[center][b]Astalonian [i]Shen[/i]anigans[/b][/center] [hr] [center][i]20 Years Ago, Nube City, Astalon[/i][/center] Fred’s official title was ‘refrigeration engineer’, though in all honesty he wasn’t entirely sure what the refrigeration really was supposed to do in the lab or how any of that worked. He wasn’t much of an engineer; more like a technician, and since being assigned to work in this laboratory all he’d ever done was make sure the damned ice-rooms got closed whenever the Boss or any of his more competent and knowledgeable minions came and went. He didn’t know what sort of research was supposed to be going on inside this lab or why they kept bringing in animals (dead or alive!) and stuffing them in those ice-rooms, but they did it, and he didn’t ask questions. He just closed the doors so that cold air wouldn’t get out, and he felt lucky to have such an easy life. That all had changed on that fateful day when the announcement came, though. The Boss’ words echoed through even the lab’s speakers, buried as it was within a mountain, just like they echoed everywhere else throughout Nube and the rest of the whole island: [i]30 minutes to get into the Boss’ workshop, or [b]be cleansed![/b][/i] Fred had laughed. What did ‘cleansing’ even mean? They’d be grabbed up by some Primes and marched into a bathhouse? He spent the first ten minutes in disbelief, even as all the other technicians and whatever passed for homuran ‘scientists’ fled the lab to find their families or try to somehow make it in time. There was no way anyone could get down the mountain and all the way to the workshop within a half hour, even on the best of days, even without traffic. It was just too far. This had to be some kind of prank, right? Some kind of horrible prank? As fear began to creep into Fred, he paced down the now-emptied hallways. He heard something from Joe’s office, and peeked in through a crack in the door to see his coworker’s shoe sticking out from under the desk while the lab director hid and murmured to himself in a panic; that was when Fred really felt the adrenaline kick in and send him into a rush. He knew what cleansing meant; they all did. The Boss’ tone had said it all, even if some chose not to hear the meaning. Fred was running; he didn’t know where, but Joe probably had the right idea. They were deep underground in what was supposed to be a top-secret lab, so maybe if he just hid for long enough, this could all blow over. So Fred threw on a lab coat that he found on a rack somewhere, and then another coat over that. Then a rain jacket over that! Undoing all the latches on one of the ice rooms, he opened the door. He’d never really looked inside before – it wasn’t in his job description and he could supposedly do everything he needed to do from the maintenance corridor adjacent, so they’d never cleared him to go in – but now he just ran inside. Nobody would look for him here, and with the three jackets maybe he’d still be warm. Of course, when he went inside, he shut the door behind him out of habit (couldn’t let any of the cold air get out, that was his one job!) and then he was completely in the dark. He fumbled around looking for a light switch, but found none. He couldn’t even get the door open either; from this side he could only feel a keypad, and he had no clue what combination to try. He fumbled at the buttons in the dark until his fingers grew numb, and then reality set in. It felt like he’d been trapped in there for hours already. It was deathly silent except for the whirring of the refrigerated room’s fans, and the metallic echos of his footsteps and pounding on the door. He staggered around in the dark, walking facefirst into a wall in what must have been the back of that room. But then his hand felt something strange; it was a terminal of some sort. He started mashing buttons, and a screen lit up. He could see! [i]”Cryotank engaged,”[/i] a robotic voice sounded, and then a glowing pod opened in front of him. It looked nice and padded, but it didn’t seem to [i]do[/i] anything. Fred just stared into the funny bed for a minute, tapping the keyboard every time the monitor started to dim. He couldn’t lose the light. He was starting to get cold, though. He needed to think! To stop panicking! Maybe laying on that padded thing would help. Impulsively, he flopped down in, but then with a start he heard and [i]felt[/i] the pod’s lid slam down closed on top of him. Now he was trapped in an even worse place! It was completely dark, but it wasn’t quiet. There was the gurgling of liquids through pipes, and then frigid water filled his coffin while he screamed. [hr] Navigating was hard for a dragon. You couldn’t just go wherever you wanted – you had to swim through clouds, and clouds tended to just float wherever the wind was going. You could at least huff and puff and summon clouds when there weren’t any, but that got really tiring really fast. Raijin and the rest were taking their chances with the clouds and swimming through the sky, but Shen had laughed at them all and said they’d probably just wind up back where they started, but that he’d come back and find them if they took too long. He had important things to see to in the meantime, so they were on their own getting back. Susanoo really wanted to get home, but in the end he couldn’t be bothered with all of that, so he was just swimming in water like a normal sort of thing. Swimming all the way across the ocean, from that northern land full of giants all the way back home to the dragon mountains! Yup, that was the plan. But sometimes plans went awry, and all the islands that they’d passed on the way over here were different. Some memorable ones were gone, and others were there that Susanoo could’ve sworn he hadn’t seen the first time through. It was all terribly confusing and tiring and in the end susanoo decided to just take a break, so he clambered up onto the first island that he saw. This one was big, and it [i]did[/i] look familiar, which was a good sign. It was a bit rainy too, so Susanoo slithered up into the sky and flew to a mountop to get a better view. It was icy on top, and his landing wasn’t terribly smooth, so when his great serpentine bulk landed it cracked the ice and started a miniature avalanche. Woops. [hr] Astus was pretty good at building things, but everything broke after a long enough time with nothing to fix it. It was a wonder that the prototype cryopod had lasted as long as it had on low power and with no properly certified refrigeration engineer servicing the rooms for the past two decades, but it had kept going! At least until an avalanche had knocked out the last of the ancient backup power lines to the lab. Fred had been dreaming that he’d drowned, and that he was cold. Then he woke up trapped in some sort of liquid, and he was freezing cold. He panicked and thrashed, trying not to breathe in, but when instinct finally made him surrender, he did. But strange as it felt, he could breathe in this strange water! And it felt as though it was warming up. [i]”Power levels critically low,”[/i] a strangely familiar voice announced. [i]”Initiating emergency abort procedure. Thawing.”[/i] Fred was too weak to think or make sense of that, much less move. [i]”Thawing.”[/i] The memories were starting to come back, as were hints of the panic. [i]”Thawing.”[/i] Hadn’t it already said that twice? [i]”Thawing.”[/i] Was it going to just keep saying that in the same annoying voice? [i]”Thawing.”[/i] SHUT UP! He angrily pounded the lid of the cryopod in just the same moment as it finally cracked open on its own. In reality he’d done nothing, but it [i]felt[/i] like he’d just smashed his way out, and that did a lot to soothe his bruised ego. He clambered out of the wrecked pod, a shaft of light coming from the ceiling to illuminate the tiny ice-room, or what had [i]been[/i] an ice room. Now it wasn’t even cold anymore. There shouldn’t have been any light… shivering and wet, he padded over to the place beneath the beam of light and looked up, only to see a hole all the way to the surface. Some fissure in the rock had erupted and cut a hole all the way through the mountain down into the lab, twenty feet below! Well, that was convenient. But how long had he been down there?! [hr] It took hours for Fred to cough up the last of the weird liquid from his lungs, wring some of the freezing fluid out of his clothes, and then regain the strength to climb. It took the rest of the day for him to actually succeed in climbing out – he’d slipped and fallen, or been too tired and had to give up, a half dozen times, but luckily he never really got hurt and eventually he mustered up the willpower to finally succeed. He clambered out of the fissure and onto the ground above, beholding the wonderful sky again, and panting. And then some sort of weird snake slithered through a cloud in that sky. He blinked, thinking he was hallucinating, but it was still there, so he screamed. That was a really dumb reaction, because the snake seemed to hear and almost immediately it began coming down. Fred looked into the hole he’d just clambered out of, and seriously contemplated going right back down to hide. He really didn’t want to go back down there, but he also didn’t want to be eaten. He steeled his nerves and got ready to slide back down, but then the dragon landed right next to him with a thump. “Hello, stranger!” it amicably announced. “I’m Susanoo, a loyal servant of the god Shen, just passing through. But I seem to be lost! Who are you?” “I’m Fr-Fre-Frederick Zolner,” the terrified homuran stammered. “I’ll call you Frettzo for short,” Susanoo answered. “Where is this place?” Frettzo blinked. [hr] Astus tapped his chin with his middle finger, eyes focused on the strange colleague in front of him. “Listen li’l dude, I can fulfil your order just fine but I need twice the time and some of your flying snake friends to provide extra protection to my Labyrinth expeditions. It’s dangerous down there y’know? And I’ll need to make many, many trips just to establish enough mining outposts to gather the resources we’ll need.” The gray-skinned God asserted and set his hands down on the metal table between the two Gods, the metal that had come into his skin slowly turning a shade of orange. Who knew that doing business with fellow gods would be this exciting? “I’ll also need a copy of the schematics of the weapons and other items you want me to mass-produce and some assistance in locating the Colossus I mentioned before, number 8. Deal?” Shen brought a finger up to his fu-manchu, braiding and twirling it in thought. “Those favors seem easy enough to arrange; how hard could it be to find a Colossus? And half those dragons just spend their time mucking around in caves anyways, they may as well do something useful while they’re at it.” But something was troubling him. He explained, “You see, if i [i]knew[/i] what sort of weapons would be most effective, I might’ve built them myself! Fortunately, or uh, maybe unfortunately, I can sense the taint here, too. You’ve had issues with that nasty fungus infecting the locale, yes? Well, if it’s still around, we can at least do some experimentation on it to try and devise an effective countermeasure. Then we’d both be equipped to fight it!” “Hah! I like the way you think, guy. Let’s go, I’ll lead t’way. D’ya know how to airwalk?” So they went to one of the triple-quarantined isolation zones, neither of them paying any heed to the countless biohazard signs, robotic guards, or other countermeasures in the way. “I feel as though fire might be an effective means of destroying these things,” Shen explained as he looked through a window at one of the fungal horrors inside. Then he suddenly grunted and groaned and took on a form closer to his true nature – a giant golden dragon that nearly filled the whole room, and he opened the door with a claw and then breathed out a torrent of fire that roasted the monster inside. Then he went back into a smaller and more convenient form and ate a grain of rice to wash out the sooty aftertaste from all of that. “A shame that my dragons can’t do that!” he announced nonchalantly. “Really seemed to do the trick though, eh? Maybe we can make a weapon to spit fire! Or, to [i]throw[/i] it, maybe.” “Huh. I won’t deny that it was effective, but that kind of fire could vaporise anything on this Galbar, guy. There’s no telling if a mortal-tiered fire spitter would even come close to your breath in terms of power, but I can make a few prototypes to test them out.” Astus perked up a little once he saw another oversized, deformed fungal horror shambling into view from behind one of the half-melted boulders at the far edge of the area vaporised by Shen’s breath. “Hold on a second- '' He said as he dug into the various pockets in his extra short cargo trousers, finally pulling out a tiny vial from his back right pocket. It held a yellowish liquid inside. With a smirk, Astus threw the vial at the faraway horror, the sound of breaking glass and hissing reaching their ears but a moment later. After a moment the horror’s skin went red, then purple, then blue, and the blisters all over its skin popped and dark blood seeped from its orifices. It groaned in anguish the whole time, scratching away at its skin and throat until it crumbled onto the ground a shivering mess. “It’s a gas-based weapon designed to immobilise infected personnel. Recipe’s a trade secret and liable t’change, but I can make as much of it as you need if ya like it. I recommend your cloud gecko boys wear gas masks if they’re going to be handling it… We offer those too, by the way.” He explained with a thumbs up and a grin, a single glint of light reflecting off of his teeth. “Oh, the dragons won’t be using any of this stuff,” Shen snorted, “because they’d find a way to screw it up, and they’d tip my hand anyways. This is all top secret, see? If it it goes according to the plan, they won’t even know I was involved. So that means you’ve got to keep all this to yourself, too!” “That goes without sayin’, moustache.” Astus answered as he pretended that he was zipping his mouth closed. What was left unsaid was that it’d look an awfully lot like Astus or maybe Voligan had set this whole thing up when push came to shove and it was time to execute the Grand Plan, but hey, Shen couldn’t exactly take all the heat on himself. Shen momentarily ceased toying with his moustache to give Astus a hard, serious stare. “But yeah, I’ve got a bunch of golems. Rock guys, sort of like your metal ones here,” Shen went on, lightly thwacking the closest Prime Astalonian with a stick for emphasis. “So I figure this gas wouldn’t do anything to them. They’d be pretty good for distributing it.” “Ah, the automatons created by my pal, Vol! Yeah, the golems will be perfect! Nowadays I never seem to have enough bodies t’do the things that need to be done.” Astus admitted as he slicked his napalm hair back. “Station a number of your rock guys with me and I’ll give them your monthly order so you can decide where to distribute it.” [hr] The pair of third-generation Primes stationed at the main entrance to Astus’ Workshop were known to be the best of their class. How else could one justify having been given the important job of protecting the Boss? So naturally, as soon as they saw the strange fellow approaching the blast doors, they stepped in his way. The organic looked markedly… Different… Than the ones they’d seen inside the Vault. His golden hair and lanky, uncommonly tall stature almost made him look like one of the fabled fang-ears said to inhabit the east. His scent, too, was unlike anything they’d ever sensed, and his hormonal balance was all over the place. The Prime to the right, an amalgamation of hundreds of interlocking plates and gears made of bronze and iron, twitched. Its visor flashed red, yellow, then red again, and finally turned black. A spark flew from the back of its head and it slumped, immobile. “State Your Biz-Ness In The Workshop, Homuran.” Ordered the one who remained upright in a tinny voice that resembled a drone’s whirring engine more than a Homuran’s vocal chords. This one was made of an almost entirely opaque metal, the colour of the poisoned earth to the southwest of Astalon, and had an ovoid visor that covered the entirety of its face and top of the skull that flashed an intense yellow. Susanoo, in his perfect homuran guise, projected a confident air and smirked at those two chumps. “I’m here to see the Boss, so you’d best not keep him waiting.” The Prime's visor stayed yellow, "Doubt. No App-Ointment Today. You Will Leave Now, Homuran, Or You Will Be Stab-Bed. Not By Me, The Boss." “It’s one of those, uh, what are they called? Walk-ins!” the persistent dragon-in-disguise retorted. He really needed to see who the hell this ‘Boss’ was, stabbing people and laying waste to the island… Shen would need to know so that this place could be liberated, as soon as they finished saving the world with the Grand Plan. It turned out that Shen already seemed to know all about the place though, because in the next moment the workshop’s metal door opened with a loud clack and Shen strolled right on out, next to some other god that Susanoo had never seen or heard of before. Shen and Susanoo locked eyes. It was a really awkward moment, because the god’s fist was jammed into his rice pouch as if he were about to chomp on a whole handful, but he’d just been busted. “Oh, Susanoo! Fancy seeing you here! I promise I’m sticking to the diet! I was just counting how long until I need to cook more!” “Huh, wait wait wait!” Astus tapped his temples as he jogged over to the Prime that had short circuited, a quick glance being enough for him to turn to Susanoo with a raised eyebrow, “The hell did you do to my newest employee, gecko?!” “Why, I didn’t do anything to it! Just told it that I wanted in!” Susanoo [i][b]would have answered[/b][/i], if he’d been paying any attention at all to what that fiery-haired Astus fellow had been saying. His attention in that moment was on something far more urgent – that of his master, and his excuses. Susanoo’s open palm, raised as if in peace, twisted from its soft and squishy state into a hard draconic claw, and then he [i]swiped[/i] right at Shen’s face. The god barely managed to thwack him at the wrist in time to block the blow! “You told me what to do,” the dragon reminded Shen, “if you ever tried to get off the diet!” More swipes were met with more thwacking blocks and graceful dodges. Shen frowned. “The plan was that you’d forget! Stop this nonsense anyways! My new business partner here has some work for you to do!” The dragon stopped his wild swings at Shen and turned to look at Astus, panting and with his face now covered in golden scales. The gray-skinned god merely watched, a gentle hum coming from inside the prime he was leaning on, until a loud ‘DING’ came from the Prime’s chest cavity. In response to the ding, Astus pressed on the Prime’s chest plate and once it swung open, pulled out an oversized bowl filled with rice. “Y’should really eat up, pal! The little pleasures in life, am I right or am I right?” Astus said with a chuckle as he walked past Susanoo and pushed the bowl into Shen’s hands. “Try it, it’s amazing stuff lil guy. Handmade!” When Shen sniffed at the steaming hot grains, he caught a faint whiff of some sort of chemical. Everything here had weird odors though; must’ve been some sort of food additive. He indulged himself one grain right in front of the infuriated dragon, but nearly gagged. This stuff wasn’t rice! “There!” Shen said, pointing up at the sky dramatically. Everyone looked up at some funny-shaped cloud, just as he’d predicted they would, so then he took the chance to discretely spit out the nasty piece of rice-shaped plastic. “That’s where I’ve gotta go,” he explained awkwardly to Astus, “back up to the sky. Gotta make sure all the pieces keep moving, never enough time. I’ll be seeing you around, partner! I’ll just take this grub of yours to go.” And then the funny-looking man was suddenly a great big golden dragon, five-clawed and winged unlike any of the others. The celestial dragon took off into the sky without any further goodbyes. A torrential downpour of acrid rain ([i]everything[/i] still smelt and tasted wrong on this whole polluted island) came a few moments later, which afforded Susanoo the chance to likewise make his escape. [hider=Summary] Fred, a refrigeration engineer working at a mountain bunker-lab near Nube City in Astalon, accidentally throws himself into cryosleep the moment Astus announces the Genocide. Approximately two decades later, he is thawed out when the lab runs out of power. At that point, he leaves the bunker. He climbs his way out through a caved in part of the bunker. He meets Susanoo after leaving. At the same time, Astus and Shen are negotiating back in his Workshop. They’re discussing a big order and several different types of weaponry that Shen needs. They end negotiations after testing something similar to a napalm bomb and a nerve gas. Back at the entrance of the Workshop, Susanoo then arrives and asks to be let in, wanting to meet with Astus to ask about the Genocide. He is unsuccessful, but is surprised to see Shen coming out of the Workshop with Astus by his side. Susanoo and Shen get into a fight as Susanoo realizes that Shen had broken his diet by eating two grains of rice instead of one. After that, Astus gives Shen an entire bowl of rice and says to eat up. Shen nearly throws up when he realizes the rice is made of plastic. After that exchange, Susanoo and Shen part ways from Astus. [/hider] [hider=Vigour] Astus Starting=7 None used Ending=7[/hider]