It certainly did not go as expected. John's pride was his hubris. He has never been in a fight, after all. He knew about the results of various fights however, as he examined a lot of corpses. The powers that he possessed should have been enough against some mongrel mutant bear. His Black Scales should have been enough. But they weren't, and John got disemboweled. Of course, the vines did act on their own and constrict him, allowing the bear to land a free blow, which really pissed John off, who was in a world of pain.
Pain... John never really experienced physical pain in his life either, well he did, but it was the trivial pain from common cold and the likes. Of course, there were the migraines in his med school days, but he fixed that via his own little independent project. But disembowelment - now that was fucking painful.
Even more painful was the bear pulling it's paw out, mangled by acid... and something else. He only got a brief glimpse of it as he was flung into the shrine's wall by the vines, which probably crushed his spine, and took even more of his guts out. Despite all the agony, it was really curious - the bear had John at it's mercy, surely acid alone couldn't have stopped it, only make it angrier. And then he noticed that his blood was black. And it was not regular bleeding either, it was spraying out like out some cheesy brutal action movie, like a sprinkler of black blood. And the most gruesome of wounds on the bear's paw was were the black blood touched them? Sure, it was neat and repelled the bear, but it also really crippled John. The only thing stopping him from screaming in pain was his pride - he could not be seen weak.
But his body was completely limp. Both the scales and the claws disappeared. Crushed spine indeed. But the bleeding, or rather spraying was rapidly stopping, even internal one. Another feature of his new powers? Blood that infects wounds of the enemy by spraying, and aids the healing of your own? Second best thing after acidic blood, which John already had, sort of. John could barely move his head, and all he could do was grunt in pain, trying his hardest not to scream. But he could see the more sinister looking mouthbreather just ditching them. Good riddance - one less idiot to babysit. Besides, he'll perish quickly on his own. And as much John hated incompetence, he kinda hoped the two people left won't be a complete dead weight. Well, either after John is reborn or somehow recovers. Back on Earth recovering from such a wound is barely possible, and even if you somehow do, you're a cripple for life, at best. But at least for John, things were a bit different.
Mustering his remaining strength to speak, he spoke to the two remaining folks nearby. His vision was blurry at this point however, when he had the strength to keep them open, so he couldn't make out their features.
"So, ugh... I'm John Eidreon.. Aargh.. You might have heard of me... back on Earth." Words were hard to speak out, but he will NOT show weakness.
"As you can see I'm a bit disemboweled, and my spine is shattered... Urghh... So if you try to move me, do support what's left of my back." Bit by bit, second by agonizing second, John could feel his strength slowly returning. Wierd... He could have swore his guts were far more damaged than that. But... It was still very bad, but there was a bit less damage to his body overall than a few minutes ago. A pain in his back slowly begun to rise, like a million sharp shards, just very faint. But that pain was slowly increasing. Did John move his toe a bit? What?
Regeneration? Yes, that is another thing that humans normally lack. A very useful thing. But John isn't human anymore, is he? Neither are all the others.
"I think I possess some kind of regeneration, so I might be fine, urgh, given enough time..." This sentence came easier than the previous ones. A bit easier.
"Just don't touch my blood, it seems to have been altered as well." Case in point - all the grass where his blood was spilled was beginning to wither, black veins slowly getting brighter and brighter within their leaves. And now, John was at the mercy of his company, and/or his own powers.
Just before he passed out, he could some a lime colored shape getting closer to him. No, it was there to begin with, it's just John just noticed it. Who could it... Fade to black.
