Prologue: Awakening
"Project Ascato's vitals are soaring!"
"What? The Project is waking up?"
Inside of a dark lab somewhere in the EU, many scientists hurried about as a young man floated inside of a tank of odd, blue liquid.
A number of wires connected to his arms, legs, and abdomen, informing the always careful scientists about his condition.
Another walked in, a pale man in all white with heavily shadowed, red eyes, and shock induced white hair. He seemed tall and gaunt.
He snapped at several of them, "Calm yourselves, you imbeciles. He is waking up too early all the same, apply sedatives."
A needle attached to a mechanical arm went down inside the tank as the boy began to stir, and it injected the needle's payload into his arm. He quickly became dormant again.
The head scientist studied the vital signs exhibited, and looked astoundingly pleased. His nearest coworker, a petite young woman backed away when he looked up with a wide, inhuman grin on his face.
"Excellent...his condition suggests that even our sedatives might not be enough to keep him from awakening for much longer. My best estimate for this current batch, five minutes. We have done it, gentlemen. The first instance of a human clone."
There was some whispering about issues such as if the boy would be a soulless abomination, or if he would even live long.
Head Doctor Ambientus kept his wide grin for all of five minutes, his eyes dilating from pure delight. Finally, the boy began stirring, and the chamber opened.
There was a torrent of blue liquid on to the floor, and he was let fall on to the floor. In his first conscious action, he caught himself, and felt the cold steel on the floor.
The scientists nervously approached their creation. They had pumped him full of top end steroids to ensure his development was quickened, and that his physical capabilities were already at elite levels.
Ambientus walked over, a wet mess, a fresh person, and indeed it looked like they had succeeded. They had created Bezide Ascato, and taken the power of birth for themselves.
It seemed though that the boy had collapsed into a sleep, and he was checked over by the other scientists before he was handed over to some of Markos' agents. This boy would guarantee that much more would be accomplished in the future.
Much more.