The smell of raw meat and musk hung heavy in the air around the Gotham City Zoo's carnivore enclosures. I scaled the chain-link fence around the tiger habitat with an effortless grace that felt alien to my human brain, but natural to the T-Virus coursing through me. The hunger was a physical weight in my gut, a screaming void that demanded high-grade protein, the sharp, potent DNA needed to finally shed this starving "Prototype" form.
[Biomass Required: High-Predator DNA Recommended.]
"I know, I know," I muttered, dropping silently onto the turf of the empty tiger den. The place was silent. Too silent. The animals, I noticed, were long gone, likely moved due to the vague "security maintenance" the news mentioned. My skin crawled with an unnatural coldness. Something was wrong here.
The air didn't just smell of animals; it smelled of chemicals, ozone, and a faint, metallic tang that raised the hair on my neck. I used my Tactile Sensory Array, pressing my hand against the cold concrete of the den wall.
Thrum... thrum... thrum...
Not a heartbeat. A generator. A massive, industrial-grade power source humming deep underground. And something else, a series of complex, vibrating pulses that indicated highly advanced machinery in operation.
I followed the vibration, moving with the quiet efficiency of a real predator now. My movements were fluid, graceful, a stark contrast to my stumbling escape from the warehouse two days ago. I found a large metal gate hidden behind a fake rock wall—a cheap facade over high-security hardware.
This wasn't a standard zoo access point. This was high-security, reinforced steel that even my 12-ton striking force might struggle with if I tried to punch it head-on.
'Batman was right,' I thought, my mind racing. 'There's something bigger going on here. This isn't just an empty zoo; it's a cover operation. A lab hidden in plain sight.'
I didn't push the gate; I gripped the thick, iron handle and leveraged my weight. The metal moaned, then the locking mechanism simply ripped out of the wall with a shriek of tortured steel. I slipped into a narrow service tunnel that plunged downward, away from the surface world and the prying eyes of the Bat-drones.
The tunnel led me to a high-tech elevator. A faded logo was barely visible above the keypad: an interlocking shield insignia. I paused, my memory—my otaku memory—kicking in.
Project Cadmus. The DC Universe's black-ops genetic engineering project. The guys responsible for Superboy, the Forever People, and a dozen other things that shouldn't exist. My blood began to boil with anticipation.
[Alert: High-tier genetic material detected within facility. Proceed immediately for maximum biomass yield.]
The elevator descended for thirty seconds, a smooth, silent drop into the earth, before opening with a quiet chime into a brightly lit, sterile lab environment. The air was cold, smelling of formaldehyde and bleach.
The sight before me was a nightmare made real, and the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
Rows of massive containment tanks—twenty feet tall, made of thick, reinforced glass—lined the walls, bubbling with a thick, glowing green fluid. Inside them were things that shouldn't exist: genetic hybrids, half-finished meta-humans floating like grotesque embryos, and a tiger that wasn't a tiger—it had a second jawline and exposed bone spikes jutting from its spine.
This wasn't a zoo. This was my personal grocery store.
I was weak, starving at 7% biomass, but the sight of the tanks filled me with a vicious elation. The hunger was momentarily forgotten, replaced by a cold, calculating greed. I was about to get everything I needed for my next form. The one in the image I had of my ultimate potential.
I found the main containment terminal, a massive supercomputer behind reinforced glass. I didn't try to hack it. I just smashed the "Emergency Release" button with my fist, shattering the glass and sending the command cascading through the system.
Alarms began to wail immediately, a high-pitched siren joining the red flashing lights that bathed the sterile white halls in a bloody glow.
'Let the monsters out,' I thought, a grin stretching my gaunt face. 'I need the data. I need to evolve.'
The first tank hissed open, spilling thick green preservation liquid onto the tiled floor. The creature inside—a humanoid figure with massive, armored plating of red and black, glowing crimson eyes, and a sleek, powerful build—stepped out, water sluicing off its hardened biological shell. It looked exactly like the 'bio armour' I had envisioned.
It was my next stage of evolution, standing right in front of me, ready to fight for dominance. It stared at me, unblinking, its glowing red eyes analyzing the weak, starving human before it.
"Hello, beautiful," I growled, my hunger overwhelming my fear. "You're exactly what I need to wear."