Toxicus's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Toxicus dragged himself out of the sea to kill the reactor that made him, and the sea would not let him go clean. Green sludge dripped from his warped scales and hissed against the rocks. He was born an ordinary lizard in the shallow water below the complex. Then the complex began dumping its waste, and the poison burned through his scales and nerves until it built this monster around him. He hated the reactor for that. The hate was his own. The body was not. He fixed his eyes on the reactor across the coast and took his first step toward it. Pain lanced up his spine. The radiation leaking from his own flesh never stopped, and every hour it bled a little more strength out of him. His legs shook. He had crossed half the shore and already his claws could barely grip the stone. Toxicus understood the trap. He was poisoning himself faster than he could reach his enemy. If he kept walking, he would collapse before the reactor ever came into range. He needed to stop the leak, or at least slow it. He needed somewhere to hold the poison in and let his body rest. Then he saw it. A vast sandstone cavern sat back from the water, its curved mouth dark and wide. The rock had weathered into sweeping ridges, big enough to swallow something his size. Thick stone could hold radiation. Thick stone could shield him from the sun that cooked the poison hotter in his veins. He forced himself across the last stretch of shore. Each step left a smear of glowing sludge behind him. He fell twice. He rose twice. At the cavern mouth he collapsed onto cool sand and pressed his burning body against the stone. The rock did its work. The walls trapped the leaking radiation around him instead of letting it drain away into open air. His muscles stopped shaking. The pain dulled from a scream to a low ache. For the first time since the sea, Toxicus felt strength gather back into his limbs. He had a lair now. He could rest, and he could hold his own poison inside these walls. But as he settled deeper, the trapped radiation pooled beneath him. It struck the sand and ate through it. A jagged pool spread across the cavern floor, glowing yellow and green, thick as tar. His own leaking body was filling his shelter with fresh waste. The cave saved his strength. It was also becoming the very thing he had crawled out of the sea to destroy. Toxicus stared at the spreading spill and understood the cost. The lair would keep him alive. But the longer he rested here, the more poison it would hold, until the shelter drowned in the same waste as his old home. He had bought his strength back. Now he had to reach the reactor before his own refuge turned against him.