The year is 2358. Humanity has taken to science for the future. This is the story of two friends… er, we use that term lightly here, who participated in a series of genetic experiments to show the world which would be the more efficient way to go. Too bad this never succeeded. This pair of “friends” had, as man and woman, united in their efforts to complete the challenges associated with these experiments, little realising that they were just lab test subjects for an even bigger laboratory: The Universe. Their names… Bruce Wayne… and Clara Belle Harkens.
Batdragon: Defender of Coltham City
by Sky Blue CMC and LostFaith
Prologue:The Final Experiment
The two partners were situated in a hallway that stretched for miles and reached all over Omega CCF Facilities. There was just enough room for one final test. Reinforced glass covered the ceiling with cameras above them recording and archiving everything.
“Your final task will be… escaping.” The lead scientist said with a sinister laugh before alarms started blaring. “You need to prove yourselves to humanity at any cost. There will be many paths. Only one will be the right one. Bad luck.”
Bruce looked confused, “They never said anything about dying when we joined.”
Clara, also confused, replied “They didn’t ask us to volunteer either. They forced us to join this experiment from the start. Me, having been born here, and you, looking to them like a potentially Nobel Prize winning experiment.”
Who knows? Clara thought. Maybe we willwin a Nobel Prize. Clara kept thinking about this, but was more focused on the task at hand. Get yourself together, Clara Belle! Even if we won, the Omega Whatever Overseer would be the one to whom it would be given. Besides, I only need to do this for one reward: my life.
“Miss Harkens, quit daydreaming!” Bruce exclaimed, trying to get Clara’s attention. “I asked you a question!”
“What?” Clara asked in reply, having not even heard the question in question.
“Did your brother make it?” Bruce asked. “Yesterday, when he was given this test, I mean. Did he make it out alive?”
“I don’t know.” Clara answered. “I’d imagine he didn’t, since I last heard from him yesterday, a half hour before the final test.” Clara felt the fall of a million tears from her own eyes, like a waterfall.
“We… we need to get out of here now.” Bruce said. “There is nothing left for us here.” Bruce wasn't beating around the bush anymore. “C’mon! We don't know how long they will just let us stand here like this.” He motioned for Clara to run. “If what you said means what I think it means then they are trying to kill us!”
“Or worse.” Clara replied. “They may be trying to fool us with this ‘final’ test, and then, when we pass it, they’ll keep us for even longer to do even more torturous experiments on us!”
“What? Convert us into information? Turn us into mechanical beings? Replace our eyes?” Bruce joked as he started running down the halls.
“Who knows?” Clara asked. “Though that’s what I’d imagine they’d do, if my imagination wasn’t removed from my brain.”
“Oh…” Bruce looked around the hall for any discrepancies, but everything was completely identical. “I finally have the ability to appreciate just how creepy this place is.”
“Creepy is an understatement.” Clara said. “If I still had my imagination, I’d probably be scared stiff of the presence of ghosts that aren’t even real!”
Bruce looked at Clara in confusion, “Then why are you thinking about it?” His eyes landed on a door with a weird symbol on it.
Clara, having seen the same symbol, simply ignored the door just long enough to reply to Bruce. “For your sake.” she said. “I thought if you thought I was as afraid as you, you’d be able to keep going through this endeavour.”
“You sound like an android.” Bruce retorted as he approached the door.
“That’s probably what all of these experiments have turned me into.” Clara responded, having no idea what would be a better thing to say. She then turned back to the door. Had she still had an imagination, she would have wondered what the symbol on it meant.
The symbol on the door was a green question mark that looked like it could be activated.
“It’s...glowing?” Bruce said in confusion. He closed the distance to the question mark and felt an urge. “Maybe it can be activated somehow.” When Clara didn’t say anything he just sighed and looked around the room for anything like a switch. But all he found were boomerangs. “Well here goes nothing.” He picked up a boomerang and aimed it so it would hit the question mark. The question mark faded as the door opened to the side, revealing a stairwell. Bruce and Clara didn’t need any hints as they walked down the stairs until they came to an unlocked door.
Bruce pushed it open and entered a laboratory of sorts. There were computers everywhere and a single door in the center that was marked ‘Aperture’ with an Ω above it. The door they had entered from slammed and locked behind the duo with a resounding bang. They were locked in with only one way to go. Forward.
Bruce eyes landed on an online computer. He walked up to it and tried to access the internet but the computer crashed as soon as he touched it.
Clara walked up to the door and pushed it open with a creak, showering dust everywhere as a book fell on the floor. It was a journal and it had odd markings on it along with the usual Ω imprinted on it. But what was the most peculiar about it was who it belonged to. It also had a sun imprinted below the Ω that was barely visible.
Bruce tore his gaze away from the computer screen to see what Clara had done. He calmly approached the open aperture just as Clara was clearing the dust off a book that was shining for some inexplicable reason. It was a contradiction to the direness of the situation, “What is it?” Bruce asked Clara, motioning to the journal.
“What is what?” Clara asked in reply, having no clue what he was asking about, since she wasn’t looking at the computer. “Oh, you mean that light? I don’t know. It looks like normal, electromagnetically created, light energy, but... concentrated. Like, over nine thousand fold.”
“Okay. Now I’m really worried for you. The journal you are holding. What is it?” He asked. “Can you tell me what it says?”
“No. It seems to be written in hieroglyphics or something.” Clara responded. “But... I’m fairly certain that the light is some kind of magic. Scientists have been trying to invent magic for centuries, and... I think this book is the result.”
“You know what? That sounds stupid. Actually. Insane. Insane enough to make sense. So where are you going with this? Is this book… is it our escape?”
“Wherever the ‘spell’ takes me, I guess.” Clara answered. “Or... us, if you want. You’ll probably need to try it anyway.” She then saw a mirror, just tall enough for a person to see themself inside it. It appeared to be glowing with a similar white aura. Not pure white, but... more like some kind of starlight silver, which was glimmering. “Maybe that mirror has something to do with it? Like a portal or something?”
“Wait a minute… This door was titled ‘Aperture’ and an aperture would fit that description…” Bruce cautiously walked up to the mirror and touched it. Or at least, he tried to. His hand went through and appeared on the other side as a claw of an eagle. “Clara! It’s definitely a portal.” He confirmed as he retreated his hand from the portal. “Clara?”
The building suddenly shook as the laboratory they were in moments earlier started caving in. “Bruce?” Clara asked. “What did you want to ask me about? If it’s where I am, I don’t know.”
“Take my hand, live while you can.” Bruce stepped halfway into the portal as more of the building collapsed. Half of him turned into… an amalgamation of body parts from creatures mythological and not.
“What hand?” Clara asked.
Bruce rolled his eyes and pulled Clara into the portal just as the rest of the building exploded. His left claw was clutching the journal from earlier… He needed some answers.
