69 Experiments Monting

Alaska Base Barrow

Beta testing RC cell treatment worm 1

Bastion sat in a dark room looking into a monitor as Alexander a newly turned vampire and a doctor began injecting a test subject with worm 1. Worm 1 was a combination of Bastion's, Dr. Kanou's, and Vittorio's research in the alteration of RC cells. Blends of RC cells were mutated, with vast amounts of natural energy and rewritten in their function. From there they were injected in parasitic worms. Finally, these worms were administered in the body of a particularly robust child predator.

Once injected the test subject started struggling against his bonds as the endo scopes showed the worms multiplying and looping through the subject's arteries. Bloated and pulsating ovipositors unleashed their payloads in the subject's bloodstream. This was how they spread through the rest of the body.

From this moment all the surgical scars began vanishing as the worms repaired any damage to their host. The subject flexed his arm and ripped through the shackles binding him to a medical bed. Everyone in the observation room froze as the subject stood up.

All at once motion resumed as the subject opened his mouth and roared before attacking the doctor. His human staff leapt from their seats in worry. "Why aren't any of the guards rushing in to help the doctor. Don't you care about your staff?" One intern yelled. Bastion placed a finger to his lips, then pointed at the screen.

Alexander lazily back handed the test subject, the subject's neck snapped with a sickening crack, and he crumpled to the floor. Slowly the host looked up and his neck began to make a cracking noise before it straightened back. Worms moved beneath the subject's skin manipulating muscles and organs. More adrenaline was pushed into the subject's body to further increase his battle potential.

The caloric requirements reached their peak and the worms started cannibalizing fats. Alexander took a syringe filled with green liquid and injected the subject. The worms glowed green and the auto cannibalization slowed but the worms continued to feed off human flesh. Once they ran out of fats they would move on to muscle, non-essential organs, bones, necessary organs, and finally the host's brain. Alexander gave up on the serum and stuffed a hose down the patient's throat before flipping a switch. A slurry of various fats and proteins fell directly in the host's stomach.

Through the endo scope they watched as the worms adapted the host's metabolism to work through food quickly. More serum was injected in the host and the worms started to reject it from the subject's system.

Alexander grabbed ahold of the subject and opened a garbage shoot built into the room. He tossed the failed subject inside, to be ground up and made into slurry for future subjects.

Bastion looked over his notes on the project. The RC cells in the worms didn't reject natural energy out of hand anymore. In small amounts the substance improved the worm's performance. But once a certain threshold was reached the worms always removed excess natural energy concluding that it was waste. The worms were great, when it came to improving human physical capabilities and healing especially it was off the charts. Best of all the worms could be removed after an intensive surgery. They made a human strong enough to fight a weak ghoul hand to hand. The worms ate at a host's body and healed the host using their RC cells. So long as the host had enough raw materials the worms will heal them indefinitely.

Unfortunately, despite their promise Bastion wasn't going to add worms to his body for any reason. Their unique RC cells showed promise and once extracted could be added to a new specimen to further mutate the RC cells themselves. The number of RC cell patterns he had in his RC cell library was extensive.

It was in this frozen area of the world where his real research took place. He and his staff walked to the next testing area to see was Dr. Faust had in store for them.

Beta test Project Soldier

Faust was a vampire much older than Bastion. At 240 he was Vittorio's 3rd eldest son and the sire of Alexander. This vampire was obsessed with the human image and unlike Alexander would never place parasites in the body. He preferred viruses.

Project soldier used an artificial virus given the name herpasyphleaides. Most called it H for short. H was a special virus it couldn't infect through normal means, it had a low survivability outside of a human body, and it didn't do much more than shatter auto immune responses. Then again it also left the front door unguarded and let any other sicknesses in. When this was first tried the poor victims died of pneumonia, pocks, mumps, and leprosy they developed these diseases from contact with staff. With a combination of natural energy, lots of bodies, and barrowing RC cells from project worm in the alpha stages, it has begun to show results.

Bastion checked his watch and waited for the test to get underway. Even as a shadow clone his time was valuable.

The doctor took a young woman and injected the virus in her spinal cord. He stood back as she flopped and struggled against her bindings as the virus wrecked her body. Eventually, her struggling ceased and all eyes were on the girl.

She shot up shattering her bindings and breathing in deeply. All at once the members of staff noticed her yellow eyes. They were a mutation of the kakugan. The scars around her wrists healed and she looked at herself in shock. All the while scans showed her body's immune system wasn't crashing. The virus stayed away from white blood cells and remained in the RC cells.

Bastion waited for several minutes as Faust looked at his patient with pride. He took a syringe and injected the woman with natural energy. This was the real test. Would the RC cells soak up the mixture or ignore it?

They didn't ignore it. Massive green lines appeared all over the woman's skin and then she turned yellow. Her liver failed. She began to scratch at her skin while the green lines seemed to shiver.

Blood soon coated her nails as she reached deeper in herself trying to get ahold of the green lines. "Oh, my god is that a worm." Bastion watched her pulled a three-foot-long worm out of her flesh before throwing it on the ground. There were more under her skin. It seemed the worm RC cells were a mistake. Green worms burst from the wound she made and closed the skin. Her body began to heat up she was rejecting the worms.

The woman was taken by the neck and tossed into the shoot. She too would be ground up to make food for the subjects.

Bastion walked out of the room and traveled to part of the facility called the garden. It was bared off from staff members. This was where the stable test subjects ended up. He called it the garden because it reminded him of the garden of Eden in a way. He created this small patch of heaven for those who taught them more about RC cell manipulation.

Trees made of flesh moved about soaking up slurry that drips from the ground. Large strange fruit grow from the flesh trees devoured by some of the more mutated subjects. These people were mutated with a plant strain of RC cells. Bastion called them elves. They had long pointed ears and they loved flesh trees. Their skin was hard resembling bark and they were terrified of fire. In Bastion's mind they were perfect elves.

Then there were the dwarves. They are hardy individuals whose strain became stable though they lost height their bones are denser. They often hunt down elves and devour them before cutting down the flesh trees to feed to their livestock.

Live stock any human who was mixed with an animal genome for RC cell research. They became stable but lose some of their intelligence. Forever living a sad life of a talking animal. They rely upon the dwarves for food and companionship.

"Sir, we are running out of test subjects, shall I lead a raid upon another American prison." Rodger said.

"Get it done, we have little time to spar." Bastion said.

He looked on at his staff in contempt. A year of research and nothing to show for it. They worked tirelessly exhausting every idea, lead, and hypothesis with testable theories. It wasn't their fault they failed no it was his for believing they could leap frog ahead of the world's researchers. Bastion allowed every short cut imaginable to hasten results, but nothing came of it. Just a forest filled with mutants. If they couldn't learn anything from them, Bastion would have the forest burned.

Slurry fell out of tubes like rain giving new life to the forest. Red flowers formerly closed bloomed and the whole forest took on a myriad of reds, blues, and greens. Some would call it beautiful in a horrible way.

The alien garden needed human flesh, RC cells, and natural energy to survive. They existed at such a high cost, Bastion could scarcely find reasons to keep it going. The area had all its gases removed and the temperature was dropped to -60c. The forest remained adapting to the new environment easily.