[ First Person POV ]
I finished explaining how I got the powers and showed Mark a few of the abilities I'd just used. Mark's curiosity was satisfied — for now — so he went right back to the bench. I slipped out of his workshop and walked to the training room I hardly ever used. I'd abandoned real training ever since I awoke in that ramshackle house. Back then my body was only slightly above average; I trained with whatever I had, where I was. I stayed hidden because I needed time to grow, physically, mentally, spiritually. Yes, I was paranoid. I still am.
The gym was a short walk. Tiffany probably slept; I didn't care right now. Inside the training room
[ Gym ]
I raised an arm and flexed. Under the skin, the black ink trace of Cartoon Cat's power stirred. My forearm elongated in an instant. It curved like a living ribbon between weight racks, a smear of motion instead of a blur. I retracted the limb in a snap, no tremor, no jaggedness. I repeated with my leg: it stretched so far it tapped the far wall without me shifting my stance. Each stretch felt like wiring my body to new coordinates. Control came immediately — no wobble, no hesitation.
Scale & Mass Manipulation
Next, I tested proportion. My fist shrank into the shape of a coin, folding my muscle inward. Then I pushed the opposite boundary: my forearm inflated in girth, bone and muscle bulging outward. I stopped before absurdity, but I felt the deep tingle of connective tissue and periosteal remodeling shifting in real time. My skeleton was reconfiguring, tendon anchors relocating. The process was grotesque and elegant at once.
Regeneration & Resistance
I did something reckless: I severed my arm. The pain was outrageously vivid — the kind that screams through your soul. Yet the wound closed itself. Black ichor curled into the slit; flesh and muscle reknit themselves with terrible speed. Nerve bundles rejoined, skin layered over scarless. Then I tested elemental attacks: fire, lightning, corrosives. They singed, burned, but recovery started before the sensation fully registered. The regeneration wasn't perfect immunity — it hurt. But it always pulled me back. My body was a battlefield; Cartoon Cat's life-logic was healing it as the victor.
Morphing & Limb Multiplication
I willed extra limbs into existence. At first, skeletal shadows unfurled — phantom arms, black surface, pulsing with potential. They solidified into muscular limbs with joints, sinews, and claws. I folded and unfurled them at will. Then I reconfigured a limb mid-form: the flesh seethed, segmented into a pair of appendages, glided outward, then merged back. I made a bladed extension, then a mobile tentacle. Every metamorphosis obeyed my will, like I was sculpting ink in zero gravity.
Senses & Reaction
I blindfolded myself, picked a narrow chamber. I tossed a weighted ball. The moment it struck a wall, I felt the vibration through air; a hair's friction shift gave me direction. Reflexes snapped. I ducked, weaved, sidestepped. My hearing, proprioception, even micro-pressure gradients in the air tuned in. The reaction was automatic. My nervous system had evolved — hyper-fast conduits, ultra-sensitive terminals, predictive pathways — a new neuroarchitecture.
Shadow & Darkness Travel
I tested concealment. I let the black "ink" seep into shadowed corners. My outline blurred. Movement through dark was silent, seamless. The room's shadows swallowed me; I became intangible in semi-darkness. Occasionally a tendril of pitch-black ichor would pull into darkness ahead of me, like a scout, letting me traverse space invisibly. The "ink logic" from Cartoon Cat allowed me to blend into lightlessness, travel through shadow seams like corridors.
I stepped out, scanning my frame in mirrors. I measured myself: over 9 ft 7 in now — a towering figure. My muscles were sharply defined, not bloated. Every sinew, every contour, every angle spoke of lethal efficiency. I wasn't gaining bulk — I was acquiring precision. Height, reach, form, all evolved.
I left the gym. In the basement, I saw Chucky, still tied and twitching on the floor. My instincts flickered: obliterate him now, end this. But I was drained — mental, spiritual, nervous system taxed from the tests. So I turned away. Let him writhe. Let him be. I climbed stairs upward.
Every movement, every test, every flex had proven one thing: the Cartoon Cat's powers had grafted onto me — elasticity, rapid morphing, regenerative priority, shadow-movement, sensory amplification. But I'm not overwhelmed by it.
I closed the door behind me. Tonight, I rest.
[ Hallway ]
As I was walking down the hallway, lost in my own thoughts, I suddenly stopped mid-step and smacked my forehead. "How the hell did I forget about Chucky?" I muttered under my breath. The realization hit hard — he was still down there, probably thrashing around and trying to break free. With an exasperated sigh, I focused my energy and vanished in an instant, teleporting straight to the basement in a blur of dark smoke and faint static crackle.
[ Basement /Armory ]
Chucky was still out cold when I peered down at him. I scratched the side of my head, frowning. I could've sworn he'd have come to by now — either I hit him harder than I thought, he was faking, or he'd finally done himself some permanent damage. He was exactly where I'd left him, bound and face-down, plastic grin slack. Best to keep him contained for a while. I didn't want surprises.
I clasped my hands and shaped a large O with my fingers. Concentration pulled like a magnet behind my eyes; I felt the water in the basement air respond — not liquid pouring, but molecules aligning, surface tension magnifying under command. I blew a steady breath through the O and a bubble swelled out, a perfectly round globe of shimmering water that hung in the air like glass. This wasn't a trick of sight. I had arranged the water's surface into a semi-permeable membrane: it would hold solid objects, resist blunt force and small projectiles, and reject physical intrusion, but it allowed air molecules to diffuse through its lattice so anything inside would still breathe. Think of it like engineered surface tension — a cage that keeps bodies in but doesn't suffocate them.
I eased Chucky into the center and, with a last breath, sealed the sphere. The bubble clung to the floor like an invisible bell jar, translucent rim flashing under the cold fluorescent light. I could have used it as a shield or a travel shell if I wanted — the same construct could bear weight, serve as a flotation device, or be cast as a projectile — but for now it was a prison. He could writhe and curse and try to squirm — the membrane absorbed impact and redistributed it — but he wouldn't get out. Air slipped through that lattice like a whisper; suffocation wasn't part of the sentence. I left him there, quiet and helpless, for later.
I did a quick sweep of the basement next. The place was tidy in the way only someone who cared about their things would keep it: tools placed in racks, cables looped, nothing missing. Relief, small and domestic, warmed me. Theft is the kind of petty problem that spirals fast, and I wasn't in the mood for cleanup tonight.
While I checked, my mind kept drifting — to plans, to logistics. Should I get pets? The idea bloomed and then ballooned into obsession. New York was full of abandoned animals; tomorrow I could go out and collect every starving creature I could find. I imagined a menagerie: mice that could pick locks, stray dogs trained to clear houses, clever pigeons that delivered messages — cute, fierce, and loyal. I'd feed them first, then train them. I wouldn't be doing cold lab experiments; I'd use the same blood-anchored rites I'd been refining — symbolic bindings that weren't literal torture but a transfer of stability and vitality. The ritual work would raise their intelligence a touch, sharpen instincts, coax size and muscle where needed. They'd have their own rooms, heated beds, proper names. I smiled at the image of rats in tiny harnesses. People sneer at rats, but they're survivors — perfect candidates. Tomorrow I'd buy meat, cat and dog food in bulk, and start recruiting.
Thoughts of animals faded as I climbed the stairwell to my floor. I hesitated at the doorway to Tiffany's room and the impulse to knock flickered through my head. Ask her to join the pet project? Tell her I'd stolen an impossible creature's power? Maybe. Then the honest answer came: nah. I'd talk to her tomorrow. Tonight I was done with people. I might tell Mark later; he'd listen and catalog my plans into neat steps. For now I wanted to shut down.
In my room, I moved through ritual motions almost on autopilot: straightening, cleaning the scattered cables and papers, folding the coat I'd abandoned on the chair. I changed into the most comfortable clothes I owned — soft, nothing restrictive — and set my weapons where I always did: within reach of the bed, but not under my pillow like a paranoid child. I patted the mattress, searching for my guns, and found them on the duvet. Must've fallen there when I'd been thrashing in pain earlier. I laid them beside my laptop, thumbed the safety, and told myself I'd check the optics tomorrow.
I stood for a moment and ran a hand across my face. My body still buzzed from the tests: elastic limbs, top-end strength, the strange comfort of black ichor under my skin. It was a good kind of tired — that clean exhaustion that means work was done and progress was made. Still, the day had been long. My head felt heavy in that way that says you've used the brain until the edges blur.
I tucked away the last of the tools I'd used to set up the bubble, locked the basement in my mind as much as I did with bolts, and then I let myself fall back onto the bed. The room smelled like ozone and old paper, the familiar scents of late-night tinkering. For a beat, I imagined the chaos I'd unfold tomorrow: raids on alleys, feeding and training, the soft chorus of small animals filling rooms that had been empty for years. I could almost hear the tiny footfalls.
Sleep came fast. The world narrowed to the press of the mattress and the steady rhythm of breath. Chucky floated below in his watery cell, and outside, the city went on.
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