Justice of the Church

Dr. Edward Shaw threw his dirtied gloves into the sanitary disposal receptical. One of the assistant surgeons- Jacob, an overzealous young doctor barely out of medical school- clapped Edward on the back enthusiastically. “You've still got it doctor! It's good to have you back in surgery- you know- holding the knife rather than under it!”

Edward just grunted. He couldn't do much else, since his jaw was still wired shut, but he wouldn't have answered much differently even if that had not been the case. He was still healing, but that wouldn't keep him out of commission. He was a man of action, not of words. Even the three weeks he had been forced to rest after the surgery to reattach his jaw had been torture.

Jacob, unsure of how to interpret his reply, was still grinning stupidly, his face mask dangling around his neck. “Anyways, have a great evening at home doc!”

Edward grunted again noncommittally and removed his own face mask revealing the jagged scar that started at each corner of his mouth and traveled to the back f his jaw and curved down to meet under his chin, near his throat. The mask rubbed uncomfortably against the healing skin. He would have a pleasant evening, but it wouldn't be at his home; he was going to spend his free time working on the specimen.

When he could be certain that he would have the elevator to himself, Edward pressed the down button. When the elevator arrived, he inserted his key in the special operations key hole and turned it to the left, ensuring that the elevator would only stop at the floor he specified. Next, Shaw typed in his access code and was on his way down to the lower levels of the basement and the location of his private and discrete laboratory.

*ding*

Peggy and John were waiting for him when the elevator door opened again, chatting about the state of the church. The doctor unlocked the door to the lab, and went straight to check the vital signs of the mutant and record them.

“Normal,” the nurse told the justice. “Fascinating, considering the circumstances. It's healing ability is quite remarkable. No matter what, it heals again. It had a broken neck when we first brought it here; that healed in a bout a week, which was incredible enough, but it's healing has gotten faster since then. It may have used up a great deal of its energy during the attack. The healing speed seems to have leveled out now, at about two hours to heal a broken neck.

It also seems to have a never ending supply of blood. And the blood itself has very interesting properties. The plasma is more of a silver color than the normal amber, which gives the blood an iridescent look. It neutralizes toxins and drugs quickly, and even viruses have had no effect on blood samples.”

Edward nodded and continued his work silently. There were so many experiments he wanted to try on this remarkable specimen. So far he had already measured how fast it could heal from various wounds, and had even discovered that it could regenerate missing body parts, as was evidenced by freakish white lion's tail that had already regained half of its original length.

Shaw had monitored the specimen's brain throughout the experiments and had been delighted to discover that the specimen could still feel pain despite the remarkable healing abilities. He had also discovered a negative correlation between the level consciousness and the amount of healing that was needed. After that discovery it had been easy to make sure the specimen remained unconscious, without using anesthetics.

The corners of Edward's mouth twitched painfully as he considered which experiment he would try next. Drowning? Fire? What exactly could this freak live through? The doctor figured that the specimen could probably occupy his attention for years before he finished figuring out exactly what made it tick.

His painful smile reminded him of another oddity about the creature. His own healing had sped up since he started working with the mutant. Whenever he brushed against the specimen's skin or touched it, his own jaw tingled with a icy fire, as if the mutant's cells recognized that it hadn't finished its job. Edward wished he could experiment with letting it heal completely, but it would be too noticeable. He was also curious to see if he could do something about the nurse's legs, but Peggy refused to touch the thing that lay restrained on the cold table.

Perhaps for his next experiment, he would see how well the freak could heal when it was awake. Yes, that thought made him happy, if such a word could be attributed to the gruff doctor. He readied a syringe filled with adrenaline and prepared to inject it into the mutant. Perhaps a little jump start would wake it up.

All was quiet in the secret laboratory of Dr. Edward Shaw in the bowels of St. Job’s Hospital. The doctor himself was softly snoring hunched over his desk, all tuckered out after poking, prodding, and electrocuting his latest science experiment and spending several hours happily analyzing the results.

Sebastian was quite awake, having had plenty of sleep recently as well as several types of physical and chemical energy coursing through his body earlier that evening. His body had fairly efficiently repaired the damage from the electricity, but the adrenaline, being a substance natural to his body, was taking its sweet time wearing off.

Sebastian’s muscles were sore from the long period of time he had spent in the same position. Metal restraints held each of his limbs in place and bit into his skin. For some reason, his tail was still stinging with icy healing energy that seemed out of place. Sebastian shook the thought out of his head and focused on listening to the doctor’s snores.

The man called Ed had been snoring for at least 20 minutes now. Sebastian figured it was time to leave. He wasn’t going to take the abuse lying down, at least not now that he was awake. In his gradual way, Sebastian began to shift to a younger – and smaller – version of himself. The years melted off of him, and within a few minutes his hands and feet were small enough to slip out of the metal restraints that had held him to the cold metal table. With his newly liberated hands, Sebastian pulled off the sticky pads that were monitoring his various bodily functions. The heart monitor flat lined and emitted a quiet, but steady beeeeeep. Luckily the doctor did not wake up.

Sebastian peered over the edge of the table, which now seemed much taller than it had been before. Slowly, he put his feet over the edge and slid as far down as he could, letting himself drop the last 30 cm to the floor. He landed softly on bare feet and glanced around the darkened lab with wide eyes. It seemed darker and creepier now. The only light came from the computer monitor and the small lights on strange machines whose purpose Sebastian could only guess.

Finally, after nervously taking the keys from the snoring doctor’s belt, Sebastian had managed to make it out the locked laboratory and to the elevator. No special code was required to ascend from the basement, and Sebastian soon found himself headed toward the ground floor.

As he waited for the elevator to reach its destination, Sebastian examined himself in the full-length mirror that made up the back wall of the elevator. Peering back at him from the mirror with wide, innocent, blue eyes was the face of a pale eight-year-old boy. His white hair was unkempt, and his bangs kept falling in front of his eyes. For once, Sebastian’s chin lacked any sort of facial hair. In the center of his forehead was the barest beginning of a white spiral horn, barely 2 cm long. His body was, as usual, without scars. Sebastian spun around. He’d need to pick up some clothes somewhere. It wouldn’t do to run around as a naked child, not in this day and age. Then he noticed something amiss.

My tail!