He nudged the door open with his elbow, and turned, looking at Zyme expectantly. "Well?" he said. Giving a great, heaving sigh, Zyme walked over and, at Viper's insistence, went down the short flight of steps first.
Viper followed, leaving the door hanging open. There was the manhole cover, right where Viper remembered it was. It led into the building's cistern, and that led to the sewers. "You open it, I don't have any handsss free," he ordered Zyme.
Zyme nodded, and stooped down next to the manhole and, with some effort, grunted and lifted the cover off. A foul stench assaulted his nose. He'd never been down in a sewer before in his life. The smell reminded me of the way Viper had smelled, when he'd originally come back from the dead. Once again, Viper made Zyme go down first, and Zyme carefully made his way down a ladder. He could hear running water and the squeaking of rats, but beyond the beam of light streaming through the opened manhole everything was absolutely pitch dark.
Zyme waited at the bottom for Viper, who simply jumped down, as climbing down while carrying a gun, six canister of Katalyst 99, and an unconscious security guard would've been a real hassle. Luckily Viper was graceful enough that he landed gingerly, without shaking up the canisters. Unlike Zyme, Viper could see in the dark perfectly.
He smiled, inhaling the sweet, sweet smell of sewage and grime. This was where he was at home. Up on the surface, inside modern buildings and on city streets, he was not at home, and for more reasons than simply disliking being stared at. His transformation was more than simply physical. It had changed him mentally and psychologically as well. Not only had the relatively mediocre and uninspired scientist Purvis been instantly transformed into a super-genius, but he had also developed certain new instincts and tastes. Among these, was an inexplicable preference for places that were dark, warm and dank. Next to the swamp and his hideout there, the sewer was the next best place.
"All right," he said, "let'sss go. We've got a long walk ahead of usss."
It was a long walk. Long enough for Deemer to have awakened. His head injury made struggling difficult, so Viper did not have to put up with a lot of kicking and squirming. Here was where the gun came in handy. After explaining things to the guard, Viper told him and Zyme to walk in front of him the rest of the way, following his vocal directions while he kept the pistol pointed at their backs.
In this fashion the three journeyed through the sewer and, finally, emerged in Megakat Swamp through a giant corrugated drain pipe that emptied raw sewage into the marshlands. Zyme, walking in front, shielded his eyes from the sudden bright sunshine after spending so much time in the darkness of the tunnels.
Behind him, he heard Viper say, "Quit ssstalling, Zyme."
He climbed down from the pipe and walked forwards, stopping near the shore where the vast lake of shallow water and mud that comprised the swamps. Immediately his feet sank into the soft mud to the ankles. "Ugh," he said, and pulled one foot free, only to discover that the shoe had come off and was still in the mud. Working more carefully with his other foot, he managed to extract it without the show coming off, and went over and helped Deemer climb down.
"Yuck," Deemer said, looking at the swamp.
Viper emerged from the pipe last of all and gave a deep, long sigh, puffing his chest out and adopting a regal pose as if he were a king returning his kingdom after years of absence. Finally! He was back in his swamp at long last. He hated leaving it. Even though the sewers were dark and dank to his liking, they couldn't compare to the beauty of his beloved swamp. Here, the light was dim and foggy, like perpetual twilight. There were eerie howls and cries in the distance. It was like another dimension, and Viper loved it. It was one of several reasons why he wished more than anything to expand his swamp into Megakat City.
Looking down he noticed Zyme and the guard looking up at him, worriedly but expectantly. Back to business. Getting down, he stood before them, smirking, then motioned with the gun. "My houssse is a few milesss from here. We can make it before sssundown if we hurry. Which meansss no dawdling!"
Deemer nodded fearfully, while Zyme went and began trying to dig his shoe out of the mud where his foot had sunk in, but was unsuccessful. To his puzzlement and annoyance, he couldn't find it. All it got him as muddy hands. He grimaced and shook them, flinging most of the mud off, and wiping the rest off on his pants. Viper chuckled, watching him, thoroughly enjoying how obviously uncomfortable Zyme was with his new surroundings. Now the tables were turned, he thought. Now, Zyme was the one who was the freak and stuck out like a sore thumb in his neatly pressed pants and pristine white lab coat.
After a few more moments of standing there, they moved on. Again with Zyme in the front and Viper bringing up the rear, they waded into the marsh. Depending on where they were the water could be either ankle-deep, knee-deep, or even chest-deep, as poor Deemer found out when he fell into a small but deep hole in the marsh bed.
"Help! Help!" he yelled, flailing, "I can't swim!" Zyme came to his rescue, pulling the struggling guard back into the shallow part of the swamp.
Viper chuckled, then motioned with the gun and they moved on. In the distance was Viper's home. It was an enormous, twisted dead tree, one of several dotting the swamp and, in fact, the largest. Midway, Zyme lost his other shoe, and they stopped as Deemer took his off, too. In their socks, they continued until they finally arrived at the base of the tree, which was at least twelve stories tall. Alongside it Viper had build a crude dock of sorts, onto which they climbed.
Zyme frowned. He knew, obviously, that Viper lived inside the tree, but couldn't see any entrance. Then he noticed a rope ladder hanging down and looked up. The ladder went up to a large knot in the side of the tree, which served as a natural balcony of sorts. The front door to Viper's home was there, high above the swamp floor.
"Now what?" said Deemer.
"Up," Viper said, pointing with the gun.
Zyme went up first. It was difficult for him, being so out of shape, to hoist himself up. Halfway up he stopped, panting, but Deemer, behind him, pushed up and helped him climb the rest of the way. Viper stood below for a moment, watching them climb. Looking at the gun, he decided he no longer needed it. Now that they were at their destination, escape was impossible. There was no way either Zyme or the guard could make it through the swamp on their own without him. He tossed the gun aside and it landed with a splash in the water. A huge alligator immediately appeared, ate it, and then disappeared back beneath the murky surface.
Using both feet and his one free hand, Viper climbed up the ladder. He made it up effortlessly. Back when he first found the tree, he'd of course had to stock it with equipment to make a lab, and that involved, of course, carrying armloads of things up the rope ladder. Thusly he made it to the top without much effort, to find both Zyme and Deemer sitting down, panting from the climb.
Now Viper led the way, his tail tip deliberately brushing across Zyme's cheek fur as he walked past him. After catching his breath, Zyme got up and followed him glumly. Deemer stood, looked out over the vastness of the swamp, gulped nervously, then turned and hurried after the other two.
The knot had a knothole, a deep one, which served as a kind of tunnel into the rotted, hollowed-out interior of the tree, which was honeycombed with different "rooms" and chambers, most of which were empty, as Viper lived alone and had no need to furnish every single room. At the end of the tunnel was a small flight of stairs, which Viper had made himself, and the trio climbed up it and into the main hollow of the tree, the biggest one of them all, which served as both Viper's living room and laboratory. There was a ratty couch, two even worse-looking chairs, a crooked, ramshackle coffee table; aside from lab equipment that was about it for the room, surprising given its vastness.
Everything else in the room was devoted entirely to Viper's twisted scientific pursuits. There were several tables, each one crammed to overflowing with beakers, test tubes, and retorts, many heating over bunsen burners, causing the room to be filled with an audible bubbly sound as the insidious concoctions cooked. Viper went over to one of these and unceremoniously swept all of the beakers and flasks right off of it and sent them crashing to the floor, making Zyme and Deemer jump. He then carefully set down all six containers of Katalyst 99, one by one, on the tabletop. Mission accomplished.
Stretching and popping his joints, Viper sighed and adjusted his lab coat, then turned to his two "guests." He was only interested in Zyme. The guard could've drowned out in the swamp, for all Viper cared, and, for now at least, the snake-cat scientist ignored him completely and focused entirely on Zyme.
"Welcome to my humble home," he said, spreading his arms wide, his voice reverberating off the walls. Lowering his arms, he said, "You'll be ssstaying here for quite sssome time."
Zyme, in the meantime, was feeling as hollow as the tree they were in. He was stuck, just as surely as both his lost shoes were stuck out in the swamp. He wondered if anyone would ever wonder what had happened to him? Deputy Mayor Briggs was the only one who had seen him last, and had seen that he'd escaped being eaten by the bacteria monster, but even she must have simply assumed he'd been killed in the explosion that had consumed the entire fourteenth floor.
It would take them months for rescue teams to sort through the burned-out wreck to discover no sign of a body, and only then would they realize he was missing and not simply dead, but by then it would be too late. He coughed. The air was damp and hot, and made his fur all sticky. His clothes were drying out now, at least. He looked over at Viper, who stood, crossing his arms and smirking, his big tail lashing behind him.
Finally, Zyme said, "What do you plan to do with us?"
"Whatever I want," Viper said.
Viper went up to Zyme and stood before him as the other scientist trembled. He couldn't have been happier. His old boss was now, at last, his prisoner, and would remain so for as long as he deemed fit. There so many deliciously evil things Viper wanted to do to him, he didn't know where to start! No, he thought. That would only make Zyme hate him. And although normally he didn't care what anyone thought of him, if Zyme hated him it would mean more resistance and Viper knew he'd tire of it pretty soon and begin to desire obedience from his prisoner. He had to make Zyme like him, but also fear him at the same time. It was a difficult balance that he would have to work to maintain in order to, so to speak, heat Zyme to his desired temperature and keep him there, but it was a challenge he was going to enjoy undertaking.
The easiest course of action would be to appeal to the older biochemist's scientific mind and entice him to assist him in his work. He had a rather delicious plan coming up involving the new Megakat Tower being built, and it was this he had stolen the Katalyst 99 for. Although he didn't actually need an assistant for the work, one would certainly make things easier. But, he realized he couldn't come off as being incapable of following through on threats, and needed to show Zyme he meant business.
Viper moved away from Zyme and stood in the middle of the room for a moment. Zyme wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, but what about that guard? Deemer still stood where he had been a few minutes ago, shaking, completely weirded out by what he had just witnessed. Viper noted how muscular and fit he was. When it came to other cats, Viper preferred to use athletic ones in good health for his monsters because of their solid build.
Up until now he hadn't given it much thought, but as he watched the big guard quivering, he finally decided to mutate him. Once that decision was made, he grinned evilly and walked over to one of his worktables. He perused the apparatus there and finally found a stoppered Florence flask filled with a sickly green liquid. Pulling off the stopper, he then rolled up his sleeve and picked up a scalpel, and cut himself on the back of his forearm, wincing. His green blood dripped down into the flask and mixed with the chemical inside it. The blood wasn't absolutely necessary, but he found it allowed him better control over his creations, and after the way the bacteria monster misbehaved today, he wasn't going to mutate another living thing without adding his blood into the mix.
That accomplished, he watched as the cut healed slowly, a benefit of having regenerative mutagen in him. Then, he picked up the flask and walked over to Deemer as Zyme slowly stood, watching, puzzled. Viper's tail suddenly whipped out and wrapped around Deemer's throat, hauling the guard to his knees, gagging.
Zyme, horrified, cried, "No, wait! You promised you wouldn't kill him!"
"Who said I was going to kill him?" Viper said with a smirk, then upended the flask over Deemer and poured the contents onto his head, then released him.
As soon as the chemicals hit Deemer's head they fizzled and bubble, and, immediately, the guard began to undergo a horrifying transformation. Horrifying for Zyme anyway. Viper enjoyed every second of it.
Deemer stood, gagging. "What's happening to-Aahhhhh!"
Suddenly his arms transformed into thick green tentacles, which split apart his shirt sleeves. His hands ceased to exist. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them, Zyme gasped as they glowed blood-red. Soon all of his fur turned green.
There were loud cracking and snapping sounds and Deemer's legs suddenly split apart three ways each, shredding his pants, the split legs forming into six tentacles, as big as the ones that used to be his arms. This forced Deemer to become shorter, but then his chest swelled, bursting through his uniform shirt, buttons flying everywhere. One hit Zyme in the nose as he watched, shocked. His mouth became larger, with sharp teeth, widening and stretching to take up almost the entire front half of his body. Last of all, his head expanded into an oversized mushroom cap with cat ears on top.
Zyme felt like throwing up. Viper had just turned an innocent guard into a mushroom! He backed away, covering his mouth, completely horrified at having witnessed, firsthand, such a hideous transformation. Taking his hands away from his mouth, he squealed, "No! No, no, noooo! How could you?" Tears flowed from his eyes as he wept for Deemer's horrible fate, watching the awkward-looking mushroom monster he had become trying to move, wriggling its tentacles.
Viper's tail slithered around Zyme's waist and he pulled Zyme over to himself. "He was of no ussse to me otherwissse," he said, sneering. "He'll make a wonderful helper, I think. Don't you agree? He guard your lab, and now he can guard mine." He chuckled.
Zyme gagged, sickened, and felt faint. He struggled wildly, and Viper indulged him by releasing his hold on him, allowing him to break away. Zyme ran a few feet, stopped, then bent over and vomited. Not much, considering his stomach was empty, but he dry-heaved awfully. Viper came over and patted him on the back, acting as if he were a father teaching his son the facts of life, and all throughout behaving as though what had just happened to the unfortunate guard was completely normal.
"What you've jussst seen is what I'll eventually do to everyone in Megakat City, so hisss fate isn't unusual," Viper said, putting his hand on Zyme's shoulder. "And you're going to help me. You'll be my assistant and help my in my experiments, jussst as Purvisss helped you with yoursss." Zyme looked up at him, wiping his mouth. "Together, we'll change the world! Isssn't that what you've alwaysss wanted to do?"
Zyme glared angrily up at him. "Change it for the better, not for the worse! I wanted to help catkind not, not...turn them into some kind of hideous freaks of nature!" He pointed at the mushroom-cat who was slowly getting the hang of moving around using tentacles instead of legs, but was still pretty clumsy.
Viper grabbed Zyme by the collar of his lab coat and hauled him to his feet. "Don't missstake my earlier affections for a genuine liking of you, Zyme," he said. "I'll just as sssson make your share his fate if your disobey me! I'll turn you into nothing but a mindless eating machine, to be usssed by me until you're killed by the SWAT Katsss!"
"No!" Zyme cried, horrified at the thought. "No, please! I'll do anything you want, just, please, don't turn me into...a monster."
Viper grinned. "As long as you obey me, Newton, you have nothing to fear from me." With that, he slid his arm around Zyme's waist and ushered him from the main chamber.