The metal floor of the lab hummed beneath the soles of Dr. Nicolas's shoes. Screens flickered across the walls, casting cold blue light over the silent corridors. Every monitor displayed a countdown, a heartbeat of something far larger than the room itself. "It's time," Nicolas whispered, almost to himself, though the echo of his voice bounced through the steel chamber like a phantom.
His team had gathered around the central console, eyes wide, hands trembling on the polished panels. For months, they had worked in secrecy, their work hidden under layers of bureaucracy and obscured funding. And now, after endless trials, failed tests, and whispered arguments, they were here—ready to awaken the machine.
Nicolas's fingers danced across the keys, inputting sequences that only he fully understood. The air in the lab thickened, charged with static electricity and the scent of ionized metal. Behind him, the massive cylindrical device known as the Atmospheric Induction Unit loomed, its pipes and wires intertwining like the roots of a mechanical tree. This machine had been his obsession for years—the culmination of every sleepless night, every ethical compromise, every silent warning that he chose to ignore.
"Just a few more seconds," said Marie, his lead assistant, voice shaking. "Are we… sure about this?"
Nicolas didn't answer. He didn't need to. The machine's core began to glow, first a soft yellow, then a brilliant white, and finally a pulse of blue that seemed to ripple through the entire chamber. Outside, the skies were calm, the city beneath still and unaware. But in a matter of hours, everything would change.
He pressed the final key. The unit roared to life, and instantly the lab shook. The ceiling panels rattled, and the fluorescent lights flickered violently. A low hum grew into a scream, and Nicolas felt the vibrations travel up through the floor, into his chest. Then, as if the world itself had taken a deep breath, the sky split open. Rain began to fall—not the gentle drizzle of nature, but a torrential downpour, heavy and unrelenting, washing over the city like a wave of invisible judgment.
For a moment, the team stared in awe. They had done it. They had created rain where there was none, controlled the sky itself. Nicolas allowed himself a brief smile, a fleeting triumph. But in the back of his mind, a shadow lingered—an unease that had nothing to do with the machine. He knew, as he always did, that creation came with a cost.
---
Somewhere far below the city, in a forgotten underground lab, a boy sat quietly in the shadows. He had been there since the very beginning, silent, watching, waiting. As the first droplets of rain struck the lab's reinforced roof, he moved. A single glass tube shattered under the weight of his hand, and the sound echoed through the facility like a gunshot.
The celebration above continued, oblivious to the presence in their midst. But the boy had already made his choice. And with it, the course of history would bend irrevocably.
---
Long before the rain fell, long before the Ys creatures roamed the waters and skies, there had been a man named Nicolas. He had been brilliant, obsessed with life and death, and utterly unafraid of crossing lines others would never dare approach. He started simply, experimenting with cellular regeneration, with the aim of curing diseases and extending life.
But as the years went by, his experiments grew darker, more audacious. Ethics were nothing more than suggestions to him. He began studying the animal kingdom, extracting DNA, combining species in ways nature had never intended. He spoke often of "reviving the past," of bringing creatures back from extinction, of creating something beyond comprehension. His colleagues whispered behind closed doors, fearful of the obsession that burned in his eyes.
His first true success came in a secluded laboratory near the coast. He called it Ys1—an experiment so delicate, so dangerous, that it could not be replicated. The creature emerged from its enclosure, silent and curious, unaware of the horrors that had created it. Nicolas watched, fascinated, as it adapted, as it learned. And in that same instant, the seeds of disaster were sown.
The city surrounding the lab was ignorant of the danger lurking in the shadows. The chemical compounds Nicolas used to stimulate the creature were volatile, unstable, and highly toxic. No containment could fully restrain them. And one fateful night, as an experiment reached its critical point, the Rush Lab—Nicolas's greatest achievement and his most dangerous folly—erupted.
The explosion tore through the facility with a ferocity that no one had predicted. Flames and smoke consumed the building, and a strange, acrid mist spread across the city. People ran, screamed, choked on the air thick with chemical poison. But the true horror was not the flames. It was what remained after: a city rendered almost uninhabitable, a chemical scourge that would later be known as the Rush Area.
And amidst the ruin, Ys1 emerged. The creature had survived, mutated, and consumed the deadly chemical that had taken countless lives. It was no longer merely an experiment—it was a predator, a being of unimaginable power, immune to the very toxins that had killed so many. Nicolas watched from the edge of what remained of the lab, half in awe, half in terror.
---
Back in the present, the rain poured harder, a relentless curtain over the city. The machine's hum had shifted, a deep resonance that seemed almost alive, as if the sky itself had become conscious. Nicolas glanced at the screens again, seeing not just precipitation, but the potential for chaos. He knew the storm would spread, that the water would linger, that his work would leave an indelible mark on the world.
And then there was the boy. The shadow he had cast over the lab was no longer just a memory. The boy had acted, silently, efficiently, and the consequences of his actions would ripple far beyond the walls of the facility. He had destroyed, he had observed, and he had survived. In the days to come, the world would begin to notice anomalies: missing personnel, unexplained deaths, the whispers of something monstrous moving beneath the waves.
Somewhere in the distance, far from the city, a name was whispered in fear and fascination—Mickey. He was not yet the pirate king the world would come to know. But even now, the blueprint of his power, his cunning, and his survival instincts were being etched into reality. The destruction of the Rush Lab, the emergence of Ys1, the toxic spread of the Rush Area—it was all part of a chain reaction that would eventually lead to him.
And as Nicolas watched the rain continue to fall, as the hum of the machine echoed in his ears, he understood the truth of what he had created. Life and death, creation and destruction, order and chaos—they were all bound together in ways no human mind could fully comprehend.
The storm had begun. And somewhere, beneath its relentless sheets of water, the first threads of destiny were weaving themselves into a tapestry that would engulf the world.