“The Advanced Diagnostic Device, or ADD as I like to call it, will work as both an MRI and a high-powered electron microscope. It will allow us to do a deep study of your revised gene make-up. Whatever’s happening to you, we need to find it out and make sure it’s not going to cause you serious harm.”

“I know that mentally,” Beauty said. “But my body just seems to scream out stop to all this endless poking and prodding.”

Flint nodded. “Let’s get you in the ADD and get this over with. With all luck, the genetic map will be enough to clarify your revised metagene potential. Sound good?”

Beauty sighed. “Fine. Let’s get this over with then.” She walked across the med lab. The ADD looked like a combination of a throne and a wicked torture device. She took a deep breath, turned around, and sat down in the seat. The chair started to shift upwards beneath her and she could feel randomly placed protrusions press in to her arms and back. Another panel lowered down in front of her. The chair below her stopped a few feet over the floor and tilted back to a forty-five degree angle. The upper panel stopped a little less than a foot above her. Several long black prongs extended from the blank panel above her. They stopped as soon as they contacted with her chest and forehead.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Flint said. “This is all normal. Just stay calm and as still as possible and we’re be done in five or ten minutes.”

Flint watched Beauty fidget a bit as the ADD hummed to life. “Just relax,” he said after a couple minutes. “It won’t be much longer.”

Beauty grimaced. “Please, Flint. You have got to stop it. It’s hurting me.”

“Stay calm. You’re starting to panic. The ADD does nothing but send a low level series of waves through your body. It’s all painless. You’re just imagining any pain do to your agitated state. Try to relax and it will be all over soon.”

Beauty shook her head furiously. “No, no, no,” she said through gritted teeth. “I think … something … is wrong.”

Flint looked on in shock as a mucousy green liquid seemed to ooze from Beauty’s pores. Beauty bit her tongue to keep from screaming out loud at the pain.

Flint turned as fast as he could and started to flip the safety release on the ADD but it was already too late. He turned to see the chair and diagnostic rods melt away as the acid field forming around Beauty began to expand.

“Help me! Pl—” Flint could do nothing but watch in helpless silence as the layer of viscous acid goo burned Beauty’s hair away before it enclosed the young woman’s head completely.

Flint rushed to the wall and yanked the emergency medical kit from the wall. He pulled the hypodermic inside from its casing. The hypo contained an anesthetic mixed with a gene inhibitor, a substance designed specifically to calm a rampaging metahuman in the med lab. Flint only hoped the titanium needle could survive this new acid field.

He charged toward the vaguely human shaped form. He raised the hypo-gun and fired it at point blank range in to the blob-like acid field.

The hypo whooshed in to the acid field and immediately sizzled away.

Flint stepped back as the acid creature raised one dripping arm. Acid drops sizzled as they fell from the arm and hit the floor.

Two glowing white eyes opened in the creature that was once Beauty’s face. The eyes narrowed in anger towards him.

Flint reached down and pressed the silent alarm on his belt buckle. The creature moaned and lowered her hands to the floor. The linoleum tile hissed and melted away in seconds.

He knew he couldn’t let Beauty out of the lab in her current state. Fling charged in and slammed a fist in to the acid creature’s side. His hand passed through the outer layer of acid and stopped dead waist-deep inside the feel. He could feel his hand burn even through his rocky skin. Flint quickly yanked his smoldering ebon fist from the creature’s burning form.

I have no idea what this could be doing to Beauty inside, but I have no choice. This thing must be stopped.

He rushed to the communication wall. “Epsilon! Get to med lab 2. We have a code green!”

*****

Bagheera bounded up and over Feud as she lunged towards him. The two blades formed from her upper two of her four arms closed in a pincer just inches below his feet.

He landed and rolled to his feet behind Feud. His cat-like yellow eyes narrowed as he unsheathed the claws at the tip of each of his fingers.

“Don’t make me kill you, Feud.”

She swung around to face him. Her remaining two arms morphed from skin in to sharp, glistening steel blades, a matching set for her top two limbs.

“Don’t make me laugh, panther-boy! I was killing scrubs like you when you were just a kitten sucking at your mother’s teat.”

“Rubicon’s gone! The war is over. We don’t need to do this!”

“This was never about Rubicon. This is about Eshu and the end of my torment!”

“Eshu?” Bagheera knew the name: a mysterious organization operating somewhere in Africa. The organization that may have taken his memories and made him a killer. “What do you know about Eshu?”

Feud threw back her head and laughed. “You still don’t remember? You had that psychic bitch hanging all over you and you still never broke the mental blocks?”

“Damn it, Feud. Tell me what you know about Eshu!”

Feud let all four of her blades revert back to ashy brown skin. “You are pathetic, Lefu. You aren’t even worth the effort to kill.”

“Lefu? Is that my name? Tell me!”

Feud smirked. “Just pathetic.”

“Tell me, damn it!” Bagheera lunged at Feud, his claws aimed at her throat.

Feud through her upper two arms up to block his claws. Bagheera slashed in to her forearms to the bone.

“Damn fool move, kitten.” Feud’s lower two arms morphed back in to metal and slashed in to both sides of Bagheera’s torso. The blades held him in place as her injured arms melted back in to metal.

“I would have let you live, kitty. Hell, I liked you back at the project. But no one cuts me down and that includes you!”

Feud buried the top two blades in to Bagheera’s chest. Bagheera could feel his right lung puncture as the other blade cut downwards and did its best to disembowel him. The pain was blinding. He wanted to fight but couldn’t even find the energy to breathe.

Feud yanked all four blades free. Bagheera crumpled in to a limp heap on the ground.

“Goodbye, Bagheera. For what it’s worth, I hope you die before the hyenas get to you.” Feud turned and walked away. Bagheera lacked voice enough even to beg for his life.

*****

Rubicon found the building to be squalid even by D-town standards, but he knew his former ally. The walls seemed decayed. Debris and rubbish lined the floors. He knew that Ooze would be right at home in these conditions.

Now he just needed to find his former subordinate.

“Human.” The baritone voice seemed to emanate from all directions. “You have made your last mistake coming here.”

The debris strewn around the floor shifted beneath Rubicon’s feet. A mass of the garbage rose up and formed in to a vaguely head-shaped mass. A viscous gray good held the pieces together.

Ooze laughed as he raised two massive fists to either side of Rubicon. The hands rushed in at Rubicon. He summoned a burst of lightning from each of his own hands. The blasts liquefied the good and sent the debris flying in to the air.

“Enough, Ooze,” Rubicon said. “I know you don’t recognize this decrepit norm body, but you know my voice. You also know I will not stand for another assault on my being.”

A layer of trash on the debris-face narrowed, looking much like a furrowed brow. “Rubicon?”

“Of course. Don’t be a fool. Now shrink down to a more manageable form.”

The head rose upwards. Trash fell towards the ground but the substance that made up Ooze’s true body held the trash together as it formed a torso and arms. “But your powers. They took them away.”

“They have taken away what made me a degen, but as you see, the power is still very much mine.”

Ooze smiled. Noxious gas emanated from his “mouth”. “Are we getting back on it then?”

“Soon, old friend. Soon. But my appearance opens new possibilities that will help us towards an ultimate goal.”

“So what’s up then? Why are you coming to me?”

“Because I have a project here in Degentown for you. And it should fit perfectly with your special skills…”

*****

Psalm looked down from the upper level as the creature strained against the golden energy field that held it in the main hall. Athena dropped to her knees as the acid monster pounded against her cage.

The field flickered. Psalm realized Athena would fall with it and then…

Psalm leaped across the banister. She closed her eyes and summoned the Burn from deep within herself. She could feel the light suffuse her pupils. She shot of burst of mana downwards to keep herself aloft before she could begin her descent. With a gesture, she ripped a length of flooring up in front of the creature.

“Go,” Psalm said. She could already feel the strain of the Burn decaying her body. “I can’t channel this much power for long!”

Athena looked up in awe at Psalm. The girl’s eyes were empty white holes and some strange energy seemed to coalesce under her. Was the girl another metahuman?

“Go now! Please!”

Athena nodded at Psalm’s words. She looked back to Beauty and the acid form that engulfed her. The creature growled in fury as she pounded at the upturned flooring.

Athena ran back down the hall towards her office.

“Athena, hold on!”

She turned to see Flint and Bobbi Kwok emerge from a hidden emergency hatch behind her.

“Thank God,” she said.

“The field? Where’s the creature now?” Flint looked down the hall at the demolished floor/wall.

“It seems that Psalm’s been keeping some secrets,” Athena said. “She’s holding Beauty off with some kind of power.” She turned to Bobbi. “But I don’t know for how long. That’s where you come in.”

“Me?” Bobbi said.

“Yeah, you and Beauty have a history. Maybe you can use that link to get through to her.”

“I-I don’t know. I’ve never tried it on an unwilling subject before.”

“I know it is dangerous, but now is the time to try. Do it for Epsilon but more importantly do it for Beauty.”

Bobbi nodded.

“Come on then,” Athena said. “Flint and I will do our best to hold her back while you establish a link.”

Bobbi followed Athena by only a few steps while Flint brought up the rear.

“I’m going to try and keep a force field up around myself and Bobbi,” Athena said. “Flint, I want you to distract the creature as best you can and keep it away from us and Psalm.”

“You don’t ask much, do you?”

“You’ll do fine, Flint.”

Psalm held her jury-rigged wall together with a layer of dark mana energy as Epsilon approached, but the wall was swiftly decaying under the creature’s acid touch.

“Are you all right?” Athena said to the newest arrival. Psalm nodded.

“We have a plan,” Athena said. She turned to the girl behind her. “You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Bobbi said.

Bobbi reached out with her mind as Athena set to work reinforcing Psalm’s blockade with her own powers.

“I can barely feel her in there,” Bobbi said. “It’s like another mind is set on top of Beauty’s. It’s acting as some kind of shield.”

“Try to get past it,” Athena said.

“I am, but it’s like a maze. I don’t know if I can find my way.” Bobbi clutched her forehead. “And it hurts.”

“Try to ignore the pain. Focus on Beauty.” Athena rested her free hand on the young telepath’s shoulder.

“It’s not working,” Bobbi said. “My bond just isn’t great enough to break through the barrier.”

“Let me help.”

Athena and Bobbi both turned as Air Raid floated down on angelic wings from the upper level.

“Together we can do it, Bobbi.”

Bobbi looked to Athena. “It’s worth a try,” Athena said. “And we need all the help we can get here.”

Bobbi nodded and took Air Raid’s hands. “Yes,” she said. “I can feel it now, the connection. We can do it; we can break through.”

“Nessa, stop this. Calm down.” Athena realized she could hear the psychic yell Bobbi and Air Raid projected. “I’m all right. I love you.”

The creature moaned and dropped against the energy wall.

“It’s okay,” Air Raid projected. “Come back to me.”

The acid field liquefied around Beauty. What remained of the flooring burned away instantly. Where the creature once stood lay Beauty, her clothes and hair burnt away but otherwise all right.

“Thank God,” Athena said before she collapsed to the floor from the strain.

*****

Bobbi released Air Raid’s hands as the winged degen rushed to her fallen girlfriend. Psalm floated down to the ground next to them, and a long with Flint, helped Athena to her feet.

The fight was over, but her head still throbbed like nothing she had ever felt before. Did I push myself to hard?

Her mind’s eye snapped back to life. She clutched at her temples as images flooded uncontrollably through her mind again.

The soldiers marched row after row in to battle. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them and all wore the same cybernetic implants as the school’s attackers from two days before.

More flashes. A high walled, high security facility dimly lit over its stark design. Someone, or some thing, evil lurked inside.

Hundreds of dead degens lie in a massive grave as still more degens shoveled dirt over them.

A destroyed Eastman Academy. A bloody, unmoving Athena on the front lawn, covered in blood.

The images burst at a staccato pace through her mind. She could feel the blood as it rushed from her nose, but she couldn’t stop it.

Why won’t it stop?

The blast of images stopped suddenly on one individual as he stood shrouded in darkness.

Wave?

Bobbi cried out loud before her mind shut down and she collapsed in to an unconscious heap.

Epsilon, Athena, Bagheera, Flint, Beauty, Air Raid, Thief, Devil Boy, Rubicon, and all related characters, and Metahuman Press are © and ™ 2005-2007 Nick Ahlhelm.