Matuscarantos

  "Yes! It worked!" Nearly choking on the foul stink of of recently split blood and my own pustunt form. Death crept ever closer, scratching at the doors. But now it was too te, I'd succeeded. After thirty years of fighting and cwing my way to survival, I'd beaten the Reaper to the punch.

  All the blood and death, all the pain, had finally paid off. I could be free of this decaying body, free of this meaningless life. The ritual was clear about that, I wouldn't be the same on the other side. I felt it was worth the risk to escape my rotting form. Though death would've been preferable to my current life, that wasn't exactly pn A.

  "It's amazing." I marveled at the result of years of effort. Caught in the cusp of things mortals were not meant to know, but always seemed desperate to find.

  The ritual had been completed, and a tear in space had opened in front of me. Deep azure light shown through this rip in the fabric of this universe. Its jagged edges crackling with violent purple energies.

  "No use standing around." In my heart, I bid farewell to my stash of favorite games, shows and books. To all the stories where I'd never witness the endings. Not that any of them would see a proper ending now. A brief fsh of sorrow stirred, but I bit it back as I took a single step forward.

  "Goodbye Earth. I hope the zombies get you all, assholes."

  [ Unknown amount of time ter ]

  [ Unknown location ]

  'Maybe death would have been the smarter choice.'

  I'd awoken in a tube. My body had been suspended in a viscous amber fluid. No matter how long I'd been in here the fluid always stung my nose, mouth, and lungs. But not my skin, which I found odd. Not that it was my skin any more.

  Oh, I started human enough. But small robotic arms with needles, full of who knows what, had been jabbed into to me day after day. Hundreds of times, thousands of times. And I changed, step by painful step. Into what, I had no clue. I was bigger and my skin was some shade of purple, I think. There were odd, maybe gray scaling patterns on my new skin in pces. My fingers had elongated and my nails had become more like cws.

  It hurt, of course, but with nothing else to focus on, I attempted to master my pain. At first, I recalled my favorite stories, I hummed my favorite songs. I built fantasy worlds in my head. But that was just hiding away from the pain, and my ability to ignore the pain ran out. Then I was left to face it head on. Now, I could control my pain, turn it on or off. I wished I'd had this ability back on Earth.

  After I'd started to change, sometimes the robotic arms would hold small glowing crystals next to me. they never touched me with the crystals, but I could feel odd sensations from the gems. Though once again, it was hard to determine the colors, there were ones that I thought were several different shaded of blue. Red ones, green one, and purple ones. Lately the crystals hadn't appear to have a color. So maybe that meant they were yellow or amber themselves. Some made me feel things in my head, others caused a twisting in my gut.

  This continued for another thousand rounds of injections. No one had spoken to me and I couldn't see beyond the gss of my tube. Why would my captors waste the energy to light the specimen jar for me to see at all, remained a mystery. But I knew someone was out there, I could feel them.

  One day, the metal shell around my tube had opened, and I could see. The sight that greeted me wasn't unexpected.

  Human scientists, stared in at me. Some with smiles, other neutrally. They all tapped furiously at their datapads, presumably recording their findings. I admit I wanted to tap something as well, their skulls with my new cws. As, I couldn't move properly despite my rage.

  I noticed that despite being able to see these scientists, I couldn't hear them. But I could feel them, and even odder I could see strange colors surrounding some of them. Like auras.

  Dare I hope?

  Their observations continued for countless days. The only constant was that they seemed pleased with the results of their experiments upon me.

  Then came the day when they moved my tube. A rge humanoid robot came and carried my tube to another room. It pced me in front of two other tubes, then left. These new tube had occupants. Both humanoid, both tall and thin. One was purple skinned and blue haired with long ears and eyebrows. His silver glowing eye bored into me, trying to gauge what I was. The other being had gray scaled skin glowing green eyes but it wasn't her eyes that burned into me, it was her mind.

  The room we found ourselves in, was rge, made of metal and other than us empty. My first impression was that it was some kind of arena. However, there was nothing to use as a weapon and certainly no where to hide. Or so I thought.

  "Hahahahaha!" I couldn't help it, after all, I knew what both of them were.

  I was looking at a Night Elf and a Protoss. A Kaldorei and a Nerazim. Oh boy, this was amazing. Two of my favorite non-human species in all of fiction. No, I guess they weren't fictional anymore.

  We were all naked, and while uncomfortable, didn't detract from my excitement at seeing the living embodiments of some of my favorite games.

  "Wait a minute!" I looked back down at myself. I stared at my now purple skin, and the gray scaly patches.

  Fuck. The scientist bastards had kluged me. I was probably some kind of hybrid between a Night Elf and a Protoss. I had no idea what the full ramifications of that would be, or how it might benefit the scientists. Hell, they probably did it just because they could. Let's pray that was all they had done.

  A hissing sound occurred, and my tube started to decant. The amber fluid drained away as my tube split in two.

  My lungs breathed in my first breath of new universe air. Which, of course, lead to a coughing fit as I evacuated the remains of the fluid in my body.

  As I regained control of myself, I noticed that the others were also free of their gss prisons.

  The Protoss disappeared. Ah, right the Nerazim love their cloaking abilities.

  The Night Elf rippled and with a fsh of light changed into a rge bck panther, which also promptly disappeared. A Druid then.

  Whelp, if they are hostile I'm kind of screwed. Because I couldn't feel either one of them like I felt the scientists. Nor did my aura sight give them away.

  I backed up slowly, my ears straining trying to catch the slightest noise.

  At the same time my brain was in overdrive, trying to remember everything I could about either specie. Something to say or do that might prevent a fight right now.

  My back hit the cold metal wall.

  A low growl seem to come from my left. A felt something with my mind, building pressure to my right.

  I darted forward, as I sense something in the air change. A quick dive roll saved my life.

  A bst of concussive green energy hit the wall were I just was, and the Night Elf panther had just leapt. The panther was revealed and dazed and I saw something flicker and smash into it. A startled hiss escaped from the panther as it's heightened reflexed responded to the attack in kind. Blue blood flew seemingly from the empty air.

  Oh good, they were more interested in killing each other than me. I slowly backed up towards a different wall. I was completely unsure of who I was routing for. Probably the panther, it didn't seem quite as adept at the stealth game. I still might not be able to beat it but I'd rather see my death coming.

  For whatever reason, the Night Elf panther seemed to have no difficulties in locating the Nerazim. And he unched a blistering combination of cw attacks. His cws seemed to take on a silver hue. More blue blood was soon flowing from the Nerazim. Now I had no problem telling exactly where she was.

  However, she had tricks of her own, and a green bst of energy rippled outwards in a wave. The Night thrown hard enough into the metals walls that I heard something crack.

  I rushed the Protoss. Going for a grapple. As luck would have it, I crashed into her back and tched on. Squeezing as hard as I could with my left arm while my right hand groped for her neck. If I remember rightly Protoss breathe through their skin, but that didn't mean I couldn't break her neck. I honestly didn't know if that would kill her, but it was all I could think to do.

  There we go. My hand found her chin and using it as a pivot point wrenched her head to the right. The snap was clear as a bell.

  "Got you."

  Her form slowly came into view. But I felt more energy building up and leapt backwards.

  An eruption of green burst from her body. Hmm, that did look somewhat simir to a Protoss death animation in the game, but her corpse was still there. I got further confirmation a second ter.

  [ You have made your first kill, unlocking the Lost System. ]

  [ Due to your preset Path being Sacrifice, do you offer up the corpse of Kez'surra? Y/N ]

  "Uh... y-yess?"

  Kez'surra's lifeless form vanished.

  Yeah... that was bleeding awesome. And terrible.

  I'd gotten a System, now I just had to live long enough to figure it out.

  A shuffle brought my attentions back to the panther now shifting into a giant bear. Oh great, he took his tank form. That hardly seemed sporting of him. Heh. I approve.

  At least the ears didn't persist like in the game. But what did persist where those silver eyes. Glowing with the light of Elune, or the Stars. I didn't remember right at the moment.

  The only reason I was dead right now, was that the Night Elf had clearly broken not only his leg but something vital. Maybe a rib that puncture a lung and was interfering with his breathing. Hard to say and I didn't want to get any closer to figure it out.

  Why didn't he turn back into his normal form and heal himself? Or zap me with Wrath or Moonfire?

  Right now, all I could do was py keep away with him. And hope like hell he ran out of stamina, or internal bleeding finished him off.

  He charged going all in. Bears even ones with a broken leg as fast. But I was faster, I dashed out of the way, I was surprised. that wouldn't have worked when I was human. An advantage of this hybrid form I guess.

  I wished I knew a spell, or knew how to use a psibst. Instead, I started dancing around the room like a crazed rodeo clown. Desperate to live even a second longer.

  And it ended up paying off. The bear stumbled during a charge while at full steam. Thousands of pound of bear smashed himself into the metal wall. More cracks rang out. The bells of my victory.

  This time the bear didn't shake it off. His form wavered and once again the original Night Elf id there battered and bloody. Gasping for air.

  "S-hu das... " He continued haltingly in a nguage I didn't understand, but was probably Darnassae.

  I walk over to him. Knelt next to him, and his eyes told he that he knew what was next.

  "Ash Karath." I didn't know what that meant, but I cold guess.

  I gently grasped his head, and then gave him the same treatment I'd given to the Nerazim.

  I never had learned to like killing, as many have in the fall of my world. But I understood that violence was a necessity, when on unstable ground. When communication breaks down or is impossible, it always comes to this.

  [ You have sin Kalthemis Greenheart, do you offer up their corpse? Y/N ]

  His body vanished as well.

  I was about to try to figure out, what my System did, when several well concealed ports opened in the walls. Little pipes were thrust out into the room.

  'That didn't look pleasant.'

  I stood up.

  Darts were fired at me from all angles. Despite my best attempts at dodging I was struck multiple times.

  'Wow, the room is really spinning. I need to y down. W-wait wasn't I worried about something... '

  The darkness greeted me.