The Choccy Chronicles

Chapter 4 - Treble Trouble

Marlowe stood awestruck in front of the Wolf Tek Industries main establishment.

     He walked with Avi, Shadow and Treble for a while towards the place where Treble wanted to show him, expecting it to be a simple, short stroll towards the silhouette of the seemingly small lab plastered on the overshadowing walls. But as time flew by as they got closer, the walls grew larger, along with the building that was one of Treble's favourite places to visit.

     A purplish-black dragon flew gracefully overhead, Marlowe noticing after the second long shadow of a black blur glided silently above them. He spotted a gleam of silver coloured scales next to the dragon's eyes, shining like a silvery teardrop of a diamond. The underside of the wings projected a night full of stars, a few scrolls grasped in its claws as it flew towards the place where the laboratory is.

     "Hey Treble?" called Marlowe to the arctic fox that had adapted Jon's active personality. Already metres ahead of the group.
     "Yeah Marlowe what's up?" replied Treble, slowing his pace down to walk alongside Marlowe's right side.
"How big exactly is this... science lab?" Marlowe asked, watching the flying nightwing turn into a black speck of a dragon against the huge walls, only stopping at a visibly colour different marble-white patch of the wall, a gap opens within the pearly void and the dragon vanishes as if it became part of the wall.

     "Haha!" Treble laughs, clapping his hands in slight amusement and giving Marlowe a single pat on the head. "The Wolf Tek Industries building is massive, well I mean technically the main building is the massive part. But my friend owns Wolf Tek Industries, he just shares all the other laboratories with everyone else. Like that Nightwing that flew over us! I think she works in one of the dragon sized rooms to study Nightwing powers, and her name is Moon or something."  He continues to talk to Marlowe like a forgetful fish, meanwhile Marlowe notices that they had entered a shaded area of Calitoria - the walls impossibly tall and imposing- even the houses sat in the shade.

     That's one huge wall, but what's the point if there are dragons and other things that can just fly over it? thought Marlowe, developing a puzzled thinking face as he tried to look at the top of the great wall of Calitoria. There the horizon seemed to end tens of metres higher up.

     "They say the wall was constructed in the 1850s after a giant war airship flew over New Carelia, or so I've been told." Shadow suddenly adds, still silently walking with them and apparently paying attention to Marlowe's facial expression, or maybe reading his mind. "They must've thought they could fight on equal ground by making a high wall, but they didn't think about the airship flying higher?"
     "Well you're right about that Shadow." comments Avi, walking right next to Marlowe on his left side, her paw close to his own. "A wall is about useless back then as it is now. They had a group of heroes, New Carelia's own group of Worldshifters or at least that's what they called them. I don't believe in that nonsense about Worldshifters and The Others." She makes a 'hmph' sound to further prove her beliefs.

     Just a few minutes later, the group had found themselves standing outside the massive building. The size of the lab wasn't the only thing outstandingly shocking, the great wall of Calitoria stood way higher than could've been believed. It wasn't just the height that amazed Marlowe, all across the wall were lights. Bright yellow glows from windows within the stone, adjacent shadows whispering inside the mighty, tall defense of Calitoria. It was like fireflies flashing on and off across a massive grey canvas.

     The Wolf Tek Industries building had its fair share of architectural choices. A curtain wall made up most of the structure, giving it a transparent look while still being almost impossible to peer inside. However, pearl-white tiled panels and pillars finished the rest of the building infrastructure, making a very bright and white glass laboratory, the pillars holding up a roof to cover it. The size was no joke either, taking up a portion of and inside the wall, while extending outwards to cover a large area of the land like a patch of mold growing rapidly.
     At the entrance, multiple automatic and push and pull door between the huge windows of a wall. Varying in size from a big entrance to anthro and human sized ones to filter crowds. An outdoor sign stood right next to the pathway leading inside, as Marlowe and his group got closer to it, he could barely read what it said as Treble urged them on.