****(POV)

In a small and extremely dark basement, two men could be seen sitting at a table. They were as different as night and day.

One was handsome with light brown hair that was neatly trimmed. He wore a white lab coat that he never stained and light blue glasses that he didn't need. People knew him as the Doctor.

"Hey Doc, you finally changed your mind? That's great!" His interlocutor happily said.

This man didn't seem to know what shaving or even washing meant. He was nothing more than a vulgar foot soldier. He looked and smelled like a beggar. His sharp teeth were crooked, and his glowing red eyes revealed his true nature.

He had long stopped being human. He was an experimental failure, a trashy one at that. He wasn't qualified enough to handle the Doctor's miraculous products.

Normally he would never sell to those freaks at Gene Corp. He had standards, after all. This time, however, he had to ignore his own rules. He urgently needed money and couldn't afford to wait.

That's why he was reluctantly selling the fruit of one of his side-projects. This organization had been pestering him for so long about it, and they paid well.

"Here, hurry up and take it. I have better things to do. Now scram!" This idiot was nothing but a mule tasked with retrieving the package.

"Is this stuff as good as they say? It's such a small box too! How much is it even worth?" The beast babbled mindlessly. It didn't seem to realize that this small box was worth more than its entire existence.

How short of manpower were they to send this dumbass? This product would improve the efficiency of gene therapy by about 12%. It wasn't that much, and it was consumable, but it was worth it—especially when it was time to operate on the higher-ups.

The Doctor got ready to leave. He was done with this.

"I say, now that you are here, Doctor... Why don't I just bring you back to the base as one of our slaves? Don't worry. You would live a happy life: being able to research all the time until you drop dead!" He raucously laughed as he evilly grinned.

Truly an imbecile! As a professional teacher, the Doctor was used to idiots, but this one was phenomenally dumb! He could make this creature disappear as he had done with that one unruly student of his, but that would cause frictions with Gene Corp. Instead, he warned:

"Get out of my sight while you still can." The Doctor uttered lowly, controlling his temper.

"Fool! We of Gene Corp are resistant to drugs. There is nothing you can do to—" THUD!

The Doctor slowly approached the fallen man, taking out a scalpel from his chest pocket. It was a cold-looking one with engravings of hearts on it to represent passion or something.

"It seems your tiny pea-brain cannot fathom the difference between resistant and immune. Immune wouldn't have you paralyzed on the ground at my mercy. Now, let's cut off some weight, shall we?" He grinned.

He slowly approached the man and had some fun. He truly enjoyed the look of terror in his eyes as he slowly cut his tongue, removed an eyeball, severed his thumbs, and cut an arm—nothing like a magical scalpel to cut through even bone easily.

He then applied some healing drug that would save that target's life and make it impossible for any regeneration of the lost parts. Finally, he felt better as he walked away whistling.

Now, he had lots of things to plan. It had all started in his office when he had gotten an offer from Gene Corp to buy his materials at a higher price than usual. They were going to war and needed to restock.

Well, that obviously wasn't the true reason. He had heard about the sloths. These were mighty and possibly invincible creatures. They wanted the creatures' blood and his products to try and create the strongest freak ever.

Their leader would most probably be the one attempting the operation this time. The Doctor knew about it. The man had received lots of modifications, but all were partial ones compatible with pretty much anything.

This time he was going all out. Well, that wasn't his concern. No, he was more interested in their military operations. They would attack D-23. That would mean a perfect diversion.

He had asked one of his pupils to take over his class while he would go to Metropolis-C on vacation. He had a brother that used to live there. In fact, the Doctor had always hated his brother.

The pitiful bastard lacked in brains and even more in ambition. He was content living his life a the bottom of the food chain. A shame, really. That's why he had left to that joke of a city.

Well, to be fair, they had Universal Tech, but half the world had their products too. What good was a technological company with the advent of the Tower? His drugs worked in the Tower and outside of it too.

With every new Floor climbed, he only got stronger and stronger. Meanwhile, new ways to disable technology kept appearing. Yes, his way of life was the ultimate one.

Anyway, this dumb brother of his had only ever lived by using petty and useless drugs like basic Firgone. Lenny had also gotten himself killed by some random guy. Some bloke called Josh Malum.

This time he would visit him and enjoy dissecting him from head to toe. Actually, he would probably use his body as teaching material for his inner circle of pupils. He would cut him open, gouge the insides out, then close it up and heal him.

He had the perfect drug for it. It allowed to regenerate even organs, and that part was especially painful. It was very fun to watch.

As for how he would do it, he had planned the best homage of all times. Yes, he would make his move with Firgone. Well, one could call it Firgone+ or even Firgone+++. He had gone through so many versions already.

Usual Firgone removed the fear and most of the other emotions along the way. The one he would use would instead remove all emotions but one.

This would soon be so beautiful. He couldn't wait, he truly couldn't wait!