Castel Luna/Labs

## NIAS Labs

*"Neutral Interplanetary Alliance of Scientists"*

During his first year of college, Castel was one of many colleagues who were sent to the NIAS Labs for graduation credits. The NIAS Labs were a series of underground facilities on Earth dedicated to research and very limited experimentation on Hellions, aiming to find a cure for the Infection. Both Jeeva and human scientists were allowed to work together here because the wide variety of experienced people was extremely beneficial.

During his time there, Castel studied Hellion biology, and the difference between Born, Jeeva, and Human Hellions. He tried looking into Reborn Hellions but only had a small amount of information and no Reborns to actually study. Through his studies, Castel helped create beta cures (most of which only got close to working), expose Hellion vulnerabilities, and engineer weapons to sedate Hellions if things ever got out of hand.

## Snapdragon Hellion Heuristics

Snapdragon is a lab specializing in Hellion experimentation stationed at the northern-most edge of Abram- the closest building to Hellion Island.

Castel moved his studies to Snapdragon after being personally offered a job there by the Starcress' top scientists.

At this facility, Castel continued his usual work and even managed to create the blueprints for a revolutionary tool that the facility would later become heavily reliant on. The tool Castel created had a sole purpose; to electrocute the Hellion enough to pacify them, but not to physically harm them. However, Castel did note in the weapon's guidebook that if the strength setting was too high, it could trigger them and make them uncontrollably violent, and the weapon would therefore be rendered useless.

## Castel's Lab

Castel's Lab is small extension of the NIAS Labs where he could work on personal tasks closer to home.

Castel moved back here from Snapdragon after seeing the kinds of things they were doing to Hellions there. While he was absolutely disgusted with their treatment, he didn't try to shut the facility down because his respect for science too great. Instead, he opted with cutting ties without making them or the Starcress' his enemies, preferring to keep his VIP access to the planet.

After cutting ties, Castel would start utilizing his personal lab as his own Hellion testing facility, sending requests for Hellion subjects specifically from Snapdragon so he can try to recover them from the torturous experiments there. Not out of heroism, but his own personal guilt for having worked at that facility and for creating the tool that would later turn into a weapon used against the Hellions to hurt them.

However, these Hellions' psyche had been far too damaged to be able to recover, so they would fight back against treatment and at some point, they later break out of containment and run rampant in the lab, forcing Castel to shut it down and stop trying to treat them to keep himself from getting hurt and to minimize the risk of them breaking out of the lab itself.

For these reasons, Castel had kept his lab a secret from the rest of the main characters, except for Nico because they were the one that had to hire people to build the lab in the first place, considering it's stationed under their house. However, Fera and Roxy would later discover it when a crisis would emerge in the lab and force Castel to return there, stuck for an entire day and causing Nico to worry and take the others with them to help him.