Join the new world

"The teams are in position. Snakepit and Dodger are the leaders this time. They should be able to assess the situation correctly and deal with whatever the Hell broke loose in there."

"Very well. Are you aware of the scale of this problem? It might just seem like a minor situation, but it's regarded as a crisis by the higher ups. I'm counting on your team. Should you fail..."

"I won't."

Well, here he was. Called by the government to clean up some fucking mess they had caused in the first place. It was the same old story, and not even with a different outcome. When would they ever learn not to mess with any technology they got their hands on. But in this New World, being a step ahead in the game meant everything.

He didn't feel comfortable in his skin when he kicked in the door to what seemed like a factory from the outside. Everything was silent - not the usual silent from a quiet day, but the unnatural silence of a concrete tomb.

The two teams ahead were checking every side corridor and every room, but didn't find anything. It only became worse when some way in, it started to smell strongly of copper. Carnage was always a bad sign in connection with any given experiment. He had seen one too many of these situations. Maybe he should have resigned a long time ago.

"Boss, creep in this room!" The call made him snap back into his training, and cautiously approached the indicated door. "Looks pretty dead to me though. Should I make sure?"

"Yes."

It never was a question - putting another bullet into a creep was a necessary precaution. Many of them had retained their intelligence, even had enhanced abilities. Along with that, in more than 98% of the cases, came an incredible anger and bloodthirst. Better not risk being torn up by a creep.

There was almost nothing he hadn't already witnessed. Skin colors changing, psychic powers, animalistic features. There always was something off about them. The scientists had a penchant for making the creeps appear like some alien race. That, too, contributed to the anger boiling in so many of those not so voluntarily kept subjects.

This here ... was different.

It needed quite some time until he fully realized what he had stumbled upon there. Shaking his head several times, he began pacing up and down, to try and get a feeling of how big this creep was. Other than his sheer size, the creep looked like a human, if muscle-bound and gigantic enough to pass as something completely inhuman with no effort at all. By all the demons he had already seen...

"How big is this thing even?" Snakepit had entered the room, and now stared at the sight before him. "There's no way this was human at any point..."

"I'd say about four meters," Dodger mumbled, cocking his head to one side and looking troubled. "But, damn, he must weigh about half a ton or more. That's sick."

He simply nodded. There was no way that this guy would ever have had a normal life after being returned to society. A pity, really. As much as he despised what was done to the creeps, he also often saw that they had no way of returning to society. They were torn out of everything they had, and just had their humanity obliterated for the kicks of some sick bastards.

"Uh, he just twitched. Fuck..." Snakepit backed off, aiming his gun at the creep. Surely enough, the gigantic hands were starting to flex, fingers twitching. "Shit, did they succeed in this whole immortal soldier crap?"

"Everyone back off and keep their pants on, for fuck's sake."

The creep slowly opened his eyes, grunting and appearing to be quite disoriented. Little wonder - he had been beaten up, drugged with some kind of freaky drug, and shot repeatedly. Somehow, he really pitied this gigantic monster. He surely hadn't always been a monster. The scientists liked to claim they experimented on prisoners only. Prisoners - yeah right.

He signed the men to back off and lower their guns, which confused them to no end. But he had a certain idea what he was facing there. He believed to recognize some of the features... Damn, it had been such a long time.

"Hey, Ithu, can you hear me?"

"...where the fuck have you been?" It really was Ithu. None of the other guys from back home would have growled at him like that. And now he knew that he wasn't facing a creep there. "You have some nerve showing up here with those humans in tow..."

"What does he mean, Boss?"

Snakepit was confused, he could see that much, but he also couldn't back down now. Ithu was always a delicate case to handle, and if he failed to calm him down now, they would have another blood bath at hand. As much as he cared for an old friend, he also had to care for his team.

"Ithu, look, a lot of time has passed. I had to go somewhere to not go nuts completely." He approached his old friend, even if it felt awkward that Ithu was about as tall as him, even when Ithu was sitting and not standing. "Do you have any idea how long I have worked for this already?"

"I have an idea. And I pity you, really. No, seriously, this has to be fucked up all on its own."

Ithu was grinning. He knew that his friend wasn't mad at him. It was just this constant underlying menace which came naturally with Ithu's behavior and composure. After all, the way he had come here had changed him, as the experiments had.

"Come on, Ithu, we need to follow a procedure here. I promise, though, that I'll come visit you. And not with some fucking needles to stick into you."

"I knew I could rely on you. I'll play along. For now, that is."