Head on a swivel, Mason walked through the now empty doorway into the hallway.
Said hallway sported no other people apart. Though the rows of doors similar to the one he just folded like cardboard told him he wasn’t really alone.
Freeing the other people became his next instinct, but he clamped down on it. He may have escaped the room, but his freedom wasn’t truly assured yet. He also needed to find more information on Compound V to get a proper understanding of what had been done to him.
First things first, he grabbed the topmost part of the door stuck in the wall, its sheer thickness reminding him of a chemistry textbook. Without holding anything back, he squeezed. His fingers easily sunk into the metal, compressing it like dough.
Astounded and eager to see how far he could go, he continued the simple test, adding his other hand. He squeezed, kneaded and finally rolled a good section of the flattened portion of the door like one would a carpet.
A smile tugged at the edge of his lips when he let go and admired his handiwork.
‘Guess my size isn’t just for show. I wonder how stro—”
Gunfire, loud and repeating filled the narrow hallway. Mason jumped in fright and went low, taking the bullets going for his center mass in the upper chest area, neck and face.
The absurdity and the intense, sudden shock froze his brain solid for a few seconds. Carefully touching his cheek with trembling hands, he felt his smooth and unblemished skin and replayed the past few seconds in his mind.
Hands still on his face, he directed his gaze forward and slowly stood up. At the end of the hallway, one of the guards he knocked out earlier held a rifle, wearing an “I royally fucked up” expression. His wide, quivering eyes became locked with the cold blue of Mason’s when the latter reached his true height.
Gun still up, the guard maintained the visual contact for less than a second before spinning on his heel.
Earlier when he got shot, Mason was able to track the path of each bullet. Yes, even the ones that went straight for his face. It was horrifying, to have the ability to watch yourself die in 4K but have no means to prevent it.
He had the strength to knead metal like dough and inbuilt bulletproof armor. The speed to dodge bullets however, had been left out. But that was okay. Because while he couldn’t outspeed bullets, people were another matter entirely.
In his perception, the guard’s attempt to run away looked exactly that… an attempt. The latter’s movements were unnaturally clear, so much so that he correctly deduced which direction the man would turn before his movements caught up to his thoughts.
And so Mason took off in a sprint, one that turned out to be extremely short to an outside perspective. In less than a second, he’d gone from one the middle of the long hallway to the end of it, becoming a wall the fleeing guard bumped into.
Ass on the ground and scared shitless, the guard aimed at Mason’s wide frame and thumbed the trigger like his life depended on it.
In another display of prodigious speed, Mason’s figure flashed akin to a blonde haired psychopath from Resident Evil and he vanished, reappearing not far from where he originally stood, leaning to the side and out of harm’s way.
He didn’t stop, seemingly teleporting in and out of existence, dodging the drizzles of lead whenever the guard adjusted his aim and fired. His figure only cleared up when the firearm made a click sound he could recognize in his sleep.
While the guard fumbled the reload of his weapon, he stooped down and pried the gun away from. He also grabbed the man by the shirt and hoisted him up like a toddler, leaving the sweating and shaking man’s feet off the floor.
“Where is this place?”
“P-P-please…”
Frustrated, Mason kissed his teeth and shook him vigorously. That only served to open the floodgates of the guard’s eyes and mouth in the wrong way. Tears started to flow and incoherent babblings followed.
Placing the emptied gun on the window sill, Mason searched through the guards pockets and found two sets of keys, a phone and a wallet. He dropped the first two alongside the gun on the window sill and opened the wallet, finding an image of a boy.
The guard’s babbling and crying stopped and he knew he had the man. To turn the wooden vice around the guard’s balls into steel though, he fished out the man’s driver’s license, memorised the address and gave his full undivided attention to him.
“I’m going to ask you again. Where is this place?”
“Please…”
“I have a picture of the boy and your address. Do the math. I’m not going to ask again.”
“S-Sage Grove C-center. Sage Grove Center!”
‘You might as well have told me your favourite color is red.’
Annoyed, Mason was about to ask where the Compound V and the information on it was stored. He got interrupted when the wide, double doors only seen in hospitals behind him swung open with a bang that nearly made him jump.
Four more guards had joined the party, two with batons and the other two with firearms that looked a bit wrong. He immediately knew why when he tossed the guard he held up into the wall and caught the projectile it fired.
Not only was it slow, it wasn’t lethal, nor was it a bullet. It looked like a thick, short crayon with a needle poking out of it. Some kind of incapacitation rounds for powered people, he guessed.
More of them flew his way and he caught three of them, dodging the rest. In the same manner he would darts, he flung the rounds back at his assailants, immediately learning what they did.
The first one hit the guard who fired first. He started to vibrate, his teeth chattering as he displayed the telltale signs of electric shock. Mason wasted no time and dropped the other guards.
When all of them fell into trembling heaps, he waited till they passed out before pulling the darts free. Before he searched them, he checked for cameras. There was only one watching the corner he and the guards found themselves in.
Making and pointing a finger gun at it, he imagined the flame in a thin narrow line. His chi responded eagerly, again without the proper breathing harped upon the firebending crash course in his head.
A line of blue fire reminiscent of a long blowtorch lit up a few centimeters from his pressed together finger tips and grew till it struck the camera, first of all breaking the glass covering it and then proceeding to melt the whole thing.
‘Right. Firebenders can move and blow stuff up with their fire.’
Scenes of Avatar: The Last Airbender flashed in his mind, but he put them aside and focused on the sleeping guards. First, he took their weapons, storing them in the inventory save for a pistol and its holster, strapping the latter on his thigh and slotting the gun in it.
Their wallets came next. He helped himself to their money and credit cards, memorizing the addresses on everyone’s driver’s licenses. He tried their footwear next but not even the largest fit him.
Tamping down on his irritation, he grabbed their keys, storing their personal ones and keeping one of the sets common among them. Back in the hallway, he stood before the first door and went through the keys.
After five tries, he finally opened it and found… no one. Stumped, he simply moved on to the next and opened it as well. Someone came out this time, a guy almost as tall as he was but thin as a reed.
He gave Mason and the door a confused stare before bolting like his life depended on it. Third cell, fourth cell, fifth cell, sixth cell, Mason opened this one and unlike the ones before a woman stepped out
Shaved bald with almost painted on dark circles under her eyes, the girl walked out while giving him the most non sexual “you’re a piece of meat” stare he’d ever been on the receiving end of.
All the people he released gave him a weird feeling, but she took the cake.
“Who are you?”
“No one,” he answered after brief contemplation and moved on.
A continuous scream of pure agony and the sound of butchery stopped him in his tracks. He rushed to the source—the corner where the guards lay—and found one of the prisoners, the short burly one, tearing one the guards open with bestial claws.
His violent actions widened Mason’s eyes, the latter watching the brutalized guard gurgle blood, the same blood that now painted a gory image on the walls.
Seemingly satisfied with the cavity he’d torn in the man’s chest, the prisoner stood up and flashed Mason a toothy grin, letting out a gruff laugh before going for the next, nearest guard, claws dripping blood and meat.
Struggling to come to terms with what he’d done, Mason flashed to the discount Sabertooth’s side and grabbed his arm and earned himself a bloody claw mark across the face.
He retaliated with a head butt and the tense muscles in his grip went slack so loud it made him cringe. That same moment, a loud bang went off in the hallway.
Rushing back with his grip tight on the unconscious savage, Mason found the bald girl in the center of the hallway with both hands clenched into fists, the row of doors on both sides folded in half.
All of them.
Over two dozen prisoners left the confines of their cells, joining the mysterious girl and Mason in the hallway. Some of them, the girl included, instantly noticed him holding one of them.
“Are you one of them?” Another girl with brown hair said, eyes burning yellow like small suns. “You are one of them!”
The instant derangement confirmed Mason’s worst fears. Before he could offer up an explanation, one of the prisoners flickered and crossed half of the hallway. A second flicker brought him within striking distance and Mason reacted by tossing Sabertooth into him.
Still unaware of how strong he was, his strike threw the teleporter off his feet and into those behind him, creating a messy fall.
Beyond the chaos, the bald girl raised her hand while clenching her fist, an act that didn’t go unnoticed. Mason flashed into the corner painted with the blood and guts of the unfortunate guard, cringing at the sensation of sticky, cool blood on his soles.
His plan to track down Compound V abandoned, he returned to his original goal. That brought him to a glass window that showed a glimpse of the freedom he sought. A straight punch shattered it and he climbed through, crouching uncomfortably due to his size.
When he stepped on the broken glass and left behind bloodstains that weren’t his, he gained more confidence for what he wanted to do next. Enhanced durability had to help with long falls right?
In case his hypothesis turned out to be wrong, he turned the dial on his weight to the lowest on his way down, turning what would have been a brick drop into a feather fall.
Once he drew close enough to the ground that a fall wouldn’t hurt in any way, he returned to his normal weight and planted his feet firmly on the ground.
Behind him at the window, the other prisoners crowded the tiny opening but none of them mimicked his actions.
A bald head flashed past for the briefest of moments and he got moving, rubbing his feet on the concrete. Sprinting the collection of parked cars, he fished one of the car keys from the inventory and clicked it.
He got the response he sought and hurried to the car, unlocking it and situating himself behind the wheel. It felt like stuffing himself in a sardine can instantly, so the first thing he did was adjust the seat.
After that it was smooth sailing. The car started on the first try and the tank was semi full. He peeled out of the parking lot, feeling like someone in a horror movie suddenly escaping the monster.
A grin inched its way bit by bit onto his lips when webs of lightning appeared in the vehicle’s path, and with them, the Nazi woman.
‘Are you freaking—’
Too fast for him to mount any meaningful response, she aimed both hands towards the car like a witch from an 80’s movie and showered it with lightning. Instead of getting shocked or blown up, he experienced a different kind of roller coaster when the car got flung like a toy.
It stayed and spun in the air for more than a few seconds before gravity reasserted its hold. Upon crashing, it flipped over and over, leaving gouges and throwing grass and dirt in the air.
On the sixth roll, it ended up on its side.
In his excitement and haste, Mason had forgotten his seatbelt. Not that he needed it nor the pretentious airbag pressing against him. Bursting the resilient bag with an unintentional squeeze, he moved past the steering wheel, flung the ruined windshield with a punch, and then crawled out.
On his way up, Nazi woman landed about a dozen steps away and blasted him with her purple lightning. No words were said.
The difference between her attack now and back was apparent that instant. There was no pain, and he could still move. In addition, the chi flowing through his body—no, his chi—seemed to be reacting to the lightning.
He grasped the metaphysical energy and urged it forward. The result was the lightning in his body falling under his control and moving according to his whims.
“What the hell did you do?” Screamed Nazi woman, who stopped blasting him to look at her hands as they were the faulty ones.
Calling on the firebending forms and breathing exercises he now knew, Mason seized control of all the lighting coursing through him and fed more chi into. He took a deep breath and moved his arms in a perfect, circular rotation.
This directed the gathered and amplified energy to his fingertips, where they crackled with restrained might. He jabbed both of them toward the stunned woman and the crackling sparks transformed into long snakes of bright blue electricity.
She raised her arms to protect herself, but the bolts tore her limbs to shreds and struck her in the head and upper chest, obliterating both into gory, smoking chunks.
Armless and headless, Nazi woman fell back on the grass with a thump. Mason on the other hand, stared at his actual hands and what they had wrought. Rather than focus on how good it felt or the guilt about what he’d unleashed in the prison, he stayed on task and took off in a sprint.
When he was safe and out of sight, then he could let his mind make noise.