Chapter 99: Diana vs Kaisel
Diana
Staring down at my bleeding hands, the torn appendages of my lost thumbs howled a screaming pain through them, it was bad but lately I’d suffered about the same in most of my bouts. Broken bones, stab wounds, pounds of flesh being ripped off, that had become my norm.
And that was exactly why I needed to escape this fucking place.
”Get out of my way.” I summoned fiery wisps of electricity through my arms. “All it takes is one touch of my hands and you’re dead meat.”
“I’m well aware… I do remember what you did to your friend.” Kaisel laughed at me, her eyes turning soulless. And before I let her send me into the depths of my memories, I shut my eyes, focusing instead on the hum of metal and electricity around me. Her Neuroframe became my guide, and I surged towards it with a blade of scrap metal fused around my hands.
Then pure force smacked me sideways, blinking open but not staring at her, tendrils of some miasmic red energy swept around Kaisel’s body. Those ghostly apparitions dug through the air like contorted snakes, three of them. Releasing the kinetic thrashing I’d just endured; I punched straight at the first.
It overwhelmed me, cracking through the bones in my already wounded arm.
Soul Killer cackled as I flew across the cages. “Come on, I thought I raised you better!”
They sent forth a legion of red spikes, each scraping off the floor to overtake my speed, of which I was in very much limited supply. Those damn Warlock MALformed were a pain in the ass, too dangerous to physically approach so I’d needed to use my metal manipulation to wound them. That was Energy inefficient.
Maybe I could have waited another day, but each moment meant the potential that Anthony would make his move. It meant more suffering. It meant letting Soul Killer toy with me and move their plans forward without anyone stopping them. The time for that was over, I would be ending whatever was happening here now.
Killing Emily Kaisel was my first step.
Reducing my Warp Energy store into dying embers, I curved around the cages of the imprisoned MALformed, searching for one that fit my needs. The waves of strength and murder were nauseating, especially so when I dodged right into the cage of what I was looking for.
A Silver Grade Chimera. It was the same as what I normally fought, terrible and grotesque, but more perfectly organic than ever. Big, daunting, mangled fur draped down its canine body with a gaping mouth extending nearly to its hind legs. A Fangtooth.
Those bars containing its fury sure did their work, it was all between me and certain death. Not only was it a higher grade but most definitely a higher Tier as well. Probably Tier III.
Would I be able to kill it? No. But I could quench its power. I took two the circular cuffs with me, Warp Restraints capable of stopping my Gold Grade Energy. As it thrashed its head towards me, I took the risk and jammed one of the cuffs right into the underside of its mouth.
Putting all my force into it was enough to pierce through the lead-like fur and skin, digging the cuff maybe just a few inches. That simple contact with flesh was enough to seal fury down that it became paralyzed, containing its sickening fury into barely-contained twitches.
Placing my palms against the shallow wound, I began to leech out the thick silver miasma dwelling in its flesh, draining all that it was. The strength flowing into me drove stakes of pain up its path, a lucid malice that sought to drive me insane. Founders knew I already was.
It was a shame I couldn’t reach for its core from here, who knows what benefits a Silver of this Tier could give me. Still, I had to be satisfied, my Integrity was struggling with even this much…
But it was enough to ignite an inferno through my every being. My entire body was wreathed in a shell of violent sparks, my senses sharpening as electricity flowed haphazardly to snap at the cages around me.
“Ah! There you are!” Soul Killer yelled from my peripheral, and now I had some faint sense of the telekinetic appendages converging down on me - an instinctual awareness of the Energy used in manipulating them. With one kick of my legs, I flew up through the room, calling the scrap I’d carried with me in a flowing arc.
I tossed them at Soul Killer, a shotgun blast that struck her with gashes. One tiny scrap pierced deep into her arm, becoming my anchor to feel her wave those tendrils around. Bouncing across cages, I shut my eyes as I came within striking distance.
Fighting blindfolded was stupid, but a single moment trapped in my mind would end my escape, especially with Soul Killer strengthening Kaisel’s power. I felt the arm shift, and it became clear she was sweeping sideways to strike me wide.
I let her hit me down into the ground. I could take it.
The thrash absorbed into my force-quenching cells, fueling me with the potential to send me right back. I didn’t right away, instead, I homed in on the charge spewing in the air around me, right as some tendrils rained down, they were disturbed enough for me to see the gaps and react accordingly.
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“Training even now? What a dutiful test subject you are!” Soul Killer cackled as I heard the sound of wrenched metal. Then I felt my body slammed down as something thick and heavy and large crushed me against a wall. Releasing my vision, I saw a slobbering maw only held back by steel bars.
This crazy bitch had flung an entire MAL cage.
The strength of those tendrils was something I’d never seen before, but not ready to let myself be overpowered, I heaved sparks into the cage — willing it to lift off me. My own telekinetic strength was nowhere near hers, but it was enough to give the leverage to push myself back to my feet.
And then I used my physical strength. I tossed the cage right back at her with a thick release of kinetic force. The red energy wreathing across her condensed into her palms, pushing it out as a crimson explosion tore through the cage and the MAL inside of it.
That explosion was just what I needed, reaching into the flown scraps of metal, I commanded them to rain down on her. The red force streaming around her formed a bubble to protect her from my steel shower, but that gave me just the moment to attack myself.
It might have been a force field, so my actual kick failed to pierce. But electricity couldn’t be shielded away by solidified air. A thick snap of blue connected us both, my fury reaching straight for her heart.
All of my fury.
It burned straight through her labwear, igniting it and spreading across her.
I let my mania consume me. “Too hot for you?! Let me help!”
I reached through the faded shield and placed my palms across both eyes, then I commanded the heat in her flesh to become electricity. Her skin and muscles froze as I drained them dry, webs of electricity spreading from her eyes until I heard the Neuroframe sizzle and snap.
Then I dropped her dead body to the ground. A wash of pure elation and ecstasy rose through me, and I released it in a laugh I’d never managed before. Ugly, exploding and pounding. Only after a few seconds of calming myself did I manage to organize my actions.
Soul Killer wasn’t done yet. They’d take control of the other inmates and hunt me down. For now, I’d have to recover. Absorbing a Silver SIM would do wonders for that, so I patiently waited for it to dig its way out of Kaisel’s body.
Except, it never did. Maybe not never, but normally within a few seconds you would notice a collection of Silver veins and bulging flesh, especially with her Tier.
She was a Silver, right? To overwhelm me so easily meant that at the very least she was a powerful Silver or a Tier III Bronze. Both of those options would help me.
So then why wasn’t there a SIM?
Her dead body sat there, definite and unchanging. My impatience getting the better off me, I reached into her body and began to drain the Mutagen out directly. Unlike what I predicted, strands of Gold and Titanium swam up my hand and dug deep…
Absorbing Mutagen…
Tier III Mutagen Absorbed:
* [G] Telekinetic Force Manipulation [1%/1%]
* [G] Soul Seer [1%/1%]
* [T] Soul-Death [1%/1%]
Hostile Mutagen Detected…
22%…
34%…
52%…
58%…
62%…
64%…
64%…
60%…
It stopped way too quickly, except for the remaining Hostile Mutagen my body began to clear out… Gold Mutagen and only Tier III? There was nothing deeper than that in her body and strangely she only had them at 1% Development. What was going on here?
Hostile Mutagen cleansed.
[Gold] Mutation: Mineral Assimilation has reached 100% Development;. Additional Meta-Mutation has been acquired. Increased dispersion of metal to allow for a greater electrical conduction throughout the Adapter.
[Gold] Mutation: Kinetic Catalyst has acquired Meta-Mutations. Increase to maximal force absorbed; increase to conversion between electrical and kinetic energy. Development: 91%
[Gold] Mutation: Electromagnetic Telekinesis has acquired Meta-Mutations. Greater manipulation over non-metallic materials; greater ability to coordinate telekinetic force; greater ability to manipulate external electrical manipulation. Development: 81%
[Gold] Electrical Flash-Freeze has acquired Meta—Mutations. Greater precision of thermal conversion; minor telekinetic control over cold objects. Development: 70%
Still, the tiny scraps of genetic information were dense, and that reflected in both my nausea and the updates in my lenses.
”Wow!” Simon Jugosla’s voice sounded from the speakers around me. “Now that was unexpected! Though, I can’t deny feeling a tiny bit annoyed that you wasted such a precious resource of mine. You know how hard it is to make her?”
Make her?
I took my first step, raising a middle finger at one of the cameras. I could escape now, I was right about this place being a bunker from the fourth swarm, there were illustrated signs around me dictating floor levels and even directions to an exit. And since this was an entry point for cargo, there should be one nearby.
A door opened behind me, exactly from where Kaisel had first entered. I’d never really questioned it before, how did Kaisel reach me so quickly in the first place?
And why was the woman I’d just killed standing in the doorway?
Shutting my eyes, I decided some questions weren’t worth getting answers to as my legs carried me to her, arm outstetched with a web of sparks.
“Hold on one second! There’s something you should see! It’s about a friend of yours!” Kaisel’s voice stopped me inches away from striking her, I almost hated how much my skill in commanding my power had grown over my time here…
Eyes still shut, I led a warning in my voice. “Walk ahead of me, you turn your head one millimeter towards me and I blow it up.”
“Oooh, feisty.” I felt the neuroframe shift directions, and then she began to step away from me. Knowing it wasn’t safe, I began following her stead as she curved corner after corner.
I didn’t need to see her eyes to know it wasn’t her… or whatever she was… that was in control. Soul Killer lead me deeper, away from the exit.
“I killed you. Or… I killed Kaisel.” This didn’t make sense.
“That you did.” Soul Killer responded, and that was all I could get out of them.
A part of me was screaming to turn back, but an even deeper part of me knew why I was following them. Finally, they opened a door after putting in some code on the keypad, leading it open to which we both entered.
“In here.” Soul Killer showed me what looked to be a large laboratory, throughout it were the remains of various lifeforms. Organs, skeletons, and vials of fluids I didn’t want any further information on were each stored in neatly organized drawers and cabinets. There was even a tray full of crimson flowers sitting in the middle of the room.
Though I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the cage in the back.
It was the same kind the MAL had been stored in, and it was exactly the reason why I’d come back here in the first place. It wasn’t what was inside of it, but who.
Gray eyes opened up to my sight, half in relief, the other half in dread. The man I’d come to call a friend was pale and filthy but just seeing him — having some connection to the outside world had filled me up with a joy I didn’t know how to release.
Instead my voice barely wheezed out.
“Anthony…”