Apocalypse Fighter

Chapter 43: Bio-Energy

    Richard slowly opened his eyes, but his vision was blurry. So, at first, he couldn’t make out what he was seeing. To compensate, though, his other senses kicked into high gear. He could feel Dr. L holding him up. His mouth was open, and he was being force fed an unidentifiable liquid. He could hear Lyly and Wayne in the background. He closed his mouth, and the liquid began to pour down his chin.

Almost immediately, the doctor let him go. “We can’t go wasting the serum,” he said. “No, no, we can’t have that…”

Richard’s vision slowly returned, and the first thing that he saw was a white mutant cat. He gave the animal a cold look, and at first, his glare was returned, but then the cat began to whimper. It was afraid of Richard.

       Richard could feel his strength returning. A minute passed and he was able to stand. He looked at Dr. L, smiled, and said, “You were right. Life does require daring. Thank you for sharing The Eternal Bug with me. I feel more powerful than ever.

       Dr. L bowed graciously, but as he stood up, Richard grabbed his throat and applied pressure. The doctor screamed like a duck as his oxygen was cut off. He tried to pry Richard’s fingers off his neck, but it was pointless. The other man was too strong. “Ahem,” he coughed. “You've recovered! The Eternal Bug transformed your body? Why are you hurting me? My experiment was a success, and now humans can live forever! You’ll live forever!”

       Now that he had completed his life’s mission, Dr. L was not ready to die. He turned to his cat and said, “Kill him. Kill this man. And do it quickly!”

       The cat snarled as it charged forward. Its claws glistened under the white light, and he had his eyes set on Richard's throat.

      The cat lunged and Richard laughed as he put his arm between the cat and his face. The beast appeared to bite down on his arm and as he was thrashed about, blood went everywhere.

       Lily was close to Richard and she had to cover her eyes. “Oh, Richard!” she cried. “…your poor arm!”

       The cat was being held by Richard’s left hand, and he was punching it in the head repeatedly with his right first – and when Lilly looked again, she saw that the blood hadn’t been from him at all. It all belonged to the cat, and since she’d last looked, he’d nearly destroyed its face. It was missing teeth, and its left eye was nothing but a sunken hole. “Please don’t kill it,” she cried. “It’s not his fault. He is doing this at Dr. L’s command!”

       Richard immediately stopped pounding on the cat. He shrugged and let it go. Once it was free, it took off and disappeared into the night.

       Richard’s attention returned to Dr. L, and the man squealed. The mutant cat had been his last resort. “Wh-What are you g-g-going to d-do?” he stammered.

       Richard thought about it for a few minutes, then he got a pair of handcuffs from the desk, and cuffed him to a pipe. “I’ll deal with you later,” he said. “Now keep your mouth shut, or you’ll wish you had.”

       Now that the doctor had been dealt with, Lily came forward. She looked at Richard’s skin and she was amazed by how quickly he was healing. Outside of movies like Deadpool and Wolverine, she had never seen anything like this. “How do you feel?” she asked.

       “I feel different,” he replied.

       Lily: “How so?”

       Richard: “My skin feels itchy. It’s uncomfortable, but I’m quite sure that’s just my body healing…”

       Lily turned to get her medicine, and when she turned back to Richard, she was, once again, shocked. Richard's black eyes were shining. They had a strange luster to them that reminded her of stars shining on the water, or of a colored gem. Richard’s pupils were different too, and she felt attracted to them.

       “Oh my god,” she gushed. “Janet was right. The activation potions do have a side effect that makes people more beautiful. Richard, your eyes are so beautiful. I want to touch them.”

       Without giving it a second thought, Lily reached out her hands to touch his eyeballs. His shiny eyes were the most magical, beautiful eyes that Lily had ever seen.

       Richard was startled by her response to his eyes, and he thought – Is The Eternal Bug really so amazing that, not only did it fully repair my body, but it also granted me special powers? He closed his eyes to avoid having them poked out, and when he opened them, he saw that Lily had a pale-yellow halo. It was very weird. Then, when she touched him, he felt the yellow halo come alive, and it flew at him.

       The halo is Lily’s bio-energy! – thought Richard. He couldn't believe it. In his last life, he had heard about bio-energy, and he had seen bio-energy cores in the bodies of mutant creatures, but this was different.

The survivors with mutant skills had been called element controllers. They were high-level players, and they were the only ones that used bio-energy, other than pro-gods, who needed a lot of bio-energy cores to maintain their fighting abilities.

       Richard searched all his memory but couldn't remember anything about bio-energy appearing in a magical form. Nor could he think of a time that someone had seen it with their eyes.

Richard looked around. Sure enough, Wayne also had a halo, but unlike Lily, his halo was blue. He turned to Dr. L, whose bio-energy turned out to be red. What the hell is going on here? – he wondered. He didn't understand, so all that he could do was shake his head. He tried to think about everything that the doctor had told him about The Eternal Bug.

       I wonder what would happen to Dr. L’s halo, his bio-energy, if that is what it is if I killed him – thought Richard. And when the doctor saw the look in his eyes, he was afraid.