CHAPTER 07

Thud.

The sound of a body hitting the floor was heard as a man slid across the concrete floor as he let at a groan seemingly from the impact of the blow he suffered.

"Get up, we're still not done yet," Another man much older, presumably in his late 50's, barked out at the downed man without any form of compassion. And as if in response to the older man's call, the younger one stood up with a focused expression casting his face as he peered at his opponent.

"Good. Now attack me again," The older man instructed while he went into a more relaxed stance in contrast to the opposing youth.

Without waiting for any signal, the youth rushed at his opponent with a straight hook from his right, a basic technique, but the moment his opponent brought up an arm for the perceived strike, with a fascinating display of dexterity, he cocked his fist sideways meeting the block with his wrist instead of a fist, and without wasting a moment from the collision, he grabbed the arm with his opened fist and swept with his leg in an attempt to unbalance his unshaking foe while at the same time directing another fist towards his opponent's stomach in a bid to capitalize on the foresighted opening.

But with but an inch from impact, displaying greater dexterity and mastery, the old man raised a leg and took a step back, missing the leg sweep by an hairs length and twisting with his blocking arm, he caught the incoming first and before the young man could react to the splendid foil, with a spin on his forward heel, he delivered a round-house kick with his retracted leg, sending his young fighter into a disoriented frazzle, then without missing the rhythm, he delivered an axe-kick with a powerful force to the back of young man's skull, bringing the stunned man back to the ground with another thud.

"Still not learning much, are we? You focus too much on a chain of attack instead of adapting mid-fight, making you lag in concentration once your rhythm is broken." He lectured the downed man with an even tone seemingly uncaring about the damage from his strike. "Again!"

Letting out an huff after shaking of the effects of the two kicks, the young man once again focused on his older counterpart, erasing the expression of discomfort and pain for his face as he took a few moments to look at the seemingly at-ease old man.

Clack.

Clack.

With measured step,  he walked closer, his eyes not betraying his target, and as he got closer he accelerated his pace, but still within rhythm, in a fractioned moment closing the gap between them, and with a slight push from this feet, his body lifted into the air with his momentum as he brought a flashing kick aiming for his adversaries' neck which was promptly blocked by the more experienced man with a low grunt, with credit to the force behind the kick.

Not slowing down, he dropped to the ground and in a burst of ferocity he whirled a 360° spin on the floor effectively breaking the old man's footing, and with a flip he landed on his feet and threw a punch directly to the old man's face who staggered a step back all the while not taking his eyes of the young man.

With his punch connecting with a loud bam, he twisted himself in a semicircle cutting himself a sharp 180° as he brought his other hand's elbow to the side of the old man in retribution. Seemingly not having enough, he grabbed the man's arm, preventing him from gaining distance unintentionally, as he twisted the arm in a fluid motion and threw the old man over his shoulders slamming him hard into the concrete floor.

With that, he disengaged from the man and made distance once more while still training his eyes on him.

"Nice strike. You implemented on your first failure, knowing I would stop your attack head on, you built up your momentum with the first while charging it into the second without losing your rhythm. It looks like I'll have to start hitting a little bit harder now eh." He finished with a chuckle as he got up, clearly the attack didn't do much to him. "I would advise you to be cautious. Wouldn't want something breaking now, do we?" He asked, or more like said, and the grin on his face didn't help but insinuate otherwise.

Cracking his knuckles, with a small smile on his face, he walked loosely towards the young man who gave him such a nasty elbow to his chin. While he wasn't that hurt, that didn't mean the elbow was as effective as it looked. It stung like a bitch, and for that, he'd collect his recompense in broken bones.. And who knows, maybe an eyeball too.

Standing right in front of the living duffel, he at least had to give it to him for not stepping back or outright trembling when he came close. Then again, considering what he's been put through, he wouldn't be that scared of broken bones, but it still didn't mean it wouldn't hurt him.

Pain. As long as he could still feel it, still experience and dread it, he could be controlled just like the rest. No one gets used to pain, their tolerance only increased giving them a faux sense of security, deluding themselves further unto they succumbed to an even greater pain.

As long as one could feel pain, they would be reminded of their mortal frailty, even him too. That was part of the reason why that blow irked him so.

Another was the thrilling chill that courses his body as he breaks his bones after bones, knowing fully well that they'll heal before the morrow, and tempts him more to see how far he could push him before he could no longer heal.

The screams and tears as he cried out that one time where he shoved a heated, searing red barbed poker down the boy's throat down to the hilt, were mesmerizing. How he writhed and screamed as the rod burned his innards, preventing him from moving too much as he couldn't even pull the poker out because of how deep it lodged in his throat.

It took the boy almost forty-five minutes before he quieted down in a pool of his own blood, sobs and gurgles.

He waited for another thirty minutes for the boy to regain a smidgen of respite before he shoved his whole fist inside his mouth and yanked out the poker I in one move, breaking the jaws and wrecking his insides once more with the retrieval and all he had to do was wait a second before another melody of tortured screams echoed through their training field.

Finding himself drifting along the fun memories, a sharp pain to his left eye jolted him out of his reverie as a fist connected with his abdomen and another to the right side of his face in quick succession. With staggering steps, he held his left eye and he felt the sharp sting, making it harder to see quite well.

With the piercing pain from his eyes and hot one from his face, he launched forward with a scowl on his already terrifying face, he thrust his arms forward with equal ferocity but it missed its target as the young man vaulted backwards in retreat.

Quickly regaining his bearings, he turned only to meet a lariat to his abdomen as it sent him tumbling down the ground, wheezing as he gasped for air.

"It seems like you've been getting rather cocky, eh boy." He said with a snarl on his face. "But don't worry. I'll beat the subservience back into you!" With that he rushed once more at the boy as he threw a barricade of punches at the boy who tried his best to block and deflect the onslaught, but unfortunately he was vastly inexperienced in contrast to the man in front of him as he received blows that shook his head from their impact while doing his best to mitigate most of the damage away from his body.

He barely had formed his next thought before he felt his airflow cut off finding himself locked in a choke hold, before he could even muster up the strength to brace himself for the inevitable, the contagious pain rushed through him as he was slammed on the ground, cracking the floor under him.

"We are not done just yet boy!" The still fuming old man roared as he bent down and grabbed the battered young man lifting him up but that turned out to be the wrong move as the young man drove another fist into his one good eye finally bringing him to his knees as he clutched his clearly damaged eye while roaring in pain, making his already terrifying visage more dreadful like that of a raging berserk beast of the wilds.

Because he was still holding his eyes as he suffered from the stinging pain that came back with double the intensity of what it was before, he didn't see nor comprehend the axe-kick that dug into the back of his skull, forcing him face first into the ground.

Seeing his opponent down, spurred by impulse, he went again for his head only to be stopped by a bored voice, sounding slightly amused.

Raising his head, he saw a man in a doctors garb, wizened features and a head of white. By all, such a man shouldn't be up and about much less running an experiment since he looked like he would just keel over if he was so much as prodded with a light nudge. But yet he had such a deep and steady voice and with the way he walked, with no sway to his gait, would make people think he was that young.

"I think that's enough I-039. While I admit that it would have been a little bit amusing to watch your squabble, unfortunately I have far more pressing things at hand." With that he turned around and paid no more attention to the fighting duo. He walked to the stairs leading upwards and called one last time without stopping. "Don't keep me waiting."

With that, his persona was gone leaving a quietly heaving young man and an old man laying on the floor while groaning in pain. The young man took a last look at his tormentor and left for the path the doctor took.

He walked up the stairs and found himself in a huge hallway with a lot of door and soldiers with guns manning them. Without a pause in his steps, he walked down the halls, not even thinking of what was behind those doors, and came in front of an elevator.

Using the elevator, he went three floors below which was the farthest he's ever went during his entire time held in this place.

Stepping out of the elevator, he walked a bit down before he came to a stop in front of a door.

Regulating his breathe for a few seconds, he pushed open the door and walked in finding the doctor there tinkering with some test tubes while cross checking the data on a screen.

The room he walked in looked like an operation room or a room for a critically conditioned patient, with lots of mechanical equipment and tubes and a whole slew of things he didn't know.

Without announcing his presence, he went and stood quietly at the side without making a sound.

After almost half an hour, the doctor raised his head and saw the man standing quietly at the side with shallow breaths.

"The first drawer on the cabinet besides your bed, there's a tube marked with your name. Ingest the contents and lie down."

Without even a question, he walked towards the cabinet and withdrew the marked tube and ingested the contents without any sign of apprehension.

The solution in it was mostly tasteless with a tangy aftertaste, and with it's ingestion came a surging heat in his stomach.

Laying on the bed, he waited for the doctor to come do his check and find out which fucked up thing they drugged him with again.

The heat in his stomach became slightly unbearable as he began to twist and turn on the bed but not out of pain, but extreme discomfort like he had worms and roaches moving in every part of his body with little jabs of electricity every so often.

The doctor, uncaring about his discomfort, connected some wires and other medical apparatus to him and then started going over the data.

"Mixing your DNA with a spliced portion of that of a starfish and a lizard in an attempt to somehow increase your regenerative factor to the extent of regenerating missing limbs bore a 74% success according to the calculations, but looking at it now, its chance of success is less than 30%. Hmm, if your ability wasn't just a representative factor of your mutant cell, but rather that of both your physical and microscopic parts articulated together, then while your cells can adapt, your body on the other hand lowers the success rate due to quality or maybe quantity, or maybe both? Another failure. Well at least I have new speculations, so maybe it wasn't all a failure."

The doctor continued his research, forgetting about the writhing man a few feet away.

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Thanks alot for the comments, the stones and the reviews. It thrills me that alot of people are really enjoying this story.

I've read the comments, all of them, and I've seen some opinions about the MC's thought process, how he's being too 'normal' for a main character and also how the Hydra plot seems a bit forced.

Answering it from the top, his borderline nihilistic POV as seen in chapter 0 was how he saw everything when he was still a teenager which then spirals into the whole regret stuff since such POV kinda makes the whole 'make something out of life' thing pointless which he laments at the end of chapter 0.

The previous point also stays with him when he finds himself in a new world.

Note: The MC didn't go through the whole ROB thing or the 'live your new life to the fullest without restraints' tirade, he just woke up.

From his perspective, he slept, woke up, with all his baggage, depression and resignation, and finds himself tossed in a new world without(to his knowledge) any kind of ability. Such a thing requires a long period of transition or a therapist, so there's that.

Finally, HYDRA.

Tbh, I tried looking for a way to ease him into the plot. There were other less violent options like Charles picking him up via Cerebro, the Ancient peeper approaching him because of... well peeping, him finding his abilities on his own and somehow getting on S.H.I.E.L.D's radar. Heck I even considered his being a mook for the Kingpin or one of Essex's experiments, even something farfetched like being the White Queen's driver but none of them transitioned well into the story I wanted so I thought 'hey, why not just fuck it all, take everything, mash them together, remove the parts you don't like and process the rest?', which admittedly worked. So after a series of addition and subtraction I got this, and well you know the rest.

Once again thanks. Ciao!