Everything Has Fallen to Pieces

Trion

The softshell turtle is well aware of how he came to live with his mentor. He's been told that story many times during his childhood—not by Baron Draxum. No, the yokai had far too many experiments to run. He couldn't waste his precious time on something so menial as entertaining his young protégé.

Huginn and Muninn had told him instead.

"It's an amazing story," Muninn insisted.

"Absolutely stunning," Huginn agreed.

"You should tell him the story."

"Why can't you do it?"

"Because your stories make me feel warm inside." Muninn put a hand on Huginn's shoulder and smiled.

The two would do that every single time they told the turtle a story, even when he'd become a teenager. And it annoyed him every time without fail. But they would tell him stories about things Draxum wouldn't discuss, so he put up with the act.

Years ago, Baron Draxum had acquired the greatest Battle Nexus champion in the entire Hidden City, Lou Jitsu. Draxum planned to use Lou Jitsu's DNA to perfect his magnum opus: a serum that would mutate humans into yokai.

The turtle, who Draxum had named Trion, was one of his mentor's early test subjects. As a child Trion had always felt a swell of pride at that fact.

According to the gargoyles, during the experiment, Lou Jitsu broke out and destroyed Draxum's lab and freed the other test subjects along the way. The entire building had crumbled and Draxum had to fix up the entire lab himself. But that very night, after the chaos had settled, the yokai noticed soft cries coming from the wreckage, and upon moving the rubble, he found the infant softshell.

When he had seen one of his experiments had been successful, and survived the explosion, Baron Draxum had felt a new wave of hope course through him. He took in Trion and trained him to be the warrior scientist he is now.

After rebuilding his lab, the yokai had spared no expense: creating a training arena in his residence, and training him in martial arts personally; creating a lab of Trion's own and hiring the smartest tutors in all the Hidden City, encouraging Trion's love for science; and eventually bringing the turtle in on future experiments. Especially regarding variants of the serum that created Trion.

Draxum did directly teach the turtle how all of yokai-kind was forced underground by humans. To the best of his ability, the yokai tried to impart his hatred for mankind onto the softshell, and yet it hasn't worked.

Although Trion agrees it isn't fair how yokai have been forced to hide from the world, humans are absolutely fascinating.

At least to him.

It may just be because he's got human DNA in his body, or it could be some of the ruditmentary similarities between humans and yokai, but whatever it is, Trion has a soft spot for them from a scientific standpoint.

He finds it amazing how adaptable they all are, physically and behaviorally. How they can bounce back from practically anything and keep on going like nothing ever happened; and their hubris. It's inspiring! Despite most people leading pretty boring lives, he could sneak up to the surface and observe them all night.

Which, most of the time, he does.

Trion stays in the shadows, of course. He knows very well what'll happen if he's spotted and he refuses to expose the existence of yokai because of his fascination. Draxum raised him to be much smarter than that.

It's not difficult for him to get to the surface—Huginn and Muninn are easy to sneak by, or to blackmail, if needed; he's got some pretty interesting information on how Draxum's lab actually got destroyed—and stay hidden from people. He finds it to be rather easy, actually, since most people don't pay attention to rooftops, especially at night. And with the zoom-in feature on his goggles he doesn't need to get too close to people anyway.

Tonight, it's even easier to get out of the labratory, and he's able to sneak up to the surface without much effort. As soon as he emerges in an alley, the chilly night air hits his skin and he doesn't waste much time in rushing up the side of the building.

Then, seemingly for the first time, as soon as he reaches the roof, Trion notices the night sky.

It's never really caught his attention before—he's always been much more focused on the people below—but now that he's distracted by it, he supposes he can see the appeal. Initially all he ever saw in the sky were just small shiny balls of glowing plasma millions of miles away. Now he's able to see the sky in its entirety and somehow it's different. He can see it as a tapestry of sparkling art and all of the constellations that, before, he's never really cared about.

Why should I? He'd think. What makes it so special?

Trion's not able to find the answer at first. And then it hits him: this time, he's not looking at the sky with a the analytical mind of a scientist.

He's looking at it with the wonder of a human.

Huh.

Trion considers the fact for a moment then he turns his attention to the people below.

Another breeze rolls through and Trion shivers as the cold air slips through the sliver of space between his shell and its armor. He'll have to adjust it when he gets back to the lab—he could've sworn that he'd gotten it right earlier. He shakes off the thought and pulls his goggles down over his eyes.

Now for the real fun.

The past few nights, Trion's noticed a particularly interesting human; she's been involved in some pretty weird happenings as of late, and that's made it fairly easy to find her. Just last week alone, he observed her as she chased a cloaked figure across half the city, and all for a small bottle of a glowing liquid. It still seems rather inconsequential to him, and yet it'd been real important to her. Just another fascinating aspect of this specific human being.

All he's gotta do is find out where the weird things are happening and head in that direction.

Hmm, nothing on this street. Onto the next one.

Three blocks later and he finally finds the human he's looking for. She's chasing after a purple drone, branded with a dragon symbol, carrying bags of stolen... is that tech? Ooh, and it's advanced tech, too! It'd taken months for the turtle to replicate that kind of technology and now here here is, several meters away from it! He's so excited, he could stim!

But Trion hardly has the time to do so before she's racing towards another borough, and oh man, he's got to follow her and the tech!

April O'Neil, what'd you get yourself into this time?