Chương 25: To the Victor, the Genes

[Title - Fortress of Flame (Uncommon, I-Grade): Received 50% or more beyond-surface fire damage from a being of a higher sub-Rank, without losing consciousness. Whilst equipped, grants a 10% decrease in heat damage.] Progress. Confirmed and catalogued, even if the confirmation came wrapped in scorched nerves and charred outer muscle. Kelly flexed her fingers. Raw skin pulled tight, stitching itself back with all the urgency of a union worker on lunch break.

She really needed that damned troll tissue—preferably yesterday. She fired the soundgun as she moved, the blast slamming into the brute's chest. He didn't even bother to dodge, just recalibrated against her aim so the rounds hit something hard and metal.

His frame jolted out of rhythm and his eyes rolled from the soundgun's impact—just for a breath—before the AIs inside him snapped his limbs back into motion, hijacking control like a squad of invisible surgeons scrambling to keep their oversized patient on his feet. Kelly didn't wait for the rerun. She sprinted toward the heart of the crossfire where the reinforced truck sat, a graphene crate chained to its frame, half-buried in smoke and shouting.

Inside was the troll—the one she'd watched regrow half its spine before her pulse even slowed. She didn't put it there. But she could turn the lock. The brute's arm extended behind her, tracking rounds firing in pursuit as she ran the spine of the train. From the front, fighters opened up—she raised the slab, deflecting the impact as rounds hammered into the metal face.

She unclasped the monomolecular blade, hurled it like a spinning warhead, and watched it cleave through crate, troll, and anything dumb enough to line up behind it. Then she dropped behind the train on the other side, hidden between train and wall, shield raised as explosives pounded overhead. The hits landed like sledgehammers, shaking through her bones. A second later, the sound of a troll roaring from the far side blasted through, deeper, angrier.

The other side of the train erupted—roars, gunfire, steel torn sideways. Sounded like Mr. Gun-Arm and 'Roid Rage' just met someone louder and less patient. She smiled. Let them scramble with their terrorist response—she needed a troll loose, and now she had one. Kelly pulled up her status and eyed her latest Title. Fortress of Flame.

Earned when her skin cracked open under the residual heat from blocking an incendiary bullet's furnace, fired by a man with a higher sub-Rank partially controlled by superior AI pilots. The second Title came after she cut down a group of creatures rated several enhancement levels above her—their skin hard as diamonds, shape changing, with mouths that could swallow her whole and full limb retention under gunfire. While in comparison, she was barely augmented—3.

8, better than baseline, but so far beneath either of them on paper it made a power-armored SWAT officer look like mall security. That meant something. The Status had flagged the outcomes where she'd survived what she wasn't supposed to. It had rewarded her disadvantage. That made it usable. If the status rewarded asymmetry, then she'd build her experiments around it. Strip the advantages. Drop the support. Enter fights that chewed baseline humans to slurry and walk out just long enough to make the interface blink.

Titles came from pressure. So she'd design it. Loss built into the plan, pain baked into the schedule. If her biology made it out, she'd call that validation. She'd queue a scan once she extracted the troll's genes and scour every line of helix. If disadvantage fed returns, then fragility had tactical value. She didn't want fair. What she wanted was measurable evolution. Kelly jabbed a vial of medical nanotech into her thigh, and sighed like she was about to cancel a gym membership.

She vaulted forward, sprinting along the shaking carriage roof toward the roaring inferno ahead. The troll was on fire—literally flaming, its regeneration spiking faster than corporate stock buybacks—and the brute before it had his back to her, his shield grip faltering, highly overclocked but fighting to keep up, implants flaring under strain of the creature he faced.

Kelly kicked off the roof at speed, flipped cleanly over the train as the world blurred, and snatched her molecular blade from midair—where she'd left it lodged in a now-dead Obsidian merc's chest thirty seconds earlier.

"Alright, screw it," she muttered as she shot through the air.

"Unequip Title." The status panel blinked. Something deep in her chest twitched, as if her existence had just been demoted. Good. That meant it was working. She cracked her neck and beamed as she tore through the air, blood streaming behind. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Science!" she laughed wildly, slicing downward in one swift arc. Both heads—troll and brute alike—bounced across the smoldering roof, eyes still blinking in confusion. Before gravity fully reclaimed her, Kelly plunged her hand elbow-deep into the troll's freshly opened neck cavity. There was a time when the very idea of what she just did would've made her balk, but she had been at war for months, and dying endlessly had taught her that if it wasn't them, it would be her—sometimes, it just had to be done.

"Sorry, buddy," she said with an unreadable tone, "you've got a date with my genome." She yanked out the troll's pulsating heart, sealed it hastily in a containment pouch, and scooped out a generous handful of steaming brain matter with clinical detachment. Spotting a twitching lump of mimic tissue splattered nearby, she scooped that up too, stuffing it into another pocket as casually as grabbing snacks at checkout.

Behind her, Rook called out, his voice cutting clean through the alarm sirens as the station's counter-terrorist functions locked onto the remaining Obsidian contractors.

"Kelly, wait, what about the rest of the crates—" Kelly threw the soundgun into Rook's palms and spun, already jogging backward toward her exit route, pockets bulging grotesquely with samples. She waved cheerily, her blood-soaked fingers leaving streaks through the smoke-filled air.

"Vaughn'll handle it. Use that on the other contractors, without the big guy covering they'll either die or run. Wait—why don't you guys have soundguns anyway?"

"Collateral damage. Soundguns are basically occasionally-lethal flashbangs. Our 'lethal' is more counter-terrorism and less permanently harmful to bystanders. Plus they have countermeasures," Rook said, aiming the weapon and firing anyway as Kelly headed for the exit.

"But yes, they'll fall or surrender, or just ditch the cargo and run now that the overclocked one is gone, so thank you," he called.

"Ok, peace! You've totally got this!" She smiled, genuinely amused.

"Science-waits-for-no-one-gotta-run!" Rook shook his head, watching as she vanished into the haze, her laughter trailing behind as though it had the world's priority clearance.

Kelly paused as she reached her truck, studying a panel that sprang to life with a thought. [Title: Giantbane Grade I → II] [Grade II Effect: Grants a 10% increase in attack speed when engaging an opponent of a higher sub-Rank.] Before this, even with station security running support, it would've taken four loops minimum—maybe more if the brute decided to get creative. Hell, it had taken as many loops to get past Simon. Now, it was one clean sweep: troll, brute, fire, mechs, motion, success.

She paused on the edge of the carriage, heart hammering with momentum rather than panic, and acknowledged it—this was a breakthrough. Dense-as-titanium bones, a ten percent speed spike, and for the first time, no immediate reset. That sort of boost used to mean signing away half a decade of intellectual property and waiting for an approval committee to finish brunch before each upgrade. This changed everything.

It was application, tested under fire in a real environment, regardless of station support and distractions. She'd killed two high-level threats in real time—clean, direct, decisive. Pure field validation. And it worked. Kelly threw the samples in the passenger seat and headed deeper into New York City. The first time, she'd had to dodge Simon's men, a suicide squad, and a troll the size of a garbage truck tearing through steel like it stole his child support.

The second, she'd had Jackhammer and full control of Vaughn Industries' security grid—drones, turrets, interior locks—all working in her favor. This time, she'd had Rook acting as a mobile command hub while the Hyperloop's anti-terrorist protocols cornered the contractors for her. Plus another troll. And still, her implant reported her at 3. 8EQ, and the 'Status' panel called her an F- Rank. Against any of those enemies alone, she would've had to loop. Possibly dozens of times.

Only god knew how many loops she'd have burned getting the timing right. Now, though—now she had the troll's heart and brain matter, and that meant one thing: Park Avenue. GeneCorp's HQ. GeneCorp was next—Park Avenue, ground zero for the most advanced genetic research on the planet. Their vaults held everything she needed to stabilize what was left of her molecular structure and force her body into compliance across loops. She had the heart. She had the brain matter. Time was running out.

Her cells were still trying to pull themselves apart molecule by molecule, and every breath stretched the limits of her nanotech's ability to hold her together. The troll's regenerative pathways were buried deep in its cells, twisted into DNA like stars squeezed in a safe. She needed GeneCorp's sequencing labs and maybe ten uninterrupted minutes before her internal structure reached "critical instability" and started spraying her organs across the nearest wall.

But GeneCorp was a controlled environment with biometric locks and surgical analysis teams, researchers trained to secure anomalies like her before they ever touched the floor. And her Titles and Traits could destroy the entire augment industry, her biology could spark the next Augment wars. It could drag every off-planet colony, every off-planet nation, and Earth into meltdown—unless she picked a side, it would be another apocalypse. But Kelly didn't do sides.

She thumbed the ignition and her truck rumbled to life. Then she flicked on the radio as she drove, drumming her fingers lightly on the wheel while the truck surged forward, leaving caution smeared across the pavement in its wake. Entering GeneCorp would require finesse and tact—two skills she hadn't needed since dying stopped being a problem. And she'd be going in alone. Jackhammer was elsewhere. Rook was left behind. Every distraction ahead would have to start with her.

She pressed her foot down, the engine humming louder as GeneCorp's towers peeked over the horizon