Spectacular World

A Kangaroo

"Now, now, there is no need to give me that look. Trust me, once I'm done, you won't even feel anything. You'll be far better off than you were!" Red Ape announced proudly.

If a standard scientist were to see his lab's state, they'd be more than embarrassed for him. Dirty walls with cages were piled all over, each filled with animals of all kinds; monitors scattered around on the walls and ceilings; shelves of notes turned over; tables packed to the brim with what little equipment he had been able to get.

To say that it was a mess was a light remark. It was practically a garbage heap pretending to be a lab.

Still, to Red Ape, this was his newest home. Green Wolf had left him high and dry, demanding proof that he deserved to stay in Zoo after they had to go out of their way to save him from being sent to Nightshade.

"Now, please don't hiss." Oh, he was going to give them that proof. Then Green Wolf would have no choice but to make him his right-hand man.

Red Ape stood in this dirty home, which he called a lab. He was dressed in a long, flowing lab coat, the once pristine cloth now stained, torn, and badly stitched together. His head was covered mainly by a large cartoon monkey mask. Floating through the air, various metal hands flew around, all controlled by his will like a hive mind of bees.

A small kitten hissed up at the villain in one of the cages as he opened it, reaching for it. A syringe filled with a strange green liquid was held in one of the floating hands. "See, with this, I think I've finally cracked it." Red Ape explained to the cat, waving maniacally. "The others didn't go so well, but this is my tenth batch. I need you to grow big and strong so that I can use you in my army." He reached out for the cat but stopped when he saw a flash of red on a monitor.

It came from the left and glowed with a bright light as an alarm began to go off. There were several people who had entered the sewers. One of them caught his gaze, though. A damn hero.

"Myth." Red Ape seethed when he saw the monitor. "Well, it looks like I'll have to start packing up and-" The villain stopped when he saw the hero take a left, a right, another right, and then a left. "Why is he coming straight for me!" Myth took every correct turn as if they knew exactly where they needed to go. A minor panic began to grow inside of Red Ape before his ego got in the way.

An ego that began to build up like a flame.

"Oh. So, he thinks he can just come to me and cheat my little game. This is perfect; I'll be able to test my newest beast." Red Ape walked towards the wall, where a large lever was jutting out. The villain grabbed it and pulled it down as hard as he could.

It was time for the show to begin!

***

The screams filled the sewers as Jack sidestepped the alligator's tail, dragging Hope with him. Myth avoided an attack of his own as the second beast attempted to bite the dark-skinned man in two.

"Why are they so big?" She asked in a panic. She was getting flashbacks of Intake and could already feel her heart beating faster.

"Always some idiot that isn't happy with how things are!" Jack hissed. "Just got to make them all bigger!"

It wasn't regular alligators that they were dealing with. These things were huge, thicker, and larger than any animal should have been. Their skin was coarse and jagged, covered in razor-sharp scales, and they were a nasty gray color with a set of intelligent eyes that quickly tracked the movements of the prey in front of them, which was bad since they were the prey to these big beasts.

"They're created by Red Ape." Myth yelled as he sidestepped the swings from the gators, each one leaving gashes in the ground. Every hit easily tore part of the stone floor, ripping the sewers apart. "His power lets him understand the biology of certain animals; his MO is mutating them. This is part of his twisted game. We'll need to take these out and catch up to him before he can escape."