45 MARKED-MAN

Rex ran through the jungles a little faster than before after upgrading his agility stat. Only he felt faster than what the stat could give him.

Sure he'd only been a werepanther for days still, but he could already feel what singular stat upgrades were like.

As he blurred through the greenery, he knew something else was to blame.

But all he could do at the moment was appreciate the benefits and keep moving.

As he did, he ran over the days agenda. An agenda that would spill into the week and month in a very violent way. He had to be ready.

"Ok. If this works….. Syphen won't be alone. He'll have a team— maybe a family. People he can learn from and vice versa. Better yet, I could have a pride. People to help me that aren't connected to the military and possibly already under Remulus' thumb…. Paw? Whatever. I just have to keep my unit and the jungle monkeys from finding them as they travel which shouldn't be too hard. I think my Solar-Sand can jam thermal optics. I'll have to get some help from Hassan. Later though. Right now I need to find the others. I have an alibi. Beto flew too close to the sun. And after he lost his wings, I removed his head."

Rex suddenly veered off the path he was running at the notion of a familiar smell.

His own.

He ran in a circle twice around felled trees, burned bushes and dried blood before he rummaged through some flowerbeds and found his torn martial skin. The mana stone at the nape was infecting the plantlife— making the flowers glow brighter and turning the soil into an electrical soupy mixture.

Soon after, he found his weapons and gauntlets.

In a rush, he tried putting his suit on only to realize it didn't fit very well. It was tighter and shorter than usual.

"Maybe the heat caused it to shrink…" Rex managed before balling the suit up in one hand and heading down a nearby beat in path. From there he continued back the way he came. Which was easy thanks to his nose and the obvious path of destruction. Not to mention the trails of steaming sand that had no business inside a humid jungle.

Eventually he made it back to the church. The jungle monkeys held vantage points invisibly all around the stone castles spires and secondary rooftops while the Chameleon IV unit were grouped up in the front lawn watching a pile of vamps burn under the sun. Rex stayed ahead of the fire so no thermal scopes could trace him clearly.

"Captain Camo must've recalled all active personnel to schedule a more coordinated search party after everyone else was secured. Or he's already assumed im dead. Far from it though. I feel stronger than ever…." Rex looked down at himself.

He looked like he'd lost a few pounds of fat and gained it back as muscle. He was nearly grotesque in terms of his conditioning. Not to mention his skin had a moisturized glow to it.

"I can't let them know how good I feel though…" Rex watched his fingernails darken and transform into claws. In their shadowing reflective surfaces, he could see himself wrapped in bloody animal skins, limping to his team as the human survivor.

"Great." Rex got to work.

Not long after and he was stepping out into the open, wounded and exhausted— not really.

The bonfire of vampires was little more than ash and embers, making Rex visible to all.

"There's no way…. Baldy survived!" Isadora said as she leaned on her modded AR like it was a cane. Her pigtails were a mess of leaves, uncombed hairs and ash. She looked even closer to her physical age of twelve in those moments.

"Barely by the looks of it." Cpt Camo huffed with a cigar in his mouth.

"Actually….. it looks like he did more than survive…." Lyra said as she looked him up and down, "This Rex looks like he ate the last one…."

Cpt Camo exhaled smoke from his cigar as he squinted in Rex's direction.

Isadora did the same, "Wait a minute….."

"The hell happened to you, Specialist?" Cpt Camo asked as Rex came over.

"I fought Beto the Blooded." Rex said, "Lured him out into the sun. Got my ass kicked. Not exactly in that order."

"No bite marks." Isadora said as she walked around him.

Rex kept calm. "Beto told them not to."

"He did get carried out. That was pretty bizzare." Lyra said to their captain.

"Something about my blood." Rex said.

"Something about all of you." Isadora added from behind him before abruptly smacking his butt.

"Hey!"

"You've grown like half a foot and put on another ten pounds of muscle." Isadora said. "What's your secret?"

"Have you taken energel?" Lyra asked accusingly.

"Energel. The legal and insanely expensive performance enhancing substance used by Drift Soldiers to gain temporary boosts in strength and possible powers known as Physicalities. Not like Inherited Abilities but close enough….. sometimes. I remember Syrus tried to give me one." Rex thought before relying, "Yea."

"And you have a Physicality? Lucky. Which one?" Isadora asked.

"Uhhh… Deaths-Door Evolution." Rex fumbled the lie.

"Makes sense." Cpt Camo puffed cigar smoke, "Beto should've drank your ass dry. But you evolved and he burned. How lucky."

"Yea."

"Don't count on it happening again, hotshot. Understood?"

"Yes, Captain." Rex said.

"Now, we need to get back to the jet. We've got an Anti-Viral Ops team coming to clean the jungle. We can get you cleaned up on the way back to report to AG Brennus."

Rex nodded, "Sounds good."

And with that, his metaphorical trial run with the Chameleon IV Spec Ops division was a success.

On many fronts he realized as he look at the sands collecting on the ground beside him and saw images swirl in the grains.

Syphen led the survivors of Beto's lust deeper into the jungle. Now joined by a number of panthers.

"Perfect. Now I can focus on this…. And Imani."