has blinded them. And alongside amplifying what they fear most, they have also watered the very shoots they have uncovered. A seed of hope, watered by the hypocrisy they drown in, and fed by the nutrients of the complacency that follows them like a shadow. And as more people push through the dirt and find the light, the ACA will find that the road they paved becomes lonelier and lonelier as it is destroyed behind them, torn asunder by the roots of revolution taking hold.”
Drewitt stands.
“The truth is the ACA will face a war on two fronts. On the one side, bound by the past, and those who remember what Arcadia was before their arrogant crusade, and on the other, shackled by the future, and those who will fight for their freedoms as the truth comes to light. And this is one war they can never win, for the armies that stand at their gates are too strong and too numerous.”
Drewitt walks towards John, motioning for Grimskull to follow him.
“Brother, we know War and Conquest better than they ever could. They should already know that we stand each side of them, leading and guiding them ever closer to failure. The Alpha and Omega, War and Conquest, the past and the future, the beginning and the end. And when they finally come to that realisation? The shoots will be fully grown, a dense forest of oak trees with only one way out – only serving to prove what we have always known. That the true road cannot be paved, only followed to it’s inevitable conclusion.”
“This War always ends with Conquest.”