Chapter 7 - Out Of The Pan And Into The Fire

  You're mine now, mine to do with whatever I want. She’ll never take you from me! Oh, that is a great idea. She can suffer that way as well and she’ll know every minute of it! You give me so many ideas, Alex; you really are my better half! - Wolf Queen to The Hound upon his capture.

  “He’s also already married, I don’t think Wolf Queen will appreciate…”

  As soon as he said it, my mind spun into a complete mess of rage, frustration and hate. As soon as the rush of emotions came, my implanted organs began dumping combat stimulants into my bloodstream. I felt the scratching as my body also began to shift again, the bionanites breaking down certain areas of my skeleton and musculature and rebuilding a different anatomy.

  They began pulling the extra mass to do their work from the dimensional shunt organ embedded in my upper torso. It had the mass accumulated and repurposed to allow for my shift and accelerated healing factor.

  I realised I was growling and I was going into a fight or flight response due to my rising anger, I couldn’t lose my head yet, nor could I afford the alternative explanation of going into a panic attack.

  I spat out in a deep gravely tone from my already changed vocal cords.

  “Anand, get me a relaxant, now.. please.”

  Of course, in front of you now

  ——

  New purchase

  Class I - C A L M - 30 points

  ——

  A grey injector appeared in front of me out of mid air before it could fall more than a few millimetres through the air, and due to my heightened state, I reached out and grabbed the injector and sank it into the side of my neck.

  I felt the Calm pass through my bloodstream, and it began counteracting the stress response I was having before it got to a full pitch. The shift that had started began to slow before beginning to reverse, reverting me to my more humanoid form.

  Looking up, I saw all of the group in front of me on edge and pointing their rifles at me with fingers on the triggers.

  I quickly took a deep breath and spoke up.

  “My apologies for that.”

  Taking another deep breath as the last of the combat stimulants began to dissipate, I spat her name out and explained.

  “Seraphina or Wolf Queen, as you will know her, we knew each other from our time in the military prior to us initialising. She had asked me to date her, and I declined having wanted to focus on going further in my career and after she inintialised as a Vanguard, she began claiming in front of others that she was my wife. I kept denying it when asked.”

  I paused to make sure I was staying in control of myself.

  “After I initialised and there was a lull in the threat, I under the protection of what remained of my squad, began undergoing surgeries to implant multiple new organs during which time I’d be vulnerable. She decided to come and put in a modification of her own. She ambushed the squad, killed them all and then, once I was recovering from the anaesthetic, implanted her little control circuit into my neck. From then on, she had control of my body and my consciousness was suppressed to the point I only got flashes when major things happened to my body.”

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  They looked sceptically at each other, never quite letting me out of their vision, but they dropped their rifles to a low ready rather than having them pointed at me at least. I elected to continue with the current task, leaving here.

  “Anyway, again my apologies for the outburst. Shall we get out of here and do you have the ability to transport the dead home?”

  “No, sir we have no ability to properly transport the bodies without risking them being gotten too by the antithesis protocol is to burn or otherwise dispose of them.”

  The lieutenant answered.

  “Very well, Anand delayed fuse fleshmelters, however many are needed and a 2-minute timer, please”

  I requested.

  Of course Alexander

  ——

  New purchase

  Mark I fleshmelter - timer modified x3 - 9 points

  ——

  A box appeared on the floor in front of me. I slowly moved into a crouch and opened it, inside being three soda can-like grenades with a square cap on the top. I grabbed all three, stood up then tossed them further into the room, where they would release their short-lived nanite payload after the timer was up.

  “Shall we let ourselves out of the facility then?”

  I asked as I gestured behind them up the corridor as I began towards them. They were still jumpy as I saw them tense at me approaching other than Sticky, whose look I couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t fear but more disappointment, as well as a hint of relief somehow I elected not to ask, as everyone responded to threats and stress differently.

  Passing by the group to take the lead, I started up the corridor.

  After a while of walking, we got to the blast door they had informed me about. They were all keeping a distance, but in a spread that I could tell was some part of a modified doctrinal split.

  Understandably, they still saw me as a threat, but that ingratiated me with them further, as that meant that they were competent.

  I finally thought to maybe check my point total since I was going to be walking into combat in a minute.

  “Macha, can you give me a current point count?”

  I suppose I can; you were under Wolf Queen’s control for 3 years before your internment. It has since been 8850 days since you were put into cryogenic stasis, so you have gained 88,500 points from daily allotment. During the period of control, you have destroyed 18 hives, gaining……

  I completely lost my sense of reality after Macha said the first part of the report. This couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be real, there was no way!

  8850 days, that was 24 years and some change. 24 years in cryo stasis and before that 3 years under that bitch’s control like a mindless dog.

  I staggered and then my legs gave out from under me. I just couldn’t believe how had so much time had passed. My world was completely shattered; everything I knew had to be gone. I was a man out of time.

  The cryogenic sarcophagus I was interred in had malfunctioned and shut down the life support first, then the rest of the systems, and I had been able to break my way out after a time of thawing out due to my internal modification allowing me to live through the experience of constantly flash freezing areas, then them thawing out.

  Seraphina would never have just left me here for all that time. I was too useful as a puppet. This was intended to be my tomb, and something in her plan had gone wrong since I was awake.

  After that thought, I began to come back to reality as my combat stimulants were pumping, the battle haze had also begun to descend, and due to the sharp snap of clarity it gave me, I heard Macha wrapping up her summary.

  …..All these points total up to 2,605,179 points and 6 tokens as of right now. We could..

  The scratching feeling spread across my face, and the clicking of my bone structure rearranging began again. I held the shift back from happening for the moment.

  I needed an outlet for the bundle of emotions I was now feeling, so I pulled out one of the dimensional shunt grenades from the pouch, primed it by clicking the button on the top and tossed it next to the blast door.

  A wump went off in front of us as a miniature black hole opened up in front of us, then collapsed in on itself, leaving a hole where the door was, as well as taking part of the floor with it. Then there was a whoosh as the air reentered the pocket of evacuated space.

  First came the sound of a lot of gunfire and I could already smell the antithesis pheromones wafting towards me, along with the smell of gunpowder.

  I turned to the lieutenant and simply said with my transformed vocal cords.

  “Get to your vehicles and prep for exfil. I’ll stem the tide.”

  Then I let go of my control over the shift and started to expand as I walked forward.