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Deep below the town of Salem, Doctor Ming raised a cylinder glowing the purest blue up to his eyes. Smoothly ignoring his observers with practiced ease, the Doctor summoned his collected essence of the Greek Harpy. One of his older, more reliable harvests. The use of the transformation's wings wasn't what he was after now, though. Focusing the transformation on his eyes, Ming felt them shift, his vision blurring for a split-second before it came back into focus. The doctor spared the intruders in his lab a glance, watching the swarm of lights shivering within their bodies. Souls, of a variety of colours, tainted by the dark corruption of hatred. Oh, how he would have liked to tear them apart, to see what the dark taint of hatred did to a soul when it was removed from its body. Yet, he had other, more pressing matters to attend to. Sighing internally, he turned his gaze back to the capsule in his hands, and paused.
'Now this... This is interesting .' The metal cylinder, moments before glowing a pure blue, had its shine masked completely by the harsh, mahogany-colored soul circulating between its ends rapidly like a network of magnetic lines. Ming squinted, trying to make out if the soul was tainted, yet the soul itself seemed... corrupted, somehow. The dark taint of hatred was nowhere to be found, but the flowing sea of energy radiated a malevolent energy, the soul almost sucking out the ambient light where most others would shine brightly, even those that were tainted. Ming sighed. Really, why'd they even bother being so evasive about whose soul they had in here? It was far too obvious.
He turned back to the visiting Nazis, walking to the edge of his upper level, juggling the capsule in one hand like a coin. "So, you've brought me the soul of one of the most hated men on the planet." he drawled lazily, "As well as one of the only existing samples of Lars' Metal on earth. Did you think this through at all? Tell me," he continued, leaning forward and grasping the upper level's railing, "Why shouldn't I just kill you all now and use this new supply of test subjects for my own experiments?" The wooden railing cracked and splintered as he tightened his grip, crushing it into chips that leaked from his fingers.
'That's going to be a pain to replace .' the doctor mused, rolling his eyes as he watched the soldiers curse and aim their weapons at him. Honestly, what was that supposed to do? Did they really come here and expect him to be intimidated by some pathetic machineguns? The absolute lunacy of them — what kind of idiot didn't give themselves bulletproofing the first chance they got? Guns were the most common weapon in the world!
"Stand down." The lieutenant snapped, and her minions paused. "Very well then. Let's dispense with the pleasantries." She snapped her fingers, and two of her minions stepped forward, brandishing not guns, but metal briefcases. "High Command wants to employ you, Twilight Doctor. In fact, they're willing to waste valuable resources just to get you to join." She shrugged nonchalantly. "Your payment will be generous, if you decide to join us."
" Payment ?" Ming chuckled. "Oh, this will be good. Come on, tell me how much money or gold you want to give me. I don't need it . I thought you'd at least have done your research before even thinking of approaching me. Besides," he shrugged, "Why would I want to work with you? There's a lot of other groups out there that don't carry the same... stigma that your little cult does." He shrugged. "They'd probably pay better, too. How much funding do you even have? Aren't you an underground organization?"
The woman glared at him, eyes twitching. Ming could hear her gritting her teeth under her mask. It was rather entertaining, to be honest. She growled silently, clearly outraged. "Of course someone like you wouldn't understand. Our reach is far wider than you could possibly understand! I don't expect you to understand how the purity of our cause has drawn so many to us, but you will refrain from insulting our holy mission." She made a brief gesture and one of the briefcase-holding soldiers began unlatching their case. "Allow us to enlighten you. A brief... sample of your payment." The soldier pulled the lid of the case open, revealing a pale-white arm, suspended in a canister filled with some kind of preservation fluid.
Ming blinked, stunned. 'Surely not.' He didn't have the highest opinion on the Union's level of competence, but this was honestly ridiculous. It should have been under heavy lock-and-key in a secure vault somewhere, not here , in his lab . Yet, he couldn't deny it. Akhator, the Sky Demon's arm was a bare few meters away from him, being held by some insignificant Nazi. Silently, he reassessed the amount of danger he was in. Fools or no, if they thought they could get away with bringing something so valuable here and get away with it, they were more dangerous than they seemed.
"And how, exactly did you get your hands on that?" Ming asked, staring straight at the lieutenant. "That arm is supposed to be under heavy guard in a Union vault. If you're trying to bribe me with a fake, I will be very displeased ." He growled, adding a bit of an actual growl from a large cat behind it, and grinned subtly as the lieutenant subtly bristled. No doubt she was irritated that anyone wouldn't trust them at their word — too far into the ideology, it seemed like.
"I can assure you, Doctor, it is not a fake." the woman glared daggers at him, her pet pangolin following her example. "Our agents are planted deep into the Union. Retrieving the arm was child's play. But if you're so paranoid that you want more proof," She snapped her fingers sharply, and the second case-wielding soldier stepped forward, "Then you won't be able to ignore this."
Following the movements of the previous soldier, they smoothly unlatched the case and presented its contents to him, a trio of strange glowing orbs that bathed the room in a soft green light. There was a moment, as noone spoke, seemingly waiting for Ming to pass his judgement.
‘I’m not not one to believe in stereotypes,’ Ming mused, ‘but.’ He raised an eyebrow. “Is that,” he raised a hand, pointing at the orbs, “radioactive material?” It seemed like he was supposed to be impressed by whatever those three obs were, but well, he didn’t recognize them. If he’d had more access to the union’s documents perhaps he would’ve known, but right now, those orbs just looked like some cartoonist’s rendition of magical nuclear waste.
‘Are they even functional, whatever they are?’ He narrowed his eyes, looking closer. Each orb had some sort of shattered thing within it, almost looking like a Bohl’s Model for some reason. If they were trying to convince him it was an alien artifact, they were doing a rather poor job of it.
The silence following his question continued on, allowing Ming the time to subtly look over the room with his soul-sight once again. Apart from the lieutenant’s pangolin, however, the souls of the assembled soldiers were rather normal — not counting whoever that was hiding in the shadows over there. Their soul was weak, to the point that he’d almost missed it, but it was still there.
“No matter, then.” The case was shut, sealing away the glowing orbs. “It doesn't matter whether you recognize what those are,” the woman said, “but you will still be allowed to experiment with them should you make the right choice.”
Her right hand dropped to the length of metal rope fastened to her waist. “So then, Doctor. Will you? Make the right choice, that is.”
Ming chuckled softly, showing off a mouth full of too-sharp teeth. “Yes, I think I will.”
Then, as the Nazis began to relax, he burst forward through the hole he’d made earlier in the railing, launching himself at the lieutenant and punched her hard in the chest, producing a audible crack! and sending her flying back into the entrance tunnel alongside a trio of soldiers as she let out a strangled gasp.
Twisting, he lashed out with a foot, clawed talons bursting through his shoes and connecting solidly with the unlucky soldier’s head, tearing deep gashes across their face as their mask was ripped off. Breathing in, he forced his body to bloat like a balloon, skin covered in emerald scales tearing apart the clothes on his upper body. Gunfire roared in the enclosed laboratory, but the bullets glanced off — it’d bruise later, but Ming remained unharmed.
“Hold fire you idiots! He’s bulletproof!” The lieutenant bellowed, her voice pained, and the Doctor took the split-second of processing time the soldiers had to spew his toxic payload as a flood of purple venom washed over the gathered men and women, the mixture of deadly venoms and vulture stomach acids eating through clothes and skin. Screams and sizzling filled the air.
Internally, Ming grimaced. The corpses would be practically unusable now, and all the poisonous residue would leave a trail leading to him even when he left the lab behind later. Plus, he mused as he tried to cough subtly, it just straight-up hurt to use that.
His reprieve was short-lived, however, as those who weren’t completely disabled by the deadly tide lunged towards him with blades in hand, going for the weak spots in his armour that were exposed when he shrunk down. Ming was forced into fighting them off, and then immediately having to dodge upwards as the lieutenant’s shout of “Number seven! Kill him!” made her pet grow to dwarf him and launch itself forwards, enormous arms slamming into the floor and cracking it through sheer force.
Grabbing on to the ceiling, Ming considered his options as he spat out a glob of purple fluids. Most of the soldiers were down for the count, and many would likely be dead before twenty minutes had passed. Too bad they couldn’t expel the poisons like he could. The pangolin-beast was the bigger issue. He watched as it removed its arms from the cratered floor, its scales still pristine as it glared balefully at him.
‘With that level of durability, I’m not sure I can pierce its armour fast enough to kill it.’ Better left unsaid was that if he took to long, it would likely hit him instead, and though the Doctor’s dragonscale was strong, he hadn’t had the time to perfect the formula for the Sacred Dragon’s scales yet, so they weren’t at their fullest potential. He could likely poison it if he had some time, but piercing those scales would force him into prolonged close combat, not even accounting for the fact that the poisons he could use were unavailable to him right now. Maybe if he struck at its vitals he could kill it. Sighing, he started shifting parts of his left hand into sharp, chitinous—
A trio of lines cut across the ceiling as Ming scrambled out of the way. The lieutenant staggered back into the room with a murderous expression plastered on her face, her breathing harsh but steady and her left hand holding the whip that had cut through where he was just a second ago. ‘Looks like I won’t be able to stay up here too long then.’ Ming grimaced.
Already the parts of the ceiling she damaged were crumbling, and he’d wager trying to go across there would just make the ceiling collapse with him still on it. He plucked one of the spines forming on his left arm off, testing it for a moment before flicking it at her. She slapped the projectile out of the air, somehow managing to see it coming at near-supersonic speeds.
“Is this all you can do, Doctor?”
The question cut through the relative silence, only broken by the growling of the pangolin.
Ming raised an eyebrow, amused. Was she trying to taunt him?
“If you think I can’t kill you, your pangolin, and whoever it is you’ve got hiding in the shadows, I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed.” Ming replied, staring her in the eyes.
“Hiding in the— what on earth are you going on about, Doctor?” She adopted a confused expression, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the room. “There’s no on else here. No one’s coming to help you. It’s just the thr— urk!”
Blood erupted from her neck like a fountain as a knife flashed across it, a figure launching themself up from her shadow, black-gloved hands pulling her head back and slitting her exposed throat in one swift motion. “Wha—” the Nazi gurgled, blood bubbling out of her mouth. She tried turning around, whip in hand, but a swift jab to the neck stopped her mid-twist, and she fell to the floor as blood flowed out of her maw.
A cloud of dust appeared as the pangolin’s arm appeared, slamming into the floor with a thunderous Bang! as it roared in anger. A flurry of knives shot out from behind it, stabbing deep into its scales. Ignoring the beast’s roar of pain, Ming looked over to see the figure standing a few meters behind, the shadows melting away to reveal an old man, standing tall amid the web of poison he’d laid on the ground.
The old man— the old Adventurer , Ming corrected, aws, surprisingly, dressed rather practically. A brown long-coat worn over a bright red vest and white shirt, a belt securing it across his waist and chest. Black gloves and boots, along with a pair of dark blue trousers covered every inch of the man’s skin below the neck. A pair of glasses sat on a head of gray hair, over a wide grin.
The pangolin swivelled around, eyes glaring hatefully at the man, whose smile only grew. Ming watched as the beast lunged forward, claws outstretched to crush the man. Then, he kept watching as the man spun , grabbing it by the face and throwing it into the floor with enough force to crater it.
Then, the pangolin’s head exploded.
Ming blinked, swatting away stray… flesh from the explosion. The beast’s head was a ruin, a headless body, with some parts of the torso blown away to reveal steel-reinforced bone and bleeding internals. He hadn’t even seen the adventurer holding any explosives for even a moment — where was he even keeping them?
‘What now?’ The Doctor wondered. At least the man seemed disinclined to kill him — he hadn’t gotten knives thrown at him or something yet, and all the adventurer was doing was looking around, probably searching for something. He watched the elderly man walk over to one of the cases — the one holding those weird orbs, Ming remembered, and pick it up, briefly inspecting its contents before turning for the exit—
A paralyzing gaze snapped to meet Ming’s. Deep, dark purple pools stared straight through him as the air grew thick and heavy, the sheer weight of the man’s presence turning the air suffocating. The shadows almost seemed to lengthen, stretching closer to the man… then the moment of eternity ended, and Ming gasped for breath. Who was this man? Even Akhator hadn’t had this aura of just, sheer danger around him, the few times Ming had witnessed him in battle.
“Who… are you?” Ming rasped, voice trembling.
“Me? Oh,” the old man chuckled menacingly, “No one you need to worry about.” His mouth widened in a cruel grin, all teeth and malice. “I suggest you find somewhere else to stay, Doctor. Those Nazis aren’t going to just leave this alone.”
Ming nodded, too afraid to do anything else.
Rolling his eyes, the old man turned and walked away, melting into the shadows of the tunnel, leaving Ming alone in his destroyed lab, with a lot of corpses, an alien arm, and a dictator’s soul.