Clemency stared down his opponent, refusing to flinch or show any kind of weakness.  “If you’re willing to let us go, we can avoid this.”  

Zellig laughed, “I am Trillodan and you talk to me about preventing the bloodshed?  I was made to be a war machine; why would I deny myself?” 

“Made?” 

“Look at me,” Zellig invited, “Do I look like a normal soldier to you?” 

Clemency shook his head, “I suppose not.  Still, this isn’t a fight you can win. As strong as you are, you’re fighting me in a city that is on fire and suffering upheaval.”  To add emphasis, the chain of energy stretched out and coiled on the ground at his feet like some kind of snake. “If you fight me, I will cut you down.”  

The Trillodan commander leaned forward, glaring, challenging Clemency.  “Tell me this, Clemency, do you have what it takes to ‘cut me down’? I know how much energy you expended earlier fighting Eldritch.  Are you sure you have enough left in the tank to come out on top? They didn’t,” he said with a gesture to Shock, Awe, and Goliath respectively.  

I slowly got to my feet and took a few steps away from Clemency, not wanting to be anywhere near this conflict.  It was going to happen eventually and I was a seventeen year old without even clothing to shield myself from the astonishing levels of power both of them wielded.    

Despite his incredible gift, Clemency wasn’t known for being overly aggressive.  He was a defender, a protector, someone who chose to be reactionary as opposed to instigate a fight.  Even though tonight he was at his most powerful, you could tell he was still trying to seek out a more peaceful resolution, even with this violent monstrosity. 

“Stay back,” Clemency warned as Zellig took a challenging step forward.  

“Or you’ll do what?  Be specific,” he taunted with a grin. 

The man clad in cobalt didn’t answer, waiting to see what the commander would do.  I kept edging away, knowing that inevitably one would make the first move and it would be one hell of a fight.  Clemency was a Projector, and the strongest alive except for Titan. Some might argue Shockwave would be more powerful, but with how much emotional charge there was in Ciel, Clemency would be at his peak.  However, Zellig had proved he was designed to withstand harm, to win out in a war of attrition. Beyond that, he was clever, well-trained, and alarming fast for someone his size. Any hesitation would be punished and any slip up could prove fatal from my would-be savior.  

Zellig was first to move, lunging forward and quickly rolling to avoid the chain lashing out; Clemency strengthened the glow on his right hand and a wall of purple fields formed around Zellig, immediately stopping his progress.  

“Hard-light constructs,” the Trillodan said with a grin, “Now isn’t that something.”  He slammed a fist forward and shattered the field that faded to nothingness. As it shattered, more sprung into existence and boxed in Zellig, collapsing in on him and limiting his movement.

“I told you,” Clemency said as he slowly twisted his hand, lifting the light prison he had bound Zellig inside of, “that you wouldn’t win this.”  Swiping his hand to the right, the hard light prison and its occupant flew into a mound of rubble. As the Trillodan crashed, Clemency whipped around his left hand, throwing the chain forward, finding nothing to snare as Zellig leapt away.  

Before he could land, Clemency constructed a hard-light wall and pulled it forward, shoving Zellig back into the terror chain that wrapped around his torso.  

The Trillodan growled and seized the chain, trying to yank Clemency forward; Clemency lashed his arm and the chain echoed his motion, slamming Zellig against the ground hard enough to crack the pavement.  Flicking his limb up at an angle, Clemency tossed his opponent into the side of a building that caved against his weight. Dragging his arm back, the Projector smashed Zellig back into the street, making this look like a decidedly one-sided fight.  

As he crashed against the pavement, Zellig slapped his hand against the side of his armor; the metallic vest seemed to part for a split second and scales of metal ran smoothly over his hand, almost flowing as it constructed a familiar looking glove.  

“Clemency, look out!” I shouted as Zellig raised his hand and flexed his fingertips; the kinetic energy was stopped by a hard light barrier being hastily erected, but it had cost Clemency the hold he had over the Trillodan juggernaut.  

Zellig shouted something in an alien tongue and the surviving soldier scurried back towards the prisoner transport.  As Clemency tried to look past him, Zellig raised his hand again and fired another few kinetic blasts, refusing to be ignored.  Despite being whipped around the place, the commander wasn’t any slower, charging forward at an absurd pace.  

Clemency tried to create the hard-light barriers to imprison Zellig, but this time he had an easy answer.  The purple walls of light shattered and the commander didn’t even break stride, shifting himself to avoid a purple spear that came hurtling forward.  Another kinetic blast came, this one forcing Clemency to actually use his power of desperation defensively and conjure a barrier; the continued charge from Zellig prompted him to soar into the air, ensuring that he wasn’t within reach.  

The Trillodan leapt onto one of the mounds of rubble and pivoted, again emitting that whirring sound before launching himself directly at Clemency with a velocity that rivaled a speeding car.  

Instead of trying to avoid him, Clemency clenched his right hand and several sheets of hard-light shoved Zellig back down to the ground with a profound slam.  Clemency lashed the chain down, being repelled by a particularly well placed blast from the glove as Zellig leapt away, back towards the prisoner transport and where the last Trillodan soldier had vanished to.  

The soldier clambered from the wreckage with a massive black block in hand; he set it on the ground and gave it a herculean shove towards his commander.  Clemency tried to make a construct to sweep the box aside, not wanting to find out what it was, but Zellig predicted his action and fired another blast of energy to shatter the manifestation of Clemency’s desperation gift.  

As Zellig touched the box, the sides popped open, as if a lock had been released; from the now open container, he procured a massive gun that was glowing orange.  It had two distinct barrels stacked on one another: the top looked like a dense cylinder of steel that filed down to a point while the bottom seemed more like it had been made with the idea of firing grenades.  Both barrels were fused to a glowing chamber where you would have expected a firing pin to be. All in all, the thing was nearly the length of my arm, and almost as wide as my torso.  

It was so large and unwieldy that it was almost surely custom made for Zellig alone. 

As the chain came lashing down again, the Trillodan commander seized the massive cannon and rolled away, throwing himself back as Clemency swung the chain again, not giving him a moment to aim with that colossal firearm.  The third time, Zellig feinted, buying him a split second before Clemency could redirect the tether; he heaved up the immense cannon and the larger barrel screamed as a massive globe of orange liquid fired.  

The Projector hastily made a wall of hard light barriers in front of the projectile; the second it touched one, it exploded violently, blasting apart the projections and spewing globs of what looked like molten metal all over.  

Clemency was thrown backwards from the explosion, unable to immediately correct his flight as Zellig raised the cannon and launched another sphere of superheated material.  He did his best to insulate himself against the blast wave, but Clemency was knocked away again, tossed through a window of a nearby high rise.  

Zellig smirked, proud of himself and flicked his wrist, getting the glowing compartment to turn over and change color.  It had been a fiery orange before and now was a lethal and intense crimson. Raising the cannon, the narrow barrel let out a laser that he dragged along the base of the building; it carved through everything in its path and the building groaned as its stability was immediately compromised. 

A blast from the golden glove was the last straw and the building began collapsing.  

“And out we come,” Zellig replied, flick back to the ‘grenade’ launcher and firing a globe of material at the closest corner.  He couldn’t see his target, but as if he knew the future, Clemency darted out, hastily escaping the collapsing structure.  

Even though he managed to contain the globe of material in a hard-light box, it didn’t stop chunks of molten material from blasting forth.  Clemency was tossed backwards and a globule of superheated liquid found his thigh, burning a hole straight through his armor. As he screamed in pain, Zellig raised the glove and fired a localized kinetic blast, keeping the Projector on defenseive.  Unable to focus to raise a barrier in time, Clemency let himself fall to avoid the kinetic blast. Right before he touched down, Clemency hovered to avoid breaking his legs on touch down.

The Trillodan commander swapped the mode of his cannon and fired a laser at Clemency, knowing full well he couldn’t fly fast enough to avoid that.  The Projector grit his teeth and created a blinding cone of purple hard-light; it split the laser and one of the defracted beams started boring through the mound of debris that I was just a few meters from.  With a determined cry, Clemency drove his cone forward like some kind of drill.   

As fast as the projection went, Zellig was quicker to get out of the way, immediately raising the cannon and letting fly another globe of molten material.  Clemency flew as quick as he could to the side, enduring another sliver of orange material impacting his armor and burning a hole through it. Setting his jaw, Clemency shoved his right hand, driving a myriad of walls forward, driving Zellig back, even as he dug his feet into the pavement, gouging a trail as his talons carved through the concrete.  

As I watched Clemency’s right arm light up, I knew he was stressing himself too hard to push back  the Trillodan commander. I wasn’t even sure if he knew he was starting to Overexpose himself. As the Projector continued to drive the hard-light constructs forward, Zellig’s body literally started to glow at several junctures as that whirring sound screamed from his body, like a winch being stressed.  

And then the purple wall driving Zellig back faded out of existence in a blink.  

Even with all his uncanny ability to control his movements, Zellig had been exerting so much effort forward that he was thrown off balance for a split second and lurched forward, swinging the massive cannon forward as he tried to catch himself.  

The chain from Clemency’s left hand swung down, not aimed for Zellig, but for the powerful Trillodan weapon.  His chain lashed against the side, cutting a gash in the metal along the side of the chamber that was brimming with energy.  Zellig’s face betrayed some alarm as he went to throw the cannon away as orange electricity arced around the outside of the weapon.  

It smacked against a new wall of purple light; Clemency twisted his right hand and the hard-light construct expanded, turning into a cube with one side cut out.  The energy seeking to escape took the path of least resistance, right into Zellig.  

The Trillodan commander was launched into one of the mounds of debris faster than my eye could properly follow, the force of the blast pushing him easily half a meter deep into a mound of brick.  Clemency, still wasn’t done. A flick of his arm sent the chain after Zellig, and a yank pulled the grey-skinned monster back out with the chain around his ankle. While Shock seemed to able to inflict a little damage, none of it was lasting; the blast from the destabilized weapon had ripped chunks of muscle and skin out of the Trillodan, ripping apart much of his armor.  Fist sized chunks were torn free of his abdomen and larger muscle groups, much of the skin on his cheeks were gone and revealed the silver bones beneath, and his entire front was charred black.  

In a decisive motion, Clemency swung and dragged Zelling into the corner of cement pillar, hitting square on his spine.  The massive humanoid bent in half, his whole body ragdolling after the sickening crunch that heralded his spine snapping; it was the last sound before a strange calm fell over the little arena. 

Touching back down, Clemency gasped for air, leaning against the side of a discarded truck to support himself.  He looked over at me, his breathing haggard, doing his best to give me a smile. “Help me with-”

Another sickening snap shattered the stillness as Zellig’s spine corrected itself and he sat upright, raising the glove; Clemency’s body bent the truck’s door as a kinetic blast slammed him against it.  My jaw dropped as Zellig stumbled up to his feet, groaning and resetting a number of bones that were out of place.  

While the burns weren’t fading this time, the only thing that seemed to slow him down was Zellig’s left leg dragging.  Even with chunks of his body missing, Zellig wasn’t bleeding, at all.  

“What… what are you?” I whispered as he dragged himself towards Clemency, his quarry in his eyes.  

“I am the best we have to offer,” he said, glancing to me smiling and showing off his metallic jaw.  “And I’m a monster you’ll never be rid of,” he added in English before turning his attention to the still form of Clemency.  

Stop standing there.  There are dead bodies nearby and he’s wounded and doesn’t have his gun!  Fight!

I turned to move and I saw Zellig’s attention snap to me, “Don’t do what you’re thinking of doing.  I warned you, I will use your carcass to study if I can’t take you alive.”  

We will not be lab rats for this asshole.

I agreed with the voice and started running anyways, regretting my choice as I saw Zellig raise his hand.  There was no trace of emotion on his face either; earlier he’d seemed to be enjoying himself, but now Zellig was all business.  He was a professional, and I was an obstacle who needed to be removed.  

And right before the glove fired, the output tinted purple.  

Zellig roared as it exploded, ripping away most of his hand with it.  Clemency’s chain shot forward and snagged Zellig’s intact arm; the Projector rose and yanked, but he wasn’t expecting the Trillodan to fight back.  

That mechanical whirring filled the air and Zellig sneered as Clemency’s arm began to shake, the signs of fatigue clear as day.  While Clemency had so much more offensive power, Zellig had managed to weather the storm; if the Projector was out of ways to dish punishment out, the fight was over and Zellig wouldn’t need both his arms to seal the deal. 

And from the bloodthirsty smile that crept up the Trillodan’s face, he knew it too. 

But then his head snapped to the side, as if he’d heard something, right before a bolt of electricity hit Zellig square in the chest, throwing his balance off.  It gave Clemency enough of a window to pivot and drag, launching the massive mound of muscle towards the skyline, crashing into a building halfway down the block.  

“I don’t think that’s going to quite do him in,” Shock muttered as he staggered forward; Awe walked alongside, helping support his sibling.

I ran forward and caught Clemency as he threatened to fall over, blood starting to seep through his side and thigh.  “How are you-”

“Armorsmith reinforced my stuff before I left,” he panted as he patted the cobalt colored plate, several of them cracked, “Without it, I think I’d be dead.”  

Awe helped Goliath and his brother back around the corner as I helped Clemency shamble into the little alley that Relay had marked as one of his stations.  Right before we asked for him to send us home, I was sure I saw a massive grey figure walk back out into the road, arms raised in challenge. 

---

I’d half expected Relay to take us to another mansion, but now we were teleported to a place in the middle of nowhere that looked more like a quarry than a buildiste, and there was no trace of the city being anywhere nearby.  Of course Titan would hide a build site way outside of Ciel; the wilds of Tso’got were teeming with horrific and alien creatures. No one would come out here looking for anything but most Adapted weren’t concerned about a passing Neklim or Eliphex.  

A little bit away, there was a gargantuan pit that was bustling with activity as dozens of copies of the same person kept running back and forth with squares of metal, tools, or messages for someone  else. Multi-task, the tomboy that Titan had recruited to his cause was a Peculiar capable of replicating herself up to 50 times per day, but all the duplicates could receive a single task. Though right now,  I could easily see fifty of her and I was willing to bet there were more. Titan must have given her some of that stimulant that Chemtrail designed as a power booster.   

As I looked down into the massive pit, I saw what Titan had kept her working on for so long.  

The ship was immense and structured like an old Nighthawk stealth plane that used to be on Earth.  It was easily seventy meters from wingtip to wingtip, probably 15 meters across, and easily 10 meters tall.  At the center was what seemed to be an observation deck with a huge glass panel dead center and the wings were tipped at the front with tons of storage space behind the hard edge that ballooned out. 

While I wasn’t too familiar with him, I knew Repository was able to mass produce unrefined materials, thinking them into existence in mass quantities.  Not a great trick for a fight, but he’d enabled Titan to hide such a massive undertaking and remove the threat of there ever being a paper trail. With Repository providing materials and Multitask as a one-woman work squad, he’d been able to essentially have a full workforce building a vessel for his place for…likely years given the size of this thing.  

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

“Maybe you should gawk after you get some pants on,” Clemency muttered.   

As we got closer to one of the tent clusters, a few Adapted pushed around us, taking Clemency off my shoulders, and someone directed me to a tent as the Surface Dwellers were steered away to their members. 

Inside the tent was a group of four very familiar people: Menagerie, Lightshow, Mutant, and Parasite.  While three were asleep, my best friend was still awake, still wearing his suit despite the holes burnt through it.  As I walked in, he stood up and took two steps towards me…and then promptly slapped me.  

I wasn’t sure if he bothered using any of the power that his passenger could lend him or if he knocked me to the floor with his own strength alone.  

“What the fuck is a matter with you?” he hissed, not wanting to wake anyone else.  “You said you were going to come back here! You said you were going to be okay! Next thing I hear is Collector and Pyre shouting about some big Trillodan bastard and how a bunch of people are in danger, my friend included.  You shouldn’t have even been there!”  

I raised a hand in defense as he threatened to slap me again, “I know, you’re right.  But, can you finish ripping me a new one after you hand me some pants? I’m fucking freezing.”  

Parasite grumbled but tossed me a duffel bag.  “It’ll be big on you, but it’s Geyser’s stuff.”

“Why am I-”  I stopped talking as it abruptly made sense why Menagerie had sent some of her creations out with Shock and Awe to help rescue people.  She didn’t care about helping Goliath rescue Pyre, she’d sent her creatures for another reason entirely. “They took him.”      

He nodded, “She’s burned most of a notebook helping back up rescue groups.  She finally crashed an hour ago.”

“What about-” 

He shook his head, “Titan has her hopped up on that drug, and for her it’s like extra strength Adderall.  She doesn’t talk much, just keeps building drones and is passing it over to Toolkit to perfect. She’s helped make like sixteen drones that are helping to weld together the rest of the ship.  Even if you tried to talk to her, she wouldn’t really be aware of the conversation.” 

We’d both seen her when she flicked her power on and started to build and even without any kind of chemical stimulant she was tough to reach.  I couldn’t imagine how out of it Alexis was as she was working herself to death in the throes of a drug fueled haze. “Titan is making sure she’s fed and hydrated and stuff, right?” 

“Fortunately the man does genuinely seem to care about keeping all of us intact,” Murphy replied, still cold. 

There was an awkward silence that fell between us as my best friend continued to glare at me, infuriated for what I did.  “Listen, Murphy-”

“Don’t.  Don’t try to justify ditching me.”

“You don’t understand, Murphy,” I insisted.

I saw the passenger under his skin bulk up one arm, as if he was thinking about hitting me hard enough to knock my teeth out .  “No, you don’t understand. We finally got my best friend back, we got him out of that horrifying suit, that fucked up situation, and then he doesn’t get to the Relay station.  He abandons me.”  

“It wasn’t-” 

“Don’t lie to me.  You weren’t planning on coming here, were you?  You weren’t going to come with us. Fuck, you weren’t even going to say goodbye, were you?” 

My silence was damning.  

“So you were going to ditch us?  You were going to fucking abandon me?”  A tear started to roll down his cheek as he let out a nervous laugh.  “My best friend, my teammate, was going to ditch me, just like fucking everyone else in my life.  Were you gonna go shoot up with my parents too?” 

His words felt like a kick in the gut.  “Murphy, listen, please.”

“I’d love to hear your fucking explanation for this,” he snarled. 

I didn’t want everyone knowing, but I knew that Murphy of all people would be able to keep a secret for me, “When I grew, when I was overwhelmed, it was like my Adaptation reached into my head and took a sample of my brain.  It…it talks to me now. It has wants, demands, and it is dying to get loose again.”  

For a second, Murphy was almost on the verge of laughing at such an absurd answer; when my face didn’t waver, he sobered up immediately.  “You’re serious.”

I nodded.  “It doesn’t like being a spectator in my head.  It wants control, it wants to be able to express itself and move around.”

“But-but you came here naked.  You turned it back on.”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit, if it’s fucking…talking, why the hell would you let it loose?” 

“We both agreed that being a lab rat wasn’t in our best interest,” I said plaintively.

My friend ran his hands through his hair, “Holy shit.  But wait,” he muttered, “Shock and Awe were out to save you, along with Goliath.  Why did you need to use your power? What was so fucking horrifying that Clemency had to show up?” 

As quickly as I could, I let him know about Zellig and what had happened to me; about how Zellig found me in the bar trying to hide, how he’d kept us docile and moved us as bait, I told him about the beating that Zellig could bring, and then about how he’d almost gotten the better of Clemency despite being blown up and having his spine snapped.  

When I was done, he didn’t look angry anymore, just worried.  “Well, you’re here now. And, Nick,” he said quietly, “Don’t run away from us again.  Isolating yourself, that’s how people break. I don’t want to see you snap and turn into Psycho or one of his cronies.”  

“Yeah.  You’re right.”  He was right: I’d only endured a Snatcher lab for a little while and the isolation was crippling.  I thought I was doing everyone a favor but God only knew what the hell I would be like if I Altered like Psycho or Bargain.  

“I’m always right,” he replied, the hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth.  “Now, come on, get some sleep. It’s like five in the morning. I think Titan is hoping to leave in about six hours or so, but it might be sooner if things go sideways.”  

I obliged, laying down on one of the spare cots, the weight of the night hitting me like a ton of bricks.  It’d only been about twelve hours since Feast Day had started, since I’d consumed my parents for material, since I’d lost control and made enough spectacle for draw the Trillodan to us.  

But dealing with that all would wait until I could get a little sleep.

As soon as I closed my eyes, the world immediately faded away.  

---

It only felt like a few seconds before I was quickly roused by a pair of rough hands shaking me.  Mutant stood over me, a panicked expression on his face. “Get up, we need to go!” 

There was only one reason he’d be waking me up like this.  

Adrenaline hit me like a train as I threw myself up, grabbing the duffel bag that Murphy had given me last night as we slipped out of the tent.  Outside, it was dawn, and the breaking light was enough to see a trio of massive ships descending from the sky.  

The Trillodan had found us.  

Adapted were all surging forward, moving as quick as they could for the ship, all of us fighting to get up the ramp and get onboard, none of us actually considering how the hell we were going to fly away from the Trillodan that were bearing down on us.  Even if we could get this massive thing off the ground, it isn’t like we’d be instantly at light speed.  

Zellig’s ideal was likely echoed by his underling; if they couldn’t keep us grounded, we were going to get shot out of the sky.  

Once people were getting onboard, people flooded towards the observation deck, all of us looking up as our impending doom slowly dropped down on us, circling like vultures.  As we watched, smaller transports separated from the massive Trillodan ships.

They weren’t going to risk sending a main ship closer, likely because of Titan; they wanted us alive to study, but they weren’t about to throw away hundreds of Trillodan lives because one man could turn the whole ship to slag with a snap of his fingers.  I was aware of people shifting out of the way as the man himself passed through the crowd with an unfamiliar red headed woman in tow. He was still clad in black and wearing an expression that was strangely calm despite the most powerful race bearing down on us en masse and the panic of the crowd around him.  

“Titan,” Multitask shouted, coming in behind him, “I’m telling you, this thing might be able to survive space, be we haven’t had time to slim it down enough that we can reliably get it off the ground.  And, and this thing is probably gonna fucking come apart if we run it at the fucking atmosphere! I’m telling you, we aren’t ready for this.”

“Multi-”

She raised a hand, agitated, “You’re going to get everyone killed or captured by pretending it’s okay.  So just-” Multitask stopped arguing when he turned and stared her down, his red eyes piercing through her.  

Titan took a deep breath, “Command, I need you!  Forest, buy us time!” 

At the corner of the room, the girl clad in white grinned; outside, roots erupted from the ground, ensnaring some of the ships that were getting close to us, and ‘devouring’ some of the foot soldiers who had been unlucky enough to set foot near our build site.  

I’d been told that I’d only managed to kill about 20% of Forest despite all the time she tried to stop me earlier.  Seeing what I assumed to be all of her in one place was both amazing and horrifying. The whole ground around the ship was reduced to a canyon, almost a living moat of vines and gnarled growths that were flailing around like an octopus’ tentacles, seeking out something to grab onto.  Spires of twisted wood sprang up, towering over the ship, easily reaching up fifty meters to dissuade the Trillodan from coming closer. While they started using laser cutters-much like the one Zellig had-to hack away at her form, there seemed to be no end to how much material she could procure.  

I turned back to Titan as he started talking to the redhead who was wearing a plain white shirt and jeans.  “Can you do it?” 

“Of course I can,” she replied, “but it’ll take…a lot.”

“How many?”

“As we are now, eleven.”  

Titan grit his teeth, “Command,” he said to the Cognate, “hold on tight.”

The blonde Adapted stepped forward and laid a hand on the girl, his eyes turning completely black before he nodded to the leader of our cause.  

“Do it,” Titan insisted to the mysterious red-head. 

The whole room had been teeming with nervous whispers, people muttering and murmuring, scared and rightfully so; everyone stopped talking and turned as we all felt the same surge of power through the air.  I can only assume this was what it felt like to step into a thundercloud, but we could all tell it was coming from this one girl.  

I was close enough to get a good look at her as her veins lit up bright blue, and her eyes changed.  They were like a reflection of the night sky, dotted with stars and swaths of emptiness between. She raised a hand towards the heavens and started sighing, almost remorseful.  “If only you all could see what I see.”  

The world around us started to shake, and my gaze fell to Command.  The Cognate was shaking violently, as if he was trying to lift a weight that was far too heavy for him.  

And then we weren’t on Tso’got anymore.  

Where there had been the rising sun on Tso’got through the immense pane of glass before, now there was just the void of space with stars littering the backdrop of never-ending darkness.  There was no more Trillodan blockade, no more alien tyrants coming down from the sky to apprehend us, no more Zari chasing us, nothing familiar left anywhere.  

In a blink, whoever this girl was, she had moved the entire ship God only knew how far from Tso’got.  

Who the fuck was she?  

As her eyes returned to a normal color of brown, Command collapsed behind her, comatose and shivering.  He was an Adapted who helped control mental impulse and thought; what the hell had gone on with her that he’d Overexposed himself trying to control a single person?  Why had he even need to control her in the first place?  

“Titan,” Shockwave demanded as he stepped to the front of the throng, “Who the fuck is she?” he demanded, asking the question everyone had on their mind. 

He put a hand under hers as she started to waver and the electricity faded from the air.  “Everyone, this, is Infinite. The most powerful person in the universe.”  

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

  Run you idiot.

     I knew that the voice in my head was right, that I should turn and run as fast as possible away, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to do that.  Zellig even had the audacity to tell me the exact mechanism the cuffs used to induce this stupor and still I couldn’t break away.

           All he had to do was nudge me forward and I felt obliged to comply. 

           He was quiet as he led me forward, back towards downtown, near a building I had entirely thrashed.  There were plenty of Zari clustered around, watching a few Adapted being herded onto a ship that looked like a silver plated slug with a metal ramp leading into the foreboding transport.  Dozens of the Ciel natives turned and whispered to themselves as Zellig moved me through the throng; I’m sure some wanted to throw a rock at me or try to pummel me, but the presence of the imposing Trillodan commander prompted everyone to stand down. 

           As I got closer to the barge, there was a hint of my body protesting going onboard. As if he noticed, a gentle nudge from the immense Trillodan behind me quelled any thought of rebellious behavior.  Even if I had tried to run, Zellig had proved he could catch me again in an instant. There was no winning this for me. 

           Onboard, I was sat down on an uncomfortable metal bench and pushed back against the wall. As I put my back to the wall, a gel seeped out and hardened around me, locking me in place.  Out of my peripheral vision, I spotted one figure who was actually familiar. 

           Pyre.  The pyrokinetic woman who usually fought alongside Goliath.  Until tonight, we were diametrically opposed, but now I just wished I could muster up the willpower to help her go free; I might deserve every horrifying test that the Trillodan would inflict on me, but she didn’t.  To her side was a figure I knew tangentially as Collector. She was a Conjurer who pulled inorganic items from and could send items to her own pocket dimension, much like how my gift consumed flesh and stored it for later use.  Collector was a dark skinned woman who looked like she had spent far more time at the gym than I did. Given how rough being an Adapted working for Imperium had to be, it made sense.  

    All I could make myself do was strain against the gel l that encased the majority of my torso.  When it held, I quickly gave up. After all, there was no need for me to fight this; going against Zellig and the Trillodan was futile.  

You will not let us die.  We will not be lab rats again.  

I didn’t answer aloud and instead assumed that my empty feeling would suffice as an answer.  

Get free.  Feed me. We can fight.

“No,” I muttered in reply to my Adaptations demands, “It’s over.”  

Some machinery within the metal slug of a prisoner transport hummed to life and we lifted off the ground, coasting along, above the throng of Zari and away from the catastrophic wreckage I had inflicted.  

In the hour that I’d been an unstoppable monster, my fight with Forest and search of food supply had claimed miles of cityscape.  All I’d left behind was a wasteland, picked clean.  

They are going to use us to make this happen again and again.  Fight.  

To humor my Adaptation, I tugged against the gel prison and was once again unsuccessful.  Still, my shifting got the attention of several of the guards onboard, and Zellig himself.  It seemed that he didn’t quite trust the complacency cuffs to keep us entirely pacified and would make sure that we were taken to our destination with no hiccups.  

Even if we’d had access to our Adaptations, I didn’t like our odds fighting ten armed Trillodan and their monstrous commander.  Their technology put them on an even playing field with us, and the way that the soldiers looked to Zellig made it clear that he was a cut above and not just because of rank.  

So, instead of fighting such an unwinnable contest, I sat still.  

For as technologically advanced as the Trillodan were, it was a little perplexing that they made a little barge that didn’t seem to go very quick.  Through the windows, I could see buildings pass lazily by as we continued to glide forward, propelled by some feat of engineering that Alexis might be able to appreciate.  

But…why?  Why were we going so slow?  Surely the Trillodan ship could go more than 40km/h.

Of course it can.  We’re bait.

“You’re using us to draw others out,” I muttered aloud, my brain hazy as I tried to break through the fog.  I should be outraged, furious, fearful, something. It was a strange feeling to know that I should be more emotionally reactive, but feel so very little besides a little dose of contentment.  

The common Trillodan soldiers didn’t catch my comment, but Zellig smiled and revealed his twin rows of dangerous looking canines.  He didn’t need to say anything to let me know that was exactly what he was doing.  

And I could do nothing more than sit, limp.  

The commander perked up and turned, shouting something to his fellow Trillodan in a language I couldn’t understand.  Something was happening, and somehow he knew. He had mentioned hearing me when I was talking to myself behind the bar, even breathing.  Zellig definitely had enhanced senses. Even if he didn’t, this was the Trillodan. They had technology that might as well have been magic.  

The commander snapped right about the time a thunderous boom sounded; the ship lurched to the right as a hole was blasted through the hull and we plummeted down, crashing into the side of a large concrete structure.  The transport skidded to a halt on the curb with a horrible metallic grinding setting my teeth on edge. While the other Trillodan soldiers were thrown around the inside of the ship, Zellig barely moved and stayed upright the whole time.  

Whoever came for us, they had no idea what they were up against.  

Again shouting in a foreign language, Zellig beckoned for his troops to follow as he shoved open a door and stormed out.  I was facing the wrong way to watch, but the sounds of combat filled the air, and one sound in particular was distinct: the crackle of electricity.  I wasn’t the only one who noticed it either; Pyre perked up in her restraints, knowing full well that sound was only generated by one Adapted on Tso’got. 

Shock.  And wherever he went, his sibling came with.  Of course it would be them, they had a teammate to save.  

A thud was heard against the hull of the ship and a moment later a familiar figure filled the open doorway.  Clad in a blue tracksuit with a white bolt down the center and slim helmet, Awe filled the doorway and stepped in.  He did have a new accessory, one that was oddly familiar to me in particular. Where he used to wear kevlar gloves, he now had on sophisticated metal gauntlets, ones that were already fixing cosmetic damage around the knuckles. 

“Why do you have those gloves,” I demanded, calling his attention to me.   

“Eldritch and Collector to boot.  Looks like I scored the big one,” Awe said with a little laugh, “Come on, we got to go.”  He glanced at me, “Your friend, Dragoon, she gave me a few tools to help out.”    

Awe stepped forward, slamming his fist against the hardened gel around Pyre, his hand acting like a jackhammer as it slowly cracked through the substance, the gloves keeping him from shattering his fingers.  It took him a little bit, but eventually he ripped Pyre free. Procuring a little drone from his pocket, it set to work cutting through the cuffs that kept the pyrokinetic complacent.  

The second they fell off, her eyes widened and she seemed to snap out of a trance.  “Oh, fuck,” she muttered and almost fell over, having to steady herself against a wall of the transport. 

“We don’t have much time, we got to get them out and get the hell out of here.”  

His teammate nodded, a bit shaky, but she used her gift to help weaken the gel so he could better hammer through and free the other two Adapted present.  He gave me a wary look as the drone cut free my restraints.

I understood why both Pyre and Collector nearly fell over after being released from the complacency cuffs; it was like suddenly feeling every bit of stress and mental strain that you’d endured for the last hour in the blink of an eye.  

“Eldritch, you going to try and eat everyone?” Awe asked as he kept a fist clenched, “Do we need to worry about you going off the reservation?”

I shook my head, “No mass to burn.  I’m harmless.” I waved outside, “The big guy–the grey one–Awe, he’s way more dangerous than you think.”

The Enhancer exhaled and nodded, “Well let’s help out then.”  

Awe led the way back out to a warzone.  Four of the Trillodan soldiers had fallen, three of them clearly victim to Goliath, the monstrous brute that worked alongside Shock and Awe.  The only thing that seemed out of place was the number of monstrous creatures, all seeming to be twisted animals or monsters laden with far too many spikes or teeth.  

Another bit of handiwork I was very familiar with.  Menagerie was lending aid to the Surface Dweller rescue group and had sent them with nearly a dozen pieces of her living artwork.  Shock was hidden behind them all, threading bolts of electricity through and blasting back a number of the Trillodan soldiers; their power armor kept them well insulated from his assault though and but apprehension was keeping them behind cover.  More concerning for me was Zellig. The mountain of grey muscle was leaping from animated one animated drawing to the next, dispatching it with a frightening efficiency. 

Watching him for a second, it was clear the commander had a clear target in mind as he ripped his way across the field: he wanted to pick a fight with Goliath and get some kind of payback for the Enhancer literally flattening his troops.  While the armor could withstand the electricity from Shock, it couldn’t withstand his super strength. The gloves the Trillodan soldiers had weren’t doing enough to push him away, and he was simply growing more muscle to heal over the holes punched in him by the laser pistols.  

“Pyre, can you fight?” Awe asked.

She shook her head, “Not much fire stored.”  

“Collector, get over to Shock.  Eldritch, stick with them and eat something.  I don’t think I want you growing, but we may need it,” he muttered as Zellig leapt forward and engaged with Goliath.  Zellig was a bit shorter than Goliath, but the Trillodan commander didn’t seem concerned over a few inches of height disparity.    

Goliath blocked the first strike and replied with a straight jab, but it was like Zellig could see everything a second before it happened.  His easily moved his head to avoid it and stepped forward, striking forward into Goliath’s chest and pushing him back a step; before he could recover his balance, Zellig raised a leg and drove his heel into the Surface Dweller’s gut and launched him back into the middle of the road.  As Goliath scrambled to his feet, the Trillodan commander didn’t relent, leaping forward and opening his hands.  

The bit of illumination provided by the street lights showed the glint of metal claws that had sprung from his fingertips.

Around us, the standing Trillodan turned their weapons on us, but Collector worked to buy us safe passage, pulling various walls and piles of rubble to literally wall them out.  From behind them, we heard the horrific screeches of Menagerie’s monsters helping force the Trillodan soldiers back.  

At the end of our conjured alley, Shock came into view with his own white and blue suit, the inverse of his siblings.  “You two,” he snapped at Collector and Pyre, “Get back to that alley there, it’s a Relay station. Go back and ask for backup.  And you,” he said to me, “Eat something. Now.”  

I followed his gaze and saw Goliath continuing to fight against Zellig, and it was going incredibly poorly.  While Goliath was incredibly strong – and could likely do some serious damage to Zellig – he seemed to be moving in slow motion compared to Zellig.  Nothing Goliath could do was able to land against his opponent; it dawned on me that it was like when I had tried fighting Murphy in the past. It wasn’t just that Zellig was faster than Goliath, he was simply better at this.  The Surface Dweller strongman had never needed finesse since no one could stand in front of his overwhelming might.     

Zellig wasn’t worried, letting his martial mastery negate Goliath’s inhuman might.  He was even smiling while he continued dancing around, ripping out chunks of muscle from the Enhancer.  

“Shock, your brother needs to help Goliath!” I shouted to the Projector beside me. 

“I know!” he panted, “But we need you to suit up too.  I’m still not nearly strong enough for this after what you did earlier.”  

Use me.  We need to fight. 

“I…I can’t,” I said softly.  

Shock didn’t hear me as he let loose another trio of bolts, driving back two of the remaining soldiers.  His brother swept in, pummeling them before they could take aim at Shock. Even now, it still boggled my mind how well these two worked together.  

“Awe!  The big guy!” the Projector shouted to his sibling.  

There was no hesitation from Awe as he sprinted over.  Right before he made contact, Shock hit his brother with a bolt of electricity, fueling his absurd speed and strength.  

Compared to the massive forms of Goliath and Zellig, Awe seemed tiny, but Zellig was smart enough to respect the new challenger.  A metal gauntlet found the side of his arm and left an opening for Goliath to finally land a blow into the Trillodan’s midsection.  Even so, it only drove him back a single step, even with all of Goliath’s strength.  

Awe continued to burn through his charge, zipping behind Zellig; the commander spun around, the metal talons demanding that Awe take a step back.  Still, it was two versus one, and Goliath was not going to be outdone by his newfound teammate. Goliath’s strike found its target and sent the Trillodan reeling; Awe followed up and stepped in, ducking under the claws and unleashing a quick flurry of blows on Zellig’s midsection.  Awe was smart enough to back out and avoid being grabbed. Goliath knew he could take advantage of his opponent having his back turned to him.  

A fist drove into Zellig’s side, but the Trillodan spun with a burst of speed Goliath wasn’t expecting.  Claws flashed and Goliath staggered back, four gashes carved into his chest. This time it was Zellig to push the advantage, darting forward, jamming nearly his entire hand all the way into his opponent’s stomach.  Goliath shook, but then let out a battle cry, swinging and driving the Trillodan back; Awe sprinted forward and slammed a fist forward into Zellig’s spine, managing to evoke a grunt from the behemoth.  

But Goliath wasn’t able to follow up.  He stumbled backwards, clutching his stomach in an attempt to staunch the blood flow.  Zellig had nearly eviscerated him, hitting the actual man hidden under all the excess muscle.  

Shock let out a bolt of electricity to charge his brother as Zellig turned his attention entirely to Awe now.  While Awe was extremely quick, he was having trouble finding an opening without the assistance of Goliath.  

“He needs you to he-” I was cut off as a searing pain tore through my side.  On our flank, one of the Trillodan soldiers hadn’t stayed down after the assault from Menagerie’s monsters.  Shock turned and endured a hole being bored through his shoulder before he could return fire and blast the Trillodan soldier hard enough to throw him off his feet and back into the prisoner transport.  

The whole world seemed to go quiet as I put my hand to my side and looked at my palm, coated in blood.  Slowly, I sank to my knees, queasy, starting to shake in disbelief. There was a hole in me, cutting straight through me just below my ribcage.  The edges of my vision began to blur as I sank to all fours, trying to get myself to relax and breathe.  

A rough pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and hauled me back up to my feet.  Shock ripped his helmet off, revealing a pasty white young adult with short blonde hair and brown eyes.  “Eldritch, listen to me,” he snapped, “Eat one of the Trillodan bastards, bulk up.” He glanced down at my side and shook his head, grimacing.  “Your power, it heals you, right?” 

I nodded, unable to speak.  

“Then here’s what is going to happen.  You’re going to eat, bulk up, and help kill this big bastard.  If that thing takes my brother, if he gets taken to some alien lab somewhere, I won’t leave enough left of you for him to get samples.  Understood?”

I nodded again, caught off guard by his desperation.  Shock pointed me at a corpse that had fallen in the no-man’s land between Shock and the rest of the melee and he shoved me forward, stepping past me to use the walls and debris provided by Collector so he couldn’t get blindsided by another blast from a laser pistol.  

As I lurched forward, I watched the duo square off against Zellig.  

The first arc of electricity curved around the Trillodan commander and reinvigorated Awe as he rolled, narrowly avoiding a punch.  With a new charge, Awe darted forward and drove a fist into the solar plexus of his opponent, making Zellig slide back on the asphalt.  Shock charged his fingertips and let fly an orb of electrical energy that exploded next to the Trillodan and left scorch marks on his armor and across much of his grey flesh.  His sibling took advantage of the temporary lapse in his focus and went low, slamming a fist into the side of Zellig’s knee, bending his leg entirely the wrong way and forcing him to kneel.  

I got close enough to the first dead invader and removed his helmet, and placed my hand against his skin.  

Seventy-seven kilograms of material to consume.

Shock drove another few bolts of lighting into the Trillodan hulk as Awe danced around him, delivering what blows he could land safely.  Maybe I didn’t need to consume this mass and risk unleashing the monster I kept locked up inside of me.

Maybe these two could put him down.  

As if he heard my suspicion, Zellig suddenly turned the tables.  Awe dashed forward and targeted the Trillodan’s face while he was low enough to be vulnerable; in a snap, Zellig shot out an arm and seized Awe around the bicep, making sure to grab above the gauntlet so he couldn’t wriggle free.  “Enough running for you,” he said with a laugh as he turned and pitched the Enhancer. Awe’s body went flying across the street, completely demolishing the side of a small car. He didn’t get back up.  

“Alexei!” Shock screamed, hastily launching a bolt of electricity into his siblings body as if he could force him to heal.  “Alexei, get the fuck up!” 

Zellig stood back up, a twitch of his leg violently setting the knee back into proper place.  He didn’t even test the reset limb, Zelling just started walking again like nothing had even happened.  As he stepped into a more illuminated spot, I could see the burn marks fading, like a stain being washed off his skin.  He sneered at Shock and spread his arms, welcoming the abuse. Shock scowled and accepted the challenge, firing a trio of blasts into his chest, but it barely made Zellig flinch.  There was no real harm done, nothing that he wouldn’t heal through.  

Consequences be damned, someone needed to make this bastard hurt.  

I burned all the mass, making three tonnes of Neklim growth as fast as I physically could, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed.  The instant my skin sprouted growths, Zellig turned to me, his smile fading. Shock noticed too, immediately raising his arm and pulling charge to his fingertips.  

Zellig had been so sure about fighting everyone else, but he wasn’t entirely confident he could beat me.  

The Trillodan’s initial move forward was halted by Shock releasing a renewed electrical salvo, keeping Zellig still for a moment.  As I grew, there was a blur of blue and white as Awe rejoined the fight, glowing as he hastily burned through all the charge that his brother could give him.  Zellig was forced to stall a moment as Awe sped around him, striking whatever he could get a shot at: knees, torso, and the spine. While one brother ran around him, the other was contributing all the electricity he could, wearing away at Zellig’s guard, ensuring he couldn’t retaliate and fight back.  

At once, the Trillodan moved with blinding speed.  A quick jab hit Awe hard enough in the head to crack his helmet and disrupt his balance. As he was rattled, Zellig pivoted and kicked him square in the torso, launching him into the debris that Collector had conjured.  Shock roared in rage, releasing a massive blast of electricity, but the Trillodan brute dropped onto all fours and literally dug his claws into the street, holding him still while he endured the assault.  

As soon as Shock had to stop and catch his breath, the mountain of grey muscle got back to his feet.  The Projector tried to fire again, but Zellig reacted faster, grabbing a hunk of rock and launching it like it had been fired from a gun.  Shock keeled over, holding his ribs and gasping for air as Zellig lumbered forward, his body already mending the burns inflicted.  

But they had bought enough time for me to grow three tonnes of Neklim mass.  

While I had been dwarfed earlier, now I towered over Zellig, 

I felt the aggression from my Adaptation, rage from the Neklim and I let it burn as I lumbered forward, in harmony with the voice in my head.  

Raising a massive arm, I swung down and hardened the edge, using it like a massive club; Zellig moved a foot out to widen his base and raised an arm, absorbing the blow without much trouble.  I curled the limb around his arm and tried to dig in, rip the flesh away from his bones and consume it.  

Except, I couldn’t.  It was too durable, too tough for me to find any purchase and sink my teeth into.      

The Trillodan commander smiled and lunged forward, driving a fist into my midsection.  For a moment, there was dissonance between myself and the Neklim suit as I felt pain in my person, despite the wall of flesh between us.  Pressing the attack, Zellig’s claws sprung out from his fingertips again and he slashed across my midsection before attacking the arm I was trying to hold onto him with.  

He cut through me with alarming ease, ripping away a few dozen kilograms in an instant.  

Reallocating muscle to maintain my grip on his arm, I turned and dragged him with; even though he dug his claws into the road, my sheer weight pulled him along for the ride.  I let him go and he flew into the side of the prisoner transport, the dense metal folding around him. Even though he was large, he was much heavier than he looked, like the bastard was made of lead or something.  

Zellig only stayed down for a second; as he got up, he convulsed and reoriented an arm that had broken when he crashed against the hull.  

Beside me there was a thudding as Goliath lumbered closer.  While he had finally overgrown the numerous gashes and pair of incredibly deep perforations that had been inflicted, Goliath was looking worse for wear.  His breathing was labored, he was moving slow, and it almost looked like he couldn’t pick his arms up anymore. “I may not be much help, but if I can get a hold of this bastard for you, I’m pretty sure I can keep him still for a moment.”  

“Okay,” I acknowledged.  

Zellig looked at us and smiled before leaning down like a runner readying on the blocks.  His running was similar to the way Goliath could move, with immense strides, an overwhelming amount of muscle and strength carrying you forward.  Except, as Goliath charged to match him, Zellig pivoted and sidestepped. Claws slipped through his toes and he literally dug into the road to stop.  Goliath couldn’t adjust as quickly and had to take an additional step forward, Zellig using the opportunity to swipe and come away with a literal handful of Goliaths side.

The Enhancer sank to his knees and a heavy blow to the jaw from the Trillodan made sure he wasn’t getting up any time soon.  

I roared, enraged as I swung down and was met again with his ability to simply withstand my blows.  As I grabbed one arm, he stepped towards me and kicked a leg out from under me. Even though my legs were dense, it folded and my balance went with.  However, I dragged him with, refusing to let go. I wasn’t about to let him get free use of those claws he had hidden in his fingertips.  

Leveraging my mass, I pulled his arms to stretch him out, to isolate his limbs and see if I could do any lasting damage.  As I pulled his arms apart, Zellig yanked himself forward and drove a heel against my midsection, hitting about where my pelvis was underneath the suit.  The moment of dissonance gave him a window to dig his foot in and push, ripping one hand free. Once one arm came free, he quickly shredded the mass holding the other.  

Frustrated, I reached both arms forward and engulfed his torso, squeezing down, trying to crush his chest entirely; before I managed to grab hold, Zellig reached forward and pushed back against my massive arms.  For a little bit, there was a stalemate as I struggled forward and he grunted, holding his ground. And then, there was a strange, electrical whirring that heralded him actually pushing me back.  Zellig roared and shoved me backwards; before I could find my balance, he leapt forward, literally tackling me to the ground and reaching forward, ripping a patch of growth away.  

My eyes opened as he exposed my actual face.  Seeing everything from the Neklim input as well as my own was overwhelming and nearly made me scream.  As growth tried to reallocate, to protect me beneath the mass, a massive hand came down and grabbed around my head.  

“Dismiss the growths, or we see how well your Adaptation works without your head attached.”  He bared his fangs in a sinister sneer, “I’d rather bring you back alive, but your carcass will still be a useful thing to study.”  

I could feel the reluctance of my Adaptation, but I released the growths, letting them crumble to ash.  

Zellig rose and once again loomed above me, looking over the battlefield.  The Trillodan commander looked remorsefully at the scattered Trillodan corpses, his gaze lingering on the one whose flesh I had stripped away.  Three of his men were gathering around him, survivors of the encounter with the Adapted.  

“I wasn’t intending to lose those two,” Zellig said with a sigh, “But getting Shock and Awe, as well as Goliath, I must say that is decided-”

He stopped and threw himself to the side as a truck swung through, bound by a massive glowing chain like it was on the end of some kind of flail.  The three Trillodan soldiers weren’t nearly so fast to avoid and two were swept aside as the chain disconnected and let the momentum of the truck carry them into a completely innocent building.  

“Are you alright?” a gentle voice asked as a man in cobalt colored armor landed beside me.  

There was no mistaking that getup, or the authority that Clemency wielded.  His hands were both glowing, fueled by emotional charge in the air around us.  One of his gloves had a white glowing chain wrapped around it and the other glowed a deep purple.  The white chain was terror, and the purple was desperation, two of his most powerful weapons in his arsenal; thanks to the Trillodan’s arrival and my rampage earlier, there was no shortage of emotional charge around Ciel for him to utilize.    

“I’m…I’m okay.  He…he’s-”

Clemency looked at the carnage and seemed to understand how dire the situation was, and how dangerous the massive Trillodan in front of him was.  

Zellig on the other hand, looked excited at the prospect of fighting one of the most powerful Adapted in existence.  “Now, here’s a proper contender,” he laughed, clapping,“Come on then, Clemency, show me exactly what you Adapted are capable of!”   

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

            It was a bit surreal being in the same room with a Trillodan, let alone seeing one in the flesh.  For everyone in the cosmos, the Trillodan were these tyrannical monsters…but as Soliloquy continued to talk to them, they looked docile.  Even the one that still had his helmet on clearly wasn’t intending to fight anymore. Instead, he was content to simply sit and be present, his head turned our way, watching the exchange that had started between Soliloquy and the Trillodan soldier who was apparently named Karak.

             Parasite and Ragdoll had taken interest in the discarded helmet and were the first two people to get their hands on any kind of Trillodan technology in recorded history.  As Parasite picked it up, his face twisted and he yanked his hand away. “Soliloquy,” he called out, “Ask our friend why his suit is wet.”

              “It’s wet?”

              “Yeah,” Ragdoll confirmed, “It’s like the inside is coated in some weird gel.”

              Soliloquy turned back to Karak, “Your armor,” he said, gesturing to the rest of the suit still on the Trillodan, “It’s wet.  Why?”

            Part of the reason Karak was hard to communicate with was his limited knowledge of universal common.  “Trillodan…need wet,” he said, clearly trying to find another word. 

            “Do you dry out?”

            “Skin crack, bleed.  Air,” he waved around, “Hurt.”

            “For being planetary conquering militants, it seems a little odd that Tso’got has an atmosphere that is too harsh for them,” Transport muttered.  “Shouldn’t they be the best beings in existence?”

           “Their technology-“

            “Hush,” Soliloquy snapped as Karak started to look towards us and away from our inquisitor.  “Karak,” he said, getting the Trillodan’s attention again, “You said you want to catch all of us.”

             He nodded. 

             “Why?”

             “Take…” he curled his lips, agitated at his lack of term.

             “Our powers?”

             “Yes.  Use them to make weapons,” Karak replied.   

             Ragdoll sighed, “That’s not good.”

            Soliloquy shut him up with a glare before continuing, “How many Trillodan soldiers are here in the city?”

            Karak shook his head, “I do not know.  Many. Most here of anywhere. Zellig brought us.”

            “Zellig?”            

            “Commander.  Strongest weapon.”

            All of us looked between each other with concern on all of our faces; if this soldier had a smaller version of Shockwave’s power in a glove and a laser pistol, what did the ‘strongest weapon’ look like? 

            “Is Tso’got going to be destroyed?”

             Karak tilted his head, confused. 

             “Protocol 37?  Will that happen?”

            “Do not know.  Not important enough.  Zellig decides.”

             “Where is Zellig now?” Soliloquy asked politely.  Unlike the rest of us, he did a good job hiding his dismay and concern; for him to do this well, he had to look in control, keep the two Trillodan under his influence that he was in fact in control of everything and that the fight was over.

             “Do not know.  Commander Zellig… I think he hunting.”

            All of us in the room tensed at his word choice; being hunted by someone who had the authority to call in Protocol 37 and was described as the strongest weapon was extremely unsettling.  

He’s coming for us, he has to be.  We must have caught his attention earlier.  

I wanted to scream at the voice in my head, but I abstained, not wanting to reveal how much I was losing it or to interrupt Soliloquy’s interrogation.  

“Above us, how many Trillodan are there?”

             “Many.”

            “How many?”

             “Do not know.”

             Soliloquy sighed, clearly wishing that he wasn’t trying to work against a language barrier on top of Karak’s lack of information. 

             “What about the Zari,” Parasite asked, “What is going to happen to them?” 

             Soliloquy repeated his question and Karak smiled, revealing his daunting fangs again.  “Zari with us now. Zari afraid.”

             “Zari already went Sycophant,” I muttered in dismay.  In less than twelve hours I had demolished a swath of downtown Ciel, brought around the Trillodan invasion, and prompted the Zari to turn Sycophant which made Tso’got a hostile planet for all Adapted. 

             “Nowhere is safe anymore,” Ragdoll thought aloud, “time to get the hell out of here before it gets any worse.” 

             “Karak,” Soliloquy said, getting his attention again, “What do you do with Adapted when you capture them?” 

    “Take to ship.  Vaneel study there.”  

    Joshua, the Snatchers twisted practitioner, had been bad enough, and he’d been limited to human technology; none of us wanted to know what the hell this ‘Vaneel’ character would do to us.  

    “How do you get people there?” 

    Karak opened his mouth, unsure how to articulate what he was after.  “Small ships. Take to big ship.”

    Mr. Magnificent groaned, “They’ve likely set up shop on the West side of town where you didn’t break everything.  It’s likely why the Zari didn’t show up to come after you; they had to answer to the Trillodan.”

    We scared them all.  The most powerful people in the universe are here for us. 

    I clenched my fists until my hands hurt and quietly told myself it was all in my head.  My Adaptation couldn’t work without me, I was in control.  

    “Karak, how long are the Trillodan going to be on the planet?  When will they leave?” 

    “Until job done,” the soldier replied, very matter of fact.  

    Parasite snapped his fingers, clearly having an epiphany.  “Soliloquy, a blockade.”  

    Our grand inquisitor turned back to the de-helmed alien, “Are the Trillodan guarding the planet?”

    He shook his head, confused.

    “Can anything leave Tso’got?” 

    “No.  Ships in sky, kill others.”  

    Transport groaned, “We might not have a ship that is going to be fit to escape the atmosphere; it sure as fuck isn’t going to be able to battle a Trillodan armada.”  

    “We have to trust Titan,” Ragdoll said with a drawn out sigh.

    “I’d rather not trust that bastard.  He’s crazier than I am thinking all this will work,” Psycho muttered.  

    “You have a better idea?  All you ever manage to do is show up and make a mess,” Parasite shot back, “But hey, maybe you want to take your chances with more guys who are casually using powers like ours.” 

    “Shut up,” Soliloquy hissed; the Trillodan seemed agitated, less docile, as if our discord was helping to snap him free of the Projector’s suggestive stupor he had coaxed them into.  

    The one with the helmet still on abruptly raised the golden glove at Soliloquy, not managing to actually fire it before Transport teleported the glove on his own hand.  He turned it to Karak and flexed his fingers, his elated expression quickly betraying annoyance.  “How the hell do I even use this thing?”

    “Not for you,” Karak hissed as he got to his feet, glaring at Soliloquy, knowing that the Projector did something to him.  “Human can not use.”  

    “What do we do about them?” I asked as Psycho, Ragdoll, and Parasite stepped forward, all ready for a fight.

    Parasite answered my question, stepping forward and bringing his staff around in a blur, knocking the Trillodan both unconscious with a few deft strikes.  Transport ditched the glove and we quickly ascended the stairs, wanting to get out of the hellhole we had been stuck in for the last few hours.  

    The stairs led up to a rather mediocre looking hotel.  Another bland concrete building that no one would think twice about in passing.  It made me nervous to think that there could be, and likely was, several of these hidden around Ciel and we’d never known.  

Even so, as soon as we stepped out of the building, I almost missed the security of the Snatcher hideout.  In the handful of hours we’d been hiding below ground, the world above had turned hellish. Zari had flooded back into downtown, a mob literally flowing through the street as fire continued to remain unchecked leaving a number of buildings smoldering.  In front of the mob, there were people running away and not making it far before a few Zari would streak out and attack them, pulling them back into the throng of bodies.

Soliloquy turned to run, but Ragdoll grabbed his arm and kept him still, “They don’t see us yet,” he insisted.  “If we bolt, the movement might draw their attention. We need a car. Transport, can you hotwire something?”    

“Fuck me,” Transport muttered, “They’ve gone beyond hunting Adapted, they’re just hunting humans in general.” 

“Transport,” Ragdoll hissed, “Can you hotwire a fucking car?” 

“I’m not sure-“

“Do it,” Ragdoll snapped, “Don’t think, just make it work.  We aren’t all outrunning a fucking Zari mob, not without Magnificent boosting all of us and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the juice for that.”  

He shook his head, apologetic, “Sorry Rags, but after earlier and all that tonight-”

Ragdoll shook his head and waved, dismissing his teammates disappointment.  “It’s been a long night and you’ve done a lot. No one is blaming you.”  

I felt my blood pound in my ears as I watched the mob closing in on us; only two blocks separate us from the angry mob, and the only reason they hadn’t started charging us down was the lack of street lamps illuminating right where we stood.  

“Parasite,” Psycho muttered, “Get that staff of yours ready.  I think we’re about to have a fight on our hands.”

“Are you nuts?” he whispered, “If we try to pick a fight with that many people, we’re dead.  Even we couldn’t hope to overpower two hundred Zari.”   

Right on cue, the mob caught sight of us, and a war cry was let out: “Humans!” 

“Transport,” Ragdoll yelled as people began charging us, “Get that fucking car running!” 

As the gap between us rapidly closed, a sedan sputtered to life.  “Get in, get in,” Ragdoll shouted. I threw myself in alongside Mr. Magnificent and Soliloquy as Transport hit the gas.  Ragdoll launched himself and caught the passenger side door while Parasite leapt and landed on top. Psycho slipped into his manic state and ran alongside the car.  

“On the right!” Soliloquy shouted, pointing at a truck that came barreling from a side street.  A blur of orange darted in front of the oncoming truck and Psycho turned himself blue at the last second.  A Zari was cast from through the windshield as the entire front of the truck warped around Psycho, the front end nearly folding in on itself as it encased the Peculiar.  An orange figure phased through the side and dashed back up to us.  

“Holy shit his bi-polar power is handy,” Mr. Magnificent muttered as Transport turned a corner and put the mob out of our line of sight.  

And instead welcomed a blockade comprised of several parked cars.  

“Phones.  Instant communication,” I realized aloud, “The second anyone sees us, everyone knows where we are.”  

“Unfortunately that includes assholes with guns,” Transport growled as he slammed the car into reverse and stomped on the gas.  From around the edges of the blockade, a handful of Zari poked out with automatic weaponry and began peppering the vehicle. While I thought we were done for, Transport began quickly teleporting slabs of cement and metal by the side of the car, making shields as we went along.  

All of this mayhem, all for us. 

Despite his best efforts, a bullet still managed to find our front left tire; trying to use his power and drive meant that he wasn’t prepared to deal with the sudden and violent lurch of the vehicle as we suddenly veered.  Transport abandoned making shields for us, and was gifted with a bullet in the shoulder which caused him to jerk one way, and then overcorrect for his reflex.  

A nasty crunching of metal filled the air as we slammed straight into a concrete pillar on the corner of what looked like a shopping mall.  Ragdoll and Parasite had the good sense to clear the vehicle before we had crashed. Even though they chose the more dangerous modes of travel, they were actually the least harmed.  Mr. Magnificent opened the door and staggered out, propped up by Ragdoll as the rest of us clambered out. We didn’t get much time to try and recoup: the mob was still coming in full force and those who set up the automotive blockade were getting in the cars to chase us.

“We’ve gotta run,” Parasite shouted as he helped Transport up to his feet, “Come on, we can’t let ourselves get picked up by a fucking crowd of Zari.  We are not going out like this.”  

The leader of the Flag bearers shook his head, “We can’t run, not from this,” he realized with a grimace.  “Soliloquy,” Ragdoll snapped, “Do it.” 

The Projector grimaced, “That’s a lot of people, Rags.”

“We’ll carry you away if we need to.  We need space.”  

Drawing a deep breath, Soliloquy turned to the crowd and shouted, his voice unleashing his gift.  “Run forward if you want to die!” For being a guy with a slight built, it was amazing how well his voice carried, and how immediate the reaction was.  Psycho’s display, and the fact he was glowing orange helped solidify the fact that we were Adapted and that we were dangerous. With Soliloquy’s emotional push of fear, the mob came to a screeching halt, all of them suddenly debating whether or not they should actually be attacking a group of Adapted.  

“We don’t want to resort to violence, but we will if necessary!” 

A glance showed Soliloquy’s arm trembling as he propped himself upright on the trunk of the car; affecting this many people in such a profound manner was taking a massive toll.  He had halted a mob of probably two hundred people in an instant. Now it was just a question of how long his effect could hold.  

“He can’t do this for long,” Mr. Magnificent hissed, “We are going to need to run.”  

If we fought, we could beat the whole mob.  

While I didn’t agree with the voice of my Adaptation, it did make me realize one thing.  “How about we split up,” I suggested. “With Soliloquy’s influence, it will take them a minute to get a full head of steam again.  They have trouble chasing with us split up.”

Parasite looked at me skeptically, “That sounds like a terrible idea.  If a group gets isolated, they die. None of us are able to fight this many people at once.”  Parasite caught himself as he looked at me, regretting his thought.  

“What if they all chase one person?” I said softly.  “What if we just let them all chase me?” 

“Nick,” Parasite whispered, “What are you thinking?” 

“If we tell them who he is,” Transport thought aloud, “They all chase him.  Mr. Magnificent can’t give us all a boost, but he could grant you a boost for a little while.  You book it for the Relay station while we take a longer route and steer clear of the crazy. It might work.”

Ragdoll shook his head, “Too much can go wrong and we can’t lose Eldritch, not after what Titan did to get him back alive.”

“Ragdoll,” I replied, “Let me bait them away.  It’s because someone spotted me that the incident with the Snatchers even happened.  We shouldn’t be out here, and if you let me do this it means you can get your whole team away safe.”  I took a shaky breath in, “I need to do this. Please. I need to stop relying on everyone else to save me.  Let me return the favor.”  

He frowned but reached into his pocket and fished out a phone for me.  “Take it. Call if you have any problems. I meant what I said, Eldritch.  We really can’t lose you.”  

I took the phone and nodded, silent; Ragdoll didn’t need to know that I disagreed with him entirely.  

The leader of the Flagbearers helped steady Soliloquy and whispered into his ear, giving me one last glance to make sure this was what I wanted.  “The one you’re after, the one who devoured downtown,” Soliloquy projected to the crowd before pointing a finger at me, “Is him. There’s Eldritch, in the flesh.  He’s the one you want.”

It was not a hard sell for him to make; the crowd was practically gifted their perfect villain to crucify.   

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Mr. Magnificent said as he closed his eyes and focused.  I felt every fiber of my body strengthen. Even with a small dose, I felt like a world class athlete; with a full dose of his power I felt like I could conquer the world.  Even with the injuries from earlier, I could run so much faster than the Zari could dream to. I had to slow down initially to make sure they kept chasing me, to make sure that the other Adapted would be able to get away.     

Once I had run for a minute, I sprinted with all that my legs had to give.  

I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t care.  Regardless of what Titan thought, regardless of what Ragdoll believed, regardless of what Murphy insisted, I was too dangerous to go with them.  Whatever had happened to my Adaptation earlier tonight, whatever mechanism had given my Adaptation the ability to start thinking and speaking to me, that was too much.  

If I came along, I became a liability whether or not I used my gift.  The instant I got any amount of extra mass, I would become nigh unstoppable. If I left without the use of my Adaptation, I would be a liability.  Even the Cognates who couldn’t fight at least had value. I’d be a bigger handicap than Big Picture and that guy was basically wheelchair bound. It was better than I take my chances on Tso’got, that I do my best to hide and wait until the Trillodan quit searching and rounding up Adapted.  It was better I only put myself at risk than everyone else.    

I was not going to continue to be a burden.  I’d nearly cost Ragoll everything with the Snatchers and that was not a mistake I would make again.  

My legs started to ache as Mr. Magnificents power started to fade.  Before it gave out completely, I ducked into a little bar. The place was still abandoned, and the door was unlocked; when people all ran from my rampage, the last thing on their mind was locking the door.  

I stepped over a number of overturned chairs and tables, making my way to the bar and hopping over.  Reaching over the shelf, I grabbed a bottle of vodka and sat down, pressing my back against the metal wall.  As I gagged down a gulp of the fiery liquid, the thunderous approach of the mob filled my ears. Shouts of discord and rage could be heard, people were furious that I had given them the slip.  Still, I was cautious as I heard some footsteps poke in the establishment.  

One pair of footfalls started coming right towards me with a second set close behind.  

As quietly as I could, I shuffled along the concrete floor and slid around the edge of a metal cabinet behind the bar, drawing my legs into my chest, hoping that whoever was coming wasn’t going to look too closely.  Even though the place wasn’t particularly well lit, there was enough light that I wasn’t able to hide entirely in the gloom. Blood thundered in my ears as a pair of feet landed on the close side of the bar; they were only two meters away from me and I was sure they could hear my heart hammering my chest.  Gripping the neck of the bottle, I readied myself to go down swinging.  

And then, there was a laugh and a clinking of glass as a pair of young Zari swiped some of the liquor.  I almost laughed; the bastards nearly gave me a heart attack and all it had been was a few delinquents swiping booze.  As I heard them leave, I let out a sigh of relief and let my legs stretch out.  

They are persistent.

“They want you, not me,” I muttered back, positive that this was what it meant to go crazy.  “You’re the one who ate so much of the city. You’re the one who ate all those Zari.”  

You’re the one who consumed your parents to start it all.

I took a huge swig, as if that would help make it shut up.  “For something that lives in my head, you’re a fucking asshole.  Aren’t I like your host or something?”

Or something.

“Just… stop talking.  You’re the entire reason we’re in this mess.  Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted me killing anyone, let alone everyone.”

But we’ll never know what they wanted, will we?  Beleth deserved what he had coming to him.

“But it isn’t Beleth!  You went ape shit and ate everything!  Everyone!”  

And I should let myself die instead of feeding?  I should just relinquish my body and go back to being a figment of your mind?  Fuck that. How you felt, like a passenger, that’s how I feel constantly. I was never able to articulate it until you gave me control, until you lent me access to your brain.  

“Maybe you should go back to being that: a nice, silent passenger,” I grumbled as I took another swig.  

Maybe you should just admit you need me.  Without me, you have to hide. Without me, you don’t have a place among your friends.  Without me-

“Shut up!” I snapped, “Shut up!  Shut up! You’re a parasite, a disease, something that my brain has concocted to help me cope!  Something! Anything! You aren’t real!”  

I expected a reply, but there was nothing.  Instead, silence.

Was this what being crazy felt like?  Had I completely lost it and snapped? Adapted could withstand tremendous amounts of psychological trauma with limited side effect, but I’d seen my parents die.  I’d eaten their flesh…literally. I’d lost control and killed hundreds of people. If that wasn’t enough to cause some kind of mental breakdown, I didn’t know what was.  

“But if that’s the case, and I can actually control my powers, I just bailed on my friends for no reason.  All because you, you fucking prick!” I glared down at my hands, half expecting them to somehow erupt in black tentacles and attack me.  Of course they didn’t though, I didn’t have mass left to burn. I shook my head and took a third swig of vodka, shuddering as it went down rough.  I couldn’t take the risk being around people; if Titan wanted me alive, he would want me to use my power again and likely to do something huge. 

I was never going to be that monster again.  

“Never again,” I said to the gloomy bar.  “No more Feast Days. No more Eldritch.” I had a sobering realization that came with, “No more Sentries.  No more Reckoner.”

My whole body felt numb as I pressed the bottle back to my lips and finally appreciated why people tried to drink their troubles away.  One night was all it had taken to strip everything away from me. I had no home, no friends, no identity, no money, nothing. I was a fugitive who would be executed by any sane individual, and I totally deserved it.  To top it all off, I’d fucked over everyone I gave a shit about and brought the most dangerous race of alien conquerors to the planet. More innocent people were being attacked and dying because of me.  

“Nicely done, Nick,” I whispered as I tried to clear the lump in my throat.  “Nicely fucking done. You’ve really messed it all up, haven’t you? This is rock bottom, isn’t it: drinking vodka from the bottle, hiding for your life, all alone.” 

Not all alone.  

As much anger as I felt, there was a strange relief hearing something else talking to me.  “Oh great, welcome back.” 

I’m never really gone. 

“Of course you aren’t.”  I sighed and pressed the bottle to my lips, feeling the effects of the alcohol coming on as my cheeks started to burn.  “So, if I’m going to be stuck with you, I might as well know exactly what you are.”

The Adaptation.  

“Great, my super power talks to me.  The coolest thing in my life is also a fucking muderous cannibal.” 

You need me to survive, and I don’t want to be held back.  

“And so you think the solution is destroying my life entirely?  Did you fucking think about what might happen if you ate half the city?  Did you think about who might look at you going ape-shit and think, ‘oh wow, that looks neat.  How about we poke him with a stick and see how he works?’ No. You didn’t. You ruined my life.  And you’ve probably killed us both.”  

If we die, it is because you won’t consume anything.  

My head slammed against the metal cabinet as I growled in frustration.  I couldn’t exactly look inside my own head, so I opted to glare at the ceiling.  “I’m not letting you loose. I’m not letting you kill anyone else.”  

And when someone tries to kill you?  When someone tries to kill both of us?  

“You aren’t a person.”

But I am alive.

“That’s debatable.  You’re a Neklim parasite…thing,” I replied, my speech starting to slur.  “The only-”

I stopped talking as a heavy thudding approached the door.  Something walked in, the ground shaking under its feet. I held my breath as whatever it was approached the bar and stopped.  A drawn out sigh made the hair on my arms stand on end as adrenaline flooded my veins. “Humans brought alcohol here with them, a last little relic of their home and when life made sense.  Not quite up to snuff with what we’ve managed to do, but I must admit that you all did quite a bang up job making a diverse array of options. What I do appreciate was mixers. Humans were masters at mixology.”  Whoever was waxing rhapsodic had a sweet baritone voice, but something felt off about it. Whoever was talking was working to sound gentle and nice, but only as a front for something dangerous.  

I stayed perfectly still, doing my best not to breathe and hoping that this was just some wistful intruder.  

“Gotta admire the tenacity of humans all this time, don’t you?  Coming to a planet as exiles, and managing to preserve part of their culture.  Hell, more than preserve, they even managed to proliferate parts of their culture.  Zari were a great host world for the exiles, it is such a shame that Feast Day had to happen and demolish that balance, isn’t it?”

My blood ran cold.  Did he know I was here?  How could he? 

“Oh, come on now, let’s not pretend you’re doing that well to hide from me.  Even if I couldn’t smell you, I could hear you breathing from outside. And you were talking to yourself earlier, though you only held up half the conversation.  At least now you have someone more corporeal to talk to, yes?” When I didn’t respond, there was an annoyed huff, “I remember humans being big on hospitality; be a good man and make me a drink, will you?”

I could barely feel my legs as I slowly got up, my eyes going wide as I looked at the monster waiting patiently for me to serve him a drink.  

He was massive.  The only thing I could think to compare him too was a bulked up Goliath, but he didn’t look awkward and overburdened by muscle.  He was clearly Trillodan and had many of the amphibious features like Karak had in terms of facial structure with the nostrils as slits and the double eyelids, but that was where the commonalities stopped.  His skin seemed almost dry, more like leather. Where Karak had been vividly colorful and pleasing to look at this mountain of muscle was desaturated, his skin a decrepit grey. As lifeless as he looked, there was a certain noble quality to him in the way he held himself.  Even without the massive bulk he wielded, something about him commanded respect, demanded attention. As I dared look him full in the face, I almost recoiled as I noticed that even his eyes were a lifeless grey color.  

“I-um-”

“I know it must be your first day on the job,” he said calmly, “So I’ll make it easy.  A rum and coke. A classic back on Earth.” Where everyone else tonight had been frantic, this monstrosity was patient.  There was no rush, no concern, no reason to not enjoy himself a little.  

I nodded, shaky as I reached for a glass and put it up on the counter, fishing around for a few ice cubes and pouring half of the cup full of coke and a third with rum.  “Oh come now, everyone needs someone to drink with.” He looked around the bar and turned back to me, “I don’t think you’ll get in trouble if you share just one with a patron.”  

My body moved on its own, not wanting to dare anger this monstrosity in front of me.  I poured vodka into a cup with some ice and tonic water.  

He extended his glass, “A toast!” 

I gulped, “What to?” 

“To a successful night!”  He clinked his glass against mine and swallowed the whole drink in a gulp.  Sharpened teeth were bared as he hissed and shook his head. “I really should drink more often, I’ve never quite gotten used to the burn of alcohol.”  He looked at my full glass, “Don’t make me drink alone.”  

I complied, sipping politely, the ice rattling against the glass as my hand shook.  

He set the empty glass down and pushed it back to me, “A second please, if you don’t mind.”  

I nodded and looked him up and down again, noticing how much less bulky his armor was.  Karak said that their armor kept them wet, like some kind of life support system to keep them safe from the air.  It only looked like he had an armored vest and green trousers on. His arms and head were completely exposed to the elements and he didn’t give a damn.  

He took the drink from me and sipped this one, watching me intently as he did it.  “Let’s get into it then and address the elephant in the room.” He chuckled to himself, “I must admit, I love some of the idioms you humans came up with.  They are so much fun to say.”  

“What are you?” I managed to whisper.  

“I’m sure you discerned what I am by this point.”

“Well, yes, but you…you aren’t wearing armor.  Not like the others I saw.”  

“Ah good, you’re ahead of the curve a little bit.  Yes, the overwhelming majority of my species has to wear those suits of armor when we are off world to preserve our skin.  The atmosphere of Tso’got,” he clicked his tongue, “It is really a nasty one. The air so dry, so polluted, so hostile. My kin are quite susceptible to it.”      

“But you-”

“Are not,” he concluded for me.  “Clearly.”

“And you speak common.”

His rows of sharpened teeth showed again in a cruel smile before replying, “And even English.” 

My eyes went wide; the only person I had ever spoken English with in my life was my father.  “How do you…how could you-”

“I love to pick up elements of cultures from the planets we destroy.  I like learning about religion, history, language, etc. Earth had a great wealth of such interesting and diverse culture.  One of the great things about you was your lack of homogeneity.”  

“You…you helped destroy my home?” 

“Oh, I did so much more than participate.  I was the one who oversaw it,” he said with a grin.    

It finally dawned on me that I knew who I was talking to.  “You’re Zellig, aren’t you?”

“Give the man a prize,” he said with a nod, “I must assume Karak said something that gave me away.”  

I gulped, how did he know who had told me?

“Cameras,” he replied, answering my unasked question, “The helmets are all equipped with them.  However, thanks to the depth of the Snatcher hideout, we lost his live feed for a while, otherwise I would have found you earlier.  But all I did was follow the mob and sniff around. You weren’t too hard to find; most Adapted seem to have a distinct scent. And you, you smell a bit like blood: metallic, violent, dreadful.”  

“You’re here to take me, aren’t you?” 

He nodded.  “There is no rush though, it isn’t like they will leave without my say so,” he said, nodding to my unfinished drink.  “After all, you were the one I really wanted to meet.”  

“Whatever you think you’re going to get from me-”

He smiled and held a hand to stop me, “I appreciate your concern, but I am Trillodan, not Zari.  I respect your power and the threat you pose, believe me.” Despite the immense size discrepancy now, I knew he wasn’t lying.  Zellig was sincere, he did legitimately appreciate what I had to offer. “It’s why I’m here, now, in person. I wanted to see the kind of package that such a magnificent and destructive power came in.  And I am glad to see that big things do come in small packages, Nicholas Weld.”  

“You-you know my name!” 

He laughed, “Of course I do!  And I know about your friends too.  Murphy Pell, Alexis Trent, both people I am very much looking forward to meeting.”  

There had to be something I could say, something to detract from how intent he was on his hunt.  “Adapted, you don’t know what happens when you experiment on us for days on end. They can-”

“Alter? You think we weren’t aware of people like ‘Psycho’ as you call him and his band of merry misfits?” he asked with a laugh, “Eldritch, do please stop.  Whatever argument you want to make to convince me that taking you for experimentation is a bad idea, stop now. We have been watching so much longer than you think.  And any objection you might present, I’m going to ignore, especially since you have no way to fight me right now.” 

“I can-”

He raised his hand to silence me.  “If you had mass to burn, you’d have done it already when I mentioned your friends.  But so far, not even a first layer under your clothing. Even if you started growing right this second, I’d rip it away.”   

He was so sure of himself, so confident in his superiority that I believe him.  But he was close by, and there were plenty of things I could use to try and inflict some damage.  After all, I was still an Adapted, and Adapted fought.

I reached for the bottle, but one of his massive hands beat me to it with speed not matching his immense frame.  Zellig laughed as he tossed the bottle in his hand to get a feel for it. “With this? That’s what you’d try to do?  Here, let me try for you.” In a blur, he broke the bottle on his face and didn’t even blink. “And, then what was the plan?  To stab me with the broken glass?” Turning his wrist, he jammed the jagged neck of the bottle into his throat; the glass didn’t puncture but instead broke on his skin.  Zellig dropped what little bottle was left to the floor and stood up straight, towering over me. He had to be seven and a half feet tall with a frame that wouldn’t fit through a standard doorway.  “What was your next move, little Adapted?”   

Run!

For once, the voice and I were in agreement.  With the prompt, I turned and bolted, throwing myself over the counter and through a door to the storage room.  There was an exit out into a dank alley that smelled of cigarettes and exhaust where delivery trucks likely pulled up.  I shoved the door shut behind me and started to sprint away- 

And a rending of metal demanded my attention.  Zellig hadn’t opened the door, he had simply hit it off the hinges and sent it flying across the alley.  “Don’t tell me you plan to make it a footrace. Even with Mr. Magnificent helping, there is no chance you outrun me.”  Once again, he didn’t seem concerned; he was confident that nothing I could do would let me escape.

Even if he wasn’t somehow made to be quicker, his height alone would make him substantially faster than me.  But still, I had to try. Pushing through the pain from the biopsies, I ran down the dark alley and willed myself to go faster than I ever had-

Three massive strides and one huge leap literally had him soar over me.  Zellig landed a few paces in front of me and abruptly stopped by digging his toes into the road.  Before I could try to turn, he shot forward and grabbed my shirt, lifting me off the ground as if I weighed less than a paper bag.  “If you had material to burn,” he said with a disappointed sigh, “Tonight would have been much more interesting. I was hoping to have a go with you at about the five-tonne mark and see how I could fare, but I’m sure we’ll get a chance later.”  

I kicked against his arm and tried punching his hand, but his damned fist was the size of my chest and hitting him was like hitting stone.  He dropped me and let me land on my ass before kneeling down to seize my arms. Two metal bands clasped around my wrists and a powerful magnet snapped my hands together.  

“Hey, what the fu-” I didn’t manage to finish that last word as I felt myself lose any will to retaliate.  “What the…what did you do to me?” 

“This, Nicholas, is Trillodan technology.  Those restraints, they inhibit your sympathetic nervous response and drastically reduce the production and interaction of cortisol in your system.”  Zellig reached around my shoulder and nudged me forward; I walked willingly, unable to think to do anything else.  

“I don’t want-” I started to protest, my brain fogging and body feeling strangely relaxed.  

“Shhh, enjoy the little dopamine and serotonin influx they’ll give you to ensure you’re a docile prisoner,” Zellig insisted as he led me out of the alley and back towards the main drag, “Now please, relax,” he said with a triumphant smile, “You will be of great use to the Trillodan empire.”             

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

It’s hard to keep track of time when you’re trapped in a room with no clock, window, or other person to talk to.  

The only thing I could do was look up at the light or one of the bleached walls and contemplate my grotesque failure that might have cost Ragdoll and Transport everything.  I should have probably just let myself die; Flagbearers had come along with Murphy and I as a gesture of politeness more than anything and we had gotten them captured by Snatchers.  

All because you won’t feed me. 

“I can’t feed you,” I muttered, “Even if I wanted to.  Which I don’t.”  

I pushed myself up from the corner and limped forward, the muscle still swollen from where Snatchers had taken chunks of muscle for a tissue sample.  Since then, I’d been alone, but I had no idea for how long. All I knew for sure was that our deadline until the Trillodan’s arrival was getting closer and no one had any clue where we were.  

Except maybe Almanac; one of Titan’s Adapted that he’d deliberately kept hidden from the world to avoid attracting the watchful eyes of the Trillodan.  And as far as we all knew, Titan had succeeded in keeping his trump card safe. Odds are if the Trillodan knew that we had someone who could find their home world, they wouldn’t take the time to survey and study us.  

Instead, they’d probably exterminate us and Zari in one dramatic display of power.  No one beat the Trillodan, and anyone who could start to posture and present as a threat were quickly culled.  

Since we weren’t boiling in our skin, we were in the clear, or so I hoped.   

However, being stuck here wasn’t allowing me to really celebrate our continued survival. 

At least my best friend had managed to sneak away.  Even though he harped on his own power, the passenger in his body kept him from this horrendous fate.   

“At least Alexis will get to keep one friend.”  

My head snapped to the immense metal door as I heard the lock snap open.  While the promise of interacting with someone was a blessing, knowing it was likely someone coming in with a needle to take more samples of my body put a damper on things.  

As it swung open, I pressed myself further into the corner and glared at the trio of men who walked in.  Of course Josh-the bastard who’d drawn blood from me earlier and likely the lead researcher of this installation-was at the forefront; what did admittedly pique my interest was a seeming lack of medical tools or devices for collecting samples.  

All they were holding was what looked like a plate wrapped in tinfoil.  

“What are you doing?” 

Wordlessly, he dropped the plate on the ground and kicked it over to me.  Without looking away from his intense glare, I ripped the tinfoil away and saw a massive slab of meat on the plate.  

Two and a half kilograms.  

“Eat.” 

I could feel my skin crawl as I looked down at the slab of protein I’d been provided; did they know what the hell they were doing?  

That could give you a hundred kilograms of mass.  Those tasers wouldn’t be enough to bring us down. Eat it.  

I shook my head, both to my Adaptation and to Josh.  “No. I won’t do that.”  

His frustration was palpable as he stomped across the room, grabbing the lump of meat and literally slapping me in the face with it.  “I said, eat!” He slammed it against my face and held down, nearly smothering me. “You will use your fucking gift, you will let us take samples of it, and you will make up for what you did tonight by being useful to us.  Now, chow down!” He stood up and let me catch my breath.  

Shaking, I managed to get up to my feet and gaze back into the fierce glare of Josh.  “You don’t know what is gonna happen once I eat that. You won’t be able to control me, and you won’t be able to sample me either.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

I raised my hands defensively as he took a step closer, invading my personal space.  “When the stuff is disconnected from me, it turns to dust!”

“All night we saw you throwing out those growths that chased people down.  Try a different lie,” one of the enforcers replied as they stepped closer, boxing me into the corner.

“Mutations,” I said quickly, “Mutations develop the longer that I get to hold the Neklim and the larger I get.  I’d need more meat than this to hold any amount of size for long.” I looked back at him, pleading, “Don’t do this.”  

 Josh glared at me, “How about you shut up and comply?”  With a full body swing, he hit me upside the face with the slab of meat.  Under a lot of other circumstances, that might have been a hilarious joke or something that I could have seen Murphy having a laugh about.  

For as ridiculous as it seemed, it fucking hurt.  

However, it was nothing compared to the pain from the two enforcers being given the go-ahead to rough me up some more.  I was too weak to stand up for myself against two grown men with kevlar-reinforced gloves; a few hits left me on the ground with blood oozing from my lips and bruises already taking form across my midsection.  

I slumped down into the corner, the edges of my vision blurring as my body tried desperately to settle its equilibrium.  “Let’s try this again,” Josh whispered as he knelt down beside me, “Eat up.”
Do it.  I can heal you if you eat.  

“N-”

Josh jammed the slab into my mouth, using his free hand to pry open my jaw; I tried to squirm and push him off me as I started seeing spots in my vision.  “I’m sorry, but maybe you don’t understand the time crunch here,” he snarled. “Will your power engage to save you before you suffocate?” he asked as his enforcers pinned my legs and pulled my arms away from their bosses’ face.  

Let me eat!  We can kill these idiots before they can make it to the door!

For a second, I debated it even though I knew if I used my gift and killed the men, I would devour them too and start a second Feast Day.  The voice whispering to me was essentially begging for it, only thinly veiling the want to be unleashed again; it couldn’t be worse than this, could it?  Right before I let the consumption happen, alarm klaxons began sounding and the loudspeaker turned on.    

“Joshua, honey, I’m home!” 

All three of the men accosting me froze; Josh ripped the steak away and took a nervous step away from me, spinning around and looking towards the door.  Why did that voice sound so familiar?  

“Did you really think you were going to get away with the shit you’re doing?  I mean,” whoever was on the loudspeaker stopped to let out a manic laugh, “Abducting people off the street?  That’s some sloppy shit. At least when you grabbed me it was slick.”

“Sir is that-”

“It’s him,” Josh affirmed.  He had immediately gone from authoritarian and malevolent to scared and anxious.  Who could possibly be that frightening to him?

“But hey,” the man on the speaker continued, “Thanks to you, I’m awesome now!  I mean, you practically made the Altered a thing, and you made me the craziest one.  Don’t you want to see the real outcome of your group of shithead scientists?”

I knew why that voice was familiar and why Josh was suddenly scared shitless.  One man had broken free of an Asylum before and freed everyone else there. One guy had managed to make himself so threatening that the heavy hitters around Ciel were afraid of him. 

Psycho.  

Murphy had said he would get help; who better to get help from than the guy who had broken free of an Asylum before?  

“Boss?”

“Lethal force,” Josh stammered, “Kill him.  Kill anyone he has with him. I don’t care who it is.  He can not be allowed to-”

He was cut off as a motor came to life outside my cell.  Thanks to them leaving the door open I could see the stairs being lowered from the ceiling.  I slowly got up, following the security members to observe the spectacle, drawn to the promise of seeing an Adapted in action just like everyone else.  

As the stairs finished lowering, there was a figure visible at the top; while he had ditched the lab coat and settled on a plain black shirt and shorts, the bit of black fabric with the red neon teeth was still firmly in place.  “Come on, Josh, you know you missed me!” he said with a manic laugh as men swarmed out, all armed to the teeth. Where it had just been riot shields and tasers before, now there were automatic firearms.    

Psycho changed powers whenever he slept and he likely hadn’t gotten any shut eye since he had helped tether me to the ground so Dragoon had been able to literally carve me free.  Today was Bi-polar, but I’d only seen half of it.  

When I’d seen him earlier, he was glowing blue, now he was glowing orange.  

“Such a good roll turn out!  I knew you’d missed me!” As men took aim, he threw himself from the stairs and zoomed across the room, nearly as fast as Shock would when fully charged.  One man took a swing and his fist passed straight through Psycho.  

“You’ll have to do so much better than that,” he cackled as the orange aura faded from his arm for a split second,  just long enough for him to hit the man.  

This was the flipside of his immovable depression: an uncontrollable mania.

Psycho was a blur around the room, and whatever armaments the men had were worthless when they literally couldn’t make contact with the apparition that his manic state allowed him to become.  The only times he was corporeal at all was the split second before he hit someone, his sheer speed and momentum giving his hits enough power to do some real damage.  

He was no Ragdoll, but he was still making quick work of the room as he bounded around from victim to victim, laughing the whole time.  

After chaos began to reign among the Snatchers, a second form dropped from the control office above, landing on top of a guard with alarming acrobatic ease.  Clad in a costume with a grey and red pattern, Parasite extended his staff and began leaping around the room to assist with Psycho’s rampage.  

“Boss,” one of the guards said with a nervous gulp, “What do we-” 

“Found you!” the manic laugh of Psycho rang out as he literally stuck his head through the wall.  One man took a shot, but there was nothing to hit as he pulled himself away.  

The next instant the whole form came through, darting forward and smacking aside one man’s gun.  He retaliated with a punch forward, his arm phasing through Psycho who just howled with laughter.  

“This must be so frustrating for you!”  In a blink he was behind the man, jamming his heel into the back of the man’s knee and pushing him to the floor before planting a firm punch into the man’s cheek.  

Out in the shared space, Parasite was a blur of muscle and metal as he danced around, beating down security guards left and right, occasionally stumbling when a bullet found its mark.  But bullets were too small in scope to do any real damage thanks to the passenger under his skin taking the hit for him.  

Josh snapped me back to the more immediate as he turned and grabbed me, seizing the gun one of his employees had dropped.  Psycho rounded as Josh grabbed my collar and pressed it to my forehead. “Not another step!” 

The doctor pulled me around, putting me between the Lunatic and himself, as if I would somehow do well as a shield.  “And, what are you going to do?” Psycho laughed, “Are you going to shoot a kid? You’re gonna hurt your precious samples?” 

“If you’re here for him, he must matter an awful lot to you,” Josh spat, “Are you going to risk him?  You might be fast, you freak, but you’re not faster than my trigger finger!”

Psycho shook his head, raising his hands and clenching his fingers in clear annoyance.  “I…I hate that word. Freak. That’s…that’s not the term you gave us, was it?”  

“Psycho,” I panted, “Please don’t get me shot.”  

For some reason, I could just tell he was smiling under his mask.  “Don’t you worry, Eldritch, you’re gonna be fine. Josh,” he demanded, looking past me, “What was the term you gave us?”

“I-”

“SAY IT!”

“Altered!  You and all your fucking misfits!  Altered!”  

Psycho clapped his hands together and laughed, “That’s right!  You managed to break Adapted people a second time! You managed to do more damage than life could!  And you did it often enough that you needed to come up with a name for us!” He turned his attention back to me, still giggling, “Do you know who this is?” 

I shook my head slowly.

“The man with the gun against your cheek is Joshua Vasquez, one of the lead scientists and study contributors for the Snatchers.”  For a split second, Psycho changed color to the blue, depressed variant. “He’s the reason that the Lunatics exist, at all,” he said, the unadulterated glee replaced with soul-crushing despair.  As soon as it had come, he swapped back to orange, “But I was really hopeful that when you went ape-shit and ate half the city that you’d pull the big names! I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d actually get this guy to resurface, but thank you.”  

“So you…you weren’t really after Beleth, were you?” 

Psycho’s manic smile stretched farther across his face, “While I have a score to settle with that bastard, the guy holding a gun to your head is the real reason I came back to Ciel.  I heard he’d been spotted.”  

For a moment, I almost forgot about the gun against my head, “You used us as bait to live out your vendetta.”  

He swung his arms wide, “Of course I did!  Did you really expect anything better from me?” 

Joshua cleared his throat, “Empath-” 

“NO!” Psycho screeched, his eyes going wide with rage, “EMPATH DIED! You, you oversaw him dying!  You left a fractured mess of what used to be Empath!” A tense moment was made worse by Psycho dropping his head into his hands and giggling, “But you know what, it’s okay!  Thanks to you, I can do this now! Parasite, right shoulder,” he commanded with a laugh.  

Through Psycho’s right shoulder, a four kilogram hunk of metal came flying through.  It slammed into the doctor’s upper chest and threw him back against the wall; the gun went skittering to the floor as he let go of me.  

Parasite hopped out from behind Psycho, a bit bloody but his smirk flashed back onto his face as he saw me still breathing. 

The leader of the Lunatics, however, was not satisfied with the compound fracture of Joshua Vasquez’s collarbone.  He zipped forward and got a grip around the man’s neck, changing from orange to blue in a blink.  

“You turned me into this,” he whispered slowly as his fingers closed down.  Struggle as he might, there was nothing to be done to displace Psycho. I’d been nearly fifteen tonnes of muscle earlier tonight and I couldn’t move his depressed variant.  Desperate, Josh reached for the gun and managed to pull it back into his clutches.  

“Psycho!” I shouted in warning, but the Peculiar didn’t even blink as Josh put the barrel against his temple. 

“Go ahead,” Psycho said calmly, distant, uncaring, “It won’t do a damn thing.”  

As the scientists face began to turn purple, he pulled the trigger; as promised, nothing happened beyond a puff of smoke exiting the barrel.  Josh pulled his hand away and a shattered bullet clinked to the cold floor.  

“That’s enough,” Parasite insisted as he kicked Psycho, trying to get his attention, “We’re here for them, not for him.” 

“You might not be,” Psycho replied slowly as his victim became much more frantic, squirming and pounding against the Peculiar’s chest.  “But this man has a debt to pay. Doesn’t he, Eldritch.” Psycho turned to face me, completely disregarding the man repeatedly hitting him in the face.  

I’d only been here hours; Psycho had been subjected to weeks of torment and torture in the name of ‘the greater good’ all thanks to men like Josh.  “Parasite,” I said, a bit shaky, “I’m with Psycho on this one. That man, he deserves to die.”  

Thanks to him not wearing his mask, there was no misconstruing the horror on my friends face.  “Nick, we’re Reckoners.”

I swallowed a nervous lump in my throat as Joshua looked over at me, pleading.  “I know, but…but that man is a monster.”

“Monster or not, that doesn’t mean we execute him!  We’re Reckoners,” Parasite insisted.

“I’m not,” Psycho replied, “And even if you wanted to stop me, Parasite, you couldn’t.  That stick of yours would break long before I budged.”  

He looked between me and Psycho, his gaze lingering on me, hoping for some kind of change in my answer.  I shook my head, knowing that if I said anything else I’d be lying. Bargain had told me about how screwed up the Snatchers were; if this was the guy who had fractured the identities of Adapted and create the Lunatics…this man deserved to go.  

Parasite couldn’t stomach watching the life being choked from the man and turned around, snagging a security key off one guard who was still down for the count.  As the life faded from Joshua Vasquez, one of the cell doors opened and a skinny man with a mess of black hair staggered out, doing his best to avoid treading on one of the many incapacitated guards present.

I followed my friend away from Psycho’s execution; even though I didn’t regret condemning Joshua Vasquez to death, it didn’t mean I wanted to watch it in real time.  About the time I joined alongside Parasite and Mr. Magnificent, our other conscious rescuer joined us, his colored tint gone for now.    

“Mr. Magnificent,” Psycho said in a strangely normal voice, “I don’t think we’ve met.” 

“I’ve heard about you though,” he said, minding his distance as Parasite went to free the rest of the Flagbearers.  “I’ve heard you’re a bit of a monster. Literally and metaphorically.” 

He shrugged, “Depends who you ask.”  

“Hey, Magnificent,” Parasite shouted, “I need a hand.”  

I was a bit relieved to see Ragdoll fairly uninjured, but Joshua hadn’t been kidding about keeping him asleep indefinitely; according to the monitor that he was hooked to, his heart was barely beating.  

“Even if we take the IV out, he’s going to be unconscious for a while,” Psycho noted.  “They really wanted him kept asleep.”  

“I can deal with that,” Mr. Magnificent replied as he removed the needle from his leader and pressed a hand to his chest.  Initially, I was worried that whatever Mr. Magnificent was doing was proving useless.

And then the machine monitoring Ragdoll’s vitals added a frantic chiming to the alarm klaxons that were still sounding.  From 20 beats per minute, Ragdoll’s heart rate endured a tenfold increase.  

“I suggest moving away!” 

We all listened to Mr. Magnificent and were damn happy we did as Ragdoll’s eyes snapped open and he sat up, swinging.  A poor use of his gift meant his wild haymaker dragged him off the table and he thudded to the floor, ripping free of the sensors as he shouted.  The second punch was much more coordinated and aimed straight for Psycho’s head; his fist connected with a blue tinted Peculiar and Ragdoll yanked his arm back, swearing.  

“Fuck me that hurt,” Ragdoll swore as he turned and took in his surroundings.  “Bi-polar, can’t be moved; you were not kidding. How did you find us?” 

“Because of him,” Psycho said, returning to a normal color and tipping his head to Parasite.

“I followed you guys over rooftops and shit, keeping an eye to see where they would offload you all.  I went to the Relay station and got what help I could.”

“And they sent you back with this asshole?” Ragdoll muttered as he put his hands to his temples, glaring at the speakers in the ceiling. 

“Titan isn’t there, and most people aren’t down to play with Snatchers.  Bargain would have come, but he is still fucked up from beating the piss out of Shock and Awe before Eldritch went a bit off the reservation.”  

I winced but didn’t say anything; it wasn’t like I could disagree.  

You weren’t off the reservation, you were just finally free. 

“Either way, can we get the fucking ALARMS TURNED OFF?” Ragdoll shouted as he put his head in his hands, “Being forced to wake up like this is like a migraine on steroids.” 

“Controls will be in the security station,” I muttered, “Back upstairs.”

Parasite nodded, “I got it.”  Given how quick he bounded away, I could tell he was looking for any excuse to not being standing next to Psycho.  As he walked away, a few guards started to stir; a quick hit with the staff ensured they weren’t going anywhere.  

Ragdoll turned to me, “What happened earlier,” he said, as he steadied himself on his feet, “I’m not angry.”

“Still I’m-” 

Above us there  was a shout as a figure slammed into the far wall, falling nearly three floors to a heap on the ground.  All of us looked up at the guard station as a trio of figures in black mechanical suits stepped onto the stairs, the one in front wearing what looked like a golden glove that was causing the air to shimmer in front of it.  

I’d seen something like that before: it looked just like the distortions that Shockwave caused with his power.  And the suits they wore, it looked like a refined version of Dragoon’s armor. No Zari technology was anywhere near this which only left one option for who that could be.  At a glance, the power armor made them look almost human in terms of size and frame, but there was a certain amount of dread I felt that I knew it couldn’t be a human in those suits.    

“Holy shit,” I whispered, “It’s them.”  

“Magnificent, give me what you got left,” Ragdoll demanded, immediately switching to a fight-ready mentality.  “Eldritch, get Transport and Soliloquy out of their cells and wake them up. Psycho, help me out with those three; let’s keep them on the stairs away from Magnificent and Eldritch.”

Psycho turned orange and snickered, “Whatever you want.”  Bolting forward, he jumped and phased through the steps, getting a note of surprise from the Trillodan soldiers.  The one in front flexed his fingers and the distortion shot from the glove, going straight through the manic Psycho.  “Guess again, asshole,” he said with a cackle as he struck forward, changing himself to his depressed variation.  

The Trillodan soldier, seemingly irritated, swung back and smashed his gauntlet against the side of Psycho’s head, pulling back and swearing in a foreign tongue.  One of the armored figures behind him raised a golden glove and blasted Psycho, but no amount of force was going to move him back.  

Ragdoll took a deep breath and charged forward, throwing himself forward into a roll and then leaping forward, getting an inhuman amount of acceleration from throwing his hands forward.  One hand caught the edge of the staircase while he swung the other, doing an awkward cartwheel that put his whole body completely vertical and let him get a grip on the handrail.  

As one Trillodan turned to him, one of Ragdoll’s legs slammed down and kicked a hand with a golden glove down so the kinetic blast went directly into the staircase, straining the cable that were connecting it to the ceiling.  Ragdoll turned in a moment of confusion and backhanded one of the soldiers, hitting him hard enough to toss him over the railing and down the four meters to the floor.  

The Trillodan point-man snarled and yanked a sidearm made of some grey metal and took aim at Psycho’s midsection; as he fired, a red beam shot out and pierced straight through the Peculiar who was blocking the way down.  Psycho’s blue tint to his skin dissipated as he lurched to the side and grabbed the railing for support, his face immediately paling. The point man struck forward and sent Psycho tumbling down the stairs, his body landing in an awkward heap at the bottom.  

He’d been built to endure any amount of strain or pushing against him.  Enough heat however was something he was not built to withstand. Then again, how many things were meant to weather a literal laser pistol?  

As Psycho came to a halt, I came to my senses and grabbed the keycard that Parasite had swiped to free Ragdoll.  Charging across the room, a pair of hands grabbed me; a few of the security guards were coming.  

“What are you doing?” the man holding me hissed, “What did you idiots do?” 

I didn’t get to answer as the man Ragdoll knocked over the railings got up and fired his own laser pistol.  A fist sized hole appeared in the center of the guards chest as the Trillodan shifted his head to inspect me.  

Shouting something in another language, he waved the pistol and beckoned me closer.  I obliged and walked forward slowly, petrified. These were just common foot soldiers presumably.  They had technology that gave them power similar to Adapted; what other sorts of tricks did they have?  

Above me on the staircase, the leader of the Flagbearers was between the two soldiers and knew he needed to change his position.  Grabbing the handrails, he threw himself back and made his legs substantially more dense right before connecting with the soldier; the point-man was launched off the steps and just avoided squashing the human mound that was Psycho at the foot of the stairs.  Some poor security guard wasn’t so fortunate and was squashed flat as the Trillodan point man landed on him. With one down, Ragdoll made his hand heavier and punched the laser pistol away from the last Trillodan on the stairs before wrapping one of his arms under his opponents.  

In a flourish, Ragdoll threw himself off the stairs, pulling the Trillodan soldier to the railings.  As the soldier reached forward to pull Ragdoll off his arm, the Enhancer used his gift and made his legs incredibly dense; the abrupt shift in balance yanked the pair over the railing.  Ragdoll managed to land well and roll, diminishing the impact; the Trillodan soldier landed flat on his back with a pitiful groan.  

The soldier holding me at gunpoint turned to fire his laser pistol at Ragdoll as he hopped back up to his feet: the first shot missed, but the second clipped Ragdoll’s side and carved a small chunk away.  Without thinking, I rushed forward and slammed my shoulder into the soldier, making his third shot go wild; he retaliated by lifting me and throwing me against the wall, the power armor making it all too easy.  As I looked back up, he aimed his sidearm at my knee and then immediately dropped it, lurching forward as a hunk of metal clanged against the floor behind him.  

He turned as Parasite ran forward and drove his heel into the soldiers knee, forcing him to stumble.  Parasite took a split second he had bought himself and scooped up his staff from the group, extending the weapon and bringing it down upon the soldiers arm as he tried to use his golden glove.  

Instead some poor guard was crushed against the floor as the shockwave went off target.  

Parasite twisted and brought the staff around with alarming speed, cracking the soldier’s helmet and sending him down to the floor with a clatter. “Take a cheap shot,” he snarled, “Hurt my friends?”  He vented his rage and stomped down on the Trillodan’s midsection, hitting him hard enough to crack the armor plates.  

“Parasite!” 

He turned just in time to endure a blast straight to his chest from the laser pistol of the Trillodan point man at the foot of the staircase.  I gasped as I expected to see a hole appear in my friend’s torso…but none did. The Trillodan fired and clipped Parasite a few more times, but none of the shots seemed to just tear through him like they had with everyone else.  

“What do you know,” Parasite said with a wry laugh, “the passenger can diffuse heat too.  That’s handy.”  

Barking in another language, the man changed tactics and raised the golden gauntlet to blow Parasite back against the wall; as he raised his hand, an orange blur reached straight through the Trillodan soldier and grabbed his palm.  Right before it could fire, Psycho changed himself blue.  

With no outlet for the energy, the Trillodan’s arm exploded as if he’d held a hand grenade.  Turning around, he swung wildly and hit Psycho, but he took more of the punishment as he hit an immovable object.  As he went for his laser pistol, Ragdoll threw himself across the room and spun around, building up his momentum for a massive kick.  

A kick that literally ripped the Trillodan’s head off.  

Metallic grinding heralded the soldier Ragdoll had dragged off the stairs getting up, but a soothing voice seemed to stop him from reaching for his pistol.  “No, no, I think that won’t help anyone, friend,” Soliloquy insisted softly, reaching forward and nudging his arm down. “I think the fight is long over, don’t you agree?” 

He nodded and slowly sat down, not deliberately surrendering, but just giving up.  Soliloquy was able to coax emotions and nudge sensations; this man just watched an Adapted endure being shot and his comrade literally beheaded by a kick.  It wasn’t hard to sell that the fight was over.  

At the back of the room, Mr. Magnificent grinned, panting as a keycard dangled on a lanyard between his fingers.  I’d been held at gunpoint, and fortunately the member of the Flagbearers took advantage of no one paying attention to him.  

“They shouldn’t be here yet,” I muttered, as I looked down at the Trillodan’s power armor, “They weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

Psycho staggered forward, clutching his side and grimacing, “Hate to break it to you, but it is tomorrow.  It’s two in the morning; Clairvoyant doesn’t get all the details and we are technically in his time frame.”  The leader of the Lunatics looked at the two surviving Trillodan and grimaced, “Snatcher hideouts all share a network for distress calls.  My guess, the Trillodan found us because the alarm had been tripped.”  

“Great,” Ragdoll muttered, “Just fucking great.”  

“Griping about it won’t help us,” Mr. Magnificent muttered as he walked by me into Transports room, giving him the same treatment that he’d had to give Ragdoll earlier.  Fortunately, Transport took the alarming wake up in better stride.  

“So, what do we do now?” Parasite asked as he looked down and put his fingers through the holes in his suit.

“First things first,” Psycho said, reaching into his pocket and procuring a pair of golden vials, “Rags, drink.”

“How did you-”

“Titan has them stockpiled as a bit of preparation for emergencies.  I deemed this a worthwhile occasion.”  

Ragdoll didn’t object as he drank the tincture from Organelle.  It was a little unsettling to see tissue literally grow around the hole and rapidly undo the damage that the Trillodan firearms were able to inflict.  

“And now that I don’t have a gaping hold in my side, what do you suggest?” Ragdoll asked Psycho.  

“We run.  We get to the Relay station and get the fuck out of downtown.”

Soliloquy shook his head, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.  If we bolt now, we have no idea what we’re walking into.”

“And you suggest?” 

“We have hostages,” Parasite thought aloud, “And a guy who can convince them to talk.  Let Soliloquy see what information we can get.”  

All of us went silent as the man Parasite had bludgeoned senseless started to laugh as he pushed himself up to his feet, leaning against the wall for stability while he removed his helmet.  

From what I knew, we were the first humans to ever see a Trillodan in the flesh.  While it was clear they were bipeds and had the same approximate size of a human, the Trillodan had amphibious features.  He had moist and almost rubbery blue skin with white spots in a symmetrical pattern across his face, multiple eyelids closing as he blinked, and nostrils flush with his face.  In truth, there was almost a strange beauty to the soldiers appearance and the vivid color of his skin contrasted with the black power armor he was wearing.  

However, all of that was quickly forgotten as he began to speak in broken common with a harsh and raspy voice.  “Trillodan, capture you,” he said with a sweeping gesture, “Tso’got,” he slammed his hand to his chest, “Ours.”  

We all glanced between each other, even Psycho’s arrogant demeanor was absent.  Parasite finally said what all of us were thinking.  

“Well, that’s not good.” 

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

I felt myself pale; a literal mob was coming for me.  Zari were prone to violence, but this seemed over the top, even for them.  More concerning was how quickly this was coordinated.  

              And I wasn’t the only person who had this thought.  “How in the fuck did they get enough people so fast?” Ragdoll demanded.  “The city is on fire, homes have been evacuated, but people still group up to make a mob within an hour of him being spotted?” 

              “It isn’t just a few people either,” Transport said, “It’s like a hundred.  Some are even armed, but at least no formal firearms. Instead a lot of people with pipes, pieces of wood, and blades.”  

             “We could stand up to them,” Soliloquy suggested.  “I could quell the unrest a bit and instill some fear if you smack a few around.  We might be able to get them to disperse before it can get too big and start doing serious damage.”

            Murphy shook his head, “We’re Reckoners, and these people aren’t guilty of anything other than being swept up in a huge mess.  People are afraid and angry, they aren’t thinking straight.”

              Ragdoll and Mr. Magnificent nodded.  “But, what do we do about them?” the leader of the Flagbearers asked. 

           “I think we run,” I replied to Ragdoll.  “If we stand our ground, someone will figure out you’re all Adapted and that will only make things worse for the lot of us.”  There was a solemn silence that fell over the group; even though I was the reason for the rage, it wasn’t unlikely that all Adapted as a whole would end up blamed for Feast Day.

            “You guys have Mr. Magnificent,” Xana pointed out, “Can’t he make you all run, like, way fucking faster than normal?” 

            “Hard to do it for five, and I can’t give myself the boost.  Someone would have to carry me.”

            My best friend shrugged, “You aren’t too big; I could do it.”  

              “What about her?” Transport asked, “I don’t think Titan is planning for us to bring a plus-one.  Not trying to be a dick or anything but-”    

              “I get it.”  I turned to Xana and felt my heart drop.  “Xana, I-”

              “I know, it sucks.  But I guess my parents will finally get their wish and say ‘I told you so’ about me being too good for you.  And I suppose at least I got to date the most notorious bad boy in Ciel’s history, so I’ve got that going for me.”  She seemed awful cavalier, but I could see the cracks in her chipper facade.   

              A weak laugh escaped my lips, catching me off guard.  “Not how I imagined our relationship would end. I really thought-”

              Xana put a finger to my lips, shushing me.  “I got to date a super cool Adapted, piss off my parents for months, and I don’t regret it for a second.”  She hit me in the shoulder, “So stop being so damn morose, I’ll be fine. Now, get the hell out of here.” Her head turned to Murphy, “Take care of this idiot for me?”

              He grinned, “Of course.  And I’ll try not to steal him from you.”     

“I’m not too worried,” she said with a roll of her eyes.  Xana gave me one last look, “Go.”

Before I could open my mouth, Ragdoll put a hand on my shoulder, “She’s right, we need to bail mate.  I’m sorry.” He was right; the mob was getting awfully close now. A glance over my shoulder showed me Xana running across the street, trying to distance herself from us to avoid being caught up in the frenzy.  

And just like that, one more familiar staple from my life was gone.  

I wasn’t given much time to dwell as Murphy grabbed my arm and dragged me away, reminding me that there was an angry mob headed after me, intent on claiming my head.  As we ran, I was abruptly aware of something: running was amazing.  

Normally it felt like work and a bit of a struggle, but for some reason it was like I was getting an instant and extreme runners high.  My eyes turned to the man Murphy was carrying; even through the mess of hair that his Mr. Magnificent’s face, it was easy to tell that he was concentrating on diverting his power to all of us here.  

For us, outpacing the mob was a breeze.  We were probably running faster than I could normally sprint and it felt refreshing.  The lot of us ran easily two kilometers in five minutes, getting us close to our relay station and lifeline back to Titan and his makeshift army.    

“I need to take a breather,” Magnificent said with a wheeze.  A sudden wave of fatigue crashed over me as the power drained out from all five of us.  “Sorry, but granting speed to five after tonight, I can’t hold that for long.”  

“It’s alright,” Ragdoll insisted, giving his teammate a pat on the back after Murphy set Mr. Magnificent down, “You got us here and away from an angry mob of Zari.”

“That’s still bothering me,” Soliloquy said with a shake of his head, “How the fuck did a mob form?  Not the why, that makes sense. Eldritch crashed half of downtown flat.”

“Not intentionally,” I mumbled.

He raised his hands in apology, “I know, and we know that, but not everyone else does.  You have to admit there is a decent enough reason for them to form. My question is how.  Someone had to be giving information to everyone to guide enough people towards us.”

“But who would even be able to do that?” I replied, “There are probably some Adapted who could do it but-”

“Government,” Ragdoll said with a snap of his fingers.  “Think about it, who didn’t show up at all to try and help put you down?”

“Suppression,” I realized, my eyes opening wide.  “Do you think they’d really turn the whole city on its head looking for me?” 

“Absolutely,” Mr. Magnificent replied, “After what happened tonight, they probably got approval to send mass messages to everyone who owns a mobile phone.  The only reason they probably don’t have boots on the ground over here is because you fucking demolished a lot of the roads and caused more traffic accidents than Ciel sees in a whole year.”

Since the government was predominantly run by industry moguls, Mr. Magnificent’s idea was not far fetched. “Great, every Zari on the planet is likely looking for me.”  

“Well, at least for now we’re all alone,” Murphy said in a feeble attempt to brighten the situation.     

We had taken a bit of a roundabout way to circle towards the city and move slowly out of the more residential area; the shops and sidewalks all still being empty was all the more unsettling.  Though as I looked down the street, I swore I saw someone looking at us. I blinked a few times and what I thought was a possible hallucination became a clearer outline of a person.  

Was he wearing a gas mask?  

“Um, guys,” I said, nervous, “Anyone else see that guy down there?” 

“Magnificent, vision,” Ragdoll demanded with a snap, staring down the road.  

Mr. Magnificent raised a hand towards Ragdoll and closed his eyes in concentration; the leader of the Flagbearers recoiled as he was given a better view down the road.  “Snatchers!”  

The man we’d spotted waved his arms and a faint whistle was heard for just a moment; a canister landed just in front of us and exploded, leaving a cloud of blue smoke that quickly engulfed us.  From across the street, several men in gas masks materialized from behind cars or showed up in the windows of the nearby store fronts. There was easily twenty people surrounding us.  

If there were reports going out about us to everyone in Ciel, of course the Snatchers would have the information too.  The general discord and chaos of the city would make it easy for them to move around unnoticed and unhampered; all they had to do was set a trap based on which direction we were running. 

We had even stopped for them to make it easier. 

All of us ran into the road, making distance from the gas cloud; we didn’t know what it would do, but there was no way it was beneficial.  One man on a rooftop wound up and pitched another metal sphere into our midst, spawning another blue cloud of smoke that quickly spread, forcing us to scatter.  

Mr. Magnificent was slower than the rest of us to get out and sank to his knees, shaking uncontrollably before finally keeling over onto his side.  Transport paused for a split second to use his gift of displacing inanimate objects and put a metal bat in his hand as people started closing in, the Snatchers armed with what looked like cattle prods or riot shields.  From a few blocks down, what looked like a reinforced van started driving our way, likely packed with more goons. As Transport readied himself, a pair of Snatchers charged him; while one took a heavy hit from a pipe, the other found his mark with the prod.    

Soliloquy opened his mouth to try and calm the crowd, but another canister landed beside him and Ragdoll, giving each of them a heavy dose of the gas.  Ragdoll managed to stay on his feet, albeit shaky but his teammate went down quickly. Several men with the prods rushed Ragdoll; despite being drugged, Ragdoll managed to mount a decent counterattack and swing himself around, hitting two of the Snatchers hard enough to break teeth before someone made contact.  As the prongs touched skin, he went down, twitching.  

People started circling around Murphy and myself, the last two Adapted standing.  

Even though I wanted to help, I had no mass to burn.  Functionally I was just a regular human. Still, people were a bit hesitant to get closer after Ragdoll knocked two people out cold and instead opted to throw another trio of gas canisters our way.  I took one last big gulp of air and turned to Murphy, horrified as my vision began to swim.  

But as I collapsed to my hands and knees, he knelt down in a controlled manner beside me.  

“I can still breathe,” he whispered as I did my best to stay awake.  “My passenger is keeping my lungs free of this shit. I’m going to get help and come back for you guys, okay?” 

As my vision swam, I nodded and fell to the ground about the time the van pulled up and another six men jumped out to begin carting people away.  There was some outcry and shock as Murphy vaulted over people, sprinting away with alarming speed, but there was no chase given. The Snatchers had caught eighty percent of their quarry.  

And given how I saw so many people looking at me, they had gotten the big ticket item of the bunch.   

____________________________________________________________

“…subject one-one-six, AKA, Eldritch.  Subject has demonstrated the most variability in furthering the power, and subject seems only bound to mass of consumed material.  As evidenced by the events of Feast Day, subject one-one-six is unbound by restriction of Overexposure. Question: Does the ability to avoid Overexposure also affect his capacity for chronic stress and Alteration?  Procuring initial tissue samples now.”  

I was barely conscious, but a needle stabbing into my elbow snapped me to full alertness quite quickly.  Looming over me was a middle aged man with a turtleneck, lab coat, and surgical mask, his eyes betraying a little surprise in me waking up on the table.  On instinct, I tried to pull myself away but the leather cuffs around my wrists and ankles kept me held good and tight.  

“Where am I?”

The man drawing blood reached over and killed the mic he was recording with before turning back to me.  “You lot call them Asylums.”

I felt my blood chill; even before we’d met the Lunatics every Adapted was horrified of Asylums, but after having them defined by Bargain these institutions were the things of nightmares.  “You’re making a big mistake.”

“Attempting to gain the power of the Adapted for all humanity to use?” he said with an eyebrow raising, “That sounds like a mistake?” 

“If you’re trying to make more people like me, yes.”  Taking a moment, my eyes flitted around the room, finding nothing in the sterile medical suite that would tell me anything about where I had been carted to.  From what I knew about Asylums, I was likely underground and well hidden. 

“I think now of all times it is especially important to have more people like you.”

Something about the way he said that sounded desperate, like he knew there was a timer on the Trillodan coming.  But, how could he know that without being put in the loop thanks to Clairvoyant?  

“How do you know?” 

He didn’t reply as he finished taking a blood sample and then removed the needle from my arm.  “We keep tabs on Suppression. As much as they want to dispose of all Adapted on the surface of Tso’got, we want to harness their gifts.  The Zari government is scared and prone to take drastic measures that might ruin our precious samples.”

“We are more than samples,” I said, aghast at his callous description.  

“Lately there has been a lot of chatter about the Trillodan scout vessel that has spent the last few weeks in orbit, observing, inactive.  Tonight, thanks to you,” he said with a sneer, “There is movement from the probe. We can only assume that means the owners are going to come and take a closer look.” 

“Then you need to let me go,” I insisted, “Please.” 

“You’re too valuable a specimen to not study.  Someone who can stand in front of Titan and endure his fury; why the hell would we let such a valuable sample go?  Imagine if we can unlock what makes you work.”  

The prospect of multiple versions of Eldritch running around was a horrifying one.  “You really don’t want more than one of me…if even that many. Whatever you think you might benefit,” I cautioned, nodding towards the vial of blood on the metal tray, “I can guarantee that it’ll be so much worse than anything you can imagine.”  

“Anything I can imagine?  I don’t have to imagine the worst thing ever, I lived through it.”  

I was familiar with this particular brand of rage; my father was particularly prone to anger and resentment about what had happened to humanities home. “Listen to me-”

“No, you listen you insolent boy,” he snapped as he ripped the surgical mask away from his mouth, “You listen to your elders.  For the first time in history, there is a power that the Trillodan are worried about enough to actually take a closer look. I want to turn it on them and make them pay for what happened to our world.”

“So you want to be responsible for Tso’got being subject to the same treatment?”

He curled his lip, “At least we’ll finally prove that the Trillodan can bleed.”

How could he be so shortsighted about all of this?  “You’ll get everyone killed! Is that really your master plan?” 

He didn’t reply but instead took the blood sample and walked out of the room, leaving me bound to the operating table and stuck staring up a bright fluorescent light.  It didn’t take long for a panic to start setting in.  

The Trillodan were coming in mere hours and I was shackled to a table.  I was the one they were looking for; they wouldn’t just quit until I was aboard one of their ships and then no one knew what would happen to me.  Most people didn’t even know what the Trillodan looked like, let alone what kind of technological marvels they posses. While the Snatchers might be able to conceal these installations all over Tso’got and keep them hidden from the Zari, I wasn’t going to hold my breath that the Trillodan wouldn’t be able to find me.  

And all because I lost control.  None of this would have happened if I was able to control my power and contain the growth.  

But you wouldn’t be here without me.   You’re nothing without me. You need me.

My blood turned to ice as I heard that voice, clear as day in my head.  The same voice that had before only relayed information about how much mass was available.  The voice that told me what mutations were developing while I maintained the Neklim suit. The voice that, until now, I had only heard when I was tapping into my gift.    

“You’re not real,” I muttered, “You’re just in my head.  You can’t speak. You’re just a byproduct of my Adaptation.”  

That’s what I used to be. 

“You’re not different.  Feast Day didn’t change you.  You’re not real,” I insisted, becoming more unsure by the second.  

Tell yourself what you need to.

I was suddenly taken back to being in the mass of Neklim, the monster that I was nothing but a battery for; I remember feeling myself drift away and feel something creep into my brain.  The Neklim wasn’t smart because of some kind of mutation but instead because it took advantage of my presence. It incorporated my human intelligence into the hive mind.  

“You dug into my brain,” I realized aloud, “You took advantage of the human brain you were plugged into.  You copied me.”  

I wasn’t sure whether the silence that followed was comforting or more daunting.  

“It’s okay,” I promised myself vainly, “It is just your Adaptation.  As long as you’re in control, it can’t dictate your actions. As long as you don’t have mass to burn, it can’t do anything to you.  It is at your mercy.”  

Testing the restraints, I gave up and did my best to relax, though it was difficult to do on the unforgiving operating table.  Craning my head back, I could see the door and just barely see through a small window dead center of the block of metal. Given how sturdy that door was, this operating room was to double as a holding cell for me.              

It figured that the Snatchers weren’t going to let us stick together.  

I tried to concentrate and pull what information I had about the Snatchers from talking with Alexis and Bargain.  Their whole goal was to unlock exactly what made Adapted tick, find a way to replicate and then mass produce the powers for all to use.  It made sense that their overarching goal would be to see the Trillodan bleed. In a twisted sense, they had the same goal that Titan had, but their way of going about it was founded on inhumane experimentation.  From what I knew about Adapted as a whole, none of us had ever been manufactured by Snatchers either.  

Did they really think that they could suddenly succeed and mount some kind of offensive when the Trillodan arrived in just a few hours?  Were they really that delusional?  

Footsteps approached my door and I craned my head just in time to see it open and let in half a dozen men  in lab coats and gas masks. Each of them were holding what looked like a biopsy needle, except they were a much larger gauge than you’d typically see.  

“What are, what are you guys doing?  Someone already got a blood sample.” 

“No anaesthesia?” one asked, completely ignoring me, “Are we out or something?” 

“Apparently Josh really didn’t like this guy,” one replied, giving a glance to the last man who came into view.  It was the same bastard who had drawn blood from me earlier. “Did he stepped on your apartment or something.”

Josh didn’t reply, content with glaring down at me.    

“Up first, liver,” a third said as he stepped forward and palpated my midsection.  He was the first to look at me and talk to me as a person, but it was only to tell me, “Don’t fucking move.”  

I nodded, doing my best to brace myself.  I’d actually had a medical biopsy performed once in the past, but this hurt so much more.  The larger needle with lack of pain killer just made it feel like he was jamming a knife into my torso.  A tortured scream echoed around the room as I began to struggle and was immediately pinned by three of the men present.  The needle was kept in for a little while before it was removed, a small chunk of my liver coming with.     

“Next up, deep muscle tissues.  One from the quad and one from the glutes.”  

Despite my protests, my pants were pulled free and the process was repeated as a small chunk of muscle was harvested for study.  They didn’t even bother to sanitize the area, clearly hurrying to get the job done and move on.  

“While we’ve got his pants off, let’s do the bone marrow, yeah?” 

“No, no, please!” I begged, my whole body on fire from the three biopsies.  

“Here we go,” one of their order replied, grabbed a large blue needle, feeling around before shoving it into my hip.  My fingers curled in pain, but he didn’t even seem to notice as he removed a small tube from inside the need to let the marrow flow free into a collection vial.  

The process was repeated for my lungs, my kidneys, and a lymph node.  At the end, the only blessing was that I wasn’t really feeling any more pain, I was just numb.  

Samples of my body were put into foam lined cases and piled into a crate labeled ‘subject 116’.  To them I wasn’t a person, or even a Reckoner anymore; I had been reduced to a number within hours of capture.  

I did perk up when one of the doctors suddenly wasn’t wearing his gas mask.  

“What the-” 

“Josh, Transport is awake!  He was in a room close enough to see a security tablet and he swiped it!  He can see all the cameras!”

From beyond the door, a thunderous slam rang out through the facility.  Then another, and another in an almost rhythmic fashion. All six men looked between one another, alarmed.  “Who drugged Ragdoll?” Josh demanded.

“We gave him a full dose of propofol-”

“Goddamn Mr. Magnificent must have done something to him.  And now he probably has a mask too! You want to explain to people why we can’t just gas down one of the more dangerous Adapted in the city?  And which idiot let Transport get access to a window?!”

I felt a small glimmer of hope; the Snatchers were scrambling just like everyone else in the city and Ragdoll was good at thinking on his feet.   

“Transport nabbed his own security key and a gas mask as well.  No one can get in there and we can’t smoke him out either.”  

Josh huffed, “If there was ever a day to not cock everything up it would have been tonight.  We can’t afford to let these guys get back out. Unless you want to go run out into that warzone and try to procure more samples, we need these five!” 

One of the other five dared to talk back, “Well, we weren’t expecting to have to do a rush job with five different Adapted, especially since one of them was the guy responsible for Feast Day.  I’m sorry if we gave less attention to Ragdoll’s crew.”    

As they argued, I almost cried out in shock as a scalpel materialized in my hand.  Glancing up, I could see a camera pointing down. As long as he access to security feeds, Transport was able to cause plenty of chaos and help facilitate an escape by moving tools around.  Doing my best, I finneagled the scalpel to press against the leather band holding me against the table before slowly drawing the edge back and forth.  

Beyond my cell, the repeat slamming against metal changed to an immense thudding; given the alarm that all of the six men in my room showed, Ragdoll had broken free.  

“He needs to be contained!” one hissed.

“You’re supposed to be head of security, Bradley,” Josh spat at one, “This is on you to fix.” 

An alarm sounded as I managed to cut my first restraint free.  Making as little movement and noise as possible, I moved to the other cuff and undid the clasp.  I was glad that all six of them were mesmerized with the damage that Ragdoll was inflicting and assumed that I would be unable to much on my own.  Both hands free, I started to unbuckle my ankles, and then one of them finally turned back to me.  

“Hey, what the fuck!”

Hastily ripping myself free, I seized the scalpel from the table and swiped at Bradley.  “Fucking stay back!” I shouted.  

All six raised their hands, all hesitant to irritate the desperate man armed with a scalpel.  “What are you planning to do with that?” Josh asked slowly.  

“I’m gonna make you to let me out, or I’m gonna fucking cut someone’s throat.”  

Bradley shook his head, “If we open the door, Ragdoll won’t leave us alive.  And, there are six of us and one of you. And since you haven’t grown yet, I’m pretty sure you’re not able to produce any Neklim tissue.”  Extending his hand he beckoned for the scalpel, “So, how about you give that to me and this goes nice and smooth.”

My mouth dropped, “Are you serious?  You think I’m going to just assume you’re willing to talk to me?  You just stabbed me and took samples of my organs without consent and without the courtesy of some fucking painkillers.  You are fucking Snatchers; you’re lucky I can’t use my power otherwise I’d fucking rip you guys apart.”  

Through the door, there was audible screaming and I saw a blur as Ragdoll threw himself around, attacking whatever security forces had been dispensed to put him down.  

“Or, if I just wait, there is a decent chance Ragdoll will just break down the door.”  

Badley shook his head and grinned, “Josh, I think I have a solution for our Ragdoll problem.  I wonder if a hostage would stop his rampage.” Without another word of warning, he charged forward, shooting a hand forward to restrain my wrist to keep me from jabbing the scalpel deep into his side.  For an unassuming looking guy, Bradley was surprisingly strong and had no problem isolating the scalpel. Being stabbed repeatedly left me feeling weak and I stumbled before the second man approached to grab my other arm.  Both limbs restrained, I kicked frantically to struggle free; one of the other men hit me in the face half a dozen times to stop my lashing out.

As I was getting pummeled, Bradley stripped away the scalpel and passed it over to Josh.    

“Whatever you think you’re doing, whatever you think you’re going to accomplish, it’s high time you kids let the adults take over.  Open the door,” Josh snapped to one of his cronies. “Time to clean up your mess.”

Bradley glared at his superior but didn’t talk back.   

I was steered to the door and the metal slab opened to reveal an open room with massive doors lining the wall around the floor.  Above us, there was what looked like a control room that oversaw this little commonspace and likely had control over the flight of stairs that had been pulled up to the ceiling thanks to a network of cables.  One of the doors had been knocked off its hinges and around the room there were handfuls of security guards who looked like they had been in a car accident.  

In the center of the room was the man himself, clad in only pants, a gas mask, and his hand wraps; around the periphery were more men in black body armor with plexiglass shields and tasers or clubs, but all were clearly reluctant to go against the leader of the Flagbearers.  

Ragdoll was an Enhancer who seemed to be super strong, but the truth was he could manipulate the mass of his limbs.  While on the surface that didn’t seem like much, hitting someone with a hand that weighed sixty kilograms would do enough damage to kill people.  His ability to selectively adjust his mass also gave him a peculiar means of movement where he could just use the momentum of one limb to launch himself around like a drunk acrobat.  

Hence the name Ragdoll.  

“Ragdoll,” the lead Snatcher called, “This stops now.”  

He stared down the Snatcher and then looked to me and saw the unbridled panic on my face.  I had no tools to get out of this, no power to draw on. Despite being the most powerful person in the city hours ago, I had been reduced to the weakest man in the room.  As Ragdoll looked at me, his face fell. “You don’t look so hot, Eldritch.”  

“Hey, stop talking!” Bradley snapped. 

Ragdoll looked up from me and glared at the head of security, “You might be able to kill him, but do you think you’d be able to stop me.  Tight spaces, and no way to gas me this time. I could kill you and everyone else in here.”  

“But you won’t,” Josh replied with a frightening air of authority.  “You’re a good man who wouldn’t want to condemn a fellow Reckoner to his death.  Or, was I wrong about your character?”   

“You’ve got a big pair of balls on you, I’ll give you that.”  

Josh ignored his comment, “On your knees, hands behind your head.  Don’t move as the men approach.”  

Ragdoll obliged, glaring past me at my captor, an intense fury boiling in his blue eyes.  “Just so you know, even if you lock me up, I’m going to break out again.”

“That’s if we let you wake up again.”  Josh waved Bradley forward who snapped his fingers.    

Six security guards blitzed forward and grabbed Ragdoll, putting his arms to his sides and injecting something into his arm.  

“I’m sorry,” I said meekly.  

“Me too,” was all he managed to get out before his eyelids closed and his body went limp.  He was scooped up and dragged into a different cell as the rest of the security force visibly relaxed.  I had the opposite reaction as it dawned on me that Ragdoll was our only ticket out of here. While Transport could get us things, he couldn’t deal with the dozens of security guards present.  Mr. Magnificent could help close the gap, but if he went down, his gift would fade quickly, and Soliloquy was likely kept in a soundproofed room so he couldn’t influence people.

“Now, override  Transports fucking cell door and get him sedated, now!” Josh shouted at the remaining security guards.  “I will not have him trying to enable another break out.”   

My heart fell as I saw a handful of guards approach the cell and get the door open; five men stormed in and I knew there was no way that he was going to stand a chance against them.  He had started a decent prison break but it had all gone wrong because he’d tried to free the most powerful person in the city.  

“Come on, Eldritch,” one of the guards muttered, “Up we get.  Back into the cell. We’ll have more tests for you soon enough.”  

I let myself be dragged away; even though I was the second strongest Adapted according to Titan, I had never felt so damnably powerless.  

It was made worse when an all too familiar voice chimed in: 

I told you that you were nothing without me. 

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

(11/23/80 – Eldritch/Nick)

  I hadn’t been given a chance to get off the stage which meant I was the second person to hear Clairvoyant’s horrifying news.  From my vantage, I could see a ripple of shock and terror spread across the crowd as people processed what she had said.

    Whether we wanted to be a part of this fight or not, Titan was right.  There was no going back for any of us.

    For a moment, the organizer of this haphazard collective seemed daunted, but he quickly put back on a mask of confidence and spoke above the growing clamor to regain control.  “Everyone, listen to me. We are going to survive this.”

    “How?” a woman I didn’t recognize shouted back, “Multitask said the ship would be ready in a week, not tomorrow!”

    Titan turned to her, “You have twenty hours and we need it to be ready.  Chemtrail, give her all the doses you have. I don’t care about the possible side effects.  Dragoon, Toolkit, Armorsmith, you are all mechanically minded; give her a hand,” he commanded.

    “I don’t exactly build spaceships,” Toolkit called back.  

    “Me either.”

    “You do now,” he replied.  “Relay, if you would please.”

    At the edge of the crowd, one man’s hand glowed a soft green and then the group of people vanished.  “For everyone else here,” Titan shouted, “We have very little time so listen closely! You only have a few hours to get your things together; when you go, tell Interface and Relay where you need to go, they’ll give you the location of the closest Relay station from that location.  When you’re ready to meet at the ships build site, go to the Relay station and ask to be brought home; he’ll take care of the rest.”

    “Yeah, but what are we doing?” an Adapted I didn’t know shouted.

    “Get a change of clothes, make peace with your friends and family if you have any.  Get your affairs in order because there is a decent chance we won’t come back to Tso’got for a long while.”  

    A glance at the crowd told me I wasn’t the only person who picked up on the unspoken ‘if at all’ from Titan.  

    “Stay with people,” Titan bellowed over the clamor, “Do not allow yourself to be isolated, but get your things in order as quickly as you can.  We will have a camp set up around the ship. If your power or expertise can help with the construction, come quickly as those working on it will need all the help they can get.  While running around on Ciel, do not go out alone.  Always have someone you trust with you and keep each other safe,” he insisted. “And don’t leave out the front door.  I need this location to remain hidden for a little while longer.”

    The instant he stopped talking, people began to quickly flock into groups, hastily crowding around Relay and Interface, wanting to depart the mosh pit of Adapted.  About ten people stayed where they were, people who worked directly for Titan.

    People he had already gotten to let go of their former life.  

    “Hey!” a familiar voice shouted at me.  At the edge of the stage, Murphy was waiting with Ragdoll hanging right behind him, “Let’s get you out of here.”

I got a nod from Titan and was relieved to get off the stage, away from the people looking up at me with a judgmental glint in their eye; even though Clemency had essentially pardoned me publically, it didn’t change that a monster had brought havoc to the place.

As I landed next to my friend, I was a little confused as to why the Flagbearers were standing with Murphy instead of my usual teammates.  While I was glad to meet the team that Dragoon had worked with, they were the familiar faces I was expecting.  “Where did the others go?”

“Mutant, Lightshow, Menagerie and Geyser all took off to clear out of their apartment and their little flat.”  He let his eyes drop a little, “One of the things you made took a bite out of Mutant earlier; it spooked them and the others are still nervous around you.”

I tried to steady myself as Murphy relayed the news.  “I get it,” I finally lamented, “I just hope they know it really wasn’t what I meant to do…to anyone.”

“They need some time,” Ragdoll said, stepping forward and extending a hand.  “We’ve never formally met.”

“I know about you though,” I replied to the Enhancer as I took his hand, a bit confused that he was still wearing hand wraps even though he was otherwise out of costume.  Ragdoll looked like a fighter and completely embraced the appearance. While Murphy didn’t come off as imposing, Ragdoll looked like a professional athlete and had a look in his brown eyes that made you a bit nervous.  It made me wonder if his gift was at all related to his physiology like Murphy’s was.

Behind him, Soliloquy, Transport, and Mr. Magnificent were all waiting, albeit a little nervous when looking at me.  Mr. Magnificent was the tallest of the bunch, but he was rail thin with a mop of messy black hair that threatened to cover his face entirely.  Soliloquy was incredibly pale skinned and had a very slight frame; he seemed to be a direct opposite of Transport who was incredibly dark skinned with a frame even broader than Ragdoll.  Even so, Transport didn’t come off as imposing like Ragdoll did.

The whole team functioned as a support group for Ragdoll and they did a damn good job; supposedly he had even stood up to Rat and walked away which was no mean feat.  I tried not to think of the fact that I’d watched the head of Vermin get beaten savagely to death just a few days ago.

“It doesn’t answer why you’re coming along with us,” I said as I let go of Ragdoll’s hand.  “You sure you want to be around the guy who tried to devour most of the city?”

He shrugged, “We’re in a weird spot and I’m itching to stretch my legs a little.  Besides, Armorsmith hypes the hell out of you guys and I’ve wanted to meet Parasite in person for a while now.  I’ve watched your work; you guys are the real deal.”

I could tell Murphy was trying to play it cool, but he was doing a really lousy job at not letting his grin occupy the vast majority of his face.  While I wanted to be excited like my best friend at the compliment from Ragdoll, something whispered at the back of my mind.

People only know you because of me.

“Hey,” Murphy slapped my shoulder and pulled me back to the present, “Let’s get an address and go.”  

I nodded, not oblivious to the look of concern from Ragdoll and the other Flagbearer members.  They would follow Ragdoll, but that didn’t mean they trusted me.

Interface, strangely enough, was the one person who didn’t seem to regard me with any kind of caution as we approached and said where we needed to go; Interface handed us a card with an address a few miles away from Murphy’s house.  I almost stepped away from the androgynous individual but had to ask.

“You aren’t looking at me like I’m a freak.”

I felt Murphy tense on my behalf, but Interface only shrugged.  “I don’t think you’re a freak. I think you might do some freaky shit, but that’s not you.  Plus, I look at you and I don’t see a monster; I see the scared guy Playlist and I had to save from Suppression.”

The corner of my mouth actually curled a little into a smile, “Thanks.  And I…I can’t tell. Are you-”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Interface replied with a cheeky grin.  “Maybe sometime you’ll have to check for me.”

Even with the humiliation and shame I felt from everyone else around me, I felt myself blush and a flustered smile crept up for a moment.  “I-um-“

Murphy was quick with the save, “Maybe when the city isn’t on fire he’ll have to take you up on that offer.”

Ragdoll shook his head, “Dragoon wasn’t lying about what a bunch of clowns you lot are.”  

We got out of the way and took a step closer to Relay, telling him where we wanted to go and he nodded, his face looking strained.  Between having to teleport people around the city to deal with me and now this, Relay was likely pushing the limits on Overexposing himself.  

Still, I was glad when we appeared all intact after the green glow encapsulated us.  

We were back at the start of my rampage from just a few hours ago, and emergency services hadn’t come by to clean up anything.  Cars were still dented or knocked aside, there were burn marks from where Shock had tried blasting me, and chunks of the ground were warped and displaced thanks to Beleth.  

More peculiar than the desolation was the complete absence of people.  I was so used to people hanging around on their porch, seeing and hearing Zari get drunk and bitch about their shit day.  Hell, I even missed being heckled as we walked towards Murphy’s house. The only real sound was sirens in the distance as fires were being doused downtown.  

Collateral damage of Titan working to bring me down; most buildings I didn’t crush were on fire.  He’d had no choice but to let loose entirely and we’d cut a swath of downtown to the ground. Forest trying to stop me had likely saved hundreds of lives, but there were entire city blocks that had been claimed by two massive entities battling for control.  

“Hey,” Murphy said, putting an arm around me, “You doing okay?”

I shook my head, “Look what I did.  Look at the fucking damage I caused.  I killed…hundreds of people deliberately and thousands more are hurt or dead from the panic.”  

Murphy took a deep breath, “Mate, that wasn’t you.  You know that wasn’t you.” He turned me so I had to look him in the face, “My best friend, he’s a sarcastic asshole.  He’s a sucker for a bad joke. He’s a bit more sexually repressed than he should be.”

“Hey!”

“And he’s an obnoxiously good guy.  My best friend,” Murphy said, abandoning his trademark grin, “He isn’t the guy who caused this.  Okay? Say it back to me.”

I opened my mouth but no words came out.

“Nick, if you don’t do this, I will lose all respect for you and punch you in the face.”

For a second, I wasn’t sure if he was serious, but then I saw the grin creep back.  “It wasn’t me,” I finally eeked out. “I didn’t want this, and I won’t let it happen again.”  

Even though they weren’t totally privy to all that Murphy and I had gone through, the Flagbearers understood enough.  “Now, let’s go,” Murphy said. “We got one place to stop before we go to my place.”

Even though he didn’t explain where we were heading, I knew.  I felt numb as we walked the few blocks, almost oblivious to the conversation that Ragdoll struck up with Murphy.  For me it was just a challenge to make my feet move at all. Each step felt heavier than the last as we got closer and closer to my old home.  

After what felt like both an eternity and not nearly enough time, we were there.  

Half of it was collapsed, compliment of Beleth trying to thwart my early rampage.  Murphy slapped my shoulder and dragged me forward, “Come on. They deserve a better funeral than this.”  With a flex from his passenger, Murphy threw aside a section of collapsed roof that had effectively sealed off the back half of my home.  

The chairs that Beleth had made were still there, and a mound of bones scattered around them.  Skeletons didn’t hold shape when the tendons were stripped away, and I had taken every ounce of material from them I could gather.  One thing caught my attention though: a pile of bones was discernible as a pair of hands. Even at the end, they hadn’t let go of one another.  Sinking to my knees, I wrapped my hands over that pile of bones and felt tears start to slide down my cheeks.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ragdoll nod his head to the others, “We’ll be outside.  Take your time guys. Let us know if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Murphy said for me as he knelt down beside me.  

“I didn’t leave a body to bury,” I whispered, “What kind of fucking son am I?”

“Most people are cremated,” my friend said softly, “And at least their body was used.”

I shook my head, “Don’t try to make a joke out of this.  Not yet, okay?”

“Sure.”  

For a minute, we just sat there.  My hand squeezed what was left of my parent’s fingers and my best friend had a hand clasped on my shoulder, offering what little support he could.  “My dad,” I finally stammered, “He was a fighter to the end. The whole time, he shit talked Beleth,” I said with a choked laugh, “Even when Beleth punched him in the face, he had the stones to call him a pussy.”

Murphy snickered, “A fucking bastard until the end.  What a legend.”

“The whole time, he tried to draw attention so he wouldn’t hurt my mom or me.  And my mom she…” I took a shaky breath, “You could just see that she was proud of me and her husband.  She was proud to be related to a pair of stubborn fighters.”

“And why wouldn’t she be?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, “And my dad… he never got a chance to say it, but I could tell he was okay with me.  We had this little moment where I just knew he had forgiven me for what happened. He forgave me for the lies, the secrets, even my outburst.  He knew I didn’t mean to rattle my mom and risk their safety. And…”

“Yeah?”

“I could tell he was proud of his son for standing up.”  

Tears were flowing freely down my cheeks at this point and Murphy wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into a firm embrace, “Hey, you’re alright man.  You’re okay,” he said softly as I let myself weep openly.

I wasn’t sure how long I cried, but eventually I managed to pull myself together and wipe my face dry.  “We need to bury part of them,” I said, “And this was their house. Can you…can you break a hole in the floor?”

He nodded, pulling his collapsed staff out; with his Adaptation adding extra power to his arm, he slammed the dense metal into the ground a few times, cracking the concrete enough to get a grip in and rip a chunk free.  It was just a hole into the crawl space, but it was the best we were going to be able to do. Even with all his strength, it would take a long time for Murphy to chisel through a proper foundation.

Gently, I placed both skulls and their hands down below the house, wishing I could do a little better.  Standing up, I looked down at my parents remains and clasped my hands, “Mom, Dad,” I muttered, “I’m sorry for everything you got roped into.  I promise to make it right.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it felt like the right thing to say.  

“Come on,” Murphy said, grabbing my shoulder and helping me to my feet, “Let’s go.”  

Sitting on the remains of my house, the Flagbearers had somehow procured a case of rum and were passing a bottle between one another.  “How did you-“

“There was a corner store a few blocks down.  Magnificent boosted my sight, I dragged it down here,” Transport explained, his voice heavily accented which caught me a bit off guard.  

“Where was your family from?”

“Britain,” he explained to me, “Their accent stayed with me I guess.  A lot of the slang doesn’t transfer to Common though. It’s a pity, I liked a lot of it.”  

“I speak half decent English,” I replied, “In case you ever want to tell me.”  

He smiled and passed me the open bottle, “Here, take a swig.”  

I didn’t need any additional incentive to take a long draw from the bottle, but it made me wince as it went down rough.  Room temp rum was not an easy thing to slug down even though the Flagbearers made it look all too easy. Ignoring the little laugh from Mr. Magnificent and Transport, I poured out a splash for my dad and for my mom.  

Everyone went quiet out of respect, all bowing their heads for a moment.  As I handed the bottle to Murphy, the moment ended.

“You know,” Mr. Magnificent volunteered, “I could help with some of your emotional stuff for now.  My power isn’t long term, but I could soothe you over if you want. A little dopamine and serotonin hit, just to tide you over for now.”

“Or I could just adjust things a little,” Soliloquy added, “In case you don’t want him fucking with neurotransmitters.”  

I thought about it for a moment but shook my head, “No, I don’t think this is something I should wash away.  I should just let it feel, but I appreciate the offer guys.”

Ragdoll nodded as the bottle was passed his way, “It’s easy for us to not feel stuff; I think you’re making the right call.”  He stared at me for a minute and shook his head, clearly unable to let something go. “Alright, I have to ask; why the fuck do you turn into a Neklim of all things?”

“I Adapted because a Neklim almost ate me and my girlfriend,” I replied.  “I just…sort of copied it to protect myself.”

“You don’t get to choose what you turn into like other Enhancers?”

“Neklim or bust.”

“Tough break,” Mr. Magnificent replied, “But at least you can do something on your own.”

“Yeah, but I’m not half as tough without you,” Ragdoll reminded him.  “Stop being so down on yourself.”

I didn’t entirely know how Mr. Magnificent worked, but the long and short of it was that he could provide other people with pretty insane physical perks.  The only other Adapted I knew who had a gift entirely designed for support purposes was Powerhouse. She was capable of giving entire powers to people though hers came with a pretty harsh downside: the longer people held her gifts, the more likely they were to Overexpose.  There was about a three hour fuse until you started to endure serious damage from holding her powers. Mr. Magnificent didn’t risk killing his targets.

We passed the bottle around a few more times and then left my old house, leaving my parents behind as well as whoever I used to be.  It didn’t just feel like I had buried my parents under the house, it felt like part of me stayed behind.

I was glad Murphy was able to talk enough for both of us and keep the members of Flagbearers amused while we walked; I didn’t feel much like talking anymore and fortunately no one forced me into conversation until we had made it closer to Murphy’s house.  

“Any idea who that is?” Transport asked.

“I think this is for you,” Murphy said as he nudged me, prompting me to look up and see a Zari girl waiting on his doorstep.  

Xana.  

Once she saw me, Xana charged down the street for me, causing a bit of a start from Ragdoll and his teammates; fortunately Murphy waved them off.  My girlfriend slammed into me and literally lifted me off the ground in an embrace that was stronger than most humans were built to endure.

“You’re crushing me,” I grunted as I tried to avoid having my lungs collapsed.

“Oh fuck,” she said, dropping me back on the ground, “I just… but you’re here now, and I-”  She stopped when she noticed all the Flagbearers looking on.

“My back yard maybe,” Murphy suggested, “I have to pack shit up, I can get Nick’s crap together too.”  

“Sorry but is she-”

“She knows who we are, Ragdoll.  She’s my girlfriend. Xana, meet Ragdoll, Transport, Soliloquy, and Mr. Magnificent.”  

Under any other circumstance, Xana probably would have lost her mind being able to meet a whole other Reckoner team; all that happened was a polite nod and a distracted, “Hello.”    

Murphy gestured around the side of his house and I was all too glad to take his suggestion and get the two of us away from everyone else.  The two of us took a seat wordlessly on the step outside his house, where just about six hours ago I was talking with Roger and Alexis about settling things with my parents.

Six hours.  That was all the time it had taken for my world to get turned upside down.      

 Beside me, Xana couldn’t hide her concern.  “So, are you…okay?”

I shook my head, “No.”

“Murphy told me about what happened with Beleth.  I’m really sorry, Nicky.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say next.

“Are you…still you?  I know you said that use too much of the growth at one you lose control and get kind of subsumed and I can only assume that is what happened,” she said quickly, nervous to bring up the subject.

“I’m still me,” I said, not mentioning the little voice I’d heard speak twice in the back of my head now.  “And while I was in that, it really wasn’t me. I didn’t-”

“I know you didn’t,” she assured.  “I’m so sorry about what happened though.  I wish you’d gotten to at least get a hold of Beleth.  He would have deserved it.”

“Probably.  But, he’s still alive, so there’s that.”  

She reached around my shoulders and squeezed me tight, “Are you going to go after him?”

“No.  I’m actually…”I trailed off, realizing that she wasn’t an Adapted, she didn’t know about Titan’s plan or have any clue about what I knew.  “I’m actually going to be leaving.”

Xana’s face sank, “Leaving?  Like leaving Ciel?”

“Leaving Tso’got,” I mumbled.

“Whoa, what?” she exclaimed, “Leaving Tos-how?  How the fuck are you going to do that exactly? Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

“Xana, relax,” I said with a weak laugh, “It wasn’t like I had been planning the thing for a long time now and just didn’t tell you.”

“Well then what’s going on?” she demanded

I paused for a second, debating how much I should really tell her.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized she had my back from the very start; she deserved to know the full truth.  “When they carved me out, Titan took me to a house with dozens of Adapted he has recruited from all over Tso’got. When we were there, he told us that he was going to leave the planet, to try and get all the other Adapted from other exile planets.”

“And you’re going to go with him?  Why?”

“Well-”

“Your life is here!  Your home is on Tso’got!  Your friends live here!”

I clenched my fists, “My home is flattened, okay?  I am now the biggest criminal in Tso’gots history and I did it all in a single night!  I lost control once and steamrolled a decent chunk of downtown. I killed hundreds of people alone, and someone will eventually count how many died from the panic and hysteria I induced.”

Xana drew back a little, startled, “Wh-what are you saying?”

I shook my head slowly, my pulse returning to normal, “I don’t think Tso’got is my home anymore.”  

“But your friends?”

“They are going to come with,” I whispered, “We’re all leaving.  Tomorrow.”

My girlfriend grabbed my shoulders and turned me so I had to face her, “You are all leaving, tomorrow?  How could no one tell me? How could you do this to me?”

“We-”

“How could you do this to me?” she demanded, her voice shaking, “How could you leave me?”

I reached up and put a hand on her cheek, “We don’t have a choice,” I said sincerely.

“You always have a choice.”

“We don’t,” I insisted, “The Trillodan are coming tomorrow.”

For a second, she laughed in my face, like I was making some kind of  edgy joke. And then, the laughter faded when I didn’t join in. “Oh my God, you’re serious.  They’re coming, tomorrow? How, how do you even know that?”

“Clairvoyant saw it happening…and he saw it more than once.  A lot more than once.”

“But why-”

“Because why the hell do you think they are coming to Tso’got?” I said, exasperated, “They’re coming for us!  They’re coming because they are going to figure out what makes us tick. They are going to rip us apart and figure out how to take our powers for themselves.  And I’m…I’m the one who finally prompted them to come here.”

“So what we talked about in class?”

“Exactly what we talked about in class.”

Xana couldn’t sit still and got to her feet, turning to stand over me, “But, but what about me?  I-I want to come with!”

I couldn’t answer her, but I didn’t have to; she saw my face and saw the turmoil.  

“So this…this is it?  This is what happens to us?  We get split up because some shitty fucking alien tyrants come after my boyfriend?”

“Hey!” Ragdoll shouted, his frame appearing in the backdoor, “I hate to interrupt, but we have a problem.”

Once he stopped talking, a new sound filled the air: shouting, yelling, and the general buzz of a crowd.  Getting up, I followed him into the house and to the front room where Transport was standing with Mr. Magnificent, both looking down the road.  

“What is it?” Xana asked.  “What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure what they want,” Transport muttered, “But I know an angry mob when I see one.”  

“I think I know what they want,” Murphy said with trepidation as he turned his phone around.  

All eyes turned to me as a picture of my face occupied the screen.  “What-”

“Nick, when they carved you out, some idiot who didn’t run away identified you.  And half an hour ago, someone reported seeing you when we went to your house. That mob,” he said with a gulp, “They’re here to get revenge on Eldritch.”

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

Despite my danger sense shouting at me, death didn’t come hurtling down the streets in the form of a pitched sedan.  

Instead the ground erupted and a mass of tree roots engulfed Eldritch’s hand, preventing him from flattening me.  

“You’re lucky I’m as stubborn as you are,” Forest sighed as she grew into existence beside me and offered me a hand up.  “Now come on, get up!” Down the road, Eldritch struggled against the ever growing mound of tree matter that was slowly burying him and weaving itself into his own lattice of Neklim tissue.  

“If you hold him like this, I’m going to cook you too.  He’s getting heat resistant, so there is no pulling a punch for me,” I cautioned.  

“I’ve only lost 23% today.  I can take another fifteen percent hit and still regrow it all.  Don’t worry Titan,” she said with a smile, the rest of her face betraying intense focus, “burn away.”  

The air turned to molten metal in my palm as I turned it outward, launching a jet of blazing material; I targeted his shoulders, trying to rob him of his oversized arms.  If those were cut, Forest could easily smother them and we could effectively shave off a third of his remaining mass. Even though he was heat resistant, Eldritch still burned under the extreme temperatures I could create.  

Beside me, Forest suddenly tensed as the whole ground groaned.  “Titan, hurry up.”

“Wh-“

The ground beside Eldritch was torn up as he heaved his arm up, bringing a massive swath of wooden growth to the surface.  “He didn’t have super-strength before,” she hissed.

I paled, “He’s had the adrenaline-”

“I’ve been fighting him for over an hour, I know what the adrenaline feels like and this isn’t just that!  Titan, think about it; he mutates to compensate to a threat. You’ve burned him down enough I can hold him again.  His body needs another out! And now he has one,” she grunted as the surface of road fractured. “So Titan, BURN THE FUCKING ARM!”

“Can’t you just smother him?” I demanded, horrified as buildings began to shake and the concrete started cracking.

“Not if you want to keep the kid alive.  If I crush him, I’ll crush everything,” she guaranteed.

More of the road tore as the monster struggled and raged against Forest.  I’d never seen anything strong enough to uproot my friend; the fact Eldritch could was an alarming testament to how strong the mutation had made him.  

  The only way that we could stop him was to destroy him outright.  While either us might be able to kill Eldritch, neither of us could free the kid.  But watching him, this wasn’t the same calculating monster from a second ago. Until recently, it had been unstoppable and now it had to mutate twice in the last few minutes to preserve itself.  We’d reduced Eldritch to less than one-fifth his original size.

It was no longer the same cunning predator that I had been fighting; we’d reduced him back to a wild animal that only knew how to lash out violently.  

“Forest, what I said earlier, I was wrong.  We need help with this. Ask Big Picture who to send and get them to the next Relay station.”  

“What are you-“

“The second I cut his arm, let him go and get us some help.”

Forest’s eyes widened, “What are you-”

“He’s going to chase me, because I think we finally pissed him off enough that he isn’t thinking straight.  We’ve ripped away over two-thirds of his mass; if that isn’t enough to make an animal feel threatened, I don’t know what is.”

“He’s strong enough to start lifting me out of the ground!  You want to let this thing chase you?”

“If just the two of us try and get him out, we’ll kill the kid in there!  Trust me!”

Forest looked at me sideways and submerged into the ground, joining the rest of her immense form.  Concentrating, I bored into his shoulder, carving in as a building beside me was brought down thanks to Eldritch unearthing more of my friend.  

Finally, the arm snapped.  

Roots immediately subsumed the mass of Neklim muscle and twisted, squeezing a huge chunk of Eldritch into dust.  

Enraged, the monster ripped his remaining arm free with a surge of adrenaline and heaved, legs rending through masses of roots and restrictive flora.  

“You have a fucked up leg and you want to run?” she demanded as another manifestation appeared a few paces away; a wall of roots erupted between myself and Eldritch, buying me a moment without his pursuit.

“Yep,” I muttered, “Just make sure they get there.”

Giving one last blast of molten liquid, I turned and ran, the adrenaline pumping through my veins helping mask the pain.  With a ferocious cry, Eldritch tore through the solidified remains of my latest salvo. Losing an arm had forced him to reconstitute, now reduced to be about two and a hand stories tall.  

Blinded by frustration and rage, Eldritch barreled down upon me, adrenaline making him alarmingly fast.  

I rounded a corner and a few seconds later the building behind me exploded; in a cloud of debris, Eldritch charged straight through, not bothering to run around.  Willing the air to fuse, I left a pool of molten metal across the road. That would buy me an extra few seconds to make more distance between us.

That is, until he bent down and vaulted forward.  

His mutation for excessive strength wasn’t just letting him overpower Forest, it was granting him agility that shouldn’t belong to something of his stature.  As he landed, an arm shot out to snag a car, whipping it at me like it had been fired from a canon.

It missed by centimeters, my danger sense giving me just enough forewarning to evade.  

Reaching out with my power, I felt all the connections in the air around him, felt the strings that I could pull.  

As I tugged and turned the air into molten metal, my vision blurred.  While I had created a deluge of material that entirely coated Eldritch, it wasn’t without cost.  Minor Overexposure and with it an immediate migraine.

Eldritch roaring in pain wasn’t helping either.

Anything else would have been reduced to dust enduring hundreds of gallons of the superheated liquid being dumped over them, but it only stripped away another few feet of the monsters stature as he rearranged himself to be symmetrical.  Considering he had started as a twenty meter tall monster, seeing him down somewhere closer to five meters was good. As he burned, I turned and ran, trying to give myself any lead I could.

I dared a glance over my shoulder just in time to see him literally shake off the remainder of the scalding liquid and start charging forward.  

Eight massive bounds closed what little lead I had managed to make for myself; each of his strides launching him probably a dozen meters forward.  It was a form of mobility you only saw from people with heightened strength. People with super-speed took shorter steps but more rapidly but those with heightened strength took strides that made professional sprinters looks outright pedestrian.  

I was close to the Relay station, but I wasn’t going to beat Eldritch there.  

Turning, I set my jaw and blasted another small geyser of molten liquid, chewing into a raised arm but not doing nearly enough damage.  While I could still inflict some harm, it was so well mitigated that he kept walking forward despite the superheated onslaught.

Acid splash incoming.  

Sure enough, he whipped an arm and launched a blanket of caustic material that I blasted myself away from.  Another pair of strides and Eldritch was dangerously close to me; it was only because of the voice in my head that I avoided the end of his elastic tentacles as they cut a gouge through the road.  

He roared as his arm swung down again, this time colliding with a barrier I hastily made.  The second blow smashed it apart and demanded I force my leg to keep running. Despite the hole in my thigh and twisted ankle, I pushed myself forward.

“Forest!” I shouted, “Help!”

I was two blocks away from the Relay station that was tucked down an alley, but I knew exactly how much space my friend could occupy at any given time.  

Above you.

My eyes widened as Eldritch roared and literally launched himself at me; he still probably weighed ten tonnes and he had gotten nearly five meters of elevation; momentum alone would carry him through any kind of shield that I could erect in time.  

I blasted myself to the side and landed on my bad leg; it immediately buckled and I landed on my air filter, jamming it into the base of my spine and evoking a groan of pain as the machine broke and my supply of fresh air was cut off.  I was given no time to recover though as Eldritch landed and turned to me, throwing himself forward like a wild animal.

Roots erupted from the pavement and engulfed his chest, lifting him off the ground and continuing to build a wooden cocoon around the flailing monster.  “This isn’t going to him for long,” Forest said as she grew next to me and helped me up. “Come on, let’s go.”

“We’ve almost got him,” I gasped as I could barely put any weight on my maimed leg.  “We’re so close.”

“ I know,” she said softly, “You’re almost done.”

Behind us, Eldritch fought against Forest’s prison, ripping apart walls of roots that she kept erecting, buying us time to meet with the others that had been sent to help out.  

Dragoon, Razorwire, Playlist, and Psycho had all been sent to assist.  

“Psycho, what illness today?” I demanded as I slumped against a wall.  

“Bipolar.  It’s why Big Picture sent me.”

“Good,” I groaned.  “Dragoon, you know why he sent you?”

She nodded, her determination palpable despite the face mask hiding any expression.  “I know what I’m here for.”

“Can I let him go?” Forest asked.  

“Razor, you set?”

The kid nodded, flexing his fingers as if to check.  

“Let him go,” I insisted, “Let him come to us.  And everyone, get behind me.”

We all knew the second Eldritch was free, his roar was probably audible for a mile and he thundered forward, unable to be subtle.  It took him almost no time at all to reach the mouth of the alley where we waited.

His hulking form practically filled the entryway.  

Reaching out, I seized all the connections in the air around my opponent and fused it together. A meter deep pool of molten metal around Eldritch’s legs flashed into existence and then immediately solidified, imprisoning him.  “Take the arms!” I shouted as Eldritch immediately swung down, trying to break his metallic shackles.

Forest burst through the ground and engulfed one arm, Razorwire flicked his hands forward and threw a mesh of sharpened chord over the other limb.  Disconnecting it from his hands, he gave the mess of wire to Psycho who turned himself blue before taking the handful of metal string. Eldritch roared and struggled, testing his strength against Forest but was unable to overwhelm her with just one arm.  He tested the other side and found himself even more firmly stuck there.

Psycho’s Bipolar power set involved a duality of Enhancer gifts.  His depression made him slower but literally immovable while his manic swing could render himself incorporeal and incredibly fast.  In his depressive state, Shockwave could’ve blasted Psycho and wouldn’t have made him move a hair. Even with his unholy strength, Eldritch was powerless against those two anchoring his limbs.  

Eldritch was forced to change tactics and reconstitute his body, relocating his arms to lower on his side; as they grew, Playlist hit the play button on his phone and stepped forward, a purple aura forming around him.  As the tendrils moved, he simply blasted them away; even though he had made himself incredibly resilient to heat, he was plenty vulnerable to Playlist’s incredibly destructive telekinesis granted by a ‘power’ song.

Razorwire threw a new round of snares over Eldritch’s lower body and passed them to Psycho while Forest grew over his back, leaving his torso exposed for Dragoon.  She jumped up onto the platform I had made and pulled the sword from her back. She set to work, cleaving into the onyx colored mass of muscle that imprisoned her friend.  Eldritch struggled the whole time and eventually changed tactics, letting chunks of mass drop and animate; Playlist was close enough to simply blast them away. We had probably another three minutes until his power song ran out and he would have to switch, but Dragoon was determined to fulfill her role as she carved her way to the center.  

All the while, I waited, getting myself ready for one last reaction.  

“I’ve got his hand!” Dragoons screamed as she reached into the mess, dropping the sword to manually rip chunks of Neklim muscle away.  “Titan!”

Hobbling forward, I reached into the mess of writing muscle and grabbed his hand.  “Back up,” I yelled to Dragoon.

Sensing their demise, the Neklim muscle turned on my hand, abandoning any kind of real structure.  The feral mass frantically tried to bite through flesh and bone as I let my immunity to heat extend to the kid still buried in the mess of all of this.  One last time, I ignited the air and felt the lion’s share of the remaining growth burn away.

Then finally, it stopped fighting.  What little Neklim muscle was left simply turned to dust and left the naked form of Nicholas Weld in our midst.  I chilled the molten liquid around us and we all fell silent. Eldritch fell forward to me, grabbing my coat to steady himself as he sought his footing.  He looked up at me and what had just been the biggest threat to the city had been replaced with a terrified teenager.

“You’re okay,” I said gently, “It’s over.”

Dragoon ripped off her helmet and ran over, taking Nick from me and hugging him as he collapsed against her armor, screaming in anguish and relief.  

“Relay,” I whispered, “Take us home.”  

———————

“I can’t give you any more than this,” Organelle said with a frustrated sigh, “We’ve had a lot of people who’ve needed a quick fix tonight.”

“I know.”  I hauled myself up, still a bit shaky.  My head was throbbing thanks to my Overexposure but at least my leg was almost back to normal.  Some of the swelling had yet to go down, but the bite out of my thigh was mostly repaired; my medic had assured me that the body could manage the swelling on its own much better than it could regenerating missing muscle tissue.  

“What a night,” she said, collapsing into a chair, “Never had to fix up a dozen different Adapted before like this.  You really ought to offer people benefits around here for pulling overtime.”

“I know,” I said as I rubbed my temples.  “And I get the sense this won’t be the last time we have a hectic night,” I muttered.

“Well, we are Adapted, it’s what we do, isn’t it?  Either way, that’s it for me. I’m not built for these all-nighters like the rest of you lot.”

“It’s only nine,” I pointed out.

“And I’ve been actively using my power for the last three hours.  Far as I’m concerned, that’s a fucking weeks work for me.” She stood and walked to the door of the little study, glancing over her shoulder at me, “Titan, you know other people aren’t going to be too fond of the one responsible for ‘Feast Day’, right?”

“I’ll make it work.  That’s my problem, not yours.”

“Suit yourself.  Oh yeah, that migraine of yours, don’t push it.  You’re human like the rest of us and should probably get some sleep.”

As if on cue, my head throbbed, “Believe me, I am painfully aware.”  

As she left, I took a moment to collect myself and slip on a new coat and pants that didn’t have bites taken out of them.  While the outfit was identical, not having my little air pack made me feel a bit naked; I’d need to get Dragoon or Toolkit to make me a replacement since mine had gotten smashed tonight.  If I was going to be melting down half a city again, I’d need some assurance I’d be able to breathe safely.

Down the hall was the room where we had stashed Eldritch.  I knocked and didn’t bother waiting for an answer as I swung the door open.  Inside, Parasite and Dragoon were sitting beside him, both out of costume, both consoling their rattled friend.  

All three heads turned to me.  “I’m sorry,” I said, “But can I have a minute with him?”

The leader of the Rogue Sentries grabbed her teammate and dragged him away, both clearly not wanting to leave.  Eldritch, Nick, had trouble looking at me as I sat across a small table from him.

“How are you doing?”

“Do I really need to answer that?”

“I’d like you to.  I’d like to know if you’re likely to demolish half the downtown area again.”    

He opened his mouth and managed to croak but not much else.  A few more attempts were made at speech before he finally got coherent words.  “Do you think I wanted to do that?”

I shook my head, “No.”

“I… I just lost it.  And by the time I realized that I was gone, I couldn’t stop it!  I felt myself eat all those people,” he said, shaking, “I tasted them.  Each and every one, Titan. Do you know what raw Zari tastes like? I do.”  

I reached a hand across the table and clasped his forearm, “Hey, you weren’t in control.  Just like you said, things slipped.”

He drew away, “Yeah, but the first couple, those I ate willingly.  Those were my parents, Titan. I ATE MY PARENTS!” His head immediately fell into his hands, tears slicking his cheeks. “I tasted them.  I devoured them because I was angry and wanted to see Beleth in the ground. I could have just let him leave…but I was just so angry and hurt and-“

“Eldritch,” I interrupted, “I get it.  Believe it or not.”

“No, Titan, you don’t!” he snapped, “You can’t possibly understand!”

He looked up and I stared back, my red eyes boring into his blues; eventually he looked away, losing our little staring match.  “Yes, I do.” I replied softly. “I lost control once and turned my brother into ash.”

“What?“

“The reactions I create…I could let them spillover and let the energy be completely uncontrolled.  If I let the energy go, I essentially set off a bomb but I’d risk killing myself in the process. Once, a small bit slipped through… all because my brother was pushing me.  He refused to stop yelling, even when I told him to leave me alone. He was angry I had a cool power, and he felt it was unfair. He wanted to be able to stand up to the Zari at school…”  I took a second to compose myself, my hands nervously tapping on the table. “I wanted to scare him, and a tiny bit of energy slipped through my fingertips. All that was left of my brother was a shadow, burned against the sidewalk.  Even with my incredible resistance to heat,” I pulled open my coat and showed off my chest, riddled with blotchy scar tissue, “I burned to a crisp.”

Eldritch was speechless and looked up from the table, caught off guard.  No one thought of me as someone who had vulnerabilities, rather by design.  “You…I’m so sorry.”

“I understand how hard it can be, and you’d be surprised how many have felt the sting of losing control and hurting people they are close to.  Even if they didn’t lose control as badly as you did, people aren’t strangers to the idea.”

Eldritch nodded and then his expression changed to a sneer, “But, I heard you also let Beleth go.  You saved him from Psycho and let the bastard go! This is all your fault, isn’t it?”

I reminded myself that he had been through one hell of a night and was entitled to his emotional volatility.  Even though Adapted seemed strangely immune to the psychological horrors of violence, this was something else entirely.  “I did, and in a way it is. But,” I added, raising a finger to pause Eldritch, “You must also consider the game you were playing.  You went to war with the strongest syndicate in the city. Were you expecting things to stay clean and for no one to get hurt?”

Eldritch growled, “He shouldn’t have gone after them.  He should have gone after me!”

“He wasn’t going to.”

“But why would you let him go at all?” Eldritch demanded, “Why would you let a fucking murderer back outside?”

“You have to understand that I don’t want to be like Suppression or the Snatchers and fuck with people’s autonomy.  It isn’t my goal to prevent people from making their own decisions.”

“But you could have stopped him!  For all you know, he could have left and come to kill me or anyone on my team!” he shouted, slamming his hands on the table.

“Beleth wasn’t going to hurt you,” I reiterated calmly, “Because I told him not to.”

His eyes widened, “What?  W-why would you do that?”

“Because you, Eldritch, are the second most powerful Adapted in the universe as far as I know.  If tonight wasn’t a good showing of that, I don’t know what is.”

He blinked a few times and shook his head, “I’m not…I don’t understand.  What are you talking about? What do you-“

“Eldritch, do you know that Tso’got is under surveillance?”

“Who can watch a whole planet?” As soon as he finished asking, he clearly discerned the answer on his own.  “Oh my God, are you fucking serious?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “The Trillodan are sure to come to Tso’got after your display.”  

His anger and frustration turned to terror as he realized the implications that statement carried.  “I…I’ll be the guy who brought them here?”

“No, you were simply the straw that broke the camel’s back,” I replied, assuaging some of his concern.  “The Trillodan have been watching us for a while now, and it’s why Beleth even considered taking a deal with Xandal.  Suppression are scared of the Trillodan cleaning the planet to get rid of us. He was hoping Beleth would do his dirty work in exchange for enough money.”

“But…you saved him.  Why would you save someone who would work for Suppression?”

“Because we’re going to need to stand together soon,” I said plainly, “Because soon it won’t matter if you’re a Reckoner or a Scoundrel, it won’t matter if you’re a solo act or with a team.”  I pulled my chair closer, “There’s a lot of Adapted here that I’ve been recruiting for months now, keeping it quiet; my hope is to actually take the fight to the Trillodan.”

It was such an outlandish statement it actually got a surprised laugh out of Eldritch.  “You’re out of your mind!”

“Would you rather roll over for them in the next week or two when a military vessel comes to claim us?”

“…no.”  

“I thought not.  Now, come on. Others are waiting and they need to hear a lot of what I’m going to tell you.”  

I rose from the table, but Eldritch remained firmly seated.  “I-I can’t go out there. I can’t go out and face all those people I just tried to kill.  I’m sorry, but no.”

“Eldritch, everyone here works for me.  If I say to leave you be, they will. Besides, you aren’t lying to me, are you?  You did, in fact, lose control of your power?”

“Yes!” he said, desperate, “I didn’t want to do that!”

“Then believe me when I say that I have a way to alleviate everyone’s suspicions.  Just trust me,” I invited as I opened the door and beckoned.

As I expected, a number of people looked at Eldritch, cautious as I led the way to the back yard where there were a handful of chairs set up in a half circle, all facing a growth of wood that functioned like a small stage.  Forest had rolled her eyes at me when I’d asked for it, but she’d eventually obliged.

Outside there were a few Adapted loitering, all knowing that I was finally going to discuss the details of what I had been planning and recruiting for all this time.  Most of them had done away with their costumes now, opting instead to wear plain clothes and try to feel more like a normal person for a while given the chaos of earlier.  Having a cigarette with Shockwave was the Adapted I wanted the attention of. “Belfry, if you wouldn’t mind,” I called out.

He nodded before opening his mouth and projecting his voice all through the house, “Titan is going to talk about Feast Day and all the other shit he’s planning.  Get the fuck down here.”

While maybe a little crasser than I would have hoped, it conveyed the message.  

To my knowledge, this was the largest gathering of Adapted in history: there were seventy four people in the audience, and there was myself and Eldritch onstage…and Forest as the stage.  As all of them took a seat, I almost couldn’t help but smile. There was no infighting beyond a few nasty glares. Imperium didn’t pick a fight with Surface Dwellers, the Lunatics left the Rogue Sentries be, etc.  

“Alright,” Shockwave called from the crowd, “What’s this all about, Titan?  Why do we have that kid onstage when he tried, and nearly succeeded, to kill half of us tonight?”  

A ripple of murmurs rolled through the crowd.  

“Clemency,” I called, “Do you mind?”

He flew over to the stage and landed next to myself and the nervous Eldritch.  It was odd seeing him in jeans and a turtleneck as opposed to his usual cobalt armor and cape.  

“Clemency, you can tell when people lie, right?”

“I can feel dishonesty, yes.”

“Eldritch, tell him exactly why you demolished a chunk of Ciel tonight.”  

And he did, recounting what had happened in the few hour ordeal that has caused absurd civil unrest in the heart of our city.  He told everyone about how Beleth had killed his parents as recourse for defying him, how he’d lost control and been taken prisoner in his own body, an afterthought in the hive mind.  He talked about trying to rebel against the Neklim and regain control, to avoid eating anyone but about how futile it had been until he was reduced to a sliver of his bulk.

When he was done I turned to Clemency who was now wearing a grim expression.  “He’s telling the truth.”

Eyes turned to Beleth among the crowd, the man still pale from blood loss.  Truth be told, it was a bit miraculous he had survived the bite out of his thigh.   

Before a riot could break out, I called back everyone’s attention.  “Why this happened isn’t important now. This sort of gangland violence isn’t new, and while what you did was reprehensible, Beleth, you will get a chance to atone.  You all will get a chance to redeem yourself from whatever atrocities you might have committed since we have something that concerns all of us. Thanks to Feast Day, the Trillodan are coming for us.”  

“So give them Eldritch!” someone shouted.  

I raised a hand to quiet the discontent among the crowd, “You think a solitary offering will appease the Trillodan?  Honestly?” It was enough to quell the mutterings, at least long enough for me to continue. “The Trillodan were going to come for us eventually, that was inevitable.  Even if we didn’t have Feast Day there would have been something that made them finally pull the trigger and pay us a visit.” I gestured to the whole crowd, “We fight amongst ourselves constantly.  We fight over petty shit and we wield power that makes the government shake in fear. Of course the Trillodan were going to be interested in us.”

“So,” Ragdoll called up to the stage, “What happens when they show up?  Are you gonna fight them?”

“No me.  Us.”

From beside me, Clemency spoke up, “You realize what happens if we fight them here?”

“Do you want to subject this whole planet to Protocol 37?” Psycho asked, rising from his chair.  “If you want to fight them, you have to know what they are capable of.”

“How do we even fight them?  We don’t know where they hide,” Dragoon added.  

“And if they come to torch the planet, what then?  Your power isn’t going to save anyone,” Contagion said from the back of the audience.  Around him, his team of Scoundrels all grunted in agreement which seemed to be an invitation for everyone to speak out.  

“Almanac, please come forward!” I shouted over everyone.  From the front row, a man seated beside Big Picture stepped forward and hopped up onto the stage.  With a button up white shirt, glasses, and an anemic build to him, Almanac hardly looked like what most people would consider an Adapted.  

“Who is he?” Shockwave called out, cutting over the clamor.  

“Almanac, care to tell the people what you do?” I said, trying to hide a sly grin.  Forest was likely rolling her eyes at my slow reveal and penchant for the dramatic.

“I-I-“ he stammered as he looked down at the crowd and paled, “I’m a Cognate-“

“So are like eight of us!” Toolkit spat back.  

“Tell them what you do,” I insisted.  

“I find things.  Anywhere.”

It didn’t take long for a profound hush to fall over the crowd.  “Almanac has the ability to remove the Trillodan’s greatest asset: their mystique.  Never before has anyone ever been able to fight them because, in large part, no one can ever find the planet ending bastards.  The only thing that is known among the ‘awakened planets’ is that the Trillodan don’t stay in one place for long.”

Almanac shrugged and giggled nervously, “I can tell you where they are right now.  Well, where their home world is.”

My pipe dream of fighting the Trillodan suddenly was much more real to everyone seated in front of me.  While many people had suggested that they should rebel, everyone knew it was impossible. Even before you considered the gross technological disparity between everyone else in the cosmos and the tyrants, no one could rebel because no one could find them.  

But if they were put on a map, the Trillodan became vulnerable, at least in theory.  

“So how do we get there?”  On the right of the stage, an Enhancer named Unstoppable asked.  “Even if we know where they are, the Zari aren’t exactly the most technologically saavy thanks to them being scared shitless of the Trillodan.”  

“You think I can get 75 different Adapted in a room and that I can’t get a means of travel?” I demanded.  “Multitask!”

On the left side, a tomboy stood up and beamed to the crowd, confusing everyone present.  

“Between her, Powerhouse, and Repository a ship capable of taking us off this god-forsaken rock is nearly completed.  Multitask, how much longer until you think we’re fully operational?”

She pursed her lips, “Probably a week and we’ll be set.  It’s likely gonna be too heavy to get off the ground without some help.”  

“I can deal with that problem,” I assured her.  “But it will be good enough to get us to Vuuldar?”

The crowd gave a start at the mention of one of the other refugee planets that humans had gone to in the wake of the Trillodan enacting Protocol 37 on our own homeworld.  “What are you playing at, Titan?” Organelle asked from the crowd.

“We aren’t the only place that has Adapted,” I said with a smile, “Tso’got isn’t the only place where we have been spotted.  On Vuuldar there is less general strife and conflict, so less people have been molded like we have, but there are still pockets of people like us.”  I took a look around at those present; seventy-five Adapted, only about a third of the Adapted on the planet that I knew of.

Even though I had been searching around for a full year, I still hadn’t been able to get all of us together.  While I would have liked to have more time, that was no longer an option.

“So you want to what,” Beleth said, finally speaking up, “Get all of us together and march us against the Trillodan?”

“That’s exactly what I want to do.”  I took a step towards the edge of the stage and stared down at him, “Are you afraid to pick a fight with someone bigger than you?”

“You’re going to lead us all to our death,” he shot back, “That’s the more damning part of this.  No has bothered to think about the fact it is THE FUCKING TRILLODAN! They level planets on the regular, and they have done it hundreds of times.  They purge entire civilizations and literally make entire solar systems uninhabitable. Do you fucking think we stand a chance against them, honestly?”

“And if we show up on their doorstep, how are they going to enact Protocol 37?”  I was a bit surprised that my own retort had come from the crowd. All eyes turned to Ragdoll who had stood up, “You have our support.  We’ll come with, Titan.”

When more people didn’t follow suit, I kept talking.  “If we stay on Tso’got, the Trillodan will come for us.  They will find us. They will do worse things to us than Snatchers ever could and they will find out what makes us tick.  Whether we want to do it or not, if we get captured by the Trillodan, we unintentionally will be giving them their scariest weapon to date.  Even if going against them is suicide, staying here isn’t a better option.” I tapped my heel against the stage twice, a prompt to forest to manifest herself beside me.  “Forest and I are going, along with a handful of others who have already opted to give me their support. What about the rest of you?”

To my surprise, the first reply after a pregnant pause came from beside me.  “I have nothing left here, not really. I’ll come.”

Most heads turned to Eldritch as he swallowed a nervous lump.  

“I can’t be outshone by my friend,” Parasite shouted, “We’re in!”  Beside him, all the Rogue Sentries nodded in accordance.

“I’m not going stand by and be upstaged by some fucking kids,” Shockwave shouted, “We’re in.”

One by one, groups and solo acts sounded off and agreed to join my suicidal plan.  Of the seventy-five present, all agreed to be part of my crusade against the galactic tyrants.  

For the first time in history, there was actually going to be action taken against the Trillodan.  

As I congratulated myself, I felt my stomach drop as a blonde haired individual sprinted out from the mansion.  Clad in sweats and a plain white t-shirt, no one would have thought that she was one of the most valuable people I had managed to recruit.  

“Titan!” she hissed, “Titan we have a huge problem!”

“What?”

Others quieted down, curious what would make her interrupt the little rally I had been leading.  “It’s…it’s them, Titan. I saw them. They aren’t waiting weeks anymore, not with Feast Day happening.”  

“Clair,” I said, feeling my stomach drop, “What are you telling me.”

“The Trillodan aren’t coming in weeks anymore,” she said with a nervous gulp.  “They were in all seven visions. They are coming tomorrow.”

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

11/23/80 (Titan)

        Ciel was a city that was normally in a state of frenzy and discord, but tonight the mayhem was extraordinary.  Everyone was scurrying one direction as fast as they possibly could: everyone was fleeing from the Adapted who had turned into a monster.  

        Even with Forest helping to contain him, he’d grown wildly out of control.

        “About fucking time you got here,” a familiar voice called.  Beside me, a girl in a white tracksuit literally grew out of the ground; most wouldn’t know to look for the little bit of tree root extending from the bottom of her foot and connecting her to the rest of her massive form.  Most wouldn’t know she was the girl responsible for keeping him from only doing as much damage as he had.

Despite her immense size, she was the least known Adapted on the planet.

        “I didn’t think he’d do this today, Forest.”

        “Clairvoyant said soon.  Why did you fucking leave town tonight?”

        “I should have gone to Manda next week then?  I should have left her unattended for that long?”

        My friend shut her eyes, “Fine, but you took way too long to get back here.”

        “How bad is it?”

        “He’s a big enough problem that I can’t hold him.”

        I turned to her, bewildered.  “How is that even possible?  It isn’t like he’s bigger than you.”

        Forest shook her head, “He isn’t, but there’s a lot of me to move around.  I can’t drag my entire form all at once, it would break. I can’t move enough of me at once to bring him down at this point.  When I try to really slow him down, he melts chunks away with acid or he simply rips it apart.  He’s a massive wall of muscle tissue, he’s goddamn strong, Titan.”

        I set my jaw, “Fuck me, that is bad.”  

        Forest was the most unique Adapted that I had ever met by far.  Unlike Enhancers, she didn’t tailor her body and become a giant tree; she WAS the giant tree.  Every fiber of the immense growth was like her whole nervous system, and all of it could intake sensory stimulus.  While she didn’t have a gift for fighting necessarily, sheer size and weight was enough to overwhelm nearly anyone.  

        Except for maybe me…and now Eldritch.  

        “How much of you has he ripped apart?”

        She sighed, “About twenty percent over the last half hour.  I’m trying to keep him starved, I really am,” she lamented, “But he’s surprisingly fast for something so huge.”

        Killing twenty percent of Forest was like tearing down an entire city block.  “How is-”

        “Clemency, Shockwave and Beleth will all live.  Though considering what Beleth did to start this, I’m not so sure we should have let him.”  

        I frowned, “Forest, we’re going to need all the hands we can get.”

        “And he nearly cost us everything,” she countered.  “The kid has eaten nearly two hundred people in the last half hour with me trying to stop him.  He was forty feet tall when I seriously lost control of him, now he’s closer to seventy.”  She nodded, despite me not replying to anything.  With her being in so many places at once, one of Forest’s gifts was to be able to have several simultaneous conversations. Sometimes the body movements were mirrored with all of her manifestations.  

It something I was used to seeing by now.  “Who?”

        “Eldritch’s teammates.  I’m bringing them to us so you get a better idea what you’re up against.”

        It didn’t take long for several members of the Rogue Sentries to find us.  Dragoon and Parasite stood in front of the rest, clearly mortified about what was happening.  A pneumatic hiss unlocked Dragoon’s helmet and she pulled it off to meet me face to face.

    “Titan.”

    “Dragoon.”  Most people were nervous when they met me, but to her credit she didn’t squirm or look away, she stared right at me.

    “Are you going to kill my friend,” Parasite asked beside her.  

    Behind him, the rest of the Sentries tensed as they waited for my answer.  “Not if I can help it. So, the more you can tell me about him, the better.”  

    Their captain steadied herself before replying, “He’s probably in the middle of that mess and out of control entirely.”

    “Why?”

    “Emotional volatility.  The whole suit is a big hive mind that he has to keep in line.  If he’s emotionally unstable, he can slip and lose his grip on the thing.  If it gets too big, he is pushed back and dragged along for the ride basically.”

    “And since Beleth killed his parents, he has gone haywire.”  

    All members nodded, solemn.  “The more he eats, the more he mutates and develops.  What we’ve seen so far is his ability to seek out material to consume, stretch his limbs, separate parts of himself from the core, spray acid, and grant temporary bursts of speed and strength.  But, we haven’t been close enough to him to really watch him fight in nearly half an hour and he’s eaten plenty more people.”

    “So, you think he’s probably developed some new tricks since then?”

    “We aren’t sure.  He seemed like he was rapidly developing out of necessity when he was being hunted…but nothing has been challenging him except for Forest for a while.  He hasn’t likely needed to mutate anymore. As far as his Neklim mind is concerned, he might be the perfect predator now,” Dragoon said.  

I bit my lip, not encouraged by the thought of fighting ‘the perfect predator’.  “What is the best way to get your friend back?”

“If you can make him small enough, I think he can probably regain control.”

    I nodded, “Any idea how long until he might begin starving?”

    Parasite clenched his first, frustrated, “He-it’s been getting smarter, and normally Eldritch makes mass so it’ll last upwards of an hour or two.  Assuming this thing isn’t feeling the pressure anymore, I’m pretty sure it will be creating mass with the intent of having a more stable food supply.  It probably won’t be running out of food anytime soon.”     

    One less option at my disposal.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

    As I turned to go, I was stopped by a metal glove grabbing my shoulder.  “Titan, Shock and Awe told us something about you sheltering them and Surface Dwellers…as well as a hell of a lot of other Adapted.”

    I turned back to face her, “And?”

    “Are you going to defend the guy who really started all of this?”

    I sighed, “I didn’t think Beleth would go this far, or that the consequences would be so dire.”

    “He’s a fucking gangster that you’re protecting!” Parasite snapped, “What did you think he would do if you let him go?”

    “I told him not to kill your friend.”

    A softer voice from the back of the group chimed in, “If Eldritch is stuck in that mass forever, who knows if he is going to come out the same.  Beleth might have killed him in a less literal sense already.”

    “Menagerie is right,” Dragoon said, “It doesn’t change that this is on you for not stopping Beleth when you had the chance.”

    I could have snapped back at her, I could have tried to make her understand the delicate balance between allowing autonomy and preserving order, but Dragoon was someone I needed to sway.  For now, I would let her have this.  “You’re right. This is on me. And now I’m going to do the best that I can to salvage the situation.  Forest, take them to a Relay station. I think they should see what all the fuss is about.”

    “We aren’t going to abandon our friend,” Parasite said stubbornly, “If you think we’re going to just walk away, guess again.”

    I rolled my eyes, “Honorable, but if you decide to stay, you’re going to get in my way.  If I’m going to have a chance to get him out, I can’t be worrying about other people being collateral.  You’ve done a good job evacuating and getting people out; let me do my thing.”

    His jaw set but Dragoon put an arm in front of Parasite, keeping him back.  “Make this right, Titan.”

    “I’ll do my best.”  

    A second manifestation of Forest appeared, much to the surprise of all of the Sentries.  “Come along, let Titan do what he does best.”

    As soon as they were out of earshot, Forest turned to me, her intense stare betraying suspicion. “You knew this might happen, didn’t you?”

    My silence was damning.  

    “You let this play out, even after you sat down with Beleth and was told what he might do?  I know Big Picture talked to you; did he tell you this might happen?”

    “Yes.”

    Forest gawked, “Titan, what the fuck were you thinking?”

    “I made a mistake, okay?  I was doing the best I could with what Clairvoyant could feed me.  When Beleth had the meeting with Xandal, I knew that we were likely heading down this avenue but…I didn’t know how bad the outcome could be.  There was a chance he simply roughed the kid up, not do something so extreme!”

    “But you knew this might be an option, him going wild and feral?”

    “I thought Clemency and Shockwave together could stop him!  I thought if enough people dogpiled on him that he could be brought down and you’d never have to be revealed.  If that worked, we’d have the Sentries in a place to meet us and join alongside and keep you secret. It was 50-50 for Beleth to lose, and it was even less likely for Clemency and the rest to not bring him down.”

“Instead the Adapted lived and he managed to endure.  We needed Playlist to be sacrificial to bring him down earlier, and go figure the kid didn’t want to die.”  She shook her head, “You should have just let me go earlier, Titan.”

“You were the best kept secret from the public, from anyone!  I wasn’t about to lose that trump card.”

    Forest sighed, “You holding me back has cost hundreds of lives, Titan.  Was trying to keep me hidden worth that?”

    “Yes,” I said without hesitation.  “Forest, if I’m going to fight them, I can’t let shit like this get to me.”

    “Titan, talking about acceptable losses is a slippery slope,” she said slowly, “And it makes you sound more callous than I know you to be.  I know that you see Adapted like family, and you told me to make sure none of us died tonight…but the Zari didn’t ask for this mess.”

I ran my hands through my hair, “I know.  I made a mistake and thought I could subvert Clairvoyant’s vision.  Silver linings, at least we’ll get Rogue Sentries in our corner when shit goes down…which is going to be soon now.”  

“Before we think about that, maybe we should worry about the problem at hand.”  She put a hand on my shoulder, “Are you sure you can do this?  This isn’t someone you can simply turn to dust in a split second.  He’s dangerous Titan, even for you. It doesn’t help you’re sending people away.”

    I frowned, “Speaking of people being away, where the fuck is Suppression, the military, fucking anybody from the government?  As much as I hate the lot of them, shouldn’t they be trying to do something about the guy literally eating the city?”

    “I had to move myself away from them to get here.  I can’t account for Suppression and…the military has the response time of a snail.  Plus, no one wants to wage war against the capital city. Especially against that.”

    ‘That’ was impossible to miss.  Eldritch was gargantuan, his dark form outlined by the setting sun.  The monster was as tall as a seven floor building with a wingspan that was probably half against that long.  More off putting was the fact that he didn’t have any kind of structure that was discernible as a face. All of his anatomy was a mess of black tendrils; at this point there were simply too many to register it as anything more than a massive wall of flesh.  

    I had my work cut out for me.  

    “You sure you want to send people away?”

    “If my power isn’t made for this sort of shit, what is it made for?”

    Forest nodded, “How can I help?”

    “Don’t engage, I meant what I said to Dragoon: if you get involved, you’re going to get cut down along with him; something this big is going to just need to be clear cut.  But, if you can keep people away from him, pull them out of the way and construct a bit of a perimeter.”

    “A staging area?”

    “Exactly.  I want to know I’m not going to get anyone else killed because of my bad decision.”

    There was still some lingering concern from my friend.  “Titan, are you sure you can do this? He’s seriously dangerous.  If he gets a hold of you, even she wouldn’t be able to save you.”

    I tapped my temple, “Well, let’s hope the voices in my head keep me safe.”  I turned to Forest, “If I start losing, can you pull me out?”

    She shook her head, “Maybe, but not reliably.  I might crush you in the process. If you go in against him, you’re more or less on your own.”  

    “Alright.  Good to know.”  

    As I mentally readied myself, Forest dispersed and was no longer visible.  I knew she was just underfoot, listening and watching all over. My eyes and ears around the city.  Admittedly I wish that she hadn’t given up her position for listening in on Suppression; being able to know what the hell their deal was right now would have been helpful.  

    Unlike some of the more bombastic or ostentation outfits some Adapted wore, mine was incredibly simple.  It was basically just a set of black riding leathers for my upper body and a pair of thick jeans with a pair of running shoes on.  The only customization it had was a small respirator built into the back and a gas mask clipped onto my belt loop. As I pulled a pair of straps over the back of my head, I flicked on my filtered air supply.  Touching my coat, I felt the contents of two pockets: emergency tools if the time came.

He was closer now, his life sense leading him towards the stream of evacuees who had sprinted past me a few minutes ago.  Even several blocks away, he was terrifying to look at since he literally filled the entire road and the sidewalk as well. Buildings were scraped as he lumbered forward, each step a small earthquake.  

I felt tiny standing in defiance against such a massive beast.        

    “Showtime,” I whispered to myself.  Running forward, I felt the air around me begin to stir and come alive as I tapped into my power.

According to Snatchers and the Adapted community at large, I was regarded as the most dangerous Projector-Conjurer hybrid in the world.  People assumed my power was to create molten silicon from nothing and direct it, much like how Mizu would control the flow of a body of water.

In reality, I created the deluge of superheated material from the existing air around me; all I did was facilitate a reaction to fuse Nitrogen together.  As I let my power reach out, I could feel ‘string’ connecting me to the air all around. When I concentrated and pulled the strings together, the reaction started and gifted me the energy.  From the initial reaction, I could channel the power to make more molten material or I could use the energy to alter the flow of what I had made, like some kind of volcanic river. If I wanted, I could dispose of the excess energy and supercool the reaction, turning it all to a wall of metal.    

At my command, the air fused together.  Nitrogen slammed together and fused, absorbing the energy from the reaction to direct the flow forward.  From seemingly nothing, a geyser of molten silicon erupted from my hands; pointed straight at the ground, I let it propel me skywards, like some bird utilizing thermals.  I landed on a two story building and drew my right arm back, feeling the energy build for another reaction; a massive globe of golden material shot forward, hitting the monster in what I guess you could call the shin.  

Eldritch simply stopped for a moment.

I glared up at the most dangerous force on the planet and stymied any doubt I might be feeling.  “We don’t have to do this,” I warned.

“Titan,” he replied in a horrific hiss, clearly recognizing me.  While I was flattered that a monster knew me, I didn’t like the implications.  It wasn’t just a beast running on instinct, it was clearly intelligent.

“If you know me,” I shouted, “You know what I can do.  Time to let go of the kid.”

Eldritch didn’t answer and instead brought a hand up, demolishing a two story storefront in the process.  A massive step forward shook the ground around me and then the arm came down with alarming speed.

There was that burst of speed that Dragoon warned me about.  

Raising both hands, I engaged the reaction and let a geyser of molten silicon carve into the end of his hand, reducing a huge swath of growth to dust.  Eldritch didn’t recoil but instead roared with frustration and swung his hand back, letting his tendrils extend and shred through the next door building.  Igniting the reaction forward, I jumped and pushed myself away from the whipping tendrils and debris storm he was bringing with. Swiping my hand below me, I allowed the energy to change the state from liquid to solid, making me a silver colored ramp of elemental silicon that I took to the ground.  Pointing back, I let fly another jet of molten sludge and ripped a chunk from his arm.

He lifted his right arm and jammed it into a building, his tentacles grabbing a swath of debris; in a huge motion, Eldritch launched a storm of shredded metal, rock, and glass in my direction.  Raising my hands, I let fly a molten reply to melt away whatever would hit me.

On your left.

Instinctually now I listened to the voice in my head; it functioned as a kind of rudimentary danger sense that gave me about a one second warning.  While it wasn’t usually specific, it usually didn’t need to be.  Twisting on the spot and blasting, I disintegrated a twisted mass of flesh that Eldritch had sent hunting. Another earthquake heralded the monster getting closer, his left arm crashing down on me.  

There was a sound like an acetylene torch being ignited as the air erupted in front of my palm and shot up into his massive appendage, obliterating swaths of growth as he tried to flatten me.

Acid, coming down.

Focusing, I twisted my other hand and ignited the air around me, forming a protective bubble of molten matter around me.  Most assumed I had to direct the flow of my material from my palms, but the truth was I could ignite the reaction anywhere within a hundred or so meters of myself.  But like all Projector Adaptations, range came with an exponential cost in effort. Making a little bubble around myself though, that wasn’t too bad.  

The acid splashed against the surface but evaporated when it came into contact with a slurry of three-thousand degree metal.  I channeled the energy of the reaction into a kinetic flow, creating a small whirlpool around me of molten silicon.

Eldritch pulled his arm back and took a step away from me, clearly not enthused about much of his hand being burned away.  

I pressed the attack, running forward and letting a molten torrent fly, carving into the building-sized stumps that were his legs.  Even though I was carving into him with a fire hydrant of molten substance, I felt like it did almost no damage before he dragged his arm through a building and brought it down on top me.  

My hands turned skyward and blasted up, carving out a safe space as the rubble dropped around me.  With his cover of debris, Eldritch moved back, the ground shuddering with his massive strides. The problem with me chasing was that he was moving huge distances with a single step.  In two of his massive strides, he had already started turning, putting a hospital between us.

Angling my hands, I blasted behind me and launched myself forward, smashing through the glass on the second floor of the hospital, cutting through the building instead of trying to win in a straight foot race.  

Above you!

The building screamed as a mess of tendrils whipped down, bringing and avalanche of metal and stone with it as Eldritch slashed his elastic limb clean through the building.

Frantically, I used my power to shoot me across a surgical suite.  Boring a hole through one wall, I found a window and melted my way out, constructing another slide to get me back down safely.    

Around you, entities.  

The gloom made them tricky to spot, but Eldritch had left behind several lumps of growth, each taking a leap towards me with arms outstretched.  Mimicking Mizu, I created a golden whirlpool around me to eradicate them as they got close. As the last entity died, I used the remaining energy to blast the torrent of scalding liquid into the beast’s leg, searing off another chunk of growth.         

        Blasting myself forward, I fused all the air around me.  Concrete and asphalt turned to liquid as a sheet of golden liquid scorched everything in the immediate vicinity.  From the destruction came toxic fumes, fortunately filtered away by my gas mask. Even though I was immune to the lethal heat of the reaction I produced and could extend that immunity to things I touched, I was by no means immune to the toxic byproduct of melting down some metals and plastics.  

Eldritch’s legs burned and the massive monster took a massive and hasty step away from me, off balance with hunks of legs missing.  He staggered into a skyscraper and it folded under him, the glass shattering and metal digging into the layers of growth as I pressed the attack.  Channeling what energy was left from the reaction, I forced the slurry to surge forward and bore into his leg, carving away another room-sized mass of flesh.

Enraged, he ripped his arm through the skyscraper and let the massive spire of glass and steel tumble down.  

Using my power, I shot myself forward and left a path of melted street behind me.  Running to catch myself, I focused and let my power stretch out and take hold all around.  I felt the air around me buzz with energy as I fused all the available nitrogen around his leg.  While it took a toll, I had made a molten whirlpool around one of Eldritch’s massive legs.

An unearthly scream rattled windows and broke my concentration as I tried to keep the twister of superheated metal churning.  Even with specialized earplugs from Toolkit it was so loud I felt the oppressive sound in the rest of my body.

The molten liquid splashed down onto the street and began to cool; even though he’d interrupted me, I had destroyed half of a leg and thrown him wildly off balance.  His arms tried to grab the buildings nearby, but nothing could support the momentum of a several-hundred tonne monster falling to the ground. As he fell, I turned to the other leg and immediately recoiled as it came to life.

From the limb sprang dozens of masses that spread out, running like cockroaches from a bright light.  Each was about the size of an SUV and probably weighed two tonnes.

Behind the new army that had assembled, Eldritch’s body was rapidly reconstituting, shuffling mass to make up for the abrupt loss of a leg and a half.  As I moved forward to try and keep him in my line of sight, my danger sense started shouting at me frantically.

Charging up behind you.  

Acid spray from the right.  

There were two more in front of me that my danger sense didn’t need to give me a one-second warning on.  Placing both palms down, I shot myself above the charging mass and burned it to a crisp as I just cleared its hulking frame.  The two bearing down on me had to avoid the massive pool of molten silicon left behind and were easy enough targets to burn to ash.  

Above you.

One had climbed atop a roof and was coming down; it met a fiery end as I doused it in scalding metal.  Still, even with a few instantly being felled, they were everywhere and Eldritch had reformed a body, albeit much smaller that was taking off.  

All around you.  

An entire wave of the twisted growths charged me, most of them running headlong into the wall of wall of liquid silicon I fused into existence.  

To your left, still coming.

My danger sense wasn’t lying; one of the spawn made it through, though at a cost of most of its mass.  It threw itself forward and sprayed a wave of acid my way. I hastily fused the air and blasted it back, but some of the acid was missed and found my chest.  While Armorsmith had reinforced my garb to be tougher than kevlar, the acid was chewing through it. I coated my hand in the glowing liquid and pressed it to my chest, evaporating the acid before it could find any flesh beneath.  

Rebar, behind you.

Through the wall of superheated liquid, a sliver of metal came through; I barely managed to throw myself out of the way of the projectile and felt me control of the wall slip away.  It splattered down and half a dozen beasts charged forward; it was costly to simply ignite the around around me and turn the ground into a molten pool, but it was better than letting one of these things get a hold of me.  

Brick, on your right.

Acid behind you.

Two stampeding forward.  

I did my best to act with a solitary second before all those warning came to fruition.  A split stream of molten silicon shot into the two charging masses and slowed them down as I fused the air in front of the acid to evaporate it.  As I threw myself aside, a hunk of brick slammed into my shoulder and knocked me over.

Pain shot down to my fingers as I gasped; my shoulder immediately started to stiffen and my vision blurred for a moment as my body reeled.    

Three bearing down on you.  

Two more throwing things behind you.

I fought through the pain and fused the air around me, immediately cooling the reaction and making a barricade of crystalline silicon; a few chunks of metal slammed against the exterior but didn’t break through.  As I ran, the two entities bearing down crashed through and continued to chase like a pair of demonic hounds chasing down a meal.

A column of gold liquid reduced them to cinders.  

It isn’t all gone!

I saw it too late, the onyx color of the Neklim making it nearly imperceptible against the gloom of the night: a small hand sized mass of tendrils had been tossed free of that entity.  Before I could engage another reaction, it landed on my thigh and burrowed into a small tear in the stitching I didn’t even know was there. Teeth and muscle burrowed into my leg, displacing and consuming a chunk of my quadricep before I could fuse the air and and burn it free.  

Five more, coming all around.

Staying out in the open any longer was suicide.  There were simply too many threats coming from too many angles to reliably counter them all.  Blasting the ground, I shot myself up to a three-story law firm, crashing through a window on the second floor.  Another few pieces of jagged metal and concrete came flying in right behind me as I ran away; I knew full well that the aberrations of flesh would be right behind me.

Sparing a second, I looked down at my thigh, concerned at the steady flow of blood staining my pants.  While I could grant select immunity to people and things I touched, I was always immune to extreme heat.  It wasn’t a gift I could turn off; even though I could create a seemingly infinite supply of molten material, I could never cauterize my wounds.  

I dared a few steps, feeling the muscle around it already bunching up, alreadying hindering my mobility.  While I could rely on my gift to propel me around, I was already feeling the tax from this fight; I was having to work to get any meaningful damage done to the Druid since he was so damnably massive.  

Below you.

Using my good leg, I shoved myself away and bored through the hole with a jet of liquid metal, burning a chunk out of the monster that was aiming to rip up through the floor under me.  

Window.  Two of them.

Right on cue, two more hulking beasts leapt up, somehow not causing the floor to collapse under their weight as they barreled forward, each on four makeshift limbs of interwoven tentacles.  Swinging my arm in an arc, I cut into the floor and got it to fall out from under the pair; they landed on another trio that were storming the first floor. With them all gathered in one spot, I bathed the lot with a deluge of superheated material.

Another four tried to assault my vantage, but with less avenues for attack, these were easier to cut down.  My advantageous position coupled with my danger sense made it easy to clean up the rest of the entities that sought me out.  

To your right, it’s all coming down.

“Huh?” I said aloud and then saw what the voice meant.  

On the opposite side of the building was a wall of Neklim mass, and he was swinging a massive arm through the whole building.  Glass, concrete, rebar, and furniture was caught up in an unstoppable flow of material.

I wasn’t fast enough to make it back out the window, and instead turned and blasted towards the arm, trying to bore a hole through the landslide Eldritch was bringing with him.  Focusing, I sprayed hundreds of gallons forward, reducing tonnes of Neklim and debris to ash as I carved a path. While it worked and kept me from getting swept up in the flow, I didn’t account for the floor still being ripped out from under me.  

My ankle rolled as I landed atop a heap of rubble, adding another helping of agony to the already injured leg.  “Fuck. Off!” I shouted as I turned to Eldritch and fired a quintet of golden orbs, all exploding on contact and blasting hunks of excruciating metal through his body.

Below you.  

“Below?” In the rapidly dimming light, I saw Eldritch swipe down and let his limb extend, his hand raking through the road and remains of the building, scooping me up along with the mound of rubble.  He tried to squish me, but I ignited all the nearby air, scalding his hand and forcing him to let go. Even as he did, momentum carried me up and made my head spin from the force of the acceleration.

While he wouldn’t kill me by crushing me, gravity might do the work since he had just thrown me up nearly a hundred feet.

A multi-tiered parking garage was the closest thing I could try and get to, but I was already twisting and out of control from being pitched into the sky.  I tried blasting with my power to correct my momentum, but I was too disoriented.

The best I could manage to do was throw a layer of superheated liquid down to soften the impact.  I ducked my chin and prayed as I landed.

Even though the asphalt was more or less soup when I hit it, I still felt my shoulder pop free of its socket as I slammed down.  Several ribs probably cracked as well given the sudden flare of pain going off in my midsection.

Groaning, I reached into a pocket and snagged a little orange vial and chugged the contents; Organelle had been nice enough to make me a tincture before I came out against this monster.  Given how the fight was going, I wish I had her make me more than one. It immediately relieved the pain in my midsection and I could feel my ribs adjusting back into place, but it wasn’t going to have enough kick to fix my arm and leg.  Manually I shoved my arm back into socket with a cry of pain before I headed to the edge of the structure.

Eldritch was coming forward, just shorter than the six tiered parking structure and more narrow than when the night had started…but he was still so gargantuan.

“Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any for a test run.”    

Reaching inside my coat, I fished out a blue tablet from my other pocket and threw it down the hatch.  

Chemtrail hadn’t been sure whether he could make a pill for enhancing powers, but I had demanded he try about a month ago and keep it quiet, especially from his boss.  Even though he was Beleth’s employee, he wouldn’t dare say no to me; he’d been wary when he gave it to me, insisting that it could just immediately Overexpose the user instead of providing a boost.

Given what I was fighting, it was worth the risk.  

While I was used to feeling the energy of the air around me, the pill I had swallowed made it almost overwhelming.  Everything almost felt wired together, all bound by strings that traced back to my fingertips. “A fucking resounding success!”  

Stepping to the edge of the parking garage, I took a deep breath and felt the nitrogen collide and ignite the reaction.  A fountain of superheated liquid spilled from my fingertips at an unprecedented rate, carving into Eldritch and melting through the arm he raised to defend his torso from the molten onslaught.  If my standard rate of delivery was a firehose, this was a dam breaking. Tonnes of Neklim muscle burned away and Eldritch screamed in protest, almost driven back by the sheer force of liquid crashing against him.  

The fact he didn’t simply reduce to nothing was troubling; he had likely mutated during the fight to be more heat resistant; his body had come to grips that it wasn’t the perfect predator and had adjusted again.      

It’s all coming down again.

Eldritch tapped another burst of speed and threw himself forward.  The intact arm swiped and knocked out several pillars of the parking garage before I could burn it away and have it knock the ground out from my feet…but the damage was done.  The structural integrity was compromised and I felt the concrete shift and fall out from under me. With the heightened power, I could descend while hosing down Eldritch, carving away more of the immense Neklim that held my fellow Adapted captive.

Still, landing on a sprained ankle was painful.  

Eldritch backed away, from me hastily, throwing out a few masses of flesh to give himself a bit of distance to run, a second boost of speed letting him actually flee as I hobbled after him.  The few growths he left behind were all too easy to eradicate and purge from existence with this gross increase in power; once I was clear, I blasted myself forward, using my power for mobility in an attempt to chase down the threat to the city.  

Down the street!

I barely had time to shoot myself to the side as a car whizzed by and slammed into a row of parked cars, entirely pancaking one and shoving it under the truck behind it.  Down the road, Eldritch had been reduced to something the size of a large three story building, but he was lean now, and more agile. An arm extended and wrapped around another vehicle and he whipped it down the street, his elastic tendrils functioning like a slingshot.  

They had to be going at least two hundred kilometers an hour and I barely managed to get out of the way by a few centimeters.  

I tried to return fire, but Eldritch was a hundred meters down the road, just on the edge of my effective range, and he wasn’t giving me a chance to concentrate enough to douse him.  With how fast he was whipping the cars, I couldn’t melt them down before it would crush me. Even if I ducked into a building, he could just through the car straight through with alarming accuracy.    

Had he been smart enough to let me believe I had the upper hand just so he could let me to this narrow street where my ability to run was hampered?

Raising my hand, I fused a huge amount of air and cooled it into a silicon shield.  With the extra power I had, I could try and weather this-

Coming through.  

My eyes widened and I shot myself to the side as a truck blasted through, sending shards of crystalline silicon to the wind.  Before I could even though to begin making another shield, Eldritch had snagged two cars and was winding up to throw them down the street.    

The first I had to blast myself out of the way from, but the second was headed in line with my momentum; I dumped as much power as I could to try and quickly shift momentum.  Pulling my legs in, I would just avoid catching the edge of the frame. As I made myself as small as possible, I felt something catch my foot. The side mirror had just caught my toes, but it was enough to throw me for a spin.  I landed on an SUV’s windshield and felt it break under me. My vision blurred as my head smacked the tempered glass…and all the connections I could feel in the air began to wink out of existence as my focus faded.

To add insult to injury, the excess connectivity with the air around me began to fade as Chemtrail’s combat bolster faded, all tapped out from supplying my demand.

I groaned but could barely feel my arms and legs as I helplessly watched Eldritch pick up another car.  The last action of the drug was to give me a warning with about two seconds to spare.

Down the road!

I didn’t need the danger sense to see what Eldritch was doing; even with a danger sense, I wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it.   

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

Murphy had been my best friend since I was ten years old.  He had helped me through more scrapes than I could remember, and he was the most loyal friend a guy could have.

I had just tried to crush him.  

Around me, the other Adapted were trying to mount a defense as I turned to the tenement beside me.  I let my vision fan out and looked through dozens of windows, noticing a horror-struck family looking out their window at me.  It didn’t really matter how they felt though, I needed their mass. My right arm’s remains merged with my left, extending my reach.

Mizu tried his best to interrupt me, but was too slow.  By the time he’d gotten his massive whirlpool to slam into me, my arm had split into a network of tentacles that ripped into the apartment building.  

A total of twelve occupants were fished out by the tendrils and yanked towards the edge of the building.  

Spectre tried to halt my meal with a flash of lighting but she could only deny me three sources of mass.

The other nine were dragged into my body as if it was some kind of meat grinder.  While among the Neklim growths, their bodies were contorted and broken before being fed to my power, rapidly producing more mass.  

Seven hundred and thirty kilograms turned into another twenty-two tonnes of Neklim tendrils.  From fifteen to thirty-seven.

Even with all their effort to stop me, I was growing faster than they were ripping me apart.  And as I felt my power engage without my consent, I felt my tether to reality slip away.

I knew I was a human in the mass of all this Neklim, but I could feel so many other impulses and instinctual relays of information calling out to me.  There were so many ‘voices’ for lack of a better term, so many beings I was connected to. It was getting hard to tell where they stopped and where I truly started.  

But…did it matter?  The more I thought about it, one thing became clear: I needed to feed, I needed to get larger so I could keep fighting these Adapted who would see me dead and buried.      

As I inflated, metallic binds ensnared the stump of my right arm, trying to hold back any new growths.  On the ground, Razorwire was intently focused on trying to wrap up my arm, essentially spinning a web over the stump to hold back the tide of mass that was trying to expand out.

Agitated, I ripped a chunk of the apartment building free and threw it; he was saved by the kid with the headphones running by, his aura blue now.  He seemed to have traded his force field and telekinetic destruction for speed as he whisked Razorwire to safety. No sooner had they cleared the blast radius than another missile slammed into my torso, knocking me back a step.  

The helicopter that Interface had possessed had landed on a rooftop not too far away and was still operational.  

Reaching back, I grabbed another mound of debris and went to throw it at the chopper, but Spectre blasted my arm with lightning and made my throw go wild, giving Interface the chance to fire off the last rocket into my chest.  As soon as that was done, the vehicle powered down, keeping Interface safe from any further harm I might inflict on the contraption.

Finally, Razorwire’s mesh over my stump gave way and growth exploded as a second arm unfurled.  With my balance corrected, I stomped forward at Spectre and Mizu, the last two who were really posing any kind of threat.

Something invisible slammed into the side of my leg and made it buckle.  Two more impacts drilled into my side and shoved me against the apartment, the building starting to fold under my weight.  Expanding my vision, I saw a familiar figure in a crimson suit with a golden mask strutting forward, confident despite the hell around me.  

Shockwave.  

“You’ve gotten a lot bigger kid!” he shouted up at me, “But I think it’s time we call it a day.”

A little voice in the back of my mind chimed in unexpectedly:

Please, Shockwave, get me out of here.

If anyone could do any real damage to me, Shockwave was a damn good candidate.  Unlike Beleth, he wasn’t injured, and he could keep me at a much farther range. Despite my size, he was a decided threat to my survival.  I lurched forward and took a step towards Shockwave, the ground shaking under me. From the side, Mizu slammed me with a huge blast of water, and Spectre continued to use her mimicry of Shock’s gift to jolt the surface of my suit.  

Losing four hundred kilograms didn’t seem so damning now that I had such a vast reserve.  

Another step was impeded by Mizu as his immense supply of water slammed into my torso, preventing me from moving forward, from getting quite close enough to reach Shockwave.  

Tree roots erupted from the road and wove around my legs, but Kudzu didn’t have enough influence here to do more than add half a second to my step.  I ripped forward and Mizu couldn’t hit me fast enough to stop my momentum from building in the direction of Shockwave.

I was over twenty feet tall now, and each step covered an incredible amount of ground.  It would only take a few steps for me to reach the man, to crush him against the concrete and add him to my mass.

Except he had been patiently waiting, building a charge in his hands.

I wouldn’t have thought anything could knock me off my feet given how immense I was and Shockwave proved me very wrong.  My whole upper body was shoved backwards by a blast strong enough to put a crater in my chest; I couldn’t correct nearly fast enough and fell back, landing with a resounding boom as the ground shook.  

As powerful as it was, he didn’t really do much damage.  I was built to absorb hits and shrug them off.

“Kudzu, wrap the legs!” Shockwave shouted as he stalked forward, charging his hands as I started sitting up.  

Behind me, someone shuffling around; on instinct my arm swiped in that direction and tendrils jammed back into the building, searching for another source of mass to burn.  

Shockwave clapped his hands together and a more sharp impact cleaved through the lengths of growth I was probing with.  “Mizu, Spectre, light him up!”

Another coating of water followed by another massive dose of electric energy.  Trying to get up, another blast from Shockwave knocked my back down. Enraged, I swiped an arm and launched a pair of growths his way and let fly globs of acid at Spectre and Mizu, wanting to buy myself a little space.  

As long as he could keep knocking me down, Shockwave could make sure I couldn’t eat.  

He needs to win.

I went against that damn voice again and rose, immediately staggering backwards as Shockwave hit me center of mass and crushed another seventy kilograms of mass.  

I was hoping the growths I had sent his direction would have forced him to use the next round of blasts he would cultivate, but instead he had help from a bunch of strange monsters and a girl in power armor.  

Dragoon and Menagerie had joined the fight against me.  It hurt to know my friends had turned on me, but in the end it didn’t matter: everyone was food for me.  

Staggering forward, I reached down to crush them, only to be repelled by Shockwave once again.  As fast as I could make myself move forward, he could push back. While he wasn’t doing tremendous damage, he was keeping me from moving around and getting new food to keep my massive body fueled.  Shockwave was known for being tenacious and being one of those who could wear someone down and purposefully take a war of attrition. He was determined enough and had the stamina to see it through.

My body went to run and didn’t turn around; instead it simply changed which direction the limbs should be moving.  I was only given two steps before a leg was blasted out from under me, forcing me down onto all fours.

It was for the best though as being knocked over called attention to a cluster of shoddy apartment buildings.  Shockwave would need an extra second to charge up another blast to derail me and then I’d have made it to more food.  At a certain point, he would be unable to knock me around, he’d be unable to stop me.

I don’t want that!  

As I gained speed, a sudden cold ripped across my arms, actually slowing me down; a lone figure in cobalt colored armor hovered in front of me, one hand glowing red, the other glowing blue.  

Clemency.  Hero of the people and the patron Adapted of Manda.  A Projector who could channel emotional energy like Rat had done in the past.  Instead of horrifying mutations though, Clemency could make projectible manifestations of emotions:  jealousy became caustic gas, grief turned to a dust that put people to sleep, hope was something akin to a laser, and there were dozens more depending on the scenario.  Generally speaking, he could harness of these two emotions at a time.

The red was fire being created by anger from those around me, the cold he had been supplying were powered by despair.  

Clemency raised the frosted hand and blasted me with a sheet of debilitating cold, slowing metabolic processes for my outer layer of Neklim to a crawl.  But this didn’t just feel like standard cold, but like it was draining the energy from the affected areas.

Like he was inflicting a crippling despondency over a swath of my growths.  

Irritated, my other arm swiped forward and was met with a torrent of flame, evaporating the acid I tried to splash him with.  His column of flame expanded and covered my arm, suffocating and charring the outer layer of one arm entirely. His hand closed and the flames snuffed out as he flew away, avoiding an entity I had lobbed his way.  

As it hit the ground, Dragoon ran forward with her sword and cut into the thing, stunning it for Razorwire to ensnare and pull his network of cords tight.  Dragoon took the wires from him and yanked, dicing the entity into chunks that dissolved to dust.

Stepping forward, another sheet of cold slammed into my shoulder and spread halfway across my chest and arm, slowing motor movement and seeming to almost disconnect me from some of the growths there.  His other hand lit up and a coating of flame encircled my right leg, devouring dozens of kilograms as the area started to buckle.

And then my adrenaline came back.  The arm that had been slowed was suddenly refueled with energy and swiped forward; quick reaction time and his ability to fly kept Clemency free from harm as I stepped forward.  But with him out of the way, I spotted another building, likely teeming with terrified occupants. A single step was all I was granted though. Behind me, Shockwave blasted the back of one leg with a more focused sphere of energy that expanded on impact; it literally split my leg in half.  While it didn’t die, it did make me fall onto my side, crushing a pair of cars in the process.

Quickly allocating growths around my body, I willed the two tonnes that Shockwave had knocked clear to animate into a pair of single tonne monsters that rushed forward, trying to get a hold of the bastard knocking me around; Parasite and Dragoon got in the way as well as that kid with the headphones, this time with a green aura around him.

An attempt was made to splash them with acid, but Mizu used his whirlpool to catch the globes of caustic compound and disperse it.  From above, Clemency blasted down with another sheet of frost, slowly stifling my adrenaline as he layered it across my torso, the life-draining chill trying to permeate to my core.  

With a leg reconstituted, I rose to my feet and lumbered forward another four steps before Shockwave blasted out a chunk of my side and sent me reeling.  From thirty seven tonnes I had taken a ten percent hit in just a few moments. Too many people were gathered against me, too many people here to deal with any kind of threat I could pose.  

All that the others needed to do was keep people out of my reach while Shockwave and Clemency whittled away at my mass.  I didn’t have anything left in my storage to feed my existing mass with.

I flicked my arm and sent a quartet of four-hundred kilogram entities with a different and more complicated instruction that simply to devour; these were sent to go bring mass back to me.  If I couldn’t break away to get my own food, I’d make my own agents to help me.

“Stop those! He’s trying to get more food!” Dragoon shouted, immediately sure of their purpose.  Her cray was a call for Razorwire and Goliath to spring to action.

Enduring the frigid blast from Clemency, I swiped my arm and let fly a volley of acid to interrupt them and let my entities get clear of the band opposing me.  Mizu’s wall of water intercepted, but some found a way through and chewed into Goliath’s excess muscle and caused a moment of pause for Dragoon and Rarowire.

Enough time for the strange aberrations to run and seek out mass for me to consume.  

Lightning arced down the road and clipped one of the entities I had spawned as Spectre flew closer.  Clemency turned and flew after them since he was one of the fastest people present, buying me a moment without being accosted.  

Reaching down, I snagged a car and let it fly at the cobalt-clad Projector, forcing him to take evasive maneuvers and spend a few extra seconds to catch up to my entities.  Turning the opposite direction, I rounded the corner of a building, trying to get out of Shockwave’s line of sight. I still endured another blast of concussive force to the torso, but I stayed on my feet and managed to pick up some speed and make distance from the pack.

Behind me, Clemency coated the two abberant growths in a sheet of frost, giving time for Razorwire, Dragoon and Goliath to catch up and subdue them, removing any threat of continued havoc.  Just as soon as he had left, Clemency took back to the air and began to zip back to me, tireless in his hunt.

Mutation: Vital senses.  

I already saw a lot of the world around me, and it suddenly became more detailed.  Traces of organic life lit up like a beacon. I could see little trails of scents and organic compounds that came from sources of animal mass as well as a strange sort of thermal imaging that betrayed nearby hiding spots.  

Like a Zari hiding in a car beside me, too afraid to get out and try to make it to better cover.  

My right arm dropped and engulfed the vehicle, my tendrils smothering and ripping him apart for consumption.  

From about thirty tonnes to thirty-four.  

Around me I could see traces of people who hadn’t evacuated and were instead hiding, hoping that they wouldn’t be found or caught in the crossfire.  People were reluctant to abandon their home, hoping that somehow their presence would deter any negative consequences.

They need to run.  They need to get away from me.

Biting cold washed over me as Clemency flew overhead, and a blast fire hit my opposite side, the initial blast of heat burning away nearly two hundred kilograms.  I raised an arm to splash him with acid, but he answered with a constant stream of flame that evaporate the acid away as well as another three hundred kilos. Angry, I roared at the persistent Projector, almost surprised at how much damage it seemed to do.  

Clemency hadn’t come with something to protect his ears and immediately fell sideways, discombobulated.  

While he was vulnerable, I tried to rush forward and crush him, remove the threat to my continued existence; tires squealed as a convertible whipped around the corner with Shockwave standing in the passenger seat, his hands aglow.  Both charges hit me in the side and toppled me, a few small shops collapsing under my fall.

“Toolkit, give him the plugs!”

Driving the car was a woman in strangely plain wear for as many costumed Adapted were fighting me.  They pulled up beside the dazed Clemency and Toolkit quickly handed him something he slid under his helmet; I attempted to rush forward, but both Spectre and Shockwave blasted me backwards.  

My newfound sense of life betrayed a pair of people hiding in a storefront behind me.  

Turning, my arm slammed down, crushed the pair of humans and immediately pulling them into my mass of tendrils, dissolving them and adding them to my supply.  It was only one-hundred and twenty kilograms of material to burn, only enough to make four tonnes that could sustain for twenty five minutes.

Shifting back to face the main juggernauts, I saw Spectre turn ethereal and lay a hand on Clemency; she shuddered and then took to the air, her hands lightning up with a white energy for one hand and green on the other side.  With a shout of exertion, she let fly a radiant chain of energy that wrapped around my legs, squeezing and biting into my limbs as it tried to cinch tighter. From her green tinted hand, a cloud of toxic wind directed itself my way.  The originator of the powers added to her assault, coating my legs in depressing chill to reduce their struggle against her power; flames circled around my shoulder and spun in a blazing ring, biting in and weakening the joint.

Shockwave clapped and let a guillotine of kinetic energy rip the limb from my body.  While it survived thanks to my mutation, they had removed the limb I could use to break the chains with.  

Dumping all the adrenaline I had stored, I pushed through the crippling chill that Clemency was inflicting, fighting against the pristine tether from Spectre…which was not easy for her or for me.  The Lunatic screamed as she fought to overpower me in my adrenalized state; Spectre heaved on the chain animated from the emotion of terror, fighting as I relocated mass to add to the struggle.

Nearly a full tonne of mass was shredded against the unrelenting fetters, but they eventually broke and she had to catch her breath, landing atop a four story office building.

“Mizu, douse him!”

The Projector obeyed Shockwave’s demand and doused me in water, exacerbating the chill as Clemency coated me in a layer of his crippling frost, slowing me dramatically as I tried to grab my arm and reintegrate it to my body.  There was a cry as Clemency braced his arm, heaping more cold against me, literally freezing several layers of growth.

From the passenger seat of the convertible, Shockwave let fly another blast of kinetic force, shattering nearly two tonnes of brittle mass.  The force knocked me onto my side, but not before I could finally get a hold of my arm and pull it back into my body. As it integrated, it brought with it much needed heat for my frozen tissues.

I pushed myself up, hardly noticing the roots that Kudzu tried to snare me with, taking advantage of the moment between barrages to seek out more stragglers nearby.

The people who had been near me were gone now, all quickly being shepherded away by other Adapted whose power would demand they get too close to me.  People like Parasite, Goliath, and Siphon were clearing the area out, ensuring that I would be deprived of food. Someone had figured out that I could sense anyone nearby.  If I was going to get any more mass to weather the storm, I needed to get myself away from them entirely.

I would have to wait for my next surge of adrenaline though.  As it stood, I could barely move with the intense chill that Clemency and Mizu and inflicted, Shockwave was waiting to blast my legs out from under me again if I bolted, and if Spectre caught me in another terror chain, there was no way I was breaking free without the extra burst of speed.  

Instead, I opted to reach forward and rip a section of building free, flinging it at Clemency to drive him back; Shockwave retaliated and blasted off the end of my arm, demolishing where my hand was and scattering the tendrils to the wind.  Above me, Clemency retaliated with his flames of anger burning away at the stump that Shockwave had left.

A new chain of energy snaked out from Spectre’s hand and wrapped around my arms, cinching down and dragging my limbs down.  To cause confusion, I let much of the mass from my arm fall free, making eight half-tonne soldiers with the command to obtain food for me.  Even though other civilians had been evacuated and pulled away from me, there was still more I could find before the growths starved. While there were plenty of other Adapted present to help fight my new entities, having eight of them running different directions helped remove some of the supporting members.

Spectre heaved against the chain, tugging me backwards while the original owner of her power continued to ice my legs, undoubtedly planning for my attempt to flee with the next surge of adrenaline I was granted.

As it came on and I pulled against the chain, the Lunatic anchoring me pulled back, the fetter of pure energy cutting into my chest.  Shockwave blasted my brittle legs out from under me, and Clemency added his furious flame to her tether, seeming to bolster its hold over me.  

Shifting my contents around, I let the chain slice clean through me.  

Spectre threw herself backwards, caught off guard by the sudden lack of resistance while I created new legs.  Clemency’s chill was offset enough by my adrenaline and Shockwave had already expended his potent charge, giving me enough time to create legs and run.  Mid stride, I swept up a car and threw it back at Shockwave and Toolkit, clipping the back end of their vehicle and buying myself a moment where they weren’t mobile.  

Though it had cost me a huge chunk of mass, I was free and had enough speed to escape their oppressive influence, if only for a moment.  

Even though I was only twenty tonnes now, I kept myself massively tall to maintain my speed, sacrificing much of the protection for my core.  All that mattered now was I obtain more material to consume.

Ahead of me, life signs from a massive run-down apartment complex.  Three six story buildings filled to the brim with grim survivors of the harsh Ciel environment.  They had seen Adapted fights rage on and they wouldn’t be shaken from their home by this one. I was grateful to the Zari and their stubborn nature; it would allow me to survive.  

Right before I could reach the side of the build, right before I could begin carving out the walls and consuming them for the mass I so desperately needed, something grabbed my legs.  

Tree roots.  Kudzu wasn’t anywhere close to me, and I’d run several hundred meters with my adrenalized speed pushing me through the infuriating chill that Clemency was using to keep me from getting too far away.  I pulled but found the roots expanding, way faster than anything Kudzu was possible capable of.

“That’s enough, Eldritch,” a soft voice said from beside my foot.  It was a little girl who had the voice of a teenager and her feet seemed merged with the mass of roots that was expanding up the side of my leg.  In less than three seconds it had encased a leg and was starting to literally grow into my torso, like it was trying to fish my heart out.

Free me.  Please. Get me out!

I dumped every last bit of acid through my outer layer to burn away the hold it was getting, buying myself another step closed to the veritable buffet, but more growth snaked up and seized my left arm and leg, anchoring me.  

Who the hell was this person?  How had I never heard of someone this strong before?  

The wood began twisting around my arm, crushing the tendrils beneath; to preserve what I could, I relocated the mass to my right arm and did my damndest to reach, just short of the building and much needed food to keep fighting against someone so strong.  I fought to take another step, but the girl herself dissolved into another source of this rampant growth that seemed to almost erupt from the ground.

Unlike Kudzu’s attempts to ensnare me, whoever this was could hold me in place.  Three limbs were anchored and Clemency rejoined the conflict, using both hands to burn through my shoulder, aiming to remove what was left of my reach.  If he succeeded, I would die. That would be it. I lacked the adrenaline to toil, and the acid had only eaten through some of the wood growing around me; whoever my assailant was had simply produced more to supplement.  

I stretched my arm out at the building, not quite able to reach.

Mutation: Elasticity.  

Drawing my arm back like a piston, I shot it forward and let my hand split apart and stretch, sending dozens of tendrils into the side of the slum, all seeking whatever mass they could sink their teeth into.  True to form, several people had to watch from their window and were easy to grab, three of them instantly dying from the hardened tendrils turning them into a pin cushion. Other growths sought out someone who thought they could hide from my vital sense and yanked them back to the mass of frenzied tentacles that composed my hand; four more people were reduced to shreds in that meat grinder.  

“Shockwave, break the arm!” Clemency shouted.  

The Projector clapped and a kinetic guillotine severed the end of my arm…but he hadn’t stopped me fast enough.  I’d still managed to add seven people to my mass; all that needed to happen was for the food to be absorbed into my system.  After that, my core would do the rest.

With six-hundred kilos burned, my body began shifting and growing despite the prison of wood.  Twenty new tonnes of growth sought escape and fought against my incarceration; a surge of adrenaline and another dump of acid against the snares made them give way, releasing my reforged left arm.  Swiping down, I smashed the mess of roots that held my right leg and took a step closer to the building.

Spectre tried to wrap a chain around my right arm, but she couldn’t hold me with the adrenaline flowing.  My right arm shot forward and found new victims, my mess of tendrils almost acting like a shotgun blast against the side of the building.  Another eight individuals had failed to run fast enough and were caught up in the mess of grasping tentacles that pulled them into their doom.  

Six-hundred and fifty kilograms turned to another twenty tonnes of Neklim muscle.  Where I hadn’t been able to fight the hold of whoever this plant-based Adapted was, I ripped through her attempts to anchor me as I continued to swell with new life.  Clemency did his best to burn a hole straight into my chest, but he was forced away as I threw chunks of the building I had ransacked. Spectre let fly another cloud of fumes and then I saw her land on a roof, gasping for air.  

She had been fighting me non-stop since this had all started, and she’d borrowed multiple powers to do it.  As powerful as her gift might have made her, she had limitations.

Towering at nearly thirty feet tall now, she wasn’t even able to look down on me.  

A hand swiped down to crush her and add her to the stockpile, but a figure clad in red and grey scooped her up and leapt away, the building caving behind him as he turned to face me.  

Murphy…help me…please!

“We’ll get you out of there Nick, don’t you worry!  Help is coming!”

I roared and swiped apart the rest of the building, my elastic appendages now tough enough to reduce the brick and stone to rubble with ease.  Parasite launched himself away with Spectre in hand. Gripping a handful of debris, I raised my arm to fling them and instead had a combination of heat and concussive force blast the end of my hand off my body.

Shockwave was still in the car with Toolkit, Clemency was still flying around me, and whoever the person was controlling the tree was collecting more of the twisted roots to try and restrain me.  

Clemency was quick to dodge the first spray of acid as the tree burst forward in an avalanche of living wood.  I raised my arms and it met my hands before growing beyond them. It wasn’t bound by the same rules of retaining shape like most things were.  From behind it, I could hear that girl yelling at Shockwave and Clemency. “Get out of here!”

As if I would let them escape after what they had put me through.  

Acid seeped through the surface of my outer layer and a new hit of adrenaline surged through my body as I dug into the tree and heaved; an ear splitting groan and subsequent tear of wood boomed over the evacuated precinct as I pulled half of the growths apart and tossed it to the side.  Without a connection to its source, the gnarled mess turned to dust and blew away.

Car wheels screeched as Toolkit hit the gas; a barrage of building debris ruined their vehicle and saw a brick slam into Shockwave’s chest, throwing him into the backseat in a heap.  I moved to follow up, but a sheet of frost slowed me down and drew my attention to the ever obnoxious Clemency and his chilling touch. I swiped again and let acid fly, but this time while utilizing the elasticity of my limbs to slingshot the caustic compound.  

He cried out and his flying almost seemed to go haywire as he crashed into a single story rooftop and skidded to a halt, multiple points of contact letting the acid chew into him.  

For a moment, simply looking up at his doom looming over him distracted him from the pain he was enduring.  As my hand came down to crush him and add him to my food supply, a network of roots sprang forth and intercepted my arm.  

“Clemency, run!”

The suggestion didn’t need repeating and the Projector in cobalt armor took flight as quickly as he could, shaken.  

Behind me, I saw Toolkit dragging Shockwave to another car and quickly hotwiring it with some little device.  Refusing to let my adversary go, I tried to throw another splash of acid but found a new spire of wood intercepting me, grabbing the center of my arm and constricting, pulling me down to the ground.  As I pulled against her, Toolkit got the car running and frantically drove her boss somewhere safe.

Windows shook as I let out a ferocious roar, enraged at being thwarted again by this damnable tree.  

Acid weakened the bonds and I ripped through them again, swiping my arms to obliterate the remaining growths of wood.  I was tired of this intruder denying me what was rightfully mine.

In a moment of calm, I reached out with my vital sense and probed for life nearby.  Despite their best efforts, the Adapted rescue parties hadn’t gotten to every building; a cheap hotel had numerous denizens hiding, hoping that they would go unnoticed if they hunkered down.  It was a foolish notion, but not unwelcome.

“Eldritch, no!” I heard shouted by that same girl as a few more paltry attempts were made to stop me, but it seemed she had used what strength she had.  Just like the apartment, I swiped my limbs and let the tendrils extend and carve into the building, ensnaring and pulling the two-dozen occupants out and into my arm where they were ground up and devoured, adding to my mass.  

I had been fifty-five tonnes before that meal; my size doubled afterward.  

Finally, after the toiling, after the gauntlet of Adapted trying to remove me, to starve me and strip me of my mass, I was undisputed and free of their hassle.  

I was free to consume and grow as much as I wanted without restraint.  I reached out with my vital sense and was agitated to find nothing remaining nearby; the Adapted had actively moved my food away from me, hoping that I would starve.  

While an inconvenience, I had given myself an hour of time before the growths began to expire without nutrition.  There was plenty of time to find new food and supply myself.

This time as I stalked down the road and deeper into the city of Ciel, no one dared fight me.  They had all given up, run away. I had finally become too much for them to handle.

But still, there was a strange nagging at the back of my mind:

Someone, anyone, please…stop me.  

Previous Chapter – Next Chapter

Tendrils erupted from my skin as I burned all the mass I had consumed from my parents.  My clothing was shredded as a rapidly-growing alien limb grabbed the makeshift chair and ripped it from the ground, throwing it at the stunned and mortified Beleth.  

Muscle memory and reflexes honed by years of fighting kicked in and a barrier was erected as he ducked low to avoid his head being torn clean off his shoulders.  As I lumbered forward and smashed the barricade he made, he pulled himself back and began warping the floor around the house, making the foundation betray the structural integrity of my home.  

Plaster and brick were dumped on me as I fought to march forward, enraged that Beleth could find a way to take more away from me.  

Still, as much as he dumped on me, I was a four tonne mass of muscle that was continuing to grow.  I threw off hunks of the debris and stomped atop the wreckage, letting out a roar in defiance as Beleth waited in the center of the road.  

Several months ago, people would have likely run away at seeing me, but I was part of a well-known Reckoner group now, and those people lingering outside their houses with a drink in hand all reached for a phone, intent to record the brawl.  It wasn’t often you got to see Beleth fight, and let alone from a front row seat.

Enraged, I grabbed a fistful of debris and launched it at my opponent who erected a wall of asphalt to protect himself.  As I lumbered forward, the ground became more like quicksand, slowing me as I had to rip my legs free for each step. The wall Beleth had made started moving my direction, ferried by the ground shifting to propel it.  Right before it would make contact, it was snapped at the bottom, effectively launching it.

To his surprise, I caught it.

It was heavy enough I couldn’t throw it back, but I dropped it to the side and let out a roar, clearly rattling him, as well as many of the onlookers who frantically covered their ears.  

Taking a few more steps forward, I was halted by a row of spikes jabbing into my torso, not quite piercing deep enough to hit me underneath.  I tried to break them to give myself something to throw back, but Beleth retracted the spires into the ground as quickly as they had been erected.  

Frustrated, I turned to a car and yanked the hood free, throwing it like a discus only to find another wall in the way.  

Even though he was a piece of human garbage and a waste of air, Beleth was still the strongest man in the city.  

As I grabbed the car to rip more free to throw at him, Beleth constructed a pillar of stone to slam into my torso and drive me back a step as the ground shifted under my feet.  As I fell, a small wave of concrete crashed down on me.

I struggled and pushed back against the mass of rock, but found that I was able to hold it back where last time I needed to be half again this big to resist it.  

Beleth hadn’t fully recovered from Parasite kicking the crap out of him.  There was still some weakness present in the king of Ciel.

With a herculean shove, I managed to step out from under the crushing force, and then found myself impaled by a new series of spikes.  My opponent glided forward and waved his hand, ushering in the ground twisting underneath me as a bubble of ground grew quickly around me.  Desperate, I roared directly at Beleth, glad it bought me a moment to tear myself free from his half erected prison. Two steps over, I grabbed a car and ripped the door off, flinging them at the dazed Adapted.

It wasn’t fast enough to make contact.  

A daunting fact was quickly becoming evident: I was unable to fight Beleth.  Even though he was weakened, I was going to burn out of mass in less than ten minutes since I used a full growth rate.  The only way I could beat him was by obtaining a lucky mutation…

Or by getting larger.  

There were plenty of Zari onlookers watching, recording the brawl for future proof that they had seen it first hand.  Eldritch vs. Beleth, it’d be a hell of a story tomorrow.

Beleth had taken so many people away from around the city.  He was responsible for terrorizing countless businesses, agencies, and families across Ciel and the whole cluster.  He had made himself into a tyrant and relished in his absolute rule of the city’s underbelly.

If one or two more people had to die to ensure he did too, it was a sacrifice that should be made.  

Beleth was just as surprised as the crowd when I turned from him, knowing full well that he had been keeping me at the fringes of his range.  After all, I was someone whose Adaptation demanded I get close by to do the most amount of damage; why would I be running away?

It meant he wasn’t quick enough to stop me, even after he realized my horrifying plan.  

A few jeers of “fight him you coward!” were shouted at me as I thundered down the street, but people didn’t flee, they didn’t even really do more than slightly step out of the way as I approached a trio of Zari men drinking and watching.  

“I’m sorry,” I muttered as I shot my arms forward and grabbed two of them around the torso.  A solitary squeeze collapsed their rib cage and demolished their organs, rendering them dead almost instantly.  The third didn’t run because his legs wouldn’t carry him out of sheer shock. I was a Reckoner, a well known paragon and yet I had just reduced his friends to nothing.  I ended his panic with an arm enveloping his head; a twist snapped his neck, and his mass was added to my stockpile.

Two-hundred and eighty-four kilograms available for consumption.

I burned all the mass I’d taken from the three Zari and began to grow, rapidly.  

“Run!” Beleth screamed as I enlarged at a bewildering pace, “Get away from him, now!”  Onlookers quickly began to scurry away as the kingpin tone of voice betrayed real concern.  His cry seemed to snap a great deal out of a trance that the horror of seeing me strip a body of its flesh had induced.

As I turned back to him, he was frantically speaking into his phone, his conversation covered by people around me screaming and running down the street or getting in cars as fast as physically possible.  I had just eaten some people; no one wanted to stick around to see if they might be next.

I was now far larger than I had ever dared to get.  A few days ago, Beleth had issues dealing with me at ten tonnes of mass; how well would he fare against fifteen?  Even with my size, I worried; his first encounter with was when I’d been gargantuan and he’d still survived. Now with experience against me, would a little extra size truly be enough to cut the difference?  

The more I thought about it, the more it was clear that additional mass was needed to ensure I could beat him.  Even weakened, he was still extremely dangerous, and this time he’d be more cautious since he knew what I was capable of.  

Across the road there were more people who could fuel me, help me overwhelm my opponent.  But Beleth put himself in the way, using himself as shield for the bystanders as they ran.  I wanted to chase them down, to ensure I got enough mass to hold my own, but there was no way I could do that with Beleth right there.  

“Alright, Eldritch, that’s enough!  This is between us, not them.”

I towered over him now, standing fifteen feet tall with my legs and arms holding the majority of my mass.    

Mutation: Disparate Entities.  

“After tonight, you’re not going to hurt anyone ever again,” I growled as I lumbered forward towards him, the ground shaking with each step I took.  “After tonight, you’re going to understand what it means to be afraid!”

Two massive strides took me within striking range of Beleth, but he warped the ground between us, dragging me backwards and pulling himself towards the people who were staring wide eyed on their porch at the monster.  He shouted at them again to run, and this time they finally listened as I reached over and grabbed a parked car, letting my growths form around its hood and give me good purchase.

A wall was hastily erected to block the vehicle, but Beleth still had to throw himself out of the way of the debris.  

Charging forward, I was stopped as a barrier of spikes shot up in front of me; my momentum carried me and got me impaled in a dozen places.  Growling with frustration, I swiped my arm across and broke the spines of rock. Another step forward and a pair of walls erected on either side of me, dragging together as if to crush me in the middle.  

I hardened my cells as I absorbed the impact, bracing an arm against either wall.

Beleth pulled the ground out from under me and turned the road into a bed of spikes I found myself falling onto.  My legs were shredded as the spikes shot up and then retracted, again denying me an easy projectile to reply with.  

While I was trapped, a massive lance of concrete shot up, this time not aiming for center of mass but instead for my shoulder, aiming to separate my arm from the rest of my body.  

Agitated, I roared at Beleth and felt the walls of stone cease for a moment as he had to take a step in order to get steady due to the sheer overwhelming amount of sound I could produce.  It was enough time for me push over the walls he’d erected and rip the spike free. I threw it like a javelin, but the kingpin made a barrier to ensure his own safety.

As his barrier occluded our line of sight, I snapped my arm in a whip-like motion and let a chunk of my arm detach from the greater mass of Neklim with one impulse:

Devour.  

Twenty kilograms of onyx-colored mass slapped against the concrete a few meters from Beleth and immediately began pulling itself towards him, ravenous.  

A dome was quickly formed around my fragment to hold it in place, but it distracted long enough for me to begin running down the road, seeking more nourishment to provide fuel for my absurd size.  

“Eldritch, STOP!” Beleth shouted as he animated the ground under himself to keep up with me, erected a wall up to my midsection to at least make me slow down.  Turning, I scooped up handfuls of the debris and lobbed it back up the road, denting the side of a car as Beleth glided out of the way. I could see him visibly strain, and around me the street erupted as the ground I stood upon depressed a full three meters; the concrete and dirt he had shifted out of the way reformed as spikes that shot into my arms and legs, anchoring me in place.  

He wavered and stumbled a step, displaying that he’d lightly Overexposed himself.  

Even weakened though, he’d displaced and repurposed probably five or six cubic meters of formed concrete, asphalt, and packed dirt in the span of about two seconds, and he’d done it close to the edge of his range.  

“You have time limitations, don’t you,” he wheezed, “The faster you grow, the shorter it lasts.  All we have to do is keep you from eating.”

I didn’t grace him with an answer, but started struggling against the network of spines he’d used to hold me.  Through each limb, dozens of compact spikes had perforated several layers of Neklim tissue; while ripping through any one or two or even five of the tethers would have been easy, there were probably twenty-five in each limb.  There was enough obstruction I couldn’t reallocate my mass reliably to stress one limb and break it free.

The way I had formed my body, it would have cost me 70% of my mass to cut my losses and ditch the limbs.  If I made them all their own entity, all Beleth had to do was fill in the hole he’d made and it would smother the growths and leave me little to reclaim.    

Beleth stood at the edge of the pit he’d made and glared at me.  He was not to be trifled with or defied. Even though I was over twice as tall as him, he’d found a way to make us almost the same in stature again.  

I hated how he could look so confident and self-fulfilled even now.  

The ground groaned as I struggled, refusing to admit defeat.  Even though he had killed twenty percent of my mass by impaling me, even though he had isolated my limbs, even though he was the most powerful man in Ciel, I refused to give.  

“I, am done, losing!”

His eyes widened as some of the spikes broke and one arm began to rip free, my rage pushing me forward.  

“Shock, Awe, Hive, ANYBODY!” Beleth shouted as backed up and erected a lance of rock from the edge of the hole, aimed for my chest.  Making the prison had taken a toll on him, and it didn’t manage to deal any real damage; it was easy to break in half with my arm being free again.  

Beleth struggled again as dirt rose around me, burying my lower half and threatening to smother much of the growths in my legs, doing all he could to slow me down.

As my second arm came free, I threw another chunk of mass, this time hitting him in the shin.  

Beleth screamed as the growth of muscle slithered under his coat and bit into his leg, trying to burrow in and devour the muscle to sustain its rapidly diminishing food supply.  While the kingpin managed to kill it quickly, the damage had been done.

A huge chunk had been ripped out of his inner thigh; the chunk of Neklim mass I had lobbed at him had likely nicked his femoral artery.  

But while he was gushing blood and writhing in pain, I was left to my own devices to pull myself out of the pit.  I detached from chunks of my legs, losing several tonnes of mass and ending up only pulling eight tonnes of my fifteen from the pit he made.  

Still, I was ten feet tall and towered over Beleth as he lay in the road, bleeding out.  

“This is what you deserve.  This is all you have ever deserved.”  

My arm came down to crush him, and found only asphalt; Beleth had dragged himself away even as he continued to bleed out.  “I’m not…gonna…be…food for you.”

I growled in frustration and took a step forward, only to endure a trio of lightning bolts exploding against my chest, obliterating two-hundred and thirty kilograms of mass.  Cursing myself for being so narrow in focus, I let my vision span out and saw I was being approached by a group of figures.

Shock, Awe, Hive, and Pyre.  All of them ready for a fight.  

“Hive, get Beleth out of here, get him back to Organelle.  Let others know we need help, fast. It was one of the fears Pic had.”

Hive split, letting Stag and Ant cart Beleth away; I tried to intervene, but another blast of lightning and fire drove me backwards as the rest of the Surface Dwellers stepped forward to challenge me.  

They had all worked for Beleth, doing his dirty work.  Just like him, the world would be better off without them.  

I was at about seven and a half tonnes of mass now, and there was a distinct timer on how long until this began to dissolve on its own accord.  Roaring, I barreled forward towards the remaining Surface Dwellers, enraged they had denied me my chance to eliminate Beleth. There was no way I was going to catch up with Stag so eradicating the rest of the Surface Dwellers would have to suffice.  

As soon as I started moving, there was retaliation.  Shock let out another arc of lighting that blasted hunks of flesh clean off my torso and Pyre threw a few explosive globes of fire that scalded away a few layers of growth where the worst of the damage was inflicted.  Dragonfly took flight and spat down globules of digestive enzyme that chewed through a dozen kilograms of mass before completely neutralizing.

Still, I kept moving forward.  

Shock touched his brother to charge him up and Awe snagged him, leaping out of the way to avoid being grabbed by me.  Holding his brother over his shoulder, he vaulted over to Pyre and grabbed her, yanking her away to safety as I threw a trio of small growths at her location.  

Dragonfly spat down another salvo of caustic enzyme that bored holes in my suit and left a particularly nasty smell lingering in the air.  

Another few bolts of lightning and fireballs exploded around me, demolishing more of my coat.  

I was down to six tonnes and had about eight minutes before it rapidly consumed itself.  

Tromping down the street, I grabbed a car and launched it at Pyre, forcing Awe to intervene again, leaving his brother somewhat vulnerable when I threw a light post his way.  For good measure, I threw three different ten kilogram growths at him as well with the instruction to eat.

Shock barely even flinched, displacing the metal with a blast of lightning that chained to the incoming growths I had thrown his way.  

Even though Beleth had been the most powerful man in Ciel, he  employed a truly terrifying group of individuals. There was no way I was going to kill them with the mass I had now.

I needed more.  

Down the road, a corner store with lights still turned on.  I didn’t know if there was anyone there, but I needed more material to consume if I wanted to stand a chance against the remaining Surface Dwellers.

“Hive, stop him!” Pyre shrieked as I turned and started literally running down the road.  

Running in the Neklim suit had always been a chore for me, requiring absurd concentration and even so I couldn’t do more than a bit of a jog which always had me worried I was going to faceplant; tonight I could actually sprint and properly utilize my massive strides to carry me at a truly frightening pace.  

A bolt of lightning chased me from down the road and carved a swath of growths out of the side of my leg; a blast of enzyme added to the damage as I tried to allocate resources to keep me upright and mobile.  Irritated with her, I lobbed another fistful of growth at Dragonfly; while none collided, it got her to back away for a second and give me time to reconstitute my leg and keep running.

Without her being able to completely undo my leg, it didn’t take me long to crash into the store, literally.  Using my shoulder, I bulldozed through the door and crawled forward, filling half of the floorspace and knocking over probably ten shelves in the process.  

There were screams from the half dozen people inside who had been hiding out, afraid to go back out in the open with such an intense Adapted brawl happening.  If they had been smart enough to turn out the lights, I would have never known they were here.

“Please,” a Zari man begged as I reallocated mass to my arm, setting it down so they couldn’t access the back door.  “Please, let us go.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly, my suit distorting the speech as I dragged my massive limb across the corner store, collecting the six people unlucky enough to have been out.  

“Light him up!” someone shouted behind me.

Flames billowed in, superheating the air and torching my newfound food supply.  As quickly as possible, I pulled them in close to shield them from the consuming fire and absorbed what mass Pyre hadn’t burned away.  

Three hundred and sixty-four kilograms available for consumption.  

Using sixty-four to feed my existing mass, I burned the rest and pulled myself from the demolished corner store.  Bolts of lightning and more caustic blobs of enzyme ate away at me, but I was growing faster than they could destroy my suit.  

After Pyre made a small firestorm around me, I had been reduced to four tonnes; now I was growing back to sixteen.  

“Where the fuck is everyone else?” Shock shouted as Awe grabbed him and pulled the two away from a small shower of debris I  ripped from the remains of the corner store. “We need to keep him contained!”

As I roared and rose to tower above them, a massive blast of water drilled me in the side, actually making me stagger.  

Mizu was running up from down the street with two other forms with a scarf with neon-red teeth painted on.

“LUNATICS!” I roared, outraged.  Lunatics, Imperium, and Surface Dwellers all working together against me?  Everything I’d ever fought against, all here to kill me, to bring me down.

They all needed to die.  

Mutation: Acid reserves.

Charing forward, Mizu blasted me back with a massive current he was bringing to life.  

“Awe, Hydrant!”

At Mizu’s behest, the Enhancer leapt over to a nearby fire hydrant and kicked it, repeatedly, bending the metal slowly.  I threw a volley of acid to maim Awe and keep him from helping Mizu, but a wall of water swept it away, and a blast of fire washed over me, scorching much of my top layer.  

I threw a mass of growth at Pyre, but Dragonfly spat enzyme on it before it flew far.  As she flew by, Dragonfly retched a massive amount of enzyme down on my shoulder, working to eat away at my joint, anything to slow me down.

One of the Lunatics turned ghostly white and drifted forward, laying a hand on Shock before drifting away; in a strange harmony, they both unleashed an electric volley that tore swaths of mass from my midsection.  

Spectre had seemed nice when I had talked to her at the house before, but seeing her in action reminded me that she was just another villain, someone else who needed to be dealt with.

With a final kick, Awe broke open the fire hydrant and began adding to Mizu’s already massive whirlpool he was maintaining.  With a gesture, a jet of water slammed into my chest, and both Spectre and Shock followed up with a massive amount of electricity that arced over my skin, ripping away a tonne of growth.  

From sixteen tonnes, I had already been cut down to thirteen in a few short moments.  

I fell on my side as another massive liquid battering ram slammed into me, my leg buckling thanks to more digestive enzyme chewing into my growths.  The other Lunatic present, Dysfunction, aided Dragonfly by hitting me with her glittery projectiles, turning growths against one another as my power malfunctioned in that localized area.

Pushing myself up, I roared and dragged my hand through the rubble, throwing bricks and broken glass at the group set to stop me, hoping to buy myself a little space.  

I needed more mass.  They were going to chew through me if this continued.  

Mizu swept away the debris and turned it back on me, blasting me with water polluted by bricks and shrapnel, adding extra punch to his already oppressive power.  Shock and Spectre followed up with another massive surge of electricity that coursed around my whole body, wracking me with pain.

Down to twelve tonnes.  Twenty five percent of my mass whittled down in under a minute.  

Desperate, I swiped my arm, and let most of it come off.  It split into three entities, all with the instruction to devour.  Each weighed five hundred kilograms, and Mizu was clearly bracing himself for an attack of acid; without his initial wave to repel the aberrant growths, there was chaos among the group for a moment as they got dangerously close.  

It bought just enough time for me to run, enough time to seek more food.  

Thundering down the road, I endured a few more blasts from Shock and Spectre as I made distance between us, desperate for a new food supply.  My gaze widened, taking in a panoramic view as I took immense strides, stressing the ground as I ran. I needed to get more towards downtown, away from houses that people had evacuated and more into where people would be hiding in their apartments.  

But as I ran, a new option became immediately apparent; people driving home.  It was only a bit after five in the evening, the perfect time to catch people in traffic.  

Not  far away was a busy thoroughfare where people hadn’t gotten the alert to flee this side of town thanks to a massive Neklim on the loose.  

As soon as I stepped onto the road and into view, people frantically began slamming on their brakes and trying to turn around, to get the hell away; in their panic, people ran into each other and ironically trapped themselves within my reach.  A massive pile up happened right nearby, where the panic from those nearby was strongest.

Even if people knew who I was, seeing a massive Neklim bearing down on the highway was terrifying.  Unfortunately for the dozen cars involved in the accident, they lost their ability to run away.

From the mess, I let my arm split and reach down, snaking out and seizing people from the wreckage.  

Seven people were fished out from the vehicular carnage and promptly broken down into usable mass; the rest were running as fast as possible, leaving their vehicles and possessions behind in a heartbeat.    

Six hundred and twelve kilograms available for consumption.

I fortified my remaining eleven and half tonnes of mass and added another fourteen tonnes on top of it.  Now I had much more time to play with and would be substantially less frantic while fighting. Twenty six tonnes left me towering above the road, nearly twenty feet tall.

And then a massive blast of water collided with me, forcing me back a step as my pursuers finally caught up in a commandeered car.  Mizu’s water supply churned around my legs and blasted back into my center, coating most of me in at least some moisture.

All a setup for Spectre and Shock to hit me with a massive blast of voltaic energy.  

Around me, I felt various pockets of my growths consuming one another as Dysfunction dosed small parts of me with her power to make my Adaptation go haywire, but she couldn’t affect enough surface area to make a huge difference.  The same went for Dragonfly; she was more an annoyance now that I was simply too big for her to really bore into.

Taking a step forward, I found myself snared as tree roots grew rapidly around my legs, fighting with my tendrils to tether me to the ground.  

Kudzu.  Another wretched Imperium goon who refused to stay down.  Parasite should have killed her when he’d had the chance. Like the rest, she didn’t deserve to live for what she’d done to this city.  

Roaring, I slammed an arm down and grabbed a pair of smaller cars, launching them at the antagonistic group, forcing them to scatter and fan out.  In retribution, Mizu blasted his whole supply into my left leg, shoving it back and forcing me to fall onto an arm; tree roots from Kudzu spawned and did their best to ensnare me, but I was too big and she didn’t have enough influence over the area yet.  Tearing free, I threw a trio of growths out with the command to consume.

They didn’t make it to the ground; Pyre blasted them out of the sky.  Behind her, Shock and Spectre were charging voltage up in a hand, both stepping forward to throw a small hand grenade of electricity that erupted and carved chunks out of my chest.  

Enraged, I brought a massive hand down on them.  Awe was quick to move his brother and Spectre simply made herself incorporeal and drifted away, becoming solid again to launch a bolt of lighting into my shoulder and burn away a few dozen kilograms of growth.  

Rage began to overwhelm me as I couldn’t manage to land a hit against these villains.  I was over twice as big as I had ever been; why couldn’t I bring them down?

Did I need more mass?  More mutations? More food?

A few more globes of flame erupted across my outer layer and more lighting removed hunks of flesh, whittling my twenty-five tonnes down to twenty-two.

I still hadn’t landed a hit, and they had distracted me long enough to let most people get away from me on the road.  

Downtown.  That was where I’d be able to get an ample food supply to fight.  

Determined, I pushed forward, taking aim at Pyre; unlike Shock, she didn’t have someone helping to get her around.  

As my massive swipe came close, a figure darted down to snag her and lifted her into the air.  

Dragonfly was quicker than I gave her credit for.  Still, I refused to let her get away and let fly most of the acid supply I had available.  

Most only found the air, but some found Dragonfly’s wings and sent her and Pyre landing haphazardly, slamming down into the mess of wrecked cars that my initial appearance had cause.  I tried to close in, to remove them from the equation completely, but Mizu blasted me backwards and twin bolts of lightning arced across my flesh, cutting another chunk of my mass away.  

Awe bolted to the wreckage and grabbed both of them, leaping away, burning much of a charge from Shock to enhance his speed.  

But, carrying two people took a toll on just how nimble he was.  

One of my arms came apart as I lobbed four 400 kilogram masses at him with a simply goal: kill Awe.  

Shock was quick to obliterate two, and Spectre got one, but Awe had to drop his charges and grapple with the last creation.  While it wasn’t winning a fistfight, all it had to do was making contact to begin doing damage. All its surface area tried to bit into Awe and rip him apart; while his armor helped preserve his troso, his limbs were stripped of flesh as the aberration twisted itself and clung to him more tightly.  

His brother finally summed up enough strength to add another blast of lightning to both help recharge his brother and dispose of my remnant.  

As I moved to step forward, tree roots wove into my leg, anchoring me as Mizu thrust his hand forward and surged all his water into my chest; the anchor and pressure from the force of the water knocked me onto my ass with a resounding clamor as the street literally cracked from the impact.  In earnest, I reached out and grabbed a car, returning fire at Mizu while his water supply wasn’t fueling the whirlpool he kept around himself.

 I didn’t hit him because Mizu dragged himself a few paces away, using his blood to violently throw himself out of harm’s way.  

More roots grew over my legs, Kudzu’s influence getting far stronger the longer they could hold me here.  I tried standing but couldn’t break the growths that were growing at a pace that seemed unnatural for her.  

Either she had been here and preparing for me to make an appearance, or she was desperately Overexposing herself to keep me seated and immobile.  

Diverting my acid supply from my arms to my legs, I secreted it through my skin and let it eat away at the wood before reaching down to rip the shackles away and fight my way back up to my feet again.  

Mizu attempted to keep me down pinned down, but he was forced to throw himself away from a another car being launched his way.  Shock and Spectre rejoined the fray, but Shock was looking fatigued. Still, he added to the electricity that danced across my coat and irreparably damaged another few hundred kilograms of mass.  

From twenty five down to twenty.  

More.  I’d need more if I was going to put them all down.  Close by, there were apartment buildings with plenty of residents who would never leave, all too stubborn or inattentive to know that there was a disaster happening outside.

They would give me the food I needed to get rid of these bastards.

Without Mizu hampering me for a second, I managed to get back to my feet and throw another wave of acid, mostly in an effort to keep him busy.  Kudzu tried to ensnare me, with me upright and moving again, she couldn’t stop my momentum as I turned and started to run.

I felt dozens of kilograms of mass die in my legs as I found myself lurching forward, unsteady.  Widening my gaze, I could just barely see wires that had bit into my flesh, refusing to break despite the strain they were withstanding.  

A ways down there were two trees that had erupted from the street, giving someone a point to anchor this seemingly unbreakable thread.  

Before I could dissolve it, a massive jet of water slammed into my back, immediately followed up by another excruciating hit of lightning.  The force knocked me forward and back into the curel cord, cutting through more of my legs before the trees they were anchored to finally snapped.

I still had to catch myself on my hands, the road breaking around me.  

In front of me was a strangely familiar figure: a kid in a tank top with a scarf and glowing purple.  

He was in my way, impeding my progress, he needed to move aside.  As I went to smack him, I felt like I hit a wall. A hand was raised, and sixty kilograms were ripped away from my arm.  Frustrated, I roared and saw glass shudder with the sheer volume, but he didn’t flinch, instead tapping his ears with a smile.  

Were those…headphone cables coming out of them?  

Still, I tried to smash down again, and the same thing happened.  He gestured lazily and blasted another hundred kilograms away from my arm as I tried to get up; between that and Mizu driving his water supply down against my back, I was stuck on my knees for now.  

Desperate, I moved my acid supply and sprayed him; the acid stopped at a force field but seemed to make his purple aura waver.  

When I swiped and hit him, he went flying and crashed through the wall of a building across the street.  

“Razorwire, wrap him!” I heard shouted by another familiar voice.  Above head, a helicopter swooped in, guns blazing and peppering my hide. Except, there was no pilot.  It was simply running on its own.

It had to be Interface, but why would Interface want to stop me?  And that kid I’d smacked aside had helped me escape Suppression…why was he helping villains like Shock and Awe?  Why didn’t they just let me kill them?

I tried to raise my hand to flick acid at the helicopter but felt the same biting sensation as I had in my legs earlier.  To my side, there was Goliath bulked up, holding a mass of wires that a small guy with jet black hair had somehow attached to my arm.  

I tried to plant my other arm, but Mizu blasted it, knocking it forward to deny my any leverage in my tug-of-war with Goliath.  Around my legs, roots wrapped around me, making it harder to struggle, harder to fight back, harder to get up and keep going.

No.  I wouldn’t be beaten like this.  

Mutation: Adrenaline.

Power surged through my veins, giving me the strength needed to yank Goliath forward and ignore the pain of the wire cutting into my flesh.  As he went flying into the street, I slammed the ground and stood up, ripping through the roots that Kudzu had been building around me. Shooting my arm forward, I seized a car and launched it at the helicopter as it shot a missle my way.  

I just nicked the rotor, but it was enough to send it spinning out of control and away from me.  

The explosion tore a hole into my chest and drove me back a step.  Beside me, there was a little flurry of movement as Awe hopped up onto the side of a building with his brother on his back.  

Shock’s entire arm was glowing blue.  

I raise my arm to shield myself as a massive surge of electricity ripped through the length of my appendage, demolishing the limb and sending burnt chunks of Neklim all over; that was all Shock had to give and he collapsed beside his sibling.

He had shredded three tonnes of mass in an instant, but at the cost of all his strength.  

With what little surge of adrenaline I still had flowing in me, I pulled myself up and charged forward, enduring the standard bolts of electricity from Spectre, knowing that I could recover if I could just get more food.  

It didn’t matter how many people they threw at me, as long as I could keep eating, I could keep fighting.  

As I spotted an apartment building, with some lights still on, I stopped when I saw a lone figure in the middle of the road.  Unlike the rest, he wasn’t in costume, and he wasn’t there to fight.

It was Murphy, looking up at me, plaintive.  

“Nick, stop!  Please!”

Why would Murphy be stopping me?  Couldn’t he see what I was doing?   

“I know what Beleth did to your parents.  I know you’re angry, and you’re hurt! But…this…it has to stop.  Please! I know you’re in there and you can hear me. Please!” My best friend spread his arms and lifted his hands, showing that he meant no threat, “Just, let the stuff go, okay.  We’ll take care of you. We’re a team, right?”

It dawned on me, he was right.  This had gone way too far and I’d let my emotions completely eclipse my sense of logic.    

But, when I willed the growths to disperse, I raised my hand to strike instead.  

I tried to yell for him to run, but my body refused to speak, instead it only roared as my fist came hurtling down, demolishing the road where he was standing.  

I felt relief when I saw Murphy spring away, narrowly avoiding my massive limb, but a more tangible horror washed over me.  

I had entirely lost control. And I was across the street from a fresh food supply.  

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