Humble Beginnings

The group of three men were having a hard time locating a suitable spot for a base. The spot they had parked the plane would be good as it was sheltered from the elements, but would eliminate the landing area.

"Why not build the base around the mountain so that when you build taller buildings, you will be able to anchor them to the cliff face?" Alpha relayed to Matt.

They now had a permanent connection established so that they could be in fairly constant contact. The only stipulation to it was that it would only extend so far once they split up.

"Anchoring to that large shell spike won't hurt you will it?" Matt said with some concern.

"The spike is merely superficial to the shell and grows from the tip so you won't have to worry about your buildings warping if the spike grows." Alpha said.

"Then its settled on where the base will be built." Matt said with a nod.

He then relayed the information to the other two as they made their way back to the area surrounding the mountain like shell spike.

"By the way Alpha, what will happen to the landmass if your shell grows?" Matt asked out of curiosity.

"I'm not sure really. It has only been about a day since I reached this size. I'm sure that the shell will expand outward from the current edges. Whether or not more landmass will develop with that or if I have to add the landmass myself remains to be seen." Alpha said.

Matt nodded and continued on his task of cleaning up debris while looking at the trees surrounding them. Most of the trees looked like palms that were clearly affected by the pathogen. There were a few strange coconut trees and even what looked like part of a plantation for bananas and pineapples. The presence of these trees made it apparent that the landmass on Alpha's shell was put there and not naturally occurring.

Finally reaching the cliff face of the small mountain spike, they made their way around looking for a suitable place to start building. An hour into searching, James paused at a clearing with reasonably level ground.

"We could build here if we leveled the land a little. Would your ability be able to do that?" he asked Matt.

"I haven't attempted using my ability to shape landscape, but I could give it a try." Matt said.

Matt stood in the middle of the area and began to spread his power through his feet into the ground. At first, nothing happened while Matt concentrated on the task at hand. Matt then felt a click like something had opened inside of him. It made him feel light headed and instantly tired causing him to kneel down on the ground. He knew this feeling as the sensation that occurred while his abilities grew and evolved.

Seeing this, Chris and James rushed to his side to pick him up. The moment they touched him, the abilities that Matt had stored for future use rushed into them. The concentrated muscle powers that had been acquired by Matt fused into James while the agility powers rushed into Chris. This fusing caused them to be blown away from Matt and for them to fall unconscious while their bodies adapted to the increase to the abilities they already had. The last two abilities that Matt had acquired was the bone growing ability and one that he had acquired from a particularly strong infected he encountered at the airport. It seemed to have the ability to concentrate its energy to give it a boost of strength with had allowed that infected to smash a plane with its bare fist.

The bone ability and this energy ability swirled around in Matt like they were fighting for dominance. The energy ability eventually came out on top and the bone ability was forced out into the ground which made it so that Alpha could absorb it. The energy ability fused with Matt's current ability, causing both to mutate and change as they mixed.

It took Alpha only a few short minutes to absorb the ability and accept the change. James and Chris took three hours for their abilities to consolidate since they already had these types of powers. The only thing that would be uncertain however would be how long it would take Matt to finish his growth. His veins had bulged and were glowing blue and that color had begun seeping into his skin and hair.

They were wary to move him due to the previous experience so they built a covering over him for the time being. They then left the area in search of food so that they could replenish the energy they had lost due to their powers growing. While they were doing this, patterns began to develop on Matts skin starting at his finger tips and spreading up his arm.

It was already the fifth day of the outbreak when Matt woke up. He felt drained to all energy and in need of a decent meal. Coming out of the make shift shelter, he saw a small camp fire with the two men sitting around it cooking a meal. The aroma immediately made his mouth water as he approached.

"Boss, you are finally awake." James said.

"How long was I out for?" Matt asked.

"It's already the evening of the fifth day of the outbreak." Chris said.

"Have we already reached Japan?" Matt asked.

"We reached Japan a few hours ago. It took longer than expected due to a complication." James said.

"What happened?" Matt asked.

"We came across a ship stranded at sea. Most of it had been destroyed by sea creatures so we did what we could in salvaging material and supplies. The complication was the survivor we found." James said.

"What was the complication?" Matt said noticing that James was beating around the bush.

"She was nude and in a berserk state making it difficult for us to catch her." Chris said out right.

"She has abilities I assume if it was difficult for the two of you to catch her. If she was on a wrecked ship then I would bet that she has abilities that pertain to the water." Matt said.

Both men nodded and explained that Alpha was actually the one that caught her. Using a mental blast to knock her unconscious made it easy for them to retrieve her from the water. The bright her to shore and used chains from the ship as well as part of the sail to cover her body and chain her to a tree a distance away from the water.

The whole situation amused Matt as he sat eating listening to the details of the capture as well as the supplies that they retrieved from the destroyed vessel. Finished eating, Matt left the men behind at the camp fire to go and see about this potential recruit to their group.