T. Reanes, once a resentful low-ranking corporal with little chance of promotion, once head of a department of his own devising, the Office of Undesirable Elements, and now undisputed chief of what remained of New City law enforcement and the small military force that had been sent in as reinforcements, pushed himself away from his desk and stood up as two of his men came in and saluted. "They are on their way, then?" he snapped, before they could say anything.

"Yes, sir. They'll be up here any minute, we think," replied one of the two, shifting his weight and dropping his hands to his sides. Reanes' eyes narrowed.

"Is this the way you talk to a superior officer?" he asked. The hostility in his voice made the man shift uncomfortably, drawing himself back up to some semblance of attention.

"I'm sorry sir, I'm not used to this. I joined the force, sir, not the army." The officer's voice was discomforted, carrying a hint of reprimand.

"I said, did I not..." said Reanes, hands folded behind his back as he stepped around his desk to come face to face with the officer, "... that if you wanted to be chosen for what is to come you would have to join my army. Did I not say that?"

Reanes leaned in, eyeballing the officer, who leaned back from him before catching himself and trying to return to attention.

"My army, officer. And an army must be disciplined, or it is merely a mob. Do you understand?"

The second officer, chest thrust out and arms vertical to his sides, eyes staring straight ahead in desperation, took a smart step to the side away from his partner. The first officer began to gabble as his shoulder sagged, voice pleading.

"I'm sorry, Reanes. I'll do better. I'm still getting used to you being my superior, alright? Just..."

The man's words were cut off abruptly. His eyes bulged outwards almost totally from their sockets, saliva frothing from his half-open mouth as he began shaking violently. His companion could not help turning his head to look, a glance that turned into a horrified stare as he found himself unable to break his gaze from the monstrousness of what was happening.

"Eyes FRONT, soldier," yelled Reanes, not taking his eyes from the scene in front of him. The guard snapped his gaze forward, but was unable to remove the image of Reanes standing in front of the other man, arm ending in a smooth stump just below the elbow.

With a final cough of blood, the unfortunate guard collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud, head smashing into the ground and bouncing once. From his turned face a thin red stream of blood and bodily fluids poured out, pooling around him in a hellish halo. The officer that was still standing stared straight ahead, not daring to blink, but saw from the corner of his eye the flesh-coloured mass that emerged from the man's ear and out from his nose and mouth. Collecting together with a hideous sucking sound, the mass slowly rolled and flowed to Reanes, sliding over his shoes and under the hem of his pants, reappearing from under his short sleeve and pouring over the stump of his elbow, extending and shaping until it was once more part of a whole, unmarked arm.

"I remember when he would ask me to bring him coffee," Reanes snarled, flexing his arm and studying it in interest. "Coffee! He thought he was so superior to me. Well, he was never going to make it in this army, anyway."

Reanes looked up suddenly, as if remembering where he was, and walked calmly back around to his chair, sitting down and steepling his hands. He peered at the remaining officer over his fingers.

"You won't be causing any more problems, will you, officer. Answer properly, please."

"Sir, no sir!" bellowed the officer, eyes staring frantically ahead.

"Excellent. Because your partner is your responsibility, you understand? I will not tolerate ill-discipline. Now, gather the others and tell them it is time. If you survive this, you too will be chosen..."

After the officer departed, dragging his fallen fellow with him, Reanes turned smartly around and sat back at his desk.

"You won't be needed anymore, it seems. At least, not for a while."

Reanes spoke to the air as he leaned back in his chair, placing his feet up on his desk and lighting a Cuban cigar he had confiscated from his men at some point he had already forgotten. He continued to speak as he puffed.

"You still haven't told me why you came to me with information about this group, you know. I'd rather like to know what you have against them."

A door in the shadowed corner of the room slid aside, darkness behind it not revealing where it led. From out of the darkness stepped Ollie Thurgood, walking far straighter and with a confidence he had been careful never to show when he was with Smoke and the others.

"It's not anything against them personally," said Ollie, striding past Reanes and heading for the exit. "It's all these Altered. All I want is for you to take care of them." He left the room, leaving Reanes to his cigar.

"Altered, you say? Strange, that's what Alden calls them too..."

Smoke and the others entered the same area from which FX had staged his and Nick's escape what felt like a lifetime ago, where Smoke, Triss, and Shade had been captured and dragged to meet Alden. The huge cube still hung in the centre of the cavern, monolithic and unmoved by their arrival. They emerged warily from the corridor into the room, the same type of gantry as guarded each entrance standing there unoccupied. The beams that had been active the first time they came here were off, and nothing moved for as far as they could see.

"Alden's going to come from over there," said Nick, breaking the tense silence and pointing to a distant opening. "We can win. I need you to remember that. We can win."

"So suddenly you can tell us what's going to happen, then?" asked FX irritatedly.

"I'm not telling you what's going to happen. I'm telling you what could happen - please, everyone, don't forget, even if things go... bad, we can win." Nick spoke haltingly, and it was hard not to notice ...something... in his voice.

"So what do we do now? Just sit here and wait for him?" Triss asked.

"We won't be waiting..." said Richter in a low tone. Triss followed his gaze to the entrance Nick had pointed out, and saw them.

A mix of about 10 or 15 men and women in military fatigues came running through the door in a tight formation, fanning out as soon as they entered the hall and taking cover behind the numerous crates littering the area. Smoke's group found themselves surveyed by numerous rifle barrels, pointed steadily at them. There was a pause for a few seconds, and then the clicking sound of hard-heeled shoes hitting bare floor. Reanes appeared, striding out of the darkness, and walked directly towards them. He stopped just a short way away. His outfit this time was radically different to how they had last seen him.

"You're dressing like a fucking Nazi now, asshole?" said FX, running his eyes down the cream-brown double-breasted shirt, brown trousers and long brown leather boots, accompanied by a thick, high-raised belt.

Smoke had to admit FX had a serious point. The man had even found time to press the shirt and trousers until you could have cut steel on the creases.

"I am dressing with discipline, Mr Matthews. Something a man such as yourself would know little about."

Reanes' eyes were locked on FX with the same snake-like intensity he'd seen before.

"I've read your file, you know. Oh, they made a special category just for you, didn't they, when you started running around the city damaging everything for what you called 'justice.' They were going to lock you away, Mr Matthews, lock you up and throw away the key. Leave you to rot, just like your father."

FX had been watching Reanes contemptuously but with little emotion until the final part. At the mention of his father, though, it was like he lost all control. Anger boiling over in an instant, his eyes flared as he flung out his hands and screamed with rage.

"Fuck YOU!" he shouted, and at the same time flung a cascade of sound so loud that it smashed the crates behind Reanes[1], sending the gunmen ranged behind Reanes flying and tearing up part of the floor.

The rest of FX's group found themselves pushed by the force of the blast, though even in his rage he hadn't been insensible enough to endanger his comrades behind him. Splinters of wood and metal flew and span through the air, as heavier objects ground against the floor as they were forced inexorably back. Through all this storm of sound and movement Reanes stood unbending, though Smoke thought he could make out a strange effect, like Reanes' flesh was shifting minutely, crawling and undulating over his skeleton.

When FX finally ended his shout, Reanes' blinked and continued to talk as if nothing had happened.

"You cannot hurt me with crude attacks like that, you see. I am far more advanced than you - my very flesh is under my command at a cellular level, and the cells themselves are as far removed from your cells as yours are from an amoeba. Perhaps I should demonstrate..."

As he spoke, Reanes shot forward with incredible speed, seeming to stretch and snap into his new position rather than moving as a normal human would. His hand was around FX's throat before anyone could react, lifting him slowly above him. FX choked, face red and legs flailing, as Reanes continued his calm monologue.

"I could kill you right now. Pop your head right off, in all probability. But I have a more... interesting idea in mind for you. I'd like to show the others my true abilities."

His head turned to where Smoke and the rest stood, frozen in shock.

"You see, it's not raw strength that makes me superior. No, superiority lies in my very genes."

His head snapped back to look at FX as FX struggled to say something, spluttering as he choked. Reanes dropped him to the floor.

"What did you say?" he demanded.

"I said you really are a fucking Nazi. A sad, deluded freak who doesn't know anything about..."

His words were cut off as Reanes' hand once more flew out and grabbed him by the throat, only this time, something else happened. Instead of stopping and grasping, the arm seemed to somehow stretch and flow, deforming and pouring into a fleshy collar around his neck, then slowly thinning and disappearing. With an organic, wet, sucking sound, the flesh separated completely from Reanes' arm, leaving a perfectly smooth rounded stump where his elbow had been, like an amputee. Soon, there was no mark on FX either, the liquid-like flesh dissolving completely.

FX gasped and scratched at his throat, fallen to all fours and pulling at his skin with his nails, finding nothing. His eyes were wide with barely-suppressed terror.

"What the hell did you do to me, freak?" he wheezed. Reanes looked at him with evident satisfaction.

"My cells have by now completely merged with and adapted to your system. I can feel them flowing through your circulatory system as we speak. If I wanted to, I could stop your heart right now. Or stimulate it to beat faster and faster until it burst. Or give you an aneurysm. The list is practically endless."

"You mean you're inside me? Jesus Christ, I knew you were a fucking pervert but you could have at least bought me dinner," he spat, staggering to his feet and giving a hate-filled look to Reanes.

Reanes' smirk of satisfaction vanished, to be replaced by a glare filled with loathing.

"I think you have underestimated the severity of the situation, Matthews," he said, and leaned in closer as blood began to trickle from FX's nose.

Suddenly, FX clutched at his stomach and folded in half, falling heavily to the ground. He groaned as he rolled around, and the others gasped as the blood pouring from his nose was joined by bloody tears falling from his eyes.

"I can dissolve you from the inside. Any one of my cells can destroy anything your immune system can throw up. I can make your own blood toxic to you. Ah..!"

He shouted abruptly, holding his remaining hand up and causing Triss to freeze in her tracks as she ran to FX.

"You will not go near him, or I will burst all the capillaries in his brain and move onto you." Triss looked desperately towards Smoke and Shade, still rooted to the spot.

"Nick! What do we do?" she yelled, looking desperately around. Nick was nowhere to be found.

"Nick? Yes, I heard you had a young man as part of the group. Now, I am well aware of Monsieur Ricard Morel, here, and it is obvious why you wanted him to join you, but a shut-in youth with a history of mental health issues? I am most interested to find out more about him. Sergeant!" He barked, to no reaction. "SERGEANT HAYNES!" He shouted, and one of the men positioned behind stood up smartly and ran to him.

"Yes, sir!" snapped the man, pulling up to attention, though even in the panic of what was currently happening Shade and Smoke noticed how ill-performed the action was and how uncomfortable the officer looked.

"It seems one of the group is missing. Take another officer and find him, would you? Do it quickly." With a dismissive wave of his hand, Reanes returned his attention to FX and the others.

"Now, where were we? Oh yes, I was about to give your friend a most excruciating death, and there's nothing you can do to stop me..."

As Reanes looked around the group, face locked in an inhuman rictus of amusement, they saw the madness in his eyes, and it was obvious he was completely insane.

The group moved all at once, the tension and fear of being unable to do anything reached a snapping point for them all simultaneously. Triss dived towards where FX was writhing and bleeding, grabbing him and blocking him from Reanes' view. This would have been futile, but Shade and Smoke both moved on Reanes at the same time, Shade sending a jagged-edged tunnel of shadow out as Smoke poured into vapour and swept forward towards Reanes. The shadows reached Reanes almost exactly the same moment Smoke did, reforming in an instant and flinging a roundhouse that caught Reanes on the jaw and span him around. Falling to one knee, Reanes reached up with his remaining arm and wiped at his jaw, though no mark nor blood was visible. Caught deep within the shadow, Smoke was shocked to see him stand calmly up and turn to face directly towards Shade.

"An interesting effect," he said, in the same cold, calm tones he had been using all along. "And it could be very inconvenient, too. But not for me..." he said, moving in the snake-like way again and appearing right in front of Shade, who barely had time to dive away as Reanes swung for him. Shade came within just a few centimetres of being caught in the same way as FX.

"You will not dodge the next one," said Reanes.

Shade did not waste time listening, but once again flung darkness at him. The shadows smothered Reanes until there was only a black hole in the shape of a man standing there, but once again the form turned to look directly at Shade.

"I will make you die slowly," he said, and lunged towards Shade.

Shade found himself involuntarily closing his eyes as Reanes' hand came flying for his throat, adrenalin slowing down time so that he watched helplessly as it came closer and closer. In the darkness, he waited for the clamp on his neck that would signal the end... but it never came. Opening his eyes, he saw Reanes standing stock still in front of him, head locked in shadow and body unmoving.

"I can hold him," said Shade, to the others. "I don't know what happened, but I can hold him."

Smoke nodded in the direction of FX and Triss. And Nick, Shade realised as he looked over at them. Nick was standing over FX with a wrench, and FX was lying limply on the floor, unconscious. Triss was holding a ragged cloth she'd found over his fresh head wound.

"He can use the senses of others if he's infected them," said Nick, stepping away from FX's prone form and dropping the wrench. "If you knock them out, though, he can't really control the body as much as he'd want you to think. FX will be out for a while, but we're not done yet. Get ready," said Nick, as from all the orifices of FX's head the pink formless mass of flesh poured, rolling and gathering together.

The mass moved away from the group and pooled, rising up in a mound until at the top a strange white, pulpy material formed.

"He's making an eye..." said Richter in a shocked whisper.

And indeed the material did look like that of sclera, the white part of the eye, small red veins cracking the surface, and a dark misshapen pupil formed in the centre. The eye span round, searching for its body, when suddenly Richter shook his head to break the spell of sick fascination and ran up to the mass, swinging the heavy pipe directly into the centre of it. A horrific wet tearing sound accompanied the splattered flesh that was sprayed around the room, and the shadow-wrapped form of Reanes' main body gave a pained howl - Smoke thought he would have cheered at the sight if it hadn't been so disgusting.

"I can't hold him!" yelled Shade as the blackened figure began moving violently as if fighting against physical chains.

Both Richter and Smoke sprinted to Reanes, arriving just as the shadows broke and flowed back towards Shade like stretched elastic suddenly being released. Smoke once more swung at Reanes' face, both hands clenched together and swung like a club, as Richter threw himself into a tackle that would have knocked any regular person to the floor.

Instead, as Reanes began to fall towards the floor from the hits, a bar of flesh burst out of his side through his shirt and smacked into the floor, breaking his momentum and leaving him upright and supported. In the movements of a wild beast, Reanes sent Smoke and Richter flying in separate directions, launching them with a series of rapid punches that smacked into their sides and heads in quick succession. His face, meanwhile, was raised towards the sky as he howled in anger and hate.

"You dare!?" He screamed. "You think you can fight me!?!"

Spears of bone and flesh span out from his body, flying like arrows into Richter and Smoke. Smoke's body instantly vaporised then reformed where the spikes passed through, leaving him unharmed, but Richter took a spear to both his lower right calf and his left shoulder, pinning him to a large tarpaulin-covered crate as he cried out in pain.

Turning to Shade, Reanes stalked towards him in large strides, panting in fury and eyes ablaze. Shade threw out shadows but they were weak and barely formed, and Reanes' motion wasn't impeded in the slightest. In a final blur of movement Reanes was upon him, hand grasped around his neck in a crushing vice, lifting him into the air. Shade choked as the hideous flesh poured into his nostrils and gasping mouth, dots flashing across his vision. Behind him Richter roared in agony as the spears that had pierced him melted rapidly and flowed into his wounds. Blood began to pour from his nose.

Smoke attacked in desperation, not even transforming as he ran towards Reanes this time. Grabbing a discarded pipe and swinging in one smooth motion, he connected powerfully with Reanes' head, but Reanes' barely registered it, and his head moved not an inch.

"Pathetic," he said, turning to Smoke even as he continued to choke the life out of Shade. "You are like worms to me. Cockroaches. There is nothing left to do but stamp you into the ground."

The muscles in Reanes' arm flexed, and Smoke heard a cracking sound. Shade went limp, and fell in a heap to the floor as Reanes released his hold.

Smoke yelled and dived for Shade, but was smashed back by Reanes' blurred punches, fists moving almost too fast to see. Smoke fell sprawled onto his back, unable to focus, world turning white. Reanes towered over him and flesh poured from his arm onto Smoke's face, where it flowed into his nostrils and under his eyelids. A supernova of pain pushed Smoke to the edge of blacking out, and he felt his body go limp and weak. The speed of Reanes' attack and his panic had prevented him even from transforming.

A significantly thinner Reanes now stood triumphantly over Smoke as Richter writhed in pain nearby and Shade's limp and lifeless form lay crumpled on the ground.

"I will kill you now..." he gloated, "...but know that your friends will suffer much more. You are fortunate, really, to not see what I will do to them. Especially the woman..."

At the mention of Triss, Smoke found energy from somewhere, struggling to rise, but Reanes pushed him back down with a boot to the head. Somehow Reanes' cells were preventing him from vaporising, and he felt despair well up in his chest.

"This woman?"

Triss' voice was suddenly clear, right above him. Cracking open his failing eyes, he saw the silhouette of Triss' shape directly behind Reanes, whose eyes widened in surprise.

"Let's see how you like it..."

Her words continued as she changed, her silver liquid form pouring over Reanes and flooding down his mouth. Reanes' mouth opened wider in an attempt to scream, but instead there came a guttural bubbling. He put his hands to his throat, almost throttling himself in a desperate attempt to prevent the liquid pouring down inside him, and he staggered back off Smoke.

Instantly, the pain that had been burning him from the inside ceased, and Richter too stopped his pained thrashings. Pushing himself painfully upright, Smoke faltered but got to his feet, and stared as Reanes fell backwards, skin rippling and shifting over his frame. Suddenly he coughed violently, spraying blood flecked with silver out onto the floor. From his eyes and nose more of the silver liquid flowed, pouring endlessly back into his mouth.

"Richter!" Smoke screamed. Richter looked up muzzily at him. "Now's our chance! He's still human, which means he's still water, right?"

Richter stared at Smoke for a second, and then saw the lighter he held in his hand. He nodded in understanding and staggered to the wailing Reanes, placing his hands to the roiling flesh. Reanes' wails grew even louder as the very water in his cells began to break down and evaporate. At the same time, Smoke was lighting a cigarette and striding towards him. Taking the burning tobacco from his lips, he flung it towards Reanes.

There was a horrible, wet explosion, not very powerful but enough to send damp bloody bits of what had been Reanes flying. Smoke and Richter jerked back as their faces were sprayed with red, and they stood there in shock, blinking through gore-filled eye lids. The wet red mist hung in the air whilst the quicksilver that was Triss pooled together and rose up into Triss again.

"You just saved us all," said Richter, breaking out of his stupor, wiping his face and flicking the gore to the floor.

"I don't know what we'd have done if you hadn't..." Smoke began, but stopped to dive and catch Triss as her legs buckled and she fell towards him. He pushed her hair out of her face as he held her to him, and saw the tears in her eyes.

"He made me do it... He made me! I couldn't see another way, there wasn't enough time, I... I..." Smoke rocked her as she let out a few involuntary sobs. "It was... horrible," she mumbled, wiping a tear from her eye and gathering herself.

"You saved us, Triss. You saved us. Thank you. I'm so sorry..." They sat there, rocking together in silence for a while, as the others regrouped. It was Richter who went up to Shade's body first.

"Mon Dieu! He is breathing!" he said, bending down and turning Shade over to face upwards. Shade opened his eyes, and smiled.

"Thank you, Nick," he said loudly, loudly enough for Nick to hear.

Nick did not even look over but remained where he was, talking to the guard Reanes had referred to as Haynes. The other officers who had until Reanes' defeat been pointing guns at them lowered their weapons and walked over to him.

Shade reached behind his back and produced two halves of a wooden spatula, taken from the kitchen of their house.

"He put that in the back of my jacket before we left the house," he explained to a confused Richter. "I know, I know, I was puzzled too, but I knew I couldn't ask him why."

"So you 'ave been walking around with cooking equipment in your back the whole time?" he asked, cracking a smile.

"Yep, I have. Hey, it's not glamorous, but it works..."

"Uh, guys..." shouted Nick.

They looked up, and jolted alert as they realised the red gore and blood had begun gathering together. It moved slowly, and pieces fell off as though they couldn't reconnect perfectly anymore, but gradually the shape of Reanes took form again. His body was thinner, thinner even than those they had seen locked in the cells of the tower below, and the flesh moved oddly, steaming as it crawled and bulged over his skeleton. Nick walked up to him, stopping a few feet away, Haynes next to him.

"It's over, Reanes," Haynes said. "You have to stop this now."

Reanes' eyes were malformed and cloudy, as if covered with cataracts, but they still burned with malice as they bore into him.

"I am all that will be left when you are nothing but ash, you understand?" he hissed, speaking slowly through burned vocal cords. "It is inevitable. It was always inevitable. That is why I was chosen, you see." He coughed wretchedly.

"Chosen? Who chose you?"

Affront at Nick's questions seemed to reinvigorate Reanes, and he stood straighter, flesh cracking as he did so, fluid leaking out.

"I was chosen! Chosen! That's why I stand here now, and you quiver before me!"

The madness in his voice was strong now, his last remaining threads of sanity burning away. He threw his hand up towards Nick, but a lump of flesh simply fell to the ground and sat there, motionless. Reanes' eyes roved around restlessly, taking in visions only he could see.

Shade came along, supported by Richter. Reanes showed no flicker of recognition.

"How were you chosen?" Smoke asked. "How were you to survive the energy blast?"

"Here!" Reanes' voice was shrill and almost a cackle, as his body continued to fail. "Here is the only place safe from the blast!"

"That's why these officers stayed here," said Nick, turning to them. "The hostages are kept in a room just next to here - Reanes promised they would all be brought here when the time came. There's children next door."

"Then we need to get them and bring them here," said Shade, voice firm once again.

"No!" howled Reanes. "I decide who stays here. Me! I choose who lives and dies..."

He paused, wracked by coughs again. It was at this point that the hiss of pneumatics drew everyone's attention upwards.

"I'm afraid Officer Reanes seems to have misunderstood me."

Alden’s voice came from all around as he dropped from the sky, thick overlapping cables emanating from the darkness above and piercing his sides; a tentacled, robotic monster.

"When I said this area was safe from the initial energy surge, I meant for me. There is nowhere on this planet safe for humankind."

[1] Nick thought of this as FX's Super-Saiyan moment