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Tyrant

Transformation

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Cario

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_ _

Sean didn't know anything was different that night, not on going to sleep. Everything was normal for him. He'd worked out at the gym earlier that day, one step closer to having his goal, bodybuilder body, he was doing well in his university studies and had gotten a great exam result back – and he had even managed to spend some time playing Resident Evil that day. What could be better than that, even if he was in a shared university hall? A private room, however, was still something that was very much coveted there and something to be grateful for…

But he wasn't going to be there for much longer, not as he tossed and turned in his narrow little bed and slipped away into another world entirely…

*

When Sean woke, he was not home. Groaning, he half sat up, though where he was lying was a lot harder and colder than where he had gone to sleep. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance and yet sound appeared to be distorted there, as if it had been warped, filtered down channels that made no sense to him.

Blinking, he opened his eyes, lower jaw slack, a dark alleyway rising around him, as if he was a speck at the bottom of it, looking up the canyon to the narrow slice of sky above. He put his hand to his forehead and it came away dirty, a muttered curse breaking his lips.

“Fuck…"

What a stupid dream, he thought to himself, though he would much rather have been dreaming about something a lot more…well, pleasant. Maybe a day at the beach or something – not a dark, dank city. He was only mildly impressed at himself for recognising that it was a dream, though it was a very realistic one, the rank twist of the filthy alleyway clawing at his nostrils, a giant dumpster filled to the brim with rotting food towering over him. The reek was enough to get him up and on his feet, in worn-down trainers and scruffy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, but the rest of him felt like it was all there in the dream. Squinting and twisting his face, as if that would help Sean see better, he peered into the glass of a broken window, though there was barely enough glass in there for him to make out his square jaw and dark brown hair. It was still more than a little unkempt, but it didn't feel like that was the sort of thing that mattered in a dream.

But he wasn't going to stay there, slinking out of the alleyway and wondering what was going to happen. His head didn't usually pull up something that fucked up for dreams, never, not really. The street was quiet of traffic, though there were broken down cars there, a bike that looked like it had had a lot of weird modifications coasting down, though the man riding it did not make eye contact. The whirr of the wheels drew his attention, eyes following it down the road. But with the shops and convenience stores, places selling guns and weirder things, he was hesitant to probe too far.

Maybe he would wake up soon. That would be better. Especially as a TV screen flashed, something proclaiming something about a virus. It flickered so badly, in the shop window, that he didn't really get a good look at what it was saying.

“What the hell?"

Yet he was not to know that he was actually in Raccoon City, a newspaper blowing by outside the window with the date of March 6th, 1998. The city rose around him, dark and industrialised as he hunched over, shuffling down the street with his shoulders rounded, though, with his physique, even if he'd thought that he had a lot more to do, there was not much “making himself smaller" like that. He drew attention, sunken, sallow eyes following him down the street, the gutters dirty, strewn with papers, fast food wrappers and worse waste. Even the bins there were overflowing, a broken power cable hanging down the side of a grey, dull building with broken windows, snapping with sparks.

He wandered, turning around the corner into a restaurant, the much better scent of good food (better than the rotting reek in the alleyway, at least) drawing him in. The sign above his head read “Grill 13" and his heart turned over, though he didn't know what to think about that.

“Maybe I have been playing those games too much…"

Sean would put it down, in the end, to the stress of exams, of course, but ending up in his dream in a city out of one of his video games was not such a bad thing, he thought to himself, heading inside. And who knew what course a dream would take?

If he had been in his right mind, he would have remembered just where the games took the player. He would have remembered that nothing was as it seemed there.

The restaurant was open and warm with red tones, contrasting with the street outside, though, if he remembered the games all correctly, there were good and bad parts of the industrialised… Ah, that was it: Raccoon City. It didn't look quite like in the games though, even though it rang of the seedy underbelly, darker than he had expected it to be.

Patrons were seated around the restaurant, the bar long and open, but Sean stopped dead in his tracks. For right there before his eyes were two familiar characters: Albert Wesker and Dr William Birkin.

If he had not said anything, maybe he could have gotten away with it. But Sean had always had a big mouth.

“Albert Wesker! And you're Dr Birkin – William Birkin!"

The men turned to face him, Dr Birkin's mop of straw-like blonde hair looking like it had not seen a brush, though the words kept streaming from his lips, a tide that he could not stop.

“You… This is all like the game, isn't it?" He rambled, laughing, scratching his head, hands moving wildly as he talked with them – after all, it was a dream, wasn't it, so where could the harm be? “You're in…what is it…Umbrella! Damn, my head's thick, I should be able to remember more in a dream, shouldn't I?"

He talked aloud, counting it out on his fingers as he ran through what he knew – ah, that made the virus thing make more sense! The T-virus and the G-virus, Umbrella, how that had gotten all twisted, the experiments, S.T.A.R.S…

“And the traitor – fuck, I didn't see that twist coming!"

Sean grinned as if he was meeting his idols, spreading his hands wide, though he had failed to notice Wesker slowly rising from his table, dark sunglasses shading his eyes. And, yet, something in those eyes pierced through Sean like a blade, words faltering, dying on his lips.

And that was the moment that Sean knew he'd fucked up. Whether or not it was a dream, it was not a place that he could stay, not where he could remain, regardless of everything. All he knew was fear, the kind of feat that came with the music in the background of the games that made him feel like something was wrong, that something was coming for him, that he had to get out of there, one way or another. His palms sweated, sweat soaking through the underarms of whatever T-shirt he was wearing under the hoodie, scrambling to escape, whipping out of the door of the restaurant.

Yet he didn't know where to go, fleeing in random directions, even if who would become his enemies already had his number and knew him, knew his face, had already taken stock of it. In a world that was entering an age of technology, the industrial side would flourish too, giving rise to mutants, tyrants, all those from the games that he knew existed.

And the virus…

That put fear into him, though Sean had nowhere to go. All he knew was that a dream would not last as long as everything there was, that there was honestly nowhere for him to go, even if he managed to find his way into a hotel that he remembered, Raccoon Hotel. It looked different there though, with red awnings, as if it was a place for visiting businessmen and owners, not as desolate as it would later.

They dragged him out of the hotel room that he had managed to get, someone letting him up there – but, of course, they had probably already known that he was coming and sent him there, on Wesker and Birkin's orders. He should have known, really should have known, yet Sean hardly dared hope it was a dream anymore, or even something where a prank was being pulled. He checked the hotel room for cameras, as if he thought he was being recorded, pacing, wringing his hands, though his muscle and body would not help him there, not one bit.

Nothing would help him as he was tranquilised, the dart sinking into his neck and felling him immediately, crumpling to the ground and knowing no more. Birkin stood over him, lips twisted into a sullen expression, though the look of confusion on Wesker's face truly would have been new to Sean, if he had been awake to see it.

---

“I cannot fathom where this man has come from…" Wesker said through a frown, shaking his head. “This is unprecedented… How could he know of the virus? A leak? A rumour?"

And yet all that contained the virus, at that point in time, was on the inside, supposed cures for disease put into the media, all to cover up what they were doing there. Birkin leaned down, assisting him with searching Sean from head to toe, checking for ID, a wallet, a phone – anything at all that would give them a clue as to who the man was. With the aid of the hotel, who had already been paid off to capture Sean there, once he had stepped through the doors, they did not have to rush, though there was still a sense of haste in their frenzied motions.

Yet there was nothing, nothing bar the clothes that Sean was wearing, and Wesker stepped back, baffled.

“This makes no sense…" He muttered. “He knows so much, so much that he should not know…"

They were closely guarded secrets, after all, things that Sean should never have known – and yet he did. Of course, there was no way for him to know that Sean was from another world, a world where their world was just a game and a movie, something that many believed to be fictional – and horror too. But they would find out about him, one way or another, Wesker standing tall as he made the call to have Sean taken in.

With experiments in hand, Sean's secrets would soon be revealed…

*

Held in a chamber, which was too large for him alone, Sean knew nothing of his fate. If he had been conscious, he would have realised that he had been taken to the laboratory and might even have realised that experimentation was imminent. The chamber had a sliding panel at the front, through which he could be accessed, though he was not in the chamber, by any means, for his protection.

The lab was pristine, at that time: it would not remain such. Everything gleamed, clinically clean, computers feeding back readings, data that would be collected, his arm hooked up to an IV, which kept him knocked out. It would be needed for the first injections, of course, though there was no telling just what would happen, how far they would go in their experiments. Of course, it was not the

Wesker and Birkin observed him, though Birkin did not linger, even though Wesker's curiosity kept him there, watching, lips pressed together. The scientists followed his orders, a woman with black hair and a medium complexion of brown-toned skin preparing the syringe. It was small, yes, but potent, the machines beeping, collecting all the data that was needed, though the lab chosen for that experiment was small, functional: all that they needed.

Sean, of course, was completely unaware of the scientist sliding the needle into his arm, directly injecting it so that it would not mix with the concoction in his IV drip. It would not keep him unconscious for long, but he was not to know, helpless, in a world that he'd thought he understood and yet was only just pulling back the covers on the intricacies of it. What they had in mind for him, however, was not something that Sean would at all want to be conscious for, however…

His dream world was struck, all as the scientist slid a needle into his skin, the panel on the pod sliding back to allow her access, though the space would be needed in there, yes, all for him to grow. She stepped back, her lips pursed, observing as his veins turned black where the T-virus travelled through his system, now set with an activating agent.

“Interesting…" She muttered to herself, making a note on a chart, checking back on him. “Very interesting…"

The realm of his dreams, however, was far from quiet, Sean shifting and groaning, eyelids fluttering, eyes moving under his only half-lowered lids. In his mind, he rampaged, powerful, strong, roaring, a massive hand that looked more like a claw slamming through buildings, crushing concrete, ripping bricks from the mortar into which they were bedded. He was not in control of the dream and yet there was nothing in him, not in the dream, that was horrified by what he was doing, by the smoke and the fire, the screams echoing through his head. It was as if there was nothing left between his ears anymore, just an empty, hollow husk, a beast that knew nothing more than destruction, mindless even in its organic nature.

In his dream, he bellowed, clawed hands ripping through buildings, as if he was much larger than he should have been.

He moaned, blinking to a shadowy sort of reality, though he still felt that he was a monster, all in the dream, ripping through buildings, hurling vehicles through the air as the wet sound of human bodies crushed beneath his feet. Sean tried to fight, but his body was incapacitated, panting heavily, not knowing what was happening, though he was too deep to feel fear. Dimly, he was aware of a woman in front of him, moving as if the fiery bob of her hair was all that he could focus on, though another needle sliding under his skin had him groaning.

“Nnnngggghhhh…"

Groaning deeply, eyes closed, his back arched out from his bonds, the scientist stepping back, observing all. His body was perfect, his DNA unmatched by anything that she had seen there already – as it had already been tested. They could not let a subject be passed up, not even with the drug not working as well as it should have been to keep him knocked out. It wasn't something that concerned her.

After all, she had her orders, all as an Umbrella scientist.

“The upgraded T-virus, yes…" She muttered, though she was only doing what her superiors had ordered of her, Wesker behind a clear screen, all for his protection rather than hers. “Yes… Oh, such an anomaly…"

Anomaly? He felt like he was bellowing, roaring, clenching his hands, though he felt steel in them, ripping through the bodies of tanks, horrified by what he thought he was doing, the images that his mind was feeding him, one after the other. Before his eyes, even if he didn't think it was quite real, did not dare to think so with the rapid beating of his heart, he hurled a tank through the air, watching it sail what had to be forty feet, his body aching, aching all so very much.

The scientist made note after note, encouraged by how his body responded to it, though she could not keep the grin from her face. He was a subject to be experimented on and she did not even see him as human (how could he be, with DNA so unlike all that they were familiar with?), so she felt no empathy, treating him as she would a machine. And that was all that he would be, even as her subject slumped in his body, the screen of the chamber pod open so that she could access him, though she had no fear. With his body contained, he wouldn't be able to do anything to her, unconscious for the moment.

Inside Sean's body, the T-virus worked deeply, upgraded with advanced Hypnos genomes, the first time they had ever experimented on a human, or human-like subject in such a manner. The make-up for his DNA, in such a sense, could not remain the same, not as his chest heaved, sweat beading on his body, though he would not be able to sweat for very much longer.

The T-virus, after all, had found a new host to co-exist with, as peacefully as something of that nature could, twisting his DNA to suit itself, his body reacting positively, allowing it. Rather than killing or disfiguring him, which were the usual outcomes of such experiments.

Sean heaved, grunting, eyelids fluttering, though, at first, he thought he was still in a dream. He didn't know where he was, what he was doing, the lab coming into dim focus. There was a woman there, hair cutting across his vision, and yet he couldn't focus, groaning, growling, sounds that were never meant to come from human lips spilling forth, roll after roll, his throat vibrating.

“Rrrrrnnnngghhhh…"

That terrified him, his heart pounding, faster and faster until it was but a blur even to his own senses. His body ached so deeply that he barely even thought there was any air even entering his lungs, heaving, grunting, his chest swelling, shoulders rounding out more and more.

It was as if, even though he could only feel and not see what was happening to him, his fingers curling and uncurling, becoming more dextrous, even stronger. He gasped, his grip strength increasing, the bite of his fingers into the palms of his hands driving in harder and harder, as if his fingers had been turned into rods of iron.

“Aaaarrrrggghhhh…"

He couldn't stop the garbled cry, though his throat tightened, sealing off anything further, voice box cut off. Though Sean could not even feel the throb of fear from that, oh no, not as his neck grew thicker, stronger, his trapezius muscles forming a triangle between his shoulders and his neck, powerful, bulking out. If he had had a mirror in front of him, Sean would have known that he was getting, a weird, twisted sort of way, the body that he had fought so hard for in the gym, all that he was working towards in bodybuilding. And it was just being handed to him, even if the man would never, ever again be able to go back to his own life, not as pain lanced through him.

The virus, after all, was clever. It knew what he wanted and it knew how to control him while leaving his mind intact, working deeply, through nerves and muscle fibres and even into the inner workings of Sean's brain. It did not have to render him dumb and mute and nothing more than a towering monster to make him something else – oh no. It had a host body in which to survive, but it was going to do so much more than that. It was going to make Sean thrive.

The scientist did not know what to do, taking a big step back from the scene playing out before her, a transformation into a tyrant like she had never seen before. Her jaw fell slack, electricity discharging from Sean's hands, though they no longer looked like human hands but were big and clawed, twisting with much longer fingers, even though they still seemed to be functional, still appearing to have that dexterity with which the man was familiar. She tried to make some notes, but, in the end, hunkered down behind a desk, taking some space, even if there was wonder rather than fear in her eyes. With the Umbrella experiments, her safety, in her eyes, was still paramount, even if she was there to do her job.

Oh, and the muscle! It layered over him as if he had been training for years, though she had not known what to expect on injecting him, scribbling down all the notes that she could. The machines would record some, heart rate, breathing rate, but it would be on her to log the final growth, the final changes in great detail, all as a man that had been nothing special but an anomaly became a tyrant.

Sean tried to blink, but it was as if his eyelids were frozen open, locked wide, forcing him to take everything in. Heat raced down his arms from his shoulders as his fingers stiffened, large and dextrous, though the triceps and the biceps rounded out, rippling with power. He gaped his mouth wide, letting out a muted roar that only sounded in his own head, heaving, his abdominal muscles showing through in stark definition. It was a sense of power that he had never been aware of before, wanting to push, even as his body rippled with energy.

He felt it, even though he was not able to move at that moment, his legs strong, as thick as tree trunks, quadriceps large and defined, all the way down to the narrower point of his knee, lower down firm, functional calves. His toes curled, though he sensed the need to run, to jump, how he could lift more than any human, though as his skin faded to a sleek, metallic grey, hair falling from his head to reveal a smooth skull, jaw clenching, stronger than ever. Electricity flowed through him, crackling as it discharged from his hands and fingers, and yet it felt as if everything that he had dreamed, the monstrous, powerful motions that he had been able to complete as easily as breathing, were well within his reach.

He didn't know what he thought about that, taller, stronger, gaining height, his mass all in proportion, everything gleaming with that metallic sheen. He may have had a humanoid form left, but his teeth sharpened somewhat, somewhere between human and monstrous, lingering in that middle. He bellowed, sound leaping back to his lips, though he tipped forward with furious, ruthless intent, his back filling out with muscle, no part of his body, none at all, spared.

A monster. Yet… And yet he was still him, he was still Sean, still with the mind that he had had before, the guy who had finished his studies and was working, pressing on in life. Only, it no longer felt like any kind of joke at all, not as he stood twelve feet tall, roughly, broader and stronger, settled uncomfortably into his new form.

Not even then, Sean did not know how special he was. Maybe he would come to know and understand, in time.

Breathing heavily, he slumped forward, a giant, tall, the world around him looking different, seeing it through different eyes. The colours were still there and yet he could focus on different ones, some rather than others becoming stronger, more vibrant, though it would take some work before Sean was comfortable shifting between one colour and the other. If he had not been able to swap between which colours were the strongest in his field of vision, he might have considered a kind of colour blindness.

And yet his ability to talk had not come back, even though he could grunt, staring ahead of him, heart pounding, feeling as if it was driving through his chest with every beat.

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

_ _

At least the beat was even, something that he could lean into and focus on, even though his brow furrowed. A part of Sean was surprised he could even do that as he growled.

“Grrrrrrr… Nnngghhhh…"

The scientist stood, but he couldn't focus on her. The one thing that Sean could still be glad of was that he could still think, working through his thoughts even as he glared, clenching and unclenching his hands from fists. The IV dangled from him, not really doing anything anymore, though the drugging effect was still there in the back of his mind, hanging and lingering with a bite that he urged himself to shrug off.

What the hell do they think they're doing? He snarled to himself mentally, even though fighting against his bonds, which were clearly strong enough for a tyrant, didn't do him any good. Them… I knew things… Yes… But they didn't have to do this! What if I never wake up now?

_ _

Yet it was not a dream and Sean should have known that, even as he thought in a deeper voice, a voice that sounded, in a way, like his ideal imagining of how he would have wanted to talk. It should have disturbed him, yet the confusion between the elation of having the body that he had always wanted and the presentation that he'd always wanted, though it had all been done against his will, all when he had not even done anything wrong.

Of course, perhaps none of it would have happened if he had just kept his mouth shut, but there was little he could do about that in hindsight, even as he strained forward against his bonds, mouth agape in a snarl.

“Ssssssnnngggrrrrhhhhh," he heaved, eyes wide, strained, no longer needing to blink as much. “Gahhhhh!"

The scientist looked at him, as if bored, though he didn't know what else to do, muscles bulging, doing all he could, fighting, pushing against it, though, eventually, he had to come down. He could not fight it together, his mind turning to a sense of escape, how he could get out of there, away from the scientists, even if his mind already knew what a tyrant was capable of.

Was he like that though? He certainly looked like that, muscles bulging, veins popping out all down his body, not shown to be wearing any clothes, although they no longer seemed to be needed, not for a tyrant. With a broad chest, everything about him screamed “power" and there was a large part of him too that was afraid of just what that power meant, what he would become.

That was why he had to keep fighting, that was why he had to try.

“Tyrant T-099. Ready for transport. Send in HUNK immediately, continued experimentation is required."

The woman spoke into a receiver, something that looked like a phone, but he knew better, suspicion twisting inside him. He could listen, yes, but no more than that, so tired, though not weak. It was more as if the tyrant had taken up so much energy during his transformation that he was, in a sense, being forced to rest.

The pod sealed up before him, filling with fluid, though his lungs no longer needed air, not specifically, as he was drugged into cryostasis. His body floated lightly, suspended in the solution, even as HUNK and his team moved in to transport Sean – not that the tyrant was aware of what was happening in the slightest.

He did not know that they were experimenting on him in cryostasis even while he was transported, with the highest level of security in a secure container and experimentation unit, his dreams twisting between his old life and rampage. Sean fought, straining for himself, to be himself, yet the virus would forever be a part of him and there was no going back there, not as his vitals were taken, medicines were injected into his bloodstream and even intramuscularly, all to see how he would react.

The gentle giant, asleep in cryostasis, retained his mind, the scientists, who had never seen anything like him, working around the cryostasis pod, marvelling at him. Of course, he was kept in a secure facility, all so that they could work on him, though they surely only had nefarious means for their experiments. For Sean, it was just as well that he was out cold for

“Complete unprecedented."

“Nothing like it in existence."

“An asset to our research."

“More testing is required.

It was the breakthrough that they had been looking for, after all, all other tyrant minds being destroyed by the virus. Yet the one thing that they spent the most time monitoring was his brain activity, even if they did not think that he was a normal human at all – before his transformation, of course.

Yet it was just as well that Sean was asleep through the attack, the containment pod rocked and shaken as massive dents showed through it on the inside, lights flickering, electricity sparking. The scientists screamed, fleeing for their lives, seeking the exit pods from Rockfort Island, but they were no longer part of Sean's story, not as Wesker turned, seeking out the T-Veronica virus. It would involve Sean, at some point, yet the tyrant was not to know, not as the island habitations burned, smouldering in the dawn of the day, his containment pod hurled onto the rocks at the foot of the rugged hills. Despite it being an island, the landscape was still harsh and jagged, concealing as many secrets as it did threats.

Sean knew nothing of what had happened as he awoke, his last memory of being in the laboratory, though he recognised his tyrant body, the body of a tyrant from the Resident Evil games, on waking. Yet it was no longer a game to him, the clear front of his cryostasis pod shattered, allowing him to stand, to climb out through it. He didn't bother to be careful of the sharp edges, his body no longer as delicate as a human one, though he still had to come to accept that he was a tyrant. To be honest, when the transformation was in the process of taking place and he had been explicitly told that he was Tyrant T-099, he had made the link to the games instantly. It just took the time to accept it, to believe it, stepping out into a smouldering land of broken-down dwellings, where the abodes had been raised from ground level. Everything around him appeared to have been built hastily and all in a way that it could be re-built again quickly.

Rockfort Island.

_ _

He recognised it, glancing back at his pod, marked with T-099, the capsule no longer his prison. Even though he had not been in control of everything during the experiments, he remembered pieces of them, as if he had been in and out of a kind of half-consciousness.

Sean grunted, growling deep from the back of his throat. Even when he snorted, his nostrils felt bigger. He took in himself, his strong, powerful muscles, how the smallest tension and contraction readied him for action, ready at a mere moment's notice to launch himself into motion, a beast, a monster – and yet still with the mind that was him, that was Sean. Even walking was easy, falling into a natural stride simply, for the simple fact of that matter proved to be that a tyrant body was by far superior to a human one. Everything, even then, came naturally to him, just as breathing did, taking in air, finally.

He was different, though that was something that Sean should have expected. Yet he was even more different than he had ever anticipated, alive, vibrant with energy, power running through his veins as if he would never run out of stamina, as if he could lift anything, do anything. All as a tyrant.

Even now it's easier to think…

_ _

Every sense was heightened, running his tongue around the inside of his different teeth, sharper, more monstrous, though strong lips covered them. He shook his head, trying to make sense of the burning pressing in on his nostrils, how he could smell so much more, even the way the earth was damp in the dawn. Since his arrival there, and whatever it was that had happened, it seemed to have rained. He marvelled at the fact that he could tell that, but…why was he there?

He couldn't stop the pull of confusion, for he seemed to be all alone out there – at least in his immediate surroundings. Or was he?

Another capsule sat, thrust out from the wreckage, some distance away, and he cautiously approached, standing tall, quiet, an observer. Something in the capsule whirred and lit up, numbers illuminated, and he craned his head to read.

T…078?

_ _

Another tyrant? Still, Sean did not flee or show further caution, for there was already enough space between him and the capsule for him to respond in time, if needed, though he did not think that would be necessary. Watching, the capsule before him activated, another tyrant, the one who must have been T-078, rose from it, moving fluidly, though it was as if he didn't see Sean there. Or, perhaps, the tyrant was simply not interested in him.

The other tyrant was like him, but with less of a neck, his arms larger and out of proportion to the rest of his body, darker in colour with red veins showing through them. Yet they were not like the veins that one would find on a human body, but the veins that one might find on a lava field, giving tyrant T-078 a dominating, fearsome appearance. However, it was the giant stump of a spiked hand that gave him his defining feature, his mind dulled, his mind gone, his mind everything that the virus had needed it to be.

He was not like T-099.

The tyrant did not pay him mind though, not as they stood there, still, just for a moment. Cold licked at their bare bodies, but it no longer seemed important that either of them were naked, that their lives had changed forever, however they had come about. Sean wondered if T-078 was a transformed human too, if he had been an anomaly as the scientists had said, but he could not tell. It was not something he would get an answer to, the two tyrants non-verbal. But T-078 was a tyrant, of course, that was battled back in the games, in Code Veronica and on the aeroplane. He didn't know how much of his experience from the games, however, was going to translate over into what had, treacherously, become the real world and his real life.

With a grunt, T-078 walked by Sean in silence, hunting, searching, for there was someone there, someone on the island that they would need to find.

Sean floundered in his mind, hunting for that name. He had to find them too, had to take the next step, had to find some purpose as a tyrant. He couldn't have been sent out there to the chilly, biting wasteland, an experimental facility where monstrous reigned and roamed out there, for nothing.

Maybe he would remember, in time, too much going on at once, though he wanted to take care, didn't want to hurt anyone. The memories from his dream, of hurling tanks into the air and cutting through swathes of human bodies, lives that had had no meaning to him then, too sharp and fresh in his mind.

No… Oh no. He could not become like that, not as a monster. Yet he was powerful, tall, strong, exotic, languishing over his form even though it did not match up to the purpose for which they had made him.

The island begged his attention, exploring, moving away from the habitation, where the experimental facility had been. A part of him knew that they would re-build there, for it would be seen in the games surely after his appearance there. Did that mean that he had become a part of the games, or was he different, even in that way? There was no way to say, not even then, no way to tell what kind of world he was living in and just how his reality had changed.

His body, however, proved stronger as he worked his way up into the rockier part, tough vegetation sparsely placed, though there were monsters there too – some the results of experimentation and others simply native to a broken, twisted kind of world.

His first hunter, a monster that he came across, was not one that he was keen to engage with, though they ignored him, recognising T-099 as a beast that was so much stronger than them, one that was not to be trifled with. And yet there were humans there, some from the facility and others that T-099 didn't understand the purpose for their being on the island. The Umbrella facility, in the end, was not the only human dwelling there.

The hunter hunkered down, stalking a human polishing a firearm of some kind, though they'd never get the chance to use it. A reptile-like monster with a humanoid form and layered scales, it was not a monster to be trifled with, lunging at the human over a boulder with deadly intent. The jaws snapped, closing over the human's throat, blood gushing. Although Sean took a breath, chest expanding, he could not spare his compassion for the human. He had no purpose there, not in a world like that, not when it came to righting wrongs. Yet he would not attack anyone, he had resolved, not unless they fired on him first.

He moved on quickly, exploring a human dwelling after dark, tucked into the edge of a region that appeared to be mountainous, but was craggier, like cliffs towering over a shoreline. It was not deep enough on the island, after all, to be a true mountain, even though it gave that impression, sheltered by the trees. Those gave cover to zombies, however, even if they gave the tyrant a wide berth, panting and heaving, ribs showing, their flesh rotting and eaten away in most parts of their bodies.

The monsters mostly seemed to hunt humans, though some evidently preyed on each other too, needing to eat less than the creatures of Earth that he had been more familiar with. Yet the Bandersnatch monster type, with huge, overladen, right arms were fearsome even in their natural presentation, snatching up prey through windows, striking with subtlety and stealth at the forefront of their minds.

The tyrant walked straight, away from the dwelling, his attention on the facility from where he had arrived, though they only stared, all in silence. They used their arms to drag themselves, hauling up ledges and even into trees, surprising him with just how demonstrative they could be, all in pursuit of their favourite choice of prey.

Yet what Sean wanted to try was his new abilities, even though he had no trouble walking and running and climbing. The facility was down near the shoreline, though far enough away from the water that it was safe from waves and storms, no longer smouldering as he explored it in the night. The days and the nights were the same to him, though there were more monsters around in the nights, skulking through the wreckage, even where there had been more permanent Umbrella structures down there.

He snarled, slamming through walls, punching, barrelling, even using his full body to break them. The wooden buildings proved to be of little concern to him, so he moved onto concrete, growling deep in the back of his throat as he ground through, heaving, grunting, using his fists to pummel it, straining for more.

While he was testing his powers in the burning wreckage, Albioniod showed up, the alarm going off from a biohazard, the salamander-like creatures that had been injected with the T-virus scuttling awkwardly, but with furious, lethal precision.

He paced away from them, into a concrete building and down a level, not wanting to engage. They were a threat but he was even more so, even as the biohazard siren wailed and wailed.

Yet it was him that was the threat as heavy, steel doors clunked closed behind him, underground, no lights in the room. He snarled, crackling electricity discharging from his hands, an Albioniod zipping back and forth, claws scraping the hard, concrete floor, yet the creature was every bit as artificial as the environment. He could see perfectly well in the dark, the Albioniod letting out a gurgling cry, whipping up the wall, though it had only roused its brethren in a giant tank in there. Something that he had thought was empty only writhed with life as the Albioniod creatures churned it into a froth, water slopping over the sides of the tank, Sean backing off with his lips pressed together.

The Albioniod lunged at him, though he didn't need to do anything against it, not when he could bat it away, just as a man would a fly. The creature wailed, hitting the wall, though he had controlled his strength enough not to harm it, all as he had intended.

Time to go…

_ _

Sean turned to leave, the door not posing a challenge to him: he had only not wanted to hurt the creatures. Maybe it was worse to let them out, yet he was not going to stay down there with them, or kill them.

Rrrrrrrreeeeeehhhhhhgggghhhh!

_ _

With an awful scrape and drawn-out clang, he tore the door off its hinges as if it was nothing, ripping it free and tossing it inside. Even though he was not capable of breaking a sweat, it was not as if it caused him any trouble at all, but the deadly, scaley monsters would cause no end of trouble all on their own. It had only been one out there, to begin with, though they sensed freedom and streamed from the water, running right by their alpha, the tyrant, flooding the island.

Sean's gut twisted. He was one of them, though he didn't want to be against the humans too. Conflicted, he set himself to testing his strength again, even though he was somewhat reassured by the monsters' respect for him. They were one thing that he didn't have to worry about there, despite their natural ferocity.

His muscles bulged, though even Sean was surprised at his own ability at the edge of the complex, accidentally uprooting a tree as he charged, testing his speed, though he had underestimated just how much speed he could pick up so quickly. It was daunting, in a way, to not even know his strength anymore, though the energy attacks, such as the crackling discharges of prickling electricity, were the most difficult to control. It seemed that physical things, perhaps due to his bodybuilding training before, were the easiest for him and what came more naturally.

Also, if he sustained any damage, it seemed that he healed quickly too, jagged wounds in his skin (that was an accident of his own doing) taking only a day or so to look clean and fresh again. His hide, of course, was stronger than before and tougher too, so it took greater forces anyway to cut through his skin.

Claire…

_ _

Yes, that was the name, the one that he remembered. He had to find Claire, Claire had to be on the island. Perhaps that was even where T-078 had gone, hunting her down. He didn't know, but perhaps it was something that he would know in time.

After all, he wasn't going back to the world he had known, so he had to find a reason there.

As the only tyrant in existence with his mind left intact, there was much for Sean to take strides in. All as T-099. Only as T-099.

Eventually, his old identity would not exist at all.