The digital map of the world glowed on the main monitor of my command center, a sprawling tapestry of geopolitical borders and hidden secrets.
However, my eyes were fixed on a single coordinate deep within the frozen wastes of Siberia.
Target Designation: Omsk 45.
Status: Active Russian Military Black Site.
Asset Contained: Subject 'Ben' / Soldier Boy.
In the original timeline, Butcher and his crew would eventually stumble their way to Russia, tearing through contacts and causing chaos to find the weapon that killed Soldier Boy, only to find Soldier Boy himself.
I closed my eyes and reached into the well of my power.
Cloning (Tier 2).
The familiar sensation of cellular division washed over me. The air shimmered and a single figure materialized in front of the desk.
He looked exactly like me. He cracked his neck, the sound loud in the quiet room.
Then, the clone nodded.
He focused on his own mass.
Size Alteration (Tier 3).
The clone began to shrink. He compressed rapidly, the air rushing in to fill the void where a six foot man had stood. In seconds, he was a speck on the carpet.
He looked up at me, a giant towering above him… and then he vanished.
Teleportation (Tier 1).
Snap.
[Clone's Perspective]
The world was a series of snapshots, a strobing slideshow of environments as I crossed the globe in heartbeat intervals.
Snap.
I appeared hovering ten feet above the rolling, black waves of the Atlantic. The salt spray hit me instantly. I was a tiny speck in the vastness of the ocean. Before gravity could take hold, I locked onto the next coordinate.
Snap.
A rocky cliff face, wind howling, rain lashing against the stone. I was there for a fraction of a second, just long enough to reorient.
Snap.
A rooftop overlooking the sleeping city. The air was colder here, carrying the scent of urban decay.
Snap.
Endless forest. Dark pine trees stretching out under a vast sky.
Snap.
The temperature plummeted. As I materialized in the snow.
The cold was a biting freeze that would have killed a normal human in minutes. But to my Tier 1 Super Defense, it was merely a crispness to the air.
I was 500 meters from the facility entrance. It was a concrete scar on the landscape, surrounded by high fences topped with razor wire and guard towers sweeping the snow with searchlights.
It looked abandoned, a relic of the Soviet era left to rot, but the thermal signatures I picked up with my Enhanced Senses (Tier 2) told a different story.
There were heat sources below ground. And the rhythmic thrum of heavy generators vibrating through the permafrost.
Super Speed (Tier 1).
The world froze. The snowflakes drifting down from the sky hung suspended in the air, crystalline sculptures of ice. The sweeping searchlight beam became a solid pillar of light.
I was a microscopic bullet tearing across the snow. I moved between the flakes, dodging them like obstacles.
I crossed the open ground in a fraction of a second, the friction of my passing melting a tiny trench in the ice that would refreeze instantly.
I reached the main ventilation intake at the base of the central bunker. The fan blades were spinning, a blur of metal chopping the air. To me, in my accelerated state, they were moving in slow motion.
Whoosh... whoosh... whoosh.
I passed through the fan blades with inches to spare, landing on the dusty metal of the duct floor.
I released the speed. The world snapped back to real time.
I navigated the ventilation system, a labyrinth of rusted steel and recycled air.
I reached a heavy grate looking down into a laboratory. I peered through the mesh.
It was an industrial dungeon. Concrete walls stained with decades of grime. Banks of outdated computer consoles flickering with green text.
In the center of the room was a containment chamber, a capsule of reinforced glass and lead.
And inside, strapped to a vertical table like a specimen, was Soldier Boy.
He was shirtless, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Tubes ran into his arms and neck, pumping the yellowish nerve agent into his system.
A team of four scientists in full hazmat suits moved around the chamber, checking readings. Two armed guards, also in hazmat gear, stood by the door.
I slipped through the grate and dropped to the floor, landing silently on top of an instrument trolley.
I jumped from the trolley to the floor, then ran up the side of the containment chamber. The glass was cold. I climbed to the top, finding the seam where the intake tubes entered the capsule.
There was a small gap in the rubber seal, barely wide enough for me.
I squeezed through.
The air inside the capsule was toxic. The concentration of Novichok was lethal enough to kill an elephant instantly.
My Regeneration (Tier 1) identified the toxin, isolated it and neutralized it before it could bond to my neurotransmitters. To me, it just smelled like spicy pepper.
I crawled down the tube, descending onto Soldier Boy's shoulder.
His skin radiated a palpable heat. Even sedated, his body was a furnace. I could feel the hum of the radiation beneath his skin, a low frequency vibration that rattled my teeth.
I walked across his collarbone and stood directly over his sternum. I could hear his heart. It thudded like a heavy piston.
Clanng.
Clanng.
I placed my hands flat against his skin.
Biokinesis (Tier 1).
My mind is flooded with biological data. I saw the map of his anatomy. It was a masterpiece of forced evolution. His cells were saturated with energy. But it was the radiation that interested me.
I found the source. It was the cells themselves. They were generating high energy particles, a constant nuclear decay that his body usually contained and regulated.
PS: Come on guys, we just need 47 more Power Stones for the bonus chapter. Let's push a little harder, haha.