Genre: Sci-fi/Action

Again, another one of my favorites. Enough talk; let's head straight to it.

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The melody of warfare filled the air: the sound of explosions, gunshots and the cries of agony. Corpses of infected alter-humans stacked up on the blood-drenched snow which blanketed the ground. Some of my memories remained fuzzy, but I'm quite sure about one thing:

I filled that war zone with blood.

The cold touch of metal on my back woke me up from my deep slumber. When I opened my eyes, they were flooded with the bright light coming from the fluorescent lights attached to the ceiling. I stood up and looked around: it seems that I'm in a metal-walled labyrinth. There was no sign of a threat inside the area, but it was my human instinct inside which dictated me to do some action and to get out.

The small square space where I woke up seemed to be the center of the maze. The pathways branched into four which seemingly teased me on where I should go. My gaze landed on the fluorescent lights and in an instant, an idea popped into my mind. As if I instantly knew, I glanced at the pathway where the cables led to—the source of power for the fluorescent lights.

While walking barefoot down the narrow passageway, only then did I notice what I was wearing: it was a green-and-red hand-stitched Christmas sweater and jogging pants. It was loose and comfy, and rather durable, allowing me to move easily and comfortably to perform necessary stunts like what I did earlier. Apparently, my name is stitched on the shirt in front of my left chest.

Vince Subject #012

For some reason, I seemed to bear very little knowledge about myself and why I'm here. If not because of this ugly checkered Christmas sweater, I might not remember my name. Hell, I can't even tell if this really is my name. I have already made a lot of turns while following the cables when I saw a bright light coming from the far end of the passageway.

I took haste and quickly ran to the light source, which blinded me upon entering the large room. The floor, ceiling and walls resembled purely white marble tiles but felt like sheer metal. As if out of nowhere, an omnipresent robotic voice blasted across the entire room. The voice sounded like numerous artificial male and female voices speaking in chorus. It said:

"Greetings, Subject #012. We are S.A.N.T.A., the Society Against Nano-technological Atrocities. We are very sure that you have a lot of questions in mind. You are here because you are a malfunctioning Super-soldier. You are biotechnologically programmed to be a perfect fighting and killing machine. But you malfunctioned, that's why you are here in the Quarantine Chamber."

What the hell? I stared at my hands in disbelief. So technically, I'm a robotic piece of moving flesh. With a heart, mind, conscience and all.

"Well, that's your flaw." the voice stated as if it knew what I just said in my mind. "Super-soldiers aren't supposed to have a conscience or any useless emotion. There is a hormonal bug in your biotechnical programming which we cannot fix, forcing us to lock you in here. However, since it's Christmas Eve, just like what we traditionally do, we give doomed soldiers a second chance. You see, chaos still rule outside the borders of this institute."

Suddenly, flashes of memories started to rush into my mind. A scenario of the Grey Goo Incident flashed: the laboratory accident in the National Institute for Nanotechnology, Canada, which released a pound of airborne self-replicating nanites geared with artificial intelligence. Ecophagy soon occurred; they consumed almost half the entire biomass of Earth.

The nanites, realizing that they will soon run out of food if they continue devouring everything, formulated a better plan. They microscopically reprogrammed themselves from predators to parasites, making any living creature present a host, gaining the name Alter-humans and animals. They developed sadistic behaviors which forced all governments to team up with a plan: creating the Super-soldiers.

I can remember myself volunteering in the project for the sake of humanity, since my entire family was already devoured anyway. The rest of it remained a blur in my memory.

"Here's the deal, if you accomplish all three challenges that we will give, you will be allowed to leave this place and serve humanity once again. If not, I guess we just have to recycle your body. Deal?"

Recycle doesn't sound like a good word, so I nodded in approval. The metal door at the other end of the vast room hissed open. A middle-aged bearded man, probably the same age as I am, entered the room. He wore the same outfit as I am. His body was averagely muscular, contrary to my buff body frame. Apparently, everyone in this place wore Christmas sweaters.

"The challenges would all be the same: kill the opponent with the weapon that we will provide. Victory on all three would mean your freedom. Ready?"

Before I could even blink, a weapon materialized on the floor from nowhere. It's an Indian shishpar, a steel mace with eight knife-edged, hinged flanges on its head along with a spear end atop. I quickly picked up the weapon and glanced at the opponent, holding a pistol.

"That's fucking unfair!" I shouted as I struggled to avoid his shots while carrying a heavy object. I started thinking rationally. That pistol would soon run out of bullets. I just have to avoid his shots until I have the opportunity to strike.

A bullet whizzed past my face and nearly touched my cheek. Damn, he's not bad after all. I kept running back and forth in different directions to avoid him. He's too arrogant; a silent assailant who recklessly kept on shooting. Maybe too much arrogance is his flaw. Sick accuracy, though. I would've been dead if I haven't kept on moving.

The moment I heard the click, I rushed to him and swung the mace into his head so hard that he flew a few feet away. His open wound exposed his cracked skull and for a moment, I hesitated to make another move. He laid limp down the floor, bleeding hard as he still gripped on his already useless gun.

Recycle, I reminded myself. Finally, I took a few more swings on his head until it smashed into bits of blood, bone and brain. The floor suddenly became small granules which devoured his body into nothing before turning back into marble, making me realize that I'm in a nanotech facility. Fire against fire, I see.

"Onto the next challenger." the voices said. "This next challenge would be a song-based timed test. The objective is to kill the opponent before the first verse of the song ends, or both of you will die. Understood?"

The door opened again and this time, a teenage boy less buff than the previous opponent entered the arena. Cuts and bruises covered his entire body, hinting that he also went into a previous fight. An eerily gentle version of Silent Night started playing and like before, a new weapon materialized on the floor as my mace disintegrated into dust.

It's a tessen, a Japanese war fan. This is a versatile weapon, serving different purposes in both its closed and opened form. Unlike the mace, the tessen requires more grace and discipline than just brute force, as stated in tessenjutsu, the martial art for the fan. As soon as I picked up the metal folding fan, the boy rapidly charged to me with his kikuchi yari, one of the rarest designs of yari, the Japanese spear.

Silent night, Holy night

It was a single-edged spear, making it suitable for hacking as if it was a sword. The boy may look weak and fragile, but he actually had skill in using the spear, probably Sōjutsu, the martial art for the weapon. He was very agile and adept in close-combat, but I managed to block and parry every close hit he performed and evade his swift strikes.

All is calm, all is bright

Our combat sounded and appeared more like sword fighting, clashing two Japanese martial arts. All Super-soldiers were loaded with tons of combat and weaponry information, which explains how I understood all these shit. He made a slash on my left arm which made me bleed; probably because of me overthinking. He aimed to thrust the spear on my abdomen but I managed to parry the hit with my closed fan.

Round 'yon virgin, mother and child

He took another swift blow which was aimed at my neck but I managed to grab the wooden pole with my left arm which took him by surprise, thinking that he injured my arm already. I opened the metal fan with a graceful swipe, exposing the outer bladed spokes of the fan. With one straight horizontal motion, the fan made a long laceration on his neck where blood quickly gushed out.

Holy infant so tender and mild

The kid lost his grip on the spear as he knelt down on the floor, weakened. Shit, I wanted to stop but one of us needs to die, or we both die.

Sleep in heavenly peace

"Yes . . . sleep." I said as I closed the tessen and with its solid blunt end, I struck the boy's jaw with enough force to crack his bones, knocking him down into eternal slumber.

Sleep in heavenly peace

"This is fucked up," I said as I watched the nanite-structured floor devour the kid. "YOU GUYS ARE MAKING ME KILL MY FELLOW SOLDIERS!" I shouted.

"Stop being emotionally unstable, Vince," the voice finally said. "We're almost done. Don't you want to be free? Now, please proceed to the next room for your final challenge."

Fuck it, I sighed before entering the next room, similar to the previous one.

"Wait, ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME RIGHT NOW?!" I blurted out in disbelief as I gazed upon my last opponent: a young girl with bleeding wounds everywhere.

"Yes. She managed to kill two grown men already; I don't see any reason for her not to be a worthy opponent. No time limit this time. Kill the opponent with your own weapon. Whoever remains alive gets freedom. Clear?"

My tessen disintegrated, hinting the formation of my new weapon:

A...cat?!

Bullshit. The girl got a bread knife, but hey: that's better than this feline. I picked up the cat as I tried to outrun the devilishly agile kid from stabbing me. While evading, I started planning out what I could do.

"AARGH!" I shouted as the kid managed to stab my right thigh. Her eyes are as expressionless as her face, making me wonder about her flaw because that's how normal Super-soldiers should be: obedient machines. An idea popped up in my mind, and a horrible one I should say. She was about to stab me again, but I moved just in time. I quickly shielded myself with the cat, quickly killing it with her swift stabs on its stomach.

I dropped the corpse on the floor, activating the nanite floor and stunning the girl in confusion for what I've done. I allowed some drops of my blood on the nearly-devoured corpse before reciting a series of codes in my mind. The nanites received the commands and started biologically altering the cat in a rapid rate, miraculously evolving it into a large, vicious tiger within seconds. The beast I created leaped on the girl and started tearing her apart, organs and limbs flying everywhere. Guilt-ridden, I watched the floor devour her corpse, surprisingly along with my Alter-animal.

Finally, I realized the cause of my flaw: I'm nanite-infected.

"Congratulations, Subject #012. We never thought you could possibly use your flaw as an advantage. Well, here's your well-deserved freedom. Merry Christmas!" the voices said as the left wall hissed down, revealing the outside world: a winter wasteland.

I ran into the blizzard with inexplicable euphoria. Time to finish those fucking nanites by manipulating those fuckers.

FIRE AGAINST FIRE, BITCHES!