'Stupid!' John berated himself internally for not just jumping out of the window onto the fire escape and running instead of trying to fool these people. He continued muttering and doing his best to look vacant and traumatised whilst he furiously tried to think of a way to get away from these cops. He could try just attacking them but he wasn't particularly confident in his ability to kill them all before getting himself shot. Fortunately one of the other officers spoke up after about a minute or so.

"Jacobs, you stay here with Mrs Simmons we're gonna go check out the rest of the apartment, officer Li you take the bathroom, I'm gonna take the other bedroom"

The three officers nodded to each other and John was left alone in the room with who is apparently officer Jacobs. As officer Jacobs turned around to close the door after the other two left John suddenly sprang out of the wheelchair, fortunately, it seemed that he was just as strong in this form as he is in his base form as he reached a pale hand around to cover his nose and mouth, placed his other hand on the back of the officers head and gave a sudden twist. To both, his and the officers surprise the head did a full 180-degree turn and John looked directly into the eyes of the officer as the spark of life left them. Lowering him down to the ground and hoping that the other two officers didn't hear the snapping of Jacobs' neck, John started to shift into the form of the officer by his feet.

He quietly left the room and went across the hall to the bathroom. He saw officer Li squatting in the shower looking at the drain, he reached forward and pulled a long, blood-soaked clump of greying hair from next to the drain, just as he was about to shout out to alert the others that something might be up with the old lady he felt a hand over his mouth and nose and there was another crackling snap sound as the second officer fell lifeless into the shower. This time, however, John didn't manage to grab him before he fell and there was a loud THUMP as he crashed into the tiled floor.

"Li! What was that?"

The fast sound of stomping feet started coming from John's bedroom and unsure what to do, John reached down and grabbed the stun gun from the waist of the officer. He fired as soon as the other officer appeared in the doorframe. The officer's body immediately went rigid as she fell to the floor with a yell and John rushed over and for the third time today snapped the neck of a human being. John then dragged all three officers into his bedroom where he proceeded to strip the bodies so their clothes weren't absorbed with them before trying to use Assimilate on them.

Skill activated [Assimilate]

Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill

Your skill [Assimilate] failed

Skill activated [Assimilate]

Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill

Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed.

Skill Gained NAME: Small arms You have gained proficiency in small arms. Ability to use revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, assault rifles, sub-machine guns and light machine guns has increased. Effects- 1% increased accuracy, range and damage/level from small arms MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 3 Skill activated [Assimilate]

Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill

Your skill [Assimilate] failed

The 3rd officer he killed, whose name was apparently Camila Gomez was generous enough to give John some of her skill in firearms as well as her memories of the past few hours. Apparently there have been a great deal of people that were suddenly turned into monsters in the city, there have been cases of children suddenly turning into what appear to be goblins, fathers suddenly turning into large grey skinned ogres and killing their whole family, even certain animals have reportedly changed though not as frequently, a family dog turning into a wolf with eyes of bright red flames, cats turning into a large tiger with midnight fur that seemed to vanish into shadows. The Police force have been swept off their feet trying to chase down every disturbance but if the reports that she had been getting over the radios were to be believed it seemed like a losing battle and they were waiting on reinforcements from hopefully whatever is left of the army.

It also appears that the thorough understanding of the form still worked regardless of whether the skill was a success or failure which might be useful in the future as it seems whenever he just shifts, whilst he appears to be wearing clothes and the clothes even feel real they are part of his body and he cannot remove them. This isn't the case if he had seen the person without the clothes on in which case he could shift into a naked form of themselves.

After this was done, John grabbed a backpack from out of his wardrobe, quickly stuffed their duty belts, some clothes and his laptop and phone into it, shifted into the form of officer Jacobs who was about the same size and build as John was before he was transformed. He grabbed his pack and made his way downstairs, out of the building and went to where Gomez had remembered they parked the cruiser.