Nathan clenched his jaw tightly, his eyes burning with focus. He poured every ounce of strength, every last shred of willpower into perfecting the concoction in his hands.
In the command center office, the person in charge stared intently at the display transmitted from a guard's bodycam. Though the internal cameras had been hacked, this live feed through the security team still offered a direct look at what was happening inside the laboratory.
The lab's internal surveillance now showed nothing but an empty room.
The supervisor narrowed his eyes. "What's this idiot doing now?" he muttered. "Trying to make his own serum?"
He scoffed, turning to one of the guards. "If that thing's a failed version, injecting it would be worse than dying quickly. This is desperation."
Their project had gone through dozens—if not hundreds—of serum variants. All failed. Every test subject screamed in agony, some writhing for hours, their skin blistering and bones fracturing, before dying horribly.
A cruel smirk formed on his lips. "Arrogant little worm," he sneered.
Just then, the phone rang.
The supervisor snapped to attention, quickly answering the call.
The voice on the other end was cold and imperious. "I didn't expect trouble from your facility."
Baron Strucker.
The man paled instantly. "My Lord! The situation is under control. We've located the survivor and are about to terminate him!"
Far away, inside a different, heavily guarded facility, Baron Strucker watched the same feed from the bodycams. He remained cold and expressionless as he watched Nathan inside the lab, rushing around like a madman, surrounded by clinking glass and glowing chemicals.
"He looks like a rat cornered by fire," Strucker observed flatly.
He examined the researcher's logs—hours spent reading through the super soldier archives. Still, he didn't seem impressed. "The data's been stagnant for years. If that kid was brilliant, I would've heard of him already."
He gave one final command: "Handle it properly."
Then he shut off the feed.
---
Meanwhile, outside the lab, the security personnel continued firing.
Bang! Bang!
Hundreds of bullets pelted the bulletproof glass.
Then—a sound.
Crack.
A hairline fracture crept across the reinforced panel like a spiderweb.
The guards paused. Then, one by one, grins spread across their faces.
"It's cracking!" someone shouted. "Just a few more rounds and we'll be inside!"
"No wonder this place eats up half our budget. This glass is built like a tank!"
Another guard laughed darkly, peering in at the sweating figure inside. "Won't matter. He's either going to get torn up by bullets or by his own poison."
"Can't wait to see what fails first—his bones or that crap serum."
---
Inside the lab, Nathan finally stopped.
He exhaled, his hands trembling slightly, and held the test tube to the light.
The previously colorless liquid began to shimmer, slowly turning a brilliant light blue, so clear it looked like liquid sky.
"It's done," he whispered, his eyes widening.
The Super Soldier Serum—a version that no one had ever managed to successfully create in decades—was now in his hands.
He grabbed the syringe, transferred the glowing serum into it, and without hesitation, stabbed the needle into his vein.
Swoosh.
The blue liquid disappeared into his bloodstream.
From the outside, the guards sneered.
"Well, there goes nothing."
"I hope he dies screaming."
They had seen the results of a bad injection before. Most subjects didn't last long—and when they did, it wasn't a mercy.
---
In the control room, the supervisor exhaled in relief.
"Looks like it's done," he muttered, reaching for his phone again. "Mission accomplished."
He dialed again and waited for Baron Strucker to answer.
But just as he was about to report the completion, something unexpected happened inside the lab.
---
The moment the serum entered Nathan's bloodstream, agony followed.
It felt like his entire body exploded from the inside out. He fell to the floor with a scream that echoed against the walls.
"AAHHHH!!"
It was as if his bones were being shattered, reformed, and then shattered again. Muscles swelled and spasmed, his heart thundered, his blood burned like fire.
But even amidst the torment, Nathan clenched his fists and screamed internally.
"Don't faint… if I faint, I die!"
He knew how this worked. The transformation wasn't automatic—it required willpower to survive the physical stress. If he passed out, his organs might fail. His heart might stop.
Willpower was the anchor that kept his mind tethered to his body.
His skin boiled with sweat. His back arched violently. His fingernails dug so hard into his palms that blood started dripping to the floor.
But he didn't notice.
The pain was beyond comprehension.
"Hold on! Hold on!" he roared in his mind.
"I'm not dying here! I haven't even started yet!"
He had barely crossed into this world. If he died now, what was the point of being reborn?
No. He refused to die like a failed experiment.
He wasn't some side character. He would survive. He would rise. He was the protagonist of his story.
"I… can… do this!"
Veins bulged across his arms, his skin shimmered faintly under the harsh fluorescent lights, and his screams only grew louder, more guttural.
---
Outside, the guards flinched.
"…Holy crap, what the hell's happening in there?"
"Isn't this the part where he dies?!"
They had seen serum failures before, but something about Nathan's reaction was… different.
This wasn't just death throes.
This was transformation.
"…No way," one muttered. "He's not… surviving that, is he?"
---
In the control room, the supervisor was grinning while the phone rang.
As the line connected, he said smugly, "Lord Baron, I've taken care of the oversight. He injected the serum. He's writhing on the ground in pain now."
Strucker replied curtly, "So he's dead?"
"Soon enough," the supervisor replied. "We both know how that ends. His cells are breaking down as we speak. No one survives that level of mutation. The serum destroys everything."
He paused.
But something was wrong.
On the feed, Nathan wasn't dying.
He was enduring.
The supervisor's words caught in his throat. His smug grin vanished.
There was a pause. Then, a sharp intake of breath.
"…Wait."
Baron Strucker's voice sharpened. "What happened? Answer me!"
The feed showed Nathan's body, trembling uncontrollably… but still moving. Still alive.
The blue glow hadn't faded from his veins. If anything, it had spread. His body was adapting. Rebuilding. Evolving.
---
"No… that's impossible!" the supervisor choked out.
He turned pale, hands trembling. The phone nearly slipped from his fingers.
Inside the lab, Nathan's screaming began to die down. Slowly. Deliberately.
His back arched one final time—then slammed against the floor.
Silence.
But it wasn't death.
His eyes opened.
They glowed faintly blue.