The next day...
As the sun broke through the horizon, two scientists stood in the research tent with excitement blaring in their eyes.
"Charles…" Sterling whispered.
"Sterling…" Charles replied.
The two scientists locked eyes with each other. Then, they looked at the leftover corpse of the snake that Arthur had brought. Its dark skin – unusual yet intriguing, still pulsed with red after its death.
"My blood is rushing. Can we…just we started?" Sterling asked, already putting on gloves.
"I don't think we need to wait any longer…" Charles replied, putting on a mask.
After they prepared themselves, Sterling took a scalpel and tried to pierce the snake's scales. The sharp blade couldn't pierce the skin, poking like a feather trying to pierce wood. Sterling grumbled and stretched out his hand.
"Give me something sharper." He spoke.
Charles nodded and turned around, he looked at the array to tools and handed Sterling a metal wire with two handles – a surgical saw. Sterling smiled and took it, placing it against the skin of the serpent. He activated it, the wire began moving back and forth rapidly. The saw went smooth through like butter, splitting the reptile's body in half. Sterling deactivated the saw and put it down.
"Now…let's check its insides." Charles stated with a grim expression.
"Don't be disgusted. We'll find something new in there." Sterling grinned.
"If it's snake eggs, I'm going to vomit."
"Oh, don't be a child, Charles. This snake isn't even ready to bear children."
"I know – I know."
The duo dug into the snake's inner, trying to find any new mutation or organ. Eventually, after an hour or so, their search was concluded.
"Nothing." Charles stated.
"Nothing at all." Sterling sighed, disappointment clearly in his tone.
'The muscles seem to be denser and so do the bones but those are common effect of chaos mutation…we need something else…something more…'
Charles's thoughts ran wild as he stroked his chin and scanned the reptile's skin.
'What looks different…? Wait…the scales!'
He instantly approached the corpse, gliding his fingers across the surface of its skin.
"What are you doing…?" Sterling inquired.
"Sterling." Charles replied. "The scales…"
Sterling paused and thought, realizing what they had missed. A smile couldn't help but form on his face as he activated the saw again. He slid it across the skin, separating the scales from it.
"Woah! Be careful."
He spoke as sterling handed him a piece of the scale. Charles felt something…strange. He felt slight pressure pressing against his fingers. Charles gulped realizing, something was definitely wrong with these scales.
"Let's run this through everything." Sterling interrupted Charles thoughts.
"Y-Yes! Let's get to it immediately." Charles replied.
They ran it through several tests and though nothing was biologically different…something inside the scales was.
"There is something inside the scales. It's not blood. Otherwise, our machines would've discovered it." Charles stated.
"Maybe it's another biological anomaly like Tony's muscles or that crow's brain…" Sterling theorized.
"Raven's brain." Charles corrected him.
"Right – right."
"Nyx did say that they didn't see any snake like this one in the rainforest." Charles added. "All this is causing me a headache. Nothing makes sense!"
"Hey…" Sterling patted Charles shoulder. "We're somewhere that…doesn't make sense to science nor humanity either way, observation and hypothesis are the basis of science."
Charles sighed. "If you say so…"
He placed it on a scanner that pushed out green waves, scanning the scale thoroughly. Then, it started beeping rapidly.
"Shit." Charles blurted.
"Well…Shit." Sterling did the same.
The results instantly went to the super-laptop which they rushed to. As the laptop calibrated the data, a new sign appeared. Sterling approached and check it out.
[Kinetic energy detected within biological anomaly.]
The duo's jaw dropped as they looked at each other.
"Kinetic energy? How the hell is kinetic energy in the skin of a reptile?" Sterling exclaimed.
"I haven't seen this type of chaos mutation – not even back on the continent." Charles reached his hand out.
The two scientists – bewildered, continued their research hastily, wanting to know more about the snake's biology.
***
David sat in front of Matthew, Josh, Nolan, Frank and Major who all looked to be sleep deprived. He sighed heavily and asked in a serious tone.
"So…I heard some strange things last night. I felt something too…do you know what it is?"
Nolan nodded slowly. "…Chaos."
"So?" David intertwined his fingers. "Have you anything to say to me?"
Matthew, Josh and Nolan lowered their eyes, being unable to answer. Major coughed, clearing his throat and spoke to his general.
"No, sir…the chaos has been getting quite strong lately so, we were on guard all night without rest."
David frowned.
'I know something is up with them. I can feel their sense of dread through my telepathy… but they don't even share it in their thoughts. What happened? What are they so afraid of?'
He adjusted his cap.
"Really? You don't have anything to report?"
Matthew smiled crookedly, meeting the general's eyes.
"No, sir. Why would there be dangers that we 'chaos incarnates' couldn't handle?"
David narrowed his eyes to a slit.
'They're not behaving like themselves either…they try to hide it but they can't hide it from me!'
He waved his hand. "Then, you're dismissed."
"Thank you, sir." They replied.
The group nodded, saluting him and leaving the tent. David leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling of the white cloth.
"Something is seriously wrong…and I need to know what it is…" He muttered under his breath.