The high of my new powers didn't last long.
Reality hit me the moment I looked at my bank account.
If I wanted to evolve—if I wanted to reach the level of a Silverback Gorilla or beyond—I needed resources.
I needed better food, specialized supplements, and a place to train where the neighbors wouldn't see me punching through brick walls.
My family was average. We weren't the Starks. We weren't even the Oscorps.
To get where I wanted to be, I needed capital.
And in New York, the fastest way to get untraceable cash was from those who shouldn't have had it in the first place.
I waited for the house to go silent.
I snuck out of my window and met the Council in our usual alley.
James, the rat, was already waiting, his whiskers twitching with greed.
"You want the green, kid? I know where the rats with two legs hide theirs," James squeaked through the link.
He gave me an address in a rough part of town—a stash house for low-level lifters who had just finished a score.
I pulled on a black hoodie and a mask, checking my reflection in a cracked window.
I looked like a common thug.
For a weapon, I grabbed a heavy steel pipe from a construction site.
It wasn't a Vibranium shield, but with my strength, it was more than enough.
I moved through the city like a ghost, tapping into the speed of the stray dogs and the silence of Selene.
I reached the scene just in time to see two men hauling heavy duffel bags into a secluded alley.
The smell of adrenaline and cheap tobacco filled the air.
Thanks to Hoot's enhanced hearing, I could hear them bragging about their score.
"Easy money, man. That clerk didn't even breathe."
My blood boiled. I wasn't just here for the cash anymore.
But as I stepped into the light, reality set in.
They had guns. I had a pipe.
One mistake, and my "Infinite Evolution" would end in a body bag.
I didn't give them a chance to react.
I tapped into the Ant's proportional strength and lunged.
Because of the fear and the lack of control, I swung the pipe with everything I had.
CRACK.
The first man didn't even scream.
The pipe connected with his temple, and his head... it didn't just bruise. It shattered.
He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
"WHAT THE—!"
The second robber screamed, fumbling for his 9mm.
Fear turned into a cold, sharp instinct.
I didn't wait for him to aim. I swung the pipe again, aiming for his midsection to stop him from firing.
I forgot how strong I actually was.
The steel pipe tore through his waist like a hot knife through butter.
The force was so immense that his upper body literally separated from his lower half.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I stood there, gasping for air, the heavy scent of copper filling my nose.
I grabbed the duffel bag—roughly $25,000 in cash—and bolted.
I didn't stop until I reached a dead-end three blocks away.
Then, I vomited.
It was disgusting, acidic, and filled with the shame of what I'd just done.
My first kill. Not one, but two.
Will they haunt me? Am I a monster?
The novels always made it seem so easy. The MC kills a bandit and moves on.
They lied.
The gore was burned into my retinas.
The feeling of the pipe meeting resistance and then... nothing. It was haunting.
I met the Council one last time before heading home.
They tried to console me in their own way—animals didn't view death the same way humans did—but it didn't help.
James and his crew agreed to help "dispose" of the evidence, dragging the remains into the deep sewers where nobody would find them for weeks.
I trashed the bloody hoodie in a dumpster three miles from my house.
I snuck back into my room, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"It was self-defense," I whispered to the empty room. "They were criminals. I had to."
But the other side of my brain whispered back: You attacked first. You chose this.
The guilt hit me like a tidal wave.
I stared at the stack of cash on my floor, feeling sick to my stomach.
I had the money for my evolution.
But I had lost a piece of my humanity to get it.
I collapsed onto my bed, the darkness finally claiming me, though my dreams were filled with the sound of cracking bone