This fic… I write this fic knowing that it will never be immensely popular. This fandom has been dead for a long time, and will only proceed to get deader. If I am honest with myself, which I must be from time to time, Motorcity is never coming back. IT's just not something that can happen in the foreseeable future. So I am writing this for the future person who, like me, came to the party years too late and wanted something like this. This is for you, and I hope you enjoy it.

Live Fast, Live Free

It takes a fraction of a second for Mike's world to change forever. For his course to be permanently altered on this path he has been taking. For it takes that small sliver of time for his brain to process this situation as bad, and evil, and twisted, and it is during this small infinity that lies in between seconds that he looks at Abraham Kane's face and for the first time in his entire existence doubts his belief in the man.

It is his next step that will change it even more. A simple movement, hardly different from any other's he could take. When the man behind him warns him to stop, instead of sweeping his feet out from under him and running, Mike turns and punches him in the face. Of course, a practical way to deal with someone, except not so practical when there happens to be about a dozen or so soldiers around you as well.

His feet are turned the wrong direction to run away, and he becomes a flurry of punches and jumps and kicks, a vicious beast that is full and fueled by a sense of betrayal and loss and anger that comes from somewhere so deep that it is almost feral. But he is outnumbered, and a sorrow and regret makes his movements just a little too sluggish. One man grabs his wrist and he turns to retaliate, but there's already someone else grabbing his other, and two pieces of cold metal clamp down on the them with clear metallic cling. Two magnets pin his arms behind his back before a fist comes in contact with his face with a nasty crunch, but he barely tastes the metallic liquid that fills his mouth because he becomes distracted yet again by the sound of wrecking machine whirring to life.

"Finish the demolition!" A man yells, and the machine obeys. (Whether the machine was the electronic object holding the wrecking cube of the man inside controlling, Mike was no longer sure there was a difference).

The cube smoothly punched through brick and mortar.

"No!" The cry comes out of his mouth – desperate and broken sounding as the yells of screaming people assault his ears in a cacophony. Wails of desperation emanate from the building, but the cube merely swings back once more and hits again. And again. And again.

And Mike watches it all, is forced to watch it all, bent over in an uncomfortable way with an elbow jabbed into his back and an eye swelling shut. Tears stream down his face, and he tries again and again to break free, but there is just nothing in there anymore. His chest is hollow and empty and the fight in him must be lying forgotten on the ground because in that moment it was lost to him.

After an hour and a half all buildings – homes – are torn down and he is 'escorted' back to Deluxe.

oOo

His cell is definitely not how he had imagined it would be. His cuffs never left his wrists, but the magnets were deactivated and instead were attached to the wall through thick red chords that glowed slightly and gave small waves of warmth. It was dark and dimly lit, and his jacket had been taken away from him. Everything was white and blue. He used to love those colors so much. But right now all he could think of was the city full of colors and life and energy. Freedom emanating from it.

The sterile room paled in comparison.

oOo

"-after all I have done for him!" Julie's dad was on one tonight. He was angry, and she could tell as soon as she stepped in the room this wasn't a good time. She caught a glimpse at the screens in front of him. Chilton, Mike. The Prodigy. The Genius. The Favorite. She had never expected to see the word 'traitor' used to describe him, but there it was right in front of her. He had turned traitor after going down below and was being contained as top priority. It looked like there had been a lot of trouble subduing him at first.

Julie left the room quietly, deciding she would talk to her dad later, when he wasn't so busy… she had been saying that a lot recently. Mike had always been so loyal to her father, and dear old Dad had been guilty of talking about him – gushing about him – without meaning to, so she could only imagine what could have happened to make him turn traitor.

Julie looked out the window at the docks for the buildings, the ports leading to the underground standing out perfectly.

Maybe she could find out for herself.

oOo

It's about a week before Kane comes to his cell to talk to Mike. He expressed his disappointment at Mike's actions, and he knows it's silly, but Mike really does feel shameful. He can't just turn off his loyalty to Kane like a switch. In a way, he had become like a father to Mike, and disappointing him hurt. He told Mike that he was still there for him.

At the end of the conversation Kane walks close enough to Mike that he could be in danger of a punch and holds out his hand.

"Do you want to go back upstairs now?"

Mike looks at the hand, the familiar hand, and feels his own twitch. But then a city with color and freedom flashes through his mind and spits at Kane's feet instead.

Kane doesn't come back for a long time, and Mike can't decide how he feels about that.

oOo

The city is dark and dank and smelly and there are rats everywhere and Julie instantly regrets going down there. She's used to clean building and sterile ground, being able to walk and not having to fear tripping over random pieces of metal, twisted in unnatural ways. There are no people in sight when she gets there, and honestly she's too afraid to go and search anyone out. Junk it piled high, like tall imposing towers, and they give the impression that those who pass them does not return.

Julie goes back to Deluxe.

oOo

They don't feed Mike much – just enough to get by, and at this point he was starting to wonder what other kinds of foods tasted like – surely Kane cubes weren't the only form of substance in this world. He has the feeling that they had some other kinds of food down there, down in Motorcity, and he desperately wants to know something besides the bland taste and flavorless substance of the blue and white cubes.

The next day he counts – and double counts – the number of cubes. Mike assumes he won't ever get the chance to try different food if he starves to death tied to the wall in Kaneco tower.

oOo

She goes back. NOT because she's curious, just because… well… she figured that she should at least meet some people before she decides to condemn the entire city. This time she enters the jungle of metal and garbage, and this time the smell isn't quite so affronting to her nose. In fact, she could almost describe it as pleasant.

It's as soon as she makes her way out of the towers of unclaimed items that she sees she unintentionally has a great vantage point to look out on the city. It sprawls out below her, full of sparkling lights like their own special kind of stars that dot the ground. It's so full of color her eyes begin to hurt from looking at it. Red's that do her own hair shame, such a variety of blues that she didn't even know could possibly exist, and so many other colors that she eyes had never seen before save for when the sun set or in a rainbow after a rainy day.

Up above the sky is made up of cables and blinking lights, and roof that holds everything they need in order to provide life to the people here, a constellation of wires to compensate for stars that dot the ground.

She continues to walk, because for once this strange world that has been always been under her feet has caught her attention in a good way. There's an area of land that looks smoothed out – paved – probably for walking, although she didn't see why it needed to be so wide, surely the paths like the one she was currently one were enough for –

Her mental train of thought was abruptly cut off as she began to notice a humming sound in the distance. Julie turned her head to look around her, but she had no idea what was causing it… she looked down the paved pathway and her eyes widened when she saw several brightly colored shapes, little more than blurs, approaching where she was.

Julie rushed off to the side of the pathway, and whipped around just in time to see the blurs pass by. Time seemed to slow down, and for a single fraction of a second she could see every detail of them – the wheels pushing against the ground, intricate details that obviously meant something to people inside of the vehicles painted on the sides, each of them different sizes and proportions, and the alive look on faces of the people inside, urging the vehicles forward.

And then just like that, they were gone and halfway down the road, far away from her, but Julie still stared at the place where they had been. A memory niggled at her brain, and it hit her. Those were… cars. But the barely had any resemblance to the cars her dad had shown her, or the few she had seen at car burnings – old clunkers that could barely move, dreary colors of gray and black and white. Those… what she had just seen… those were works of art.

Julie rushed down towards the settlements.

oOo

yeah, we're gonna cut it off there. Originally I wanted the first chapter to wrap up this entire introductory area, but it's getting longer than I had anticipated, so we'll go ahead and let it bleed into the second chapter as well :3 I hope whoever it is that read this and whenever it is that you read this has enjoyed this first chapter, and I truly hope you look forward to more of this au ;)

~the-east-hunter