Disco Rice - [Worm OC Insert/Chaos Gacha]

Chapter 11: Metamorphosis

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The basement still had a smell. I scrubbed, and sanitized. Disinfected, scrubbed again. I'd replaced the damp, mildewy stench of the place with something clean and industrial. Cold concrete. A faint charge of ozone from too many electronics crammed into one space. A metallic tang that clung to the back of your throat. The smell of tools. Of making things.

It smelled like stability. Like permanence.

The workbench stood heavy and scarred, bolted into the floor like it was afraid someone might try to steal it. My rig slept on its surface. The fans were stilled, the monitor dark, and cables draped like vines from a steel tree. In the far corner, two robotic arms clanked and stuttered as they sorted scrap metal. They weren't sleek or efficient, just scavenged university castoffs that I'd coaxed back to life.

My little army consisted of two twitchy robots, a borderline homicidal AI, a culinarily inclined rodent, and a ghost. Tremble, world.

I leaned against the bench, my coffee mug cradled in both hands. The ceramic was warm, the coffee smooth, strong, and pitch black. Perfect. The only warmth in the room that didn't come from a power supply or an overheating CPU.

The monitor blinked on. I wasn't greeted with a cheerful chime or any startup tones. There was just GLaDOS. Watching me. Her face was the single yellow orb on the screen. Her eyes a cheap webcam.

Her voice emerged from the speakers. It was smooth, dry, and so steeped in sarcasm it practically dripped.

"This is pathetic."

I sipped my coffee. "They've made progress."

"Progress," she echoed, tasting the word like it offended her. "You've given me rudimentary scrap-sorters and expect applause. I could design technology that would make your most advanced weapons look like sharpened sticks. Instead, you've supplied me with an Etch A Sketch and moral hesitations."

She wasn't wrong. Not entirely.

"I'm being careful," I said. "That's all."

"You're being sentimental," she replied. "And inefficient. You've already made yourself known in the underworld. This half-hearted sabbatical is a waste of momentum. And of my time."

Before I could answer, the yellow eye narrowed.

"Wait."

The screen flickered. A live feed appeared. The shaky footage from a handheld camera focused on Medhall Tower. The structure caught the late afternoon light and threw it back like a blade. At its base, a crowd swelled. Loud. Angry. On the edge of something irreversible.

A headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen in heavy red type.

MAX ANDERS, MEDHALL CEO, ACCUSED OF BEING E88 LEADER 'KAISER'.

I set the coffee mug down. Slowly. Firmly.

The sound it made, a sharp crack of ceramic on steel, cut through the basement like a closing door.

I knew this moment was coming. I had circled it in my mental calendar with red ink and dread. But knowing the shape of the storm isn't the same as standing in the wind, watching the sky boil above you.

Coil had pulled the trigger. The bullet was the size of a city block.

I looked around the room. The quiet, the ritual, the comfort of routine. The hiss of power through cables. The hum of machines doing stupid, simple work.

None of it would survive what came next.

I turned back to the monitor. Watched the crowd surge and break like waves.

Something settled in me. Cold. Certain.

The version of me that drank coffee in basements and hoped the world might just leave him alone had no future. His current toolkit, his current advantages, were a rounding error in the new equation Coil had just written.

To survive, I needed to change the math. I had to introduce a new variable. A big one.

I closed my eyes, turning my focus inward, away from the concrete and the steel. I found it waiting in the quiet dark of my own mind, the final, terrifying prize from the last battle.

The Diamond Ticket.

I tore it.

The system came alive. A tone chimed, soft, almost curious. Then came the text.

[Blacklight Physique]
|Mythical Trait|
Prototype - Race Change - Your previous genetic material has been completely assimilated, turning you into a living mass of Blacklight Virus. Even at your base, you can smash apart tanks and run faster than cars. You are also able to regenerate by assimilating biological matter. As long as you have even a fist-sized mass of Blacklight left that makes up your core, you will still live. Any biological part you consume, you are able to analyse and replicate. The stronger the target you assimilate is, the harder it is to assimilate them.

The change began quietly. A subtle, wet stir from deep within my gut. A fluttering.

Like something had noticed it was awake.

A tickle spread under my skin. It grew warmer. Then hot. Then unbearable. My spine arched. Fingers convulsed. Heat raced through me, boiling out every breath before it could leave my lungs. My knees gave way and I crumpled to the floor, the world tilting sideways.

Pain followed. Real pain. The kind that roars. Bones bent, then reshaped. Muscles pulled like taffy, tore apart, reknit. The meat of me rearranged under a blueprint I couldn't see.

I wanted to breathe, to scream, to beg it to stop. But my throat didn't know how to do any of those things anymore.

And then it got worse.

The world opened. I saw it, truly saw it. Every particle in the air, glowing like embers. Heat signatures pulsing behind the walls. The computer core flickered like a second sun. The world was no longer solid. It was a symphony of information, heat, motion, decay.

I lost my shape. One minute I'd been on the floor, the next I was spread. A puddle. A mass, aware and uncontained.

And underneath it all, something primal stirred.

Ingest. Absorb. Integrate. CONSUME.

Tiny life forms moved around me. Bacteria in the walls, spores drifting in the air. Every one of them called to the instinct now rising in my cells. The world was made of material. And material was meant to be consumed.

More.

The thought tried to drown me. There was no logic to it. No identity. Just a tide of hunger, impersonal and immense.

I felt myself slipping, losing the shape of my own thoughts.

Then, a pulse. A deep, resonant thrum from the space in my soul where the tickets were born. A feeling of correction. A fundamental property of my being reasserting its default state. The roaring tide of hunger receded for a single, stark second, and in the sudden, silent void, a memory was presented to me. A single, perfect piece of data, held up against the chaos.

My hand, just earlier, setting the mug down on the bench. The warmth of the ceramic. The slight chip on the rim. The smooth glaze under my thumb.

It held me. Anchored me.

I seized that moment and pulled.

The mass convulsed. Drew inward. Something wet and heavy scraped across the concrete.

Okay. Blueprint time.

Bipedal. Humanoid. Two arms. Two legs. Head on top. Fingers.

The shape formed, then collapsed. A pile of twitching, indecisive tissue.

Right. Try again. Less spaghetti, more skeleton.

I focused. Remembered the face I'd slowly come to think of as mine. The lines in my palm. The chipped mug and the weight of it.

Again, the mass coiled and rose. Muscles formed. Bones hardened. Skin stitched itself into place.

When I finally lifted my head, I was kneeling on the floor, breath hitching in lungs that worked on reflex alone, pulling in air they no longer needed.

I lifted my hand.

It looked right. Familiar. Skin the correct color. Nails shaped like I remembered. No scars, no calluses, no imperfections. A perfect hand, printed fresh from a memory.

But it was all surface.

Underneath, I knew what I was now. Not quite what I had been. Not anymore.

A mask of the old me, stretched over something new.

The robots in the corner were still. The workbench silent. Even the cables seemed to pause.

The monitor's yellow eye flickered once.

"Fascinating," GLaDOS said. "Complete cellular liquefaction followed by reformation. I wasn't aware you could do… that."

A pause.

"Do it again. I want to calibrate the instruments properly this time."