5 One Month (and a bit) Later and a Visit to the Zoo

One month. That's how long it took to steal enough money to buy the equipment I needed. Why not steal the equipment? Because it's hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. I'd have someone on my ass and I don't need attention. Hence why it took a month of stealing from criminals to raise the money. Also, it took a bit longer than I expected to find a black market channel that sold the equipment I needed at a decent enough price and condition.

Then it took another few weeks for me to run all the tests I needed to know about my new physiology.

I found that I still had a muscular system, but it morphed into shapeless Biomass once it was damaged too much. I had a complex nervous system completely different from a normal human's, probably the result of mutation and whatnot, but it was countless times superior when compared to a normal human's nervous system.

Though I didn't have bones, an intricate system of hardened Biomass spread throughout my body like structural support, morphing and twisting with my body so as to not take away from my mobility or flexibility.

And because of the lack of bones and joints, my flexibility was practically boundless.

Testing my strength was hard but I'd confirmed that it was incredibly high. I'd picked up abandoned cars, trucks, buses - anything like that I could find, I tried to lift it, and I've failed to find anything that causes too much strain. Even the momentary strain I felt when lifting the bus faded away as my body mutated and evolved according to the stimuli.

I'd confirmed that training also helps; lifting the heaviest things I could find would help my muscles and the structural endo-skeleton of Biomass inside me to mutate and evolve to better help me.

After taking a warehouse from a gang filled with people who used an assortment of martial arts in juncture with guns and other weapons, I'd gained the subsequent ability to use many different kinds of martial arts. Muay Thai, Karate, Jujitsu, Chinese Kenpo, Judo, Systema, Savate, and many, many more. Their memories also brought something new to my attention:

Meditation.

At first, I tried to out to clear my mind and keep it calm. But as the days passed by, I found that I could subtly push my mutations and evolutions where I wanted them during my meditation. If I wanted stronger muscles, I would meditate while thinking about how to make my muscles stronger. This would somehow get perceived by the virus and then the virus would begin testing out new muscles and seeing which one was best.

I'd done this over the last month and a half, fine-tuning my body with my knowledge of anatomy. I'd already gotten rid of some of the weaknesses of the human body, such as brittle bones and weak organs, but I still shared similar weaknesses such as the ability to undergo sensory overload or be blinded or deafened by bright lights or loud sounds respectively.

But after my fine-tuning, I'd lost those weaknesses. I could stare at the sun without it hurting, I even brought a flash-bang grenade and let it explode right in front of my face, yet it did nothing to me, my ability to perceive beyond that of a human's. It was akin to a loud pop and a bright LED but that was it. It didn't incapacitate me like it would a normal person.

I'd also taken it upon myself to start evolving higher resistances to extreme temperatures. Putting myself in a fire, or in a freezing storage room where I'd put it at the lowest temperature possible. This was helpful because I'd discovered that I could lose Biomass if it was frozen or burnt to a crisp. If I upped my resistance to that, however, my Biomass would be practically impossible to kill. Save for throwing me into the sun, anyway.

Durability was practically impossible for me to enhance, however. Mainly because...I just couldn't be hurt in any meaningful way. I tried jumping off of the highest of buildings but that's how I found out my body was pretty much immune to fall damage for some reason. Though after some testing I'd discovered I not only couldn't be damaged through fall damage or sudden stops in inertia (because of my lack of internal organs and other internal bodily systems), but I could also control my weight somewhat.

The people I absorb and turn into Biomass aren't magically stored, the mass is compressed and stored within me. But if that were true, I'd be leaving craters wherever I walked. But the good thing about complete control over Biomass? I can change it's composition to lighter materials.

I'd absorbed around, I don't know, around 60 people. Give or take a few. All criminals or shady people who had the knowledge I needed. And if we say that the average weight amount all those people was around 65kg, then the mass of Biological material that is me, would weigh around 3900kg. Or 3.9 tons. That's not an accurate number, but it's a close estimation. Either way, I should weigh a hell of a lot. But my unconscious control over my Biomass kept my weight the same as what it was when I was normal. So around 89kg.

So, I discovered that falling from great heights doesn't kill because I lack the ability to die from inertia, and I also discovered the ability to alter my weight however I want. I can either be 89kg or 3.9 tons. And that max weight will only increase as I absorb more.

I'm still experimenting right now.

My current experiment is...what happens if I absorb an animal?

And that's why I'm in Gotham Zoo in the dead of night, looming over the place as animals groaned or roared, somehow knowing my presence. Probably their instincts telling them a living virus is here and they're fucked. Or something similar to that.

I felt bad for the animals, I guess? They haven't done anything wrong and I'm just gonna be absorbing them to further my experiments...put at the same time, whether they're absorbed by me or kept in a Zoo for the rest of their lives, they're not gonna have fulfilling lives, are they?

Anyway, my first stop is the Primate exhibits. They're the closest things to Humans in this Zoo and I wanna see the viruses reaction to their absorption.

Jumping from place to place, I soon arrived at the first primate exhibit; the Chimpanzees. Looking through the glass, I saw that most of them were asleep but a few of the bigger, more menacing Chimpanzees were staring at me, baring their teeth.

Keeping an impassive face, I placed a hand on the glass before morphing it into a suction cup and turning my other hand into a sharp, yet flexible blade which swiftly cut a perfect circle around the suction cup. Pulling back after I'd done the cutting, the glass easily slid out and dropped to the floor with a clatter as I turned my hand back to normal.

Just as my appearance turned back to normal, I morphed into a black and red material before flowing through the hole in the glass, which was no more than 10 inches in diameter, like liquid slime.

At this action, the awake Chimpanzees started screeching, slapping their hands on the floor, awakening the others who were sleeping.

They must have been scared shitless when they saw a shapeless slime pool into their enclosure but without waiting, I pulled one of the bigger Chimps into my mass with a tendril. Even if the Chimp was much stronger than a human, it was no match for even a fraction of my strength, so it was easily pulled in.

I absorbed it easily enough, and I felt it's genes get added to the battlefield inside of me, and I felt the changes it's genes had on my muscle structure and I felt how it increased my strength quite a bit. But more than that, I felt an influx of memories that showed me the life of a Chimpanzee.

It was...simple. Free and uncaring, from my own perspective. But that was probably because it was raised in a Zoo where it didn't have any natural predators.

Even then, all its instincts did was tell it to eat/drink, make babies, and sleep. A simple life when you compare it to all the intricacies of human life.

Bringing my mind away from those memories, I felt the genes fit in perfectly without any rejection from either my body or the virus, so I continued absorbing and adding to my power. It was uncaring and merciless but sometimes you have to be. Especially when you need the power to fight a bitch like Amanda Waller.

My power grew and I felt at least two times as strong as I was before. And I'm pretty sure I could lift a tank before.

So, let's just say that my strength was immense and it would only continue to grow.

I continued to absorb before going to the next exhibit, not bothering to return to my humanoid form. Absorbing as a mass of liquid Biomass was much easier.

. . .

Gorillas, Orangutans, an assortment of Monkeys, Baboons, Lemurs. Everything I can across, I absorbed. Though after a certain point my strength increase had stagnated like it had reached a plateau. It was like it was missing a piece that would instantly make my strength explode upward.

But with nothing I could think of working, I decided to carry on with my mission/experiment. I'd decided to go after the Polar Bears next, their massive size no doubt going to be an incredible source of Biomass, while their predatory ways and instincts will no doubt add something new to my gene pool.

Sadly there's only two of them in the Zoo, but I could clone their genes inside of me, so the only thing I'll be missing out on is a variety of genes to add to the pool. But I could probably mix and match their genes to make different combos anyway, so it's not too big a deal.

Ah, how I love my control over the genes I absorb. It's a Geneticists wet dream, being able to make what I want, that is.

I guess my goal is to make the ultimate lifeform, right? Like Cell, from Dragonball Z.

Well, if I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna need more genes.

This was my thought as I picked up my speed before chucking myself into the water in the Polar Bears habitat. I expanded myself, de-compressing the Biomass I was made up on, practically filling up the water before I sent two tendrils to the two growling Polar Bears, standing tall on their hind legs. They were easily pulled in and I got to absorbing them. They were by far the heaviest things I'd absorbed up to date and I felt my source of Biomass swell as I absorbed them.

I ignored the influx of memories, having gotten used to the sudden memories popping up in my head. It no longer stunned me and was beginning to become a natural process. I guess that should tell you that I'm not a good guy, huh? That I'm used to feeling the memories of people I've absorbed and I'm getting used to it, I mean.

The big cats are near here, aren't they? Then let's go get some feline genes.

. . .

Lions, Tigers, Cheetahs, even Leopards. I absorbed half a dozen Lions, three Leopards (each in separate enclosures), and two Tigers who seemed to be mates.

Then I went to a part of the Zoo that had Wolves of many kinds, Jackals, and Hyenas. Absorbed them.

I found some Grizzly Bears as well. Absorbed them.

I went through the Zoo and cleared out everything. No matter how small. No matter how useless it looked or seemed. I absorbed it. I never knew if their genes might be a lethal combination with other genes from other animals, so I took everything.

Birds. Goats. They even had a bigger enclosure for things like Elephants, Rhinos, and Giraffes.

And by the end of it? It was like I was a different man. More powerful in every sense of the word.

Stronger. Faster. My internal structuring was more sturdy and much denser and resistant to impact. My reaction speed was leaps and bounds better than before, and before I could react to bullets quite easily. But my senses were what had the biggest improvement. Especially my sense of hearing and smell. I'd gained night vision from the felines I'd absorbed as well.

Even now, however, I could feel that these improvements were only the beginning. My body was mutating further, mixing and combining genes to see which was the best for me. My body was constantly improving through natural selection of the best genes and constantly putting the genes against one another, making them refine and temper themselves.

Tomorrow morning I'd be many times stronger. Next week I'll be even further beyond what I am now.

I could see it now, that I'd limited myself by only absorbing Human criminals. If I wanted to become the ultimate and perfect lifeform, then I needed genes from everything.

If I came across a morally shady alien, I'd absorb them. If I came across a mutated Human who was a criminal, I'd absorb them. I'm even thinking of absorbing plant-life to see what they can give me. Why won't I absorb whoever I want? Because if I don't stick to some kind of moral code, I'll end up just like Amanda Waller. An amoral, power-hungry, terrible person who will stop at nothing to do what they want.

That may make me a hypocrite but I don't care. I'm going to stick to it. Though brutally hurting any 'heroes' who come after me...well, I'll still do that. Just won't kill them.

As I morphed into my human form, fit with a face mask that covered my appearance in case any of the security cameras saw me, I saw something that caught my eye.

[Gotham Zoo Presents: The Wonders of the Sea! (Coming Soon!)]

A building which I presume is just an aquarium. Filled with more things to absorb if my sense of hearing was to be trusted.

And I trusted my new senses.

Walking toward the aquarium, I felt a small smile go across my face under the blank white mask I was wearing. If the aquarium had what I wanted, I'd be jumping for joy in a while.

. . .

It did. It had what I wanted.

I'd absorbed everything else. Even the sharks they had. They even had an amphibian area where they kept some reptiles as well. That's where I found the crocodiles. But that's not what I wanted. What I wanted was splashing about in front of me.

Electric Eels.

That's what I wanted, and they had dozens of the beautiful bastards.

Plunging my hand into the water, I felt the shocks travel up my arm, but I couldn't be hurt by such things, so I fully opened my hand, and as my hand opened, dozens of tendrils shot out and pierced each and every one of the eels. Then I absorbed them.

And as I did, I felt the implementation of the organs that allowed it to produce electricity, all over my body. All it needed was a mental command from me.

Bringing my hand from the water, I expelled the water off of it, before giving a mental command for the electricity I could produce to focus around my hand like a barrier, or a glove.

As soon as that thought entered my head, a crackle of electricity flickered around my hand before my hand was covered in yellow arcs of electricity, growing in thickness by the second as the virus mutated ways to better improve my electricity generation.

Now all I need is someone to test this on, to figure out how much I need to output for it to be lethal, and how much for it to be just lethal enough to put someone on their ass but not lethal enough to give them a heart attack. As I was thinking this, a projectile hit the tank next to me before exploding. I reacted on instinct and covered myself in an armor of black and red Biomass that looked ever so similar to the Berserk Armor from Berserk.

...What, I like my anime, okay? It was the perfect escape for an abused kid like myself.

Once the explosion cleared, I turned around only to see someone I didn't want to see, alongside two chicks who looked pretty strong. If my innate strength measuring was anything to go by anyway, and I trusted it, especially after gaining animal genes. Animals are damn good at feeling if someone's strong/dangerous or not.

I felt my armor fade away, returning to the black hoodie, sweatpants, and trainers I was wearing before, alongside the white mask that only had two thin slits to see through. Frowning, even if they couldn't see it through the face mask, I spoke out.

"Now, Batgirl, are you really stalking me?" I asked with a playful voice, hiding my frustration that she was still trying to come after me, even after a month and a half of not hearing off of me.