by Imperial-Radiance (me)
I swear that it’s officially nighttime now – I can’t see the moon, but it’s dark as hell outside – and this guy is still here. I can’t say the same for everyone else, though. The amount of presumably innocent souls that's gone down that shaft is, for lack of a better word, repulsive. The worst part of it is how many are sending themselves down there on their own, just out of fear of the unknown.
How does this guy not know how intimidating he is? Or, does he, and he’s aroused by this? No, I probably shouldn’t say that. He genuinely might not know. No, wait, why am I playing devil’s advocate here?
He’s a monster.
He just amputated someone – a child – like… like… like nothing I’ve seen before. Meanwhile, all these guys are practically unfazed, that is if ‘unfazed’ applies to ‘being a sheep so that you don’t die’. They look fine. Look fine. That’s obviously not the case.
When it comes down to it, each small society on each Lilliputian, Laputan island is one of three sets of people.
One, there’s the group not taking any chances. They’re all stowed away in their homes, shelters, and other places in which they can hide. Am I a part of that? No. I’m accepting his arrival as a reality, no matter how much I don’t want to.
Two, you have those are just going on as normally as they can, doing their best to forget he’s there. How exactly do you ignore a beast that’s anywhere from thirty-six feet to thousands to you? I don’t know. So, I’m not going to try.
But, the last leg of the trifecta consists of those bold enough to address him directly. No, wait, is it bold? Is any of this abnormal? These divides were around for every other scientist that’s ever been in here. I guess it’s just strange to me that they’re still here while he’s still here, especially those helping him do checks and stuff.
From the grandest scheme of things, he’s following the usual scientist routine. Checking the infrastructure of the tiny towns. Collecting the bins of bio-wastes to presumably be tested if not just immediately thrown out. Retrieving small samples of even smaller products people are making or growing for themselves. Yadda, yadda, yadda. He’s getting nothing from me, though.
I’d rather wallow in my own trash than give myself up. Hell, I’m already doing that. But, looking closer, there’s something… off, and I mean more than just his get-up.
This computerized compartment in the floor is one thing – him dropping or flinging all his ‘finds’ and samples in there. Them including people too damn sick or broken to be cared for by any of us, er, these guys, is another. But what’s really grinding me is how he doesn’t seem… very human for a human, and I don’t think I’d be surprised if he was truly a robot.
For one, why the hell is he so stiff? I get petite persons and products or whatever should require precision. But if you’re plucking up people and places like they’re toys and throwing them to be sent who-knows-where, then why bother being precise!? On top of that, all his skin’s covered, and any sort of emotion from him is too difficult to decipher. Who’s to say he’s not just cold from a hidden metal exoskeleton?
His lining the streets (or entire neighborhoods if referring to the tiniest here) with a finger like a sand signature and then grinding whatever sticks to the latex to dust makes me lurch. May all unfortunate spawn thrusted here be left untouched from this hell, whether in this basement somewhere or stuck in a triage or something.
It’s my job—was my job to save lives, bring them in, too, when I could. I couldn’t bear the thought of— No. No. Not doing it.
Anyway, all I can say is that if he’s looking for me, then he’s doing a damn good job in hiding that. So many times, my heart has stopped from him coming over to this table, currently pausing in front of it, gazing around at structures and onlookers around me. My entire vision encapsulated with a sickly aqua sky or sea so wide is surely anxiety-inducing. The shallow breaths thankfully blocked by his mask and the loud ruffles from that almost-as-loud blue only punched the immensity of his girth harder.
If we had locked eyes at any point, then aside from me being found in this broccoli floret of a tree in this flowerbed of a ‘park’, I… I… I don’t know what might’ve become of me. I just know I’m too old for this shit.
Too old. Too tired. Too frustrated. I shouldn’t be here, damn it.
Alas, he’s no longer taking up space in front of my hovel. He’s closed the floor hatch and distanced himself from all of us, not even halfway past the door anymore. Though, I don’t think he’s leaving.
He’s just standing there, posed inquisitively like a statue in an art museum somewhere. Is he pondering his next move on us – on me?
It’s almost been a full minute now, and—No, wait, he’s breaking his stupor now, scanning the room like a panoramic camera.
He’s too far to see his eyes, as if I would’ve been able to see them through the plastic, anyway. He couldn’t have been an arm’s length (for him) away from me earlier, and I couldn’t see them then.
His scan eventually ends with him going solid once again, looking to the ground with his hands on his sides. A minute then passes, and nothing happens. Another, and nothing.
Okay, that robot concept is looking really promising.
What, is he charging? Is he powering his thrusters or something? Why would he just stop and wait? It’s not like I’m going to come out of hiding to see for myself. At this rate, it’d be more likely for a—
“Security: raised to Level Three clearance,” an actual robotic voice sounded from an intercom, echoing from lab wall to lab wall.
Some of the unexpectant flinched in the surprise of the message, and others flinched from its volume. While both were a surprise, sure, I can’t say that I was scared by them—well, not as much as some of these suckers, anyway. I got used to emergency situations in my previous profession, especially how long I was in it, and the motley of beeps, alarms, and panic that complement them. However, those generally occur to the patient, not the operator himself, i.e. me.
Aren’t these walls already blocked mad thick from the outside with bulletproof walls and it practically being a fallout shelter? Why would it – they – we need more security?
“Commencing specialized RFID tracking test,” the announcement continued. “Please stand by for possible trace recognition.”
Recognition? Tracking? Isn’t RFID like a sensor or something? Did we get to using those at the Clinic? I feel like I’ve heard it referenced before somewhere, but I—
*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*
A series of beeping sounds cuts me off, very similar to an EKG. Blaring eruptions… and they won’t stop. Why won’t it stop? Why is it here!?
It doesn’t echo, but I see a few souls nearby look around for a source and come up confused. So am I. Even one walks under my spot in this tree and gazes up in these branches. Yet, they don’t know I’m here. They eventually walk off, probably thinking they’re crazy. I’m sure they’re not.
I hope I am, though.
The beeps sound like they’re right next to me. Below me. Maybe even in me. Slightly muffled but doubtlessly apparent. But God, damn it; there’s nothing in sight.
I’m doing my best to not fall or move much, but the beeps seem to move with me with every pose I make. I’m practically one hundred percent sure that these signals and I, whatever they’re from, are one and the same now.
Well, whether or not we are, if these puny people are right under my nose and can’t detect me, then there’s no way the much larger one here would, right? All my good logic is telling me to not look at him and check. If I’m lucky, then maybe that dormant giant is still just that, and—
Oh, curse me.
His head is lifted, looking right this way.
Okay, that’s strike one, but that doesn’t mean he sees me or hears them: the sounds, I mean. For all I know, he might not know what these beeps are for. If I hide even deeper, then maybe I’ll be okay. Maybe they’ll go away: the sounds and this beast. A shot in the dark, maybe…. or the shot of my life, but it’s a shot to take, nonetheless.
Going back down shouldn’t be a problem. Keeping a grip on every usable crevice down this trunk here without shaking it should be simple. Heaven knows I’m light as hell. There’s just the overhanging threat of an unreadable behemoth possibly ravaging me because of an audible pseudo heart scan going through me right now somehow or some shit like that. No big deal at all.
Screw that. It’s the biggest of deals.
Note to self: never look toward your threat when you’re trying to pump yourself up to face – or, in my case, not face – it. It never works.
The only thing passing is him, coming back down this way in a power walk. There’s no denying it. He’s coming right for me. I can feel it, and I’m not waiting for him to get here, not while I still have a chance of getting away.
The closer he gets, the more the ground begins to shake under me.
I make my way down to the lean-to I’ve carved into this tree’s trunk, having to crawl over to the floor-bound door leading to my true hideaway. It’s basically a minimalist shed with literally nothing but a door in it now, but it’s enough to do the job: get me to supreme privacy.
It still shocks me how no one’s come across this being here. It shocks me even more how small this den used to be to me, particularly when I first made it and it resembled a phone booth. It’s rather massive now, but there’s no time to concern with this.
I can feel him through the bark.
I get to the door and heave it open, glad to see the dirt-dug tunnel still intact. I don’t know if it was pure genius or stupidity that made me think to make my actual headquarters deep underground – well, as far down as one can possibly go on a hill on a table – past the tendrils that kept this protective plant standing. If it’s rather troublesome for me to get in, then it’ll have to be a little hard for him to find me in it.
Threading the needle, like I’ve never had before, I slip myself down into the void – my void – just as soon as the giant-gait-driven shaking stops. As I descend, I do my best covering my tracks, i.e. narrowing the width of the tunnel as I go with surrounding dirt so that it resembles a pore in the ground. However, I’d be crazy to say I hadn’t felt the increasing heat and a force pulling me slightly upward as I go down. He might not have found me, but he knows I’m close.
Curse this damn ringing.
What exactly is he doing up there? Feeling for me? Literally leveling the field until he comes across me? Surely, it just can’t be a natural gravitational pull from him. He’s big but not that big. It’s almost fantastical.
Hell, it is a fantasy: one I’d love to be released from, thank you.
After what feels like forever with a hunter on my tail, I eventually drop through the malleable metal box I’ve been calling my home. Box. To think that this once held test tubes or some other tools… Now, it’s practically a studio apartment – more like two meshed together if I’m completely honest. For what it’s worth, it’s been a circumstantially perfect spot that I can gladly call my own, unlike most if not all the others here. Though, I think that’s mostly because of the location.
Dwelling under what could be considered a cemetery is generally looked down upon in most social circles. But its existence is one secret that everyone, even the most compliant tinies here, has kept from them.
I hope I don’t ruin that with this cat-and-mouse chase. I hope to not join it, either.
There are dents and punctures in places where they probably shouldn’t be that scrap labels and stickers can only cover so well, but they give the place a sweet, literally rustic charm along with making the camouflage of being one with the ‘ground’ more plausible. It does what it needs to do and then some very well.
Hold my storage of leftover foods and pieces of furnishings from the surrounding enclaves on one wall. Let me rest and compose myself every day by another. Figure out some way of cleansing myself by the third – I haven’t optimized that as much as I should have. Maintain the little sanity I have left by the window on the last.
My window.
It’s just like theirs, but it’s mine and mine alone. I can’t believe I’ve had a growing plant there for this long. Hell, I can’t believe I made a window how I did. Maybe that’s why they’ve been coming after me: they know how I acquired the glass. No, they wouldn’t be that petty. They’d just—
*CRUNCH*
Jesus, what was that?
*BOOM*
No, what was that?
*BANG-BANG-BANG*
What the—!?
What are all these noises? Those upward forces are back again, too, but these noises are coming from all sides, not just above me. Well, not all sides; the window wall is still thankfully clear. I don’t think I’d be able to take seeing a—Wait, how in the world is the ceiling less deformed now?
I’m literally under a forest scattered with pygmy plants and deceased, decomposing diminutives. To get rid of that pressure, one would have to—
Oh, God. He is leveling the ground, one tree at a time.
The dirt’s probably giving way as he plucks each one up like a carrot or something. Loose pebbles or dirt clots are falling back down onto the pseudo-roof. Well, I hope it’s those rather than a body or two. I don’t know.
I can’t hear anyone reacting to this.
Surely, if the departed were being uncovered right now, then there’d be more audible chaos. My window is undetected, not soundproof… and how has nothing fallen in front of it, yet!? I mean, I’m not asking to see a covered cadaver or anything, but not even a single leaf? That’s highly imp—
*CREAK*
Kill me. I had to call it, didn’t I?
A waterfall – mudslide? – of soil and dirt suddenly falls past the glass of the window.
The linear deformation and its resulting dips going down – up? – in the ceiling was enough of a giveaway for the cause. But the enormous shadow of harsh darkness that has formed in front of the window, somehow making the night sky even more abyssal, is pretty much verifying he’s found me.
Unless my beeps aren’t somehow audible through this metal, he’s just found my slum. Hopefully, it doesn’t also become my cof— H-Hey! Hey!
My floor friction suddenly vanishes, and now I’m sliding toward my right wall, right into—Ack! Ugh, right into *cough* the side of my bed. God, damn it.
Why is this happening to me? What did I do? I—I mean, I know what I’ve done, but how is that worse than what they’ve done – what he’s done and doing!? Like *cough* Like, right now, is… is he playing with me? I can’t even stand up straight at this angle, and… and everything’s falling… g-going everywhere, including *cough* r-right on top of me. Ugh, as if *cough* there wasn’t already enough of a mess in this damn place.
I— Ugh, I need to get this stuff off if I’m ever going to… to…
Jesus, when did I… I get so… m-much stuff? It’s… *cough* It’s t-too much. I—*cough* l c-can’t… m-move. I… *cough* …I… *cough* I’m…
*CREAK*
“Specialized RFID tracking test terminated. Security: lowered to Level Two clearance. Sect C technicians report to their stations. T r a c e r e t r i e v e d t o b e t r a n s—”
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The Azran Legacy/Castle in the Sky Crossover No One Asked For
Set a few years after Castle in the Sky and several months after Azran Legacy...
The scene opens with Descole and Raymond flying away on the Bostonius. Descole has just picked up what he believes to be a left over Azran relic- some kind of machine/weapon IDK. He’s planning to study and/or destroy the relic.
Raymond warns Descole that they’re being pursued by another airship. Descole assumes it’s some faction of Targent and they must be after the Azran relic. The pursuers storm the Bostonius and, despite Descole’s efforts to fight them off, they overwhelm Descole and Raymond. Descole demands to know who they think they are. This ragamuffin crew look nothing like Targent. Most of the men are dressed in pinks and browns with orange hoods and googles. Their leader appears to be a stocky old woman in blue with pointy pink pigtails.
She introduces herself as Dola (the actual best character), Captain of the Tiger Moth 2.0. “We’ll be taking that Laputan treasure off your hands now... and your food supplies!”
“What do you mean Laputan?” Descole demands. “That relic originates from the Azran civilisation and if it isn’t destroyed-”
“Someone didn’t do their homework...” Dola laughs with her gang. She pulls up a chair and starts giving Descole a history lesson. (Which you can read on the Laputa Wiki, I’m condensing it...) “Laputa, the floating kingdom, was built at the height of the Azran era-”
“-by those who took to the sky to escape the impending fall of the Azran civilisation.” We cut to a lecture hall at Gressenheller University, where Hershel Layton is giving a similar history lesson on the newly-unearthed Laputa. A board behind him shows a photo of the airborne Azran Sanctuary. Layton explains that the Kingdom of Laputa is believed to have been far larger and more powerful than the Azran Sanctuary, and housed many more ‘golems’ (robots) that were used to wreak havoc upon the world below.
Layton’s adopted daughter, Flora, and his apprentice, Luke, are present at this lecture, sitting in the front row. Flora is completely awe-struck as she listens to the professor, but Luke seems troubled.
Also present at the lecture are a boy and a girl who look to be in their late teens. A random student asks Layton how the Azran creations could fly, and Layton answers, somewhat dismissively, that they were powered by some sort of crystal. The girl and the boy glance at each other excitedly.
At the end of the lecture, we get some PL exposition as Flora asks Layton and Luke lots of questions about their Azran adventure. “You were there? At that flying... castle?” (”Sanctuary,” Luke corrects her uncomfortably.) “You saved the world! What about those golems? Were they anything like... like...?”
Flora trails off as they are approached by the girl and the boy. The girl thanks Layton for the lecture. She introduces herself as Sheeta and the boy as Pazu. She asks if Layton wouldn’t mind answering some questions for them about Laputa. Layton is polite, if a little wary. He that he doesn’t know that much about Laputa... Pazu then pulls out a photo to show the professor.
“This is a photo my father took years ago...”
Layton eventually agrees to discuss Laputa with them and invites them back to his office. Pazu is a total nerd and goes about inspecting the artifacts in Layton’s office. He stumbles upon a hidden hint coin and Luke explains the whole process of puzzles and hint coins to him.
Just as everyone is sitting down with a cup of tea, ready to discuss Laputa, Layton’s phone rings. Layton picks up the phone and is shocked to hear Descole... No, Desmond’s voice, after all this time.
“Layton,” Desmond hisses. “I need your help-!” (Frantic Scottish swearing can be heard in the background.) “We’ve been captured by... SKY PIRATES-!”
Before Layton can asks what’s going on, Desmond shouts and a woman takes over the phone.
“Hello! Is that Professor Layton?” (Layton exchanges a worried glance with the kids but confirms that it is.) “Your... pal here, John Descole, thinks you may know a thing or two about the Azran and ancient relics ‘n stuff. Tell us what we need to know and we’ll let John go.” Layton asks whom he is presently speaking to and she answers, “Dola!”
Layton begins, “Miss-”
“Captain Dola!”
“Captain Dola, my apologies...”
“What?” Sheeta gasps. Both she and Pazu look pleasantly surprised.
“Is she a... friend of yours?” Flora wonders.
“It’s a long story,” Pazu sighs.
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