Chapter Text
Neon billboards shined brightly, deep into the night their rainbow colors bouncing off his gold charms. Mr. Lee was heading toward a bar, located in some dark alleyway close to the southern district. The Lung had an appointment with someone claiming to have precious intel about a certain drug. This stranger had picked the bar, wanting to stay as anonymous as possible. That didn’t bother the Lung much, as he knew every corner of the City-State, and he was more than capable of defending himself. He also had encountered these elusive types more than once.
The detective finally saw the hole in the wall bar, located next to a huge warehouse. Down the corner from the building laid the aquarium store where he purchased his equipment to take care of his tank that decorated his agency.
Thus, he sported a slight smile as he confidently walked into the bar.
The stranger had described himself as a black haired Aslan man, and the detective quickly spotted him, sitting in a poorly lit area of the bar. Without hesitation he sat next to him, ordering a traditional lungmenite drink from the bartender.
“I’m assuming you’re the man I was supposed to meet up with,” he said in a low voice, staring at the stranger with his yellow reptilian eyes.
The stranger met his gaze and confirmed with a nod. There was no word spoken from his side, until Lee put a small bundle of Lungmen dollars discreetly on the table. The stranger grabbed the money immediately, quickly glancing at it to confirm its authenticity, before finally opening his mouth.
“So you’ve heard about the drug…”
Lee nodded, “It supposedly makes one go into a feral state, transforming into an animal.”
“They use it on their enemies to torture them, and on their allies to strengthen them,” the Aslan added, with a slight smile on his lips. This made Lee furrow his brow - the topic was not amusing, so that smile almost felt suspicious. But he remained professional. He wasn’t the greatest detective of all Lungmen for no reason.
Before they could exchange any more words, they were interrupted by a loud rumble coming from the bar’s door. It seemed like a very drunk person had stumbled into the establishment, wreaking havoc on their way. Lee immediately turned his head toward the noise, as the Aslan’s smile grew wider. This wasn’t even planned, yet it played perfectly into his cards.
With a quick and precise hand movement, the Aslan poured a few drops of a clear liquid into the Lungs glass while he was distracted.
“Anyway, where were we,” Mr. Lee turned toward the Aslan again, not having noticed.
“I have a lead on a production factory of such drugs,” the Aslan whispered innocently. Lee’s draconic ears perked up, finally receiving the information he had paid for.
“I’m warning you though, as it is a very dangerous rabbit hole and someone might be listening to us here…” the lion baited, frantically looking around him as if he was trying to see anyone suspicious, selling his lies.
Usually, Lee wouldn't fall into such a trap. He had more than enough experience with ambushes in the many years he had navigated the city. However, the whole situation regarding that drug concerned him greatly. It was essentially a new weapon of war, and if unmanaged could wreak havoc in all of Terra; and if he wasn’t able to stop them or find the source of it, who would? He was the most informed person in all of Lungmen, and was the only person, aside from the Rat King, to have a big enough network to find the culprit. Or so he thought.
“Do you have any other places we could talk? I need this information. I’m willing to pay,” he took the bait like a hungry fish in the water. The lion immediately smiled, nodding his head.
“We should talk in the warehouse. There’s no one there,” the Aslan said, finishing his drink. Lee did the same, swallowing the content of the whole glass in one go. Curious about the information, he didn’t even notice its funny taste.
Thus, the two quietly got up from their seats, and the Lung followed the Aslan into the alleyway next to the warehouse.
The warehouse was very big, and poorly lit. In the darkness, it was empty, save for a few cardboard boxes.
“So, what about that production site?” Lee spoke up after a few instances of silence. To his surprise, the first thing the Aslan did was look at the watch on his wrist.
“It’s almost time, so might as well tell you the truth,” he laughed, before adding, “I have no information on the drug, at least not any I’d be willing to share with you. But you can still thank me, as you’re going to learn about the effect of it. You know, I’m surprised how easily you took the bait. Guess Lungmen’s best detective is nothing else but a dumb fish.”
Lee was shocked by those unexpected words. He felt ignorant, as there had been numerous red flags from the beginning of the encounter, however he somehow managed to avoid noticing them at all. As he was about to retort, an intense pain shot through his whole body, making him fall on his knees. His breath immediately felt short, and he started sweating as he felt like he was boiling alive.
“W-What have you done t-to me?” he managed to grunt with eyes closed, before another wave of pain took over his body.
“Well, you wanted to know about the drug, so I gave it to you! Now we’ll see if the great detective Mr. Lee is strong enough to keep his mind or if you will simply lose all humanity…” The Aslan took a few steps away from the Lung, slowly disappearing in the dark of the warehouse until all that was left was his laugh, watching with pleasure as every muscle of the Lung’s body started to get deformed.
Accompanied with loud cries of pain and lungmenite swear words, the Lung started to physically change. He could feel his bones change shape, elongate, and the rest of his body following. Soon, his clothes were nothing but shreds on the cold concrete.
Not only his body changed however. His mind felt obscured by the pain, as if a beast had nestled there and tried taking over, fighting off the torment. But Lee clenched his sharp teeth, trying to concentrate on what was left of his own thoughts.
After minutes of agony, the huge dragon laid there. He was quadrupedal, his long body slender with no wings. On his back was a row of fins. The dragons’ tail looked just like his regular tail, with a large frayed fin at the end, and he had kept the mottled pattern on his scales.
“Are you still in there, Lee?” the Aslan mockingly asked, as he enjoyed the sight of the Lung suffering.
Lee finally opened his golden eyes.
“Wh-Why did you do this?” he asked under his breath, still incapable of standing up as the pain echoed throughout his body.
“To get you out of our way. There is no antidote against the drug, you’re stuck like this for the rest of your life. So we both got you out of our way, and used you as a test subject;” the lion explained proudly, before pointing around himself.
In all the pain and confusion, the Lung hadn’t even noticed all the snipers creeping out from the darkness.
“Now we give you one last choice. Either you fight for us and join our ranks, or you’ll die. Either way you’ll lose.”
The snipers had their weapons loaded, ready to blow him to shreds.
“Only in your dreams.”
Lee finally got back on his feet, clenching his teeth hard to try to get used to that new form. The snipers all had their aim locked on him, only waiting for a sign of their superior.
“Well, too b-“
The Lung had noticed that one of the walls was seemingly weaker than the others, the metal rusted away. Without letting the lion finish, he leapt as quickly as he could, headfirst against the wall. Just like he had predicted, the metal burst under the force, letting the dragon escape on the busy streets of Lungmen under the shocked eyes of the criminals who had been ready to kill him.
For most people, it was a normal night in Lungmen. Midnight was approaching, as the only source of light were the streetlamps as well as the neon billboards powered by singular pieces of Originium, the main source of energy for most of the mobile city.
Salem had finally finished her shift at the aquarium store. As a passionate fishkeeper, the feline often worked overtime in the shop, making sure that the tanks were clean, and all the fishes well fed and healthy.
Thus, she closed the store, and started walking toward her apartment, which was a few blocks away. Knowing the way by heart, she didn’t pay much attention to her surroundings, until -
BOOM
The feline's sensitive ears immediately turned towards the source of the noise, arriving face to face with the huge dragon that had just jumped headfirst through the wall. But suddenly, as the dragon landed on the street, it disappeared immediately, leaping through the street toward the direction of the sea.
The feline shook her head in utter confusion, stopping in her tracks and rubbing her tired eyes.
What the hell did I just see?! she thought, looking around herself frantically in the hopes of seeing that weird creature once more. But the streets looked as empty as ever, and Salem wondered if she had simply hallucinated it. Unfortunately, the multiple snipers who had been ready to shoot Lee, came crawling out of the same hole, and immediately pointed their weapons at the Leithanian feline.
“Excuse me!?” she inquired, feeling like the situation was no longer real. First a monster and now hundreds of snipers? Her ears perked back.
“What did you just see?” One of the snipers aggressively asked, pointing steadily towards Salem who froze in place.
“Look I’m as confused as you are, I think I just hallucinated or something? In any case I’d like to go home and sleep now, if you wouldn’t mind,” she said confidently. Since she thought she was dreaming, she didn’t feel much fear apart from the initial shock. Just utter confusion.
“Let her go, I don’t think she knows who that was. Even if he escaped, our mission was a success,” the black Aslan announced, coming out of the shadows behind his subordinates. Everyone then lowered their weapons, and Salem simply resumed her walk. Until she arrived at the apartment, not a single thought crossed her mind, as if her mind was trying to suppress any memories about what had just happened.
Only once she laid in her bed, the memories suddenly flowed into her mind, nearly causing a panic attack.
What the hell did she see? Was it some secret animal that was kept captive by the Lungmenite police? Were those armed people the army? The mafia? Did she stumble into a conspiracy that might bring her demise?
There were a million scenarios that rushed through her head, each one crazier than the other. But what stuck out the most was that huge creature. It looked like the dragon paintings that were everywhere in Lungmen and Yan, which displayed the mythological ancestors of the Lung and Draco. She never had paid much attention to such legends.
This made Salem think of all the Lungs she knew. Maybe they were connected to it? Could Lungs secretly be shapeshifters?
Salem shook her head again, trying to chase those irrational ideas. She sighed, yet the thoughts wouldn't leave her. The top chef of one of her favorite restaurants was a Lung, could it have been him? Then again, those colors didn’t fit…
She continued trying to remember every Lung she had ever met, until she thought of that one client she had at work. He always bought items and foods for his goldfish, and the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. She always had found it amusing that he looked alike to the animals he cared for. For the longest time, she had thought that he was an Aegyr, until she had seen him without his hat, two golden horns betraying his real lineage.
I’m really going crazy, she thought to herself. Something in her wanted to believe it was just a hallucination, but the more she thought about it, the more she believed it to have been somehow real. She even pinched her arms to make sure it wasn’t simply a fever dream and she somehow had missed a rational answer to the encounter.
She immediately began to search for the mysterious client’s name. She could simply visit him tomorrow to clear her racing thoughts, if only she could remember it.
Lee. That was his name. If she remembered correctly, he was a detective.
Having finally found this information, her brain finally let her rest, falling asleep in mere seconds.
In the meantime, the only escape Lee saw was toward the black ocean. Lungmen was notoriously crowded, absent of any strips of green between the skyscrapers, and even less in the southern district, which was filled with rundown apartment complexes that had long been abandoned by the Lungmenite authorities. These now served as cheap housing for the poor and infected, as well as criminals trying to lay low in the city.
There was no way he could hide in the concrete jungle surrounding him. While the adrenaline had made the pain and the scare disappear, he feared that it wouldn’t stay this way forever. He had to find a calm place to understand what had happened to him.
On the other side of the water was Great Yan. There, nature was abundant, the forests stretched across mountains and created a sanctuary for wildlife. It was the perfect space for him, if only…
Lee swallowed his feelings. He hadn’t been in Yan since the Shangshu Incident, which he still hadn’t entirely recovered from. He had sworn to not return unless absolutely necessary, the nostalgia regarding his younger years swallowed him everytime he came into contact with the ancestral earth of the great country.
The dragon turned around, about to run back to Lungmen. From here, he had a full view of the city’s skyline. In the many years he had spent in the city, he had never noticed how high the skyscrapers were.
He felt like they were about to swallow him.
He had no choice.
Taking a few steps back, he leapt into the cold water. It was only now that he started to feel the immense physical power that this new form wielded. With every stroke of his fins, he perceived the muscles of his legs and tail, advancing him through the black waters that were illuminated only by Lungmen’s lights.
A warmth filled his gills. While he had always been a keen swimmer, he rarely had time to indulge in such pastimes. He had almost forgotten how much his body was made for this.In total contrast with Lungmen, mainland Yan was only lit by the moon and stars. The water had just been broad enough to shield Yan from Lungmen’s smog and light pollution, while remaining narrow enough for him to cross.
Climbing out of the water, he shook his entire body to get rid of the excess water. It was only now that he noticed the row of fins that were along his spine. They were identical to the ones that adored his tail, only that they started at the nape of his neck.
His vision had also gotten better. He quickly noticed a cave at the foot of the high mountains, in which he decided to spend the night. Now that he had made it to a safe place, his body felt heavy, the exhaustion finally catching up as the adrenaline slowly left his system. Without much more thought, he curled up in a corner of the cold cave and drifted off to sleep.