Well, we're in chapter 11 now. As of this writing, I've been getting overall positive responses, with one that just confuses me. However, that may be due to the fact that I had added something two the first chapter that I wanted at the beginning and posted the update, fixing the mistake before I realized it was there. Funny how things work out like that.

Creativity: Yeah, weird.

Author: Well, let us continue on to chapter 11!

Grey winced as he felt his skin knitting itself back together. He was wearing a spare shirt, with his old one, as well as a blue hoody, lying on the ground with several large gashes in it. He looked down at the scratches on his arms and torso, which had been bleeding not too long ago. The bleeding had stopped quickly, but he still had to clean it off his skin. That was another problem with the ruined shirt and hoody. Bloodstains.

Thus-far, all his attempts to try and interact with the cross-species had been met with… resistance. Today had been exceptionally bad and he suspected that they would be more skittish the next time he tried going into their enclosure. He had left all three of them with wounds a good deal worse than his own, but not as much blood. He suspected that all three of them had a few fractures and he knew that the largest one had a damaged leg, based on the limp when it retreated away from him.

"If you keep doing this, they're either going to hurt you more grievously and/or kill you, or you're going to be forced to do something similar." Graham reprimanded. Grey groaned in acknowledgement before going to wash up. He didn't want to be walking around with dried blood on his skin all day.

As he dried off and started resting in bed, he kept thinking about how to get through to them. Graham was starting to look more correct by the day. The first time he went in, they all mobbed him and he was forced to knock them all out again before retreating back outside. The second time, they stuck to higher locations and snarled at him, occasionally leaping down to attack him. Finally, he gave up and left. However, that seemed to embolden them for their latest encounter. He doubted that they would be so bold again, now that he reminded them that he could take on all three of them, with or without gauntlets. Still, he couldn't risk the possibility of them escaping and hurting anyone, and that meant either getting through to them, or dealing with them in a more… permanent way.

Grey shook his head, berating himself for even considering the notion. They were victims of illegal human experimentation, like he was. He owed it to whoever was left inside those creatures to try and get their heads back on straight, whatever that meant.

They had tranquilized them after he beat them back to escape, all so they could take some blood samples as well as plug small chips under their skin that allowed them to analyse brain patterns and blood pressure. They hoped that with some better data, they could potentially find a way to appeal to whatever humanity was left in them.

Grey was broken out of his musings when the wall phone rang. He answered it to find Graham's assistant calling him down to her lab. Graham herself was currently trapped in a meeting, which could take upwards of two hours, unless he was brought up. Then it could be more.

Grey strolled down to the aforementioned lab to find a screen with lots of images. Some of them had images of brains, while others were a silhouette of one of the cross-species under what appeared to be thermal vision.

"So, what did you call me down here for?" Grey asked. He was feeling slightly out of it.

"Well, the brainwaves we have could indicate what the problem is with trying to tame them." The assistant replied before she brought up an image of the brain with several graphs that were fluctuating. Grey peered closer, trying to understand what the image meant.

"This scan indicated that the cross-species in question is in a constant state of fight or flight. However, there's also data to suggest that it's also extremely confused and frightened by everything, lashing out at the world in a haze. My guess is that it's a combination of the two."

Grey nodded.

"Makes sense to me, but how exactly does that help me get them to stop treating me like a very aggressive chew-toy?"

The assistant brought up another image.

"This is a scan of the cross-species radiation saturation. Normally, we'd consider these levels to be rather high, especially for you at the beginning. However, compared to you, they're only getting the bare minimum to survive. So, they're most likely looking at you and also seeing a rich source of radiation, so more like a snack than a chew-toy."

Grey seemed to perk up a little.

"So, they might calm down a little if we gave them something to eat? That's something we can try! Anything else?"

The assistant shook her head before opening a different window.

"Not for now. There's still more data being parsed through, but we'll let you know if we find anything more useful."

Grey left the lab and went to the observation room. The cross-species hissed at him when they saw him and sequestered themselves at the back, not taking their eyes off him. He noted that the one with the extra limbs had grown said limbs a little longer since the last time he had checked. They also weren't bleeding anymore, so that was a plus. He noted that the limp on the larger one was gone, though it still seemed to favour its other leg.

He watched them a little while longer before going to pick up his dinner. He ate in his room today, wanting to have a little seclusion after the day's events. He wrote in his journal and decided to visit the lounge. There weren't many people there, but he still had some light conversation with some of Monarch's employees before he decided to call it a night and go to bed.

Sleep was peaceful that night and the next morning, he dropped a request for Graham to make some larger radiation supplements, but keep them the same level of gamma energy that he had. The process took a little longer, but by the next day, he had a good-sized bag filled with irradiated gel capsules. He walked down to the enclosure and took a deep breath before opening the door and stepping inside. Immediately, the three cross-species shot up to higher ground and started snarling at him. He kept his eye on them as he reached into the bag and produced one of the capsules. It was about the size of a peach and light blue in color. The cross-species stopped snarling, looking confused. He watched as they began clawing at their perches, seemingly unsure of what to do next. They could obviously sense the radiation within the capsule and wanted it, but that meant abandoning the safety of the high ground. He stood there patiently for several minutes as they occasionally leaned forward, looking like they were going to jump down, but hesitating and returning to their perches. After a while, the mid-sized one began to crawl down slowly. This one still had somewhat functioning hands, with it's index and middle finger fused to form the single claw. Once it reached the ground, Grey rolled the capsule towards it, slowly. It stopped three feet short, but the cross-species took a few steps forward and used its hand to pick up the sphere and swallow it. The cross-species seemed to be very elated by this, prompting the other two to make their way to the ground. Grey rolled a capsule over to each of them. They took them and tried them, each seemingly appearing much less aggress afterwards. He rolled out three more, but was dismayed when they began fighting over them. Grey stomped his foot loudly and made a growling noise in his throat, which had felt very sore for a second before he started to growl. The three other cross-species stopped squabbling and backed away. They then each took a capsule and ate it.

Deciding that was enough for today, Grey left the enclosure, a smile on his face. Finally, they were getting somewhere. Graham and several others were waiting to applaud him when he got back.

"That was incredible! I didn't think that would work so fast!" one of them exclaimed.

"How did you stay so calm?! I would have been shaking the teeth out of my skull!" Another said. Grey just rubbed the back of his head a little.

"I guess that the best way to get through to them was through their stomachs." Grey remarked quietly. Then he remembered something.

"When I was stopping them from fighting over the food, my throat felt sore for a second. Any idea why?" He asked. Graham put a hand to her chin.

"I'll review the footage later, see if we can pull anything from it. For now, just enjoy this victory. You've earned it."

All in all, Grey couldn't have asked for it to go better. He only left because he didn't want them to start taking an interest in him because he brought them food. Next time, he was going to go in with something lighter. If they only saw him as someone who supplied food, that could get ugly if he showed up and didn't have any.

He answered a few more questions before going back to his room to write in his journal. He also decided that he wanted to write another letter. He thought long an hard about what he wanted to write. He decided to omit Monarch's name from the letter as well as details about his changes. Eventually, he finished writing and sealed it in an envelope before speaking to Graham about getting it to his family without standard postage.

Rothstein was standing in an observation room as he watched their latest batch of test subjects, mutated using the DNA of Godzilla's latest opponent, fighting against a ground-based security robot. They were easily strong enough to tear the thing limb from limb and some of them had mutated the ability to turn their hands into shovel-like claws, which were also efficient at slicing the machine into scrap metal. They were also testing a pair from their latest batch against one of the original batch. So far, the one from the original batch, a male with dirty blond hair, was proving to be able to best both of his opponents simultaneously. Hardly surprising, since Godzilla had beaten their donor with relative ease.

Yorburg had apparently been sequestered in his lab for several days, as well as setting aside an old construction bay for on of their larger projects for his own personal use. Rothstein hadn't seen what was inside yet, but Yorburg had ordered a large quantity of machinery for maintaining organisms in suspended animation, as well as gathering as much DNA from the now mutating Godzilla mass they had created in 2014. Rothstein knew that the mass was going to be incinerated within a few days so that they could create a new harvesting mass. The other one was too old and had begun to develop anomalies that complicated research. Either way, Rothstein hadn't an inkling as to why Yorburg would want to gather faulty DNA for a large-scale project.

He shook his head and watched as the Godzilla cross-species pinned both of the other cross-species to the ground, snarling. He could see the reptilian slits in place of normal pupils, a sign that his formula was still in effect. Rothstein prepared to activate the shock collar in case the victor became too zealous, but found that not to be the case. He engaged the knockout gas and let the new handlers take care of the cross-species.

Meanwhile, Yorburg was stood at a large computer console as he did some last checks on his creation. It was growing slowly, but steadily. The dark mass occasionally pulsated, the small tubes attached to it quivering as It did. Yorburg input some final commands before leaving his new private lab. He had to finish the acquisition of some new equipment in preparation for his newest creation. If all went well, this would be his crowning achievement. And there was no way that the escaped test subject could ruin this one as well.

Grey smiled widely as the cross-species greeted him with a series of clicking noises. By now, they were acclimated to him coming and going from their enclosure, not getting aggressive or defensive when he entered. They still didn't like it when he tried to touch them though. He didn't mind. For now, he was just glad they weren't trying to maul him every other day.

Graham had managed to find an ideal balance in saturation and size for the radiation capsules and he left them each a dish once a week, considering that they could retain radiation better than he could, coupled with the radiation pumps. Today, he was going in to interact with them. Talk to them, see how they responded, maybe see if they would let him touch them. He doubted that last one would happen. Still, he had noticed that they seemed to respond with specific clicking noises to certain words.

Now he just had to figure out what those noises meant. Graham had given him a recording device to hide in his pocket, as well as a very small video camera hidden in a pin that he attached to the front of his shirt.

He placed the dishes of food on the ground and let them enjoy their meal. He sat near the door, letting the recording devices take in everything. After a while, he decided to leave. He went up to the lab and gave them the recording devices, allowing them to start working on deciphering their language. He also was pulled over to a monitor with a video from his first successful encounter with the cross-species.

"Look carefully." Graham zoomed the image in on Grey's neck as she gave her instruction. Looking closer, Grey could see green-grey scales spreading over his throat, just barely visible under the hoody. After he finished growling at them, the scales returned to normal skin.

"So, does that mean I can turn any part of myself into a reptilian version? Because I don't really like where that's heading."

Graham nodded.

"It seems that way. You already mastered having your arms turn into claws. Maybe if you start with your arms and work towards more of your body, it would be easier than starting fresh every time."

Grey groaned.

"Yeah, until I end up like our guests. Seriously, are you not the least bit worried about that happening?"

Graham shook her head.

"Based on the analyses we've performed on both you and the other three, that is an incredibly unlikely outcome. At least, permanently anyway."

"That's reassuring." Grey snarked before walking off to get something to eat. He was amazed by his own metabolism from time to time. He had started thinking about requesting double orders simply due to how fast his body burned through fuel. Burned, was perhaps the operative word there.

He finished eating before cracking his neck and going down to the exercise room for some endurance training.

He worked out for a few hours before he finally had enough and decided to just go surf the web for a while. He frequented more social media, looking into the stories regarding Godzilla or the recent attack by the cross-species that they were keeping. He hadn't been looking too long when he found another site that seemed to be a draw for people wearing tin-foil hats. There were several blurry images (Because of course the damn things couldn't be clear) of what Grey realized to be him leaping over streets to get to the next building. He could also found a shaky video of him fighting the cross-species in the streets. He found it rather strange to be reading these events and know precisely what happened, while the rest of the world was busy trying to figure it out. He knew why no one knew, obviously. He was the one who requested that Monarch keep quiet about his involvement, as well as that of the cross-species until they had more concrete information to work with. Who knows! Maybe sites like this would start flushing out their opponent.

He was interrupted from his musings when he received a call from Graham. She explained that she had another meeting tomorrow and that he would have to be present for it. Already, Grey was groaning and resisting the urge to headbutt the wall. He suspected he would put a hole through it if he tried.

The fact that he would be requested to meet with a selection of higher-ups from Monarch indicated to him that they wanted to decide what to do with him. As to what that might be, he figured he would either be turned into some sort of symbol of the organization, be forced to leave and go on the run again, or they would decide to axe him from the equation all together, which would end terribly for them, and he suspected they knew that. He didn't really dread option number three being chosen, or even being brought up for that matter, but he didn't want to leave yet. Besides, he still needed to help the other three cross-species.

That was another thing. He would be representing them as well, whether Graham had said it or not, and that meant that if he showed any signs of behaviour that they didn't like, they would most likely have the creatures destroyed. Tomorrow was going to be a day of navigating minefields.

Hey everyone, it's me again.

I know I said that I probably wouldn't write again, but I found help so I don't have to be constantly running now. These people were also helping out people who are having a similar problem to me. Turns out, I've been able to help those people the most. Don't get worried, I didn't join a cult or anything. I promise I'll explain everything when It's safe. Hope everyone's doing okay.

Grey

I like these letter chapters. It's kinda fun to write.

Creativity: Uhhh, is there something specific we should be doing right now?

Author: No, that's not until a few weeks later. Seriously, we'd be doing the proper announcement way too early.

Creativity: But wouldn't it build anticipation and hype?

Author: Believe me, you don't want to feed the internet such things. It creates riots in the streets.

See ya next week!

This was added post completion and submission to the site:

One thing I haven't addressed is Grey being able to fight as well as he does without training of any kind. He has some fighting instincts from Godzilla's DNA that give him an edge when dealing with 'ordinary' people and some cross-species. The rest is just stuff he improvises and finds works. I intend to have him receive a small amount of 'formal' training later, but I thought I'd address it a bit here.