A harsh light stabbed into Flash's eyes, waking him through a pounding ache.
The moment he came to, he realized he was strapped to an operating table. Dense clusters of machinery surrounded him, and the strange symbols displayed above made his head hurt even more.
If Peter had been here, he probably would have known what those symbols meant.
But Flash did not.
They knew everything about him, while he knew nothing about them.
Still, that was not the most urgent problem right now.
The first thing he needed to figure out was how to escape this hellhole.
And after that, he was absolutely going to find out who had jumped him with a sack and knocked him out with a stun gun. Flash was the kind of person who always got even. If he ever found out who it was, then once he got out of here, he would make sure that person paid for it.
Flash kept turning his head, scanning the room. Then his eyes landed on a giant screen off to one side, and his expression froze.
His pupils shrank.
Because displayed on that screen was his personal information.
Flash Thompson. Eighteen years old. Born in Queens, New York. Parents: Harrison and Rose. Younger sister: Jessie. Student at Midtown High. A well-known football player at school. Father Harrison was a notorious alcoholic police officer, removed from the NYPD after violent misconduct while drunk. Harrison abused Flash from childhood, causing Flash to develop violent tendencies as well.
The information on the screen was far too detailed.
Detailed enough to make his face twist in pain.
It was a past he never wanted to look back on.
His drunken father had beaten his mother and sister. Flash had fought back to protect them, and he had been beaten too. From that day on, a seed of hatred had taken root in him. He came to believe that only violence could stop violence.
Then one day, after his mother was beaten so badly she ended up in the hospital, Flash finally fought back for real.
That day, his father had once again tried to go after his sister. Flash had tried one last time to talk him down. His father answered with a slap across the face.
Flash had not thought at all.
He had grabbed an empty bottle nearby and smashed it over Harrison's head.
From then on, Flash learned how to say no.
He learned how to answer violence with violence.
His father never laid a hand on his mother or sister again.
And then one day, Harrison was beaten to death by a criminal he had once abused in prison.
Flash had not shed a single tear for the man.
If anything, he had only felt relief.
The truth was that Flash's violence had come gradually from his father's influence. Even though he bullied classmates weaker than him, he would also step in when those same kids were bullied by others. Somewhere inside him, there was still a trace of the sense of justice his father had once had before alcohol ruined him.
His mother's tiny company paycheck was barely enough to support the three of them. So Flash worked part-time at a burger place near home. Most days, he only ate one burger, then a couple slices of bread at night. The money he saved either went toward helping the household or paying Jessie's school fees.
And unlike her brother, Jessie was no poor student.
She was a straight-up genius who took first place in her grade every single time.
That, more than anything else, was what made Flash proudest as her older brother.
"Test Subject 48... what the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
Flash had spotted that line at the bottom of the information display. It stood out completely from everything else, and he did not understand it at all.
"That means you're about to become my forty-eighth experimental subject, young man."
The voice made Flash jump so hard he nearly tore a muscle. He looked around wildly, then finally saw an ancient face directly in front of him.
Far too close.
Close enough that Flash could practically smell death on him.
That was exactly what the man smelled like.
Like a corpse.
"Who are you?! I'm warning you, let me go! Do you know unlawful imprisonment is a crime?!"
Flash actually knew the law fairly well.
Most of that came from studying on his own when he was younger, back when he had still been influenced by his father and had dreamed of growing up to become a police officer just like him.
Now that dream seemed pathetic.
"Relax. You'll be released."
"After the experiment."
"Allow me to introduce myself. You may call me Doctor Ronald, the greatest geneticist in all of New York. No, no, that's not right. In the entire world!"
"You are currently inside a research company funded by Wilson Fisk. Maybe you don't know that name, but you definitely know his other one. Kingpin. Yes, that Kingpin. The man who unified the entire criminal underworld."
"Though I don't know why I'm even telling you all this..."
"You only need to understand one thing. This is a mutually beneficial transaction between us. If you accept my genetic enhancement and become a superhuman, then I will go down in history as a genius in genetics and earn Kingpin's favor. And you, in turn, will have every aspect of your body strengthened beyond imagination. You'll even be able to do things you never dared to do before!"
"Now then, let me introduce you to Test Subject 12. Marlon. My assistant."
Following the direction Doctor Ronald pointed, Flash saw a man covered in black hair, almost like some kind of savage beast.
No, not quite.
It was more like a thin gorilla.
Except its skin was white instead of black.
"That's right. I'm the one who threw the sack over your head. But you should thank me. Very soon, you'll become one of the superhumans. There's nothing wrong with having your genes elevated. So relax. If your mood gets too bad and the enhancement fails, and your body rejects it, that would be such a waste~"
The gorilla-like man called Marlon pushed up his glasses with his middle finger, then pointed toward a row of massive formaldehyde tanks nearby.
Inside them were all kinds of twisted, unnatural things.
Some had antennae and warped green bodies.
Some were little more than half-formed masses.
Some looked almost transparent, with glowing bones and visible systems running through them.
The sight made Flash's stomach turn. He stared at Marlon, then at Doctor Ronald, panic rising fast.
"You're going to turn me into one of those things?! You might as well just kill me!"
"Those are failures. Weak bodies with incompatible genes."
"Don't worry. No one will ever find out they died. They were death row inmates bought from prison to begin with."
"You're different. You have the perfect frame. A strong body. Exceptional mental resilience. The will to pursue perfection. I've been observing you for a long time, Flash. You will be my greatest experimental subject. My genetic engineering won't turn you into a monster. It will turn you into a true superhuman."
As he spoke, Doctor Ronald entered several commands into a computer.
A series of precise instruments began to hum to life.
Not long after, a blue, viscous serum was dispensed from a sealed chamber.
The sight of it made Flash go cold all over.
He was sure that if that thing went into him, he was dead.
These people were insane.
"This was calculated by supercomputer analysis based on your physical condition. It is the most compatible gene for you. A species of deep-sea fish. Fangtooth. Also called a man-eater. Once this gene is injected into your body and merges with your own, your strength will rise by more than a hundredfold. Your speed will improve as well. And in water, you'll be even more dangerous."
Doctor Ronald loaded the blue serum into an injector gun and slowly approached Flash, who lay spread out and restrained.
Flash struggled with everything he had, but it was useless.
He felt a sharp sting.
Then he watched, helpless, as the serum was injected into his body bit by bit.
His eyelids grew heavy.
Still, his desperate will to survive forced him to stay conscious as long as possible.
His heart seemed to slow.
He could feel his pupils tightening.
Even his heartbeat was becoming sluggish.
Was he dying?
That was his last thought before everything went black.
At that moment, Marlon took out a timer and set it for five minutes.
The calculation said the subject would definitely regain consciousness within that window.
Once the gene entered his body, Flash's skin turned red and hot. His original genetic structure was being broken apart, then rebuilt around the incoming sequence into a new and stable chain.
The heart monitor beside him continued running. Though his heartbeat had slowed earlier, it soon returned to normal.
Everything remained under Ronald's control.
Then strange marks appeared along Flash's sides, opening and closing like fish gills as though filtering air. Tiny scales also began to spread across his skin.
Moments later, those changes slowly faded again, and Flash returned to what looked like a normal human form.
Seeing that, Doctor Ronald nearly shouted in excitement.
It had worked.
A true superhuman.
Past test subjects, once they manifested animal genes, had never been able to return to normal. Like Test Subject 12, Marlon. He had survived, but at best he was only half successful, half man and half beast, the product of defective experimental genetics.
But Flash was different.
The animal gene had surfaced in him, only to be forced back down by his own powerful human genetics. The result was a delicate balance. Half human genes, half special genes, perfectly fused.
And those special genes would enhance his abilities while also granting him certain animal instincts.
This was the perfect test subject.
"Ahh... hhh... hhh..."
Flash's eyes suddenly snapped open.
They were bloodshot.
He gasped violently, then began convulsing. His pupils narrowed into slits.
"Boss, did it fail again?!"
"It shouldn't have. This is probably a temporary loss of reason caused by the fusion process. The same thing happened during your enhancement. Just wait a moment and it'll settle down..."
Ronald's eyes still burned with frenzy, and the grin on his face had not faded at all. He turned, opened a refrigerated cabinet nearby, pulled out a bottle of red wine, poured two glasses, and handed one to Marlon.
"Come, Marlon. Let's celebrate my becoming New York's newest legend in genetic science."
"Yes, boss!"
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
The metal restraints on Flash's limbs suddenly snapped apart.
His body swelled in an instant to over seven feet tall. His skin turned pale blue-green and became covered in fine fish scales. His fingers sharpened into claws. A fin-like ridge grew from his back. His narrowed pupils turned blood-red, and crooked fangs pushed out from his mouth.
Then, with explosive speed, he lunged.
Ronald screamed as Flash pinned him down and bit into his throat.
"You ungrateful monster! I made you what you are!"
Bang!
Beside them, Marlon had nearly lost his mind from shock. Acting on instinct, he smashed his wine bottle toward the transformed Flash.
Flash turned his head and looked at him.
His voice came out with difficulty, hoarse and rough.
"I hate alcoholics."
Then he threw himself at Marlon.
The lights in the lab began flickering on and off as the room fell into chaos.
(End of Chapter)
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