Billy's eyes widened as he heard the confrontation going on outside the thin door. Had some kid decided to follow him or something? He couldn't let the boy die because he'd done something stupid! His hand was on the doorknob, a centimeter from sliding it open to rescue the boy, before the soldier did the most humane thing he'd ever seen one do before. He backed off. Billy knew that all soldiers weren't inherently evil, but it was rare to find one as hesitant as this soldier. Maybe there was some good left in them, he'd just have to find that.

Cautiously, Billy inched open the door. This could be a trap, and if that were the case he couldn't be too trusting. When he could finally see out, all Billy saw was the young boy sitting on the ground. The boy was young, maybe 10 or 11. Had that boy really just stood his ground in front of fully armed soldiers? Billy shook his head, wishing that children weren't the ones that had to struggle like this. Kneeling down next to the boy, Billy looked at him. "Never stood up to them before, eh?" Billy would say, not cruelly though not in a particularly gentle way, either. "If ya ain't ready, they'll put a bullet through ya without a second glance. Ya just got lucky there, be more careful next time."

"Phew...I thought this would escalate to something drastic...that would be bad." Selena looked at the child knocking on a door and noted that the building looks to be a decent place for a base. "Though, if he's knocking on the door, that means someone already lives there...right? So, we can't use that building unless we all came to a compromise. That is the right word right? Compromise?" She looked at the child again "Though that child does look rather harmless, as in harmless as in, he doesn't seem to be a bad guy."

"Yeah, I guess we could talk to the kid." Selena said to Ceil.

The words be more careful rang in his head like a bell as he stared blankly down the ally infront of him, his brain still registering the situation, then everything clicked.
"Be careful? BE FLIPPIN' CAREFUL?!" he roared at the urchin, Pierrot got to his feet and grabbed the boy by the shirt, "Who are you to tell me to be careful?! Mr."oh I'm just going to throw a rock at a soldier and become a hero! Well news flash, that rock of yours will never change the world! If anything you've made it worse!", during Pierrot's time as a quasi-priest one could say, he never had the chance to vent anger, he had to be calm and considerate listening to people's problems and never voicing his own and at that moment, standing infront of the urchin with his fast wrapped around his shirt he finally did it. He started to cool down and let go, "you can't stop bloodshed with more bloodshed," he groaned, turning away from the boy and clutching himself, "it will only ever cause more..."

In an instance, most of Billy's gratitude to the boy washed away. This kid was full of himself, did he really believe all of this righteous nonsense? Billy stood dumbstruck for a moment, staring into the boy's eyes as his hand was wound around his shirt. Snapping out of the momentary daze, Billy pushed the boy away and stood up to his full height. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was rather broad and could hold himself in a fight, definitely against a kid like this. Anger flashed across Billy's eyes, but also a flicker of uncertainty. Could the boy be right? Could he have made things worse, caused more people to be hurt, Just because of his silly display of anger? Billy shook the thoughts aside, that wasn't true. It couldn't be true. The boy's last line angered him the most, and his rage blazed up once more. Now it was Billy's turn to get physical, and he did so, grabbing the boy's shirt just as he'd done for him and putting his face inches from the boy's.

"Listen here, what the hell d'ya think is gonna change things, eh? Sittin' aroun' and whining about it, right? We're supposed to sit around all nice and content, an' just allow them to oppress and murder our families? You think all er this is just gonna change if we appeal to their laws, or even better, pray? Well it ain't, kid, and if you wanna survive ya need ta know how to handle those soldiers. You an' I, we ain't nothin' special, there are thousands more like us in this city, and none are any better off. Bloodshed isn't an option that anyone should ever have to take, but in times like this, it's the only damned thing that will get through, ya hear?"

Pierrot started to laugh hysterically at the words of the taller urchin "HAHAHA! Don't you understand? nothing can change this war, we are to deep to climb out now," and Pierrot knew he was telling the truth, so long he had sent lying to people, telling them it will be over soon to get their spirits up but now finally truth, "keep throwing your stones boy," he said, "you will die to bullet and I...", Pierrot just glared into the boy' eyes for a second, behind the urchins was thinly vailed rage and behind Pierrot's was nothing but exhaustion. He was tired, everything that happened in the last 5 minutes putting a huge emotional drain on him, he felt hollow, flat one could say. "I want you to kill me," he finally finished, "I'm tired, my lungs are broken and the doctor says I won't live 30, just end it now please."

"Well, lets go then," Ceil said, as he began pushing the chest. "Time to see what the heck is up then Missy." As made his way down the alley, he began whistling a tune again, watching what would happen next. What he noticed was strange. The young boy was chewing out another child in hiding. "(This is about to get bad,)" Ceil thought as he rushed forward, pushing the chest.

As he reached the two, he stopped tending to the chest, and spoke up to the two."Ey, what's going on," he asked in that dull voice of his. "What was up with that soldier, and just in general, what happened," he spoke as he approached the two. "Because it is not normal for a child to be pursuing a soldier... That's just suicide."

Still mere inches away from the boy's face, Billy's eyes still blazed with that same, fierce anger. How dare him! Nothing would ever change if people like him were the ones fighting. Billy opened his mouth, just about to give the boy an earful and possibly a good whack, when his next words came out. Billy's eyes softened and his mouth opened in surprise. His grip on the boy's shirt loosened until he was barely touching him anymore, and he appeared speechless. He felt pity mingled with disgust, not necessarily towards the boy, but to this whole damned world that they lived in.

Finally, Billy's hand loosened and he let go, backing away from the boy's face. He lowered himself and stared directly into the boy's eyes at a gentle distance. Billy's eyes shined with pity, and even more surprising, fear. "Listen kid, neither of us'll be dying, not now. You can't give up like this, ya hear? I know you don' have an easy life, hell, not a living soul in this city does, bar the nobles. But I promise you this; things will get better. No matter how horrible the curren' situation may seem, hope is never lost until you admit that it is. I promise that things will get better, and until then, I promise that you'll be safe, ya hear?"

Whirling around at the sudden voice, Billy put himself in a fighting stance and prepared to face down the mouth of a soldier's gun. Instead, he stood face to face with a boy around his age, along with a girl. They had a chest ahead of them too. It was the same damned chest that he'd tripped over while fleeing from the soldiers, Billy realized. Throwing this thought aside, he looked them up and down. They had a chest, perhaps they were siblings forced out of their house into this cruel world? They didn't look all that similar, though... When the boy asked him what was going on, Billy didn't exactly know how to go about explaining it all, so instead of an actual explanation, his only response was, "This whole god damned city."

Ceil stood there, staring at the boy with an emotionless expression. He stared at the younger boy, then back at the older one. They were like brothers too him, except it was a role reversal to him. He smirked, as he heard him speak his answer. As his mundane hazel eyes scanned over the two, he wondered how they ever got into this predicament. "Heh, you'll get used to it after living on the streets for a while," he uttered mundanely. "Things"ll get better, just keep moving forward, each step of the way."

As he spoke to the two, he took a look at the building the taller boy came out of. It seemingly looked like an old and sturdy place that could easily support people better than most of the apartments out here. As he discerned the buildings state, he fixated his eyes on the two boys in front of him. "Say, do you two live here?"