Ranavalona, last of the Gene Nobles, took a step forward -- towards the unconscious warrior.

As he walked, his majesty jiggled and bled, slime and pus pouring freely from the gaps in this hasty form. It had been something thrown together in anger, to demonstrate just how far above this slave he was, and so wasn't suited for extended living. He adjusted it as he moved, correcting errors and optimizing bodily functions.

By the time he stopped in front of Atoy Muzazi, he was something entirely new. A sleek, dark thing with a grinning canid head, claws glinting furiously in the light. He was at least twice the size of the fledgeling slave -- and as he plucked him off the ground by the back of the collar and lifted him up into the air, the sheer distance between their existences was finally visible.

This man was the poison. He was the contaminant. Destroying him was the only way to make things right again.

Ranavalona held the Special Officer up over his head and snapped his jaw open, saliva dripping from his fangs as he prepared to receive his feast. He let the boy go, and he fell --

-- but never reached Ranavalona's tongue.

A flash of white fur rushed past in an instant, the claws at the front of its body slicing Ranavalona's jaw open -- and the hands at the back of its body carefully catching Muzazi. The pale beast landed on the wall, kicked off of it, and came to a halt on the other side of the lab. Fresh eyeballs sprouted across Ranavalona's head to track its movements, and a growl of disappointment poured from parting gills.

"Why must you do this to me?" he sighed, jaw already repaired.

The form Marie Hazzard had assumed was like an elongated feline -- a mixture of a lioness and some kind of ferret. The white fur that coated her body was luminescent, light washing over the darkened parts of the lab, and her four eyes were dark as night. Six legs on her underside bore deadly golden claws, dripping with Ranavalona's blood, while two humanoid arms on her back carefully lifted Atoy Muzazi to the ground.

Her tail waved in the air behind her -- she wouldn't have adopted that without reason. Doubtless it was some kind of weapon.

"I told you already, Ranavalona," she said, her mouth unmoving. "It's over."

Ranavalona cracked his shoulder blades, allowing two more arms to sprout forth and grasp at the air. A collection of barbed tendrils wriggled free from his open gills, dripping with acid. Protective carapace grew over his motley collection of eyes.

"Over?" he hissed, circling her -- his footsteps thudding against the floor and cracking the ceramic. "And who decides this -- you? The betrayer? By what metric? By what birthright?"

The coward did not answer. "Surrender," she said, voice steady. "And we'll talk about this. We'll figure something out."

Ranavalona scoffed. "Talk? Lie, you mean. Offer false allegiance. That is your specialty, is it not?"

Marie narrowed all four of her eyes. "I never lied to you."

"Didn't you?" Ranavalona sneered, coming to a halt. "You made me believe my solitude was over. You made me believe you were one of us -- when you are anything but. You are a Gene Noble in flesh only, girl. Every word that creeps from your lips disgraces our history."

"It's over," Marie repeated, a tad more forcefully. If she was rattled by his condemnations, she didn't show it. "The Enfant are gone. Everyone here knows what you are. The only thing left to do is surrender."

Ranavalona's bipedal form began to hunch over slightly, his arms stretching to drag along the floor. His tendrils twitched in the air, ready to strike instinctively against anything that came into range.

"Surrender?" he asked quietly, looking her up and down. "What… and become like you? A collared beast of some jumped-up bacteria?"

Marie narrowed her eyes. "It would mean you live."

"And what a life it would be!" Ranavalona roared, spreading his many arms wide. "To run here and there at their beck and call, doing their dirty work, polishing their crowns! I am a Gene Noble, girl -- the apex of biology and existence! I do not bow!"

Marie stepped defensively in front of Atoy Muzazi, her claws scraping against the floor beneath her. With his hearing, sharpened to its utmost, Ranavalona could hear hearts hammering in her chest.

"You'll die, then," she said, almost a murmur.

He raised shaggy eyebrows. "You'll kill me? Really? You, so desperate for companionship you almost went along with my plan? You'll really make yourself alone?"

A moment of hesitation. "You'll die."

"So you've said. And yet you make no move to kill me. Do you even know how? I'm hardly going to allow you to slice me apart, and I doubt you know how to create true venom to eliminate me. All you have are your words -- and they are feeble."

A low growl escaped Marie's throat, her fur falling away as she rose to her feet again, returning halfway to her humanoid default. "What do you have, then?" she demanded. "It's like I said. The plan's failed. It's done, you're busted. You can't make more Enfant!"

Crack.

Ranavalona's makeshift ribs shattered as new organs expanded into residence. His own fur fell away, too, replaced by a layer of red scales beneath. His face extended into a sheer point, eyes evenly distributed across the surface.

"No, I can't," he admitted, slowly rising off the ground -- gas bags in his chest granting him buoyancy. "But opportunity always knocks for the willing, little one. I've had the chance to look outside. The beast coming for this place… it is magnificent."

Marie slid Muzazi away further behind her with a foot, his body spinning slightly on the smooth floor. Claws of bone slid out from underneath her fingernails as she stood ready.

Ranavalona smiled.

Ranavalona smiled.

"The Repurposed are the true bounty of this planet," Ranavalona intoned, legs hanging in empty air. "They were the raw materials that gave birth to the Enfant. I'd have preferred them, but if the raw materials are all I have…"

He turned his head to the exit of the lab, as if he could see through all the walls to the approaching beast.

"I shall adopt my most parasitic form," he rasped, almost salivating. "And bring that beast to heel. I shall establish myself as the new consciousness of the Panacea. And I shall build a new empire of flesh and bone."

If Marie had kept her sweat glands, they'd have been running on overdrive. She'd thought the Repurposed would be their biggest worry for the time being, but Ranavalona had just re-established himself at the top of her personal list.

She had no idea if what he was saying was possible, but she wasn't eager to find out.

Stall, she told herself, and she opened her mouth --

-- but Ranavalona was done talking.

This transformation was more violent than the others she'd seen from him, blood and gore exploding outwards as he pushed his body to change in a split-second. For a moment, she could see his writhing silhouette in the midst of a tornado of viscera. When it reconstituted, however, the sight was enough to give her pause all on its own.

It was like a mix between a dragon and a centipede, segmented body winding through the air as it was held aloft by gas bags along its underside, kept in place by a long and stretching rib cage. Tendrils like loose veins twitched through the air, protruding from its sides, their golden colouration a stark contrast to the red scale and carapace that covered the rest of this form.

As Marie looked Ranavalona right in his point of a face, it opened like the petals of a flower, revealing a plethora of layered eyes and teeth beneath.

"Do not pursue me," he intoned.

Flames burst from his maw, coating the floor and forming a barrier between Ranavalona and Marie. He turned to fly out of the lab, his body twisting through the air like a worm.

Marie pursued him.

She leapt through the flames, cooling slime pouring copiously from her skin and easing the worst of the burns. Her hands engorged and red, she seized Ranavalona's tail right before he got out of reach. That grip would have been sufficient to crush steel, but against this kind of unnatural resilience it was like an infant punching at an adult.

With a roar of fury, Ranavalona swung his tail, slamming Marie right into the wall. He was holding back no longer, and so the impact was sufficient to smash right though the concrete, sending Marie flying into the maintenance tunnel beyond -- and, incidentally, shatter every bone in her body.

That was only a temporary setback, of course.

Before ten seconds had passed, Marie already had a new skeleton. She leapt out of the hole in the wall, her blond hair growing and becoming prehensile to drag her along as quickly as possible. Ranavalona was gone: he'd wasted no time leaving the lab while Marie was incapacited.

She had time for only a single worried glance at the prone Atoy -- Ranavalona hadn't touched him -- before she charged through the exit. The shape of her legs and arms shifted into optimized running forms, her body becoming subtly thinner for greater aerodynamicity. Hallways and offices rushed past her vision like speeding trains, and before long she had caught up with her adversary.

He had smashed through the reinforced window of the ExoCorp building, and was now flying outside, clearly making his way towards the massive black beast in the distance. His flight speed was such that he was already small in her vision -- and as he turned his head slightly to glance back at her, there was a distinct glint of smugness in his gaze.

Well, two could play at that game. Flying had never been a strong suit of hers, but she had her ways.

Marie crouched down, her legs bulking up and hardening against the floor. There were some species of crustacean that could fire out pieces of their own body. She'd take advantage of that same principle.

Pressure and gases built up in her frozen joints -- and a moment later, they exploded, severing Marie's legs at the knees and firing the remainder of her like a bullet from a gun.

Her aim had been perfect as ever. Ranavalona grew massive in her sight quickly, his many eyes dilating as he registered her approach.

She had only a moment to make her attack: no time for aesthetics. As Marie collided with Ranavalona in mid-air, she became a sheer ball of utter hostility. Claws and fangs, tendrils and acid, bludgeons and spikes… they battered against Ranavalona without pause like a murderous sea urchin, shredding his form. As gas bags burst, the two of them began to plummet as one down towards the desert sands.

Ranavalona writhed in her grip, but she kept hold all the same, forcing him down to earth with all her might. His plan was to take control of the monster and, through it, the Panacea -- so long as she kept him occupied until Skipper's team could eliminate it, they would win. Once that was accomplished, they could defeat Ranavalona at their leisure.

But that was easier said than done.

Ranavalona adjusted their path of descent slightly, sending them zooming towards the roof of the ExoCorp building. His form began to shift and change in her grip, her handholds ceasing to exist as he became more like a giant bat than a dragon. Marie went to pierce his body again -- but too late.

Two stretchy black hands emerged from Ranavalona's stomach and wrapped themselves around her, the pressure and resultant cracking of her bones giving her pause for a moment. He did not miss his chance.

Like a ball being dunked into a hoop, Ranavalona slammed her forcefully into the building's roof.

This was becoming tiresome.

John Blair lashed out with his tail, slicing off the head of the Dragan Hadrien approaching him -- only for the corpse to flicker out of existence before it even hit the floor. The rest of them didn't even stop moving, either, constantly running in circles around him like children annoying an adult.

He'd expected things to get easier after the Special Officer abandoned the battle, but apparently not; Dragan Hadrien clearly had another ally present, one capable of weaving illusions that even Blair's Cogitant enhancement couldn't see through. Hadrien was surely among this horde of brats, but there was simply no way to tell them apart.

At first, this new fighter had plunged Blair into an abyss of utter rain, a landscape that sent nausea into his very soul. He'd only been able to stop it by staying in utter motion -- if he stopped even for a second, the illusion resumed.

King's Coat changed again -- his tail drooping away into uselessness as his eyes were plunged Umbrant-dark.

The second ring worked better than he'd expected: he'd come up with the idea long ago, but it was only after becoming intertwined with the crimson Panacea that he'd been able to put it to use. It was like he'd become more aware of his very being -- and once he was aware of it, he could shape it.

New long claws of bone protruded from his fingertips, and he happily used them to slice through a couple of the nearest Hadriens. They fell into pieces that -- again -- flickered out of existence. This was going nowhere. A change of strategy was clearly required.

Blair glanced up and grinned to himself behind his mask of bone.

It would be around a minute before King's Coat gave him the tail again. He'd make good use of it this time. It would penetrate right through that creaking ceiling --

-- and bring the roof down on Hadrien and his pet illusionist.

The jeep exploded out of a teeming mass of Repurposed, it's surface slick with blood and sliding gore. One door hung off its hinges, eventually flying away as the wind picked up. The windscreen was more crack than glass. The headlights flickered on and off haphazardly, like the vehicle itself was in a state of panic.

And still it drove on.

Skipper, perched at the front of the car, was covered in just as much blood as the rest of it. Ruth's armour gave her some cover from the combat deluge, but Skipper was used to this kind of thing. His eyes stared forward, determined, even as his face dripped red.

They were alongside the Walker, like a black mountain next to them, dark carapace rushing past them as they drove as fast as mechanics would permit. The shape Skipper was looking for steadily, steadily grew larger in his vision.

His mind raced, quietly judging distances, until the very moment, until the very instant --

"Ruth!" he shouted, rising to his feet. "Do it now!"

Ruth Blaine did not hesitate. That was one of the best things about her. As soon as she heard his cry, she moved -- Skeletal switching to Révolutionnaire in a flash of red Aether. Before it was even fully manifested, she was raising the accompanying musket at Skipper's back.

Emerald Aether tensed at Skipper's feet -- and he jumped up off the bonnet of the jeep, his fingers drawn back to act as a guide for Heartbeat Bayonet.

The cord was right in front of him, fleshy and shining like oil in the sun. It was small compared to the rest of the creature, but it was still the size of a train all by itself. Under ordinary circumstances, Skipper doubted he'd be able to sever it with one strike.

But these were not ordinary circumstances.

Ruth's shot thumped into his back, and Skipper felt power flood into him. It was like taking a breath of fresh air for the first time, the energy diffusing through his cells instantaneously. The Aether around him intensified until it was more like a ball of lightning, until --

"Heartbeat Bayone --"

-- until it was interrupted.

Through the clouds of dust, a single Repurposed leapt, so much fungus on it that no human features were even visible anymore. It's lumpy arms wrapped around Skipper's legs, bringing him off balance and sending his Bayonet -- more like a greatsword, really -- off course.

"Skipper!" Ruth cried, crawling over the surface of the jeep.

The attack sliced uselessly through the air, and Skipper was pulled down to the earth without another sound.

"Things will end like this every time, Marie," Ranavalona said calmly, stabbing her again with the implement. "No matter how hard you try, or what low cunning you employ, you cannot stand in my way."

A small, folded body like black origami -- and a mass of flexible arms, lashing out across the roof. That was the form of the Gene Tyrant Ranavalona. His hands tore free the countless antennae that coated the roof of the ExoCorp building, using them as crude blades to impale Marie's shifting form against the concrete.

"It is simply a difference in experience," he continued, stabbing again. "You are a pebble attempting to challenge a mountain."

No matter what form Marie assumed, what shape she used to try to slip free of these bonds, it needed a nervous system to move -- and Ranavalona had an eye to spot those. Each time he stabbed, he severed the control center of the new nervous system, forcing her to form an entirely new one before she could attempt to move again.

"I…" Marie began -- and Ranavalona immediately ran through the mouth that spoke those words, silencing it. "W-Wait," she rasped through a fresh one. "Before you --"

Another stab -- and another, and another. By the time he was done, Marie was more like a sheet of flesh pinned to the roof.

"Doubtless you want to delay me -- until your allies can destroy my objective," Ranavalona sneered. "So I shall delay no more. I shall see you again pending divinity, young Marie."

And with that, he launched off the roof, new leather wings sprouting forth to grant him flight. He bobbed up in the air as his body adjusted, before resuming his path towards the creature.

This really had been a bad idea.

Why had North gotten himself involved here? He'd been just fine watching from the sidelines. With the distress signal repaired, all he'd had to do was sit around and enjoy the show until help arrived. Then he'd just catch a sweet ride far, far away from the fallout of this disaster.

That had been the plan. It had been a damn good plan, too. And yet…

…when Dragan Hadrien had called out, North had found himself wanting to see what would happen if he responded. That stupid, stupid instinct had led him to intervene. Led him to join the fight with his holograms.

And it had led him to this situation.

Blair had suddenly stopped when his clock-thing had swung back to the tail icon, sending the prehensile tendril up into the air and spearing it into the roof. The concrete cracked and splintered, and North could hear the ceiling creak as it threatened to give way.

How long did they have until it came down? Five seconds? Ten? Not enough to waste time thinking about it, to be sure.

And yet.

Dragan -- the real Dragan -- was just crouched next to some crates, staring unblinking at Blair. North should have run. He really, really should. But he found himself curious.

What exactly was Dragan Hadrien thinking?

The sound of flapping wings slowly faded away, and a sigh passed through Marie's open wounds.

Like this, she could never win. Marie had possessed the powers of a Gene Tyrant for a measly one-hundred years, while Ranavalona may well have lived for millennia. He knew what he was doing on a far greater scale than she could ever comprehend.

She didn't have her head in the game. If she wanted to bring down Ranavalona, she had to be willing to do whatever it took. If she wanted to win, she had to be willing to --

Oh.

Oh.

That was it, wasn't it?

But surely…

No.

That was it.

The blades were thrown up into the air as Marie pulled her form together, her body returning from an amorphous state to a humanoid one. She staggered to her feet, eyes turning black as she adjusted her eyes to witness to their utmost -- to sense the currents of wind, the density of gases, the very radiation that coated this planet.

Twin feathered wings, white and luminescent in the sunlight, burst forth from her back. On one of her arms, her fingernails lengthened and sharpened to their limit. On the other, a spiralling spear of bone slithered out of her elbow, winding around her arm and protruding from under her wrist. Her feet atrophied into sheer points as she took flight -- she wouldn't need to walk anymore.

A single beat of her wings, and she was propelled up into the sky. Another, and she was hot on Ranavalona's tail.

Come here, old man, she thought in pursuit. Let's end this.