The jeep plowed through the first wave of Repurposed, meat and limbs flying every which way. Skipper, mounting the bonnet, fired repeated Heartbeat Shotguns ahead of them to clear as much of a path as possible. Ruth crouched behind him, claws buried in the metal for purchase -- her eyes flicking around as she waited to be needed.

Skipper wrinkled his nose in disgust at the human tide: the Repurposed of White Village had mutated further since he'd last seen them.

Last time, they'd at least been recognisable as people, but no longer. Their skin was layered and curled like rotting wallpaper, piles of epidermis attempting to regenerate on top of each other. Eyes and tiny wiggling fingers grew directly out of their body, sometimes into solid protruding structures like coral. Through their open, screaming mouths, Skipper could see new skulls waiting to burrow free.

Poor bastards.

Heartbeat Shotgun.

Although the Repurposed were mostly eviscerated by the speed of the vehicle and Skipper's attacks, some chunks got caught in the workings of the jeep -- quickly beginning to regenerate back into their full forms. Ruth didn't hesitate: like a predatory insect, she scuttled across the outside of the speeding vehicle, slicing meat and nerves free to be pushed away by the wind.

Ruth was efficient, but she wouldn't be able to do that forever. Eventually, the Repurposed would accumulate too much and the jeep would be destroyed. Skipper tightened his grip on the car beneath him as he looked up at the walking monolith, growing closer in his vision.

With each step, the Panacea Walker sent billowing clouds of sand and dust raging throughout the land below. A single step would be enough to crush all of them to paste, Aether be damned, but it didn't appear to have taken notice of them -- and even if it did, it was much too slow to reliably catch them.

Their target trailed behind it, the umbilical cord that stretched across the landscape, the inexorable movement of the Walker making it slither like a snake. Ideally, Skipper would have liked to circle all the way around and slice the cord at the source -- but with the layout of the valley, doing that would have meant giving the Walker time enough to reach the ExoCorp building.

And that was the lose condition.

Skipper let loose another flurry of Shotguns as they zoomed towards the cord in the distance as quickly as possible. His grip tightened once more.

Hang in there, guys, he beseeched. Hang the hell in there.

Atoy Muzazi leapt towards the pinned enemy, his feet slamming against their chest. He seized Luminescence's hilt, still protruding from the beast's torso -- and pulled it free, blood gushing generously from the wound.

It had not been an ideal move. The clock-like construct that hovered behind John Blair had grown larger, gaining a second ring. The wise thing to do would have been to stay back and see what the enemy was now capable of.

But that would have meant abandoning Luminescence.

Muzazi kicked off Blair's body as the Repurposed swiped at him with his bulky forearm, the blow narrowly missing. His thrusters sent him flying across the room -- boots kicking up sparks as he ground to a halt at a safe distance. He swiped Luminescence through the air, blood splattering off the blade and coating the floor.

As quickly as he could, he scanned the new ring. Another four symbols -- a pair of wings, a scorpion tail, a set of claws, and what seemed to be a normal human figure. The second hand of the clock, coming into existence with the second tier, landed on the wings.

What happened next was grotesque, but not especially surprising. Blair's eyes snapped open to their utmost, bulging out of their sockets, and a low groan escaped his throat.

Burst.

Flesh and blood exploded out of his back as -- like parasites exiting their hosts -- twin leather wings crawled free, writhing through the air like ghosts. Their wingspan was as big as the rest of Blair's body, and the muscle that supported them was just as grotesque. They flapped in place, air broiling from the pressure.

Muzazi took a deep breath, holding his blade ready as he adjusted his stance. He could feel it: the tempo of the battle would change from here on out. Muzazi and Hadrien had been pursuing this man, wearing him down, but now the opposite would begin.

Blair looked down, his agony ceasing as the wings straightened out. His eyes gleamed with malice.

But they did not look at Muzazi, nor Hadrien. They looked at the miners gathered behind them. The wings began to move.

Muzazi whirled around, injecting Aether into his vocal cords to give his voice the power it needed: "Run!"

Too late.

Blair's speed, born of flight and Aether, was such that Muzazi did not have time to intercept him. A blur of crimson movement rushed between himself and Hadrien, slamming into the assembled soldiers.

The resultant sound was grotesque. Screams, the cracking of limbs, the snaps of bones, meat… when Blair stood up from his work, the front of his body was entirely coated in blood. One surviving miner, his legs pulped, tried to pull himself across the floor -- but a stomp on his head put a quick end to that.

Hadrien's ranged attack, fired too slow, struck the ceiling.

Muzazi narrowed his eyes, drawing Luminescence back as he pointed it towards Blair. "You will pay for that, cur," he snarled. "I shall take your head from your shoulders."

Blair raised an unimpressed eyebrow as he luxuriated in his crimson work. "You can do that as many times as you like -- but tell me. What makes a king a king?"

Flash. Crackle.

Muzazi's Aether, spurred on by duty, flared around him like an incandescent aura. Luminescence shone like the surface of a star, white light piercing through the darkness. When he adjusted his footing, Aether sparked through the now empty space.

"Virtue," he snarled, hot anger running through his veins. "And willingness to protect. That is what makes a king a king. You are nothing but a pauper!"

He was just about to rush forward, to allow Luminescence to dance, to demonstrate to this beast just what kind of mistake he had made -- when his communicator clicked back on.

"Atoy," Marie breathed, her panic audible. "We have a problem."

Dragan kept his eyes fixed on the second ring of the Aether construct as he raised his pistols, firing them at Blair.

His method of fire had become rather strange -- he'd shoot plasma from his pistols, absorb them into Gemini Shotgun nearly immediately, then fire them again using his Aether. Lances of blue and orange erupted from over his shoulders, zooming towards Blair at monstrous speeds.

In response, Blair took flight -- his mighty wings propelling him up towards the ceiling. Then, kicking off the ceiling, he lunged towards Dragan in a divebomb, outstretched hands ready to crush him in their grip.

Gemini World.

Dragan vanished -- and then reappeared directly above Blair, touching down on his back as he landed. He extended his arms out either side, firing repeatedly at Blair's wings, the plasma slowly but surely melting through the leather membranes.

A snarl of pain, and Blair's mangled wings bent backwards at unnatural angles, trying to spear Dragan through on their protruding bones. One aimed for between his ribs, the other for his throat.

Gemini World.

Again, Dragan used the technique in a split-second -- avoiding the attacks and reappearing a short distance away. He let out a deep breath as Blair turned back around, eyes narrowed in frustration.

That time he had definitely felt it. It had taken only a fraction of a second to activate Gemini World, but he was sure it had started at his head and then spread out to the rest of him. That was how Blair had inflicted damage on him the last time he'd used it.

Pan's words had turned his eyes to it. Gemini World was not instantaneous: it took hold gradually throughout his body. Was that something he could actually use, though, or mere trivia?

The clock above Blair turned once more, and three things happened at once. His damaged wings drooped and crumbled into dust, and his eyes shone blue with Cogitant intellect. With another explosion of gore, Blair's tailbone burst free from his back, writhing and elongating in the air until it became more akin to a scorpion's tail, tip gleaming with deadly promise.

Whatever this Aether ability was, it seemed to give Blair the ability to alter his own form -- to a limited extent. The first ring gave him the properties of different subspecies, while the alterations granted by the second were somewhat more… extreme. Dragan couldn't imagine him being able to do that before the Panacea had messed him up.

Blair's tail lashed out at Dragan, stretching across half the room in a moment -- but before it could strike true, Muzazi charged in and parried it with his own blade. Standing in front of Dragan, he repelled two more strikes before glancing over his shoulder.

"My partner's gotten into contact with me," he said, sword still ready. "There's an issue -- Repurposed have entered the building through another path, and they're headed for the lab."

The tail lashed out again -- and though Muzazi blocked it, the momentum of the impact still sent him skidding backwards somewhat.

Dragan felt the colour drain from his face as he digested Muzazi's words. If Repurposed were heading for the lab, there was only one thing they could be going for, wasn't there? The last thing they needed was another Gene Tyrant running around.

The choice he made surprised even himself.

"Go," he said decisively, steadying his grip on his pistols as he took a step forward.

Muzazi furrowed his brow. "Hadrien?"

Dragan gulped, staring up at the approaching giant. "I'll stop him here. You go to the lab and stop the Repurposed there. There's no time to argue."

Muzazi's eyes flicked between Dragan and Blair, clearly wrestling with the issue in his head. He sucked in air through his teeth.

"I will be back as soon as I can," he said solemnly. "Do not die, Dragan Hadrien."

Dragan smirked with confidence he didn't feel, aiming his pistols at Blair's hulking form. "I'll do my best." As he stared at his incoming enemy, he heard the quick clatter of Muzazi's retreating footsteps.

The plate of bone still covered Blair's mouth, but Dragan could tell he was smiling from the lines of his eyes.

"That was a foolish thing you just did," Blair said, his voice an arrogant rumble. "Together, you just managed to survive me. Alone, you're just meat."

Electric-blue Aether crackled through Dragan's arms, through his pistols, and coalesced at the barrel of each. His fingers curled around the triggers.

He had to be right. Surely, he had to be right. There was no universe where that guy would be anywhere but here, watching the show. Surely, surely, he had to be here.

"I'm not alone," Dragan said clearly, hoping beyond hope that those words were true. "Right?"

For a moment, the only sound was Blair's amused chuckle. Then, however, there was the unmistakable sigh of an invisible man. An invisible man that would have never missed a show like this.

"You're damn lucky I'm a softie," North said. "Nightmare Underground: Eleven Devils in the Rain."

Muzazi sped through the building, thrusters granting him speed beyond human limits. His feet barely touched the floor as the jets of light from his arms and back pushed him forward, weaving his way through stairwells and hallways. Blood dribbled from his wounds, aggravated by the stress of movement, but he dared not delay -- after all, he was needed.

Even with all that speed, however, he was too late. That was obvious the moment he arrived at the lab.

The devastation spoke for itself.

The guards they had left to keep watch over the frozen Gene Tyrant had been pulped, crushed, battered. One body had even been slammed into the ceiling with such force that it still hung there upside-down, shattered skull pouring it's slurried contents onto the smooth floor.

Glass littered the ground, crunching against Muzazi's shoes as he took a careful step forward.

Each and every vat -- including the one Ranavalona had been frozen in -- had been destroyed, sparks flowing freely from chunks of ruined machinery. The consoles had met a similar fate, crushed into piles of incoherent metal.

Marie had beaten him here. She stood in the center of the room, facing away from him, her hands balled into frustrated fists at her sides.

"Officer Hazzard?" Muzazi called out. "What happened here?"

She looked back at him, her mouth a flat line. "Look for yourself," she sighed, gesturing to the scene with her hand. "I rushed up from the security room, but it looks like they beat me to it. He's gone."

Muzazi bit back a curse, running a hand through his sweat-sodden hair. "The Repurposed came here, then," he mused, stepping forward to join Marie. "They were trying to free Ranavalona? Or destroy him?"

"It would take more than a few Repurposed to kill a… Gene Tyrant," Marie sighed, her hands on her hips. "I can't imagine them taking him out, even if that was their goal."

He glanced sideways at his partner. "Were they any survivors? Anyone we could question?"

"Afraid not, Muzazi."

"Damnation," Muzazi said, his voice dark.

He thumped his fist against a surviving chunk of steel. This situation was deteriorating by the minute. First, the power going off, then this… it almost beggared belief. In fact --

Wait. What had Marie said? 'Afraid not, Muzazi.'

Marie Hazzard didn't call him --

Muzazi raised his sword just in time. Even so, the punch that struck him was strong enough to send him flying into the far wall. Concrete shattered behind his back, and when he gasped for air he couldn't help but cough up a little blood at the same time.

Without his Aether, that blow would have been fatal -- and even with it, he could feel unconsciousness crawling across the edges of his mind.

'Marie' lowered her smoking fist, which she'd warped into a mace of bone and blood, an unfamiliar sneer on her face.

"What is it she sees in you?" she said, in a deep voice not her own. "What part of your fragile existence makes you worth debasing herself?"

No. He could not fall here. He had promised Dragan Hadrien that he'd come back. Muzazi mustered all the strength he could, rose to his feet, raised his sword, and…

…and saw that Luminescence's blade had been utterly shattered. All he held in his hands was an empty hilt. He stared down at it, uncomprehending.

A firework went off in his brain.

Marie's features melted away as Ranavalona walked forward, their form shifting with every step. It was like that body was a hatching egg -- and even with the static drowning his vision, and the turmoil clutched in his hands, Atoy Muzazi had the wherewithal to feel the appropriate amount of horror.

It crawled forward on four massive human arms, their movements unnaturally fluid and luxurious.

It was a garden of flesh and bone, wreathed with red leaves, a spinal oak scraping up against the ceiling. From between two polyps of neural matter, a skinless canid head the size of a car wriggled free. On the other side, a human torso squirmed in the air, bloodshot eyes staring right at Muzazi. Bushes of squirming tongues squelched bloody saliva onto the lab floor, where it hissed and sizzled.

"Look at me, little thing," it whispered with a thousand eager mouths. "Look at my existence. I embody multitudes. I am every form of life there can be. I am the universe embodying itself, and you? You are barely a man. Puny. Tiny. Insignificant. In-sig-nif-i-cant."

The massive dog-like head creaked it's jaw open with mechanical labour. From deep within the recesses of its throat, Muzazi could see squirming electrical eels -- and, deeper still, a glowing white smile.

"And now, slave," the smile hissed. "You will be nothing."

Atoy Muzazi did not often have nightmares, but he knew already that this would be one of them.

Everything went black.