In the alternate dimension designated Empire-47, Celsius chose to spend the latter parts of his winter vacation exploring and patrolling Empire City. When you have body temperature regulating powers and the ability to clear snowdrifts with your paws, the dark hours of winter become your playground. When he saw a truck being unloaded near an abandoned warehouse, at first he thought he was about to bust counterfeit toy-smugglers prepping for Christmas. Hey, that's crime too! When said smugglers started to meticulously scan in their boxes in front of the storehouse, however, things got a whole lot more interesting. The icecat promptly rushed in after them... and then got his ass pounded after taking down an initial couple of goons. There was totally a guy with a pipe there, a ram slammed a double-handed hammer blow into his back, shit hurt until he passed out. You know how it goes!

Unfortunately enough for Celsius, that evening he'd picked the absolutely worst place to bust. This clandestine operation was being run by someone with a bit of legitimacy to their name. Alan Pierce, the owner of Pierce Telecommunications and the leader of Empire City's League of Heroes as Crimson Claw, was developing and test-running the key piece of his operation known as Project Gemini: a way to further develop and hone new heroes, giving them the mental willpower and fortitude they needed to defend the city, right there in that very warehouse. The project was officially cancelled earlier after the city government called it too risky. That, of course, did not stop Crimson Claw. He knew when he was right. Just because the Mayor wasn't willing to take one step further to protect the city didn't mean he would stand with her. Who knew better than him, who defended the city more than anyone else as its greatest champion, how much it required? The project just needed more work. More safeguards. The fundamentals were already in place, after all. Who better to use as the mold all individuals would be enhanced towards than himself?

At first, when Celsius was brought towards Crimson Claw, he figured he would just be getting a huge hush sum from the billionaire and let back out. After all, the two were never close. When they met last Halloween, after Celsius was thrown into an Applied Potential Labs helicopter just for being too close to a meteor site Crimson was investigating, the two gained a horrible impression of each other. Celsius was unprofessional, a swearing impolite amateur who barely deserved his superhero position. Crimson was a cocky idiot who only kept the city safe through the League because he could throw his weight around enough and bully everyone into what needed to be done. Plus there was the vaguest sense in the back of Crimson's mind that they fought each other before the night was over... he couldn't prove it, of course (They did.), but the bad blood was still there, irrational as it was. Crimson always did follow his gut feelings. When the technician overseeing the two squares of tesla coils said that the icecat would work as the perfect first live trial candidate, the two of them were initially against it. Celsius didn't want them shoving him in any machine for obvious reasons, and Crimson wasn't sure if it would wreck the project completely. There were tests to be done, studies to be carried out. He prepped acronyms and everything for the first trials!

Eventually, though, the technician's promises that there was little harm in trying merged with Crimson's general dislike of the cat to outweigh, with some difficulty, Celsius' pleas to let him go. With Crimson on one metal pad and Celsius on the other, pylons topped with Tesla coils arranged in a square around both. Crimson took the electric shock that hit him with restraint. There was little to improve there, after all, since the intended end-result of the project was a few steps below his lofty skills. Celsius, on the other hand...

Well, that first shock stung like a bitch as it broke his mental defenses, preparing him for the low level neural formatting. When the second shock came, fear went away with it, replaced by interest in the project and a confusing desire to see what he would look like it finished... The next shock began the memetic muscle enhancement even as his mind was sculpted further towards its intended goal point. His spine stretched, muscles growing more toned as thoughts filtered through his head, worded to sound like his own... he needed to take this more seriously. The city was counting on him to defend it, and nobody else was as powerful or strong as he was... Except maybe Crimson Claw. Crimson was the only one who really got how this whole superhero thing worked in Empire City, Celsius was starting to realize, as his arms bulked with new power and his abs and chest slowly defined themselves...

The icecat that walked out from that pad was a lot more sure of himself and of his decisions. He wasn't going to look backwards anymore and second-guess himself. If he hurt people along the way, well, who gave a d... who cared? He deserved to feel good about himself and what he could do. He was Celsius, after all. The guy who stopped an incursion by demons and cyborgs into Empire City at the same time, the guy who prevented a necromancer from coming back to life (Kind of.) and taking revenge on the city. Though, the costume didn't fit anymore... Really, it was in tatters. Wasn't all blue a little too much on the nose, anyways? He would need a new one...

Crimson was happy to help, though. The refocused superhero accepted his advice and money happily as he was lead out of that warehouse an hour later. Mr. Pierce treated him to a visit to his personal tailor and got him another supersuit like his own. He was the one who suggested that Celsius might look better with a cropped flat top like his own, and as he walked out from his haircut on that very day the advice was passed to him, the superhero entirely agreed with him. Celsius accepted the position in the League as Crimson's sidekick, and went through all the APL testing and probing it required, with a smile on his face. It was a new dream come true for him.

The namechange was all Crimson Tide's own idea, though. He idolized the lion now, even where some would call him a total dick. Tide knew that he could see on Alan's level. The city needed a strong defender who couldn't be dissuaded by anyone when it came under threat. There were so many villains out there with mind-affecting powers... Tide himself would rather be seen just as cocky, argumentative, and vain as the lion was than fail in that job. People were counting on him. If they wanted to question either of them, they could either shut up, or step up, become real superheroes, and see what it was like. Crimson Tide himself was not going to question what it took for the League to defend Empire City.

Crimson Claw would show him what to do. And he would listen.

---

Celsius/Crimson Tide is owned by me, who else?
Crimson Claw, Empire City, and associated characters owned by  blackjackaught
Picture drawn by  furii because he is a fucking art pimp and amazing OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY FAVE IT HERE TOO