Chapter 29: A Change Over Night
The large infected was roughly four stories tall with arms as thick as a bus. They weren't able to notice before since the infected was facing away from them. Now that they had a full view, it could be seen that only the arms and legs stuck out of the building while the head and the rest of the body were inside. The only way that the building could move like this is that it had become part of this large infected.
"What do you plan to do now, boss?" Dom said with a tinge of awe.
It could be said that Dom had a lot of respect for Matt and believed that his fearless leader could do anything. He figured that his boss would be able to handle anything that was thrown at him.
"I want to test its' defenses first to see how strong it is. If it is too strong to then you head back and grab the rest of our group. Also, hail the military on the radio and tell them to get some heavy fire power ready just in case." Matt said
With that said, he ran and jumped off of the building that they had teleported to. Mid air, he turned into his energy form to see if he could pass straight through the creature. It happened in a flash, the beam went in the front of the building where the eyes were looking out and out the back without any resistance. He was so surprised that he almost crashed into the side of the build on the other side.
Grabbing onto a window ledge, he looked back at the creature. There was a basketball sized hole that he could still see Dom through. The odd thing was that the scene was far too silent since he figured that this giant infected would be fairly angry at the damage that it just took. A second later, its' arms went limp and its' gave out as it crashed to the ground.
"Just like that?" was all Matt could say.
He jumped off the ledge and landed on the infected. Peering inside, he saw that the infected was really bonded to the building, but there was a central nucleus just behind the eyes. He had shaved a large portion off of that nucleus when he passed by. The only explanation was that was the brain and he had damaged it enough to kill the beast in one hit.
"You did it again." Dom said as he landed beside Matt.
"Did what?" Matt asked.
"You did something totally absurd again. Just like how you destroyed the last hive." Dom said.
Matt could only wear a weary smile since he knew that this was definitely absurd. His powers had grown quite a bit after he had absorbed the hive. Now it appeared that his powers were really going beyond the limits of this world. Could he even venture to space in that form? It didn't require him to breath since his whole body became energy and time seemed to stop so he was probably traveling at the speed of light. Adding the space powers that he hadn't tested yet it was very well possible.
Matt could only sigh at those thoughts as he placed his hand on the infected and began to spread his power out to absorb it. However, as soon as he spread his power out, the whole building vanished leaving the two standing on it to fall to the ground.
"What just happened?" Dom asked while looking at Matt with an incredulous expression.
Matt was just as dumbfounded as he was. He didn't know what happened since he didn't gain any energy from it disappearing. It took him a few moments before he found his answer. When he focused his energy to locate the infected, he found it floating in a section of his vessel that had divided from the rest. The two were connected, but clearly separate. From that vessel, he could fee the power of space that his body had absorbed after his last growth.
Testing out a thought he had, he tired to move the infected in to his energy vessel and got an instant response. As soon as the infected crossed the threshold into his energy vessel, it began to breakdown and turn into crystalized energy. The amount of energy that was given didn't even fill the bottom of his vessel, but that was to be expected given the qualitative change that his vessel and energy had undergone.
"My ability has gotten quite a bit stronger since absorbing the hive." Matt said while keeping the new space vessel a secret. He didn't understand the ability yet, let alone being able to explain it to someone else.
"What do we do now that our objective has already been accomplished?" Dom asked after nodding at what Matt just said.
"You head on back to the settlement and help the others get ready to move out. We are going to accelerate our plans a bit and set up a base at the intended location. Once everything is ready, head on to the location. I'm going to test out my strength for a bit so that I can better understand it." Matt said.
Dom nodded and headed off back to the settlement while Matt looked around him. He saw a few slow moving infected walking his direction and decided to try a few things. The first thing he wanted to see was if he could put a living creature inside of his space vessel. He channeled his space energy and touched the infected walking towards him. It vanished in the vessel, then Matt moved to a safe distance before checking. The infected was floating in the space without moving, so Matt decided that it might be like suspended animation so he channeled his energy again and pulled the infected out.
The infected collapsed lifelessly at his feet as he took a few steps back. After a moment, the infected still hadn't moved so he approached and gave it a nudge. The infected never moved, which meant that putting something into the space killed it, that is, for now at least. He just needed to think of a way to make it so that the things he put inside had a way to live.
With some trial and error he would eventually figure out a way to make it work. Now he moved on to the next part that he wanted to test. He created a space around his hand and used it like a knife. With a swing of his hand, he cut a light pole at a forty-five degree angle and watched it slide apart. He expected this to work since it was the first thing he had thought of after seeing the ability for the first time. There was no need to test teleporting since he already knew he could do it.
With everything he wanted to test for now finished, he decided to head off to meet up with the rest of his group.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone