Lying on the bed and trembling from the pressure, Robert was completely absorbed in controlling the steel. His mind was struggling to keep up with demands from himself, forcefully cutting off the surroundings and most sensations. Even his reactor core was constantly swinging in output as if the palm on the virtual handle adjusted the energy output belonged to someone with tremor. Rob could bet that if his metallic body could sweat, he would already make a small pool in his prison cell. That was how hard the task was.
The unknown time of training brought enough progress to think that it was now a matter of real practice to hone the skills further. His punches and kicks added quite a strength just from the addition of the proper body usage. He knew the basics from his training with cold weapons in the camp, but only now he made those reflexes part of his attacks. Not stopping on it, Robert decided to train with his Energy Blast control. The loss of the ranged abilities was painful, noticeably making his life harder against agile supers. However, the obsidian steel provided him with the possibility to recreate something like the knight’s energy coating instead. He used it before, creating tiny micro-explosions and simulating the destructive layer, and now he had enough time to raise this skill even higher.
Robert still avoided hitting the force shield using this energy just in case of a real need for escape, focusing on conjuring thin small plates on the top side of his feet, knees, elbows, fists, and even his forehead. In short, all spots were used for direct attacks in a fight. Stuck to his skin as if they were part of Rob’s body, they were adjusted to fit properly. And then Robert started another training session. From the side it looked exactly the same, just noticeably slower. Rob was making a non-stop torrent of strikes, using each body part.
The real difference was that all plates, except the one that was in contact with a force shield during a punch or kick, were constantly covered in destructive layers. His goal was simple – to make sure that he had enough control to keep it endlessly and simultaneously in several spots at once without diving into deep concentration. Exactly his inability to quickly move the obsidian steel influenced Robert’s approach, so he decided to keep separated parts of the matter in different places. The biggest piece was still covering his ribs to protect the reactor core, albeit it wasn’t much bigger than others. In the end, his volume of the obsidian steel wasn’t even near to the previous numbers. But he had what he had, once again focusing on adapting to the situation.
Maybe the very same thought together with the need to search for a solution to his inhuman appearance gave him an idea of what he was trying to do. Previously, each of his regenerations confirmed that his steel body was trying to return to a set shape, not willing to change anything. Therefore, instead of trying to do it directly, Robert decided to proceed with a different approach. Using his control over the steel, he simply tried to squeeze himself simultaneously from all sides, making him denser but not changing anything dramatically. His assumption was based that the source of the resistance was his soul which was tightly merged with his steel body and opposed forceful modification, treating it like an invasion of the soul. Therefore, any attempt at change was fought back.
However, with a new method, he technically wasn’t altering anything in himself, just making it smaller. Even the weight was kept the same, resulting in an increased density. And somehow it worked. The odd sensation, when all particles from which he was consisted of suddenly moved almost broke Robert’s concertation. He still managed to hold them in a new place, slightly closer to their brothers and sisters, but a new realization struck him once again.
Okay, I did it. Now what? How can I explain that it’s their new spot to stay?
The answer came with time when he failed to keep the focus strained for so long. Sighing with regret because of failure, Rob released an ethereal grip over his steel… only to see no change at all. It felt like his particles got accustomed to the new place of residence, setting a modified distance between each of them as a new standard. It made him smile widely, showing a direction of way out from being labeled as a villain.
However, that smile vanished soon after Robert tried to do it again. It was obvious, but it still somehow escaped his mind that the further he squeezed his body, the harder the process became. Especially to give enough time for particles to familiarize themselves with new spots. It led to a particular situation where Robert had to give his all to have a chance of succeeding in achieving his goal of looking normal. His large frame made it a tedious task as to drop from two with a half meters to something average was quite a decrease. Moreover, having no mirror and only a bed to measure his progress, Rob wasn’t sure about the effect. Still, he proceeded with the same persistence as always. Not that he had much to do anyway.
The only short break was after his multiple demands to call the “manager”, an older-looking CSA agent came to meet him. Wearing the same formal black suit, he was cleanly shaved as if trying to fit a well-ironed outfit. His wrinkled with deep furrows between his bushy eyebrows had a similar dead serious expression as if it was the requirement to get a position as a senior agent. Even his straightforward approach with a direct question instead of any greetings added to this image, making look like a real exhausted managed that had to listen to another idiotic demand from retard customers.
“What do you want?”
“Hello! Well, you see after the body shaming from agent Bell, I luckily got a perfect diet to lose the fat in no time because of your hospitality – no-carbohydrate, no-fats, no-protein pure oxygen diet. The problem is that my underpants aren’t so stretchy to keep my groin area hidden. I believe I will need new ones quite soon… And no, no need to change anything in my nutrition – don’t bother yourself. It seems your cooks are too busy,” Robert answered with a light smile.
“We had no intentions to do it at all – you are living metal, Golem. Considering your threat level, all interactions with you will be limited,” frowning from a wastage of time, the agent pointed, already turning around.
“Wait! If you are already here, can you please tell me what will happen if you don’t find any traces of my crimes… As if they never happened in this world, existing only in my head. Can I expect to be released?”
“After the confirmation of this information, you will still need to go through a mental evaluation. Even if you killed in your imagination, it’s enough for CSA to mark you as a threat to civilians, considering your capabilities. You are not weakling to be stopped by a pair of police officers. So, the answer is no, you can’t expect it to happen any time soon,” meeting Rob’s eyes, the man spoke not changing his expression.
“Okay. Last question then… what do I need to do to be freed from here? You won’t find anything about my crimes… I am already working on my appearance, trying to fix it to look normal. I haven’t felt in any madness, and just train to keep myself busy… and I need to say that your cell with constantly working lights might be seen as torture to anyone…,” Robert tried to continue but was interrupted.
“Anyone but you, Golem. Don’t forget that we know more about you than you think. The cell is perfect to keep you locked… And returning to your question – behave yourself, don’t fool around, and maybe in a year I will organize regular meetings with psychotherapists to get you through primary evaluation… We are done here.”
The meeting only confirmed Robert’s bad premonition that he was there for long unless he broke out of the prison. The latter option wasn’t crossed out in his mind. No matter how he wished to be better, Rob didn’t want to spend tens of years in a cell just because the supers in this realm ruined their image half of a century ago, making them a threat in the eyes of other humans, while he, Robert, just appeared in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Moreover, even if he realized that his previous road led him to become a real monster, it didn’t mean that he magically started to value the lives of others as something precious. Nope, Rob was just at the beginning and only recent realization of wrongdoings stopped him from turning the whole place into rubble. That, and a real risk of getting hammered and evaporated by plasma missiles.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Still, the more time had passed, the more Robert was thinking about trying to reset everything to avoid getting inside the prison before the time loop was over. The rejection of Aether to transfer him to another realm wasn’t the best indicator that his time leash was torn, as his status as a prisoner might be the reason. He couldn’t know for sure, which left him only to wait patiently while swaying from the escape to the decision to stay in the cell. At some point, he even searched for any signs to help with this choice. The clues could help him to absolve himself of responsibility, putting it into an unknown and more importantly uncontrollable event. However, the prison cell was the same as always… until it wasn’t.
Everything started with a loud alarm. Resounding through his cell with intensity, enough to pull Robert from his hyper-focus state, it was accompanied by the orange light signals. Jumping from his bed, Rob tried to catch any more signs of what was happening, but apart from the sound of wailing from the dying creature that was echoing from the hidden speakers, there was nothing else. No trembles, no explosions, no gun fire. Robert even spent a dozen seconds observing the ceiling, having too much experience of dropping it down on his head. Fortunately, or maybe not, it kept itself in the same spot as ever.
Is it a breakout?... Okay, Rob, you wanted a hint from the universe about what to do – here you go. Let’s go for a reset… And no, your desire to be a hero doesn’t mean that you can immediately become one. As always, baby steps…. I’ll start with avoid killing… if not needed. Damn, it even sounds stupid. Like an alcoholic, who declares that from now on he will stop drinking rum to fight his bad habit while forgetting about the need for restrictions on other drinks… Crap, Rob, focus!
Hastily coming to the force shield, Robert once again made a punch, testing if anything had changed. However, the brightness and flickering were the same, already deeply engraved in his memory after tens of thousands of strikes. The invisible wall stopped his fist as always, keeping its integrity. Unfortunately for it, Rob had never tried to use his full strength until now. Therefore, approaching the spot where the hidden box was located, Robert pressed his palm against the shield. The other one was already clenched in a fist and covered in obsidian steel with a destructive layer on top.
Yep, no going back.
Nodding to himself, Rob pushed the rest of his black matter out from the palm, forming a thin plate with a hole in the center. It looked just like a frame for the painting with a single difference – the places of contact with the wall were already melting, uncovering a similar layer of protection as his main exit. The central part of the wall fell on the floor, opening a view of a force shield. In the next moment, Robert made a hit, putting all his power into it. The strike wasn’t the best punch he could do, but his idea was to overcharge the shield with the amount of damage it had to fight off. The protective layer was already stressed from the multiple tiny disintegrative explosions, but the hit was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Disappearing with pop, it almost led to a sudden fall of Rob. But he anticipated the outcome, perfectly remembering how with less effort he ruined the shield inside the laboratory. So, stomping forward and literally crushing the wall, he clapped with both his palms. A second later, half of his obsidian steel flowed to the other hand, forming a short cleaver. Its brother was already there, cutting through the highly technological wall that supported the force shield. It took him just several seconds to destroy the machine. In the final moment, the latter even tried to turn on as if using an emergency energy line, but Robert was faster.
Pausing, he quickly ran through his options before decisively going upward. Bulldozing his way through the walls in an attempt to avoid setting defensive measures, Rob reached the next level, dropping from the wall right on the closed huge hatch that separated the floors. It immediately moved to the sides if opening the way to the lift. However, a single glance was enough to understand that there was none, and it was a pitiful attempt to use gravity to kill him. Or maybe to lead into a trap, but he had no wish to check. So, Robert did quite the opposite, hastily finding an emergency ladder and using the pathway for it to climb upward by making holes with his fingers in the surface and decreasing his weight to an absolute minimum.
Breaking through the metal and force shields that tried to prevent his escape, Rob reached the final level in just a mere minute. The reason was simple – his cell appeared near the top of the building… or the underground facility. He vaguely remembered that he was ascending in his mobile prison cell but wasn’t sure. That’s why he decided to go up, as no matter what the construction, he would find a way out. The mere fall couldn’t stop him. However, it appeared that there was something that could.
Turning into the unrecognizable pieces of trash on the last level with engineering systems, Robert finally reached the roof, pushing himself through the technological hatch. Pulling him out, he paused looking at a clear blue sky with rare clouds. The odd yellow light still shined from different spots, making the picture almost a postcard-like… only if he didn’t turn his head to face two helicopters that were flying around the tall building, he found himself at. Keeping a safe distance of around a hundred meters (around 330 ft.), they hovered in the air, locking missiles and main machine guns at Robert’s frozen figure. Still, they weren’t the reason for such a reaction or the obstacle that managed to stop him. Nope, it was the view from the roof that led to this effect.
The prison was located on a small island in the middle of the large lake connected by a single long but narrow bridge that looked like a thin thread. The shore was at least several kilometers away from his current spot, turning city blocks with dozens of buildings each in a distant picture. However, his current place of residence was tall enough to compensate for it, opening a view of the megapolis that stretched up to the horizon. The problem wasn’t in the absence of any covers against potential plasma missile barrage or armored ships that were patrolling the lake. No, the problem was an enormous red monster that was ruining the city as it was its playground.
Towering above everything, maybe except for only a business center with multiple skyscrapers, the creature was turning into rubble a few stories of buildings just by stepping on them. And it had enough limbs to do it, having the appearance of a snake with a dozen thick legs. The dragon-like head on the long neck was stretched forward as if its owner was looking for something. The dark red scales with protruding bone spine on the back, tiny in comparison to the rest of the body leather wings with another pair of hands inside, the short tail with spikes on the tip – everything made it look like a mutated version of an Asian dragon.
Yep, indeed a dragon…
Seeing how the creature paused for a few seconds before exhaling a wall of flame that flooded the streets, burning everything in front of him, Rob’s assumption was basically confirmed. The distance prevented him from hearing any screams, but Robert was sure that there was a lot, as the flame seemed to have an ability to infiltrate everywhere, setting ablaze even the insides of the buildings and turning them into real hell for those who were caught in.
Obviously, there was already a group of heroes together with the military, trying to stop the rampaging villain… as it couldn’t be anyone else, apart from the wielder of the superpowers. Moreover, there was only one that was capable of transforming into such an enormous and more importantly hellish creature – Demonologist. Considering, that there were no traces of him, while the monster flattened and burned his city, the answer was clear – one of the most powerful superheroes went insane.
The fact was on the surface, so it was no surprise when both helos abandoned Robert, joining the fight with the walking disaster instead of apprehending an escaped prisoner. Unfortunately, it appeared to be a futile effort as, despite the deep holes that plasma missiles were leaving on the gigantic creature, its sheer size and constant regeneration were enough to nullify any threat even from such a deadly weapon. That didn’t stop anyone, and even more agents, police officers, and supers were throwing themselves to stop the monster, only to turn into ash in the process. In just a minute half of the city was ruined into oblivion, leading to the natural outcome – the drop of the tiny dots from above.
The powerful blast evaporated a part of the giant only to be repeated an instant later. Enveloped in flames, it created a bright flash that almost blinded Robert and he had to regenerate his eyes to keep a clear sight on the terrifying scene. And then the shockwave started to spread, smashing the buildings as if they were nothing. Despite the insane speed, Rob’s distance granted him enough time to observe this invisible tsunami that was wiping the city from existence, while the mushroom-like cloud started to rise. This scary but somehow magnificent destructive picture produced only one thought before the underground facility was destroyed, setting the realm to another reset.
Rob, you wanted to be a hero, so now you have a perfect goal to prove your resolve by stopping this event from happening. Are you happy now, jinx?