The lights in the procedure chamber dimmed slightly—deliberate, sterile, still. Only the sharp rhythm of the machines remained, ticking out seconds like heartbeats echoing in the silence.
Dian lay unconscious on the table, her breathing soft and steady, lashes still damp from the mist that had lulled her under. Her robe had been folded aside. Her bare back gleamed under the arc-light—smooth, unmarred, the canvas of evolution.
I approached without hesitation.
"Spinal coordinates, display," I murmured.
A translucent overlay projected across her back, mapping each vertebra, every nerve cluster, the divine sequence of mortal biology. My fingers hovered for only a moment before reaching for the sterilized blade.
The incision was clean—precise as a whisper. Skin parted beneath my scalpel, layer by layer, until her spinal core was exposed.
"Aid bot." I said quietly.
**\[Delivery in progress.]**
A mechanical hiss signaled the chamber door sliding open. The assistant robot entered, arms cradling the container like an offering to a god.
Suspended inside the okiron-glass tube was the **Gagarion's spine**—not just bone, but a living instrument of power. Even submerged in neutral fluid, it writhed faintly, twitching in slow arcs as if sensing proximity to a host.
The Bot stopped beside me.
"Open it," I said.
The lid released with a sharp exhale. A hiss of cold vapor.
I reached inside.
The moment my fingers touched the alien spine, it *moved*—coiled and twisted in a serpentine motion, winding around my wrist like a thing alive. Muscle and marrow flexed under its membrane, whispering with power.
I held it firm in my left hand.
"…I wanted to use this for myself."
The words slipped from my mouth, bitter and half-regretful. So much potential. A neural highway. A high level alien spine, meant to cradle the soul of a conqueror.
But I looked down at her.
And I knew.
My right hand hovered over her open spine. My palm lowered until it rested against the shimmering pulse of her core.
"Synthesis."
A sharp **hum** ignited from beneath my skin.
Silver aura burst across my body—ribbons of light threading through my veins, converging in my palm. The lab lights flickered. The table pulsed beneath us.
From my right hand, thin **silver threads** erupted—glimmering like liquid wire, alive with algorithmic will. They slid into Dian's spinal groove like silk, piercing nerves, binding to marrow.
The threads extended outward—reaching, her spine.
They latched onto the Gagarion's spine still coiled in my other hand.
Contact.
The alien vertebrae jerked once—then aligned.
Then the fusion began.
A shudder passed through Dian's body—her muscles tensed involuntarily, lips parting in a small exhale. Her heartbeat surged on the monitor. The silver threads wrapped around both spines, weaving them together with microscopic precision, atom by atom.
Flashes of violet lightning danced along the arc of her back. Her hair lifted from the static. Symbols—ancient, alien—flickered across her skin and vanished.
For a moment, the air thickened.
Her spine was no longer human.
And it was far from Gagarion.
It was new.
When the threads faded, the alien spine had vanished completely—absorbed, reshaped, recoded.
The wound healed up by itself.
The next step was critical.
"Inerous."
[Containment pod active. Nutrient medium stable.]
The vat rose from the floor with a soft hiss—cylindrical, filled with healing fluid that shimmered pale gold. I lifted her carefully—her body weightless in my arms—and placed her inside.
The liquid cradled her, she was still in the nutrient solution. Tubes extended, attaching to ports near her temples, her spine, her heart. Real-time data flickered into the air around us.
\[DNA anomaly detected.]
\[Cellular absorption at 17%.]
\[Adaptive rewrite engaged.]
Her skin began to glow faintly.
Small strands of Gagarion DNA—harvested from the skin, blood, and neural cortex—pulsed through the medium. They swirled around her body like tendrils of smoke, then pierced her skin with no visible wound.
The assimilation began.
Her cells devoured the alien code.
She convulsed once. Then again.
But she didn't wake.
Her hair floated in the liquid like silk. Her lips were parted, expression neutral, unaware of the storm beneath her skin.
On the display, the readings spiked.
\[Type: Unknown.]
\[Classification: Pending.]
\[Result: Hybridization initiated.]
I stepped back.
And I watched as the girl who had once trembled beneath my hands began to change. Not into something human… but something beyond it.
"She doesn't even know what she's becoming."
Her form remained—but everything within was being rewritten.
"….This will take some time."
…
BOA!
The shattered god's voice shrieked across the fractured cliffs like a horn blown in rage—raw, resonant, ancient.
Down in the bowels of a canyon, a grotesque figure crouched low beneath blood-stained stone. Massive. Fat. Humanoid only in the cruelest mockery of the term. Greasy folds of flesh trembled with each movement. In one hand—an oversized butcher's blade slick with gore; in the other—fresh limbs, severed from a still-twitching beast.
Boa.
He raised the mangled arms high like offerings, then slammed them into his jiggling chest. With wheezing breaths and a twisted grin, he began to dance—his belly quaking with monstrous rhythm, chanting words in a tongue long lost to mercy.
But then—
He stopped.
His head turned sharply. Eyes rolled back. And then—
"…Father!"
BOOM.
BOOM.
The creature shot into the air like a cannonball fired from the earth itself. Rock cracked beneath him. The wind around him screamed.
He soared toward the cliff's edge—toward the Gap.
And when he landed, it wasn't with violence—but reverence.
He dropped to his knees.
His belly slapped the stone, and his head bowed until the bone crunched.
"Father. My god. I greet the mighty one," he breathed.
A presence stirred the air—a storm without shape.
"Boa. Go and scout the cave."
A mental image flared into his mind—raw, vivid, undeniable. The cave from which the unseen thread still pulsed. Power. Unknown and defiant.
"Kill anything inside."
A pouch floated toward him—carried by invisible will. Boa's fat fingers snatched it from the air.
He stared at it. Whispered, awed:
"…A soul-devouring pouch."
The shattered god said nothing more.
Then Boa vanished—gone in a blink, swallowed by the void.
I sat alone in the isolation chamber. Bare-chested. Still. Cold.
Before me, suspended in silver stasis fields: the Gagarion's heart and brain—glistening, pulsing with faint aftershock. They weren't divine, but they were powerful. Very few things of this realm had tasted as much death.
And I was about to become one with it.
"Inerous," I said quietly. "Override an aid unit. Send it in."
[Understood.]
A soft hiss followed.
One of the bots rolled silently into the chamber, its arms already sterilized, precision tools glinting under the sterile light.
[Unit linked. Awaiting surgical instructions.]
"Make an incision," I ordered. "Chest cavity. Wide enough to expose the heart."
[Do you require anesthetic, Master?]
I shook my head once.
"No. I need to be conscious."
The bot didn't question me again.
It moved swiftly. A blade unfolded from one pincer—scalpel-thin, humming low. Without hesitation, it slid it across my skin. The blade parting muscle and sinew. My chest opened, skin folding back like silk torn in water.
Pain erupted instantly.
A firestorm of agony.
But I didn't move. My mind was carved from war and ritual. I'd rebuilt myself from flesh and madness long before this.
This was just… an evolution.
[Incision complete.]
I looked down.
My heart beat in full view—wet, powerful, defiant. Each pulse echoed in my skull. My vision blurred at the edges, but I remained still.
"Inerous. Open the containment tube."
[Releasing seal.]
The okiron hissed open. Inside—the Gagarion's heart pulsed slowly, unnaturally, as if waiting. I reached in. My fingers wrapped around it.
It was warm.
Too warm.
I lifted it, holding it just inches from my exposed chest.
For a moment, I stared at the two hearts—mine, and the monster's.
And then I spoke:
"Synthesis."
The command ignited the chamber.
The Gagarion heart liquefied in my grip—its mass unraveling into threads of light and nerve. It shot forward, wrapped around my beating organ like a living web.
Pain.
It felt like my soul was being threaded through a blade.
Every nerve lit on fire. My spine seized. My vision went white.
And then—my heart stopped.
My body crumpled.
I collapsed to the cold floor—limp, lifeless.
No breath.
No motion.
Silence.
[…Master?]
[Master status: flatline.]
[Warning. Neural signal erratic... Emotional flag triggered.]
Inerous paused... something like hesitation in her voice.
[Do not die, Master.]
The chamber's lights dimmed. The synthetic AI's voice dropped to a whisper.
[Initiating emergency neural scan… core still active. Attempting resuscitation.]
But I didn't move.
Inside my chest, the two hearts wrestled—human and predator. Memory. Hunger. Origin. It wasn't just flesh being fused. It was history. The Gagarion's instincts. Their coded ancestry. Their violent cunning and reaction speed.
Merging into mine.
And somewhere, deep in that crucible of pain—something new began to beat.
A fusion of man and monster.
"And in the stillness where death once stood—I returned."