Chapter Text
Zodyl Typhon’s grand experiment hinged entirely on two things: making a successful flying trash beast, and getting that done before the massive storm.
He runs his hands down his face, heavy bags under his eyes. Dozens of failed vital instrument experiments laid in front of him. None of them could compare in quality to a real Watchman series item. At this rate, the beast was never going to make it off the ground.
Just keep trying… It was days since he had slept. The next one will be the one. He had been doing the same thing over and over for the past 72 hours.
Zodyl picks up an elegant silver pendant with a Y shaped design, holds it between his hands, and mumbles a protective prayer he learned from his mother. Then he holds it up to his eye.
…Absolutely no change whatsoever.
Defeated, Zodyl’s body finally gives out, pendant slipping from his fingers. His head hits the table. He was out cold.
• • •
Cthoni was cozy in bed, in complete darkness, with her manhole right next to her. She was dreaming. Her mind was on the magnificent trash beast her boss was building. She thinks about the Sphere. What if they actually manage to pass through the barrier? What would the Sphere be like? Filled with trash or rich and opulent… perhaps both. A sprawling city with buildings for the rich and the poor.
As she falls into a deep REM sleep, a green portal opens at the foot of her bed. At that moment, the room to her door creaks open, and the silhouette of a tall man stands there, hunched over.
“Cth… ni.” His eyes were lidded, unseeing.
Zodyl Typhon, the sleep deprived leader of the Raiders, was sleepwalking. He shuffles forward, unconscious.
“…..Sandwich.”
Cthoni’s nose whistles in response. She’s still dreaming, in deep sleep.
“Mm… hungry…”
Zodyl steps forward, and suddenly loses his balance as his foot sinks through the portal. His eyes fly open, and before he even has the chance to yell, he’s already fallen through the portal.
Cthoni awakens with a start, dream portal immediately closing. She blinks awake, eyes squinting at the door. Did she leave it ajar…?
She grunts, rolling over her manhole before shutting the door, and going back to bed, none the wiser.
• • •
Zodyl is dropped from an unfamiliar manhole. He instinctively reaches his hand out and grabs the rung of a rusty ladder, and looks down below. He could have easily fallen into that sewer water.
He looks up, and presses a hand cautiously to the manhole. It didn’t budge. Assuming he had fallen through Cthoni’s portal to get here, it was now closed.
The man presses a hand to his choker, and attempts to call Cthoni, but there’s no signal.
Of course. I must be underground.
He plants two feet firmly on the rung of the ladder, and braces both hands on the manhole. With much difficulty, he manages to lift it up and push it away. Daylight streams in from the opening. He climbs out, and is immediately met with the obtrusive sound of an extended car honk.
“Get out of the road, asshole!”
Zodyl stares at the car, unmoving. Cars start to pile up behind it, all honking. The man simply looks up at the blue sky, the warm sun, the unfamiliar, impossibly tall buildings.
“The Sphere…”
Zodyl moves to the side, finally allowing the parade of cars to pass. His eyes dart around, drinking up every detail about his surroundings. The text on the buildings were difficult to read, most of the letters looked slightly off. And the passerby’s clothing…
It was nothing like the Spherite clothing he had seen before.
I need to alert Cthoni. He presses a hand to his choker, but hears nothing but static.
Change of plans. He’d have to gather as much information as possible and take down the Sphere— alone, if he had to.
At that moment, he spots a large garbage truck plastered with “URGENT HIRING: NYC Department of Sanitation” on its side. It stops in the middle of the street, and two men hop off, one hanging off the back and one from the drivers. They start hauling away the numerous trash bags stacked up on the street, into the belly of the truck.
“Fuck, I’m so sick of these short staffed shifts.” The younger man adjusts his cap and wipes the sweat off his brow.
“Chin up, buddy.” The blonde man with a scar over his face hauls the last bag in. “I’m sure someone’ll bite— oh!”
The two finally notice a man hanging on the side of the garbage truck. Two toned hair, coat billowing in the wind, fierce expression… Zodyl lifts his chin and looks down at them.
“My name is Zodyl Typhon, I come from faraway. Show me where you dump the trash you collect. Then I can ascertain where I truly am.”
The blonde sanitation worker smiles. “You want a job? Alright, put this on.”
Zodyl catches the hi-vis vest and looks at it strangely.
“You misunderstand. Take me to the edge of the world. Where you Spherites dump all of the trash.”
“Uh… well, we got a couple more hours on the route before we head to the center, so let’s bang this out together, Zodyl.” He makes a thumbs up. “My name’s Gray, but my buddies call me Gris.”
He jerks a thumb. “And that little guy’s Phillip, but we all call him Follo.”
“Don’t introduce me with that shit nickname…!”
Zodyl calculates his options silently. It was far beneath him to do garbage hauling work… but the information he would gain would be invaluable.
“Fine. Just for today.”
“Better than nothing,” Gris smiles, then shrugs at Follo, who pled with his eyes to not be left on the back of the truck with this weirdo.
“Alright, let’s move! Hang on, don’t fall off.”
Zodyl chucks the garish hi-vis vest into the back of the truck just as its maw closes, compressing all of the trash inside. Follo side eyes him like he’s a freak of nature, which Zodyl ignores.
Against all odds, he had made it off the Ground without even needing to perfect a Watchman series imitation to power a Trash Beast. It was now Phase Two of his plan.
Destroy the Sphere.