The spiral staircase descended deep into the earth, far below the ancient sewers, the air growing colder, drier, and thick with the hum of unseen power. The rough brick of the sewer tunnels gave way to smooth, seamless walls of a strange, dark grey metal that felt cool and unnervingly smooth to the touch. Glowing strips of pale, sterile blue light, set flush into the ceiling, replaced the phosphorescent fungi, casting the corridor in an eerie, clinical glow. The stench of sewage was gone, replaced by the clean, sharp scent of ozone, lubricants, and antiseptic solutions.
"Huh," Saitama said to himself as he reached the bottom, emerging into a long, metallic corridor. "This is way cleaner than upstairs. And better lighting. But it smells like a hospital. Don't like hospitals. The food is always terrible."
He walked down the corridor, his footsteps echoing faintly on the metal floor. He passed heavy, sealed doors with complex digital keypads and glowing runic symbols interwoven around them. This wasn't the work of the Cult of Diablos. Their aesthetic was all spooky skulls, dripping candles, and uncomfortable-looking stone altars. This was something else entirely. Something cold, precise, and technologically advanced in a way that felt alien to Midgar's general level of development.
As he walked, a series of soft clicks echoed from the ceiling. Small, hemispherical nodules descended, and thin beams of red light shot out, scanning him from head to toe.
**
A section of the wall beside Saitama slid open silently, and a mechanical arm, tipped with a long, wicked-looking syringe, shot out, aiming for his neck. The syringe was filled with a swirling, iridescent liquid – a potent neurotoxin cocktail designed to shut down the nervous system of a dragon in seconds.
Saitama, who had been peering at one of the glowing light strips, was startled by the sudden movement. "Whoa! Don't sneak up on me like that!" He reflexively swatted the mechanical arm away.
Clang-CRUNCH.
His casual swat connected with the hardened alloy of the arm. The arm, designed to withstand immense pressure, crumpled like tin foil. The syringe shattered, its hyper-potent contents splashing harmlessly against the wall, where the metal immediately began to hiss and corrode. The arm retracted back into the wall with a series of pained, grinding noises.
"Man, aggressive robot arms," Saitama muttered. "Rude."
**
Hissing sounds erupted from vents in the ceiling, and a thick, yellowish gas began to fill the corridor. It was a soporific agent, combined with a powerful hallucinogen and a paralytic, designed to render any organic intruder unconscious and helpless within moments.
Saitama sniffed the air. "Smells like… pineapple? And burnt toast? Weird combo." The gas swirled around him, thick and cloying. He took a deep breath. "Still can't breathe very well in here." He waved his hand in front of his face to clear the air, a gesture almost identical to the one that had erased the Phantasm Weavers.
The resulting gust of wind wasn't a hurricane. It was just… a gust. But it was enough to force all the yellow gas back the way it came, shoving it into the ventilation system with such force that, in the distant control room, several gas canisters ruptured, flooding a monitoring station with panicked, pineapple-scented screams.
**
A massive, reinforced door at the end of the corridor began to grind open with the sound of immense, groaning gears. The pale blue light strips flickered, then turned a harsh, clinical red. A deep, guttural growl, followed by the sound of heavy, clawed feet scraping on metal, echoed from within the opening vault.
Saitama watched the door open, a hopeful look on his face. "Ooh! A big door! Maybe the head bad guy is in there? Or maybe that's where they keep the really good snacks? The secret stash?"
What emerged from Vault 7 was not a snack. It was an abomination.
It was a grotesque fusion of biology and technology, a testament to amoral, unrestricted arcane science. It had the torso of a giant, muscle-bound ape, but its skin was a patchwork of stitched-together hides from various creatures. One arm was its own, but cybernetically enhanced, tipped with whirring, razor-sharp claws. The other arm had been replaced entirely by a massive, reptilian limb ending in a vicious, hooked talon, tubes pumping green fluid into its grotesque musculature. Its head was vaguely canine, like a wolf's, but its jaw was hinged with steel, and its eyes glowed with the cold, dead light of programmed malice. This was "Subject Gamma-7," one of the facility's prime "bio-weapons," a Chimera.
It stood easily twelve feet tall, its mismatched form radiating an aura of controlled, manufactured rage. It fixed its glowing eyes on Saitama, its metallic jaw unhinging with a pneumatic hiss, letting out a roar that was a synthesized mixture of a wolf's howl, a gorilla's bellow, and the shriek of grinding metal.
Saitama looked it up and down. "Whoa. You are one ugly dude. Looks like a bunch of different animals got into a big fight in a blender, and you're what was left over."
The Chimera, its programming screaming at it to neutralize the intruder, charged. It moved with unnatural speed and power, its cybernetic enhancements propelling its immense mass forward. Its reptilian claw swiped, aiming to disembowel Saitama. Its cybernetic claws slashed, aiming to shred him.
Saitama, for the first time since entering the laboratory, actually looked a tiny bit interested. The creature was fast. It was big. It looked… kinda strong.
He easily sidestepped the reptilian claw, then caught the whirring cybernetic claws in his open palm.
SCREEE-CHUNK!
The razor-sharp, magically-hardened alloy claws, which could slice through a tank's armor, ground to an instant, screeching halt against Saitama's hand. The motors in the Chimera's arm whined, smoked, and then seized up with a loud clunk, utterly unable to overcome the resistance.
The Chimera stared at its captured, ruined hand, a flicker of something – confusion? programming error? – crossing its glowing eyes.
"Nice try," Saitama said. "But my hand is not a chew toy." He then tightened his grip.
CRUNCH.
The entire cybernetic forearm, with its complex machinery and reinforced plating, crumpled in his fist like a soda can. Wires sparked. Hydraulic fluid hissed and sprayed. The Chimera let out another synthesized roar, this one tinged with something that sounded almost like pain.
It tried to pull back, to bring its other, reptilian arm to bear, but Saitama didn't let go. Instead, he simply… lifted.
The twelve-foot, multi-ton bio-weapon was lifted effortlessly off its feet, dangling from its ruined cybernetic arm. It flailed its other limbs uselessly.
"Okay, so," Saitama said, holding the struggling abomination aloft with one hand, "you're one of the boss's pets, right? Can you tell me where he keeps the noodles? Or should I just punch you into a fine paste and look for myself? Pastes don't usually talk much, though."
The Chimera just roared again, a mixture of rage and panicked, corrupted instinct.
Saitama sighed. "Right. No talking. Fine. Paste it is."
He prepared to deliver a finishing blow, but then paused. "Wait. That's kinda messy. How about this instead?"
With a flick of his wrist, he spun the Chimera around like a majorette twirling a baton, then let go. The abomination sailed through the air, tumbling end over end down the long corridor, before crashing headfirst into the far wall with a deafening CRANG! that dented the thick metal plating and left the Chimera in a crumpled, sparking heap, unconscious but, surprisingly, mostly intact.
"There," Saitama said, dusting off his hands. "Less mess."
**
A new, loud, insistent klaxon began to blare, its siren wailing through the complex. The red lights began to flash more urgently.
Saitama looked up. "Self-destruct sequence? Seriously? So dramatic. And I haven't even found the noodle aisle yet!" He looked at the flashing lights, listening to the klaxon. "Ten minutes, huh? Okay. Guess I better hurry up."
He ignored the fleeing lab technicians and terrified guards who were now scrambling through side corridors towards emergency exits, and instead began walking, then jogging, deeper into the facility, following the direction the Chimera had come from. "Vault 7, right? The snacks gotta be in Vault 7!"
His quest for noodles had led him to a secret, amoral bio-weapons lab on the verge of self-destruction. For anyone else, it would be a desperate race against time to escape. For Saitama, it was a timed scavenger hunt for his favorite food. The abominations in the lab were in for a very, very bad last ten minutes.
In the hidden control room, the leader stared at the monitor displaying Saitama jogging nonchalantly through a corridor filled with panicking scientists. His bio-weapon, the culmination of years of research and millions in resources, had been defeated with the casualness of someone disciplining a misbehaving puppy.
"He… he neutralized it without destroying it?" the leader murmured, a new kind of fear dawning. It wasn't just that Saitama was overwhelmingly powerful; he was… precise when he chose to be. He was capable of restraint, which was, in its own way, even more terrifying. It implied a level of control that was unthinkable for such a degree of power.
"Self-destruct sequence is irreversible, Commander," his aide reported, his voice tight. "We must evacuate."
The leader stood up, taking one last look at the monitor, at the yellow-clad figure disappearing around a corner, presumably in search of the vending machines near the genetics lab. "Erase all data. Scramble the logs. Our benefactor must not be linked to this facility's failure." He turned, his metallic voice cold and hard. "The Tempest… he is not a god to be bled. He is a force to be avoided. At all costs."
He began to walk towards his own private escape route. "Inform the others. The Midgar operation is compromised. The asset is lost. And the board… the board has been overturned by a fool looking for lunch."
The lab of abominations was about to be wiped from existence, its secrets buried under tons of rock and steel. But the greatest, most baffling abomination of all was still inside, getting closer to his goal, utterly unfazed by the impending explosion, his mind focused on the singular, noble quest for Extra Spicy Shrimp flavor.