The injection site burned as a systemic reaction to the terrible battle that just took place. The serum hit Steven's bloodstream like liquid starfire, and every nerve ending in his body screamed simultaneously. His remaining eye snapped open, black and wide, the pupil dilating to an impossible degree.
One stumbled backward, nearly tripping over rubble. "Move back further. He's reacting violently to the serum!"
Steven's back arched violently, spine bending at an angle that should have snapped it. His mouth opened, and a non human scream erupted from his mouth, in a frequency that made the concrete around them vibrate.
Brant clapped hands over his ears, blood trickling from his left canal.
"What's happening?!" Veronica's voice, which was usually always flat, now carried an edge of alarm. She reached toward Steven, but his hand shot out faster than she'd ever seen him move even at peak combat. It caught her wrist, fingers crushing bone with casual, convulsive strength.
Veronica didn't cry out, but her eyes widened fractionally as she felt the pressure and dark energy leaking from his pores like black steam.
"Don't," One, still backing away hastily spoke. "Don't touch him. The serum's... it's conflicting with his existing energy signature. The dark energy is treating it as an invader. I'll take more time for it to integrate into his system, so, till then, we better avoid him."
Steven's grip on Veronica tightened. She felt her arm fracture faster, dangerously close to having a clean break off, but he still didn't seem to see her. His eye was fixed on nothing, rolling back and showing only black. His body convulsed more, muscles rippling beneath skin that had begun to darken, the vein-patterns spreading like cracks in glass.
"Let go," Veronica said quietly and resolutely. They had to leave the area, should the case he got stimulated and attacked them. Non of them would be able to take him down should such a situation occur.
The convulsions continued, his nervous system had become a battlefield, the serum and dark energy warring for dominance, and his body was simply reacting to the collateral damage.
Brant acted by stepping in, grabbed Steven's forearm with both hands, and pulled. For a moment, nothing happened Then, with a wet crack, Steven's grip broke. Veronica stumbled back, cradling her wrist, already beginning to regenerate.
"Move back," One repeated, voice rising. "He'll be alright, we just have to wait it out."
Steven's body locked.
Every muscle went rigid simultaneously. His jaw clamped shut hard enough to crack molars. His fingers curled into fists, nails digging into palms, drawing black ichor. He sat frozen against the alley wall, a statue of agony, and then a cocoon began to form around him. It was just like the one formed by Brant when he took the serum, but with dark energy as blood energy.
It started at his feet. The Black liquid, as thick as tar oozed from his pores, wounds, eye socket and mouth. It then pooled around him, climbed up, defying gravity, crawling up his legs like living shadow. Where it touched, it stuck then solidified, becoming something between chitin and obsidian, matte black and faintly warm to the touch.
"What is that?" Anna whispered from the gate, still clutching Nocthar's corpse like a macabre security blanket.
"The dark energy," One breathed, fascinated despite himself. "It's encapsulating him. Protecting the host while the serum improves his biology. I've never seen such a violent energy reaction after injecting the serum before. Even Brant's blood energy was more tame."
The cocoon reached Steven's waist, and his body convulsed again, a single and violent spasm that cracked the alley wall behind him. The black substance poured faster now, responding to his distress, covering his chest, shoulders, and neck. It sealed over his face last, and for a moment they could see his black eye through the translucent membrane, wide and aware, before the final layer opaqued.
Then silence.
The cocoon sat there, two and a half meters tall, vaguely humanoid, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic thrum like a heartbeat heard through water. The surface was smooth, warm, and utterly black light seemed to die against it rather than reflect.
"How long?" Brant asked, wiping blood from his ear.
One shrugged with a nonchalant expression.
"I don't know really. He's greviouly injured, the serum's going to mend and improve him. So it'll take more time. His dark energy's response was also unprecedented. So, it could be minutes or hours."
"Would the strengthening also be permanent in this situation?..where his dark energy is rejecting the serum," Veronica added, her wrist already healed, expression returned to neutral.
"We'll see the results soon, because i too don't have any idea" One admitted. He looked at the cocoon with a scientist's hunger and something like fascination. "But i think it would. The energy signature is stable. Active, but stable. So, the result would be okay."
Then they started moving across battlefield rubble as they waited.
10 minutes later, the cocoon pulsed faster. The surface temperature rose. The alley began to smell of ozone and something sweet, like burning sugar.
"His metabolism is accelerating," One muttered, taking notes on a device pulled from his coat. "The serum's enhancing his cellular regeneration, but the dark energy is digesting and Integrating it. Making it part of his baseline."
Anna had finally dragged Nocthar's corpse behind a dumpster, and out of sight. She crept closer to the cocoon, curiosity overcoming her timidness.
"Is he... in pain?"
"Yes," Veronica said while looking at her with an amused expression.
"He's always in pain."
23 minutes later, a crack appeared.
Thin, hairline, running vertically along the cocoon's left side. The group tensed, while distancing themselves from it.
A while later, the crack sealed itself. A false alarm. The cocoon continued pulsing.
"Growth spurt," One theorized, though his voice had gone a little hoarse.
"His skeletal structure is expanding and the cocoon's trying to adjust for its accommodation."
31 minutes later, the cocoon began to hum slowly, with a vibration that resonated in their chests, teeth, and bones. It carried a presence and declaration that something within was changing, becoming more than it had been.
Brant found himself standing straighter, unconsciously. Veronica's hand rested on Anna's shoulder unconsciously. Even the timid Anna, felt something stir in her chest.
One just watched while taking notes, his eyes never leaving the black surface.
44 minutes later, there was another crack. But this time, it was wider and It didn't seal.
Then came another, and another.
The cocoon was straining, the internal pressure building beyond its capacity to contain. The pulsing had become frantic and arrhythmic.
47 minutes later, the cocoon exploded inwardly, collapsing on itself with a sound like a thousand windows breaking simultaneously. The fragments didn't scatter, they dissolved, sublimating into black mist that was immediately inhaled by the figure emerging from within.
Steven rose slowly. The mist poured into his mouth, nose, and pores of his skin which he drank, every fragment of the cocoon's substance returning to its source.
He now stood at 2.1 meters.
His proportions had changed. Not merely scaled up, but restructured. The shoulders were broader, the chest lines deeper, limbs longer relative to his torso. He looked... more balanced. Where his previous form had been slightly compressed, slightly wrong at 1.82 meters, this was harmonious, designed and optimized.
His skin was pale, the vein-patterns faded to faint silver lines rather than thick black cables. His eyes now, fully regenerated, were still black, but softer. Still inhuman and void-like, but with a depth that hadn't been there before.
He looked at his hands.
They were larger. The fingers proportionally longer, the palms broader. He closed them into fists, felt the density of the bone, the layered muscle, the dark energy flowing smoothly rather than grinding.