Work Text:
A floating bay in the middle of an unknowable desert contained the main outpost of the Foundation's Governance of Multiversal Anomalies application centre. The climate was unmistakably moist, despite the lack of any clear instruments to bring about such a phenomena. Behind one window of the many rooms of this sprawling maze, a light flicked on, and soon was cut out when the curtains were drawn shut. Despite the lack of indication for night and day, it was clear the time for lunch had just concluded.
Clad in his usual black suit and tie and wearing back his wispy light hair, the director of the Foundation closed the door to his office with a sigh of relief and proceeded to walk the journey that his interviewees would normally take. The only difference was which seat he would take, moving past the small wooden chair toward a snug leather one contrasted by the mundane, brown desk that it stood before. Accompanying the latter was a shipment of office stationary, completed by some rudimentary computer equipment that sat on top towards the front, faintly orange-tinted from the flickering illumination above. He placed his piping cup of latte on a coaster among the few he had littered near his keyboard in preparation for the day ahead.
The filing cabinets contained various documents, pertaining to both applicants and exhibits alike, dusty yet polished to some extent in order to make his successor's life easier. He pulled out a thin file, flicking through it, and a confused glare washed over his eyes.
'This can't be right...?'
After a thorough clean of his slender-framed glasses to assure himself that he wasn't imagining things, he pulled out an almost blank document with several aliases scrabbled over the title, the most common of which being RED DRAGON. It sounded ominous enough; he was used to these kinds of applicants — the ones who choose to stay madly inconsistent — however there was usually at least one consistent way to put a pin in them. With this specimen, there were too many conflicting accounts, it was as if it didn't even want to be considered. It worked against the far more structured applications he was used to (or, at least a clear effort was made to appear so).
The director cleared his throat, taking the sheet and laying it on the table before he reactivated the formerly-sleeping monitor. He stared into its terminal for a short moment, at his dreaded reflection that sullenly exchanged his blue irises. It seemed as though he was bereft of years long gone, but the job suited him well enough. Why would he choose to stay here, otherwise? The cheese sandwich he had savoured should surely tide him over. His finger flopped onto a simplistic receiver system, which promptly served to broadcast his first order amidst many usually to come:
'Chamber five, applicant ten three-one permitted to enter.'
The entity's designation was typically incredibly basic. It made the humanitarian process simpler, avoided accidental triggers and public freak-outs — God knows he appreciates the opportunity of not being one among many of his predecessors' cadavers. He had a feeling within his gut that he wouldn't need to hold onto this designation for long though, having endured more than his fair share of egomaniacs proclaiming their destined place here.
The door, gleaming a crystal shine from its bark-like structure, creaked open as expected. What was truly sudden were the director's pupils picking up on a massive, encroaching black square, growing in size as his ears muffled. He looked away out of instinct; he was there when that pale abomination first breached containment, and he had an idea of how ineffective the SCRAMBLE gear could be. As a Foundation executive who knew too much, it was like the reaper had finally come knocking for him, but his ears were not met with raging chaos like his id had him to believe.
'What a curious little... sss-ituation.'
The prolonged sentence, cutting through his auditory befuddlement, prompted the director to realign his head, blinking reactively as he regained his bearings and collected himself. 'It is a pleasure to meet you, ten three-one.'
He took off his reading glasses that were infused with the gear to reveal a bright, skeletal dragon-like thing, crimson flames churning through its body, with bony claws and a slack, grinning jaw. It occurred to him that this entity must be incorporeal, its bulbous purple irises surrounded by a light red as they locked deep onto his very own. Aptly described, at least.
'And sss-imilar to you too, directorrr,' the dragon pleasantly flattered him, taking its seat on the wooden chair, creaking under the size of it — until it corrected, and the noise stopped.
The director brushed the meaningless papers aside with a few fingers and put his hands onto the table inquisitively, deeming it useless to go through them. 'Thank you for joining us today... Red Dragon, is it?'
The calcium-structured lizard seemed to glint its beady eyes like it were chuckling, 'I am whatever suits you most, director,' the dragon said, placing a hand near what he could only reasonably call a rib-cage, 'I am a prophecy—a wish, or a miracle. Sometimes I am all thingsss, and other times I can be... diminished, famished and treasured, like pricelessss ornamentsss. For you, you call me as I am.'
'Ornaments, huh?' the director irreverently singled out. He squinted as he thought back to that muddled applicant sheet. 'Could I assume, at least to a degree, that one of your... er—'
'Clien-tsss, if you will.'
'Of course — that one of your clients had imagined you as such? This seems like your most common appearance, is it not?' the director remarked, sipping on his latte.
A huff of violent fire sprouted from within the dragon's crooked maw. It cocked its lanky neck a few degrees to the right. 'Indeed, sss-ome might proclaim...'
'I see...' said the director, tapping his fingers against the keyboard. It occurred to him he hadn't input a single thing so far into the machine he was normally so fixated with. His attention was buffered by the rough entity in front that teemed with fleeting potential he couldn't quite grasp. It was uniquely frustrating, but the director kept this hidden the best he could, starting to write rough notes to send to his superior like the trained bureaucrat he was. 'I noticed you omitted a reason for coming here, Dragon.'
'I have omitted nought,' the dragon explained, the gaping cleavages in its bones contorting to form movement within its rigid limbs, 'for your sss-ake... all that needsss zed has been presented to you th-usss-ly.'
He was getting nowhere with this one! Contempt was steadily wearing off the intrigue he once held. He was tired enough by the end of lunchtime dealing with his cryptic colleagues again, let alone how he dreaded the moment he had to sit and listen to the jabbering cries of these cryptids again. Having the two fused together was crossing the line. He snuck a glance at the sheet of paper to reclaim his composure, seeing a common thread: each account claimed to be 'visited' by the interviewee.
'To get a rough idea then, these clients of yours,' the director continued, 'what do they—or you—gain from your... interventions, exactly? I doubt they would be keen to ask something of you if this madness was all you had to offer.'
'Gain? Why, they sss-eek to gain a finite eternity, anything they could possibly requ-ess-t,' the dragon lectured with enigmatic enthusiasm. 'I seek nothing but their... gratitude. It is my pleasure to bestow their fffinessst wissshhesss.'
The director scratched at an itch beyond his ear. 'Like a genie, right? What are you then, an evil one? We've had a couple of your kind in not too long ago aiming to one-up that damn tin of Spam.'
Dark giggles reamed from the beast like the flow of noxious fumes within its body. 'So lowly you must think of me, I a-sss-ume. No, though I heed your concern, and will remind you. I am—'
'Yes, yes, I get what you're saying,' the director interrupted, moving his hands away from the keyboard and taking a swig of his latte again. 'You're mysterious, you show to feeble weak-minded mortals like myself, and seem to be subjective in nature, but you don't seem to have any purpose. We blow through thousands of applicants a week, and the general idea throughout is that you can bring something as an SCP to our studies or resources, or you need to be placed under our supervision. You must have some kind of end goal, right?'
'Of coursss.'
'Then what the hell is it?!'
He glared into the monster's eyes for as long as it took his clock's second hand to tick past half its circumference, locked into a grating stalemate. The dragon had not moved an inch, contrasting his own shuffle forwards. The director let out a sigh as he broke the trance and perused his wooden desk, sliding his glasses back on as soon as he found the thin sheaf of paper he had once discarded. 'So, Dragon...'
'Ye-sss?' the bony behemoth drawled in its snake tongue.
'Why do you want to be inducted into our archives?' the director asked, between puzzled looks he gave the dragon amidst his rereading of the paper. 'In general, your application is a mess — actually, it would appear even as though you didn't want to be considered! All sorts of accounts, legends, and what-not, but no real traits, no hook, or even a firm idea of what it is you do. It's certainly enough of a miracle that Applications led you to my office to begin with — oh gee, it would be a crying shame for anybody else to get this one, wouldn't it?'
A sour silence scoured the room, removed of the dragon's usual quick responses. It took until now for the director to notice the SCRAMBLE gear no longer recognising the anomaly, and weirdly with it the scrawled pages being more intelligible. He scrolled over those very same aliases; they were all identical to before. The accounts consisted of the very same deranged descriptions of manic recitals and interviews.
When the director peered at his interviewee once more, a fuzzy image of an upstanding humanoid presented itself, peach and blonde streams coating a clinical, tight dress. 'I hope ya've made up your mind by now, director.'
He took his glasses off, and that image was beautiful, curvy and delightful to ogle at. She had on a nice smile even if it was attached to a similarly crooked jaw to the one he had grown used to by now — he was given room to breathe, but he knew better. 'What is this? Are you trying to bribe me?'
'I grant only your innermost desires, director,' the woman said with a playful smirk, getting off of the chair. 'That is my purpose.'
'I don't want your God-damn services, Dragon!' the director spat. 'As a Foundation executive, I will not condone your pitiful gestures.'
The woman approached the desk, putting her slippery hands onto its edges. 'Is it not counterintuitive to refuse what you've wished for?'
'I have wished for nothing from you!' yelled the director as he rushed to press a button under his desk, until his hand's trajectory was halted by the woman's own clutching his wrist.
'At least be grateful I've bothered to try and help you, boy.'
Her grip was iron, his eyes anchored to her laser-like pupils like beams connected the both of them. He felt his body going numb, sweat overcoming his head like no other anomaly before her had. He had an extensive knowledge of cognitohazards, anomalies which cannot be interpreted by the senses without causing critical damage, but he'd never experienced one like this. No matter what he did, he could not escape her look.
'You continue to soak yourself in pity while others less than me abide by your excuses. Tell me, do you understand my purpose here yet, director?'
The SCRAMBLE gear kicked in and blinded him, of all but her. Dark blotches overpowered his material reality as everything around them became submerged in the unknown. He tore off his glasses with the other hand to try and free himself of the suffocating mass, but found that his eyes were taken with them. Her gaze, like her grip, remained his sole sensation.
'You ignorant child! I was never here for the Foundation, and I assume you were once the same.'
'FUCK YOU! GET OFF OF ME, GET OFF!!'
His foot slammed into the desk with a mighty thump, and her grasp vanished as suddenly as it had caught hold as the impact tipped his desk over. Propelled into the wall, he heaved in and out with chokes of anguish. Everything was black, his ears were crackling like static, and he felt an agonising sizzling feeling starting to crawl through his nervous system. He ran his cold fingers through his hair as he overheard a commotion building outside, snivelling hysterically.
Site Director ████ was found convulsing and screaming in a pool of his own blood and hot coffee. Subject was additionally observed to have had his thumbs driven into his eye sockets 'like screws'. Guards were met with heavy resistance until said subject's brain was found to have undergone a fatal seizure shortly thereafter, and body was sent for autopsy. Barring catastrophic neurological damage and the residual mess left in the subject's wake, no other abnormalities were reported.