Chapter 20: Experiments

A woman at the Donovan the Nightmare training center kept quiet as she stood in a corner.

Before the boss arrived, they were training as usual, but after the arrival everything changed.

Donovan introduced them to the boss... The real boss and the boss gave a show of absolute power.

The new boss, even though he was a baby, controlled them all with extreme ease and no one could do anything to stop him.

As if that wasn’t enough, he then turned the suit he was wearing into a trench coat... Was it some kind of molecular ability? Or was it something more complex?

The only thing Monique understood from all that was that the boss did it using everyone’s mind while he was a baby.

A little baby with a big head.

“We should train. We can’t sit still.”

A man sitting on a weight machine gave a murmur, and the others moved.

The supervillains referred to them as minions and treated them as disposable people who could be used as cannon fodder.

There were many ways by which people ended up becoming minions.

Sometimes they messed with people they shouldn’t have and had to get their hands dirty. Other times they were driven by ambitions of their own and, in Monique’s case, circumstances of life.

Perhaps if years ago she had not murdered her abusive husband, she would not have ended up here, but she did and became a wanted murderer by the authorities and fled to the blue city.

She was doing a lot of jobs in the underworld, but not everyone would hire a woman in her late forties who already had wrinkles and looked wasted by life.

Donovan hired her, but it wasn’t to give her a chance. It was to have eyes in the underworld and he needed people desperate for work.

However, it was when Donovan revealed himself against the Great Monkey that he changed.

“Monique. My master wants to give the bounty.”

A voice suddenly arose and woke her fully as she watched Donovan the Nightmare walk down the hallway toward the main office.

Donovan had promised a reward during the auction day and they chose her as one of the three people who would receive it.

Monique walked to Donovan’s side, who led her down the hallway.

The master Donovan had chosen was a baby... A baby who could control the minds of normal people with surprising ease and who seemed to be able to change the physical matter.

How crazy was that idea? Monique swallowed with some panic, remembering the presence that controlled her.

That presence didn’t even give her time to resist and suppressed her, taking control of her body instantly... In seconds as it used her as a means to something greater.

“Can you give me a moment?” Monique asked and as she felt Donovan’s gaze on her, she swallowed and murmured. “I want to get ready.”

If at first Donovan’s blue eyes looked at her with annoyance at her stopping him, as he heard the murmur, the intensity of the look lessened, and he gave her a nod.

Monique needed to calm down.

Not just because of what happened, but what was to come.

“The master will give you a grade Y type magical genetic enhancement,” Donovan revealed and observing her, he detailed. “You are already a woman in your forties and since you have your third eye, you can already consider yourself a super. Drinking another genetic enhancement is likely to lead to your death.”

Monique was in her forties, to be precise she was in her forty-six and while exercise helped her in keeping fit, she was old to drink a genetic enhancement.

She was a super who could use a third eye to shoot a heat ray so weak it could barely be used to heat water and perhaps hurt normal humans.

Being older meant that her body was already developed and genetic enhancement could negatively affect it and lead to her death.

Adding to the fact that she was a super, the new genetic enhancement could clash with the old one and cause a conflict in her body, leading to her death.

Already drinking a genetic enhancement meant she could die when her body could not withstand the change and to her already low chances, she was adding factors that reduced her already low chances.

Monique looked at herself in the reflection of a window to the outside.

She had some wrinkles on her face and while she had a muscular and trained body; she did not stand out in anything else.

Ordinary black eyes and hair. While on her face, she bore various marks both from the hard life she had led and from the weariness of life.

“The master will do some experiments. I don’t know the success rate, but you’ve seen what he’s capable of. Maybe you’ll make it through,” Donovan said calmly.

An experiment? What kind of experiment was he conducting?

Monique paused for a second, and then, glancing at the mirror, sighed.

Did she want to keep living this kind of life? Being a minion who was practically a disposable pawn?

“I will,” Monique replied.

The answer was obvious and as a minion; she had no right to ask any more questions about this experiment and could simply accept.

Donovan led her down the hallway, and then they walked through the door into the main office.

The office was modified and apart from the main desk and shelves with books behind the desk were a couch and a couple of armchairs for visitors.

And in the middle of the office was a man and a baby.

“She is the person who took me away when I had lost control, young master... And in a way, she gave me a hand to wake up,” said the pale, thin man carrying the baby carrier.

His name was Jonathan, and Monique had trained with him before, but she had also seen him partially turn into a monster.

She had pulled him away, as she noticed the destruction that had happened and managed to distract him away from the others to avoid further trouble.

Whether it was destroying the mansion or stopping the auction and she had inadvertently pulled him away from the ‘master’ who had been nearby.

And which she hadn’t noticed, at least as much as she would have liked.

“I did what I could...” Monique murmured, bowing her head at both the man and the baby sitting in an armchair.

It was a big head baby, and it was hard to define his features when there was a force partially distorting his face.

As she tried to analyze the baby, she met the eyes that glowed purple and then a mental force took over her body, taking control away.

“Shall we start?” her voice came out without her being able to do anything.

The entity was controlling her and as unpleasant as it was to lose control, Monique remained calm, knowing she couldn’t do too much.

Not in the face of an overwhelming mental power that controlled her with breathtaking ease.

The question was from the boss who wished to overthrow the Great Monkey and asked her and Monique gave her mental acceptance.

Her body moved of her own accord and taking from the desk a bottle with a blue liquid in it, she sat back down.

“Let’s get this over with quickly. I don’t like using this kind of body,” murmured the entity controlling her.

Monique watched as her hands opened the bottle and then brought the liquid closer, and seeing it, she didn’t stop it.

She let the entity controlling her drink the liquid and then felt the liquid go down her throat, then after a second, a vibrating wave full of power pulsed through her body.

A powerful energy moved through her body as if seeking to escape from her and then reach her heart, suddenly her body ached.

An extreme and maddening pain that generated a feeling of eminent death... It reminded her of when her ex-husband would come home drunk and beat her to the ground.

That moment where she felt that if she continued, she was going to die and now that feeling came up again.

—Calm down...

A voice arose in her mind as her surroundings blurred and she went into some kind of mental sleep.

She could see herself in a boundless white space, then inside the mental space, a white figure of a small kid appeared.

“The magical energy and the energy of the Astral Realm clash and oppose and counteract each other. So it’s complex to guide it,” the kid said and snapped his fingers.

A giant translucent figure of Monique herself appeared and the inside of her body came into view with organs and veins, while a blue liquid spread from her stomach.

“Am I going to die?” Monique asked as she no longer felt pain.

She could understand that she was in her own mind talking to that entity and her surroundings were her way of making sense of what he was trying to communicate.

“To die? No. It is complex, but easy. The energy comes from a powerful magical being. We just need to remove the influence and leave the rest,” the figure murmured.

Then it acted by wiggling his fingers in the air and injecting a purple energy into her body.

The heart that was turning blue beating with a force that gave the impression that it was going to explode slowed down when the purple energy collided with the blue energy.

And so began a battle of energies within her body.

Purple energy against blue energy, repelling and counteracting any dangerous influence.

The blue energy of the liquid became less and less until what was left was harmless. Then that entity guided the blue energy.

First it moved throughout Monique’s body, strengthening the organs, veins, skin and muscles, then with the rest it directed it to the brain, then it targeted her third eye.

There was no pain... The entity controlling her body had turned off the sense of pain by bringing her into this mental world.

And even though there was no pain, she felt the change and sensed the connection to the third eye growing stronger and stronger until she could no longer control it and opened her eyes.

The three eyes.

“...”

Looking back, the office noticed how the laser beam coming out of the third eye was being launched with a greater intensity and brightness than before.

First it cut through the office wall and deepened to the other side, then she tried to move her head and failing to do so, her eye closed on its own.

Her third eye, which before could barely heat water right now, cut through the concrete wall, practically crossing it.

“Congratulations... You’ve become a super. A real super,” Donovan said, smiling at her.

******

Zack watched the liquid spread across a woman’s body.

It was the woman who, according to the babysitter, took care of his infant body when he fell unconscious.

It was a woman with huge breasts and now Zack was controlling the woman’s body while keeping his eyes closed.

He had locked the woman in her own mind while he was showing her the changes that were happening to the body after drinking the medicine.

The genetic enhancement of grade Y type strength was curious.

It was a liquid that had overwhelming vitality and once it was drunk, it unleashed that vitality throughout the body similar to the magic liquid of the magic type medicine.

The vitality was so intense and high that once it seeped into some organs, if the person could not endure or resist it, the organs would explode, causing death.

Even worse than everything, the vitality had a will that would not let itself be dominated and controlled, similar to the magic liquid that previously would not let itself be controlled.

Zack, who perceived the woman’s body, the vitality and the will struggling inside, realized that the will came from the being to whom this vitality belonged.

Whoever they got this vitality from, part of the will of those creatures was fighting and the only reason the body was not failing was that Zack was in charge.

He controlled the fluid, repelled it and sent it throughout the body to keep it from overloading an organ, and sometimes he had to stimulate the cells of the body to assimilate the fluid.

The woman was the third person after the first woman to absorb the liquid in her eye and the second was the Donovan boy’s recommendation and was a man.

The boy mentioned something about that man going to help the half-breed’s mother, but Zack paid no attention to it.

All that mattered was the information he was gaining today.

“Something’s about to come out... It’s dangerous.”

The woman’s voice came from the mental world and Zack, who was concentrating on the body, sank into the woman’s mind and his surroundings took shape.

In a slightly dark place with dry and large trees, while the ground was brown and half wet from standing water, and in that place was a woman.

Blue eyes and dark blonde hair. At this moment she was wearing a light cloth as she ran through the swamp, getting dirty with the splashing mud as the woman’s two bags of meat swayed.

Zack frowned and looked at what was following the woman.

It was a four-legged beast with a head with three horns and its front legs were muscular and strong, while its mouth was huge and with dozens of sharp teeth.

The eyes of the beast... From the will, where the vitality of the genetic enhancement came from, looked at the woman.

“GRAAA!”

Zack raised his eyebrow slightly in surprise.

Unlike the previous man, who also drank a medicine similar to this one, there was a hidden will within and that will manifested in the woman’s unconscious mind influenced her.

“GRAA!”

And now the beast roared, wanting to attack the woman and Zack, having no time to reflect, raised his hand.

This was the inside of the woman’s mind, and it was here that the mental force was most overwhelming.

His simple movement twisted the surrounding reality, cutting through the swamp with the beast and then twisting it until he sealed the creature and then squeezed it until it disappeared as if he was erasing a memory.

However, at the same instant, he felt the vitality diminish in strength, and Zack concentrated on moving the rest of the liquid to the woman’s heart internalizing it.

Then he opened his eyes and returned to his real body, which was held by the babysitter.

The woman with curly hair and huge meat bags was panting as she sweated.

“Congratulations, you have become a Super and...”

Zack ignored the Donovan boy’s blathering and frowned as he lay back, exhausted.

While he mostly used the mental strength of the bodies he possessed, it wasn’t easy having to check the inside of the bodies, let alone mobilize the liquid or force it to help the body.

It was complex and overwhelming, enough so that he had to take certain breaks between people.

“Is something troubling you, young master?” The babysitter asked, watching him intently.

Unbeknownst to Zack, the babysitter had sat him down on the couch, bringing food to feed him.

—Do you know how medicines are made? —Zack asked curiously.

The question was also for the boy who had just returned after dismissing the woman from earlier.

The boy had called the woman Super, but for Zack it was not a success, at least not as much as he would have liked.

He had erased the beast’s will and his action diminished the potency of the vitality, leading him to wonder what would have happened if he forced the will into submission.

All this led him to question about these medicines.

“I don’t know, young master. It is only my understanding that some know the methods and can create the genetic enhancements. The Great Monkey is considered a powerful supervillain because he has a method to create Super,” the babysitter said, and hesitating for a moment, he added. “Maybe your father or mother knows.”

Zack ignored the last words and concentrated on the first.

The Great Monkey had primates at his command and while they were primates, they were not all apes or had been from the beginning.

Could he increase the number of few evolved primates?

“Those in the know keep those kinds of secrets well. No one likes competition,” the boy said in a serious voice.

Zack paused hesitantly.

“Is something wrong?” the babysitter asked curiously.

Something was up... First, it was with the girl and the medicine she stole from him that Zack thought would help him.

That medicine was a powerful mental force that empowered the girl, but greater than anything else it pushed her to travel to the Astral Plane and then helped her get to the prison of the brightest Transcendental of all... Who was practically the entity to whom the mental force belonged.

Then, in the magical type enhancement, there was also the liquid with magical energy and at the same time some foreign influence, which did not want to submit.

The first force-type medicine was similar, with a high aggressive and uncontrolled vitality, but it was the previous experiment that made him realize the truth.

—Do you think they use other beings to make these medicines? —Zack asked, observing both the child and the babysitter and concentrating on his thoughts, he murmured. —Whether it’s blood, energy or life force. It has a will that can remain in the body of those who take the medicine.

The magic type medicine and the first force type medicine showed a trace of influence and for that reason was so aggressive to the body it entered.

However, the third medicine that had a will was what caught his attention... The will was strong enough to manifest itself and want to hurt the owner of the body.

Zack watched the babysitter.

The babysitter hid a certain darkness within him and while Zack had not delved deeper, as he did not wish to violate the babysitter’s privacy, it was obvious that there was more to it.

—Boy, I want you to get Hugo to tell you where he got the medicine the girl stole. I need to find out where it came from... Maybe if we can find the location, we can find the woman. —Zack ordered in a serious tone.

Instead of pressing the babysitter to tell him about his experience drinking the medicine or about his ability, he refrained and concentrated on what was important.

The medicine the girl stole had the energy of the brightest transcendental of all, and since that woman was a prisoner, it meant she did not create that medicine.

—And also get ready to take care of the Great Monkey. I don’t want to waste time on a primate. —Zack ordered solemnly.

The brightest transcendental of all had not told him what she had suffered or why she was so desperately wanting to escape.

It wasn’t unusual when Zack was also unwilling to tell of the torture he suffered.

In the end, the only important thing was that if his idea that these genetic enhancements came from someone else, then that someone had to turn it in voluntarily or by force... And if it was the latter case, Zack had to hurry.

And this time, it was not only to save the most brilliant transcendental of all, but to get rid of those who were using a transcendental.