Or: Screw the Rules! I’m an Immortal Lizard-Beast From Hell!

Drake awoke in chains, groggy and disoriented, and absolutely covered in blood. He was also naked, the shreds of his previous outfit lying on the floor some few meters away. Thankfully, he had a blanket to protect his modesty from any prying eyes.

He groaned, silently wondering just what the hell had happened to him. Hell, even his tail hurt for some reason.

‘Tail? Oh… right…. I got…. right...’

He mumbled to himself, still faintly incoherent, though recovering swiftly. After a good thirty seconds, he was awake enough to observe his surroundings.

The same room he’d been in, with a massive, brutalized corpse stinking up the corner near the door. Same platforms, same concrete floor, though a lot of the room was shattered in areas, including the observation windows. Steel chains on his wrists, attaching him to his cot. And finally, a layer of blood so thick so as to completely obscure most of flesh crusted over his arms, torso, and judging by the smell and feel, his face as well. And strangely enough, his tail.

Looking around further, he noticed the swarm of people running around, trying desperately to fix the strange amount of damages that had happened to his room. Finally fed up with the amount of questions he had, Drake hissed in irritation, blinking his six eyelids in irritation before shouting, “Hey, anyone wanna tell me just what the FUCK happened in here!?”

All activity froze in an instant, with the sole exception of one person hastily whispering something he couldn’t make out into a walkie talkie.

“Shit, the anomaly is awake! Everyone, containment positions!” Some scientist shouted, a frenzy of activity following as each and every person, from the armored guards to the hazmat outfitted janitors, moving into predefined positions.

“Alright everyone, hold out until the Head Researcher arrives; I’m going to initiate first contact. Guards, cover me.” The scientist strode forward, examining a clipboard as he walked, wings fluttering slightly and a thin sheen of sweat forming.

Drake did nothing but stare, his forked, blue tongue flickering in and out of his mouth and tasting the unlucky scientist’s scent.

‘This guy smells… like formaldehyde and blood. There’s also an underlying scent that says… truthfulness? What the fuck?’

He kept his opinion to himself as the doctor drew near, only huffing out an irritated, “So, you gonna tell me what the hell happened and why I’m naked and covered in blood?”

The man’s wings ruffled as he gulped, clearly intimidated by the blood smeared youth in front of him. “A-ah… as far as we can tell, from what one witness managed to report… you… you transformed into some kind of large beast and killed the AEC that was chasing our witness. We found you curled up naked around her, both of you were unconscious, however….”

“I was WHAT!?” The scream that came out of Drake’s mouth was more akin to a screeching roar, such was its volume. It even managed to blow the scientist back a few steps.

“Ease up there, pardner. Ain’t nobody sayin’ ya did nothin’ too bad.” A new voice cut into the conversation, the rookie scientist scampering away while a new person walked into the room, outfitted in farm clothes and a lasso.

“... Who are you?” Drake asked, confused at the seemingly out of place woman in front of him.

“Ah’m Applejack, but you can call me AEC 3. Now don’t you be messin’ with any’a the fine people round here, ‘r I’m gonna hafta take exception t’that.” The smile never left Applejack’s face, not even when she threateningly cracked her knuckles in Drake’s face.

He leaned back slightly, even though some instinct inside of him was telling him to rip off her pretty little face, and hissed, third eyelids forming protective shells over his eyes.

“What’n the-!?”

“Fascinating!” Another voice broke in, this time a considerably more at ease scientist, who knocked away the scary farm girl and proceeded to invade Drake’s personal space while everyone else in the room shifted awkwardly.

“Gah!” Obviously, Drake was rather uncomfortable with the situation, as evidenced by his toes clawing gouges into the floor, his fingers clawing into his cot, and his tail slicing deeply into the wall behind him. Oh, and the hiss involuntarily emanating from his throat, as well as the rapid blinking of his nictitating membrane, along with the rapid flickering of his tongue.

Twilight was manic, examining every last feature of the anomalous D-type being, from his curiously long, forked tongue, to his nictitating membranes, even to the blade on his tail.

After a long five minutes of examination, all of which Drake spent furiously hissing and twitching, Twilight finally stood straight and addressed the room at large, “Well, everyone, I have good news! This anomaly is safe enough to not confine to a single cell!”

Not many of the various personnel thought it much of a good thing.

“So, Mr. Anomaly, what is your name?”

Said anomaly narrowed his eyes and pouted, crossing his arms and using his tail blades to scratch at the four red lines under his left eye.

“My name? Drake…. I’m Drake Long. Please never touch me like that ever again,” He half spat, half whimpered, emotions shifting across his face rapidly.

Twilight’s slightly manic smile never wavered as she unlocked the poor SCP’s manacles and dragged him out the door, waving off the concerned guards and leading Drake on a ‘Tour’ of the facilities, wrecked as they were.

“I suppose we should start with the AECs wandering the halls, yes? Well, the walking statue is Mason Chisel, AEC 222, he turned to living stone six years ago and has been here ever since. Let’s see… the flying serpent out that window over there is Amber River, AEC 88, he’s a spirit dragon from somewhere in the east. The only one he ever interacts with is AEC 1000, she’s riding on his back now, actually.” She pointed out the window, where a massive congregation of humans and AECs was gathered, repairing the damages to the building. “Over there is AEC 26, the giant robot with the S on its chest. There’s also AEC 626, the tiny blue one holding up that I-beam. And then there’s AEC 6, my personal assistant and adopted little brother, teleporting the rubble away.”

Drake stared down at the multitude of AECs, some of them waving up at him despite his position, and noticed the pubescent boy seemingly disintegrating rubble with green fire. As he contemplated the strangeness of the phenomenon, he never noticed Twilight dragging him further into the compound to meet some of the other AECs.

After a good three hours of touring, the pair hastily fled to the requisitions office after noticing that Drake had been clothed in nothing more than a slightly ragged bedsheet around his waist like it was a kilt.

Now dressed in a more standard set of t-shirt and jeans, modified to make room for his extra assets and proudly sporting his SCP number and logo, Drake sat in the cafeteria, eating some form of mystery meat while waiting for his escorts to arrive.

‘This meat…. what the fuck is this? It feels like meat…. smells like meat… but I literally cannot tell what it is! It also tastes like shit. Never eating this ever again.’

Thusly fed up with the fact that mass produced cafeteria food is crap no matter where one is, Drake shoved his tray across the table with an annoyed hiss and an intimidating growl, where it was stopped by a pale and well manicured hand.

“Darling, whatever did this pile of disgusting slop do to you?” The owner of the voice, a slender, supermodel-esque woman with delicately curled, purple hair and an elegant blouse and skirt combo with a diamond pattern inked in, asked. “Then again, it is a disgusting pile of slop disguised as edible meat…”

“Got that right. I swear, that stuff is gonna kill me if I keep eating it.”

A new voice cut in, this time belonging to a rainbow haired tomboy-looking girl with blue wings, “Of course it is, it’s cafeteria food. What’d you expect, a five star meal?” The girl was perched on the back of Drake’s chair, somehow staying balanced despite the awkward positioning.

“And who are you two, anyway?” Drake asked, standing up and letting Rainbow fall over with the chair.

“Ah! Dude! Not cool! Eh, I’m “AEC 1”, call me Rainbow Dash. Fastest thing alive, at your service.” She punctuated her declaration with a quick pose and teasing wink.

“Uh… okay…. Well, you both know who I am, but… I guess I’m AEC 682, Drake Long. Transforming lizard man, at your service.” He bowed shallowly, then turned to the only unintroduced person at the table. “So, who’re you?”

She pressed a hand to her chest and struck a fabulous pose.

“Moi? I am AEC 5, Rarity! World class fashionista and former owner of the Carousel Boutique!” Each sentence was punctuated by another pose, along with strange backlighting and drifting flower petals, both provided, respectively, by a glowing ferret-thing and a scientist with a fan and a sack of the aforementioned petals.

Both women stood together, finishing with one final pose before finishing with a flourish and a declaration, “We’re your tour guides for the rest of the day!”

The lizardman only stared in dumbfounded silence. Shaking himself from his stupor, he turned to a nearby staff member and whispered, “Are they always like this?”

“Unfortunately yes. You get used to it. Eventually.” The man’s gruff reply only sunk Drake’s spirits as the stranger returned back to his data tablet and coffee.

Such thoughts were then left in the dust as the fashionista and the speedster dragged him away, both bickering about where to take their poor captive.

Five hours later (9:00 pm)

The trio had made their way across almost all of the entire compound, with only two containment cells left to tour.

The Euclid Class AEC 333: The LSD Flytrap, and the Keter Class AEC 747: The Ruby of Apollyon.

AEC 333 was a six foot tall, sapient, four-lobed venus flytrap that, whenever it was in a bad mood, sprayed a cloud of gaseous hallucinogenics from its quad-hinged mouth area at the nearest organic object. Which it then attempted to consume (It really never consumed anything unless it directly blundered into the mouth, though).

AEC 747 was a fist sized ruby that glowed dark red in low light. It latches on to whatever organic material it can get and awakens the being’s most primal instincts. Normally this only lead to caveman-like behaviour, though no one was keen on testing it on some of the AECs that were decidedly inhuman.

Thus began the beginning of the end when, as the trio entered viewing range of the cell containing 333, a scientist informed them that it was in a good mood and was thus receptive to visitors. The trio entered, thinking that the flytrap wouldn’t attack.

Of course, such things always happen anyway, this instance was no different.

As soon as Drake got within five feet of the massive flora, he was sprayed with a potent cloud of hallucinogenic gas, one far more powerful than had ever been recorded before. The gas was also mixed with enough acid to completely destroy whatever it touched.

Thankfully, Rainbow Dash and Rarity had stayed far enough to dodge the cloud, though they were quickly pushed aside by Drake, who was clawing at his eyes, screaming, giggling, shrieking and stumbling around in a frenzy that likely would not stop until his heart did.

And then he stumbled into 747’s containment unit and slammed forehead first into the small gem. The room exploded into a torrent of swirling, red magic, everyones’ screams drowned out by the pained roars blaring from the ruined entrance of the containment unit.

Then, the mass of magic swirled back into its epicenter and all went silent. For a few moments, everyone wondered whether or not to try to recover the likely dead lizardman from the room.

Then the growling started.

682 burst out of the room, tail glowing red hot and eyes burning yellow. It rushed through the hallways, disemboweling any poor sap that got in its way, before blasting into the room of AEC 71: The Cyclops and tearing the mutated human apart, consuming its energy releasing eye and feasting on its energy conversion organs.

The runes on its back glowed again, extending nearly to its hips by now. 682 leapt from the room and continued its trail of destruction, consuming nearly fifty AECs of various abilities, its runes extending to its tail, and now swirling inwards to create fractal patterns.

Several staff members tried valiantly to limit the destruction, but the beast proved to be too powerful, tearing through their ranks like a Dillon M134 Gatling Gun through rice paper.

The more powerful Safe Class AECs fared better, though they still sustained heavy losses, including AEC 31: The Assimilator Cat.

As one can imagine, a being that can assimilate the traits of whatever it consumes eating a being that can absorb and assimilate anything organic and smaller than it via touch would be a Very Bad Thing™.

Thankfully, the inorganic AECs managed to corner 682 in a courtyard without much more loss. Unfortunately, this only served to anger the lizard, its facial features rearranging and twisting into a bizarre, five petaled open maw with its four eyes orbiting the ruby in the center of the headless flower-mouth.

682 shrieked in rage, the sound destroying all eardrums within a 100 foot radius, before unleashing an absolutely massive beam of destruction from the five red orbs in its maw, the beams converging and strengthening, until it impacted one wall, went through, and proceeded to pierce a hole through five more magically reinforced walls until it pierced through to the open air of the Everfree forest.

While everything within viewing stared in shock, 682 escaped into the wilderness, roaring and shrieking the whole way.

Author's Notes:

Ah shit son. Shit just got real.

A list of abilities gained from the consumption of AECs:

Laser Eyes
Laser Eyes 2: Laser Eyes Harder
Flight (Bat wings)
Electrified Skin
Minor Body Reshaping (Like the head thing)
Launch Spikes
Magical Sonic Attack
Acid Spray
Assimilation Via Touch
Flame Skin
Organic Rocket Launchers
Megaton Punch (One Use Before Exhaustion)
Spin Dash