CH 8: Studying the Oz

"Well well well, Look who's here…"

A chilling voice penetrated the void and rang in Marcus' head. Marcus' guessed that his fears had come true, the serum did create a split personality.

"I am sorry, but you're not welcome here, hahahahaha"

And before Marcus could brace himself, a green version of that man with spiky ears and yellow eyes, punched him straight in the face, which made Marcus jerk back.

When he opened his eyes again, Marcus was back in the lab and the man wasn't in front of him anymore.

Without wasting any time, he activated his observation haki and then Marcus saw a punch coming straight towards his face, he dodged it and rolled back.

"Suit up No. 3, let's get ready to rumble."

The voice command activated the suit Marcus was wearing and a helmet popped out of his suit and covered his head. By then, the man was already in front of Marcus' face and threw a punch at his abdomen.

Unfortunately, Marcus couldn't react at the same speed as an enhanced human until he booted up his suit. But his suit negated all the damage. Marcus caught the man's hand instantly and used Psychic Storm in hopes of keeping the man alive to proceed with further testing.

Surprisingly, his Psychic energy was repelled by the man's mind, Marcus used it again and the same thing happened once again. But that much time was enough for the man to free his hand, he kicked Marcus on the abdomen and used this momentum to create distance between them.

"Looks like I will have to take you down physically."

"Hehehe…hehehehe!" A burst of sinister laughter came from the man as his face morphed to show a hideous smiling expression.

Marcus activated the AI fighting module and gave No. 3 enough control to fight using the suit. Meanwhile, Marcus used his telekinesis to hold down the man.

After feeling that he was being held down by something invisible, the man's expression turned serious and he started struggling to break free from the invisible grip.

Marcus didn't give him enough time to do so, with his AI controlling the suit Marcus closed the distance instantly and gave that man a super-powered punch directly to his liver.

The punch was able to hurt the man enough to make him kneel in pain. Marcus didn't waste his chance and started to rain down punches on the man's face. And before the man could counterattack, Marcus, jammed him with a syringe filled with a powerful and fast-acting drug, which was enough to make the man unconscious after a little struggle.

Marcus had yet to put the man on the operating table when the lab door flew open with a Bang!

"Boss! Are you ok?!"

Marcus turned around and saw that Jude, along with the whole mercenary team, was standing at the gate.

"Thanks for your concern Jude, but it was just a little inconvenience, don't worry. Anyways, you can get out now, and shut that gate behind you."

"Alright, whatever you say, boss. You guys heard him, get your asses back to your rooms." Hollering his team out, Jude closed the gate behind him.

"Alright, No.3 start recording. Experimental Log 1, Subject seems to have grown 2 inches taller, the previous lean and lanky body has turned muscular with very little fat percentage, I am not sure if such a low amount of fat is safe for the subject. And now let's start with the dissection."

First, he changed into a surgeon's gown, complete with the face mask and gloves. Then Marcus brought out the sterilized equipment used for the operation.

After tying up the man tightly, he picked up a scalpel and carefully slit open the chest area of the man.

The flowing blood wasn't much of a concern except for it dripping down and making a mess, so Marcus used his Parallel Thought and telekinesis in sync to clean off the blood using cotton swabs.

Then Marcus put down the scalpel and picked up his next tool, the bone saw.

This one, he had specially ordered to have the most powerful motor and best quality blade.

It made a silent whirring sound as it was turned on, Marcus held down the bone saw with controlled strength to cut open the sternum.

Although it required more than the normal strength, the sternum was finally split open. Then Marcus used a rib retractor to hold open the ribs.

If anybody saw what Marcus looked like right now, holding a saw while cutting open a man's ribs, they would probably scream and run away in fear thinking Marcus was some mad doctor from some horror movie.

The next process was to take tissues from different organs, and his bone marrow, which was completed after nearly half an hour.

And then, only the final part of the project remained, to extract the brain out of the subject's body while keeping the brain safe in the process.

Marcus used telekinesis to carefully open the skull, unlocking each bone one by one. After a few minutes, the brain was visible.

Using telekinesis, Marcus slowly extracted the brain out of the subject's body and then put it in a preservative solution.

And with that, the life of the first test subject had come to an end. Marcus then reassembled his body and put it in another vat of preservative solution.

After the messy work was done, Marcus discarded his bloody gown and gloves and then took a warm shower.

Feeling refreshed, Marcus went back to studying the tissues under a microscope. And the results he found were mind-boggling.

The muscle tissues had developed to be denser and stronger than anything he has ever seen, the heart tissues had developed to be more stretchy, and such mutations had happened to many different parts of the body.

Overall, the serum had not done any harm to the bodily cells. So it meant that the real secret of the side effects was hidden in the brain.

And sure enough, after intensive experimentation on the brain, Marcus found the reason for the split personality. Turns out, the serum had tried to mutate the brain cells similarly, to increase the existing efficiency of the brain.

But due to it being a far more complex organ than any other, the effects were different than intended. Although Marcus still didn't know the cause of his goblin-like personality or resistance to Psychic powers, he got the direction on how he should modify the serum and make it safe.

And for the next whole month, Marcus kept experimenting with the formula, modifying it, and then again experimenting with it.

During the daytime, he worked at his home and by night he was performing experiments in the secret base.

Meanwhile at Oscorp, the day after the heist…

Norman couldn't believe that someone broke into the Oscorp Tower without even tripping any alarms. When he decided to check the security footage, he found out that the cameras had stopped working just before the heist.

And similarly, with many electronics in the building, most of them had stopped working, some partially, some completely.

"Doctor, did you find out if anything is missing from the research room?" Norman turned towards the man wearing a white coat and spectacles and asked.

"Sorry to inform you of this Mr. Norman, but the super-soldier serum we developed is missing and whatever was left of it was smashed into pieces."

But before Norman could speak, the doctor hurriedly added, "But not to worry, we can recreate that in less than a month. However our main concern is the military funding that has been cut unexpectedly, I don't know if we will be able to keep going on like this."

"ENOUGH! You don't need to remind me, I already know and I am working on it. I have found out about a new organization that is willing to help us in developing the serum. It's just that, I don't know their real purpose."

Norman contemplated his thoughts as he peered outside the window of the 40th floor with his hands behind his back.

Back to Marcus…

It had been a month and Marcus had yet to find the solution for the side effects of the Oz serum. After trying many different things, Marcus was at his wit's end. And after thinking about it for quite a while, he decided to shelve the idea of modifying the Oz serum.

The main reason for the decision was Marcus' apparent lack of knowledge of the subject of serums and how they were made.

Finally, he decided to work with some professionals on the matter and he already had someone in mind for that.

And Marcus also decided to start the medical research sector of his industry. After all, he had made a promise on live television to do it so, of course, he was going to deliver it.

The next day, Marcus made another announcement on live television, "We have decided to open up a new Medical research sector and we are taking in applications for different positions. You can find the specifics on our website, www.huntindustries.com."

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A/N: Guys If you see any problems, instead of flaming me just tell me about it in the paragraph comments or chapter comments, i will try to change them or keep them in mind for the future, I am talking about grammatical mistakes and such. Thanks for your time and please review, we need to reach 10 reviews to increase our exposure.