Hacked?! 3- Dragon.

The spring sun peeked in through a dusty window. It illuminated a smallish flat in the bustling city of Singapore, beaming right into the eyes of a certain young man. Sato, as his online handle called him, got out of bed, washed his face, and put on his glasses. He looked like what one might expect someone from Singapore to look like - Chinese, with slightly spiky hair and a short stature. He put minimal clothes - a T-shirt and jeans - on before starting the day.

One of the first things Sato did in the morning was get on his computer. He checked a few forum threads, then clicked into another window. Breakfast could wait. He was on a mission.

He looked at his AIM and Skype contact lists. He scanned the relatively short catalogue of names, looking for two in particular. He knew them as Kuro and Andy - friends in the States. Yes, he found, they were on. He had learned, however, that something was wrong with his two friends as of late.

He could not quite place what was wrong. Andy still talked about the latest superheroes and cartoons. Kuro still sent him strange images that she found on the internet (to "break his brain"). Anyone who did not know them as well as he did could not have spotted anything wrong.

It was like they did not feel right. That was the only way he could describe the sensation. A feeling. Something was intuitively wrong, and Sato did not consider himself psychic.

He clicked back to Kuro's deviantART page. Indeed, her last journal still detailed the Shiny Venusaur she had acquired from a deviant named Bronygon. It did not surprise him that she had not changed her journal in a few days, but combined with her strange messages, the entry sent a shiver down his spine. Both Andy and Kuro had similar journals advertising this guy - too similar. After looking around a bit more, he found that a few other people had similar entries mentioning Pokemon from Bronygon as well. It had been the last thing they wrote about.

He was, then, considerably shocked to see a note from Bronygon in his inbox.  

"Hello.

I am offering you the chance of a lifetime: to participate in an experiment to eliminate world hunger, cancer, and perhaps even death itself. It is a revolutionary experiment to see if dreams really can come true, and I am seeking volunteers on which to test my processes.

All I ask is that you show me one of your original characters- preferably one that shows your innermost thoughts and feelings. Note me the image in your reply, along with any relevant data about that character.

Thank you in advance."

So you're trying to get me into this, too, Sato thought. Great. He did not know what Bronygon was up to. It sounded like he was trying to start a utopia or something of that sort. If that was the case, why was he messing with people's internet accounts? Was that really all he could do?

Still, he could use this opportunity. No doubt Bronygon would be willing to answer a few of his questions. Oh my, did he have questions for this guy.

"Actually, I have a few questions for you. Both Andy and Kuro have been gone for roughly the same amount of time. You've shown up in both of their journals. What happened to them? Just a hack job?" He pushed "send." Bronygon was quicker than he expected:

"Ooh, gutsy. I like you. Yes, you could call it a hack job."

"What kind of hack job? Why?" Sato replied. Again, the response was lightning fast.

"If you must know, your friends have been saved in another world for safe keeping. They will be released shortly, so please, do not worry about them." It was a terse, strange response.

Sato could not believe what he was reading. This sounded way too much like something out of science fiction<img src="s.skimresources.com/img/cbuddy…" class="" skimlinked="skimlinked">. His friends had been "saved," just like computer files. Perhaps something bad was coming to his own world if his friends had be sent away; that, however, sounded too big for how Bronygon had put it. Sato kept his reply short and sweet, not wanting to delay Bronygon any longer.

"Tell me where my friends are," Sato typed. He added, "please" to his note before sending.

A note rocketed back to him. "I'll tell you, but you have to do one thing for me, first."

Sato typed back, trying to be just as quick as Bronygon had been. "And that is?"

"Help me with my little experiment."

Sato had to think about that. He was tempted to note Bronygon his usual human character - a character who looked very much like him, only anime-style. Unlike a lot of the people Bronygon had targeted, Sato was more or less content with his life.

But was that really all Bronygon wanted? A dream? Sato already had his dream. He did not have any outlandish dreams at all. This coming autumn, he was headed to college. His aim: a degree in accounting. For now, however, he focused on the situation at hand.

He looked at the copy-pasted text from Bronygon's first note. Had he done something with his friends as part of this "experiment?" If so, perhaps he should mess with Bronygon in another way.

Sato pulled up one of his sketches. It was an image of a "dragon mode" he occasionally used in role-plays. The mode was a magnificent, white beast that was a fusion of two dragons from the card game<img src="s.skimresources.com/img/cbuddy…" class="" skimlinked="skimlinked" /> Yu-Gi-Oh!, but nonetheless a somewhat original creation. He supposed it would do, and sent it along to Bronygon. Again, the response was lightning-fast:

"Your submission has been received, and you should be feeling the results shortly. Thank you for contributing!"

"'Feeling the results?'" Sato repeated out loud.

It started as a pulse - a twitching, warm, beating energy that ran through Sato's body like the very coursing of the cosmos itself. Then it started to hurt in a way that Sato had never felt before. It felt like his insides -  bones, muscles, blood vessels - were trying to twist their way out of his body. His nails growing into claws did not hurt nearly as much as feeling too tight in his own skin.

His flesh was quick to change. Slowly, he touched one of the pulsing areas; the skin above felt almost like thin leather. Hairs clustered and twisted themselves into white scales on his flesh, tearing his clothing to shreds as they became sharp on the ends.

"YAH!" he yelped. The scales spread like crazy. So that was what Bronygon meant by "feeling the results." At the very least, the new skin was the right size for all of the new bones, muscles, and so on. One pressure down, several more to go.

"Erggh…" he groaned, gritting his teeth. It was not just growth straining his body, anymore. A tail pushed its way out of his now-nude rear, becoming cloaked in scales like a sped-up film of crystals growing. It did not help that sharp, curved teeth at once pushed his face into a triangular maw while knocking the other teeth out like baby teeth. A pair of horns gave his new head a distinct V-shape while a gold helmet materialized over his scaly skull.
 
"Breathe...breathe..." There was a feeling like ice upon his back. He heard, rather than saw, the two weak limbs pushing themselves free from his back. They looked as fragile as a human child's arms before extending into skeletal fingers of leather and muscle. Leather spread between them, forming jagged, batlike wings. Fortunately, the pain stopped there, leaving the new dragon in a rather cramped space.

Sato breathed. Even his new breathing sounded weird. He did not have much time to take in stimuli from his better sight ("Well, that's one improvement,") and sense of smell. His new, catlike eyes narrowed when an unfamiliar voice made its presence known.

"I had a feeling somebody would get too concerned."

Sato looked for the source of the voice. He could not tell for sure, but it seemed to be coming from a yellow eye surrounded in black vapor. Every now and then, he thought he saw a body, but then the image turned back into mist. Whatever this thing was, it was keeping its true form a secret for a reason.

"I take it you're the one behind this?" Sato asked it. It did not answer as properly as Sato hoped.

"Good day," the eye said. "I trust you are enjoying being a dragon?"

Just as planned, Sato thought. He figured that this thing would be like a video game boss. He had the power to take it out, now, and, with scales as armor, could likely take a few hits back. As if to assert that attitude, he blew out a small ball of plasma like a snorting boar.

"So far, it's not that bad," he said. "A little cramped, but otherwise not bad."

What Sato had not planned was for the ground to open up beneath him. As soon as the dragon in him was aware that there was no ground, he flapped his way free. It was hard to do in such a small space, but enough to keep him from falling.

Bronygon, or whatever the eye was, had prepared for that. Sato had just barely gotten out of the abyss below when it came up of its own accord after him. The darkness formed itself into tentacles, which, combined with the space constraints of his own apartment, bound him quite well. Once again, it felt like things had gotten too tight.

"You would have been fine if you had not been so concerned," the eye said. "Really, they're perfectly safe. Don't interfere."

Sato felt a growl rising in his throat. He did not let it out. Instead, he tore at the purple tentacles with his sharp teeth and claws, attempting to push himself free of whatever chthonic thing Bronygon had conjured. They grew back twice as stringy as before after being cut off, but Sato insisted on remaining above ground. He held onto the edge of the gap into the abyss with claws as curved and sharp as an eagle's.

"Well," the eye said, "aren't we feisty?"

"Yes. We. Are!" Sato responded. A ball of crackling energy sparkled between his jaws before it became a laserlike, white beam, all aimed at the eye. It hit in full force.

Gotcha! Sato thought. The beam of light hit the eye square in the pupil. It reduced one wall of his apartment to dust, sure, but maybe everything would go back to normal once this aberration was eliminated. Maybe the destruction would attract somebody's attention. After all, there was an unknown being in the room.

That was not the case. There was no sign that the blast had done anything at all. The vapor surrounding the eye had not even been rippled by a blast of energy. Sato's eyes widened, even as a dragon. That blast should have annihilated whatever the eye was.

"My, you're spunky," the eye said. "It's a good thing I am little more than an apparition in this world, otherwise that might have hurt. To Hell with you, regardless."

Sato tried blasting the eye again. It was too little, too late. That fluid mess of darkness pulled him under. For a good long time, he saw nothing but black.

When he finally saw something again, Sato's eyes were greeted with one of the strangest sights he had ever hoped to see: in the fires of Hell, he was blessed with the sight of a mermaid. A giant, black-furred demon huddled over her, seemingly rolling her in something. Plumes of volcanic gas cracked their way free of the dead earth as he commenced drizzling sauce over what looked to be a giant rice roll, with a living mermaid flipping her tail inside.

Standing to the side was a curvaceous young lady in a sequined red dress. Her leathery wings swished near her too-wide hips, only occasionally stretching to show their full span. She had a set of horns like a gazelle, and hooves to match. Her fanged smile seemed to be permanent; it was as if something forbade her from changing her game show grin.

"Hello, whoever you are," the demon said. "I'm Vyce, and this is my lovely assistant Jenny." The succubus waved, showing exactly how long her nails were with a smile straight from daytime television.

"Sato,"  the dragon said. His gaze flickered to the rolled mermaid. "Who's in the roll?"

"That's dinner, err, Sarah," Vyce said. "She has graciously volunteered to answer the age-old question: can eating a mermaid's flesh grant immortality?"

Sato was shocked to the point of paralysis. Vyce snickered.

"Well, let's find out! Pull the rope, Jenny," he said. The succubus obliged with a smile.

The next few seconds went by like a blur. One blink, and the mermaid had been dipped in tempura batter; the next, she was rolled in rice and seaweed. In the next split second, blades came down from above to cut the mermaid into five similarly-sized pieces of sushi. It was all so fast that the screams lasted mere seconds before being cut off.

The most disturbing part was that the mermaid had been diced into sushi while still alive. Kuro had once told him of ikizukuri- a sort of sushi made by slicing a fish so fresh that it was still twitching when brought to the table - but that could not compare to what had been done to Sarah. Had he the desire, he could have seen her insides still pulsing in the rice, gasping like beached fish for the rest of their systems. The fish tail, now tempura-fried, flopped a few crumbs off every now and again. Her head cracked through the panko crumbs with a smile.

Had anyone been looking on, they would have seen the only dragon in existence to be completely dumbfounded by what he had just witnessed. His sharp jaws were slightly open, his eyes wide with sheer confusion.

"Oh, hello," Sarah said. "Would you like a bite?"

"Ah…hi," he said back. Should she not have been still squealing in agony from being diced into sushi?

"Please feel free to eat me, Sato,"  Sarah the mermaid said. "After all, I'll just grow things back anyways. It wouldn't be eternal punishment if I couldn't." Lo and behold, a new fish tail was already growing where the old one had been cut off. Sato winced.

"No thanks," he said. He was, frankly, freaked at the idea of eating a mermaid, let alone imparting more torture upon her.

"Well, that's a shame," Vyce said, taking a piece of the sushi into his own jaws. "Now I'll be the only one to know for sure if the rumors are true." He licked his fingers with a serpentine tongue. If Mark was there anymore, he was not doing anything to defy Vyce in his own body.

This was all insane. There was fire and brimstone everywhere. An innocent mermaid had just been made into tempura sushi, and Sato felt sorry for her even though she seemed to be touched in the head. Now, a demon was suggesting that he partake in torture himself. It was all completely maddening. Someone had to stop the madness, and the demons and mermaid were not going to cease anytime soon.

Sato sighed. Guess it's up to me.

"Shouldn't you both stop it?" he asked.

The demon turned to him. "Stop what?"

"The needless torture of an innocent mermaid."

"Oh, trust me," Vyce said, "she's so vain it hurts. Willing to take on all the sins of everybody ever? Really?" His curved fangs stood out against his black fur as he laughed. "What a joke. Luckily, she has a sense of humor."

Sato did not see what was so funny. Even if she supposedly wanted it, she was still suffering. How could anyone enjoy this sort of thing?

Some people are just that sick, Sato thought. He felt a growl rumbling in his throat; he was resisting the urge to -

He stopped. If he answered that demon with aggression, he would be sinking to the beast's level. The dragon in him wanted to fight regardless. He had to tell it "no," even though dragons were all but created to fight. It went against every sparking nerve in his body, but he wanted to stop the torture going on before him, not cause more pain. It took all of his willpower to keep himself from going nuts on Vyce.

Then again…had he not enjoyed suffering? Weren't there a few people whom he just wanted to see writhing in pain for what they had done? He had known for some time that he had a serious dark side, but would he ever resort to torturing another living soul?

No, he reminded himself. I have to be the sane one, here. I have to be the one to tell them to stop it. Then we can work on dealing with the real problem.

~

Unbeknownst to Sato, the yellow eye watched the goings-on from its own pocket world. It made no noise, but simply floated there, deep in meditation.

I do wonder why humans see suffering as entertainment, it thought. Logically, all beings wish to avoid suffering. Why do they feel the need to remind themselves that it exists?

It watched further. Yes, indeed, Sarah was regenerating everything. Much to Vyce's pleasure, she seemed to be much like a planarian; every bit of Sarah he had cut into sushi had started to grow into an entirely new mermaid. The demon's evil cogs began turning once again; he immediately conjured a monstrous, black dog with three heads and angry red eyes to gnash the screaming baby mermaids like chew toys. Sato kept chewing his own bit to keep himself from frying Vyce on the spot; surely there had to be another way to escape Hell, pass the time, or both.

If only they wouldn't be so amused by violence, the creature thought. Then they could make the world a better place instead. According to his calculations, it would be easy enough to feed the starving, cure arthritis, and research other life-saving measures if only the world was redirected that way.

That was its plan: to hack the world such that all resources would go to those good causes. It would not be breaking laws so much as pushing a fast forward button on everything. Yes, even the transformations it was doing were possible, despite what the current science said; had those people not heard of retroviruses, which by their own definition rewrote genes? Had humans not made a rabbit turn green, a most unnatural color for such an animal? Their supposed limits were lies limited only by their own fear and selfishness.

It vanished, silently, to do goodness knew what. In the meantime, a dragon tried to convince a demon to not turn a mermaid into jambalaya. Sato did not quite know what jambalaya was, and could not look it up on Wikipedia, but the mermaid suggested it and the demon thought it sounded like a good idea. The new mermaids squeaked like the hellhound chew toys they were while Vyce conjured various Cajun ingredients. All the while, Sato had to resist the urge to blast the both of them with white-hot energy…and resist dinner while he was at it.