CHAPTER 08

I dragged myself back to my cell after that little escapade with Dr. Ernst… That psychopath.

I looked at my hands, still shaking from whatever effect from the solution I drank had. Unfortunately, I was able to provide him with another branch of torture… Discomfort.

I dreaded what he'd do to me once he was done with his research.

Looking on the bright side, I got one solid on that fucker Olav. Pretty sure one of his eyes were gone from my second punch, probably should have aimed for his nuts. Bah! Plans for next time.

It was really really tempting to kill him right there, but I knew if I had killed him right then, or even if I could, my situation would've bungee jumped all the way to game over and then bounce back to doomsville. And that was not a level I was keen on playing anytime soon.

As far as my livelihood here went, Olav was my warden for all intent and purposes. The sick old man gets a hard-on every time he tortures me… Literally. I don't know how many times I cried from one of his 'game time'. It was sickening.

There was this one time he wanted to see if my foot could touch the back of my head, and while I was trained every day, I wasn't a gymnast. To my horror he broke my leg when he found out it couldn't touch my head and laughed at my agony saying it made a wonderful art…Magnificent work Leonardo, bravo!

Hopefully I won't see him for some time, and that was assuming Hydra hadn't found out the key to healing potions from my blood, which would be catastrophic by the way. It would pretty much fuck up this earth's version of the Marvel-verse.

I hope my next warden was nicer, haha. Now that's a joke if I've heard one recently, which I haven't apparently.

Not everything was bad about my treatment from Olav… Ok who am I kidding, It was 99% bad with the miniscule 1% being me having a better grasp of my mutant abilities.

It's being at least three months since I was abducted, which sucks major because I missed out on my favorite holiday of the year, New Year, while also spending my New Year as an abducted/experimented mutant.

The days now were bland, lacking colors except the occasional dash of red here and there, but apart from that, everything else was stale.

The torture becoming a norm.

The fights and broken bones an habitual occurrence.

Everything else becoming a predictable line.

Every day looking forward to the anguished and agonizing pain from either the mad doctor or Olav, bringing it to a symmetry of predictions. The pain expectable, sometimes exceeding perceived limit, the jeering continual, the collective apathy adapted.

Sure I did feel bad, depression and fear a marring constant, but before hours passed I'd collect myself and compare the pain to the unforgettables of my past tortures, finding solace in its lacking brutality or resignation in its advancement. And like that, I had nothing new to expect, counting down the minutes until I was thrown back into my cell.

Make no mistake, I was thankful for the predictability. Predictable means adaptable, change means unknown and in this kind of environment, the unknown was what I dreaded most.

But with the stunt I pulled today, change was inevitable. Sigh.

Speaking of change, my abilities had some, nothing monumental though.

My healing factor sped up, but I found out that critical organs healed slower compared to the rest of my body. Much slower.

Olav, one time shot me in my spine and that took me over 4 hours to heal. Thankfully he never went for the heart,

 I knew there was no healing from that… Hopefully yet.

Getting shot a few more times made it known that I could apparently heal from bullet wound, taking at most thirty minutes for an AP round. A normal bullet wound took me half the time to heal as long as it didn't pierce through, so that was a plus.

Overall, most wounds in my body took less than an hour to heal, except the truly critical ones, like to the livers or kidneys – or recently tested, the spine. An headshot was still a guaranteed lights out so no surprises there, one to the heart was something that wasn't actually tested maybe for fear of my death so I'm at least thankful for that.

Apart from my healing, my physical strength also saw an increased improvement. While I couldn't carry a car yet, I could lift one with my current strength, though no one knew that tidbit.

I tried seeing my limit once in the gym on one of those rare moments where no one was present, including Olav, and padded the pole with weights. While an average SUV weighed around 3,000 – 5,000kg,I was able to lift over one fifth that weight at 1,120kg.

It was both shocking and exhilarating finding that out, and since then, I found my physical strength was increasing at an incredibly slow and steady pace.

As for my speed, well I think I could give Usian Bolt a run for his fastest 100m record. All in all, I was already a super soldier and that was a thought that made me feel weird to this day.

It was weird because all it took was three-something months to go from a normal human to a low level super soldier without any serum.

There was once an idea of me undergoing their super soldier experiment but it was denied on the grounds that it would be detrimental as it was already a given possibility that I could reach super soldier level on my own which was further merited with results from my experiments and coupled with the fact that I could also survive extreme temperatures further cemented this decision. This was one of the few things I was most thankful for since I came here.

Apart from my physique developments, there was something that I suspected about me that the doctors in charge of my experiments somehow, and thankfully, neglected.

I was getting smarter.

Nowhere near Einstein, Newton or Faradays level but miniscule enough for only me to observe it.

This was something I found off chance due to Dr. Ernst and the other scientists working gleefully with open mouths. While most of the terms they used in front of me was mostly lost on me, somehow I was able to figure out some of the things there were talking about after so long.

Sometimes the answers would come to me when I was back in my cell or at a seemingly random time with no reason other than a stray thought on the topic. And this was saying something since I didn't know jackshit about any of it despite having a degree in Biology.

This brought me back to what my mutant ability was. They were a few synonymous occurrences with some characters that I remembered from comics and shows from my childhood but they were mostly fuzzy. Growing with every physical exertion and somehow getting smarter from perceived information, it was as if my full body in correspondence was…

Adapting.

A hyped up characteristic of every living being. Natural selection of Darwin.

The ability to conform to the mental and physical need for evolution.

This was phenomenal… The applications of such a discovery would be immence… What am I saying?

This was another thing I found out.

Apparently my brain has developed a very mild science fetish. Although not noticeable, my thoughts, without a particular focus or letting it run free, would mostly likely geek out in the realms of my limited knowledge.

Most times it was annoying, but other times, it serves as a new form of constructive thinking. It didn't matter much because none of this would make me pick up another science textbook again in this life even if this ability was almost limitless in it utility.

These were the observations I had on my abilities in these three months, no doubt Hydra had more detailed explanations since I was comically their new guinea pig.

Hopefully they haven't found out about my budding intellect which would spell all kinds of crap that my low IQ couldn't comprehend.

Having complete access, even if I didn't know how much, to my X-gene to further whatever sick goal they had was already bad. Finding out that I was growing just by listening to their conversations was like giving Hydra a guidebook on 'How to Fuck the World In 2 Steps'.

Nothing good would come out of that.

I wouldn't find it surprising if they tore open my skull to take out my brains just to study it.

This further cemented my desire to escape but presently, that was nothing more than wishful thinking. I couldn't even make it pass this floor before I would be riddled with lead. All I could do was bid my time, get stronger and wait for a chance to hightail it out of here. But all in due time.

At least tomorrow can't be any worse… Right?

…..

What is this? What is the meaning of this?

No… No… No! This can't be happening!

What have I done?

My thoughts were in disarray as I stared at the bloodied gagged man in front of me, tied to a chair.

Snort and tears marred his face, depicting the torture he had gone through.

He just sat there, no ounce of strength in him, with resigned eyes, as he looked towards me.

Under his gaze, I stood transfixed to the ground, unable to comprehend what had happened.

"I-039, take his life."

A simple command. No fanfare or explanation.

I couldn't come to terms with it as I stared at the slit throat of the man whose life I just took.

My brain was fuzzy as my stomach churned at the sight and memory of what I've just done.

"I-039, take his life."

It was the only thing that was said to me as I was led out of my cell this morning.

The order was given remotely by speakers, with a camera hung on the wall to no doubt witness it.

"I-039, take his life."

The command wasn't repeated, only stated once, but somehow, I found it replaying inside my head every second.

When I first saw him, the look of fear and realization in his eyes were what clued me in on what was happening, or going to happen.

At that moment, a part of me knew what was going to happen, the inevitability of the conundrum I was faced with, but my brain refused to comprehend it.

When I was brought to his front, he shook in his seat with whatever strength he could muster, which wasn't much, as he struggled vainly to escape the dooming fate we both knew was coming. The pleading in his eyes were clear, leaving a lump in my throat as I tried to swallow whatever was in my mouth.

The moment my brain started coming to understanding our current scenario, the voice boomed through the speakers.

"I-039, take his life."

Words I couldn't apprehend echoed through my eardrums, akin to the words of a customer telling the butcher to kill the game he bought, lacking empathy as it jolted my brain to an abrupt realization.

I stood, rooted to the floor, as I looked at the man's face once more, beaten to a pulp that his features wasn't even recognizable. There was no sharp cut on his visible body that I could find, meaning the bruises and tears on his skin was done by blunt force to maximize the pain.

*Sobbing*

I was brought out of my thoughts by the sound of the man's sob as his dried tears started overflowing once more.

Every hic, every teardrop, every choke grating on my heart as I found myself tearing at the sight before me.

What else? What else would they make me do?

At that thought I was tempted to just let it all out at the guard who brought me in, standing alone by the door.

The thought blazed through me igniting every nerve in my body as they screamed in accordance against this inhumane act. Heeding their cries I turned to the guard as I…

-"Mr. St. Cross, from what I've heard, you've been refusing our offer… And while it is admirable and mildly amusing, it seems you were under the impression that you had a choice. While you would have spent the remains of your miserable life living as a mediocre amongst countless others, with us you actually have the chance to stand for something greater than yourself. So believe me when I say that even if it takes us breaking every single appendage in your body, you WILL fold. Am I understood?"-

I froze as I remembered what that man told me when I first arrived, before the training and the experiments started. I wanted to repudiate any feeling of compliance I had, but my body froze on its own.

My body turned back to face the man as I screamed in my head, commanding control, but it refused to budge as it stared at the man with dried tears in its eyes.

I didn't know how long we exchanged gazes, but I couldn't get back in control of my body, while the man looked on with resignation in his eyes as his spasm stopped and his muscles relaxed.

As both our eyes met each other in a silent conversation, I went forward, towards him, as I picked a knife sitting alongside a gun atop a table by the side not knowing why I went for that choice.

As I walked towards him, I couldn't help but notice the fact that my mind was calm… Too calm in fact that everything seemed to fall into place in a swift synchrony.

Reaching the man, we exchanged a last gaze as I brought up the knife to his throat, and in a swift motion, slid it across.

Blood splattered out onto my face as I held his dying gaze, coming to a realization that I was stuck in here. No matter what I did or how hard I trained, I was still stuck here, in their hands – Hydra.

My brain processed everything slowly, every drip of blood burned into my memory, the fading light of life in his eyes forever dyed in my brain.

"Congratulations. Draugr!"

"Hail Hydra!"

"Hail Hydra!"

I heard words in the background but I couldn't make out what they were saying as I burned the dying visage of the man I killed to memory.

I didn't care if he was a heinous criminal or the most humblest of humans… No I didn't care.

But for the fact of what they made me do, Hydra would burn.

I was in a world where mortals could kill gods with nothing more than a gene or a couple of stones.  

This was my first vow ever made in both lives, that I staked my life on… And it would be the last.

No more…

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Yes yes, I know his ability wasn't a grand reveal, not that I wanted it be, given that most of you guessed it since chapter 4 as I wasn't exactly trying to be subtle with it.

In more apt terms, for those who don't understand how this ability would work, which I doubt there are any of you who wouldn't, this is just a federal road construction budgeted but halfway paid version of the Gamers Body and Gamers Mind. Not that I'm using the same mechanics as it does, but this is to paint you a picture.

Now the MC's abilities are more of the lines along Adaptation and Evolution. Which means to evolve, he has to go through or adapt to different obstacles before he evolves in way that corresponds with his adaptations, which as seen only covers his physical attributes for now.

Also someone mentioned adapting to pain, I'm not gonna lie but that tidbit had me a bit stumped when I was thinking of how he would develop his abilities and that led me to the discovery(I actually did the research) that pain itself was a criteria for adaptation and evolution. Short version is, without the brain telling the body that an experience is harmful to it(through pain), the body won't try to adapt to it since it doesn't perceive it as harmful. Which is why we don't puke out our food or have negative reactions to it, unless it's poison or an allergy.

And like Olav said before, people don't get used to pain rather their tolerance for it increases, which is what I'm applying to the MC. His pain tolerance threshold is higher than most people because of his regeneration and his... well tolerance. I mean you don't see Deadpool shrieking at every bullet wound now, do you? So that's that.

An finally, our MC is growing up(God the insults I've received because of this). I still don't know why people say he's being naive, because he isn't. Just because someone was kidnapped doesn't mean he'll have the whole 'none shall fuck with me' vibe. I'll know since I've been kidnapped once and yet you don't see me hitting the gym everyday or buying firearms to work on my proficiency with, nor am I going full Rambo with self defense training. Him getting kidnapped and experimented on was a good way to kill his naivete but I wanted something more, something that went against who he was and the result was this.

I think I've ranted enough as is.

PS: The next few chapters will focus on a particular aspect of his ability which would be the crux of his later evolutions. Expect some science stuffs and theories...In other words, they are info dumps. Shalom!