IGNO City, 10 months after the end of the Outback/Bones Empire Conflict, with the Outback supposedly surrendering on the grounds of it not having enough soldiers to try and defend themselves and their team members dwindling down after a mysterious incident crippled them indefinitely.
The people of IGNO City had to integrate with the people whom came in due to losing what they had in the conflict, they were given low-level housing, barely enough benefits to get by and given bottom of the barrel in terms of jobs. Supposedly befitting their roles following the conflict. But ever since the end of the conflict there was a legend that began to surface amongst the people of the city.
A floating island above the sky, many people of IGNOLand would often talk about this legend. Of a blue-haired man/machine hybrid of eternal youth who would whisk away those ravaged by conflict to a better place. Some people fabricated it into a fairy tail for the children, some used it as the basis of urban legends. Some even thought of it as a metaphor for death.
But nobody knew the reality of the youth, his floating island in the sky and the fate of those he “whisked away.”
Up high in the sky, above where any mortal being could see, there was indeed a floating island. It remained in the air due to high-tech creations beyond the times. The island that nearly a year ago was sent high up into the air through sheer willpower was now constructed into a semi-occupied haven. Small little housing units for people stretched along the farther end of the floating isle, allowing for people to live more comfortably than down below.
In said housings were people who had been affected by the Outback/Empire Conflict and felt jaded by both sides, those who wished to no longer support their sides but not favor the other, those who had even lost everything. They were given a chance to live a better life, free from their homelands actions and the people leading said land's agenda's of war and battle. Many people who became part of it wondered if they had truly died
On the other side of the Island however, there was a large mountain that looked upon everything the island had to offer, inside it, laid a still constructing base of operations and living quarters for the people who run the island. Inside one of the base's rooms a human with cat features can be seen working on a medical facility and working through the paperwork of the new refugee's that enter the base on a nightly basis, some come in pairs, some come alone, but it always means more paperwork to sort out in order to maintain life.
But down below, in the lowest possible floor of the mountain base, there laid an ancient temple made of metal that was fully connected to the entire base and the island as a result. And within that temple, a familiar youth can be seen converging with the systems within the temple. The base rumbles as it continues to grow and build again, the denizens of the island ignore it as the mountain continues to construct itself.
The youth, a cyborg known as Bradios, is using the collective system of his mainframe in collusion with the system of Arkios, the keeper of the Metal Temple. It became a near daily occurrence since the creation of the island many months ago, his body once worn out after fifteen minutes of taking the pressure of overflowing electric currents in his body and sending the power of his will to create the islands strongholds, could now go for hours upon hours while he built his refuge, his haven, his home.
“Master System Bradios, you've been at the creation process for nearly twelve hours, do you think we should stop so that you don't over exert yourself?” The Arkios programming communicated with him, while it was more or less a glorified program inside of a temple, it did have the wisdom and compassion of a human sage. And the last thing it wanted was for it's newest host to be destroyed because of an overflow of power.
“N-No.. Arkios.. I'm fine.. My body can stand... A little more..” Bradios said, trying his best to mask the strain that the creation process did onto him. Arkios knew better than to trust his words, delving into his system he knew that his damage capacity had nearly reached it's limit and Bradios didn't want the system to know that.
“Master, I'm looking at your vitals right now, if you do any more today your body will reach it's damage capacity and maybe go over it's limit. I am not asking, I am telling you now, we are ending the session today. Take some rest and repair yourself and then we will continue when you are not in a bad condition.” Arkios said, trying his best not to scold the cyborg youth, despite his good intentions, he didn't know when to stop himself until told otherwise.
The sentient system then proceeded to eject it's host form the ports it had out for access, closing them up and lowering them down as a way of saying that Brad should go. Bradios, fortunately, knew when to take a hint and left, stumbling a bit due to exhaustion.
And who would be waiting for him as he made his way up to the main area of the base but his beast-shifter partner, Tim. Ever since the creation of the base and starting up the compound, Tim took responsibility for not only taking care of all the new people coming in, but making sure to take care of all who inhabited the island, including Bradios.
“I see you've spent another session of creation down there again, Brad?” Tim said, looking over at the cyborg youth's mechanical body, checking for any external damage as there would be hardly a way for him to tell of any internal ones. “You really need to stop doing that, your system may be able to power itself for long periods, but that doesn't mean you should use it all on creating this base.”
“Sorry Tim.. I just...can't help but want to keep improving this place..I mean, how many did we get in on our last pick up again? Ten? 15?” The cyborg said, shambling over to his charge station, with a little help from his partner to make sure he'd get there safely.
“Only seven, silly.” Tim replied, a parental tone coming across as he said it, still thinking Brad as that scrawny teen whom he met ten months ago. Despite how big he became. “And even then, it was the biggest set we got.”
“But...still...” Brad drowsily replied, his battery obviously going low.
“Shhhh.. You get some rest okay? We'll worry about this when you're charged up.” Tim said, a more motherly tone coming across as he plugged Brad in and let the cyborg rest. As he turned around to see the now sleeping cyborg, he thought back to what happened in the ten months and before it and as he left him to go and focus on his duties again, he could only think to himself.
“You've come a long way kid.”
Meanwhile, down below on the main island of IGNOLand, in a castle made to the shape of bone, a group of men were sitting around a table, the men were split into two differing camps. They were getting themselves ready for the annual quarterly meeting and the room was filled with tension.
On one side you had the men formerly representing the Outback government, feeling uncomfortable at having to work alongside, or rather in service to, the men who basically forced their hand for a surrender. They were anything but happy as they sat beside the men who more or less mocked their very continued existence by keeping them under their thumb.
The people on the otherside of the table were dressed in royal garb, chatting to each other about trivial things regarding the current state of the world whilst they waited for their leader to arrive, they all sat surrounding a seat made specifically for the head of the castle and subsequently the land of IGNOLand.
And soon enough, that very man entered the room, the doors flying open to signal his arrival. His long brown hair and crimson red cape flowed as he walked in, a golden crown laid upon his thick hair and his royal green garb labelled his leadership, this was the appearance of one Olaf E. Bones, the man who lead the Empire to victory against the Outback and ruled with an Iron Fist but promised “fluffy hugs” as Konnuger of IGNOLand.
“Apologies gentlemen, I had some urgent business to attend to prior to this meeting, I'm sorry if it kept you all waiting so long.” He hated being so formal, coming from a life of piracy and into royalty via divine intervention was anything that he expected, it came with perks, but with meetings such as this it bored him to tears. The only times he truly enjoyed was when he could use his authority to silence his cabinet once it got too heated.
As the meeting drove on and on, the Konnuger grew impatient and finally capped it off by telling his men what he had found out before the meeting.
“I've recently discovered that a portion of our citizens have been going missing recently, without any circumstances to confirm what is happening I am asking for a full investigation to happen immediately.” He turned his attention to the Outback's former leader for his next statement. “A lot of these citizens have been your former Outbackians, see to it that you check yours thoroughly.”
The Outback leader pannicked, nodding his head meekly to the pleasure of Bones. The konnuger then turned and left the war-room, effectively ending the meeting without a word. Retiring to his throne, he prepared the order to search the citizens for any suspicious activity 24/7.
“First we lose The Overman Project. Then a part of our land is taken from us mysteriously one night. And now this!” His anger began to boil, clenching his fists hard as he said these words. “I need to take hold of my land and I can't have this be happening while I do so!”
He immediately gave the order to his men to search the cities for any kind of suspicious activity and be on watch around the clock and in his own words to; “Eliminate any Anomalies on sight.” citing what he would call his; “No Mercy” policy upon this issue.
“Whomever is causing these occurrences to my land is certainly becoming a sore spot. And if it's the last thing I do as ruler of this land, I will have them eliminated.” he muttered, his men beginning to give the orders out and amassing into the streets.
His words would go on to breed a witch hunt, one of which would change the face of IGNOLand forever and change the way people would see him, just not how he would expect
Two days passed. Having gathered up enough people as it is, the floating island doesn't go for any new refugee's into it's haven for the time being. Brad finally was able to wake fully after nearly draining himself fully of his power cells from his last session with Arkios. Unplugging himself and groggily awaking, he made his way over to Tim's office to get an update from him on what happened while he was out.
Unfortunately, he entered his office to the surprise that he was in the middle of a meeting with one of his patients, a middle aged man who looked like hell.
“Oh! I'm sorry Tim! I thought you weren't busy since the door wasn't locked!” Brad pannicked, thinking it rude that he would suddenly come into the office like that.
“It's okay Brad, I'm just finishing up right now with Jonathan here.” Tim said, handing the man his generic branded pills before sending him on his way.
The patient known as Jonathan looked at Bradios on his way out, many of the people on the floating island had yet to actually see the man who built it face to face, as he always kept himself below, continuing to build their safe haven while they lived in peace. The look was a mix of fear out of what he was looking at and respect over what he had done for not only him but for many of the others alongside himself in the housings.
As the middle-aged man walked away, Bradios entered Tim's office, looking over at how spiffy he had made it before getting back to what he was here for.
“Again, sorry for interrupting you, Tim. And...thank you for helping me out the other day.” Brad said, meekly smiling at his partner for what he did to assure he would be safe.
“It's nothing. As the head of the medical facility of this compound it is my duty to make sure everybody here is in good condition. And that includes your cyborg butt!” He said, giving the youth a smirk as he patted his head happily.
Brad just looked at him and smiled over that last comment, he couldn't help it, although the head pat was a little much in his opinion, he still appreciated that as well. But his thoughts quickly divulged back to what he was thinking about when he powered up again.
“What's happened in my absence? I've been out for two days, right?” Tim's look slumped as Brad said that, he knew full well he'd have to tell him what was happening, but he was afraid of the response to what happened.
“I was afraid you were going to ask that, I'll get it up for you.” He said, pulling out a very futuristic looking tablet and bringing up some kind of projection of grainy video footage. “One of our watch-droids sent us this bit of footage, I think it speaks for itself.”
The footage was grainy to start with and featured two sets of feet standing up above the droid, the two men looked decked in military gear as the droid was picked up and examined by them. Both men commentating on how; “We've never seen technology like this before.” “Where on earth did someone find something like this?” “Nobody knows how to make stuff like this in IGNOLand.”
The men then began to open up the droid, the only evidence of it being opened on the footage being a loud sound of prying metal, the footage starting to become distorted as they looked inside the machinery, looking confused at what they were seeing before saying; “This looks like something that the Konnuger would approve of, let's see what he makes of it.”
As they said that, the footage went to static, leaving the fate of the droid and the technology that Brad had made a mystery.
That last statement left the Cyborg standing still. His face shocked, this body unmoving, trying to process what had just happened. One of the droids he used to keep watch down below had been found and taken by the Empire's men, this was something he never fully expected to happen.
“Oh..god..” He said almost instantly. “This...this isn't good Tim..”
“I know, Brad. When I saw the footage myself I almost worried for what you would respond with. And for good reason as well.” Tim calmly responded. Trying to reassure his partner to what was happening.
“No!You don't understand! That droid was to send footage immediately back here to the base via it's internal systems! If the Empire finds out about that, they might be able to re-direct it so that they can find out about here! And then....and then...” Brad pannicked, knowing full well that if it did happen it would be game over for them all.
“Yes, but who's to say they even know how to do that kind of thing? I mean, compared to ours, their technological advancements are very minimal!” Tim replied, further trying to calm the worrying cyborg.
“Yes but...what if they do? And we just don't know?!”Brad said, his fears starting to get the better of him as he tries to assess it.
“Yes, that might happen, but the chances of that are too low to even think of that happening.” Tim responded again, once again trying to keep the worries and whatnot of his partner to a low. “Look, if they manage to try and figure that out, maybe it's time we start the plan?”
Brad looked back over to Tim, his eyes widened by the sudden idea from Tim, but they weren't in the good sense. “No! We can't! The Banks isn't even ready to handle something of that level at it's current state! We can't afford it!”
“Not now, yes. But what if we gave it..two weeks. By then, we should know if they've found us out or not.” Tim said, a confident smile appearing on his face. “You have the power to create it, Brad. You can't let me or any of them down, can you?”
The smile on the face of his partner gave him confidence that he could do it. Looking back at the elevator that went down to his little facility. He went back to Tim with a smile of his own.
“You know what you gotta do. So go on and do it.” Tim said, letting his Cyborg partner go off, a new-found sense of encouragement coming off from him as he saw him walk and elevate himself down. Once he left the line of sight though, Tim walked over to his charging station, knowing full well what was about to happen. “Just don't kill yourself trying to make it happen, Brad...”
Down below, Bradios walked back to the machine terminal, importing his hands into it with reckless abandon, being greeted once more by the Arkios system.
“Master, welcome back. How may I assist you?” the electronic spirit within the system said to him, Brad looking down at his position and bracing himself.
“Arkios, we have a long period of working ahead of us, from now until I say so we are not to stop building this place and upgrading it's liveability until we can accommodate even a quarter of what is living down below!“ Brad said, determination in his eyes and his thoughts dead set on getting his paradise perfected.
“You are not to stop me, even if my body feels like it could collapse, understand? Time is not on our side and we need to keep it from going against us!” The Arkios system could only comply, it could not go against it's master unit's orders. As it did so and overwrote it's protective programming, it replied.
“Whenever you're ready, Master.”
Brad responded without a hint of hesitation in his voice, already feeling the shocks being drained from his system. “Let's get to work.”
…..
Down below, in Bone's Domain. The two men who secured the security drone had been called in, Bones was scowling, looking at the futuristic piece of technological advancement with disgust. He knew not where it was made or who built it,but he knew only one thing that could have created it with.
“Take this to our advisor and our science division, have them decode it and find out what lies within it's...mystical containments.” Bones said coldly, looking on at the men with a look of enticement and stoicism.
“But Konnuger.. We don't even know point one about this thing, how are we supposed to find out anything about it's...containments when we barely know a thing about it?!” one of his guards responded, knowing full well he was out of line with the comments, but they needed to be addressed.
“That is not my concern! My concern is making my people believe that nothing is wrong and keeping the peace in my land by any means necessary!” He responded loudly, but the cold, harshness of his voice remained.
“It happened with the Outback Rebellion and it will happen to this threat which will brace itself upon our land if dealt with like an unknowing disease. And we all know what to do with diseases, right?” His face didn't falter, his coldness of the reality of ruling over what would be known as IGNOLand was reminded to his men.
They both just stood there and nodded, turning away to look into the matter further. Leaving bones in his mighty room, alone. There he stood, pondering the reality of the situation. He continued to think over the evidence of what has occurred so far, looking over a map of his land, he noticed something...odd.
The big chunk of land mass that had been taken nearly a year prior, it fell very close to where one of the many elemental temples had been said to reside. The temple which legends once said held many secrets of advancement that the world would yet to have discovered for eons, which if conquered would had advanced his lands technology into a new era.
Looking back at it and with the evidence that was placed before him by his guards. His face widened with shock and mixed in with further hints of anger, as he knew that whomever stole that chunk of land stole a vital resource of IGNOLand's advancement.
“Whomever did this...they are going to rue the day they decided to steal property from Olaf. E Bones...” His hands crumpling the fragile paper map in his grip, throwing it away as he stormed from his room to follow along behind the men from before, once he caught up, he stormed in with a huff as his men turned in shock.
“I want you to find out whomever made that...thing! By any means necessary! I don't care if you need to use up the resources you have! Just find out whomever did this at any cost!” his anger showing fully at this point to his men.
“The people who created it used the Metal Temple's secrets in order to create it! So get cracking on it! And find a way to counter it as well! I want to see whomever did this tried by my hands and burned for their sins against me!” He stormed off again, once again to his chambers where he gave all of his men another order on top of the which hunt already established.
“This is a message to all public servants under rule of the Bones. As of today, you are all to report any suspicious sounding, looking or any variety of evidence of something out of the ordinary to the Bone Empire's men. Anybody falsifying information to save themselves shall suffer a consquence based on the severity of the claim.” He announced, slumping into his throne as his men, his public and his cabinet were all thrown into hysterics by this.
He didn't care though, to him he needed to eliminate this threat to his rule any way possible, if it meant it needed to affect his throne he would take that risk, after all, his rule was with an Iron Fist...
For weeks, both men were busy with preparing themselves for what would become an encounter that would shape them forever.
Bradios continued tirelessly working in the bowels of his nation, building it more and more from the literal ground up as he prepared it for an expansion of epic proportions and what would be the genesis of his Neutral Nation, with Tim continuing to juggle keeping tabs on him and making sure he did not collapse and the people currently on board the Banks.
Brad's body, as it continued to work with Arkios and build his haven to it's perfection, began to sync more and more with the system, he began to feel it's coding reach more into the mainframe of his system, the pain of creating the Banks began to feel less and less there, almost like the pain was being numbed slowly by the Arkios systems injected into his mainframe.
The Banks expanded, more housings were made to accommodate more people, supplies were doubled, soon to be tripled. And a housing unit for creation of sentient Android life forms were being created. The massive undertaking drained Bradios of his system power almost daily, requiring charging cables hooked up to him day in and day out until he was finished.
He knew he had to continue, for the good of the Banks and the plan they had in store. A Nation was being built.
Back down in IGNOLand, Bones' witch-hunt turned into an extremist level, days went on and not a single one wasn't filled with orders shouting from the castle at the level of a crazed lunatic, Bones from his throne continued to direct traffic as he tried to find out just who took his land, his prize of the Metal Temple and above all else, been spying on his land.
When news got back that not only had they been unsuccessful in deciphering the supposed “alien language wrapped in riddles wrapped in thousands of enigmas” that was the scrap heap they took in. But that word got loose of something the people were calling “A Nation of Peace” that was set apart from the landbound isles of IGNOLand, Bones took to it with great anger.
He went on the speakers daily to denounce this “Nation of Peace” as; “Nothing but a figment of somebodies imagination, if you want a nation of peace look no further than the shoreline of where you live, to think otherwise is an insult to the very land you live on.”
Going on to further declare that whomever would speak of this land in public that would be found out, would be jailed immediately. Once again doing himself no favours, but in his mind, it was for the best.
“I have to keep the peace here, at all costs...”
He had no idea that his ideologies would spiral his reign into chaos. An uprising was at hand.