Bain's eyes opened.

The first thing he noticed was that he was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. It was made of some kind of gray material, not cement or metal. If anything, it looked a lot like his own carapace, but perfectly flat. Uniform LED strips crossed the top, wires lining up along the edges to exit in a minuscule hole in the corner.

Sitting up, Bain found that he was in a sort of prison cell. The gray stuff extended down the walls, a perfectly cut room of about thirty feet wide, twenty feet long, and ten high. The fourth wall, the one to the right of the metal bench he'd been lying on, was a ridiculously thick window, curious patterned holes twisting and gyrating through the lower half in a dense mesh. The faint crackle of electricity sparked around it. In terms of furniture, there was none except the bench he was seated upon.

He remembered something and checked downwards, wiggling the stump where his lower left arm should be. Sighing, he looked around. Surprisingly, his detached arm was lying in the corner, wrapped in a clean white sheet. He walked over to it and held it up, inspecting it. The carapace coating his arm, the one he usually used as impromptu shields, had wrinkled slightly, and was spongy to the touch. Part of Bain had hoped that it would regenerate itself into a separate creature, like what Nahma did, but apparently he possessed no such ability.

Hopefully, he stuck the base of the severed limb onto his stump, but nothing happened, and he tossed his arm aside in disgust.

"Hey, Bain."

Bain grinned at the familiar face and turned to the window. "Hey, Stitches... what happened to you?"

Stitches looked terrible. His hair was messed up, the bags under his eyes were ridiculously pronounced, and his clothes were wrinkled to an extreme degree. He was sitting on a metal bench just outside the cell, slumped slightly. One hand held a closed newspaper. The other held a small device with two buttons on it.

He sighed. "It's... it's been a long day."

Bain looked around for a clock, not finding one. "What time is it?"

Stitches shrugged. "I don't know. Seven or eight in the evening? It's been about nine hours since the construction site incident."

Bain approached the glass, folding his legs into a sort kneeling position. "Is... is Joel dead?"

Stitches winced. "Uhhh... yeah. Slice got him in the throat with a shiv. Supposedly, he died quick, but I've had knife wounds before. They don't end fast."

He didn't know how to respond to that. Casting his vision around, his gaze landed on Stitches' feet. "How's your foot?"

Stitches chuckled bleakly. "Heh. It's fine. I've had to sew my own limbs back on more than a few times. Losing a foot was honestly one of the easier things I've had to deal with today."

Rubbing his hands down his face, he sighed, dragging the bags under his eyes out slightly. "I've got good news and bad news. A lot of bad news, actually. Which... which one do you want first?"

Bain had a bad feeling about this. "The good news."

Stitches nodded. "Right. Good news. The Tower assigned you your hero name."

Bain stood up, one palm pressing against the glass. "Really? What is it?"

He shook his head, the newspaper falling out of his limp hand. "That's the bad news. After what happened to Slice, they decided to call you Rampage."

Bain considered the name. As far as names went, it wasn't really all that bad. It was more the implications of the name that made him think. Would people see him coming and point, cheering, "Here comes Rampage!"?

It was unlikely.

Lacing his claws together, Bain asked nervously, "What's the other bad news?"

Stitches indicated the area they were in. The hallway the bench was situated in was massive, taller than the cell Bain was in. A curious variety of nicks and scorch marks discolored the otherwise flawless gray walls. More light strips stretched across the ceiling, casting shadows into perfectly shaped corridors. "Do you know where you are?"

Bain leaned forward, trying to see any signs or indicators of what the strange location might be. "No, not really. What is it?"

Stitches tilted, stepping his fingers under his chin. "This is the Basement."

Bain stumbled backwards, eyes glancing around wildly, checking for automated miniguns or shrinking force fields. "What? Why am I in the Basement? I thought this place was only for the worst villains!"

Finally, Stitches stood up and walked toward the window, fixing Bain with an intense stare. "It's because they're not sure that you're safe to be around at all. They might have given you a hero name, but... Bain, do you know what happened to Slice?"

Bain shrunk slightly. "Is he dead?"

Stitches shook his head. "No, he's not dead. But only just. He had a fractured skull, sprained spine, bruised neck, internal bleeding... you really did a number on him."

Bain collapsed in on himself. Despite the worry he was feeling about being in the Basement, he couldn't help but feel relieved that Slice hadn't died. Part of the vow allowing him to be a hero demanded that he never take someone's life.

Thinking about his stance on it, Bain paused. Did he not want to kill humans because it was wrong, or because it got in the way of being a hero?

He didn't know the answer, and it scared him.

Stitches thumbed his chin. "You've got to get the berserk thing under control, Bain. It's holding you back."

Bain looked up, startled. "But I perform so much better when I-"

Cutting him off, Stitches glared at him. "No, you don't. Your physical performance goes up. Your mind gets hit so hard I'm not even sure who I'm talking to."

Bain shrank, his head falling onto his chest.

Stitches winced internally. He was perfectly aware of Bain's desire to be a hero. He also knew that Bain had lost a limb, maybe permanently. It wasn't really something he could relate to, but he could at least imagine what he was going through. Aside from that, Bain was in a bad position. He couldn't be sure that the monster could recognize who was and wasn't an enemy in that state.

"I lied."

Stitches' eyes flicked up to Bain. His eyes were unwillingly looking down, refusing to meet Stitches' gaze, and he'd said the words so quietly that he wasn't sure he'd heard him correctly. Stitches leaned forward, forehead creasing. "What?"

Bain crossed his arms, tucking his legs up. "I lied. About... about not knowing what happens when I lose control."

Stitches' eyes narrowed. "Explain. Right now."

Somehow, Bain tucked himself even tighter. "When Nahma was raising me in the tunnels, I had a hard time improving. There were some creatures in the lower levels that I couldn't beat, that I couldn't even come close to. So Nahma gave me some advice."

His eyes unfocused as he stared back in time at the small, trembling monster he'd been back then. He could remember so clearly what Nahma had told him. "If I ever ran into someone too tough for me, imagine that they are your food. Picture their flesh entering your mouth. Taste them in your mind."

Stitches shivered. "Good grief..."

Bain looked at him with an expression so full of terror that Stitches flinched. "Do you know what humans smell like to a creature like me? Do you know how delicious their scent is? The moment someone starts bleeding, it's like a trigger. As if..." He strove for a good metaphor. "As if the best burger in the world is sitting in your mouth, and all you have to do is bite down. It would be so easy."

Stitches realized he was probably going to have nightmares about this. "Bain, I... I had no clue. How do you even work around that?"

Bain shrugged dully. "I don't know. I don't even know if I can work around it. But every time I wonder what a person tastes like, I think, 'This person has a life. This person has a family.' If I found out Nahma had died, I don't know what I would do."

Stitches considered his options. In all honesty, when the heroes had given him the remote in his hand, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. They'd pretty much thrown Bain in the Basement and told Stitches, 'Don't let him out until you're sure he's safe to society.'

Actually, they'd said those words exactly.

Bain had the potential to be an enormous threat. His abilities were frankly terrifying to witness, especially when he was in that weird feeding mentality. But he wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be a hero so ridiculously badly that Stitches didn't know what to make of it. He definitely hadn't inherited the desire from Nahma.

Either way, it came down to a decision. Press the button, or don't.

Bain looked up as the glass window slid forward, jets of steam hissing from the floor, and rose upward. Stitches walked into the cell and patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, Bain. Let's get you out of here."

He sniffed, rubbing his eyes, and grabbed his arm, wrapping it up in the sheet and securing it around his shoulder. "Thanks."

Stitches nodded, a grim smile crossing his face. "Happy to help."

As they walked towards the end of the hallway, heading for the exit, they crossed onto a mesh metal catwalk. The enormous room they were going through contained a single, massive one-way force field cage. A variety of weaponry was aimed at the center, at a small black shape slumped on the floor. Supports extended from the corners of the cavernous area, suspending the whole cell block midair.

Bain glanced at it curiously. "What's that?"

Stitches grimaced. He'd been avoiding looking at it. "That's the thing that directly ended the lives of seventy-four heroes and villains. It's the permanent resident of the Basement, and we can't even get rid of the thing. We've tried just about every method on the planet."

Bain's eyes widened. "So that's... Subject Zero?"

The creature's eyes flicked open, pure pools of white shining from a shapeless mass of black. Surging forward in a streak of shadow, it slammed into the force field wall, its shape expanding to cover the whole side and rippling along the other walls.

The laser cannons, plasma cutters, even good-old-fashioned lead assault rifles. Everything armed itself at the same time with a loud SHC-KTHMM. Bain jumped at the sound, leaning away from the cage and pressing himself against the wall to his right.

Subject Zero laughed, a dark, wavering sound that grated over both of their spines. As its eyes grew to a massive size, Bain heard it talk. He wasn't sure whether it spoke directly into his head, or if Stitches could hear its words, but he knew that he wasn't going to forget those words for a while.

"You're gonna be worse than I ever was."

The armaments opened fire.