Part 2: Monster Below
The Hydra site was quiet now, in the worst possible way. Bodies littered the halls and labs—guards torn apart, scientists crumpled in pools of their own blood. The air reeked of scorched flesh and burnt gunpowder. Riven stood above a twisted mess of steel doors, torn open by his telekinetic power and brute strength.
He moved deeper into the facility, boots echoing with finality.
The computer terminal upstairs had revealed more than expected. Records, videos, notes—proof of Hydra's latest project. One name repeated in the logs: Subject Gamma-7. A mutant boy abducted nearly two years ago. His memories wiped, his body altered. Injected with compound enhancers and mental conditioning to weaponize his mutation. But the reports called it unstable. Dangerous. Even Hydra didn't fully control him.
And he was still here.
Riven's hand tightened into a fist as he descended the metal stairs to the underground sector. The lights flickered. Warning klaxons spun dimly in red. He passed corpses—Hydra agents who clearly hadn't lasted long.
Screams echoed from below.
He pushed through the final blast door. Inside, a reinforced chamber looked half-demolished. A boy stood in the wreckage, no older than fourteen, but twisted by raw mutation. His skin shimmered with shifting textures—bone, sinew, metallic growths—and his eyes were blank white. Pulses of unstable telekinesis cracked the air around him. The boy's body contorted in spasms of pain and power.
When he saw Riven, he roared.
Then attacked.
Riven dodged, sliding low, ducking a burst of pressure that shattered the wall behind him. The kid was strong—unreasonably strong. But sloppy. Riven moved with practiced precision, sidestepping each attack, blocking with controlled bursts of his own telekinesis. He could end it. He knew he could.
But he didn't.
He held back.
His mind screamed: This is a child. Just a child.
Another surge came—this time Riven took the hit. It blasted him backward through a control console, sparks exploding around his shoulders. He coughed, spat blood, and rose again.
The boy screamed, clutching his head as if something inside was breaking. His body cracked with unnatural mutation—muscle tearing, reforming, bones reshaping beneath the skin.
"You're not a weapon," Riven muttered. "You're not what they made you."
The kid didn't hear. Or couldn't.
With a roar, the beast charged again. This time, Riven launched him into a wall with a wave of force—not enough to kill. Just enough to stun.
The beast-boy slumped, then rose again, panting hard. Something in his eyes flickered. Recognition? Pain?
He howled—an inhuman, echoing scream that shook the lab.
Then he bolted.
Tearing through the outer wall, the kid ran—faster than anyone his age should. Past the flames, over debris, into the darkness of the forest beyond. Toward the nearby city. Still mutated, still unstable, and still in pain.
Riven stood amid the ruins, chest heaving. Blood on his lips.
He pulled the comm device from his belt, breath shallow.
"Logan," he said. "I need you. Now."