Chapter 22: Ritual of Dominance
The basement gym air hung thick and stale, tasting of iron, old sweat, and dust motes dancing in the weak beams cast by the single, flickering fluorescent tube overhead. Brick leaned against the cold concrete wall, arms crossed, the knuckles of his fists white. Mauler shifted beside him, a mountain of restless muscle, his usual grin replaced by a look of focused intensity. The only sounds were their own breathing and the low, continuous hum emanating from the ancient projector Brick had hauled down here, its beam casting swirling, hypnotic patterns onto the wall opposite the two figures kneeling on the worn rubber mats.
Ethan and Dale knelt rigidly. Their breath came in ragged gasps, sweat already slicking their skin despite the basement chill. The borrowed clothes – Dale’s stretched jersey, Ethan’s sweatpants – were damp patches of fabric clinging to shifting landscapes beneath. The pendants around their necks, usually a subtle pulse, were beginning to glow. Not warm, but searing. Like chips of the sun pressed against their flesh.
"Final upgrade, recruits," Brick announced, his voice cutting through the hum. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. The command was a key turning in a lock. "Embrace the strength. Become the machine."
As if his words were gasoline on embers, the pendants exploded with light. Not a flash, but a sustained, agonizing incandescence that burned through the thin fabric of their shirts, etching the strange symbols onto their skin. Ethan cried out, a raw, guttural sound ripped from a throat unused to such volume. Dale merely grunted, a deep vibration in his chest, his head snapping back as if struck.
The light wasn't just outside. It was inside. Pouring into their eyeballs, searing down nerve pathways, filling their skulls with a deafening, rhythmic chant that drowned out thought, drowned out fear, drowned out them.
Secure the ball. Drive the line. Break the tackle. Secure the ball. Drive the line. Break the tackle.
It wasn't voices anymore. It was the pulse of their own blood, the hammering of their hearts, the fundamental rhythm of existence rewritten in rugby plays.
Ethan convulsed. His back arched impossibly. Tendons stood out like cables on his neck, his arms, his thighs. The borrowed sweatpants groaned, the sound of stressed threads popping one by one. Muscle swelled, pushing against skin, thickening his neck, broadening his shoulders with terrifying speed. A dark, coarse shadow sprouted across his chest and down his abdomen, thickening rapidly. His jawline hardened, squared off like chiseled stone. He clawed at his face, fingers thick and clumsy, knocking his thick glasses askew. They clattered to the mat. The world blurred, then sharpened with impossible clarity – the swirling light patterns, the grain of the rubber mat, Brick’s focused stare across the room. He saw without them. Crystal clear. It was terrifying.
Secure the ball. Drive the line. Break the tackle.
The chant was a physical force, a drill boring into his consciousness, reshaping it. He felt his old self – the physics equations, the awkwardness, the quiet yearning – shattering like glass. Panic surged, pure and primal. No. This isn't me. The charge… the fields… the force vectors… it’s all wrong! He gasped, trying to cling to the ghost of Einstein Finch. He managed to turn his head, muscles screaming in protest against the overwhelming growth and the mental onslaught. His gaze locked onto the projector. The source. The machine doing this. If he could just… break it…
A tremor ran through him. He could break it. He could feel the power humming in his transformed limbs, coiled like springs. He gathered himself, a spark of defiance flaring in his unnaturally clear eyes. He started to lunge forward, off his knees, towards the whirring box.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder. Hard. Not Brick's. Not Mauler's. It was enormous, thick-fingered, covered in the same coarse dark hair that now covered Ethan’s own chest. Dale.
Dale, who now seemed to fill the space beside him like a piece of living architecture. His lanky frame was gone, replaced by a dense, powerful bulk that made the strained rugby jersey look like a child's top. His neck was a tree trunk, his shoulders impossibly wide. His long hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat. But his eyes, usually hidden or distant behind screens, were fixed on Ethan. Not with his old friend’s quiet concern, but with a focused intensity that mirrored the chant in their heads. Yet beneath it, a flicker. A ghost of confusion, of struggle.
Ethan froze, caught between the searing command in his skull and the raw, physical restraint. Dale didn’t shove him down. His grip tightened, immense pressure threatening bone, but then… it shifted. His massive hand moved slowly, deliberately, down Ethan’s arm. Across the thick, newly defined bicep bulging against torn fabric. Over the dense curve of his deltoid. A rough, calloused palm rasping against sweat-slicked skin and wiry hair. It wasn't aggressive. It was… possessive. Reassuring. A grounding force.
Secure the ball. Drive the line. Break the tackle. The chant pounded, syncing with the feel of Dale’s hand.
The touch sent a jolt through Ethan that had nothing to do with pain. It was heat, intense and confusing, flooding his core, warring with the icy fear and the relentless mental drill. He gasped, the defiance snuffed out, replaced by a surge of something else – a terrifying, magnetic pull towards the solidity of Dale beside him. His body, responding to the chant and the touch, shuddered, not with resistance, but with a terrifying, involuntary acceptance. A low moan escaped his lips, part agony, part something else entirely.
Dale’s eyes held Ethan’s. The flicker was stronger now, a brief storm of bewilderment in the depths before the hypnotic chant smoothed it over, replaced by that focused, predatory stillness. His thumb rubbed a slow, rough circle on the swell of Ethan’s shoulder muscle. "Steady, Einstein," Dale rumbled. His voice was a deep bass vibration, alien yet familiar, the nickname sounding strange and intimate in the new timbre. "Hold the line."
The words, a perfect echo of the script, hit Ethan like another command. The chaotic swirl of panic and unwanted attraction collapsed under the sheer weight of the programming. His vision tunneled. The projector hum. The chant. Dale’s hand, a heavy, anchoring weight on his shoulder. His own immense, alien body humming with power. It all fused into a single, undeniable reality.
He slumped, the fight draining out of him as completely as if a plug had been pulled. His head bowed, sweat dripping from his chin onto the mat. The pendant’s light, still fierce, seemed to pulse in time with his slowing, deepening breaths. The transformation settled. The new muscles, thick and hard, ceased their visible writhing. The coarse hair covered his chest and arms like armor. He was… complete. A perfect, terrifying instrument.
Dale finally removed his hand, the absence of its weight and heat leaving a strange hollow. He too seemed solidified, a monolith of muscle where a quiet coder had been. He flexed one massive hand, staring at it with that same unnerving blend of focused intensity and lingering confusion.
Mauler let out a low whistle, shaking his head. "Holy shit, Brick. Absolute beasts." He sounded awed, a little apprehensive.
Brick pushed off the wall. He walked forward, his steps echoing in the suddenly quiet gym. The projector’s hum seemed louder now, the swirling patterns mesmerizing. He stopped before them. Ethan’s discarded glasses lay near his knee, lenses cracked. Brick nudged them aside with his boot.
He looked down at the two kneeling giants, no longer awkward recruits but engines of pure physical power sculpted by his design. The unease that had twisted inside him upstairs, seeing the bent fork, was still there, a cold knot in his gut. The sheer, volatile force they now embodied was terrifying. One wrong command… one glitch…
But looking at them – the brutal efficiency of Dale’s new form, the dense, explosive power packed into Ethan, their eyes now reflecting the unwavering obedience he’d programmed – the fear was overridden by a surge of triumph so potent it was dizzying. This would work. They would win.
He crouched, bringing his face level with theirs. His voice was low, calm, absolute. "Stand."
Like puppets whose strings snapped taut, Ethan and Dale rose in perfect unison. Muscles bunched and flowed under sweat-sheened skin. They towered over him now, radiating heat and raw power, but their posture was subservient. Waiting. The pendants glowed steadily beneath the torn fabric.
Brick stood. He met Dale’s focused gaze, then Ethan’s unnervingly clear one. He saw the lingering disorientation, the ghost of other thoughts buried deep, but saw them smothered, contained by the golden light and the relentless chant now permanently echoing in their skulls.
"Welcome," Brick said, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across his face, "to the Ascension Rugby Club." He turned towards the stairs, the heavy tread of his two new weapons falling into step behind him without a word. Pawns? Maybe. But they were his pawns. And they were power incarnate. The basement door opened, spilling weak light down the stairs. The game was about to change forever.