Chapter 6: An Awakening

The moment Gio swallowed the core, the soldiers raised their weapons. Plasma coils hummed to life, casting a pale blue glow across the crowd.

"Anyone who refuses will be shot on the spot," Commander Darwin announced with a cold and absolute voice.

Fear pressed the crowd forward. One by one, they followed. The rough-looking older man popped his core into his mouth with a nervous grin. The girl with green and black hair hesitated, tears streaming down her face, before finally forcing it down. The twins swallowed theirs in perfect unison. The nobles wept and gagged. The handcuffed criminals cursed and spat, but even they complied. Within minutes, all remaining fifty-nine recruits had consumed their cores.

Mutation ripped through the group in waves.

Some bodies convulsed violently, limbs twisting at unnatural angles. Others warped horrifically, their skin splitting and reforming in grotesque patterns. A few stabilized quickly, their bodies accepting the change of the mutation. But many did not.

A woman near the front screamed as her body swelled and burst, showering those around her in gore. A man collapsed, his bones audibly snapping as his form shifted into something bestial. Before he could rise, a plasma bolt took his head off. The soldiers fired without hesitation, cutting down the monsterized recruits immediately.

The air grew thick with smoke and the smell of burnt meat.

Some of the survivors began to stabilize. Their auras dimmed, the worst of their convulsions passing. They gasped for air, trembling but alive. But Gio was still caught in violent throes.

Black and white veins pulsed beneath his skin, spreading like cracks across his body. Blood streamed from his nose, his mouth, his eyes. His body shuddered under an invisible pressure, and his aura lashed out like a storm, crackling with unstable energy.

Even Commander Darwin believed he was about to turn to a monster and signaled a soldier to aim, his plasma rifle trained on Gio’s head.

But Gio’s mutation didn’t break. It endured.

Inside his skull, static buzzed like radio interference.

[Pzz...Pzz...]

[Multiple neuro-pathways discovered.]

[Attempting to establish connection...]

[Connection failed.]

[Connection failed.]

[Connection failed.]

[...]

[One connection established.]

Gio thought he was hallucinating. That the pain and grief had finally broken something inside him.

[Planet Encyclopedia in progress...]

[Analyzing host interface...]

[Interface achieved.]

[System online.]

[Host acknowledged. Bioform: Mutagenic.]

[Successful Link established with Velithari.]

His body shook. His vision dizzied. And in the noise between heartbeats, he realized something more unusual than a simple mutation was happening to him.

After what felt like an eternity, Gio’s convulsions finally eased. The black and white veins retreated beneath his skin and disappeared. He remained standing, panting heavily, sweat pouring down his body. Blood still stained his face, but the violent pressure surrounding him had vanished.

When he forced his eyes open, he saw plasma rifles still trained on him. Commander Darwin’s hand lowered in a silent signal to stand down.

Then, a translucent panel flickered to life before Gio’s eyes.

Did the mutation break my brain? he thought.

Text began to populate on the panel:

[Host: Gio]

[Species: Human Mutant]

[Core: E-Rank]

His confusion deepened as the panel glitched, the text warping and shifting before reforming.

[Warning! Biological anomaly detected.]

[Converting to compatible user interface...]

[Conversion completed]

[Skills: Command (E-Rank)]

The description unfolded in clean, precise lines:

[Command (E-Rank): As a mutagenic host, you can absorb the bioenergy of slain mutated organisms to recreate them as energy-origin replicas. Constructs that faithfully mimic the biological traits, instincts, and combat capabilities of the slain creature. They remain under absolute command and consume stored Bioenergy for manifestation and upkeep. Higher ranks demand a stronger Mutagenic Core.]

Gio stared, his mind blank. He looked around, expecting someone else to see what he was seeing. But no one reacted. No one was looking at him. The others were too busy with their own mutations.

---

By the time the chaos settled, everyone still alive had stabilized. The soldiers rounded them up and conducted a headcount. Out of the sixty recruits, twelve had been eliminated: either exploded, monsterized, or otherwise killed during the mutation process. The survivors were herded into a loose formation.

Commander Darwin stepped forward, his voice calm and measured.

"You are the true chosen ones. Once again, welcome to Expedition Sixty-Seven. Now, you are Mutated Humans, the next generation of heroes"

He paused, letting the words sink in.

"I will now explain to you what that means."

He began to pace slowly before them, his bionic arm glinting under the floodlights.

"Just like the creatures outside, you now possess something called a Mutagenic Core. This core is an organ that stores mutagenic bionergy. That energy is what fuels and reinforces your mutation abilities."

The survivors looked around at each other in awe. The fear from moments before began to fade, replaced by a cautious excitement about what might come next.

"Discovering your mutation ability," Commander Darwin continued, "is as simple as a baby learning to walk. If you focus and turn your attention inward, you will instinctively sense the changes in your body. You will know what your power is."

Slowly, the survivors began to calm down. They closed their eyes, turned their attention inward, and reached for something new and strange within themselves.

Some succeeded.

The rough-looking older man scrunched his face in concentration but nothing happened. He shrugged, more amused than disappointed.

The girl with green and black hair gasped as green energy oozed from her, claws extending from her fingertips, a long tail sprouting behind her, cat ears twitching atop her head, and whiskers appearing on her cheeks.

The twins activated theirs in perfect synchronicity, one vanished from sight entirely, becoming invisible, while the other’s skin hardened into a rocky, stone-like shell.

Other survivors joined in. A noble woman’s hands flickered with fire. A skinny civilian generated sparks of electricity between his fingers. One of the handcuffed criminals suddenly swelled in size, his body growing to twice its normal height, muscles bulging grotesquely as the handcuffs broke away.

The giant criminal looked at his oversized fists, then at the soldiers. A grin spread across his face. He turned and bolted, his heavy footsteps shaking the ground.

He made it ten meters before three plasma bolts set to STUN, struck him in the back. He crashed to the ground, twitching, steam rising from his smoking body. The soldiers dragged him back without a word.

"Let that be a lesson," Commander Darwin said flatly. "Your abilities are not a license for stupidity."

He clasped his hands behind his back and continued.

"There are four primary classifications of mutation abilities."

He raised one finger. "Physical-Type, Which Enhances or changes the body. Like Super strength. Speed. Durability. regeneration. Transformation... like our friend’s gigantification here."

He raised a second finger. "Manifestation-Type, which manifests or manipulates external energy/phenomena or Element. Fire. Ice. Water. Earth. Wind. Poison. Energy blasts. Lightning. And so on."

A third finger. "Psychic-Type, which Affects the mind or perception. Telepathy. Mind control. Precognition. Illusions."

A fourth. "And Special-Type, abilities that don’t fit the other three categories. Teleportation. Invisibility. Gravity manipulation. Monster taming. Et cetera. We have information of a lot."

Gio listened, but his mind was elsewhere. realising that commander Darwin hadn’t said anything about the voices he heard in his head and that only he was able to see the Gamelike panel floating before him.