Under a cloudless sky, the blazing sun poured down over the recreation yard, slipping past the high walls and the electrified fences surrounding it.
"Fenris, we're screwed! One of the reactor rooms in the facility is leaking!"
A hurried voice rang out by his ear, jolting Fenris awake from the nap he had been taking in the shade.
"It's not like Magneto came to break us out. What are you so worked up for?"
Fenris cracked one eye open and glanced at the panting white teenager beside him. His voice was sluggish and drained. "Let me sleep in peace. The day before yesterday, they had me spread open on an operating table for more than thirty hours. They nearly drained all the marrow out of me."
At that, Ryan instinctively lowered his head and caught sight of the scars covering Fenris from head to toe.
Thankfully, thanks to the rapid healing from Fenris's lizard-type mutation, fresh pink flesh had already grown over the stitched wounds.
Ryan turned his face away, unable to keep looking. "There's a rumor they're going to make us go in there and shut the valve ourselves. Radiation isn't a joke..."
"We're valuable test material. In a mutant research base this big, grabbing a couple death row inmates would be easy." Fenris waved a hand and offered the reassurance casually.
"That... makes sense. Get some rest." Ryan nodded and ran off.
Fenris watched Ryan hurry away to spread the news to the other lab rats. But the calm expression he had been wearing vanished at once. Enduring the stabbing pain running through his body, he forced himself to sit up.
"Nuclear radiation..."
An ancient-looking book quietly appeared before his eyes.
On its cover, several ferocious beast heads flickered in and out of view, while the enormous bodies of the monsters lurked behind a veil of mist, impossible to fully make out.
The book was called the Titan Index. It had appeared a few months ago, the moment Fenris got into this place, and it contained all kinds of Titan monsters from the MonsterVerse.
There was King Ghidorah, the destroyer from space. The ancient Frost Vark, capable of ushering in an ice age. Rodan, the king of the skies, sleeping in volcanic magma...
There was also Kong the guardian, Mothra the queen of monsters, and Tiamat, the deity of the deep sea...
Every Titan in the book possessed world-shattering power. And through the Index, Fenris, with nothing but a mortal body, could gather the power of many Titans into himself, become a true Titan, and perhaps even obtain strength beyond theirs.
The instant he thought of the reactor leak Ryan had just mentioned, the Index flipped open on its own. A colossal creature over a hundred meters tall filled his vision.
Its legs were thick and powerful. Every inch of its skin looked as hard and rough as stone. Jagged dorsal spines ran from the tip of its tail all the way to its neck, flashing with brilliant blue light.
Looking at the monster's tiny little arms and that weirdly gentle atomic smile, Fenris could not help laughing too.
The King of the Monsters. Legendary Godzilla. The last atomic dinosaur. The Big G.
Most living things feared radiation like the plague. But for Godzilla, whose body housed a living atomic reactor, even the fiercest radiation was nothing more than food.
The more it consumed, the stronger it became.
"A leaking reactor room... this is a perfect chance to absorb radiation..."
Fenris thought it over.
There were many Titans in the Index, but every single one had a completely different unlock condition.
For example, the way to unlock the atomic dinosaur was for Fenris to keep absorbing radiation.
He glanced at the image of Godzilla in its normal state. Less than a quarter of it was lit up.
"Hurry up and light up already. Once you do, I won't have to keep suffering like this..."
From the very first day he arrived in this world, he had been dragged onto a dissection table. After months of torture, this was all the progress he had managed. At this rate, he would have to endure nearly two more years of this torment.
But if there was ready-made radiation for him to absorb, that changed everything.
Carefully, he adjusted his posture and lay back down, making sure not to bump the ability-suppression collar around his neck. Only after the stabbing pain across his body eased a little did Fenris finally let out a long breath.
"Once I really have the power of the King of the Monsters, even if it's only one-thousandth of it, even one ten-thousandth... I'll kill those animals with my own hands."
...
The next day.
A light breeze, a few clouds, and perfect weather for basking in the sun.
When Fenris arrived at the recreation yard as usual, he found that the place, normally filled with noise, now felt strangely tense and stagnant.
"What's going on?"
Fenris quietly slipped toward the rear of the crowd and asked Ryan under his breath.
"Dr. Lane is here."
Following Ryan's gaze, Fenris looked ahead and saw a middle-aged researcher with graying hair standing in one corner of the yard, surrounded by a group of soldiers. He was saying something to them.
"Dr. Lane is the one in charge of the lab where the leak happened."
Ryan's addition made Fenris understand at once.
So this was it. They were planning to pick one unlucky bastard from among the lab rats and send him into the radiation-soaked reactor room to shut the valve.
Clearly, the dozens of mutants around them all understood why the man had come. Fear and dread spread uncontrollably across their faces.
After all, if they stayed in the facility and got experimented on, they might still survive if they were lucky.
But once they were exposed to high-dose radiation, there would be only one path left: a slow death in endless agony.
No one wanted to face that ending, even if none of them knew when they themselves might die in one of the labs anyway.
For a moment, fear spread through the entire yard. In the vast open space, everyone wanted to stop breathing and vanish into the cracks in the ground, terrified of being chosen.
"Fenris, didn't you say they'd find a few death row inmates to shut the valve?"
In the most remote corner, Ryan clutched at the hem of Fenris's shirt, trembling uncontrollably.
He was still young. He really did not want to be picked.
"How would I know what they're thinking?"
"It's just a one-in-several-dozen chance. Your luck's always been good. Don't worry."
Fenris kept his voice low as he comforted the teenager, who was only in his mid-teens, but his own eyes remained fixed on Dr. Lane.
One man's poison was another man's honey.
Forget going into the reactor room to shut a valve. If they would let him, Fenris could stay inside that place indefinitely.
Before long, under the fearful, evasive gazes of the many lab rats, Dr. Lane approached with a squad of heavily armed soldiers.
"I know what you're all thinking."
Dr. Lane wore a gentle expression, one that seemed entirely harmless. "There was a leak in the lab, yes, but it isn't serious. Otherwise, I wouldn't have waited until today to come here."
His measured tone rang out clearly, carrying a strangely reassuring weight.
"As you can all see, I'm a nuclear physicist. I've never taken part in mutant research, so you can trust me completely."
"At the moment, I happen to need a single assistant. If you come to my lab, you'll never have to worry about being subjected to those cruel experiments again, and you'll be able to live like a normal person."
A wave of commotion broke out all around them.
In this secret mutant research facility, the life Dr. Lane was promising was exactly what these people dreamed about.
Fenris's gaze swept across the crowd. He noticed that the tension had already begun to leave some of their faces, slowly giving way to relief.
After quietly waiting for the murmuring to die down, Dr. Lane calmly stated his condition. "The only requirement is that you be willing to wear a specially designed radiation suit and help me solve one small problem."
"I give you my personal guarantee that the suit will protect you completely. All you need to do is spend less than a minute shutting off one small valve. After that, you'll be able to enjoy a life completely different from the one you've had until now."
After saying that, Dr. Lane fell silent and simply watched as the dozens of grotesquely altered mutants in front of him whispered among themselves.
It was obvious that the offer was tempting.
Soon, several bolder mutants slowly stepped out from the crowd.
The moment they realized others were actually trying to compete with them for this rare opportunity, their eyes met, and the atmosphere immediately turned strange.
"A suicide mission turned into a prize everyone has to compete for, just from a few casual lines?"
Standing at the very back of the crowd, Fenris could not help marveling inwardly when he noticed Dr. Lane's calm, detached posture.
There was no such thing as a free lunch.
Up front, as the tension between the volunteers thickened, and as several well-built mutants began watching one another with open caution, the smile on Dr. Lane's face only grew brighter.
"Hey!"
"If it's really one hundred percent safe, why don't you spend a few minutes shutting the valve yourself? Why waste time coming to us?"
A voice deliberately pitched into an odd, affected tone came from somewhere in the back of the crowd.
The smile on Dr. Lane's face froze instantly.