Chapter 399: Familiar Laboratory - Hybrid Research
The moment Lunaria killed the first werewolf, everything went to hell.
She noticed that the room, although it seemed to be a small section that led to several corridors, was one huge room, and the moment she struck, it was too late to pull back or stop.
Her blade sliced the throat of the first werewolf, his brown hair matted with pouring blood as he choked to death while gripping his neck. Lunaria used her leg to lower him slowly, her body pressed to the ground, still silent. She focused her gaze, tracking the werewolf that sniffed the air.
"Huh... why can I smell blood? The experiments don't start—Argh!?"
Like a panther, Lunaria flashed from the ground, using her muscular thighs to rush explosively, stabbing the werewolf's throat from behind, severing the spine and piercing the brain, before pulling it out and letting out a deep breath, but in that moment. Her second of relaxation, a man appeared in front of her...
"W-What the fuck!?" He shouted, holding his gun, about to aim at her.
The werewolf in front, a large man who looked fierce, scowled as he squeezed the trigger, firing a single shot. His eyes widened, seeing her leap and spin to dodge the bullet, aiming her revolver at him without blinking. His eyes followed the movement of her gun as she fired three times rapidly, and the first bullet grazed his cheek, while the second and third slammed into his chest, causing him to fall to his knees.
He spat out blood and coughed. "W-Werewolf...? H-How..."
"..." Lunaria wasn't always a werewolf, so the kind of kinship that most werewolves felt towards the other didn't exist; to her, the only things she held important in life were her sister, family and Nikolai. "Don't look so wronged..." Her mouth transformed, the spherical mouth of a lamprey biting into the wolf's chest, as she began to absorb his life force, until nothing remained, her cheeks and lips stained with blood as she quickly parted.
"Now... then..."
She examined the massive room with four passages with cold eyes and pulled back.
The gunshots must have alerted everyone.
Lunaria flicked her ears as she heard the rushed steps heading her way. This situation would not end well if she didn't use her unique advantage... The powers of a vampire, werewolf and many strange monsters.
One such power allowed her to form a sticky layer on her palms and bare skin.
"Don't get angry at me, Kai."
Ziiip~
With a fluid motion, she unzipped her bodysuit and stripped into her undergarments before a faintly viscous goo covered her skin, dripping onto the floor like slime.
'It's only because it has a low camouflaging effect.'
The tapping of feet grew louder, and some werewolves ran on all fours. Lunaria smirked and hid behind a pillar, watching the shadows fall in one by one...
Her hands slipped up the stone, her body glued to the surface, as she climbed towards the northern exit.
'Well... I wonder how I can use this in the bedroom...'
***
The first thing Nikolai felt was a deep chill, like stepping into a cavernous space where the cold clung to his bones.
"What the hell are these things?!"
He pulled out his pistol and unloaded shots in three taps, aiming for the chest, because he felt that would be the most effective use of the silver bullets.
On the other hand, Amphitrite didn't seem phased by the deformed, half-man.
These half wolvescrawled and rushed at them, her revolver shimmering in the dull light, and with a low pop the face of a wolf tore apart, not enough to blow its head off, but enough to cause a fatal wound, as the silver bullet caused a sizzling sound while the wolf's flesh melted.
She pulled back the hammer and shot again, killing another deformed creature with a clean shot to the head.
"Kai!"
A black mass jumped in front of Nikolai, its teeth open wide before biting at his arm. Nikolai twisted his body and pushed the pistol into the black maw, unloading two shots that blew apart the werewolf.
'Shit!'
His chest ached, and he coughed, spitting up saliva.
'What are these fucking things?!'
Their scent in death was worse than rotten eggs or overflowing sewage during summer. His face grimaced as Amphitrite shot the last of her chamber, blowing apart the head of the final monstrosity.
Nikolai panted heavily, looking at the half-deformed corpse in front of him.
"W-What is this place?" Amphitrite's voice sounded strange, unlike her usual joking or flirtatious tone; it was a little scared, "N-Nikolai, look!" There was a door... a familiar door, something they both saw a few weeks ago. "How is this here!?"
The place they saw it... was the forgotten tower.
***
Inside the room, hundreds of glass cylinders filled with bodies and organs floated in a green liquid. The bleeping and humming of machines echoed in an organised rhythm.
"Where are we?"
Nikolai walked around the ample, open space, with only dim lights illuminating the room, making the shadows deeper.
Cleanliness.
That would be the ideal word for this place... if not for the nightmarish things bobbling in the tubes.
The sound of feet stepping on the ground caused Amphitrite to point her gun forward.
"Don't shoot."
A soft and refined woman's voice came from behind a tube, as a blonde-haired woman appeared, wearing a white scientist robe and wrinks at the corner of her eyes, what shocked the pair was her ears... sharp, but not elven or like a vampire but covered in faint blue scales... identical to Amphitrite.
"A mermaid!?" Nikolai gasped.
The woman's face froze, then her lips quivered before curling into a smile. Nikolai didn't understand her strange reaction, but she spread her arms, and the lights in the room brightened, revealing everything.
Dozens of rows... more and more cylinders.
So many humans, monsters and... animals all torn apart for thier limbs, eyes, organs.
"Mmm... at least that's what I used to be."
When the woman spoke, she unfastened her robe, revealing her chest...
It wasn't some kind of erotic scene... it was harrowing.
Several lines of skin of varied colour, strange scalpel marks, and... hospital-like tags stapled across her chest.
Nikolai felt his heart stop when he noticed her eyes were dead, like those of a shark or snake trapped in captivity. He couldn't help but ask, "What do those mean?" The letters and codes felt strange... a piece beside her lung had the letters LNG-VP T2.
"Ah..." The woman's breaths sounded deep and powerful for her small frame.
"Lung, Vampire, Test Two." She then pointed to her heart... another marking HRT-WW T9 LF
"Heart, Werewolf, Test Nine, Limited Function."
Although not a scientist, the woman spelt it out too easily and clearly.
This happened in the past; this is how they created the two bodies he gave to Lunaria and Amphitrite.
"But why yourself?" He couldn't help but ask her, as all traces of her femininity were gone... the left breast was hairy, like a transformed werewolf... scales and an exoskeleton on her stomach.
"Because I wanted to see if this would give me enough power."
"Enough power?"
"To kill every one of those bastards who took everything away from me!" She shouted, her hands shaking as she spoke. The body of Amphitrite shook before the blonde woman covered her face, visage twisting into an even more grotesque form.
A monster.
The woman, whose voice sounded feminine, shifted into a deep baritone, with hair growing like grass over her entire body.
"I'm going to kill them all, the Everens and everyone else who supported them!" She transformed into some form of werewolf that was more Hulk than beast, but her eyes remained human. "I don't know how you two managed to enter this place... but it doesn't matter. Please do not interfere..."
She didn't show aggression or try to attack... it wasn't Nikolai who spoke first...
"Forgive me, child."
It was Amphitrite.
"...What?" The blonde woman, now a monster, turned around. "Who are you to say that!?"
Amphitrite didn't raise her gun as she walked past Nikolai, stopping only when the monster growled and bared her fangs, however with each step, the human form of Amphitrite became more mermaid, her ears became longer, shone with a glossy blue scales, gills grew from her neck and her pink hair swayed in the air as if alive.
"I am Amphitrite, child, you must understand from this name, no?"
"..."
The woman's face showed confusion, shock and disbelief.
"No... No... No... If you are our queen, then what was the point? Why did you leave us for so many years!? You are supposed to be dead... they destroyed our world, ravaged everything for our organs..."
'Why would they want mermaids...!?' Nikolai didn't understand.
"I beg your forgiveness. I know it's not enough after everything we have both suffered... I wish to help you."
"Help me?" She scoffed, "I don't need any help...Ack!?"
Before she could pull back, Amphitrite brushed the woman's cheek. "Child, I will get revenge, we will have our revenge, but... why did they target us, do you know?" She asked, her voice now sounding mature and motherly.
The woman looked at Nikolai a little hesitantly.
"He is my mate and trustworthy."
"O-Okay... My queen, the catalyst and item that allows for a successful hybrid surgery, allowing bloodlines and features that reject each other... is none other than the Mermaid's tears..."
'A mermaid's tears?'
"Not literal tears, but this..."
Amphitrite looked back at him, stroking her throat as it bulged slightly... until a smooth, creamy sphere rolled on her tongue, it was beautiful. And alluring.
"This is what allowed this body to be created... and the item you need to save your mother."