Rebecca gave my armored neck another absentminded scratch, and I leaned my entire two-hundred-pound frame into her hand with a contented groan.
The new Succubus Scent Glands were putting in some serious work. Here she was, standing inches from a biological weapon that could snap her spine with a casual twitch, petting my scorpion-chitin hide like I was a prize-winning golden retriever. Give it another hour, and I fully expected to be resting my giant, skinless head in her lap while she cooed sweet nothings into my non-existent ears.
But as much as I wanted to spend the rest of the apocalypse getting high on my own supply of pheromones and her tactical-pants-scent, we had a problem. The front door was a solid slab of 'fuck you', and we were trapped.
If I wanted to keep her alive long enough to see where this bizarre, slow-burn biological romance was going, we needed a game plan. My game plan.
I looked around the grand hall, my brain running a side-by-side comparison between my speed-running memories and the opulent, dusty reality of the Umbrella Training Facility. The first thing that came to mind was how we were going to utterly demolish the game's intended script.
Survival horror logic could suck a fat, infected dick. In the game, you spent maybe an hour fighting monsters and five hours running in circles solving puzzles that would make a Mensa member have an aneurysm. Oh, you want to open this flimsy-ass wooden door to the dining room? Sorry, you need to find the 'Shield Key,' which is inexplicably hidden inside a grandfather clock on the other side of the building that only opens if you set its hands to the time a specific person died.
What kind of absolute nonsense was that?
This was real life now. I was a two-hundred-pound log of pure, undead muscle wrapped in dense scorpion armor. The Sword Key? Bitch, I am the key. A key made of teeth, claws, and catastrophically bad intentions. Those flimsy wooden doors weren't going to be a problem. Now, the heavy metal doors with electronic locks? Yeah, she could handle those. That's what I kept my cute, smart-assed medic around for.
My second major advantage was the loot.
I had spent countless nights chugging cheap energy drinks and memorizing the item placements in this shithole. I knew the floorplan better than the poor bastards who designed it. I knew exactly where James Marcus and his corporate sycophants had stashed every box of shotgun shells, every green herb, and every weapon upgrade.
Rebecca was running on a standard-issue Beretta and a scavenged shotgun. That wasn't going to cut it against the giant bats and acid-spitting ape-monsters lurking in the basement. She was my support character, and it was my sacred duty to gear her up.
Because absolutely no ass is dying on my watch. Especially not an ass that looked that spectacularly tight in a green S.T.A.R.S. uniform. I was wholly committed to keeping that particular piece of scenery alive, breathing, and hopefully, extremely pliable by the time my pheromones reached maximum saturation.
But to get that loot, and to survive what was coming, I needed to go on a farming spree. Every zombie, every crow, every single slithering leech in this mansion was a walking bag of Evolution Points, and I intended to pop every last one of them.
Which brought me to my dirty little secret.
I couldn't just keep killing things and having their bodies mysteriously vanish. Sooner or later, she was going to see my absorption ability up close and personal again. It was better she found out properly now, while I was being cute and smelling like a high-end candle, than later when I was balls-deep in a Proto-Tyrant's ribcage slurping up its insides like a Capri Sun. I had to rip that band-aid off.
I gave a low, rumbling huff, shaking my heavy armored frame to settle the chitin plates. I trotted a few steps toward the eastern wing of the hall—the direction of the first juicy loot drop—and looked back over my shoulder, locking my milky eyes on my cute, blissfully unaware medic.
Time to start the gear run, Becca. Follow the murder-dog.
I led the way toward the eastern wing of the facility, my heavy armored paws clicking rhythmically against the polished marble. We reached a standard, heavy oak door that probably required some convoluted emblem or a brass key shaped like a chess piece to open.
I didn't even wait for Rebecca to check the knob.
I lowered my chitin-plated shoulder, channeled my inner Kool-Aid Man, and plowed right through the center of the wood.
The door exploded inward in a shower of expensive splinters. I trotted into what looked like an upscale staff dining room, completely unbothered by the property damage.
Inside, three Umbrella middle-managers were awkwardly shuffling around a long mahogany table. They were dressed in ruined business suits, their skin a mottled, rotting grey, and they all slowly turned their heads toward the sudden noise with synchronized, wet groans.
Rebecca stepped through the shattered doorframe behind me, her Beretta already raised. She took one look at the corporate zombies and let out a loud, exasperated groan of her own.
"Are you kidding me?! These things are inside the mansion too?" she complained, her shoulders slumping. "I thought this place was supposed to be a secure training facility. We are going to have a really, really bad night, aren't we?"
Relax, Becca. I've got the graveyard shift covered.
Before she could even line up her iron sights, I launched myself across the room.
I slammed into the first suit, my heavy scorpion-armor crushing his ribcage into powder. I clamped my jaws around his throat and violently twisted, popping his head off like a stale champagne cork. The second zombie lunged at my flank, but I just swatted his legs out from under him with a heavy paw and stomped his skull flat against the hardwood floor.
The third one barely had time to raise his hands before I tackled him over the dining table. Silverware and fine china went flying as I pinned him down and ripped his throat out in one clean, aggressive tear.
Three kills in under four seconds. Minimal effort. Maximum efficiency.
Evolution Points earned: +30 EP
"Okay, wow," Rebecca muttered from the doorway, slowly lowering her handgun. She looked highly impressed, if a bit nauseated by the sheer brutality. "Good boy, Ghosty. I guess that saves ammo. Let's go check the back rooms before more of them show up."
She turned to leave.
I didn't move.
It was time to pop the hood and show her the engine.
I planted my paws over the ruined corpses. My jaw unhinged slightly, and the thick, armored plates along my sides shifted. Hundreds of dark, writhing red tendrils erupted from my mouth, my chest, and the spaces between my chitin armor. They lashed through the air like blind, hungry leeches before violently burrowing into the flesh of the three dead managers.
Rebecca froze, her boot hovering an inch above the floorboards. She slowly turned her head back around.
"Ghosty, what are you—"
The words died in her throat.
In front of her eyes, the three adult human corpses were being violently vacuumed out of existence. The tendrils acted like high-powered industrial pumps. The zombies' skin immediately began to desiccate, pulling tight over their bones as all their fluids, muscle tissue, and biomass were sucked directly into my body.
They shriveled up like deflating balloons. Within seconds, the bodies simply crumbled into dry, flaky ash that scattered across the floorboards. When my tendrils finally retracted back under my armor, there was absolutely nothing left of the three men except their oversized, empty business suits and a few dark blood stains on the rug.
Burp.
Biomass absorbed. Cellular integrity increased.
I sat back on my haunches, licked a stray drop of blood off my snout, and gave her a happy tail wag.
Rebecca just stood there. Her Beretta had completely slipped from her aiming stance, dangling loosely from her fingers. Her mouth was hanging slightly open, her eyes wide enough to show the whites all the way around.
"What... what in the actual name of God...?" she whispered.
Her brain was actively short-circuiting. I could practically hear the gears grinding to a halt as her medical and scientific education violently clashed with the absolute bullshit she had just witnessed.
"Did you... did you just drink them?" she stammered, taking a slow, very cautious step back.
I gave a soft, dopey bark and tilted my head.
"They're gone. You literally just evaporated three human bodies." She pointed a trembling finger at the empty suits. "That defies... everything! That defies the law of conservation of mass! Where did the bones go?! You can't just absorb bones!"
I am a creature of the system, baby. Thermodynamics can kiss my mutated ass.
Her initial shock was laced with completely justified terror. She was staring at me like I might suddenly sprout tendrils and turn her into a human Capri Sun. But as the seconds ticked by, and I just sat there looking like a goofy, albeit terrifyingly armored dog, the potent Succubus pheromones did their heavy lifting.
The fragrant, earthy musk filling the room was keeping her cortisol levels suppressed, actively fighting down her panic response.
She swallowed hard, her grip on the gun loosening again. "Please... please tell me you don't do that to living people."
I let out a soft whine, shaking my head and giving my tail another thump against the floor. Strictly a scavenger, ma'am. Mostly.
She took a tentative step forward. Then another. Her innate curiosity, fueled by years of intense academic study, was starting to override her common sense. She crept closer to me, her eyes darting between my armored hide and the empty suits on the floor.
"How do you do that?" she murmured, her voice losing its edge of panic and dropping into a tone of deep, morbid fascination. "It's like... like you're some kind of sci-fi vampire. But vampires usually leave a corpse behind. You just... cleared the entire plate."
She knelt down in front of me, keeping a respectable distance but leaning in to stare at the seams between my chitin plates.
"Is this the T-Virus?" she asked, talking more to herself than to me. "What even is this virus? How does it allow for such rapid cellular mutation and complete biological absorption? This is nothing like I've ever seen before. The other infected are just brain-dead cannibals."
She looked up at my milky, skinless face.
"How come you're the only thing I've met tonight that still has a functioning brain?" she mused, her brow furrowing. Then, a highly unamused look crossed her face. "Even if it is a highly inappropriate, sexually harassing brain."
I sneezed, feigning absolute innocence. I have no idea what you're talking about, officer.
Rebecca sighed, shaking her head. She reached her hand out, hesitating for a fraction of a second before extending it toward me.
"Don't you dare try that trick on me," she warned, though her voice lacked any real venom.
I slowly lifted my heavy, armored front paw and placed it gently into her open palm.
She braced herself, expecting the heavy weight, but then I decided to get a little playful. I let just a few tiny, hair-thin red tendrils slip out from beneath the chitin on my wrist. They slithered out like tiny worms and gently wrapped around her fingers.
Rebecca gasped, her entire body flinching. "Ah! Ghosty, stop—"
But the tendrils didn't bite. They didn't burrow. They just lightly squeezed her fingers, the soft, wet tissue rubbing against her skin as they mapped her sweat and heat signature.
A sudden, highly undignified giggle burst out of her.
"Hey! S-stop, that tickles!" she squirmed, trying to pull her hand back, but not trying very hard. "It feels like... like wet spaghetti! Eww, okay, stop it, you weirdo!"
I retracted the tendrils immediately and gave her hand a normal, sloppy lick with my massive tongue instead.
She wiped her hand on her pants, but there was a genuine smile tugging at the corners of her mouth now. The fear was completely gone, replaced by a terrifying, bright-eyed zeal.
Oh no.
"Your cellular structure must be incredible," she breathed, staring at my paw like it was the Holy Grail of biology. "The metabolic rate required to break down that much biomass in seconds... your stomach acid must be more potent than industrial solvent. And the way your cells just casually restructure themselves to form that armor?"
She looked up at me, her eyes practically shining with scientific fervor.
"Ghosty, if we get out of this place alive, I am absolutely taking a tissue sample from you. I want to put your cells under an electron microscope. I want a blood draw. Heck, I want to map your entire genome."
A cold, icy shiver ran down my spine.
My exposed tailbone tucked itself securely between my legs.
System... I think I fucked up. I think I just awakened a mad scientist.
That look in her eyes wasn't just innocent curiosity anymore. It was the look of a researcher who had just found the ultimate lab rat. It was bordering on a bubbly, academic yandere vibe. I could practically see the centrifuge and the extra-large needles reflecting in her pupils.
I let out a high-pitched, pathetic whimper and shrank back away from her, trying to look as un-scientific and stupid as physically possible. I even chased my own tail for a second just to really sell the 'dumb dog' routine. Look at me! I am just a stupid hound! I don't know anything about genomes! Please don't put me in a beaker!
Rebecca just laughed, a bright, clear sound that felt completely out of place in the blood-stained dining room.
"Oh, relax, you big baby. I'm not going to dissect you," she promised, standing back up and dusting off her knees. "But seriously, whatever genetic lottery you won, it's fascinating. You are a walking medical miracle."
Yeah, well, this miracle would like to keep his blood inside his body, thank you very much.
"Come on," she said, checking the magazine in her Beretta one more time. "Let's see what else Umbrella is hiding in here. And... if you want to keep vacuuming up the bodies to save me the trouble of stepping over them, be my guest. Just give me a warning next time."
I barked happily, my panic subsiding as she returned to her normal, non-vivisecting self.
I trotted past her toward the adjoining hallway, fully prepared to lead her straight to the shotgun shells and green herbs I knew were stashed in the next room. I had successfully revealed my darkest, weirdest ability, and not only had she not shot me, she had basically given me permission to treat the rest of the facility like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Best medic ever.