Chapter 18: Chapter Eighteen

"S.O.S is out." Tony muttered, tapping on the laptop on his lap. His eyes scanned the data streams provided by the deployed battalions, sorted by JARVIS. 

"Then I'll get going." Jasmine's new suit glimmered as she stood, the simple dark silver complemented with dimly glowing orange lights and heavy black cloth around her waist, shoulders and neck- mediums for her enchantments. Her helm, resembling a modernized medieval knight's helmet, had a knotted ribbon extending slightly from the back. The left arm was equipped with extra armor and heat vents over her prosthetic.

Tony's eyes flickered over to her worriedly before shaking his head and setting his expression. "Be careful." He wouldn't be directly joining the combat this time, leaving Natasha and Jasmine to handle it while he deployed his legions of suits, operating them from a distance with JARVIS. 

Jasmine nodded, shimmering and disappearing as her invisibility enchantments took hold, a brush of wind ruffling Tony's clothes as he turned back to his screen, tapping the side of his head as his neural interface fully connected, holographic screens projecting infront of him. "Project legionnaire is a go..." 

["All 64 ME-I Autonomous suits successfully linked. Sensory streams successfully routed. Link with JAVIA established. Routing controls... Latency acceptable."] 

"For now, anyway." He muttered, flicking over the combined sensory streams of the small legion. 7 'ping' was nowhere quick enough, in his opinion. Wireless transfer or not. 

Jasmine's voice started coming in through Tony's earpiece. ["In the airspace above the isle. Merks haven't noticed me yet. Uploading scan of surface structures. Where are you at Nat?"] 

["Heading back to the elevators located in the first floor of the basement. You can get to it from the warehouse closest to the docks. Careful on the way in, all the guards are extremely alert. Tony, how soon will the legion arrive to suppress them?"]

He quickly glanced at a floating screen, hands still flying across the keyboard and commands flying through the neural interface. "Four minutes. The other half of the legion is starting to breach the underwater dock." His eyes flicked over to a screen showing four suits quickly slicing through the solid steel/titanium of the submerged gate, the dark waters lit and distorted by the bright , burning sparks of the plasma blades.

["I still haven't found any schematics for the place. No idea what you'll find on entry, but considering the Croc seems to have invaded from below expect to deal with angry lizardmen."]

"Got it." He flicked the underwater screens back to focus as the suits, piloted by battle A.I programs, took distance from the gate as water pressure finally ripped the hole open, before quickly swimming through and spraying the hole with an organic, waterproof/sealing web mixture. His eyes briefly flickered away as they pulled out their plasma swords to work on the other side of the airlock. 

The surface scan of the island was not too impressive, a relatively standard warehouse and manufacturing site for pharmaceuticals and machines. It was already known the labs were located underground for 'increased security' and 'lesser risk of contaminants'. Notably there was only one building that seemed to be dorms above ground, and it was for the guards and normal workers as far as Tony could tell. 'So the researchers are underground as well.' He hoped it wasn't like the Ten Rings bases he recently uprooted in China. 'If the whole thing is rigged to explode and bury whatever is underneath, we'll have to get the researchers out fast.' 

His left hand twitched in nervousness. 'That's why you're sitting on the backlines commanding a legion of suits Tony- and not where Jaz is risking her life on the front.' His lips twitched in frustration. As much as he'd rather have Jasmine on the backline commanding, there was too many logical arguments otherwise. The prime annoying one being that Jasmine was far, far better at personal combat than he was, despite his experience dwarfing hers. Combined with her enhanced physicality, versatility of her magic, and ridiculously accelerated perception... 

A sigh escaped him along with a wry smile. 'I've prepared her as best I could. She's a young adult now, Tony. She can handle herself. But bloody hell is it bittersweet to be out performed like this...' He shook his head and focused back on the screens, the submerged suits breaking through the airlock and immediately coming under fire from mercenaries, or 'merks' as Jasmine's been referring to them as.

Scans from their sensors immediately started to get filtered by JARVIS and uploaded to the battle map alongside Jasmine and Natasha's scans as both women quickly tore further into the base. 

The air battalion arrived, Tony shifting focus as he oversaw both groups of suits start to subdue the guards and merks, while keeping an eye on the public and government response to the SOS.

'Let's find these researchers and get them out first. Then we can start ripping Osborn's image a new one.' 

 

>>> Researcher Quarters of Osborn Labs

Gwen's pointed ears flicked in discomfort as she stared at the woman huddling in the corner, pointing a stolen, unbroken beaker at her. "Caan you sstop thaat?" Gwen asked politely, her tongue feeling kind of weird in her mouth.

Alot of things felt weird, now that she thought about it. But she felt if she did think about it she might have a panic attack, and right now was most definitely not the time for a panic attack. 'I should definitely get clothes first.' 

Now if only the woman would stop screaming.

The woman hiccuped, her scream blissfully interrupted. Gwen nodded in thanks, "Do you have any sspare ssweat pantss I can borrow? My normal clothess ripped..." Gwen gestured to her lacking atire. Her panties somehow survived, though were horribly stretched over her hips and clearly tearing. Her bra was missing entirely, and the remains of her pants were just the bottom ankle parts, awkwardly hanging on her feet. She was pretty much naked, though she couldn't bring herself to care about being seen for some reason. More importantly, Gwen was happy at getting her tongue under more control, though she couldn't quite stop the hissing.

"W-what?" The woman's eyes blankly looked at Gwen, struggling to keep pace. She was the tallest and largest woman Gwen knew among the researchers, hence why she broke the door and entered her room. Though in Gwen's defense, she thought the woman would be among the currently working.

"S-second drawer from the top...?" The giant woman replied, causing Gwen to perk up and step over and through the splinters now covering the floor, "Thankss!" She chirped, "Wouldn't want to be naked when I esscape. That'd be embarrassing."

"I... see?" The giant caucasian woman slowly lowered the beaker, fascination slowly replacing fear as she watched the emerald lizard woman rifle through her clothes. "You... got the serum to work? At least partially?" She half asked, examining the... female that just broke in to her room by shearing apart the door. Powerful muscles shifted under gleaming emerald scales. A seemingly fluffy golden mane of feather-lige kair ran from the top of her head to halfway down her back. Lowering further, a thin but long tail, spaced with white stripes swayed above the ground, absently curling and flicking with a soft *crack*. The lizard woman's feet were digitigrade, five thick toes ending in gleaming white claws rested on the ground, the fifth inner toe offset somewhat like a thumb. Where the woman's heel would have corresponded to was a thicker 'pad' of scales. 'Maybe she can rest her weight on it for support?' The giantess wondered.

"I guesss?" Gwen answered, pulling out a pair of large sweatpants. "I was more expecting it to kill me." She tilted her head to the side and eyed her feet, clenching her toes into a sort of half-fist. 'Good, I won't rip my new pants that way!' She grinned.

"I see..." The woman shook her head and returned to observing the... lizardess? "You may want to take your... Panties off first..." She awkwardly pointed out. The formerly white garment was stained black, brown, yellow and red from rotting blood and leaking internals. Bits of remaining flesh and meat caused bumps in the super stretched materials. 

"Oh." Gwen placed the sweat pants to the side, then tried slipping a finger under the fabric. A short tear later and she decided to just rip the rest off and throw the offending garment in the trash, absently flicking off the pieces of her skin and flesh that tried sticking to her scales.

Interestingly, to the giantess, the lizardess' tail did not seem to start at the end of the human tail bone; instead the lizardess' tail started a few inches above her hips, in her lower back. The woman wondered if her spine split, or if another completely new biological feature  was responsible. 

The lizard woman's head was another oddity. Her neck was incredibly thick, slightly forward set. Her head itself was closer to a lizard's- like a komod dragon's- but with far more flexible muscles adding expressions, eyebrows, quasi-lips and cheeks. On said 'cheeks' was a spattering of small, brightly colored blue, pink and red scales. Contrasting the shimmering green over the rest of the female's body. 

And then there were the ears. If they weren't scaled the woman would say they looked almost like the popular depiction of 'elf' ears, just spiked and sticking out on either side of the golden man like back-swept horns. The scales on the tips were a bright red, attracting attention as they flicked about and rotated like a german shepherd's. 'Like Lucy's.' A pang went through her heart. Hopefully her puppy was okay. 'If she isn't...' She slapped her cheeks and stared at her... coworker? Technically?

'She seems more like a naturally evolved alien species than a cross between a lizard and a human...' The giantess shook her head, looking at the woman try to  get on the sweats with her oddly shaped legs. Taking a deep breath she stood up and carefully walked over the splinters, "Here, let me help you with that."

 

>>> Deeper in the labs 

Wet glass crunched under the Croc's heavy foot as he curiously looked around. Shattered pods, dripping with gel and blood, sat empty in the walls, a few of his soldiers still munching on limbs and torsos of both the guards and children pulled out of the pods. 

This was the third room on this level, fifth he examined. The other two were sterile operation rooms- the scent of bleach in them hurting his nose. Equipment for blood transfusions, skin grafting, and organ replacements lay about in each. The pods weren't for the development of clones, though he could repurpose them for that later.

No, these were simple monitoring pods used to keep their living experiments somewhat stable. As far as the Croc could tell anyway. Not that it mattered what the slave species were truly doing. He strode over to a computer set in the middle of the room, the keys and monitor partially soaked in blood. He snarled seeing the blank, unresponsive screen- and crushed the fragile glass with a swipe of his hand. 

Another computer wiped. The slave species was trying to keep knowledge from him. Fools. How dare they hold what was rightfully his. ThEY dOn'T KnOw they'Re PlAce... 

He'd teach them. They would grovel as food and slaves should. They're every effort and waking moment only existing to serve him. 

As they should.

A twitch. He sniffed. The sound of more gunfire echoed from the distance where his army found more prey. Good. He craved some blood.

Beneath the Croc's feet a small paper lay in the blood pool, completely soaked. A top corner peeked out with some of the words still readable through the red blood.

[Log: Experiment no.36 of Mutant Power Transf-]

 

You are reading story Warped Causality at novel35.com

>>> A bit higher in the labs 

Jasmine dug her armored hand into the steel of the elevator door, flexing and pulling it to the side with a screech. The invisible form of her aunt slid past her and into the open shaft, easily walking onto the walls. 

"Bogies incoming." Her aunt softly called.

Jasmine stepped onto the elevator walls herself, narrowing her eyes at the green bodies silently clawing their way up far from below. "So these are the soldiers the Croc was producing?" 

She felt her aunt nod from beside her, "Stronger than the starving ones I found in the tunnels most likely. Maybe smarter too."

"They feel wrong." Jasmine frowned in disgust at the slimy... hollowness she felt crawling up from beneath. She gave the lizards a good look, figuratively stretching her empathic senses. "They feel hollow, like robots with a wisp of their creator's intents." She shook her head, "I'd compare them to Dad's suits when automated, but whatever made them and is piloting them is disgustingly malicious, hungry and self centered. Whatever minds they have are only hungry."

"So they're meat puppets?" A bit of worry and disgust wafted from Nat's mind.

"At minimum." Jaz tried to find a more apt comparison. "They're most definitely not former humans, though they've definitely been eating them." Her nose wrinkled at the pain and despair sticking to the creatures' jaws. "Alive." She iterated. Getting closer to them was going to be disgusting.

All the while Nat and Jaz continued to descend, Jasmine scanning often to try and map more of the underground complex. There were large spaces between the floors containing maintenance holes for wires and vents, and the floors went deep. Despair tingled at the edges of Jaz's senses, getting stronger as they descended.

Nat's eyes flicked to her niece descending somewhat behind her. The girl's presence now feeling deathly cold, like a calm rage. "Try to keep your emotions in check. I'm assuming it's bad?" 

Jaz gave a curt nod. "Most is from even further below than where the researchers and main labs are- according to the guard anyway. But the despair of those two floors are bad enough on their own." She eyed the closed elevator door they approached. If the information Nat got was to be believed, it should be the entrance to the laboratories of the contained researchers- the living quarters even further away from the elevator to lower the chances of anyone escaping. A mess hall and community bathroom was there as well, supposedly. 

The thick, bitter tang of regret, hopelessness, exhaustion, and loss brushed against Jasmine's mind as they stopped at the elevator doors. The lizards crawling up the elevator shaft had made some headway, but still were hundreds of feet below them. She took a long look past the lizards, estimating the distance. "There is no way Osborn could have built this after or during buying and constructing the island."

Natasha nodded, "It was definitely already here. Likely an underwater laboratory that Osborn built an island on top and expanded. Likely 'owned' by whoever had been providing him with so many resources." 

Jasmine slammed a hand into the steel door and pulled with her other three limbs on the wall- ignoring the noise that riled up the lizards beneath. She gave a brief cursory look to the insides before looking back down at the lizards. "Dad, how long will it take for the legions to get to our location?" 

"[Quite a bit. The underwater battalion is in a fight with the lizards after the guards were incapacitated. If I can end the fight quickly I can get to you under twenty minutes- but with the amount of lizards crawling in the elevator...]" Clicking came from her earpiece, the tapping of keys she presumed. "[The battalions arriving from above would be faster, but I have to subdue the merks and workers, and see if I can get into whatever isolated networks Osborn has here...]"

Jasmine nodded, "Nat, can you handle the merks and gather the researchers?" She eyed the lizards beneath, the roiling pain and agony brushing against her mind. "I'll clear the lizards."

Natasha glanced at the large swarm crawling up towards them, attracted by the sound at least, and nodded, slipping into the floor. Without hesitation Jasmine manifested a web in the entryway- to hopefully stop or slow any lizards that may get past her. Of course it will make Nat's retreat a bit slower, but with how many enemies were swarming below... 

Deep inhale, exhale. 

Jasmine's invisibility shut off, the cloth sections of her armor fluttered as she decended, walking along the side of the wall until the lizards were only a few dozen feet away. This armor version wasn't as transportable, but far more robust with thicker and more efficient circuitry as a result. She held up her left hand, pointing it down towards the scrambling lizards- empty eyes locked onto her, jaws opening and closing as if to chew on bones. Her eyes coldly stared down at the beasts.

"Burn."

*FWOOOOMMMMMM* 

Bright orange light lit the tunnel, drowning out whatever noise the lizards could make. The air shimmered and crackled, the fire dying out twelve seconds afterward. She swept her heated left hand to the side, raw magic cooling the arm in an instant as she kept her gaze downward. Embers drifted in the air of the elevator shaft, molten concrete and warped, drooping metal hissing and groaning as they sagged and fell through the shaft. 

The lizards closest were turned to ash- the enhanced flames ripping them apart, scales and all. Anything over forty feet away was charred and blackened, their corpses falling into the barely living comrades beneath like dominoes. Scratching and hissing filled the shaft once again and Jasmine narrowed her eyes.

With a flex of will, large bio-organic web spears manifested at her sides- glowing and pulsing with sparking flames and liquid webbing. Not a moment later the spears rocketed down the shaft into the mass of bodies, the limited air in the vertical tunnel causing an updraft. With several heavy thuds the spears impacted, crunching bones and shearing flesh as they impaled the piled- the liquid fire web exploding outwards, seeping through gaps between limbs and bodies, the air heating up even further as cubic meters of space were filled- then slowly disintegrated as strands of burning silk became embers. 

Jasmine manifested webs midair, anchoring them through the melting sides of the shaft as she hopped from line to line, proceeding downwards past the last floor they heard about- a cold storage floor according to the guard. A brief feel for emotions found nothing coming from the floor, so she turned her attention further downwards, where the elevator shaft continued despite a lack of openings. "Dad, how far am I above your submerged infiltration?" 

"[At least several hundred feet. The submarine entrance was rather low, nearly at the bottom of the photic zone. That's excluding the lateral distance, which is near a kilometer in a straight line.]" 

She frowned, willing the ember webs to fall apart and down as she got close, the giant burning plug suddenly collapsing as it split into lumps and fell. She quickly checked her environment sensors, noting the lacking oxygen and dismissing it before heading deeper; hopping along her webs and avoiding trying to stick to the melting walls. "Yet somehow the density of the lizards is still high where I am. Maybe the elevator is funneling them... How many are you dealing with?" 

"[Too many. I've got the suits set up in a chokepoint, but the horde is not slowing. Outside of the guards I have subdued behind them, I'm pretty sure everyone else is dead. That, or trapped behind heavy barricades. It seems that these fuckers at least can't rend steel with their claws.]"

"How did the Croc produce this many?" She muttered, sending another flurry of spears into the next surge below, a few burning web darts popping into existence and bolting to those she missed. She carefully observed a lizard as it burned- it's scales unnaturally flaking off as its flesh seemed to melt like wax before bursting into sparks, fed to the fire. "Have you noticed how they react to being set on fire?"

"[No. The only option I have for ignition is the plasma blades- and those aren't made for melee combat despite how cool they look.]" Tony snarked, "[What did you find?]" 

She quickly uploaded a recording, isolating a lizard and quickly burning it while she left another ember web plug further down.

"[... Fuck. That... may explain the quantity.]"

"[What is it?]" Nat asked.

"[Bullshit that's what. Have you read about the 'faceless' incident from twenty years ago? An incursion from the sewers of hundreds to thousands of pale, faceless humanoids with no genitals and only mouths, happened. Most of them were deformed, and they were a bit weaker than an adult human, but they swarmed the upper sewers. The military managed to respond relatively quickly due to the sensors scattered in the sewers, but hundreds still managed to get on the streets. No one knew what caused it, but a few of their abilities and weaknesses- such as being weak to fire- are known. And these-]" He likely jabbed at the screen, "[Burn nearly the exact same way if the reports are true.]" A groan came from him, "[And they had the ability to duplicate as long long as they could eat. Give me a second to pull up the reports, I think somebody made a wikipage about this...]" 

Jasmine blinked, "How do you know that?" 

"[3am web surfing. Watched a video on the history of the New York City Sewers. Interesting stuff. Ah, got it. 'Faceless incident'. Wait, there were three of them? Not this one, that's a cult thing... that's another cult. Here we are, horrific humanoids from the sewers. The 3rd faceless incident. Let's see if I can find anything useful...]"

Another array of spears slammed into another mass of lizards. 

"[Capable of duplicating as long as they can eat and voraciously hungry. A single one escaped the city and managed to devour a nearby town, creating over a hundred duplicates or children of itself over the course of six hours as it ate both people and the local wildlife. It took four years to hunt down every single faceless. They demonstrated some sort of hive mind intelligence, but their means of communicating was unknown. Huh, "magnets caused the struck area to slacken or go into a seizure, sometimes killing the entity". Are they made of mana?]"

"...Partially? Maybe." Jasmine narrowed her eyes and focused her senses on a single lizard she quickly pinned to the melting wall with normal solid spears. With a force of will she slammed some of her raw mana into the creature, a snarl forming on her lips as she felt the twisted malevolence and hollow hunger gaping from the beast. Her mana laced through it, driving out the sticky energy as it failed to claw its way into her own. The beast's front completely disintegrated at the impact of her mana, pink fluid dripping from the rest of its body as it unraveled, spatterings of meat and blood dripping down. A roiling wave of rage and hate swept up the elevator shaft and Jasmine looked down in disdain. "They're definitely partial mana constructs, and unraveling one definitely made the caster angry."

"[Do you need backup?]" Natasha asked, and Jaz shook her head. 

"Not yet. Whatever the caster is, it's definitely not human, and not here. I think it may be one of those eldritch beings Maeve warned me about. Dad, can you give her a call?"

"Already am."