The world became a blur as I zoomed up beyond the Karman line and reached space. There, I zipped east, crossing the Atlantic in less than ten minutes and reaching the Strait of Gibraltar that split Spain from Africa. Right then and there, I crossed from day to night.
Though, the night wasn't as dark as one might imagine. Because of the glow from the molten Moon, the night was much brighter and everything had a hint of eerie red.
It's almost creepy. The red glowing Moon high up in the sky, painting the world red like it was the prelude to an apocalypse…
Nonetheless, I continued traveling, making a beeline toward the Arabian peninsula where SCP-682 escaped. In only three minutes, I was now above Cairo and the Nile River.
It was dark. The place that always seemed to shine the brightest on the night side of the Earth was now completely dark as though someone had placed a blanket all over it.
I felt a sadness consume me. Egypt, one of the oldest civilizations in the World, is now gone, wiped away from existence with the only monument to it being the empty cities I now fly over.
I stopped above it.
There, I descended through the atmosphere and my feet touched the banks of the Nile River.
"This place… is one of the cradles of civilization," I said somberly, as though performing a eulogy, "Your ancestors were some of those who fought against the encroachment of the Daevite Empire and the Sarkic religion. You were all successful, yet now thousands of years later, the Sarkites won. They played the long game and won. And now your descendants are turned into Sarkic monsters by their leader."
I reached down and took a handful of sand. I slowly let the sand escape through the gaps between my fingers.
Kneeling down, my hand easily dug into the sand and dirt. There, I began to dig out a grave.
With Kukulkan's strength, doing such a thing was easy and took me no more than five minutes.
There, I pushed the dirt back into the empty grave, forming a small mount.
"You have my greatest respect. The First Hero of Mankind, you who purposefully and willingly erased yourself from everything. You sacrificed your everything for the sake of mankind, but it was all for naught as Ion foresaw you and took you out first. Given how you erased your name from history, I shall call you 'Gilgamesh'."
This was an unmarked and empty grave. Yet I still felt compelled to give him a bit of a gravestone. Something to mark that there was something here.
It may not be a monument worthy of such a great man but it will do for now.
So I dug up a bit of wet sand from the riverbed and built Gilgamesh a small unnamed gravestone.
"Rest well. Away from this hell."
With that, I looked around me, at this river filled with the sound of flowing water, devoid of any humans.
I can almost hear the ghostly laughter of children playing in the water. For thousands of years the Nile has sustained life and civilization, but now with the water cycle gone, in a few months, it would dry up. It would all dry up.
All lakes and rivers would dry up as they're evaporated by the rays coming from the sun.
"All of you. All of you humanity. Though I may not have been able to save any of you… I will avenge you. I will kill Grand Karcist Ion. No matter what I do, the Founder of Sarkicism will die for turning you all into this. So swears Kukulkan. So swears me."
I heard slobbering sounds in the distance. Without even looking at it, I conjured up a small ball of plasma next to me and sent it that way.
There was a distant flash of light. The sound wouldn't reach me for another second.
*Boom*
There it is.
Then, I took off, leaving this grave to Gilgamesh, this grave to the greatest man I've ever known.
I headed towards the Arabian peninsula. Reaching and crossing the Sinai peninsula that separated Israel and Egypt in seconds, I touched Saudi airspace by the half-minute mark.
With a coat of fire surrounding my body, I flew across Saudi Arabia. As I did this, I tried to remember where exactly the facility that housed SCP-682 was situated.
Supposedly, the Foundation built this facility with the aid of the Americans. The report Bright gave me specifically emphasized how empty Saudi Arabia is, and how not only could they house SCP-682, but that facility could also serve as a forward operating base for monitoring the Office For The Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts, Iran's paramilitary wing designed to deal with anything anomalous.
I flew across this place in a high atmosphere to cover as much ground as possible. According to the file, the facility the Foundation housed SCP-682 in was south of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
Hrmm…
My eyes furrowed as I spotted an utterly massive sandstorm that's over a thousand kilometers long and hundreds wide blanketing where the facility was said to be. It stretched all the way from the north of Riyadh down to the Saudi-Yemen border.
If this happened naturally, it would be a record-breaking sandstorm that would baffle scientists.
Annoying. I was planning to check the facility and then follow the trail of destruction caused by SCP-682 as it moved.
This sandstorm would seriously hamper that by covering up his tracks. Even if I used the Pan-Human History me's Authority over the storms, I'd still wipe away SCP-682's tracks.
Sands are loose after all.
So instead I decided to start circling the sand storm, checking for any trails that weren't ruined by the wind.
The air screamed as I traveled around this enormous sandstorm. With my speed, I flew multiple laps around the whole thing and even then I couldn't find any tracks that looked like they could be made by a giant lizard.
Perhaps SCP-682 somehow adapted a way of creating this sandstorm to shield himself from the sun's rays? It is entirely within the realm of possibility given how ridiculously adaptive he can become.
Gaining possession of Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind, I started crisscrossing the sandstorm to try and find if SCP-682 was inside.
A smile appeared on my face as I found an unnaturally smooth void inside the sandstorm. Shape-wise, it's like a giant turtle with a spiky shell the size of a house that constantly releases bits of static electricity to maintain this sandstorm.
I flew towards it, piercing through the veil of yellow sand and smashing into the thing in less than a second.
A tall fountain of sand erupted all around me and SCP-682 when I crashed into it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH."
A horrible scream broke the silence of the early, sunless morning. It sounded so human that I temporarily wondered if I had hit the wrong person before I felt the air move as a long, thick tail smashed into me.
As though I were a knife, that tail broke in two went it smashed into me with greater force than SCP-682's muscles could handle.
I was perfectly fine.
"You bitch!" SCP-682 roared as he did a backward swipe at me with one of his claws.
The keratin claws shattered like an ice statue thrown from the third story of a building when it made contact with my skin. It wasn't built to stand up to the force SCP-682 was exerting, nor could it hope to ever pierce through my skin.
As SCP-682 screamed from the broken nails, I took a moment to fully take in the damage I had done.
A large portion of the turtle-like structure of SCP-682 was gone, liquified by my rapid crash into the beast. I mean, there are only thin threads of meat connecting the two halves of SCP-682's body.
The lizard turned around full and ripped those remaining strands of meat. There, the thing opened its wide maw and tried to bite down on me.
A single punch and the head of SCP-682 were demolished. His upper body went flying from the force behind that punch as I was simultaneously doused in the lizard's blood.
I gotta end this quickly. Between the two of us, SCP-682 has the greater advantage in terms of adaptability and limitless regeneration if the fight drags on for too long. Continue to press this advantage.
I took off, the blood of the lizard flying off my body with the speed I was moving at.
Before SCP-682's remains could reach the very peak of its arc and start to fall downward, I caught up to it and threw another punch.
*Boom*
It flew even faster. I continued to fly towards SCP-682 as it gained altitude.
Drawing my hands back, I could see how SCP-682's gained a new shell of odd discoloration. Punching the lizard, I immediately figured out that it was meant to be a harder, non-biological outer shell to protect it both from the light of the steadily rising sun in the distance and from my hits.
The shell broke like a panel of glass upon coming into contact with my fist moving so fast that air burned around it.
With every hit, the air screamed. With every hit, the reptile screamed. With every hit, SCP-682 adapted further to resist physical attacks. With every hit, I noticed how he never appears to have full immunity like he does with esoteric effects.
Was this similar to how he's never able to fully adapt to acid? Because physical force counts as 'mundane' to him? Or that the acid would never fully kill him unlike say SCP-409?
SCP-682 crashed into an empty Kuwait City, knocking over dozens of skyscrapers like bowling pins before finally stopping when a communication tower collapsed right on top of him. Tall plumbs of dirt that reached over a kilometer into the air came out from the devastation brought about by SCP-682's crash-landing, causing hundreds of millions if not billions of damages.
I would've been more careful to keep the fight inside the desert, but since the sun killed almost everyone, I didn't have to care too much aside from ensuring maps wouldn't have to be updated to match the changes I brought.
I hovered beside the plumb of dust that rose from the collapsed communication tower, and I waited.
I waited and waited and waited. I waited for minutes to see if SCP-682 would rise again.
He didn't. So now I sat on the roof of a nearby skyscraper and waited for Foundation staff to come to collect their escaped SCP.
I waited for over ten minutes and still no one came. Do they need me to give a signal or something? Couldn't the Foundation have detected me with their clairvoyance? I was sure I didn't purchase Trace Defense.
As the sun rose above the horizon and the crimson sky replaced the darkness of night, I found myself being… bored.
So I decided to conjure up some plasma and play around with it.
The heat that came from the plasma shattered the nearby windows as they caused the gravel roof underneath my feet to slowly melt like chocolate chips placed inside an oven.
I dispelled them. Too destructive.
So instead I occupied my time to view my surroundings. Kuwait City. You know, for being an oil-exporting nation Kuwait City is kinda lacking compared to places like Dubai or Riyadh. Everything's pretty broken down, poor almost, and there's a significant lack of any modern steel and concrete spires that scrapes the sky.
It was only by the 15th minute of no activity from underneath the rubble did I thought that something was wrong.
I flew down and used Quetzalcoalt's Authority over the wind to pick up every single piece of rubble and debris. Then, I threw them all a kilometer north into the sea.
"Motherfucker."
There was a small hole in the ground. SCP-682 used the rubble as a shield and dug deep into the ground.
I flew down next to the hole, finding it to be about the size of a basketball, too small for me to enter.
Matters not.
I cracked my neck and flew high into the air to the point where the skyscrapers nearby appeared to be like toddlers surrounding their big sister. Then, I turned around, with my head facing the ground before, I blasted down into the hole.
Against an overpowering force, the ground will appear like liquid as it parts to give way. Through sheer unstoppable brute force, I widened the hole and forced myself in deeper and deeper.
As I do, I can't help but feel the phantom sensation of that flesh sarcophagus. Memories of the fight against SCP-343 resurfaced.
I ignored that feeling and those memories, continuing to dig deeper. Yet instead of disappearing, that feeling of crushing claustrophobia and the memories of my being defiled was only becoming stronger and stronger the deeper I entered into this hole until finally, I couldn't help myself anymore.
I'm trapped. I'm not trapped. I'm trapped! I'm not trapped. I'm trapped!
I have to get out of here.
My instincts took over and clouded my mind. I blitzed in the opposite direction of where gravity was pulling me. Moving through over a hundred meters of dirt I took a huge gasp of air when I finally reached the surface with the morning sun bearing down on my body.
I look down at the hole I made with an expression of disappointment. What the hell, Kukulkan? Are you seriously still troubled by that flesh sarcophagus? I asked myself.
I gulped. I was.
I looked down at my hands. My still shaking hands.
I glared at them. Why am I still afraid? I reasonably should not fear such a thing. I wasn't even harmed by it!
I ignored the fear and returned to seeing below me. This thing… SCP-682 is still tunneling underground.
Closing my eyes, I took hold of Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind and began to monitor for any concentrations of air molecules underground.
Once I found a long tunnel filled with air, I began to move until I found SCP-682 about five hundred meters further north of the collapsed communication tower. The lizard was just about to enter Kuwait Bay and presumably escape via the ocean.
I don't allow it.
Conjuring up a massive ball of plasma that softened the ground around me, I was just about to drill underground before something caught the corner of my eye.
It was one of those flesh blobs Ion had corrupted, only it didn't appear like a bundle of stitched-up humans but instead was far more coherent than that.
The fused human thing stood on two legs with two arms off to the sides. It had long, and thin limbs that looked like the person was suffering from starvation. But most unsettling of all was the head.
It was a head full of eyes. Dozens upon dozens of eyes that covered every inch of its head. It didn't even have a nose, mouth, ears, or hair. It just had eyes.
It was so unsettling that I dispelled the plasma as my mouth gapped.
"Oh god that's creepy," I muttered under my breath.
It was a nightmare creature.
Then, it began to scream. It screeched its horrible scream that sounded like a human dying painfully as it lumbered towards me. My eyebrow twitched as I raised a hand and burned it using Tohil's Authority over fire.
Is Ion waging psychological warfare now? By making its units appear extra creepy to try and attack my psyche?
Without answering that I returned to blasting the ground with a stream of plasma. It was loud as the vaporized remains of rocks and asphalt escaped. The road for a hundred meters around the plasma drill glowed shades of white, yellow, orange, and then red.
I was making considerable progress. Ten seconds in, and I already pierced through about ten meters worth of earth.
Not fast enough.
The plasma became even hotter, and in response, it got even louder as more vaporized remains of rocks and asphalt escaped into the air.
Nonetheless, I stopped once I hit SCP-682 with the plasma drill.
I didn't want to do too much damage with my plasma to get SCP-682 used to it.
Just as I was about to enter this hole of molten walls, I found myself staring at my reflection in the face of a mirror. The mirror stood perfectly fine and unscratched at the bottom of a hole where its walls were of molten rocks.
Huh?
Then, that mirror began to fly upward with exhaust following closely behind it.
SCP-682 just turned itself into a rocket. An organic rocket.
I caught the thing before it could fly away somewhere north of here into Iraq.
SCP-682 then promptly shed its outer shell of super reflective material and started flying away.
Why is it trying to enter into Iraq?
I raised a hand and sent forth a coherent stream of plasma that appeared like a laser to any other observer.
SCP-682 was pushed along by the blast plasma but was otherwise entirely unharmed.
Well, shit. I caught up to SCP-682 with ease. From there, I decided to use physical force and smashed the transformed lizard down to the earth with my two hands intertwined with each other.
SCP-682 smashed into the beaches of Kuwait on the other side of the Bay away from Kuwait City. Digging itself out of the sands, the thing took on the appearance of something that resembled a velociraptor and began legging it with impressive speed further north.
It was really trying to get into Iraq. Why is that? Why is SCP-682 trying to get into Iraq?
Wasn't 682 supposed to be really hostile to all life?
Out of sheer curiosity, I began to let the lizard move and see exactly where he was going.
SCP-682 entered Iraq in less than ten minutes. It was moving at speeds that put most modern cars to shame.
As the sun bore down on it, I could see how parts of SCP-682 began to melt, yet it didn't seem to have fully consumed it. Instead, any melted flesh was jettisoned right off the main body like the empty fuel containers of the Saturn V.
Ablative armor in a sense, but biological.
SCP-682 jumped across the Euphrates River and— wait a bloody second.
Before I could finish that thought, a booming telepathic message echoed across my mind. Appearing as this voice inside my head, the message said, "THE SNAKE RETURNS."
SCP-682 stops and bows in reverence, "As promised by your master, the world has ended, now return me to the garden."
"WHO ARE YOU?"
It took a few seconds to realize that the message wasn't aimed at SCP-682 but instead at me.
I could feel a pair of eyes watching me, even when I looked around and I couldn't see the Gate Guardian anywhere.
"WHO ARE YOU, [ALIEN/OUTSIDER]?"