Sins of Harmony
Volume 2: Enemies Unbound
Chapter 1: Oceanic Disaster.
January 4th, 1006 ANM
Shortly after midnight.
Oceanic Alliance territory.
Hundian Ocean, 600 miles south-west of Singapaw.
The sea floor was dark, quiet, and only the odd deepwater fish disturbed the calm abyss.
A school of deepwater fish suddenly fled, and the ground feeding creatures began to flee.
Not 40 seconds later, a sudden upthrust emerged, driving a massive 25 foot mound of rock upwards, stretching onwards like a wall as it shot up like a bullet from a gun.
The distortion of water from the sudden upthrust showed as a 2 foot swell on the sea, nothing out of the ordinary amongst the normal Hundian ocean waves.
Unseen, the wave split apart, heading east and west, and a small part of it north and south. The north and south waves would be small, not much to be concerned with.
As more, smaller earthquakes were set off by this one big quake, the shockwaves, and their watery incarnations, added to the already large single waves. Some closer, some further out from any shores.
Deep beneath the mantle, as a hot spot had been, mysteriously, moving quickly, it had set off the delicate plate boundary with its energy from below. It had shifted one of the plates enough to loosen it, and cause the sudden slide.
Now, in the darkness, heading for the Oceanic Alliance's western coast areas of Komodo and Cattle settlements, and even the Southern Landmass's Eastern nation coasts of Antelonya, Elephanzia, Lemurgascar and Leonya, was the energy released.
For those in the Oceanic Alliance, being much closer, no warning system was good enough to prepare them in time. In the least, the Southern landmass countries would have more warning, even if their civilisations were less developed.
Hengkalu, Western Komatra, Hundonesia.
2:12 am
The city was abuzz, as the earthquake had rocked the city hard. Already, reports were coming in on the radios and telephone stations about an oceanic Earthquake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale.
The city was drowsy still, but out in the bay, as some fishermen Komodos began raising their voices in surprise, the dimly lit beach water had suddenly began to draw back, as if the tide was being drawn back to the sea by the gods themselves.
Out in the darkness, the growing wall of water approached, building in height as it slowed in the shallow water.
It was when the faint rumbling of the tsunami crashing a few dozen metres from the coast reached their ears that the city began to panic.
Within a minute, the ocean that had serviced, fed, and sustained their town since its settlement crashed forwards to seemingly swallow them.
Across the Oceanic Alliance's Komodo, Cattle, trading ports and even a small Changeling colony, the same story repeated, some knowing the signs, most being too slow to realize.
Southern Landmass
Har En Kalaan, Elephanzia
5:46 am local time [9:46 am Komatra time]
The Sun had began creeping over the horizon of the Hundian ocean, and already the city was bustling.
Aboard the small cargo ship Ivory Ark, Captain Kalan, an elderly Elephant male, wiped his brow from worry.
He'd heard worrisome stories about the tsunami, but they didn't know where it would strike next, though it would be here quite possibly.
For safety, he had moored his ship by anchor about 4 miles out from city port, in deep water. Deep water was safety from a tsunami.
He didn't want to be beached, and then swamped by the incoming wave.
"Captain! You'd better look at the city!"
His first mate, a young antelope immigrant, shouted from the watch deck. Getting out his binoculars with his trunk, Kalan inhaled sharply as he saw a sight that defied his knowledge of tsunamis he'd been taught.
There had been no withdrawing of the ocean, the sea was just swelling forth without warning, already gushing through the streets in a raging torrent.
He quietly prayed for the cataclysms to be over soon, though he didn't know later waves would ride further inland over the water already swamping the coasts.
He hadn't known, but the tsunami had swelled first because the top of the wave had arrived first, while the retreat would come later. On the other side of the Hundian ocean, the bottom of the tsunami had arrived first, and thus the tide retreat had come first as usual.
Whichever came first, it guaranteed destruction across the Hundian ocean.
In areas north and south of the wave's effects, the tsunami was greatly dissipated. At worst, a 3 foot wave washed through the streets of low lying cities and towns with minimal damage and casualties. Sri Draka, the Indo-Burmese Confederacy, Dingolia's North West coast.
But across Hundonesia, its sub state Komotra, Antelonya, Elephanzia, Lemurgascar and Leonya, the damage had been devastating.
Within hours, relief efforts were being organized, supplies, rescue teams, medical teams, and a humanitarian aide from around the world. The death toll wouldn't be known until 2 days later, but the estimates already placed it around 100,000 at least.
Even as relief efforts went out, some sought to understand how this event occurred. Geologists, Seismologists, and even Volcanologists, considering the Oceanic area's volatile nature.
Disasters like this couldn't be stopped, so they must be prepared for, studied, for saving future lives.
South Western Dingolia, Bushire mountains.
January 5th, 1006 ANM
Midday
Sat inside his solitary cave headquarters, the dark red Diamond Dog couldn't help but feel lucky.
He'd been struggling to find some new sources of income, but now, a whole new black market potential had opened up across Hundonesia, and the Eastern South landmass countries. He'd already had agents begin setting up supply lines, and even the lowest prices he'd ever set would gain him profit, given the demand for medicine, construction materials and uncollected bounties.
Unlike other bounties, these were for the location of bodies, dead or alive. A small fee, but given how many there were, Garnet made sure he had the best trackers on his payroll of agents to find many to make a sizable gain.
It was a good time to be a black market dealer, because suddenly the illegality of the markets didn't matter if they had things they needed. And lowering his prices slightly, just enough to keep a profit and stay in business, Garnet had made sure to chase out competition where he had influence through his agents.
Even with this fortuitous luck, he couldn't help but feel the slightest of mourning for the accidental losses. At least the money he'd make off it would ease the mourning, as he was in turn helping them recover, for a price.
Garnet was generous, but not charitable.
Even so, he noticed that the crystal shard he kept in an alcove within his headquarters cave had been quiet. Normally the Entity was speaking to him at least once every two days, and he should have spoken yesterday.
Tyree, his split personality, had been suspicious also. Tyree was part of a disorder derived from some of his upbringing and engineering as a Hephaestus Research Company in 987 ANM. He'd been raised by them, but they tried to engineer him into a super soldier, a one of a kind experiment, a sort of proof of concept to gain further mastery of genetics for the upcoming cloning projects at the time. It had worked, but drove him mad, and he'd tried to sabotage the labs.
His dear friend had been hurt as she tried to help, but he rescued her and fled from the Dingolia based research lab to the mountains a few hundred miles away. His current base was within those same mountains.
He'd made a promise, but he knew he'd descended further trying to keep it, acquiring the resources to pull it off. But with the Entity, and the miraculous assets he'd be ale to get from profits off the Tsunami recovery, Garnet's black market connections would gain him enough influence to begin his real plans. He'd been in business for a while, and knew he needed money to attract the ones he needed.
But more importantly right now, he wondered why the Entity was being quiet, when it was overdue for a talk with him. Garnet had organized the dragon rabies virus, engineered from one among many stolen Hephaestus blueprints for projects across many fields, and dispatched some hired dragon mercenaries to carry out the plot to help the Entity regain a form to use itself.
The Entity owed Garnet dearly, and the silent treatment wasn't its usual act.
January 6th, 1006 ANM
5 miles east of Singapaw, Caran mountains.
Hephaestus Research Company, Headquarters.
In the distance, Varkan could just barely make out the ships already leaving the harbour of Singapaw, bound for a whole variety of locations across the Oceanic Alliance.
Singapaw had been lucky, as Cattlaysia had been sheltered from the Hundian Ocean by the Hundonesian island of Komatra. With perhaps the most valuable port city, aside from some Dingolian ports maybe, in the Oceanic Alliance territory unharmed, it fell to these wealthy city to help fund the relief efforts. Once rebuilt reinvestment in local markets would stimulate recovery.
Behind him, Faral waited patiently, while Mau'rik and Hi'mari had come here also as part of a bi-monthly review of the company. It was only postponed when something, like last year's dragon migration business, cropped up. But that had been 8 months ago now.
Things had been looking good for the company, no losses overall, and showing growth in most sectors. It was good, because they wouldn't be growing as much over the next few months, as the Hephaestus Group began funding relief efforts. What irked Varkan's mood was the review of the genetics division of his research labs.
"We're still struggling to find enough surrogate Drake or Dragon females that fit the requirements, and even then, fertilisation is proving difficult." Hi'mari explained.
"You must understand that Kynok's birth was a miracle in itself, but you purposefully ordered embryos to be engineered to be female Wyverns, the main differentiating chromosome altered and nothing else if possible. Getting a clone to grow in a non-species body is difficult, but getting an altered clone?" Hi'mari shook her head sadly.
"You'll keep trying." Varkan said coldly.
"Of course sir, but you just have to understand the difficulties involved." Hi'mari said.
"I understand perfectly Hi'mari. I was firsthand involved with Kynok's creation and earlier attempts. I've been busy enough to not be around to supervise the cloning directly is all." Varkan said. He turned to the window, asking aloud:
"Maurik. Are there any funds we can divert to the genetics division from what we have to spare, after funding relief efforts? Any divisions we can afford to lay off temporarily?"
"Divisions, not really. If we withdraw from some investments, we can get a few million to the genetics division, possibly 20 million or so without losing too many investments." Maurik thought aloud.
"Send me a list of non-crucial investments. I'll look them over and make a decision within the evening." Varkan said.
He then began walking out the office, silently calling Faral to follow him. As the Wyvern and Komodo left, Hi'mari shared a look of worry with the large Orang-utan CEO.
"He's been on edge for a while." She said.
"He gets like this often. I thought you'd be happy, your division's a favourite of his, and its about to get more funding by the looks of it." Mauirk asked curiously.
Hi'mari looked down, saying: "I'm charged with overseeing the clones, that's easy enough. Razak is fine with his parents, Kynok is self reliant, and Lucius is a help around the labs. But, I don't think this is a goal we're going to achieve, making a female Wyvern clone from Varkan's DNA."
"What else is there? No Wyvern female, no Wyvern race, cloning or natural." Maurik said.
Hi'mari wondered whether she, or Varkan, would have died from age before the dream became a possibility, let alone a reality.
1 hour later, Varkan's private office.
Opening the vault, Varkan asked Faral: "Has the boat been booked? No trackers on it? No registration, nothing?"
"Yes sir. No one will know where we're going."
"Good."
Varkan opened the vault, stepping inside to see how much emptier it was. He'd returned any Wyvern artefacts he'd recovered on his last trip to his homeland, and now all that was left was a few memorabilia, and Celestia's white horn.
He lifted up Celestia's horn slowly, and found the small cap he'd installed in the base. As well as a trophy, and a reminder of past endeavours, her horn served another role. Hiding information.
The cap screwed off, and Varkan brought it over to the table, gently shaking the horn to drop out the rolled up parchment paper, about the size of a napkin. He folded it outwards, forming an A4 sheet of paper size parchment sheet.
It was completely blank.
Faral knew what to do, and took her two finer claws and placed them on one side of the paper, shutting her eyes. Varkan did the same, shutting his own eyes.
After focusing, they opened their eyes, and saw what only their mental commands could reveal on the paper to any eyes.
Directions, a map, and times of day, all centred on the islands of New Daeland, specifically a remote island on its northern tip.
"Here, on January 13th. We can get a meeting with him that soon." Faral looked over the map. It would only be the 4th time they'd visited him since they found him nearly 29 years ago today.
Varkan had been long investigating the Entity that had appeared, and had been suspicious about its ability to travel via mantle and magma beneath the Earth. Even though it hadn't been seen, what it had done to the Elements, how it appeared, bore too much resemblance to what happened all those years ago, shortly after he defeated Celestia and claimed her horn.
He and Faral were the only ones who knew of this person's existence, and he, Varkan and Faral wanted to keep it that way.
If anyone knew about the Entity in any way, it was someone who had pretty much been a part of the energy it drew on for a long time.
All means of science failed to accurately track the Entity, mainly because they didn't know what to track for. It was time to consult 'other', more inside sources, now that it was abundantly clear that the Entity was drawing on no ordinary energy, or small amounts of it.
Varkan had a strong hunch that the tectonic hot spot that triggered the tsunami earthquake had been from the Entity somehow. No hot spot moved that fast naturally. And if the Entity was responsible, it showed the amount of energy it had at its disposal.
The story is set up, and a forewarning, a lot of things will go down in this story. I'm basing the organisation Garnet has off the Snakehead gangs, and he'll have connections to gangs similar to pirates, drug lords, smuggling in general, and corrupting government officials, especially Oceanic Alliance government members.
Review/Critique as one would.
If you read my profile, you'll see I've actually already revealed the title of the 3rd Volume. Crisis to Ashes.