Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

As Avery felt his eyes starting to flutter and modicum of consciousness returning to him, several images flashed before his eyes.

A giant circular saw plunging into his chest, his left arm hovering in front of his face fully detached from his body, and Dr. Raiti laughing manically as she jammed a syringe into his right eye.

More and more horrifying scenes cycled through his mind before his eyes suddenly flung open.

Immediately he began screaming and thrashing around in a panic. His terrifying dreams following him into reality.

There were straps around him to keep himself in place, but they are snapped under the pressure he was exerting.

When he finally sat up, the first thing he saw was Dr, Raiti staring at him, and he started screaming uncontrollably.

Fortunately, his panic did not last long. A couple of moments later and everything that had been destabilizing him was completely forgotten. The only thing left was a state of confusion as he wondered why he had overreacted so much in the first place.

"Well, I'm glad that my foresight to have you strapped down was correct, but I didn't expect you to just rip through them like that. I guess that I shouldn't have underestimated my own work and used the solid metal restraints." Mercedes said, nonchalantly walking over to Avery as if what had just happened was completely normal.

She then explained that people just waking up after a long augmentation session could have short but violent panic attacks.

While they had been unconscious, their bodies had undergone something pretty traumatic, all things considered. For Avery, he had basically been entirely broken down and put back together.

"To fill up the space of time, your subconscious makes up memories somewhat in line with what is happening to you, but I'm betting that you don't remember anything now that you're fully awake."

As she said, Avery had already forgotten everything. He knew that he had freaked out but had no idea why.

It was only a few seconds after receiving this explanation, that Avery was hit by an intense soreness all over and fell back down onto the bed he had been resting on.

"Ah, looks like you're finally registering the post procedure pain. I've already administered a few light pain relivers, but I can't give you anything too serious, or any nano machine treatments. Those can have adverse effects on bionic augmentations when they are still setting in. It will probably be about two weeks of recovery before your body fully adjusts to the enhancements. But I'm sure you've already seen that they've worked." Dr. Raiti said, glancing at the torn apart straps that had been holding Avery down.

There was no doubt that he would have been able to do something like that before. So, while his body currently felt sluggish and sore, it was obvious the augmentations had been a success.

As Dr. Raiti started to explain what was going to occur over the next few days, the door to the recovery room Avery was in opened and Kasandra and Jasmine came in.

However, neither of them were on their feet. Like Avery, they were still dealing with the aftereffects of receiving extensive physical enchantments and were stuck in wheelchairs.

"Glad to see that you're up. It was starting to get lonely with you not around. Wish I could give you some words of encouragement, but the first couple of days are going to be rough." Kasandra said, a bright smile on her face as she gazed down at Avery.

"Well on the third day you'll start to feel a lot better." Jasmine said reassuringly. "Plus, while I'm not there yet, Kasandra has already started to walk a bit."

The two of them started happily chatting with Avery and telling him what had happened while he was asleep, until Dr. Raiti interrupted them.

"I know that you're both excited now that your boyfriend has woken up, but there are still some things I need to go over with him. Please go wait in the lounge for a bit, and I'll send you a message when you can come back and keep chatting."

Understanding that they were getting in the way, Kasandra and Jasmine left the room after both of them told Avery they would see him soon and planted light kisses on his cheeks.

Once the two of them had left, Dr. Raiti finished giving Avery the rundown of what would be going on over the next few days.

"I'll need to keep you here for at least three days to make sure that the augmentations set in as they should and monitor you're vital signs. After that, you'll be free to go, though, you can stay for up to a week if you want. Once you've left, make sure to use the medical pod aboard your ship every day for the next three weeks to check for any abnormalities and send me the scan data so I can look it over."

Everything she told Avery was pretty much an industry standard, and when she was finished, she left him alone so that he could think.

He had been unconscious for nearly ten and a half days, and he had just finished undergoing what was essentially multiple life altering procedures. That often left people with quite a bit to contemplate.

"Damn, I wish everything didn't hurt." Avery grumbled now that there was no one around to hear him whine.

The pain was not unbearable by any means, but it was all over his body and prevented him from being able to move properly.

Naturally, he had known that this was going to happen beforehand. Still, it did not make the situation any better.

With his body now enhanced with top-of-the-line augmentations, Avery really wanted to test out what he was capable of now.

Certainly, he had not been some extreme body builder before, but he was pretty fit and stronger than the average person. Yet now, he should have been about twelve times stronger than he had been before Dr. Raiti got to work altering his body.

It was vain of him, but Avery wanted to test out and show off his newly enhanced physique.

Sadly, those enhancements were the cause of his soreness, and the only thing to do was to wait for his body to fully recover from the procedures.

Still, there were a few things that he was already starting to notice.

His eyesight had never been bad. In recent years it had slipped just a little beyond perfect, though not to the point that he had any trouble seeing.

Yet now, his vision was clearer than it ever had been previously.

If he focused, he could even make out minute details on a small panel on the other side of the room around twenty meters away.

Colors were also more vibrant. As if an entire hidden world that had always been present was now visible to him.

At first, he was enamored by this. Unfortunately, it soon started to disorient him a bit. Things were so much more different from how they had been before.

Avery had paid a massive amount to optimize his body well beyond normal human limits. Practically everything about him physically had changed.

All of his senses were heightened, and his musculature had been arranged to be more efficient and far stronger. The density and composition of his bones had been made to be more durable and flexible at the same time. Should he ever end up in a brawl like he had with Iniquus, it would be far harder for his opponent to just snap his limbs.

There were also two new organs that a normal human did not.

One was a second, smaller heart that had been grown from his cells and attached to his circulatory system. It was placed to the right side of his original heart, and if Avery concentrated, he could feel it beating.

This second heart would help increase his blood flow in conjunction with the other augmentations Dr. Raiti had given him that improved all of his organs and the veins and arteries.

As for the second new organ Avery had received, it sat where his appendix had one been.

It had been researched and developed solely by Dr. Raiti, and she was the only one capable of creating it.

The specialized organ was capable of creating and storing regenerative blastema cells that were usually only found in certain fish, amphibians, and a very few of small mammals.

Through studying these animals and current regenerative medical science that used cultivated stem cells to heal injuries, Dr. Raiti had created this miraculous organ that was compatible with humans.

Now even if Avery's eyes were crushed, or one of his limbs cut off, his body would be able to heal them on its own without any outside assistance. Of course, it was going to take the organ a few weeks to become fully functioning. Otherwise, his recovery would be a lot shorter.

His enhanced body was not all upsides, though. On a daily basis he would need to consume around seventy percent more than he had in order to maintain the bionic upgrades he had received. And in the case of extreme exertion, that amount could skyrocket far higher. In terms of spacecraft, he now had a better engine but required more fuel to run it.

Though, since his digestive capabilities had been enhanced as well, he would be able to draw out a greater amount of the energy stored within the food he ate.

Some people with extensive bionic enhancements had to eat three times what was normal to keep their bodies going. The fact that Avery did not was a testament to how excellent Dr. Raiti was at her work. She had not gained a reputation as the best in the sector for no reason.