The wooden dragon collapsed into chaos.
Thousands of spear-shaped projectiles scattered through the air like a lethal blizzard, their magical cohesion shattered by Wood's death. Marcus, Takashi, Thunder, and Eyes plummeted through the alien sky, gravity claiming them all with democratic indifference.
"YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!" Thunder's voice cracked like actual thunder across the heavens.
Marcus twisted in the air to face Takashi, fury blazing in his eyes. "What the hell were you thinking? I told you to wait!"
But Takashi wasn't listening. He was smiling—actually smiling—as wooden spears and human bodies tumbled around them in deadly free fall. His golden veins pulsed with borrowed power, and in his mind, he could hear the Entity's calm voice offering solutions to every problem.
Thunder underwent a transformation that defied human biology. His remaining eye blazed with electrical fire, his hair stood on end as if charged by a Van de Graaff generator, and crackling energy wreathed his body like living armor. He looked less like a man and more like Zeus's personal avatar of vengeance.
"WHICH ONE OF YOU DIES FIRST?" Thunder roared, electricity building around him in visible waves.
Marcus realized with cold clarity that Thunder still saw him as a potential ally. The rage was focused entirely on Takashi—the Commander who'd pulled the trigger, who'd murdered Wood in cold blood. Thunder expected Marcus to step aside, to let him exact his revenge on the real traitor.
The electrical energy reached critical mass. Thunder grabbed one of the falling wooden spears, his power surging through it until the projectile became a concentrated bolt of Zeus-level destruction. His throw would be less accurate in free fall, but at this range, precision hardly mattered.
That's when Eyes spoke from somewhere in the chaos: "Adjust seven degrees left, account for wind shear, target's enhanced reflexes suggest he'll dodge right."
Marcus's blood turned to ice. He'd forgotten about Eyes in his tactical calculations. The third-eyed freak was still providing targeting data even while falling to his death.
Thunder's grip shifted on his electrical spear, adjusting for Eyes's correction. The bolt crackled with enough power to punch through steel, and it was aimed directly at Takashi's center mass.
Marcus found himself at a crossroads that would define the rest of his life.
He could wait. Let Thunder kill the racist bastard who'd just doomed them all with his impulsive action. Takashi had disobeyed orders, started this fight, and shown nothing but contempt for Marcus since they'd met. The logical choice was to let the problem solve itself.
*Your job is life.*
Sergeant Martinez's voice echoed from a decade ago, from a training ground where idealistic young medics learned their sacred duty. *Your job is to keep people breathing, no matter what. No matter who they are, no matter what they've done.*
"Fuck," Marcus whispered.
He began altering his cellular structure mid-fall, increasing his bone density and muscle mass until his body became a human cannonball. His terminal velocity doubled, then tripled, as he condensed himself into a projectile of flesh and fury.
The hardening of his knuckles was surgical in its precision—calcium and phosphate deposits forming a surface harder than stone, backed by muscles that could generate crushing force. His entire body became a weapon aimed at Thunder's position.
Thunder saw him coming at the last second, but it was too late to completely dodge. Marcus's fist, carrying the kinetic energy of a meteor strike, connected with Thunder's shoulder instead of his head. The impact was catastrophic.
Thunder's body cartwheeled through the air like a broken doll, his electrical spear spinning harmlessly away as he crashed into the jungle floor with earth-shaking force. A crater formed around his impact site, dust and debris mushrooming upward in a cloud that obscured the crash zone.
Marcus had microseconds to prepare for his own landing. His cellular structure shifted from rigid cannonball to sophisticated shock-absorption system. Bones became cartilaginous, muscles filled with hydraulic fluid, his spine turned flexible as rubber.
He hit the ground in a perfect three-point landing—feet and one hand taking the impact simultaneously. The ground cracked beneath him like a spider web, but his body absorbed the tremendous force through controlled compression and energy dissipation. Steam hissed from his skin as the excess kinetic energy converted to heat.
When the steam cleared, Marcus rose from his crouch unharmed, his body already returning to normal density and structure.
Through his enhanced vision, he spotted Takashi still falling a hundred meters away. Without conscious thought, Marcus sprinted toward the landing zone, his legs pumping with superhuman efficiency as he prepared to leap and catch his companion mid-air.
"Don't worry!" he shouted up at the falling figure. "I'm going to save you!"
"FUCK OFF!" Takashi's voice carried clearly through the air. "I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!"
Marcus stumbled to a halt, staring upward in shock and hurt. After everything—after risking his life, after choosing to save this racist bastard over tactical advantage—this was his reward?
The familiar sensation of standing hair warned him of danger a split second before his enhanced senses detected the electrical charge building behind him. He turned to see Thunder emerging from the dust cloud, his left arm hanging in ruins but his right still crackling with lethal power.
Thunder's face was a mask of blood and fury, his enhanced body already healing from the devastating impact. The electrical spear in his good hand pulsed with more energy than Marcus had ever seen him generate.
"YOUR TURN, HERO!" Thunder screamed.
Marcus felt the weight of his choices crushing down on him. He'd thrown away tactical advantage to save someone who despised him. He'd made himself the target of a psychotic electrical monster for the sake of a man who'd just told him to fuck off.
Memories flooded through his consciousness—every mistake, every moral compromise, every moment of weakness in a life that had been dedicated to helping others. The night he'd gotten drunk and slept with his friend's girlfriend. The time he'd lied on a medical report to protect his own reputation. The car accident where he'd fled the scene because he'd been drinking.
*I tried to be good,* he thought as the electrical energy reached critical mass. *I tried to do the right thing. And look where it got me.*
Thunder's arm pulled back for the killing throw.
But then Marcus remembered his own tactical analysis from moments before. He'd imagined this exact scenario—surviving a direct lightning strike through cellular manipulation. Theory was about to become brutal reality.
In the fraction of a second before Thunder released his bolt, Marcus's consciousness dove deep into his own biology. He wrapped his entire nervous system in insulating layers of fat and protein, creating a biological Faraday cage around his brain, heart, and spinal cord. Simultaneously, he altered his skin and subcutaneous tissue, creating a hyperconductive pathway from impact point to ground.
"DIE!" Thunder screamed, hurling his electric spear with godlike force.
The bolt struck Marcus center mass with the power of a contained star. Thirty thousand degrees of heat followed the conductive pathway he'd created, racing across his skin in a corona of destruction before earthing itself through his feet. The superheated air around him exploded outward in a concussive blast that shattered trees and melted sand into glass.
The force hurled Marcus backward into a rocky hillside. He punched through solid stone like a cannon ball, disappearing into a cave system that collapsed around him in avalanche of rubble.
Silence fell over the battlefield.
Thunder stood swaying on his feet, exhausted by the effort of generating such massive electrical discharge. Steam rose from his body as he cooled down from the exertion.
"Should have minded your own business," he muttered, turning away from the collapse.
Deep in the rubble, Marcus lay motionless. His skin was burned black along the lightning's path, his jumpsuit reduced to smoking tatters. To any observer, he would appear very dead.
But his heart beat steadily in his chest, protected by the biological insulation he'd created. His brain functioned normally, neurons firing along pathways that had been shielded from the electrical assault. The burns were severe—tissue damage that would take enormous energy to repair—but he was alive and conscious.
His cellular regeneration was already beginning, directing resources toward healing the thermal damage. It would take time, and it would cost him, but he would survive.
Above him, Takashi descended through the sky like an avenging angel, his borrowed powers allowing him perfect control over his descent. He'd watched Marcus take the lightning strike meant for him. He'd seen the man who'd called him "friend" disappear into a mountain of stone and fire.
For the first time since landing on this island, Takashi felt something other than disgust or superiority when he looked at Marcus's sacrifice.
He felt shame.
The golden veins in his arms pulsed as he reached out to his Entity, ready to spend every credit he had to make Thunder and Eyes pay for what they'd done.
**CREDITS REMAINING: 675**
Time to go shopping for revenge.
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End of Chapter 9