//------------------------------//
// How Can Chains Contain a Cyclone? 
// Story: The Red Cyclone 
// by Onomonopia 
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Bolts of magic ricocheted off of walls, pipes and anything except for the man who raced through the streets, knocking over any of the screaming changelings that failed to get out of his way. Zangief slammed shoulder first into the side of a building as he was forced to make a sharp turn, but the impact barely bothered his shoulder and he continued lumbering down the street as best he could with the chair still right at his heels.

"This is crazy! Why do these chains not break?!" Zangief roared as he took shelter in an alleyway for a moment, straining against his constraints again before he heard the sounds of hooves running towards him. With a yell he leapt into the air and crushed the changelings that ran around into the alley with his girth, smothering them instantly. "Lightweights. Come back after you have practiced."

"It went this way!" another group of changelings roared as ten more cam running around the corner. Zangief used the chair to shield himself from the projectiles as he could not deflect them with his hands. He then turned to run but slammed into a cracked wall, the force of his face slamming into the wall shattering the support for it and bringing down large chunks of rubble that fell between him and his pursers.

"Now that is using my head!" Zangief laughed as he ran off again. His managed to evade the changelings chasing him for a while, but his progress towards the edge of the city was halted every time he came to a street or path that was too small for his muscles that could throw bears, forcing him to change his course. "Ugh, I hate running. If only my hands were free I could show these bugs the true power of my wrestling skills."

"Got you!" a changeling yelled as it flew down on Zangief from above, wrapping it's hooves around his neck and squeezing tightly. But to the changelings surprise the human began to laugh at it's efforts to bring him down.

"So you wish to wrestle a cyclone do you? Then let us see how strong that grip of yours truly is!" Zangief began to spin in place after saying this, building up such speed and power that the changeling couldn't hold on for more than a few seconds. His hooves slipped and he was hurled into the sky, where he did not come down. "Hmph, barely a few seconds. You need to work your muscles more."

Zangief smiled as he turn and ran down an alleyway that his frame could fit in. He hunkered down behind a collapsed building that was just large enough to hide him and he chuckled softly as the guards ran by him, not knowing that he was there. With another smile he turned to leave, until a small cry of fear gained his attention. 

"What is this?" Zangief whispered as he looked into the dark corner of the alleyway where he was hiding, spotting two figures huddled together in the darkness. They were changelings, but they were tiny, far tinier than the one he had avoided in the castle. "Can it be that they are...children? Why are they here?" Zangief lumbered over to them to get a closer look, causing them to cry out again. But to Zangief's shock, he found that he could see ribs underneath of their armor plating's and hunger in their eyes. 

He wondered what he should do with them until a loud buzzing sound completely drowned out his thoughts. The Red Cyclone turned his gaze towards the sky to see hundreds of armored changelings flying above him, with Queen Chrysalis at the front.

"Oh, this is not good."

"Understatement of the century. FIRE!" Spells rained down like fire upon the Russian wrestler who ran as fast as his bulk could carry him, which was not very fast. He could feel the sting as the spell struck his legs and back, but their pain was not enough to stop him. The chair also continued to protect him from most of the assault, but even it's stubbornness could not keep it from cracking under all of the fire.

"I need to take them out of the air. But to do that I need my arms free," Zangief panted as he ran, not able to keep running much longer. "I need to be free!" His freedom appeared before his very eyes as he saw a pointy rock at the top of a slope, a rock that he wagered would shatter his chair and confines. 

"It is all or nothing!" he yelled as he threw himself back first onto the stone, bracing himself as he did so. However, his aim was off and instead of the chair hitting the stone it landed on the slope with Zangief landing on the chair. 

"Oh no." The two of them slide down the slope towards a crowd of changelings, who started screaming as Zangief ploughed through all of them, knocking most into the air. None of them could stop the Russian rodeo and Zangief would have slid for miles had a barrier of magic not erected itself in front of him. The chair hit the shield first, stopping it for just a moment until the chair was hit with a Russian. The chair couldn't handle the force of Russian muscles slamming into it and it finally submitted, shattering into hundreds of pieces.

"Finally," Zangief began to laugh as he stood up to his full height, rubbing his wrists as the chains slid off of them and laid defeated on the cobble streets. "Finally I am free! Now you shall all feel the wrath of the Red-

"ZZZZZZZZTTTTTTT!"

Zangief collapsed in a pile on the ground, slightly twitch as the electricity continued to run it's course. Chrysalis stood over his body with a look of annoyance on her face and a electric rod in her magic's grasp, kicking the twitching giant's body once for good measure and then again for the trouble he had caused her.

"It is alright my citizens, the bad man is down. You are all safe now!" she called out to her subjects, who began to emerge from where they had taken shelter from the storm. Chrysalis let out a sigh of relief when she saw they were all safe before she looked down at Zangief. "Take him the castle and chain him up with reinforced metal. He's not getting away again."

←↙↓↘→↗+H

Zangief's conscious came back to him when he felt a something poking him in the face. He grumbled once before swatting the thing away, about to turn over to continue sleeping before he remembered what had happened. He shot to his feet with both arms outstretched as performed his lariat to crush whoever was near him, spinning in a circle for a few seconds before realizing that he hadn't hit anything.

"Um, can you stop spinning please? You're making me dizzy." Zangief stopped his lariat and looked down to see a small changeling staring up at while sitting on a green carpet. Now that he was no longer trying to behead a foe with his arms, Zangief was able to taken in the room around him. To his confusion he found that he was in a well lit room with nice curtain and some carpeting, as well as a table filled with all sorts of vials. He looked around for a moment before looking down at the little changeling, who had raised an eyebrow as she looked at him.

"Have you calmed down yet? Good, now we can talk," she said in a business like tone as she pulled out a notebook and sat down at the table, motioning for Zangief to do the same. Zangief sat down very hesitantly, taking immediate interest in the vials while the changeling looked over her notebook.

"So what are you?" she asked as she looked up at him, finding that he already broken one of the vials by touching it. Zangief looked from the changeling to the broken vial before looking away quickly, getting the changeling to sigh. "Alright, let me try this again. I'm Princess Insectum, princess of the changelings."

"Princess?" Zangief asked as if he had never heard that term before, Insectum nodding at him slowly in response. "But you are a child, are you not?" 

"So? The title of princess was not given to me because I am to rule the nation, I have it because I am the daughter of the queen and will become queen when she eventually steps down. That is what a princess of the changelings does." Zangief thought about what she said for a long time, so long that Insectum thought that she had broken the creature.

"But you are a child."

"Moving on," Insectum growled as she looked at her next question. "What kind of beast are you? I have looked through the book of mythical beasts and the closest I could find to something like you is either a giant or a Cyclops and since you have both eyes..." To her surprise Zangief began to laugh at her question. "What's so funny?"

"That you say you do not know who I am! You do not have to hide the fact that you are a fan of me, because all are fans of me!" Zangief laughed as he flexed both of his biceps. "I am the greatest wrestler in all of mother Russia, the man whose name makes all that are to face him shake with fear! I am the Red Cyclone, defeater of great evil and the greatest Cossack dancer in all the world!" He expected a reaction at this, but Insectum gave him an unimpressed look. "Zangief. I am Zangief."

Insectum nodded before writing that down in her book. "Species is called Zangief. Weird name," she muttered to herself as she wrote while Zangief placed his chin in the palms of his hands and sighed. "Alright, you said something about a place called mother Russia. Is that your actual mother or is that where you are from?"

"You...You do not know of that loving majesty that is Mother Russia?" Zangief asked, looking physically devastated when Insectum shook her head no. "No wonder today's youth is in such trouble," Zangief sighed as he rested his cheek on his fist. Insectum didn't know why that depressed him, but she decided to change the subject.

"Next question. Why did you run from my mother...Queen Chrysalis when you were in prison for breaking the peace with that giant machine that terrified so many of our subjects?" Insectum questioned.

"She wanted to eat me!" Zangief said in his defense as he crossed his arms. "And despite it being a futile efforts , as no stomach can hold me, I did not want to stay in that prison any more. Speaking of food, I am famished. Do you have any borscht or vodka somewhere nearby?" 

Upon mentioning food both his and Insectums stomach began to grumble. Zangief looked at the small changeling for a moment, but when the her stomach growled for the second time all his wariness was erased and he let out a hearty laugh. "It seems that we are both hungry! How about we continue talking while we eat?"

"You'll have food after you answer one last question for me," she said in a no nonsense voice, causing Zangief to frown sadly. "My last question is...why did you avoid me in the castle hall?" she asked, perking Zangief up as she slightly hung her head. "I mean, you ran through every other changeling like they were paper yet when you got to me you leapt over me (and knocked our doors off their hinges). Why?"

"You are a child."

"Oh for the last time, that has nothing to do with me being a princess!"

"No, I mean that you ARE a child. I do not harm children, no matter what race or country they are from. I would rather be admired by the children then feared by them," he said with a now good natured smile on his face. "Children need heroes to believe in after all." 

Insectum wasn't sure how to respond to his words, but for the first time since she started to questioning him she decided to look at his eyes instead of his freak body. In his eyes she saw competiveness and power, but at the same time there was laughter in them as well as kindness.

'I...wasn't expecting such a massive creature it be so nice or so considering of others. Most are just...monsters,' she thought before both her and Zangief's stomach rumbled again. Zangief let out another laugh as he rose to his full height again, head almost touching the ceiling.

"Come, we have put off eating long enough and I know that a hungry Zangief might try to eat a bear," he roared with laughter as he headed towards the door, but Insectum placed herself between him and the exit.

"Okay, we'll stop by the royal kitchen, but after that you're going to have to meet my mother," Insectum said, Zangief thinking about it for a moment before he shrugged his massive shoulders with a good natured smile.

"Then it is good for us that we are stopping by the kitchen first. If I bring food with me perhaps she will be less inclined to try Russian food." Insectum gave a polite chuckle at the laugh as she turned to leave, the monstrous being following behind her as they headed through the halls towards the kitchen. She occasionally turned to view his face as they walked, especially when other changelings walked by, but he seemed as oblivious to their glares as he did the fact that he might be in danger.

"So, you're just okay with being captured and forced to meet a queen?" Insectum asked Zangief, who let out another laugh as the kitchen came into sight.

"I have fought yoga men with stretchy arms, fighters who constantly throw fireballs at me and a green beast with electric powers. Being in the presences of bugs that talk doesn't frighten me. Nothing does. Besides, I never pass up the chance for free food!" Insectum rolled her eyes at his answer, but couldn't help herself from smiling at his overwhelming positivity. 

'He might be fearless in his world, but here there are many things that I bet would terrify even him,' Insectum thought as the chef tried to fend of Zangief with a ladle. 'Like my mom for example.'