Super Hero RPG: Chronicles of Los Diamantes

[Godzilla Forever]

Aya wasn't alone in her journey to the crime scene. Numerous other squad cars were also flocking to the scene as well. This killer would be brought to justice.... sooner or later. Consdering she killed numerous SWAT team members last week, this suspect may be extremely difficult to catch....

Jackson still had a little bit more to go until he'd reach his hideout....

[InfernalAngel]

Natasha finished laying explosives along the alley way just as she hear the sirens. She had placed twelve A.O.E.F.M's, intending to use them in her escape. She mad a quick check on her pistol's ammunition count, and activated her stealth module, becomeing a faint glimmer in the light.

"Gaurdian, prime those charges and wait for my mark," She orderd her A.I. "I need to grab... something.."

"Charges primed." replied the A.I. "Aslo, note your solar cells are fully charged."

[The Kingpin]

As Atlas walked in he took off his shades, slipping them into his front pocket as he set the briefcase down on an empty spot on one of the tables. "I've solved our problems" he said as he opened the briefcase, grabbing his lab coat from a rack and hanging up his jacket, putting on the coat before removing three vials of serum from the briefcase. "Lydia, could you get a blood sample from the fridge and put it on three slides?" he asked as he went for one of the supply drawers, extracting a syringe and a pack of needles...

[Godzilla Forever]

Soon, numerous officers were at the scene of the crime. Natasha was not their top priority at the moment; the most improtant thing was to tend to the mortally wounded man. Aya arrived shortly after the others had, along with a couple green cops. The men attempting to keep the wounded man alive looked stunned by the extent of his wounds.

"Whatever he was shot with, the round nearly ripped his whole body in two," one of the officers said.

"Maybe a shotgun?" Aya inquired.

"No," a different officer retorted. "Look at the bullet wound-" he pointed to a small, cicular entrance wound on the man's back. "If it was a shotgun, there would be more than one entrance wound. Whoever shot him, used some sort of either high powered rifle or a magnum like pistol."

[Hopeflower]

Lydia gave a silent nod, moving to do as she was asked. She snagged a small eyedropper from the drawer where they were kept as she passed and opened the fridge, pausing as she was about to reach in. After a few seconds' hesitation, she pulled out one of the vials filled with more normal-looking blood, deciding it was best to find out what would happen if they injected the subjects with Atlas's serum before the animal genes started to break down the body. They could work on whether they could recover dying subjects later - if Dean and Olivia could be saved at this point, though, she'd consider it a near-miracle. Carefully she prepared the slides and broke the wax seal on the vial, laying a single drop of blood on each slide with her eyedropper. "Ready," she said, exchanging glances with Sam. He looked eager and hopeful; like a child before opening a Christmas present. Did he really have so much faith in his old classmate?

[The Kingpin]

"I wish we had a projector to show you what'd happen altogether. But this'll do" said Atlas as he drew the three vials, using three separate droppers to draw a sample from each. "Now, the blood sample is a natural human's blood. the first dropper contains the serum you were using. I'm sure by this point you're used to seeing what it does to their blood cells. But for sake of comparison, take a look anyway" he said as he used the dropper to place the serum on the sample, placing the slide's cover over it and slipping it under a microscope, gesturing for them to take a look. "What you see there is basically a killing of the blood cells due to sheer incompatibility with the serum. it begins to change them, but due to the fact they're active and drastically different from what they're being forced to become, they die out rapidly. So the first thing you see is discolouration to a typical rusty red tinge, like dry blood. But then the cells decay at such a pace that a full cellular collapse occurs, turning the cells black. At this point, the cells are little more than dust. dirt. particles with no form. husks" he explained as he moved to the second slide, letting the others look through the microscope at the serum washing through the blood cells, their colour gradually fading to rusty brown, before collapsing in on themselves as they turned dark grey, dissolving. "Now, first thing I tried to do was change the form of the serum. rather than being a chemically based serum that would administer the genetic code into the cells using a catalyst, I employed a form of virus to do the same. This was the main reason I needed to take the samples to my lab. Now, when you look at this sample," he started as he slipped the second slide under a microscope, having administered the second serum while he explained, "You see the result of that change. This particular virus is of my own design. I won't bore you with the specifics, but what it basically does is initially attack the cells, feeding off the energy being supplied to them in order to multiply, before splitting. once that initial split is complete, it proceeds to take control of the cell entirely, while administering the genetic code and using it's control in order to weave it into the genome" he said. looking at this slide would reveal that again, the cells began to darken, but not nearly as quickly as they did in the old serum. "The perk of this serum is that it requires considerably less of the substance in order to be effective. On the downside, this virus is not totally safe from the immune system, and a particularly powerful immune system would stop it's effects before it has claimed the entire body, meaning that portions close to the point of administration would eventually be rejected by the body, causing a condition similar to gangrene. This condition could very likely kill the host in the process."...

[Hopeflower]

"...so at this point," Lydia mused after having a look, "we'd be playing for time while we tried to find a way to stop the cellular degeneration completely." She chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment before saying, "But you said this was only the first thing you tried. Where did you go from here?"

[The Kingpin]

"That brings me to the third vial, which is the culmination of all the work we've done so far" Said Atlas as he dropped a drop of the last serum onto the slide, sealed it and placed it under the microscope. "It occurred to me while working on the second serum that one of the key problems here was compatibility. Hence why some types of DNA you've tried have worked better than others. So I decided to manually modify the DNA we intend to use. synchronise it to a degree with our own. Thus lessening the impact of the change on the human body and increasing the chances of success. With this particular sample, I used fruit bat DNA already available to us through the samples used to create the Dean serum. In addition, I worked on increasing the strength of the virus, using common traits in viruses such as influenza, while also structuring it in such a way that it did not change the DNA component used to change the genome of the host. Now I can't say at this point whether it's possible to do with with every kind of DNA. some are just too different. But for things like mammals, primates, fruit bats, felines, are possible to 'splice' with human DNA. And this, my friends, is the result" he finished. looking into the microscope would reveal the blood had darkened briefly, before returning to it's natural state, the cells morphing almost perfectly...

[Hopeflower]

Sam leaned forward to murmur in Lydia's ear, "Bit better than you were expecting, eh?" She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye, catching his self-satisfied look. Smarta**, she thought, looking back at Atlas. "I have to say I'm impressed," she admitted, inwardly feeling smug over the half-stifled sound of surprise that Sam made. "I didn't expect you'd figure out a solution so quickly."

[The Kingpin]

"Well, I'll admit it wasn't easy. But that's the fun part in this line of work. The challenge" said Atlas with a chuckle. "This may or may not save Dean. I can't really say. But it should work on fresh test subjects. All we need to do now is run an experiment, see the end result, and work out the kinks" he added, leaning against the table...

[InfernalAngel]

"Natasha," started the A.I. , "There is high activity in your area, I suggest-"

"Power down." Uttered the armored menace.

She would reactivate her A.I. later, right now she was primeing charges, just one slip would make all of the chain mines go off. Wich would leave her either dead, or near it. Connecting the last fuse to its primer, she loaded another magazine into her magnum and melded into the shadows.

[Giratina93]

From where he was, Jadis simply chuckled. "She's got talent, that much I'll admit. ButI got more canidates to locate..." The red oni said to himself, before he turned and walked away, vanishing into the shadows once more... For now, he would make a mental note of this woman... to track her down once the time was right...

"She lives just up past this corner." Tiffany said as she looked over her shoulder at Minene, who was following right behind her. By now, the two of them were getting close to their destination, but as Tiffany instictivly rounded the corner, still looking back at Minene, she failed to see what was ahead of her...

BAM!

[Hopeflower]

Lydia nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps we could try it on Olivia, if we can get the original serum out of her body," she said slowly. "She's nowhere near so far along as Dean is."

[The Kingpin]

Atlas smiled as he walked towards his briefcase, removing a fourth vial, handing it, along with the third one he had demonstrated earlier, to Lydia, labels on the two marking them as Sample 3A and 3B. "Inject them into the IVs we have hooked up to them. 15 millilitres should do. 3A for Dean and 3B for Olivia" said Atlas briefly...

[Giratina93]

"Owww..." Tiffany groaned as she fell backward, barely catching herself by planting her hands onto the ground to stop her falling. Once she had gotten back up, she noticed that Minene was helping up the person whom she had run into.

And what am odd-looking person she was! she was a young woman, who looked like she was in her mid twenties, with golden-blode hair that was bundled up at the back, navy blue eyes, and a rose embedded in her hair. That in and of itself struck Tiffany as being somewhat odd, but what really caught her attention was what she was wearing. She wore a ballgown-like dress, brown in color, and with the pattern of a one-winged eagle on the left side. On her neck was a choker, white in color, but appearing one size too small for her neck. All in all, she looked out of place in this city...

"I'm sorry." Tiffany told her as the woman was brought back onto her feet. "I didn't see you there-"

"No no, it's my fault." She replied, her voice having an unusually calm tone to it. "My head was hurting so much, I wasn't paying attemtion where I was going." Here, she paused, before she asked, "Do you know where the nearest health center is? I was looking for one and got lost because of my headache..."

Tiffany opened her mouth to reply, but then she began to think. Where WAS the nearest health center? Then, it hit her. "Just head down 5 blocks south, take a right on the street with the bar at it, and you'll see it down 4 buildings. It'll be right there."

"Is that true? Then thank you." The woman replied, before adding on, " Oh, and the name's Beato."

"My name's TIffany. She's Minene." Tiffany said, gesturing to Minene, who had by now moved beside Tiffany.

"Yes... that would be a nice thought..." Beato responded, nodding her head, before she walked off in the direction that Tiffany had pointed to he, leaving the two girls alone on the sidewalk. The two of them looked at one another, then continued on, their destination in sight...

[Hopeflower]

Lydia inclined her head, acknowleding both Atlas's forethought and intellience in the simple gesture. "I'll get on it," she said, taking the vials. "You think this'll stop them both from dying?" Sam murmured to his old friend, watching Lydia go. He'd seen a lot of death recently; horrible, agonizing deaths. Many of their test subjects had died screaming, their bodies failing them completely in their last moments. he was accustomed to not being able to save everyone - he did work in a hospital, and sometimes no matter what you could do with medicine, it just wasn't enough. But he was grateful they'd thought to soundproof the doors down here; on some days, the dying cries and pleas could make even the most hardened of men crack a little. More than once he'd taken part in a mercy killing, to spare the person those last few days of agony.

[The Kingpin]

"At this point? I honestly don't know. We can only hope," responded Atlas lowly, before lowering his tone to a whisper as he continued, "But one way or another, we can't let them leave this facility alive. You understand that, right?". the amount of unwanted attention that could be brought to them if any kind of man-beast were to be seen escaping the facility, or worse, if they test subjects were spoken to by the news and turned in front of them, would be disastrous, both for the hospital and for Sam, Lydia and the others. He himself, was in a relatively safe situation, considering he had done so many projects for the government that they would find a loophole and set him free. Then again, the term 'relatively' was a key word here. There was no guarantee things would work out as expected...still, if there was one thing he always made sure of, it was that he always had a backup plan...

[Hopeflower]

Sam nodded slowly. "It would be a disaster for us if one of them went and regurgitated everything they knew to the press," he murmured. "Or the police. And besides that, the world isn't ready to deal with them yet." He picked idly at a fingernail. "One day, maybe..." he added, half to himself.

[InfernalAngel]

Natasha nervously held her pistol pointed down the alleyway. Her entire body, if now for the stabilizeing hydrolics in her suit, would be shakeing. Beads of sweat were rolling down her forhead as she kept her gaze locked into the weapons sights. The results of her plan had been.. unexpected.

She quickly reactivated her A.I.

[The Kingpin]

"Perhaps" said Atlas as he straightened. "Let's go have a look at the progress. the change should be noticable almost immediately" he added as he began to make his way towards the holding cells...