This wet crimson bed grows beneath me. The pounds of building forming the mountain of my death grows. I hear my lovers sobs,

"Tristan!"

"It's okay!" I croaked "I can't feel it anymore."

"Tristan!" Jackson yelled, trying in vain to remove the rocks from atop of my dying form, "I'm going to get you out of there!"

"No," I said softly, "it's okay."

He gave up and I saw tears mixing with my blood. Catherine, the key to the world's safety sobbed over my crimson deathbed staining the marble floor. She croaked out a sob.

I chuckled blood, "You had graduated hadn't you Jackson? I was the only one who hadn't gotten you something. I was wanting to get you something worthwhile..." I struggled to hold my wrist up, "take my pendant. It will boost your electricity powers and remind you of me and all the time I used my plant powers to grow your stupid weed."

I coughed and the hum of drones got closer. Thunder... or missiles boomed in the distance... I couldn't tell anymore. I looked to Jackson,

"You... take care of her... you promise..."

"I promise," he nodded.

Gunshots drummed closer.

"Tristan!" Catherine sobbed as Jackson jumped atop the crumbling building.

Drones shot explosives at the remaining supports holding the half-fallen building up. I felt it from beneath me. I put my last efforts into lifting my bloodied hand,

"Go..."

The last I saw was Jackson pulling her to safety. I felt gravity kick in behind me before a blue light of some kind enveloped me...

-

I woke in a bed, bandages all around my body. They were so tight that I panicked for fear of being in a straight jacket. A man's voice boomed from next to me on my blind side,

"Relax. You're safe now."

"Where am I?!"

"Another dimension. In my abode."

I looked towards the man and he had long white hair, deep wrinkles and bifocals. He wore a lab coat but his skin was an unnatural ivory and very pale. I said,

"I need to get out of here! I need to help my friends!"

He laughed softly, "So eager to help your friends? Haven't you felt war? Let the symbiote of mine rebuild your body..."

I looked at him in confusion, and he added,

"If you left now you would be dead for sure."

"I've seen war! How long do I need to stay here?"

He smirked, "But you have had yet to feel it child. A week but time is different here so it will be about two days back in the earth dimension."

"Two days? A week here?! But-"

"Don't worry," he said injecting a syringe into the IV, "you'll sleep through most of it. And you will change the world..."

--------------------

I woke to a bone colored humanoid above me.

"Good God!"

"You were mumbling again. Don't worry..." three other bony heads came out of the ceiling in different places, "your secret's safe with us! Who are we gonna tell right?"

They all laughed.

"Where's the professor?"

The figure above me tried to roll its nonexistent eyes, they all were like living mannequins, or slender man without clothes or gender.

"At work." He... or it muttered.

"On what?!"

If it had a mouth it would be smiling evilly at the moment,

"A way we can move out my friend. A way we can move out..."

"You making friends Tristan?" The professor said as he came with another shot, "These symbiotic beings were here before I and my brother was. We were supers you see, he had the health and I had the brains."

"What happened to him?" I asked before he knocked me out again.

"Long story short. We had a few disagreements but he's still with me... and the symbiotes."

------------------------

I woke again, yesterday I had passed a fitness test. The symbiotic replacement of my right arm and chest cavity wasn't at full strength but I was able to fend off the other weird guys if they went easy on me. This time, one of those things faces popped up over me,

"Hey! I was visiting your old dimension and those people that you keep mumbling about are in trouble!"

I was up and running out the door of my room in five seconds. This small dimension had walls of stone that blocked it off from the earth dimension. I leapt to the closet one and slammed my new symbiotic fist into it. I created a dent but my arm rippled before falling apart in liquid hunks.

Don't worry, it didn't really hurt...

I cursed under my breath and the first symbiotic being I had met was behind me.

"Care for my help?" It said as it encased my partly healed body.

"Aren't you supposed to stay here with the professor?"

"Kid, there's plenty of 'me'. I'm awesome like that. Now. Try again."

I breathed a breath and then struck the rock wall. It crumbled like the wall of Jericho when my fist connected. I exclaimed,

"Yes!"

"Leaving so soon?" The professor muttered behind me.

"Thank you for everything. But it's been six and a half days. It's time."

He smirked as if he knew something I didn't, "You'll be back."

I scrunched my brow at him and continued onward, grabbing a black cloak on the way out, as my... suit told me where to go once I landed. I rushed through the city, a war-torn mess. Blood seeped from debris, dust caked everything and ashes kicked up from my feet as I ran faster than I did before I... well... died.

Despite the cloak's hood, I could feel the cold breeze and the humidity of dusk. With the cloak I thought I kinda looked like some Assassin's Creed knock-off.

The rain started to pick up and drones passed me overhead. I remembered that promise that Jackson had made with me, he'll protect her. He won't let her fall into enemy hands. Staticky images flickered through my mind and I heard Jackson's voice as he brushed Catherine's hair back and apologized with deep sorrow. Apologize for what?

Just a little farther!

Just a little longer!

Just a little until-

Jackson's hand was burnt through her middle, my pendant on his wrist. I stopped and the feelings were indescribable. I was coming back from the dead to help him protect Cat but what do I find? He wasn't failing me with losing to the soldiers, drones and supers outside, no it won't be their hand to harm her. Her protector! My friend! Burnt a hole in her guts!

"J-Jackson-" she croaked and coughed blood onto his face.

I was awe struck, grief and pain swallowing my humanity. He cradled her a moment and then let her fall back into the dirt. My insides grew numb, my vision turned red, my eyes began to glow red. I. Have. FELT. War.

Both my pendants glowed red as they gave me power. The symbiote uncoiled like a flower before tightening around my head only exposing my red eyes. I now look like Slender Man on a bloody mission.

"Crap! He did it!" One goon said.

"Boss ain't gonna be happy about this..." another commented.

Jackson fell into the dirt in exhaustion. The rain poured, drones whizzed over my head, and I screamed over the lightning and thunder.

"Who the hell is he?" I heard but my thoughts over took my hearing and tree branches uncontrollably burst out from me.

'What dimension is this?! My friend, who I gave power, trust and respect to has used my own powers to backstab me! And I couldn't do anything about it... just watch. No, the professor said I will change the world. I will not accept this world-

"No, I won't accept ANY OF IT!"

The lurch forward towards them was so quick, so forceful that the wind produced cut imprints into the cascade as I moved. A choppy trail was cut into the rain from my arms, and my feet thumped with unnatural force. My movements were animistic and robotic at the same time; inhuman, blood-drunken.

"You wanna piece of-"

Before he could answer I punched him with branches that impaled him and his friend at his flank. I caused the branches to grow more and I broke off the stump freeing my hand from the unnatural tree formation. The man was falling sloppily into four pieces as I went to the next who stumbled as I approached.

I summoned a branch from my sleeve and about stabbed him with it until I heard super-catchers trying to katana me from above. The blades went through me and into their comrade. Not because their blades were sharp but because the suit used its phasing affect from its home dimension.

Screaming, I performed a single round house kick that broke all three of their necks on contact. Then drones converged upon me as I blasted branches at them and expanded them after impact.

"Who the hell is this guy?!" One goon panicked.

"At least get boss the body, maybe the techs can salvage something from there."

I looked up at those going to defile Cathrine's body. I ran towards them, speed the same way as before. Guns cocked and a goon yelled,

"Shoot him!"

All of the sudden a hundred guns were onto me... and I wasn't afraid. Blood followed in my wake, not because the bullets hit me but because I phased out yet again. Before reaching my objective I passed completely through someone. Blood had showered me as I cut through the rain and the bullets went through me and into their comrades as if I didn't exist.

Branch in hand I threw it at the soldier closest to her body and it hit with such force that a trail of droplets followed him. I expanded the branch and blew him to pieces as an afterthought and closed in on the other soldier. Screaming in blind madness I punched his helmet, buried my knee into his chest cavity with a nauseating crunch, and punched him back into the ground as his helmet that can take a 50. cal shattered into pieces at my feet.

I picked him up by his head, my vision red as it crunched betwixt my fingers. I tossed his body aside as tanks and supers surrounded me. I went over to Catherine and about wept at her crimson deathbed being swept away by the rain. No, I won't accept any of this...

I slowly raised my red eyes to the soldiers coming up to me.

"Stand down!" An announcer said from a tank and an attack helicopter whopped overhead, focusing its light upon this lopsided tree/symbiote/human monster I have become. No, I don't accept being human anymore either. I am a demon and this dimension is hell.

"We can talk this out!" A soldier said fearing that I would throw a tree-spike through his head...

Well... that's what I did.

Before one could blink I threw branches into the tanks barrels with a wave of my hand, and with the clutching of my fist I expanded them.

"Fire!"

When the tanks shot they exploded and sent everyone else staggering. In insanity, I borderline teleported to the nearest living soldier and twisted and pried his head from his shoulders. I turned and chunked it at the helicopter, smashing into the cab before it shot its machine guns.

A super tried to freeze me but I ran to him. His eyes widened as his life flashed before his eyes and I took it with a branch through his chest. I expanded it into a prop and water splashed violently upward from my footsteps to the next mortal. Muzzle flashes illuminated my blood covered visage as thorn-like blades grew from my sleeves and I decapitated two soldiers.

More tanks and supers approached but I wasn't done. I phased inside the tanks I ran across and left a little tree inside... before violently popping the tanks inside-out. A super threw flames at me and I impaled him. Squads fired, the helicopter fired rockets, tanks shot artillery and supers shot elemental, mystical and physical projectiles all at once, swallowing me up in smoke.

Thunder boomed and all were still, trying to see into the smoke. Fear clung herself to them once they saw my form and visage still intact. Not even a tear in the cloak that I borrowed from the mysterious professor's dimension.

"What. Is. He?!" One screamed utterly perplexed.

Lightning struck and thunder boomed as I peered around at the useless mortals around me. I grow sick of these games, and the fight only affected my power on a rather minuscule scale. My eyes burned in anger, rage, hate but my insides screamed of loss, grief, and despair. Root-like branches dug into the ground as all around me watched in confused awe. 'Am I a demon?' They likely thought.

The roots shot upward as soon as I had them ready and took down or impaled everything breathing around me. The helicopters crashed and burned as the water beneath my feet began to turn completely red. I walked past all the propped bodies, cold, emotionless, until I got back to Catherine and Jackson. I hadn't killed him...

But he's to low in my sight now.

My knees splashed next to Catherine and my symbiote suit uncoiled so I could touch her with my bare hand.

"I'm going to change this." I promised, "I will make a world where we can be together again... forever."