9 Demon Dial
Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.
This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.
*.*.*.*.*
DEMON DIAL
*.*.*.*.
'Kiss your father on the lips for me'—The thirsty villain.
The cold bit through my armor, the wind resistance punched through my skin and made my organs dance. I swallowed down the blood rising at the back of my throat and focused on the road ahead. All ahead of me was an endless expanse of white marked only by the odd blue of ice slurries and the snow swept gray of hills and mountains.
The map function beeped in my ear, a red dot in my helmet's HUD blinked constantly, highlighting my target destination as I hovered over it. I parked by the mountain's base and dismounted the bike. To be honest it looked like handlebars strapped to a jet turbine, which it essentially was.
I called up the files from memory and followed the path marked out on it, trailing along the mountain's rocky base until I found a small rocky groove marked with an almost nondescript black dot, perhaps I made it sound easy to find from my tone, it took hours of brushing away snow, picking away layers of ice and scrubbing the rock face with a high power UV flashlight until I found the damn dot. I pressed against the mark for some unresponsive seconds before it sank in to release a sliding mechanism that exposed a faded metal keypad.
17286. I typed in.
Seconds turned to minutes before a deep, slumbering groan accompanied the breaking rocks, shattering it away from the now revealed heavy metal doors which slowly cracked open.
You should know where I am by now.
I unclasped my helmet and stashed it in my belt as I walked into the dark, fortified interior of the abandoned/hidden Hydra base. Dust swirled with each step I took deeper into the passage, it had the scent of coolants, molding files, and still functioning silent reactors. It was a black site, highly isolated, off the grid and accessible only if you knew it existed in the first place.
I walked past the passage of confidential Hydra files and documents, briefly glancing through boxes of sometimes important but outdated pieces of information. I banked corridors and hallways, climbing steps that led to a section where coolants, preservatives and nitrogen tanks were connected by tubing to yellow lit reinforced glass cells large enough to house a fully grown adult or rather, super soldiers.
There were five cells, four of which were occupied. And I think I know just where the fifth guy was. Slumped against the central computer console, the guy was skin and bones with a beard painted white that reached his knees.
"Hey, gramps." I called out. I had never met an old person move so fast, from jolting off the computers to jumping across the room, to swiping at my neck with long and sharp fingernails. I blocked the swipe with my forearm, a dull ache followed as I felt my radius and ulna fracture. It would've been a clean break had my armor not held.
The old man smoothly transitioned from a swipe to a spinning kick, he missed my nose by centimeters but still used his rotation to dig his heel into my stomach, sending me sliding back on the dusty floor.
"Woooh!" A laugh ripped past my lips, "Show me more gramps!" he ran on all fours like a rabid dog, pouncing off the floor and again for my neck. With the element of surprise gone, I was ready for him. I jumped up to meet him with a devastating elbow to the chin, his head snapped up and then back down instantly, instead of breaking. He landed with a dash, closing the distance between us and again stabbing towards my neck. I tilted my neck away from his strike and approached with a half step, landing a fist to his chest while his knee went to my side. My claws however ate through his very durable but thin musculature; his momentum pushed them deeper, allowing the appendages to slide through his ribs and into his vigorously beating heart—the sensation was delicious. His knee found my ribs, cracking a few as we separated.
He fell to his knee, rose up, only to fall back down as blood pooled out from the clean punctures in his chest. I approached him with a specialized syringe, kicked him over and—if he was female this would've been nicer—stuck it into his spine.
"Ah--!" His mouth opened in a silent cry with his dying breath, a hissing sound came from the syringe which intensely sucked up the super juice in his marrow.
Now for the rest of these guys.
.. .. ..
A medium sized vat of bubbling blue fluid sat within a crucible shaped bio-synthesizer, a mass of cables and tubes ran from the vat to the now shriveled up husks of the Hydra super soldiers each within their cells. I've been here a week, draining them down to the last drop of super serum in their blood.
I just had to give props to black market tech dealers, these guys aren't saddled by things like morals, they only care about money and their rep. I sat on the repurposed chair and cuffed my fully nude self tightly to it. Gamma and Vita ray emitters stood directly above my naked body, and behind me were a series of automatic injectors, each positioned to stab a specific target.
There's nothing like dirty science to get the blood boiling, I mean dirty only in the metaphorical sense, everything within this area was sterilized and thought out. I had trust in the mathematics. My body possessed a healing factor that would see me through, all I needed was to take the pain and not pass out. Simplicity was the fundamental key here, nothing could defeat it.
I clicked on the button simply for the satisfaction of it. The needles shot into deep tissue with a motorized whirr, the bio-synthesizer hummed to life and the sloshing blue juice drained out into the feeder tubes connected to the needles in me, the radiation emitters vibrated, bombarding me with charged particles.
I have never had ice flow through my veins. I had never had ants crawl up and down my bones. Apart from that, the pain wasn't new to me, yes it was a magnitude higher than the torture I've been through but, this is what separates the pros from the rabble, I could take the pain. So I did.
Bones breaking beneath my skin like a sledgehammer smashed against it? Been there. Fire licking at my insides, roasting my organs and searing my skin off? Done that. Acid burning through the eyes and blood vessels? Old news. The bloating was new tho, the ballooning of my flesh and musculature into what was essentially a fleshy cocoon. Things that happen within the cocoon, stay in the cocoon.
There was no fading to black or jump cuts. Once the procedure ran its course, once the pain stopped, once I was simply floating in a self made womb of blood and loose tissue, I cut my way out.
I was probably the first mutant to fully undergo the super soldier serum process, or maybe I wasn't, blame Marvel and their constant retconning. Shit it couldn't be as bad as DC and their constant rebooting.
I observed my reflection and "Hmm." frowned. Where was my 7-foot height and tree trunk sized muscles? The plan was to come out of the procedure looking like Arnold in Predator, like Ronnie Coleman's or Chris Bumstead's Mr. Olympia, how come I just looked like a perfectly optimized me with extremely robust stature and distinctly defined muscles.
Yes, the level of muscular detail was ridiculous, and the sizes were extremely proportionate, enough to make an obsessive perfectionist orgasm with every glance, but I wanted to be big and swole, like a Primarch or even an Astartes. This was caused by my body, I knew the bastard would always pick the most optimal form for continued survival and power and this was what it chose; super fuckability with a dash of divinity, to not only tempt humans but even divine beings themselves. At least I still had my tattoos.
The exercise in vanity aside, it was time to see what I was capable of. I threw a quick jab and surprised myself at the woosh of air and explosive capacity of my punch. I didn't just take enough serum for one, I took enough for five super soldiers, that combined with my mutant abilities produced astounding results.
I went to the end of the section and ran towards the farthest cell, every stride saw me glide over the ground. My feet cracked through the cement, my toes dug groves in hard ground just from flexing as I ran. I arrived with a burst of air, coming to a swift and complete halt with godly ease. I threw a punch at the cell and blasted both glass and metal shielding away, front and back.
I ripped out the titanium support and twisted between my fingers like soft dough. I bit down on the metal and tore a chunk off, leaving teeth shaped cuts on its length, I chewed up and spat out the titanium chunk as one would a chewing gum.
I extended my claws and easily pierced through the metal, the claws' new durability and my enhanced strength allowing me to accomplish the feat. I went to my utility belt, retrieved a grenade, pulled the pin and waited.
—Boom!
The explosion engulfed my body and rocked me a step back, fragments pelted against my skin, the shrapnel embedded themselves into the singed flesh of my hand, but I was still standing. The burns faded away in seconds, the shrapnel was spat out of my skin and to the floor. Apart from the scorch marks on the floor, there was no evidence of an explosion written on my body.
Amazing.
I grabbed a .44 magnum, gold finished Desert Eagle from the belt, aimed the barrel at my face and pulled the trigger.
—Bang! I watched the bullet exit the muzzle with a small waft of smoke, it cut through the air at a snail's pace despite the series of rings of displaced air around indicating sonic velocity. I opened my mouth, leaned my head to the side and snapped my teeth down on the rotating round with my tongue caressing the rimmed tip of the slug.
This is most definitely a level up.
I sat crossed leg, bare bum to the cold floor. Eyelids closed, I inhaled slowly. Every muscle flared and relaxed in a rhythmic cycle. I familiarized myself with my augmented state as I once had with millennia spanning memories. I wasn't Steve Rogers, the super serum was added to an already solid foundation. My body was a weapon trained from the day I could walk, one hammered in the fires of hell and quenched with the blood of monsters. The beast himself was there to touch me with its unholy hands.
This was another quenching, I must master it to become deadlier. I picked up scents I did not have words for, I was hearing things I shouldn't be able to, I felt the caress of the universe on my skin. The voice of nature, the aroma of the world, the touch of earth, then this strange sensation; the ghost sense, with my eyes closed, I saw it permeate through all things with a varying brilliance, I could breathe it in and out, it dyed all things, it was everywhere.
I touched it, it touched me, a blazing ball of fire, a mother's warm embrace, a lover's kiss, it was everything hot and warm and passionate, it was life. It was the field. It was all.
Was this how Daredevil saw the world or was this something else entirely? Did the tattoos do this? Was it Chi, life force, the magnetic field, haki, chakra or an unknown aura? Was this enlightenment?
A deep resonance rang through my body, mind, soul and spirit. I was no longer my body, I was the ground I sat on, I was the air I breathed. I was the insect crawling in the recess of a dark corner, I was the snow trailing down from the sky. I saw for miles on end despite my position. I saw the mountain, the tundra around it, the frozen seas beneath it, the clouds above it, the breeze through it.
When I opened my eyes, the world was never the same again.
*.*.*.*.*
"I sensed him again, stronger this time. His mind, it is wonderful, it has…grown. Truly outstanding."
"Who, professor?"
"Your son, Logan."
*.*.*.*.*
Super soldier wolverine ultra? Super soldier wolverine ultra! How you like them apples mon friendos.
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