Axel couldn't shake the impossible weight of his words: promising to defeat an S-rank hunter like Thor within a week was bold, but it now hovered over him like an ominous shadow. As he finished taking the multitude of tests in the association's lab, the air was thick with the unsaid tension of his claim. His team was healed, patched up, and cleared for release, but Axel's mind remained elsewhere.
"All clear," a hunter who was an healer that assisted everyone else with their wounds said, removing the testing equipnt from Axel's arm. "No injuries. You're free to go."
***
Axel was still nodding silently in thought, his mind still reeling as he and Noel piled into a cab. It was nightti, and the streets were rcifully empty. No traffic jams, no delays. Just the quiet hum of the city passing by as they neared ho.
It wasn't long before they arrived at the front door. Axel, now filled with a mix of exhaustion and relief, knocked energetically.
"Annie! Little sis! Open the door!" Axel yelled, knocking hard enough to shake the fra.
The door swung open with a fury that matched his pounding. Annie's face was flushed with anger, and her eyes practically radiated bloodlust.
"You friggin' bastard!" she snapped, her voice raw. "You left alone for three days! I thought—" She stopped, her eyes brimming with tears. "You were trapped in that portal... I thought you were dead! Promise —no more portal hunting for at least a week!"
Axel raised his hands in mock surrender, his smirk fading quickly. "Annie, if I don't hunt, we'll starve. When hunger slaps you, you'll be begging to clear another portal."
Noel, already past the drama, stepped inside, ignoring the tension between the siblings. "Annie, any chance you made dinner?" Noel asked, her voice steady as she made her way to the dining room.
Axel followed in turn ignoring Annie.
Annie sighed heavily but followed them in after so consideration taken. "I didn't expect you back so soon, so I just made a small batch of pudding." She spoke heading into the kitchen to dish it out to everyone.
Axel's stomach growled in protest. His favorite. And there was barely enough to go around.
He was about to complain when a loud knock at the door cut through the air like a knife.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Axel's brow furrowed. At this hour?
"Who could that be?" He stretched as he made his way to the door, a lazy yawn escaping him.
He walked up to the door and reached for the handle, ready to throw out a sarcastic comnt—when suddenly—
**BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!**
The house was rocked by a deafening explosion. The front door was obliterated in an instant, and a massive wave of fire and heat surged through the ho, blowing out windows, crumbling walls, and tossing everyone in its path like rag dolls.
Axel felt himself slam into sothing hard. Pain seared through his side as debris rained down, and the searing heat was unbearable. For a mont, his world was nothing but fire and agony.
When the ringing in his ears subsided a bit, and the intense heat ebbed just enough for him to think, Axel opened his eyes to barely see chaos. Flas consud the house, turning everything he held dear into an inferno. His ears were filled with the crackling of wood, the hiss of flas, and—
Blood. The sll of blood and burning flesh filled his senses, choking him. He tried to move, but his body protested. He glanced down at his abdon and saw it—a jagged wooden shard had pierced his belly. Blood poured from the wound, pooling beneath him.
'I'm dying.' The realization hit him like a brick.
[HP: 2/70]
With shaking hands, Axel fumbled to access the store in his system, the explosion did more harm than shown. His vision blurred, but he managed to select a health potion after buying an unnecessary dagger. He tried to drink it, but his hands were shaking too much, spilling so of the liquid.
[HP: 50/70]
The potion took effect instantly, dulling the pain and closing the wound. Axel groaned as he pushed himself to his feet, but the heat was still unbearable, the flas licking at his skin.
He forced himself to focus, eyes scanning the ruins of the house. The front door had been obliterated. The explosion—it had co from outside. And through the smoke, Axel saw them: **three figures** standing in the doorway, shrouded in black cloaks, their faces hidden beneath deep hoods.
'Who are they?' His mind raced, but he didn't have ti to think. His heart pounded as he turned, his gut twisting with fear.
'Annie. Noel.'
He stumbled over the debris, searching frantically with a tensed deanor until... He spotted Noel first—or what was left of her. The sight was grotesque. Her body was severed in half, her blood staining the floor around her. Axel froze, his heart sinking.
"Noel…" His voice was a weak whisper.
His legs felt like lead as he forced himself to keep moving, eyes wide with terror. 'Annie… Please be alive.'
He prayed silently his eyes already leaking tears. Sothing in him gave a rough feeling of foreboding...
Although vthat was proven in a matter of seconds.
He saw her, lying in the corner of the ruined room, impaled on a jagged tal rod. The blood gushing from her chest was relentless. Her body was limp, lifeless.
"No… No, no, no…" Axel fell to his knees several feet's from her. His hands trembled as he reached out, to her but was too far off to reach. "Annie…"
The sobs ca hard and fast. His sister, the only family he had left, was gone. Lifeless before him and killed under his own protection.
Axel's world shattered. The flas roared around him, but all he could feel was the cold emptiness of grief.
The cloaked figures stepped forward. Their presence was suffocating, their intent unmistakable.
Axel's grief Increased as he continued to stare at Annie, realizing he she had suffered to have such an unfair death, and that infuriated him more.
'They did this.... My sister is dead because of them... I'll kill them... I'll kill everyone!.'
***
Carlos scread, his voice shredded by terror, as the Fatek hoisted him high into the air. His broken hands and legs hung limply, a grueso display of his helplessness. His body dangled like a puppet with its strings cut, his breath coming in desperate, shallow gasps. The excruciating pain in his limbs dulled his mind, but fear kept him acutely aware of his surroundings.
He was useless now—broken, shattered, and on the verge of death.
Tears streaked down his face as the mories of how he ended up here flashed before his eyes. He'd lost the battle against Cell, only to be snatched away while the others fought on.
While his comrades were distracted, he had been dragged into a swirling portal, its black maw consuming him and spitting him out into a grotesque nightmare—a butcher house filled with the stench of death, blood painting the floors. This was no ordinary place. It was a hidden lair for the Fatek, a race that lurked beneath the surface, festering in the shadows.
They had gone unnoticed for far too long, hidden in plain sight, on Earth.
"Shhh…" The Fatek boss silenced Carlos with a single gesture—a finger to his lips. Carlos, already too traumatized by the rciless beating he'd received earlier, obeyed without question. His breath hitched in his throat, any whimper of protest smothered by fear. He rembered what happened when he disobeyed. His shattered bones were a cruel reminder.
The Fatek boss turned the rusted knob of the heavy door with an eerie calmness. As it creaked open, Carlos's heart sank into his stomach at the sight revealed. The door gave way to a massive, sterile laboratory, glowing with cold, fluorescent light. But in the center of the lab was the true horror: a giant, translucent cocoon, pulsing faintly with an ominous light.
It hung suspended in the air, attached to the walls and ceiling by cables that seed to breathe like living tendrils.
Carlos's voice faltered, his throat dry. "W-what is this place?"
The Fatek boss chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through Carlos's bones. His grin was a grotesque display of sharp teeth that seed to stretch too far across his face. "Where did you think Cell ca from?" The Fatek's voice was a venomous hiss, each word dripping with malevolence.
Carlos froze in place, his blood running cold. Cell—the monster they had barely survived—was connected to *this*? He didn't want to believe it, but the dread gnawing at his insides told him it was the truth. His legs buckled, but the Fatek boss had more to say.
"Imperfect Cell was nothing but a weak imitation," the Fatek boss explained, circling the cocoon. "A re fragnt—a prototype, if you will. We tested a asly ten percent of the true power we're about to unleash. The perfect weapon is almost complete." His voice held a dark glee, a twisted sense of triumph.
Carlos's eyes widened, his body trembling uncontrollably. "*Imperfect* Cell? What—what the hell is the *perfect* one, then?!" The realization hit him like a sledgehamr. All their fights, all their efforts—it had been nothing but a distraction, a diversion to keep them busy while sothing far worse festered in the dark.
The Fatek boss's voice turned mocking. "All those portals we opened? The attacks on your cities? They were all distractions to keep your so-called 'hunters' preoccupied. While they played at being heroes, we've been working right under their noses, harvesting what we needed from your world.
Hundreds of awakened humans have fallen into our hands, and no one even noticed." He spat the last words with disgust. "Pathetic. Primitive. Your race didn't even realize the true threat."
Carlos felt sick. His stomach twisted in knots as the Fatek continued.
"You see, the problem with our race," the Fatek boss mused, "is that we lack the binding that allows your kind to awaken. But we've found a solution. By feeding the cell project with the blood and abilities of your people, we've begun creating sothing far beyond anything you could imagine, evolution beyond apes."
The Fatek boss stopped in front of the cocoon, his hands gently caressing its surface. It pulsed beneath his touch like a heartbeat—alive and waiting. Carlos's mind scread at him to run, but his body refused to obey. His legs felt like lead, frozen in place by the overwhelming terror coursing through him.
"We were hoping for an S-rank hunter to feed this project, but you, Carlos… an A-rank snack will suffice."
Carlos's heart skipped a beat, his vision blurring as panic took over. He barely noticed when the Fatek boss dropped him to the ground, propping him up against the pulsating cocoon like a discarded doll.
Suddenly, the air thickened with an overpowering, suffocating presence. Carlos could feel it—sothing monstrous was inside that cocoon, waiting to be born. His lips quivered uncontrollably, and all he could muster was a trembling whisper. "P-please… no…"
But before he could finish, thick, snake-like tentacles shot out from the cocoon and wrapped around his limbs. He scread as they coiled tighter, dragging him closer. One tendril wrapped around his throat, squeezing the air from his lungs.
"No! NO!" Carlos choked, thrashing in vain as the tendrils pulled him into the cocoon. His skin tore against the rough surface, blood oozing from the deep gashes as the cocoon began absorbing him, slowly, agonizingly. It felt like being fed into a at grinder—every inch of his body was being shredded apart, piece by piece.
Tears of pain and desperation stread down his face as his mind scrambled for any final thoughts. 'I'm sorry… I can't make it ho, Fam…'
In one final, brutal tug, Carlos was gone. The cocoon closed around him, sealing his fate. All that remained was a streak of blood sared across the floor, leading to the throbbing mass of the cocoon.
The Fatek boss let out a satisfied growl, his sharp teeth gleaming under the lab's cold lights. "The birth of the Perfect Cell begins."
For a mont, the lab was still. Then, the surface of the cocoon began to crack. Thin fractures snaked across its exterior, and the pulsing light grew stronger, more erratic.
A twisted grin spread across the Fatek boss's face as he took a step back, watching the cracks widen. "Let the humans et their carnage."
With a final, thunderous crack, the cocoon split open.
And sothing far worse than Cell erged.
---
***Author's Note***
End of the first season! I think I deserve a magic castle after this wild journey! Feel free to throw a dragon, a race car, a massage chair, or at least a golden ticket! Your support keeps this story alive, so don't leave hanging!
Season two will be even crazier—expect more twists, more horror, and more thrills.
And rember… this is based on a true story
I'm begging for support... don't leave this season without showing a little light of encouragent to ... Thanks
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