"Crack!"
The instant he reached the first floor, before the elevator doors had even opened, Fenris's sharpened hearing caught the synchronized sound of weapons being chambered outside.
"Come on, then!"
Fenris lowered his body slightly. The muscles in his thick legs bulged, his claws spread wide, and a cold gleam flashed across them.
Ding!
The moment the elevator doors opened, his long, thick tail swayed lightly. The instant a low growl sounded, Fenris vanished from where he stood.
"Fire!"
The commanding officer in front gave the order without hesitation.
Bang, bang, bang!
Dozens of rifles opened up at once, their gunfire crashing over one another without pause.
But with the monstrous strength of his transformed body behind him, Fenris had long since surpassed the limits of what the naked eye could track.
Inside the vast lobby of the main building, his huge body moved like a phantom, weaving effortlessly through intersecting streams of gunfire. The occasional bullet struck him, only to be harmlessly stopped by the tough hide covering his body.
"Ahhh!"
Very quickly, the first soldier's arm was severed cleanly by his claws. Then the second. Then the third...
More and more men died. Faced with an unknown enemy and the constant threat of death, some soldiers cracked under the pressure and began firing wildly, only to have a sharp dorsal spike slash across their throats in the next instant.
In less than thirty seconds, the entire squad had been wiped out.
After casually crushing the commanding officer's skull in one hand, Fenris did not break stride. He kept moving, heading upward through the main building.
His heart pounded violently. Deep inside his body, a newborn organ was supplying him with a constant stream of power.
"The biological reactor unique to the atomic dinosaur species. The source of Godzilla's endless stamina, and the key to his ability to absorb nuclear radiation and unleash atomic breath."
Fenris knew exactly what it was, and the feeling of inexhaustible energy was intoxicating.
Even after a fierce fight, he still felt like he had barely gotten started.
"Since everything's already a mess, I might as well make it worse."
His enhanced hearing let him understand the state of the entire base with ease.
Because of his sudden uprising, countless elite squads were rushing toward the main building.
Meanwhile, the mutants were still being held in the recreation yard under the guard of several dozen soldiers, too afraid to make a move.
Fenris glanced toward the control room at the top of the main building. The master console for the X-gene suppression collars was there.
"Roar!"
Seeing another group of soldiers surrounding him, Fenris let out a low growl. His atomic reactor roared to life, and instead of dodging, he charged straight into the wall of gunfire.
His claws, his dorsal spikes, and his powerful tail tore through their lives at terrifying speed.
"If we all go together, he can't keep this up forever!"
"What kind of monster did this base create?"
"Run! Run... we can't get out..."
First floor, second floor... sixth floor!
After cutting his way upward for who knew how long, the once-bright, spotless main building had become a living hell.
A choking stench hung over the entire structure. Everywhere he looked there were severed limbs, shattered rifles, and bodies.
For a time, there was not a single sound in the building except Fenris himself.
Even the researchers hurrying from place to place had nowhere to hide from his sharpened senses. One by one, they were hunted down and dragged out.
"Not one of them is innocent!"
"They all deserve to die!"
By the time Fenris waded through blood and arrived once more at the laboratory that had once felt like hell itself, his consciousness had already begun to blur slightly. His mind was filled with the images of those once-lofty researchers begging at his feet.
Boom!
The heavy blast door came apart under his claws as easily as if it had been made of paper.
Stepping slowly into the bright, immaculate room, he saw the wide operating table, the huge cabinets storing instruments, and several color photographs hanging on the wall.
In those pictures, Fenris saw his former self.
Back then, he had only just transmigrated into this world. Before he could even adjust, he had already been strapped onto an operating table.
His collar had been removed, forcing him into his lizard-man form. But at the time, his claws had been soft, his tail had been less than eight inches long, his skin had no real toughness to it, and only his decent healing ability stood out at all.
In the photograph, three men and one woman stood around Fenris while he was cut open, pointing and discussing him.
Now, two of those people were already dead beneath his claws.
As for the other two...
Fenris's nose twitched. His tail lashed out, coiling around the heavy operating table. With a simple flick, he hurled it away.
Two men in lab coats appeared before him.
"Long time no see, gentlemen."
Fenris bared his teeth in a friendly grin. His low voice was crushingly oppressive in the enclosed room.
The moment the towering, brutal-looking Fenris appeared in front of them, one of the men could not take the shock and fainted on the spot.
The other held up a little better, but the smell of urine quickly spread beneath him all the same.
"Matthew. Robert. Looks like Sarah didn't lie to me. You really were here."
Unlike Sarah, who had been his personal attending doctor, these two had spread their cruelty far wider. Plenty of mutants had suffered horribly at their hands.
"Not even as tough as that woman."
Seeing the pathetic state the two animals were in now, Fenris clicked his tongue in disgust. His tail shot out behind him, avoiding anything immediately fatal as it skewered both men at once.
The instant they were pierced, the pain made them howl uncontrollably.
Godzilla's tail was strong enough to smash a male MUTO to death. Its power did not need further explanation.
Matthew and Robert struggled desperately, but they could not budge the long tail even a fraction.
Fenris picked up a flamethrower and used it to thoroughly burn down the laboratory that carried so many of his most painful memories. By the time he was done, the two men's constant thrashing had begun to annoy him.
His tail snapped once. The dense dorsal spikes tore through their bodies from within. The sudden pain finally shut them up for good.
"Next is the control room."
As another wave of soldiers closed in around him, a strange look appeared at the corner of Fenris's mouth.
"Want to live?"
His deep voice drifted toward them, low and seductively soft.
"If you want to live... then run."
Fenris stepped forward slowly. Looking at the soldiers whose hands trembled around their rifles, he casually flicked his claws, sending the blood clinging to them splattering across the faces of the men in the front row.
The air froze.
Seeing Fenris covered in gore, with that savage smile on his face, and facing up close a monster who had slaughtered hundreds of people in such a short time, a terror beyond words rose in their hearts.
After only a few seconds of silence, the crushing pressure had already made the entire group start trembling uncontrollably. Their hands shook so badly some of them could no longer even hold their weapons.
"Run... if you can't take it anymore, then run..."
That deep, persuasive voice sounded again.
"A monster..."
"Run... run!"
The moment the first soldier broke and fled under the unbearable psychological pressure, total collapse followed across the whole squad.
"Heh."
Watching them run in panic, Fenris let out a quiet laugh. Then he lowered his upper body slightly, and in the next instant, he launched himself after them in a murderous rush.
"I told you to run, and you really ran."
...
A little while later.
After expressionlessly flicking blood from his claws, Fenris stepped over the sticky mess coating the floor, took Owen's wristband, and entered the base control room without the slightest resistance.
The huge command center felt strangely empty.
If nothing unexpected had happened, everyone who had been here earlier had already become intimately acquainted with Fenris's claws.
"So this is the control console."
Fenris stepped forward, then casually disabled every X-gene suppression collar in the entire base.
"Huh? My ability..."
As a light hum sounded from the collars, every mutant in the recreation yard felt their suppressed powers suddenly return to normal.
They were all staring at one another in shock when a sharp male voice suddenly rang out over the broadcast system.
"My fellow mutants, all of your collars have now been released. You're free!"
"Think about all the suffering you've endured these past years. Think about the crimes these people committed. The soldiers left in this base are barely a fraction of what they were, so what exactly are you still waiting for?"
"Our freedom. Our dignity, the dignity they trampled into the dirt. It's time they paid it back!"
"This..."
The mutants looked at one another.
Outside, the few soldiers still guarding them panicked as soon as they heard the broadcast. In an instant, they chambered their weapons and aimed directly at the yard.
"Have we been oppressed for so long that we don't even have the courage to fight back anymore?"
"You all heard the commotion from the main building earlier. A powerful one of our own is drawing their fire for us. This is the best chance we'll ever get!"
"Are we really going to stay this weak forever?!"
"Don't be afraid. Break out of the base!"
Under the agitation of a few individuals, someone finally let out an unwilling roar, and in that instant, a furious counterattack exploded.
After Fenris's rampage, the base had already been crippled. Only around twenty percent of the soldiers and researchers had survived at all.
Faced with a mob of mutants driven half mad, those survivors had almost no ability to resist.
In only a short time, everything outside the main building had fallen as well.
"Enjoy the feast."
Fenris leaped heavily down from above. With a flick of his tail, Matthew and Robert were flung straight toward the area where the mutants were most densely gathered.
Enemies meeting enemies. The result was obvious.
The mutants, already red-eyed with bloodlust, laid eyes on the men who had once tormented them. What followed hardly needed imagining.
Watching with his own eyes as the two men were swallowed by the chaos of the crowd, Fenris let out a cold laugh and turned away.
There was still one more person in this base who deserved to die...
Under his sharpened sense of smell, Lane's scent stretched out from the remote research base all the way toward a small town somewhere in New York State.
"Found you."
Fenris's eyes lit up. After quickly cleaning himself off, he turned into a dark blur once more and shot off in a certain direction.
"This feels incredible!"
"This is it. This is exactly it!"
Although he had already been through one extremely intense battle, now that Godzilla had been fully lit, this was the first time Fenris had truly run wild across open ground without restraint.
Seemingly endless power poured out from deep within his body. His powerful muscles kept driving his speed higher and higher.
The wind of freedom swept past him, and the scenery on both sides gradually blurred.
At that moment, all the humiliation and suffocation of those long months in confinement were blown away in the rush of the gale.
With a cry of exhilaration, Fenris raced off into the distance, following the trail of Lane's lingering scent.
And just as Alkali Base completely fell...
...
New York State, Westchester County, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
Inside a bright, spacious classroom, an elderly man with a kind face sat surrounded by a group of young students, gently reading aloud a passage from The Once and Future King.
Compared to the madness at the base, this place felt exceptionally warm and peaceful.