෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

෴WD40෴

෴Chris ‘Chrome’ Johanssen෴

෴Braithwaite෴

෴Wilson Meyers෴

෴Frank ‘Ringo’ Star෴

෴Cade ‘Barricade’ Williams෴

෴Roland ‘Rex’ Koenig෴

෴Richard ‘Rhino’ Sanderson෴

Chrome jogged up to the group, his footsteps a loud series of heavy thuds on the pavement. He was carrying Rhino cradled in his arms like a child. “While I was on that Fidel guy, someone took down Rhino. He’s got a good bump and his heads a bloody mess but I think he’ll be ok.”

Chrome took in the scene, Hex Three and Four kneeling in a pool of blood on the asphalt, Wilson’s face streaked with tears. “Uh, what’d I miss?”

Wilson’s expression hardened. He wiped his face on his sleeve and got to his feet. He keyed his mic, “Everyone, go to contingency red. We’re pulling out and leveling this place. Razor, wait for the signal. Blink, switch to the painter and let me kn—”

A jarring sound cut him off. The sound, like an explosion, so loud and sudden it wasn’t identifiable as a shriek until it continued for several seconds. The sound hit them like a wave of physical force, setting teeth on edge and creating painful feedback in the comms. The volume of the feedback intensified.

Every member of WD40 in the immediate engagement zone fought against falling to their knees. Of those that fell, most sprayed vomit into their armored masks and had to pull them off. Even those who stayed on their feet retched and dry heaved. The sound tore at their equilibrium, inflicting nausea and vertigo in almost everyone that heard it.

When the feedback became too much, Wilson tore off his adaptive hearing protection communications gear. He fumbled for the switch and turned off his hearing protection. The hearing protection seemed to be making it worse. Once the muffs were turned off, he looked around in relief, feeling his nausea and vertigo fade to a manageable level in the background.

Wilson’s eyes flashed, and he looked toward the sound. A man in some kind of helmet stood on the roof of the facility looking out at them. He zoomed in on the man.

Braithwaite stood at the roof’s edge, wearing a complicated-looking helmet style headpiece. He was either the source of, or just unaffected by the powerful trumpeting sound. He stood there in a relaxed pose, looking for all the world like someone casually waiting for some minor disruption to pass.

Wilson took a step and nearly tripped on Hex Four who was on the ground retching and painting the pavement green. He turned off her hearing protection and comms. She sat up and breathed a sigh of relief. Hex Three immediately turned hers off and staggered to her feet.

The three of them worked to turn off the comms gear for Rhino, who lay on the ground thrashing as though in the grip of a seizure.

Chrome watched them work. He looked confused about what everyone was acting so strangely about.

Wilson pointed to his own ear protection and shouted. “Doesn’t that hurt your ears?”

Chrome’s confused look deepened. He replied, but the sound didn’t reach Wilson. Chrome shrugged and raised his hands, looking more confused by the moment.

The shrieking steel on glass sound finally stopped. Everyone but Chrome visibly relaxed.

Wilson watched fire team hammer began staggering and crawling back to the command center. Both Hex’s reappeared next to him and startling both Wilson and Chrome. They pointed up at the two Overwatch positions and then to their heads.

Wilson pointed at the members of the fire team and Hex Three and Four jogged over to help them. Wilson kept a wary eye on Braithwaite. Without looking away from the scientist, he lifted one earpiece slightly off his ear closer to Chrome. “Didn’t that noise bother you?”

Chrome followed his boss’s lead and kept his eyes on Braithwaite. “Not really, it was kind of loud but no big deal. You all just started acting weird—falling down and ralphing.” his voice sounding flat and far away.

Wilson was about to reply when Braithwaite raised a megaphone from behind the half-height roof wall and spoke.

“Good evening. I was starting to think that annoyance would never leave. I’m don’t know who you people are, and I don’t care. You obviously have no problem working with a terrorist, so I’m sure you’re not here in any official capacity. It’s too bad your terrorist left you all alone. I’d like to introduce you to something special I've been working on for quite a while.”

A man dressed in the guard uniform of the facility with a cast on his arm emerged from the dark entry hall at a dead run. He made it a few feet out the door onto the pavement before something too fast to see clearly, caught him and pulled him back into the building. A ragged scream came from the building and was cut short.

A black vaguely reptilian head the size of a small car emerged from the shadows at the main door beneath Braithwaite. The creature’s mouth—more than large enough to swallow someone whole—lolled open, revealing several rows of large triangular teeth and a thick red drool spilling out onto the ground. Wilson zoomed in on the teeth and realized they had more in common with the teeth of a giant shark than anything that lived on land.

The large head got stuck in the concrete and steel door frame. That stopped it for less than a second. The chimera’s stubby neck shook around like a dog drying off and the steel and concrete doorway bent and shattered around it. The full body of the chimera came into view, and then just kept coming. Fully the length of a city bus, it seemed to be far larger than any animal could reasonably be. Its body was mottled gray and brown, covered in what looked like clumps of tough bristle over muscular flesh. Compared to the height of the door, its legs were each longer than the doors were tall. Once fully outside the building, a third and fourth set of legs came into view. The front two legs were noticeably both longer and thinner—each tipped with long scythe like claws that sat folded back as it walked on all eight legs.

The chimera unfolded its legs and rose to its full height—nearly as tall as the single story facility—and shook its body out as though enjoying all the free space after squeezing through the halls inside the building. A stubby tail that resembled a boneless human leg complete with a foot and toes flopped around spastically.

“You all have guns and abilities. That's good. That means it’s almost a fair fight against my pet here.” The chimera’s head faced them and trumpeted again. The directly aimed wave of sound hit even harder than before. This time a stench came with it. The scent of rotting flesh, strong ammonia, and another caustic odor caused another rush of nausea in the assembled WD40 members.

The huge chimera turned toward the sound of Braithwaite's voice. It appeared to be waiting.

Braithwaite raised the megaphone again, “I bet you just caught a whiff of my well-trained little buddy here. It's a lovely mix of week-old corpses, pure urea, and formic acid.”

Wilson didn’t waste time listening. “GAS!” he called out. Gas masks were quickly distributed.

Ringo struggled to pull his gas mask on. His left arm was hanging at an odd angle, visibly broken, but there was no one and no time to address it. Hex One helped him put it on while Hex’s Three, Four, and Five tossed masks out as fast as they could grab them from the mission box.

Braithwaite laughed into the megaphone. “Gas masks. That's so cute. I was going to save it for a surprise, but I should just tell you the best part.” He leaned over the wall and pointed at the large chimera. “This guy’s real weapon is the highly—hurkk”

Not unlike a frog’s tongue snapping at a fly, a slimy appendage erupted from the chimera’s mouth and wrapped around Braithwaite’s waist. In a blink, the tentacle tongue tightened down and yanked Braithwaite off the roof toward its cavernous maw. The chimera's voice crashed over them in another wave of weakness and nausea.

Braithwaite threw his arms and legs out wide and caught himself at the chimera’s open mouth. He managed to brace his arms and feet against the creature’s jaws. He shifted his grip and began to push back away from the rows of triangular teeth. An audible series of heavy thuds on the creature's head like bass drum strikes was the only indicator that Braithwaite was doing anything other than trying to stay out of its mouth. The kinetic impacts on the bristly skin had no visible effect. It was unclear if the chimera ignored, or truly didn't notice the hits. A second tentacle tongue emerged and wrapped around Braithwaite’s chest above the first tongue.

Several thudding sounds of kinetic impacts struck the chimera’s head, shaking the jaws and Braithwaite around wildly. One of Braithwaite’s feet slipped off the chimera’s jaw onto the first row of teeth. He scrambled to get his bloodied leg back out of the gaping mouth.

Wilson stopped watching the fight between monsters and looked at his people to take stock of the team situation. His people looked tired. Some with minor wounds, many still reeling from the creature’s attack seconds ago. “Barricade, get us some defenses here now! Force that thing into a kill box if it comes after us.” His own voice sounded distant and tinny in his ears. “When it comes after us,” he muttered to himself.

Cade struggled to his feet. His face betrayed how weak and fragile he was at that moment nearly as well as the vomit all over his uniform and blood leaking from one ear.

Wilson glanced back at the struggle in time to see a third tentacle emerge and wrap around Braithwaite’s bloody leg. He looked away from the fight back to his people. “Chrome, get everyone that's still combat ready into position. Get out all the heavy weapons we’ve got. Hex, tell Rex to fire at will, and get Blink painting the target!” He tried to shout, but his own voice sounded thin and weak.

Chrome seemed to hear him just fine. Hex Three lay face down coughing weakly in a pool of her own vomit, Hex Four lay on the ground looking at the sky with wide empty eyes. It wasn’t clear if she was breathing. “Shit, Hex is down for the count.”

He looked around for Ringo. The gas masks lacked the easy icon identifiers the rest of the crew used on the armor masks. Finally, he spotted him, the man had managed to rig up a sling for his arm. “Ringo! Slip and slide!” he pointed at the chimera.

Ringo’s gaze snapped to Wilson then nodded and cradled his broken arm tight against his chest and limped off to get a clear line of sight on the chimera.

Wilson wheeled around, looking for Chrome. He found the silver shiny figure lifting the limp forms of Hex Three and Four into the mobile command truck by their combat harnesses.

“Good call Chrome, but you’re our only chance for a physical counter against this thing. I need you ready to engage when it comes our way.”

Chrome’s nearly expressionless face managed to look at him wide-eyed before nodding assent. “You got it, boss man. Just make sure you kill it while I keep it distracted.”

Wilson reached out for Chrome’s arm and then pulled back without making contact. “Let me know if you want a boost.”

“I will.” Chrome turned and headed to the killbox in the center of the raised V shaped series of barricades. He carefully stepped around Cade, who had fallen to one knee after erecting the series of stone walls.

Wilson found one of the headsets people had yanked off and put the mic to his mouth. “Rex, Blink, Razor, if you can hear me, Rex, fire at will. Try and find some weak points and hit it with big B. Blink, Razor, I need Wrath on standby ready to go.”

Before he let up on the transmit button a deep crack had come from Rex’s overwatch position, confirming that at least one of them had received the transmission. One of the chimera’s rear legs took a hit, splashing bright red blood out the exit wound. Wilson looked closer, the leg didn’t appear hampered by the anti material rifle hit.

Rex continued to rain heavy rifle fire on the chimera as Braithwaite tried in vain to free himself from the tongues trying to drag him into the vast mouth. The leg in question began to flop and twitch after being hit for the fifth time.

Ringo got Wilson’s attention. “I can’t affect all the legs at once!”

Wilson grimaced. “Do what you can, something this big won't enjoy falling down if you can make it happen. Slow it down if you can't.” He put his hand on Ringo’s shoulder and boosted him.

“That's a big boost, make it count!”

Ringo’s expression and carriage seemed to fill with resolve. “I will.” He focussed on the distant monster and something inside him activated with far more power than normal.

The chimera abruptly fell to the ground in a thunderous crash of flesh on pavement. As though trying to walk on ice, all of its legs slipped out from beneath it in an instant. The creature wailed—more of a pained cry than the sonic attack it had released earlier. At the same time, its tongues slipped off Braithwaite and retracted back into its mouth.

As the chimera’s tongues lost their grip on its prey, they snapped back into its mouth and the chimera’s jaws snapped shut. Braithwaite’s own efforts catapulted him away from the beast, launching him nearly twenty feet across the lot. He fell to the ground and rolled to his feet. Braithwaite turned and sprinted straight at the mercenaries behind the newly erected rows of barricades.

Throughout this Rex continued to unload on the chimera, but the heavy rifle had long since gone quiet. The standard sniper rifle didn’t seem to be able to disable the creature’s limbs the way the heavier rifle had.

The chimera gave up trying to get to its feet and launched all three tongues again. Two fell short but the larger primary tongue wrapped around Braithwaite’s left arm. The pull moved the chimera itself a few feet on the frictionless field before beginning to relentlessly draw Braithwaite to it.

The scientist looked over his shoulder at the mercenaries scrambling to evac their wounded and getting ready to engage the creature. “For god’s sake, help me!” he screamed. He dug his feet into the asphalt to try to resist the inexorable pull toward the now salivating jaws.

Braithwaite struggled to dislodge the tongue but could not overpower the tongue with one hand. “Please!” he cried out.

Wilson ignored the pleas and continued coordinating his team. “If you don’t have a heavy weapon, get in the truck! We are leaving!” he shouted. He glanced over at the struggling scientist. “You just keep distracting that thing,” he muttered under his breath.

The semi-truck engine that powered the mobile command center rumbled to life, then died with a nasty grinding sound. The grinding sound of the ignition being tried a few more times told Wilson it wasn't going to be as simple as just loading up and driving away. He made a snap decision to stay and fight.

The chimera drew Braithwaite back in—inch by hard-fought inch. Braithwaite made it work for every scrap of ground it gained. Once it got close enough, the game was over. The other two tongues shot out and latched onto his legs. The three tongues lifted him out of the deep furrows his feet had carved in the asphalt and then Braithwaite had no way to resist the pull.

The chimera reeled him in and opened its jaws wide. Braithwaite reached his free hand toward WD40 in a wordless, helpless entreaty. He never stopped attacking with his kinetic ability. Several whole teeth and many tooth shards fell from the chimera’s mouth. It wasn’t enough. The titanic maw closed around him—chewed and crunched once—the loud crunch-pop of bones and connective tissue giving way audible even across the parking lot, before rearing its head back and swallowing.

“WD40! Look around us! This is Atlanta, we live here! We cannot let this thing run amok through our city!” Wilson shouted. “Fire teams, gather here! This might turn into a moving battle, so be ready to shoot and move!” The chimera didn’t move right away. It seemed to be trying to figure out where the annoying rifle fire from Rex was coming from.

Wilson cursed the lack of heavy weapons when he saw the only two grenade launchers had already been left on the mission box. He looked around for someone reliable to wield the second one. He settled on Rhino who was just sitting up from where Chrome had laid him down. He gave the lightly wounded man a hand and pulled him to his feet. Wilson took one of the MGL’s and offered it to Rhino. “It’s getting pretty real out here. You got any more in you?”

Rhino slung his rifle and accepted the grenade launcher with a nod. He looked over at the chimera pulling in the scientist and then down at the weapon and back at Wilson, his expression worried. “I wish I’d seen that before I answered.”

Wilson nodded with an uncertain expression of his own. “Six shots, high explosive. Make ‘em count.”

Rhino checked the weapon and jogged over to crouch behind the barricades.

Rex’s relentless rooftop rifle reprisal receded. He had to have run out of ammo. The staccato beat of rifle fire had been such a steady sound that everyone seemed to realize just how quiet it was without it. The rumbling of the big diesel engine now sounded loud against the silence.

Wilson turned to the idling truck. “Be ready to go!” He called out to the driver. The truck shifted into gear and rolled forward a few feet before stopping. Wilson shook his head. “Just go!” he shouted.

The team stood, sat and lay there in the rear of the truck. Every able team member aiming straight at the gargantuan chimera. Wilson realized they weren't going to leave without the last three. “Damnit’ he cursed to himself.

The chimera cautiously got to its feet. Without the low friction field keeping it down, it stood up and using its seven good legs, began to awkwardly turn around, as though unsure what to do next. It turned toward the truck, absently chewing on the remains of Braithwaite that still twitched in its mouth.

Wilson took a position opposite Rhino behind the angle series of raised barricades. He put the mic to his mouth again and transmitted, “Blink, Razor, it's on you now. We need Wrath here, and we need it now.” He thought he heard a sound from the earpiece before shoving it back in his pocket, but would not risk putting it back in his ear with the chimera coming at them.

“Get down!” he shouted as loud as he could before dropping behind a barricade himself.

Chrome stood in front of the two grenadiers. He heard Wilson’s command and fell back to get behind the barrier with them. The chimera was still over fifty yards away but looking at the truck with a sort of feral curiosity. Chrome turned to say something to Rhino. Wilson looked up at Chrome in time to see a bright streak from the sky just as the dark night city skyline turned to thunder and fire.

Even behind the barricades, the concussive force could be felt through the pavement. Fifty feet past the barricades, the team in the truck was buffeted and rocked hard by the blast wave but unhurt. A scent of burning metal and overdone bacon filled the air.

Wilson stood up triumphantly. “That's what you get!” he yelled at the smoking corpse of the chimera. “You fucked with WD40 and you lose!”

Chrome walked a few steps closer and looked at the large smoldering body. The vast creature seemed somehow smaller as it lay there melting. He looked closer. Not melting. The flesh was flowing like water.

Chrome started backing away. “Guys! I don’t think it’s dead!”

Rhino laughed. “Dude, relax. Look at it. That thing is melting it's so hot.”

Wilson engaged his vision and looked at the body that was no longer smoking. “Oh shit. He’s right. Open fire!” He raised the launcher and started lobbing grenades with hollow metallic thumping sounds. The high explosive grenades seemed small and insignificant compared to the power of the grey market military precision rockets moments ago.

The stirring chimera didn’t seem impressed either. It stood and resumed moving toward them. The terrible wounds—craters of charred flesh moved toward the back end of the creature. When all the wounds had moved to the rear that portion of the chimera fell off. The chimera wiggled a bit to complete the separation and continued to advance. It was faster now, on six good legs.

Wilson launched his last grenade. It bounced beneath the chimera, just where he’d aimed for. The explosion tearing a huge hole in the belly of the beast. He could immediately see the injury moving toward the back as though the wound itself was on a conveyor belt. He set the launcher down and realized he’d left his rifle up with Blink. He sighed and drew his sidearm.

Rhino launched his last grenade and set the launcher down. He unslung his rifle and crouched to rest it on the barricade. He glanced over at Chrome and then Wilson, “So boss, we got any other aces up our sleeves?”

Wilson shook his head. “Nothing comes to mind. Right now I say we let Chrome distract it while Razor reloads—oh shit—she won't be able to reload the launcher with only one good arm. No, I have no ideas. It’s time to pull out.” He raised his voice, “Chrome, can you buy us some time to get moving?”

Chrome nodded, “I’m on it.“

Chrome advanced on the chimera. It had reached the first row of explosion damaged barricades and tore right through them. Chrome ran to the side down one of the lanes in the barricade kill box to flank the monster.

The chimera took no notice of him. When he jumped onto its back and dug out handfuls of flesh it took notice of him then. The now rear leg reached up, grabbed him in its pincer grip and tossed him away. The chimera seemed to give Chrome no further thought and resumed breaking through the row of barricades between it and WD40.

Chrome was on his feet nearly instantly and repeated the same move again. This time the other leg tossed him away, but the front end didn’t stop its forward progress.

Rhino emptied another magazine into the chimera’s head and reloaded. He glanced down, confirming that this was his final magazine. Wilson had already exhausted his pistol and run to the truck for another rifle. The entire team was sending light rifle fire into the creature but it seemed to barely notice the incoming fire. Rhino stood up and shouted at Wilson “Hey Wilson!”

Wilson turned and saw Rhino standing up behind the barricade. In that instant, he realized Rhino had seen none of Braithwaite’s capture and struggle. “Get down!” he shouted at Rhino.

“I need another ammo p—” the long primary tongue flicked out and wrapped around his midsection. Rhino had just enough time to look surprised before it dragged him over the barricade toward its slightly snaggle-toothed maw. Wilson could see the fear in Rhino’s eyes. He took the rifle and ran back to the barricade, already knowing there was nothing he could do.

Rhino caught the top edge of one of the barricades. His arm hooked over it, where he clung precariously. Wilson crouched and took aim, lined up to hit the tongue itself, with any misses going straight into the chimera’s mouth. “Hold on!” He called out.

Chrome jumped off the chimera's back and rushed toward Rhino to help, but the bladed frontal arms swatted him away into a nearby barricade.

The other two tongues emerged, each grabbing tight to Rhino’s legs and pulling. Rhino lost his grip on the crumbling barricade and fell to the ground with a heavy thunk. The three tongues struggled but continued to pull him closer to the slavering jaws. His hands dug into the pavement and carved shallow furrows in the asphalt.

Wilson could only watch in horror as the tongues brought Rhino up to it, and the chimera angled its head down to bite into the man. The massive jaws closed.

“No!” Chrome’s voice rang out like a struck bell. He leapt over the creature and landed on its head. He rained down hammer blows heavier than an industrial hydraulic hammer would be capable of.

The chimera opened its mouth and shifted its position as if confused. Rhino lay there, his clothing shredded and entangled by the three tongues, but otherwise unharmed.

Chrome jumped down and tried to wrestle his friend away from the monster. The two front weapon arms unfolded and struck at him. The front arm flung Chrome backward toward the rear of the barricade where Wilson continued to rain ineffective fire on the beast.

Chrome put his hand on the rifle and forced it down. “Wilson, give it to me. I need a boost.”

Wilson nodded, “How much boost can you handle?”

Chrome clasped his hand. “All of it.”

“That's crazy! You might not even live through that much boost. God only knows how much time you’d have. I’ll give you—” he winced and stopped talking when Chrome squeezed his hand tighter.

“I said all of it. Do it now while there's still time!” he snarled.

Wilson nodded and pushed his entire boost into Chrome. As the shiny figure let go of his hand, he staggered and fell to the ground.

Chrome stood there vibrating and then went from shiny chrome to a kind of glossy pure black that Wilson had only seen on one person before.

Chrome didn’t seem to notice this change to his coloring. He sprinted at the creature, each step digging into the ground. At the halfway point he leaped into the air, his wide clawed feet making a pair of deep craters at the launch point.

“Let go of him!” Chrome’s voice came out garbled, like a voice box using a shorted out speaker. He flung his arms out at the apex of his leap. His arms became vast scythe like weapons. He landed blades first, slicing deep furrows into the chimera’s back.

The chimera moved to knock this troublesome thing away with its legs. Chrome sliced one then the other leg off. He started cutting again, hitting harder, digging deeper. The deep wounds immediately began moving toward the rear of the creature. Chrome looked back and saw the third segment looking nearly saturated with injuries. Just then the cut off legs started to slide backwards with the good rear legs moving forward. The chimera shook its third segment off.

Wilson could see that Rhino wasn’t taking his situation lying down. He was using his immensely dense flesh to great effect, smashing teeth out and making the chimera pay dearly every time it closed its mouth. As he fought, he shouted aloud the time to mark the seconds. When Rhino got to fifty, Wilson realized this wasn't going to work.

“Hey guys, I could really use some help in the next few seconds!” Rhino shouted to Chrome and Wilson.

Chrome heard his friend and looked down at his blade hands. He jumped high and drove his hands as impaling spear points into the chimera’s head. Even with his much greater weight, he couldn't muster enough downward force to breach the skull. The front legs tried again to dislodge him and he casually sliced them away.

Rhino hit fifty-five on his self counting. “I’m almost out of power! If you’ve got any other ideas now’s the time!”

Chrome formed his hands into great crescent moons. He strained to make the crescent blades bigger, thinning them out into a pair of razor semi circles.

Wilson heard Chrome’s grunts of exertion. His own expression turned into fear as he realized what that meant. “Chrome! You’re running out of time. You have to end this now!”

Chrome glanced at him then focussed on his task.

“Rhino, get ready to get out of there!” he shouted in his nearly unintelligible gravel on broken glass voice.

Chrome wrapped his hands around the Chimera’s neck and interlocked his fingers. He intentionally fused the fingers and thumbs together, creating a razor lined ring of dark metal so deep black it seemed to drink in the light.

“Rhino, you gotta get clear when you can. I’m running out of juice”. His voice emerged like sound from a running blender. Wilson activated an ability he'ed never dared use around Midnight and watched Chrome's internal power surge and flow. Wilson watched helplessly as Chrome pushed past his lack of energy and clenched down with both hands.

The chimera let go of Rhino and thrashed about in panic when the bladed ring bit into its dense stonelike bone and sheared through it, cutting into and through its skull.

Rhino rolled free of the jaws as his count his 60 and felt himself start to lose density. He got clear and called out to Chrome. “I’m clear brother, finish that thing!”

Chrome saw Rhino’s scramble out of the creature’s jaws. His normally expressionless metal face twisted into a shiny chrome colored rictus of agonized exertion. He gritted his metal teeth and gave another push of effort. The bladed ring sliced deeper into the chimera’s brain before severing its spinal cord. When he felt the monster go limp, Chrome laughed like a scream and pushed harder, shouting what might have been an ‘Oorah’ as said by an angle grinder at the fallen monster when half of its head fell off with a wet splat-thunk.

Chrome stared intently at his reflective silvery conjoined hands for a few seconds but finally got them disengaged. He triumphantly raised his hands and posed atop the chimera. He raised his crescent moon bladed hands and shouted three words no one could understand. His voice coming out like a manual transmission grinding its gears.

Wilson sprinted up to the dead chimera, waving his hands to get Chrome’s attention. “You’re out of time! Fix your hands now!”

Chrome hopped down from the chimera’s neck and said something Wilson couldn’t make out. All traces of the deep black metal had faded, leaving him his normal silvery sheen. His hands were shrinking back down to normal slowly. Too slowly.

Wilson and Chrome stood there yelling at each other as though neither could understand the other.

Chrome seemed to lose his balance and repositioned his feet into a wider stance.

Rhino came up to the two of them. “Listen to his voice, something is going wrong in there, he can’t talk right, probably can't hear right.”

Wilson nodded. “He asked for a full power boost and I gave it to him.”

Chrome made as if to put his hand to his forehead, but stopped when he saw the state of his hands—each finger still nearly 18 inches of razor-sharp needle-tipped curved claw.

“Oh shit, he needs to get those hands back to normal quick.”

Wilson sighed explosively. “That's what I’m trying to tell him.”

“Let me try, and if you’ve got any left, give him a little more boost if it looks like he understands, he’s starting to look a little unsteady on his feet.” Rhino put his hand palm out in front of his face and waved his hand and forearm in front of his own face several times until Chrome nodded.

Chrome stood very still, staring down at his hands. The razor fingers receding into his hand ever so slowly. “I—I can’t shift them anymore. I can’t hold the metal form much longer and my hands are all still fucked up!” aside from the worried tone his voice had returned to normal for the metal form. He sagged, and the other two men instinctively tried to catch him. His metal form weight was far too heavy and the three of them fell to the ground. Chrome lay there sprawled out and muttering incomprehensibly. Seeing the long razor sharp fingers flailing around was enough to cause Wilson and Rhino to roll away from their friend before getting back up.

Chrome let out an awful groan. Rather than the rapid heatwave style transformation, this change was a slow, agonizing shift. The change started at his extremities. He reared his head and tried to scream. No sound came from his mouth as the demarcation line between metal and flesh moved past his jaw down to his neck.

Chris tried to put his hand to his neck and caught sight of the hand. He looked in horror at the ruined flesh. Each finger was fundamentally wrong in several ways. Both thumbs were unnaturally long, Fully the length of his hands and as thin as his little fingers had been. His thumbs were the least deformed digits. The other fingers were all so thin and drawn out to the point where the bone ended and the rest of the finger became unsupported limp flesh was easily visible to the eye. The small blood vessels down the length of each finger in stark contrast with the pale nearly translucent skin.

The change ground to a halt. Chris wasn't breathing. Wilson crossed his fingers and touched his foot to send Chris all his remaining boost. The rest of the transformation occurred in a heatwave blink. Chris lay there naked on the asphalt, unconscious but breathing.

Wilson looked up and scanned the area. “We’ve been here way too long after bringing down Wrath. We need to go before we have more unwelcome company.”

Rhino was way ahead of him, already coming back from the mission box with a folding stretcher. Blink popped into sight nearby, carrying the laser designator.

Rex was the last one to the truck. He sat upfront and in the cab. He didn’t know how lucky he was to not have to ride in the back.

In the trailer, the mood was grim. The members of WD40 back there alternated between looking at Wilson without Darby, and back to watching Chris moan and shake on the stretcher. His spider-like alien-looking hands twitched and flinched at every bump the truck crossed. The thin webbed flesh along the front of each finger a sort of visual train wreck for everyone on board.

No one wanted to verbalize the questions everyone had on their minds.