CHAPTER V: THE RESERVOIR OF ROTTING FLESH
"Good. Good. You're all at your best now."
Lionel's words hung in the air like smoke, his gaze sweeping across the Dimitrescu family with something approaching paternal pride—if fathers could look at their children with eyes that glowed faintly red in the dim light.
Alcina stood tall, taller than any mortal had right to stand, her form no longer weakened by that accursed poison dagger. Destroyed. Shattered. Gone. And her daughters—Bela, Cassandra, Daniela—no longer shivered at the mere thought of cold air kissing their skin. The vulnerability had been cured, carved out of their very cells and replaced with something... stronger.
"Now," Lionel said, rolling his shoulders as the flesh beneath his coat began to writhe. "To Moreau."
The transformation was instantaneous—beautiful in its grotesqueness. His shoulder blades erupted with wet, meaty schlorps and cracks as bone and sinew and Mold-matter twisted into wings. Not feathered. Not angelic. But raw, pulsating membranes stretched across frameworks of calcified fungal growths that looked disturbingly like human ribcages.
Flap. Flap. FLAP.
He burst through the skylight—glass raining down like crystalline tears—and soared into the open air.
The world spread beneath him like a canvas of shadow and moonlight. The reservoir. The windmills. The ancient, creaking structures that dotted this forsaken landscape like forgotten tombstones. He hovered there, suspended between earth and sky, and for just a moment—just one breath—he allowed himself to admire the view.
Beautiful. Terrible. Beautifully terrible.
Then down he went, spiraling toward one of the windmills with the grace of a falling angel and the speed of a predator. His feet—still human, still mostly human—touched down on rotting wood that groaned beneath his weight.
And in the water below...
Splash. Gurgle. The sound of something large and wrong moving through murky depths.
"Well, well," Lionel murmured, a smile tugging at his lips. "Just my luck."
The water erupted.
Moreau's mutated form broke the surface—bloated, bulging, covered in scales that glistened like oil slicks and pustules that wept yellowish fluid. His body was a monument to biological failure, to a Cadou that had taken root but grown twisted, like a tree struck by lightning mid-growth.
"Moreau," Lionel called out, his voice gentle despite the horror before him. "Kindly turn back, please... if you can."
For a moment, nothing. Just the slosh-slosh-slosh of contaminated water lapping against wood. Then—
Crack. Pop. Crunch.
The mutation reversed itself with sounds that shouldn't exist. Bones reshaping. Flesh compressing. Scales retracting into skin that looked paper-thin and sickly gray. And there stood Salvatore Moreau, hunched and trembling, barely human but trying—God, he was trying so hard.
"Are you doing okay, bud?" Lionel asked, extending a hand. Beckoning. Inviting.
Moreau shuffled forward, each step a thud-drag, thud-drag that spoke of pain in every joint. His breathing came in wet, rattling gasps—hhhh-kkkk, hhhh-kkkk—like his lungs were drowning even in open air.
"It seems," Lionel said softly, his heart—what remained of it—aching at the sight, "that the unstable Cadou is taking quite a toll on you, Moreau."
"D-Don't... don't worry about me, C-Creator." Moreau's voice was a gargled whisper, barely coherent. "I-I'm f-fine. I'm—"
BLEEEEEGGGHHH.
He doubled over, retching violently into the water. The vomit was wrong—too thick, too dark, with chunks of something that might have been tissue or might have been something else entirely. The stench hit a moment later: rot and bile and sweet decay.
Lionel didn't flinch. Didn't recoil.
Instead, he stepped closer.
"Don't worry," he said, his voice carrying the weight of a promise, an oath. "I'll find a way to stabilize you. To make you whole again." He placed a hand on Moreau's trembling shoulder, and power—raw, viral, living power—flowed between them like electricity. "Hang in there, champ. You can push through this. You will push through this."
Moreau looked up, his one good eye—the other half-buried in a growth of tumor-like flesh—glistening with something that might have been tears.
"Y-Yes, Creator."
Flap. Flap. FLAP.
Lionel's wings beat against the air as he ascended, hell-bent on one singular purpose: salvation for the damned.
The elevator descended—whirrrrr-clunk, whirrrrr-clunk—taking him deep into the bowels of the castle, down to the treasury where secrets slept in darkness.
"Alright," he muttered to himself, footsteps echoing-echoing-echoing through stone corridors. "It should be here."
The double doors opened with a creeeeeak that would've made a lesser man hesitate. Inside: emptiness where the World Item had been. Single-use. Gone like smoke. Poof.
A scanner materialized from the wall—red light sweeping across his retina.
Beep. Beep. APPROVED.
The hidden door hissed open, pneumatic seals releasing stale air that tasted of metal and preservation chemicals. The corridor beyond was lined with rooms, each one a vault of viral nightmares.
"The Host," Lionel breathed, reverence coloring his tone.
This was the sanctum. The holy ground where they'd stored the original viruses—the progenitors, the genesis strains from which all their beautiful horrors had been born. Creating the base forms before the NPCs had been crucial. A feature. A secret. One that other players had never, ever grasped.
He opened the first door.
Squelch.
Inside: a red mass of flesh, pulsating like a heartbeat—thump-thump, thump-thump—shaped disturbingly like a fetus. Veins ran across its surface in intricate patterns, feeding it with nutrients from unseen sources.
"Nope," Lionel said flatly. "That's the Megamycete."
Click. Door closed.
He moved to the next room, then the next, each one containing horrors carefully catalogued and preserved. The T-Virus in its crystalline form. The Progenitor strain in amber suspension. Las Plagas samples suspended in formaldehyde.
"Oh, right." Lionel laughed—a sound that echoed too loudly, too manic in the sterile hallway. "The vaccines are in the last room. God, I'm forgetful."
The vaccines had been insured. A contingency. A safety net if ever someone from another guild betrayed them, if enemies learned their secrets and created their own abominations. With these vaccines, they could fight their own creations.
Poetic, really. Fighting monsters with anti-monsters.
"Here we are," Lionel whispered, standing before a massive glass container that stretched from floor to ceiling. Inside: the G-Vaccine, swirling with an ethereal blue luminescence. "Codename: DEVIL."
He pressed his palm against the glass, feeling the cold seep into his skin.
"To counteract Golgotha. To counter the G-virus itself." His reflection stared back at him, distorted through the curved glass. "We're making another Sherry Birkin. We're making salvation."
He grabbed a syringe—click-click—filled it with the precious liquid, and sealed the room behind him.
"Hold on, Moreau," Lionel said to the empty air, to the promise he'd made. "We're curing you. Today."
Flap. Flap. FLAP.
He bypassed the elevator this time—no patience for mechanical slowness—and flew straight through the cavern network that led to the twelfth floor. The air grew damper, mustier, thick with the scent of mildew-and-moss-and-memory.
And there—
"Wait." Lionel stopped mid-flight, hovering above a familiar circular stone structure. "The well?"
He barked a laugh that scattered roosting bats from the cavern ceiling. The treasury entrance on the twelfth floor was the well. The well in front of Luisa's house. Hidden in plain sight. Brilliant.
But no time for admiration.
Whoooosh.
He shot through the air toward the reservoir, wings cutting through wind and mist like scythes through wheat. He landed exactly where he'd stood before—same rotting plank, same creeeeak of protest from wood.
Moreau was still there, still swimming, his mutated form creating ripples that spread outward in concentric circles of wrongness.
"I'm back, champ!" Lionel called out, his voice echoing across the water. "Would you morph back for me? Please?"
Splash. Gurgle. The sound of transformation.
Moreau emerged—human-ish, barely controlling the mutation that threatened to consume him from within. His skin rippled with barely-contained something, like worms crawling just beneath the surface.
Lionel didn't waste time.
He activated the G-Virus within his own body—felt it SURGE through his veins like liquid fire—and grabbed a shard of glass floating in the contaminated water. Without hesitation, he dragged it across his palm.
Ssssssllllliiiiice.
Blood welled up, crimson and glowing faintly with viral luminescence.
"Alright," Lionel said, his voice steady despite the pain singing through nerve endings. "Drink this."
He let the blood drip—drip-drip-drip—into Moreau's waiting mouth, just as he'd done with the sisters. Moreau's throat worked, swallowing, accepting the gift.
"Now we wait," Lionel murmured, pulling out the syringe of G-Vaccine. "Let it sit in. Let it take root. Then..."
He could see it happening. Could feel it through some sixth sense granted by the viruses in his own system. The G-Virus is spreading through Moreau's body, colliding with the Cadou, the two viral strains clashing like titans in a microscopic war.
Cells regenerated—too fast, too fast—but the mutation remained. The balance was precarious, a tightrope stretched over an abyss.
"Now," Lionel whispered, and plunged the needle into Moreau's arm.
SSSSSSSSHHHHHK.
The vaccine entered the bloodstream like a referee entering a boxing ring. The G-Virus calmed. The Cadou stabilized. And Moreau—
Moreau gasped, his entire body going rigid for three endless seconds.
Then he relaxed.
"Do you still feel pain?" Lionel asked, searching Moreau's face for any sign of distress.
Moreau shook his head slowly, wonder dawning in his mismatched eyes. "No," he whispered. "No, I... I feel good. I feel better."
"Try mutating," Lionel urged. "Transform into your fish form."
Crack-crack-CRACK. Squelch-squelch-SQUELCH.
The transformation was smooth. Fluid. Painless. Moreau's body expanded, scales erupting across skin, limbs elongating into something monstrous and magnificent. And then—just as easily—he returned.
Human-ish. But stable.
"Good work!" Lionel's grin was genuine, splitting his face wide. "You're cured! You're finally, finally cured!"
The science was elegant in its brutality: the small strain of G-Virus could heal the uncontrollably mutating cells when they were few in number. But when Moreau consciously transformed—when he embraced the mutation—the virus couldn't cure everything quickly enough. The balance held. The scales remained tipped in Moreau's favor.
"Thank you, Creator." Moreau's voice cracked with emotion, and he dropped to his knees—splash—into the shallow water. "I am forever in your debt. Forever. I will do anything to assist you in your endeavors."
"It's okay, Moreau." Lionel reached down, pulling the man to his feet. "Just know this—and believe it—I will never betray you. Never abandon you. You're mine, and I protect what's mine."
Moreau's shoulders shook—with relief, with gratitude, with something too profound for words.
"Now," Lionel said, stepping back and allowing wings to burst from his shoulders once more, "I have other matters to attend to. Other fires to start, other problems to solve. But I'll see you soon."
He paused mid-transformation, looking back at Moreau one last time.
"Remember this, Salvatore Moreau: don't ever think of yourself as less than the others. Not less than Dimitrescu. Not less than Heisenberg. Not less than anyone in this entire damned base." His eyes glowed red in the dim light. "You have as much power as anyone here. More, because you've suffered and survived."
And with that, he launched skyward.
From above, he watched Moreau transform one final time—smooth as silk, painless as breathing—and dive into the reservoir with the joy of a child discovering swimming for the first time.
Lionel smiled.
One down. More to go.
The elevator received him like an old friend—whirrrrr-clunk, whirrrrr-clunk—carrying him back up.
"Alright," Lionel muttered, feeling the Mold respond to his thoughts, his will. "Since those knights interrupted our offerings from the village chieftain, I need to introduce myself properly. Personally."
The transformation was fascinating to watch—even if he could only see his reflection in the polished metal of the elevator walls. His facial features shifted, bones grinding and reshaping beneath skin that flowed like water. His white lab coat dissolved into Mold-matter and reformed as a butler's outfit: black, pristine, perfect.
"Wait a damn minute." Lionel looked down at himself, realization dawning. "If the outfit is also Mold... wouldn't that mean I'm naked?"
He covered himself reflexively—hands flying to strategic locations—before bursting into laughter that bordered on hysterical.
"Nah, nah, I'm not a girl... and I walk around naked at home all the time anyway." He shrugged, grinning at his own ridiculousness. "I'm used to it. Very used to it."
The elevator doors opened with a cheerful ding that felt wildly inappropriate.
The village was distant—too distant for walking. So Lionel did what any rational person with access to viral bio-weapons would do: he activated the C-Virus.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.
His legs exploded.
That was the only word for it. They exploded into something that shouldn't exist in nature—into Noga-Skakanje, the horrific mutation that transformed human legs into insectoid nightmares.
His lower body became a grotesque thorax and abdomen, chitinous and clicking with every micro-movement. His legs—God, his legs—elongated into segmented grasshopper limbs that bent at angles that made geometry weep.
"This," Lionel said, examining his new form with clinical disgust, "looks gross."
Click-click-click-click.
But it was fast.
He launched forward—WHOOOOOOSH—and the world became a blur of motion. Trees. Rocks. The village is approaching at an impossible speed. He covered the distance in seconds—five seconds, maybe ten—and skidded to a halt behind a copse of trees.
Click-click-click.
The mutation retracted—squelch-crack-pop—and his legs returned to something approaching human. He straightened his butler's outfit, composed his features into something pleasant and harmless, and walked into the village proper.
A guard stood at the entrance, leaning against a spear with the bored expression of someone who'd drawn the short straw for watch duty.
"Excuse me," Lionel said, his voice the perfect pitch of polite inquiry. "Is the chieftain still present?"
The guard's head snapped up, eyes narrowing. "Who the hell are you?"
Lionel felt his eye twitch. Felt the viruses in his blood surge with indignation. Felt the overwhelming urge to show this insignificant speck exactly who and what he was.
But he smiled instead.
"I'm Mother Miranda's representative," he said smoothly, watching the words land like a bomb. "Sent to this village."
The guard's face went white. Bone white. Corpse white. The kind of white that suggested his soul had briefly left his body and was seriously considering not coming back.
"M-My apologies!" he stammered, practically tripping over himself. "The chieftain—he's at the town clinic! Checking on those injured in the attack! Please, please don't—"
"Thank you," Lionel interrupted, his smile never wavering. "That's all I needed."
He walked past the guard, feeling the man's terrified gaze boring into his back.
Pathetic. But useful.
The clinic wasn't hard to find—a small village, limited buildings, desperation hanging in the air like fog. He knocked.
Knock-knock-knock.
The door opened, revealing a weathered man with kind eyes and worry lines etched deep into his forehead. The chieftain.
"I'm Mother Miranda's representative," Lionel said, bowing slightly—just enough to show respect without subservience. "We're truly, deeply sorry for the inconvenience those knights caused earlier."
The chieftain's face cycled through emotions: confusion, relief, residual fear. "What... what happened to the knights?"
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Lionel's expression became somber, sorrowful, the perfect mask of fake regret. "They received what's due to those who reject Mother Miranda's grace." He paused, letting the implications sink in. "But let's not dwell on such unpleasantness. Let's discuss something far more positive—your conversion to Mother Miranda's faith."
His smile was warm. Inviting. Predatory.
"What's your relation to the man who saved us?" the chieftain asked suddenly. "The one with the large hammer?"
Lionel's mind raced—Heisenberg, you magnificent bastard—before he responded with theatrical delight.
"Oh! Lord Heisenberg saved you?" He clasped his hands together like an excited child. "What a blessing! What an absolute, tremendous blessing! Lord Heisenberg is one of Mother Miranda's closest and most trusted allies. That he would personally intervene to save this village is..." He paused for effect. "Touching. Truly, deeply touching."
Internally, he was cackling like a madman.
Externally, he was the picture of pious gratitude.
"I-Is that so?" The chieftain's shoulders relaxed, his posture softening. "Then I'm grateful. So very grateful to Lord Heisenberg."
Hook.
"I'll be sure to convey your gratitude personally," Lionel said warmly. "But now—the offerings!"
His smile brightened to nuclear levels.
"You see, Mother Miranda is raising orphans. The children she adopted. Poor souls who survived the attacks from those horrid creatures that plague this land." He let his voice crack slightly, adding just a touch of emotion. "They need food. Shelter. Care."
The chieftain's eyes glistened with sympathetic tears. "Oh, those poor children! Of course—we'd gladly offer some of our livestock! For those innocent souls who lost everything!"
Line.
Lionel maintained his expression of grateful joy while internally screaming with laughter. The "innocent children" he'd be feeding were the exact monsters that had attacked this village. The irony was delicious.
And sinker.
"That would be wonderful!" Lionel gushed. "Another representative will come to collect the offerings soon. Very soon. But please—please—remember this." His voice became serious, almost urgent. "The wooden goat statues. Place them throughout the village. They're wardens. Protectors. They'll help you fend off the Lycans."
The chieftain nodded solemnly. "As Mother Miranda wishes."
"You wouldn't mind if I explored the village a bit?" Lionel asked, tilting his head innocently. "I'd love to see your beautiful community."
"Of course, of course!"
The cemetery squatted at the village's edge like a guilty secret.
Lionel stood at the gate, feeling the Megamycete stir within him—hungry, always hungry—and smiled.
According to the game lore, the Megamycete could consume corpses, absorbing their consciousness, their memories, their knowledge. Every life lived. Every secret kept. Every bit of information that had died with them.
"Well then," Lionel whispered. "Let's have a feast."
He activated the Megamycete, feeling it surge through his body and down through his foot—squelch-squelch-squelch—into the earth below. The fungal network spread like roots, like veins, like the fingers of a drowning man reaching desperately upward.
Deeper. Deeper. DEEPER.
The graves opened. Not physically—no earth disturbed, no coffins cracked—but on a level that existed beyond sight. The Megamycete found the corpses and consumed them.
Knowledge flooded Lionel's mind like a dam breaking:
The complete map of this world—mountains and valleys and rivers and roads.
The Slane Theocracy to the east—powerful, dangerous, zealous.
The Eight Fingers' criminal network—brothels, drugs, and slavery.
Village gossip—who slept with whom, who stole what, who died when.
All of it. Everything. Flowing into him like water into a cup.
"The Slane Theocracy," Lionel murmured, processing the information. "Too close. Far too close." He grinned. "I hope they send reinforcements tomorrow. I could use more test subjects."
The sun had set—when did that happen?—and shadows stretched long across the village like grasping fingers.
Lionel turned to leave—
And was yanked violently into an alleyway.
Thud.
His back hit the wall. Three figures blocked the exit: two men built like brick walls, and a woman with a scar running down her face and murder in her eyes. Mercenaries. Eight Fingers, if he had to guess.
One man—muscles on muscles, neck thicker than most people's thighs—grabbed Lionel by the collar and slammed him against the stones.
Crack.
"This village," the second man hissed, pressing a dagger to Lionel's cheek, "belongs to the Eight Fingers, prick. We don't need some false god stepping into our territory and taking what's ours!"
Lionel smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
"Oh my," he said, his voice dripping with amusement. "Oh my, oh my, oh my. It seems you haven't heard about what happened to those Slane Theocracy knights earlier." His smile widened, showing too many teeth. "Please, please be careful with your next action."
The woman's face contorted with rage. She shoved the muscle-bound man aside—thump—wrapped her left hand around Lionel's throat, and with her right hand—
SHUNK.
—drove a dagger straight into his skull.
"Now the prick's dead!" she snarled, yanking the blade free with a wet squelch. "You two don't need to intimidate targets—we can just kill them!"
She turned to smack both men on the backs of their heads.
Thwack. Thwack.
"My, my, my," Lionel's voice came from behind her—impossible, he's dead, the dagger went through his brain—and she spun around.
He was still there.
Still standing.
The hole in his head was closing—flesh knitting together, bone reforming, skin sealing with soft squelch-squelch-squelch sounds.
"It seems," he continued, his playful tone dropping several octaves into something dark and wet and wrong, "you didn't think this through."
His voice became demented. Demonic. The voice of something that had forgotten how to be human and didn't particularly care.
"That wasn't the best course of action."
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.
His head exploded.
Not into gore—that would've been merciful—but into mutation. The C-Virus activated, transforming his skull into a Glava-Dim: a grotesque approximation of a wasp's stinger-abdomen, bulbous and pulsating with bio-luminescent pustules.
Hssssssssssssss.
Poisonous gas erupted from the mutation—yellow-green and thick as syrup. It filled the alleyway in seconds, cloying and choking and wrong.
The three mercenaries stumbled backward, coughing—HACK-HACK-HACK—their eyes watering, their lungs burning.
Then they collapsed.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Unconscious.
Lionel's head reformed—squelch-pop-crack—back into something human-adjacent. He looked down at the three bodies and clapped his hands together with childlike glee.
"New test subjects!" His voice was sing-song, musical, mad. "How utterly, utterly exciting!"
He gathered the bodies—one over each shoulder, one tucked under his arm like a sack of potatoes—and disappeared into the darkness.
Flap. Flap. FLAP.
The elevator descended—whirrrrr-clunk, whirrrrr-clunk—carrying Lionel and his cargo to the twelfth floor.
"Moreau!" he called out cheerfully, flying toward the secret lab hidden beneath the reservoir. "Oh, Moreau! I'm back, and I brought gifts!"
He knocked on the metal door.
Bang-bang-bang.
Moreau opened it immediately, bowing low. "Creator."
"Here," Lionel said, dumping the two male mercenaries unceremoniously on the floor—thump-thump. He mutated two Cadous in his palms—squelch-squelch, watching them grow like tumors—and handed them to Moreau. "These men need to become our allies. And you're the one who's going to do it."
Moreau's eyes widened. "Me?"
"You," Lionel confirmed. "Implant these into their stomachs. Stitch them up. Make them beautiful." He grinned. "I'll return tomorrow to see the results. I have complete faith in you, champ."
Moreau accepted the Cadous with trembling hands, staring at them like they were precious jewels. "Thank you, Creator. I won't—I won't disappoint you."
"I know you won't."
Flap. Flap. FLAP.
Lionel ascended once more, this time heading for Castle Dimitrescu with the female mercenary still unconscious over his shoulder.
He landed on one of the balconies—the same one he'd used before—and retracted his wings with wet squelch-squelch-squelch sounds. He propped the woman against the wall and waited.
Slowly, consciousness returned.
Her eyes fluttered open—where am I, what happened, why does my head hurt—and her vision cleared.
She saw Lionel.
Completely healed.
Not a scratch. Not a mark.
"Huh?" she mumbled groggily. "Where—"
Then memory crashed back like a freight train.
"You!" She struggled, but Lionel's hands clamped around both her wrists like iron manacles. "I stabbed you in the head! I saw the blade go through! How are you—"
"Still alive?" Lionel finished, his smile sharp enough to cut. "Let me answer your question with a question." He leaned in close, close enough that she could smell the Mold on his breath. "The Eight Fingers are well-known for slave trading, aren't they? Tell me—how many slaves have you sold?"
"None!" she lied, shaking her head frantically. "I never—"
"As if I'd fall for that," Lionel laughed—a sound like breaking glass and grinding bones. He kicked the door open—BANG—and threw her inside.
Thump.
She hit the floor, gasping.
Alcina Dimitrescu stood there, tall and terrible and hungry.
"This is your new slave, Alcina," Lionel said, his eyes glowing crimson in the dim light. "Treat her... carefully."
The emphasis on "carefully" conveyed exactly what he meant.
Alcina bowed, her smile revealing teeth too sharp, too white. "As you wish, Creator."
Lionel walked away.
Behind him, the woman began to scream.
Flap. Flap. FLAP.
The screams faded into the distance as he flew toward Heisenberg's factory, laughing into the wind.
"This isn't so bad after all!" he shouted to no one. "This isn't bad at all!"
The viruses had fully integrated now. He could feel it. The T-Virus. The G-Virus. The C-Virus. The Mold. All of them, merged and melded and singing in his veins.
His empathy was dying. Withering. Rotting.
His sanity was... negotiable.
But God, he felt alive.
Heisenberg's factory loomed ahead—all smoke and metal and the clang-clang-clang of industry.
Lionel landed and knocked.
Bang-bang-bang.
The door opened immediately—Heisenberg knew better than to keep his Creator waiting.
"Ah, Heisenberg!" Lionel strode inside, grinning. "How's the experiment progressing? Tell me you have good news."
Heisenberg's face split into a smile that was equal parts pride and madness. "It won't disappoint, Creator! It won't dare disappoint!" He bowed with a theatrical flourish. "From the eight soldiers you provided, I have successfully created the Soldiers!"
"Show me."
Heisenberg led him through a labyrinth of corridors and lifts—whirrrrr-clunk, whirrrrr-clunk—to a locked chamber. He produced a key with a magician's flair and opened the door.
Creeeeeak.
Inside: nightmares made manifest.
"Two Soldat Eins!" Heisenberg announced, gesturing to genetically modified soldiers with faceplates and drill arms that whirred with mechanical menace.
Vrrrrrrrrrr.
"Two Soldat Zweis!" Gas masks instead of faceplates. Dual drill arms. Click-click-VRRRRR.
"Two Soldat Jets!" Head and torso armor. Jet packs that hissed with contained propulsion. Stabilizing helmet wings that made them look like industrial angels.
Hsssssssss.
"And my greatest work—" Heisenberg's voice dropped to a reverent whisper. "Soldat Panzers!"
These were magnificent. Heavy armor from head to toe, each piece etched with industrial artistry. Three drills per arm—six total—that spun with a sound like the end of the world.
VRRRRRRRR-VRRRRRRRR-VRRRRRRRR.
"Splendid!" Lionel slung his arm around Heisenberg's neck, pulling him close. "Absolutely splendid, you magnificent bastard! These will be our winning weapons! Our trump cards!"
"I knew you'd be pleased, Creator."
"Don't worry," Lionel promised, his grin widening. "We'll have more bodies. So many more bodies. I'll bring you a mountain of test subjects!"
Both men laughed—wild, unhinged, wrong.
The sound echoed through the factory like a hymn to madness.
The celebration with Heisenberg had stretched into hours—hours—of discussing mutations and modifications and the beautiful brutality of bio-engineered warfare.
Heisenberg was, Lionel had to admit, cool as fuck.
The man understood the art of horror. The poetry of flesh twisted into new purposes. They'd talked shop like old friends, like fellow artists comparing techniques, and Lionel had enjoyed every blood-soaked second.
But now—now—he sat in the control room, staring at monitors displaying nothing but static and darkness. His body didn't need sleep. The viruses had eliminated that weakness, had optimized every system for perpetual function.
Yet his mind—his human mind, that stubborn remnant of what he'd been—told him he was exhausted.
"Psychosomatic bullshit," Lionel muttered, rubbing his eyes. But the feeling persisted. The weight of a long day pressing down on shoulders that shouldn't feel weight anymore.
"I'm sleeping," he announced to the empty room, standing with the decisive motion of someone who'd made up their mind.
The barracks in the laboratory were Spartan—metal bunks with thin mattresses designed for functionality, not comfort. Lionel sat on one and immediately regretted it.
"These beds are shit," he cursed, shifting positions. Left side. Right side. Back. Stomach. Each position was somehow worse than the last, like the mattress was actively hostile to the concept of rest.
Springs digging into ribs. The metal frame is too narrow. Pillow too thin.
"Fuck this," Lionel said eloquently, abandoning the endeavor. "I'll just... enjoy the night sky. Yeah. That sounds better."
He walked out of the base, letting the cool night air wash over him. The grass was damp with dew—squelch-squelch beneath his feet—, and he lay down, arms spread wide, staring up at the cosmos.
Stars.
Thousands of them. Millions. Scattered across the black canvas of night like diamonds on velvet, unmarred by light pollution or smog or the choking miasma of industrial decay.
Beautiful.
In his old world, the sky had been... empty. Brown-gray. Perpetually clouded with pollutants that made every breath a calculated risk. The air itself had been toxic—not mutagen-toxic, not virus-toxic, but chemically toxic. The kind of poison that crept into lungs and stayed there, building and building until one day you just... stopped breathing.
"At least with a virus," Lionel whispered to the stars, "you have a chance. Mutation. Adaptation. Survival." His voice grew bitter. "But pollution? You breathe that shit for a few minutes, and you're just... done. Game over. No continues."
He remembered the first time he'd played Resident Evil. Remembered the fascination—the obsession—that had gripped him. Here was a world where viruses didn't just kill. They transformed. They made people stronger. Superhuman.
"I thought," he said softly, the words carried away by the wind, "that maybe I could make it real. Create viruses that would help people adapt to that cruel world. Make them strong enough to survive what we'd done to the planet."
His hand clenched into a fist.
"But I guess some dreams can't come true." A bitter laugh. "At least not in the world I left behind."
That world. God, that world. You worked yourself to the bone for nothing. For barely-enough. For scraps thrown from tables you'd never be allowed to sit at. Face-to-face interaction was suicide—too many diseases, too many plagues, too many ways to die from a handshake or a cough.
The only escape had been games. Virtual worlds where you could be more. Be better. Be someone.
But even that had been tainted by the shadow of poverty. By the knowledge that when you logged off, when you removed the headset and blinked back into reality, the gutter was waiting. Always waiting. Ready to swallow you whole.
"The rich get richer," Lionel said to the uncaring stars, "and the sick get sicker. And the poor? The poor just... disappear."
He closed his eyes.
When had he last felt human? Really, truly human? Before the viruses? Before the transformation? Or had he lost that humanity long before, ground down by a world that valued profit over people, productivity over personhood?
"I'm a monster now," he whispered. "But was I ever anything else?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered and unanswerable.
He stood—enough philosophy, enough self-pity—and brushed grass from his clothes. The base beckoned. The laboratory. The work. The purpose.
Monsters didn't need to sleep.
They just needed something to hunt.
<><><>
Morning came with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Lionel stood in his quarters—if you could call a repurposed laboratory room "quarters"—and stretched, feeling joints pop-pop-pop like bubble wrap. The viruses in his system had regenerated any micro-damage from yesterday's activities. He was pristine. Perfect. Optimized.
"Alright," he said to his reflection in a polished metal surface. "Time to check on the experiments."
Flap. Flap. FLAP.
Wings erupted from his back—the transformation so routine now that he barely registered the squelch-crack of flesh reorganizing—and he flew toward the reservoir.
Moreau's secret lab was exactly where he'd left it: hidden, submerged, waiting.
Bang-bang-bang.
"Moreau! It's me! Open up!"
The door hissed open, revealing Moreau—stable, healthy—with an expression that could only be described as proud.
"Creator!" He bowed. "Please, come in! Come see what I've created!"
Lionel entered, and the smell hit him first: formaldehyde and rot and something sharp and chemical. The two mercenaries lay on metal tables, their torsos stitched up with crude but effective sutures.
Breathing. Rising. Falling.
"They're alive," Lionel observed.
"More than alive, Creator!" Moreau's voice trembled with excitement. "The Cadous have taken root. They're integrating. By tomorrow, maybe the day after, they'll transform. They'll become—" He paused, searching for the word. "—beautiful."
Lionel clapped Moreau on the shoulder. "Excellent work, champ. Truly excellent. You've proven yourself today."
Moreau's eyes glistened. "Thank you, Creator. Thank you."
"Keep monitoring them. Document everything. I want to know every stage of the transformation." Lionel turned to leave, then paused. "And Moreau? You did well. Remember that."
The village awaited.
Lionel flew there with purpose, landing just outside the perimeter and shifting back to his butler disguise. The Mold reshaped his features, his clothes, his entire presence into something harmless and servile.
Perfect.
He walked through the village gates, nodding politely at the same guard from yesterday. The man practically prostrated himself.
"Mother Miranda's representative! Welcome back! Please, please, if there's anything—"
"Just here to check on things," Lionel said smoothly. "Carry on."
The village had changed. Wooden goat statues—wardens, he'd called them—now stood at strategic positions. The villagers moved with purpose, organizing the livestock for the "offerings."
Sheep. Cows. Chickens.
All for the "orphans."
Lionel suppressed a laugh.
The chieftain approached, smiling. "Representative! We're nearly ready. The offerings will be—"
BOOM.
The sound came from the east. A sound like thunder, but wrong. Mechanical. Man-made.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Lionel's head snapped toward the noise, and his smile—hidden beneath the butler's placid expression—grew wide and hungry.
"Well, well, well," he murmured. "Right on schedule."
The chieftain's face went pale. "What is that?"
"That," Lionel said, his voice almost cheerful, "that would be the reinforcements from the Slane Theocracy." He turned to the chieftain. "You should probably get everyone inside. Lock the doors. Pray to Mother Miranda."
"But—"
"Now," Lionel said, and though his voice remained pleasant, something in his eyes made the chieftain run.
Lionel walked toward the east gate, each step measured, anticipatory.
The gates burst open.
CRASH.
Knights poured through—twenty, thirty, forty of them—clad in gleaming armor and wielding weapons blessed by their god. At their head rode a man on a white horse, his armor more ornate, his sword glowing with divine light.
A paladin.
"In the name of the Six Great Gods," the paladin declared, his voice ringing with righteous authority, "this village is under the protection of the Slane Theocracy! Those who follow the false prophet Miranda will be purged! Surrender now and receive—"
He stopped.
Because Lionel was laughing.
Not chuckling. Not giggling. But laughing—deep, resonant, echoing laughter that bounced off buildings and filled the air with madness.
"Oh, thank you," Lionel wheezed, doubling over. "Thank you for coming! I was hoping you'd send more! The last batch was barely enough!"
The paladin's face contorted with rage. "Seize him! Seize the heretic!"
Knights rushed forward—clink-clink-clink of armor, thud-thud-thud of boots—and Lionel stopped laughing.
His butler disguise dissolved.
The Mold writhed, churned, transformed him back into his true form: white lab coat, glowing red eyes, smile too wide and too sharp.
"Let me show you," Lionel said softly, "what happens when you reject Mother Miranda."
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.
His body exploded into mutations. Wings burst from his back. His arms elongated, fingers becoming talons. His jaw unhinged, revealing rows of teeth that had no business in a human mouth.
The C-Virus. The G-Virus. The T-Virus. The Mold.
All of them. All at once.
He became a chimera. A living amalgamation of every horrific mutation the Resident Evil universe had ever conceived.
"RUN," one knight whispered.
But it was too late.
Lionel lunged—
To Be Continued...
Author's Note:
Alright, folks! That's Chapter V! Hope you enjoyed the enhanced horror elements, the body horror descriptions, and Lionel's descent into viral-induced madness. The Slane Theocracy just made a VERY poor decision, and next chapter... well, let's just say it's going to get messy.
Drop your thoughts in the comments! What mutations do you think Lionel should use? How many knights do you think will survive? (Hint: not many.)
Stay horrified, stay entertained, and remember: in the world of Resident Evil, evolution is mandatory.
See you in Chapter VI!