The man smiled.
It wasn't warm.
It wasn't even human.
Darian felt it immediately—the wrongness beneath the expression. The apartment hallway around them flickered with dying neon light leaking through cracked windows. Pipes hissed overhead. Somewhere deeper in the building, metal groaned.
Ravion stepped forward first.
His spear lowered slightly.
"Hands up," Ravion said coldly.
The man blinked.
Then slowly raised his hands.
"There we go," Ravion continued. "Now speak. What are you doing here?"
The man gave a nervous chuckle.
"Nothing dangerous, I assure you. I'm just a scientist. Research, experiments, that sort of thing."
Darian's thumb slid slowly along the inside of his coat.
He found the small emergency beacon clipped into the lining.
Click.
Silent.
A signal pulsed out into the night.
POND distress code.
The man's eyes flicked down toward Darian's wrist.
He stopped mid-sentence.
"Ah," he said softly.
His smile widened.
The skin around his mouth stretched too far.
"Calling for help already?"
The man's shoulders twitched.
Then his posture changed.
The polite scientist vanished.
His neck elongated slightly. Veins bulged beneath the skin like dark cables. His jaw shifted with a soft wet crack.
"You children," he said, voice now layered with a second rasping tone beneath the first. "Always so impatient."
His coat fell open.
The thing inside him unfolded.
Ribs moved wrong beneath his shirt. Something inside his chest slid and rearranged itself like machinery finding alignment.
Ravion leveled his spear.
"Last warning," he said.
The man's eyes ignited.
Not bright.
But deep.
Liquid silver light swallowed the pupils.
The floor trembled.
Elsewhere in the building.
The corpse room was quiet.
Zeri stood near the doorway, frowning down at the covered bodies laid across metal tables.
The lights flickered once.
Then again.
"Big sister..."
She froze.
The voice was small.
Childlike.
"Come... come play with us..."
Her head snapped toward the far corner of the room.
The children stood there.
The same children from the street.
They hadn't been there a second ago.
They stared at her.
Smiling.
"Come play," one of them said softly.
Zeri's eyes narrowed.
The children tilted their heads in perfect unison.
Their smiles widened.
Too wide.
Skin split.
Jaws unhinged.
Black tendrils pushed out from inside their mouths like unfolding flowers, slick and wet and writhing. Their small ribs cracked outward as something beneath their skin forced its way free.
Zeri staggered back.
"No... no, no, no—" her voice rose into a horrified scream. "That is NOT how bones work!"
One of the children giggled.
Its eyes turned completely black.
The corpse tables began to shake as the creatures crawled down from them, limbs stretching too long, fingers splitting into clawed prongs.
"Stay BACK!" Zeri shouted, activating her holographic blaster arms. Light snapped into existence around her forearms, forming glowing cannon arrays.
One lunged.
"OH HELL—"
Zeri fired.
The blast tore the creature apart mid‑air, spraying black fluid across the room.
It kept moving.
The pieces kept moving.
Zeri's face went pale.
"WHY IS IT STILL MOVING?!"
Three more creatures dropped from the tables and charged her at once.
The man sighed.
"Such fascinating reactions," he said calmly.
Then the floor exploded.
Thick black tendrils erupted through the concrete like spears punching through water.
One slammed into Ravion's chest.
The impact launched him across the room.
Another struck Darian.
The world flipped.
Darian barely caught the edge of a collapsing pillar as the building convulsed.
"RAVION!"
More tendrils burst through the structure, tearing the entire floor apart. Walls shattered. Pipes ripped loose in sprays of steam.
The man rose slowly as the tendrils lifted him upward like a throne.
"Do you know what people misunderstand about monsters?" he said conversationally.
He looked down at them.
"They imagine rage. Hunger. Madness."
His smile widened.
"But curiosity is far more productive."
Ravion pushed himself upright through rubble.
Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
His spear ignited.
Flames crawled along the blade.
"You," Ravion growled.
The tendrils whipped toward him.
Ravion ran.
Not away.
Forward.
He sprinted along the writhing tendrils themselves, boots striking the moving mass as if it were solid ground. Each step launched him higher toward the man.
His spear spun once in his hands.
"Kneel."
The strike came like lightning.
The man caught it.
Two tendrils wrapped the spear shaft mid‑thrust.
Ravion twisted violently, flames erupting outward in a burst that incinerated the tendrils and freed the weapon.
The man tilted his head.
"Ah," he murmured. "A warrior. How predictable."
Darian dragged himself up onto the shattered platform, Essence burning under his skin as green threads flared around his arms.
He leapt.
Climbing the tendrils beside Ravion.
The man's fingers twitched.
Three tendrils speared toward Darian's chest.
Darian twisted sideways, barely avoiding the first two as the third ripped through the air where his ribs had been.
"He's playing with us!" Darian shouted.
"Obviously," Ravion snapped.
Ravion spun mid‑air and drove his spear downward.
The blade carved through a mass of tendrils and exploded into a storm of fire.
The man leaned back.
Just enough.
The spear missed his throat by centimeters.
He smiled.
"Your timing is impressive," the man said calmly. "But you misunderstand the experiment."
Behind him—
The children screamed.
Their small bodies twisted unnaturally. Bones cracked. Limbs folded inward as black tendrils erupted from their mouths and eyes. One child split open across the spine—flesh peeling like wet paper as something inside forced its way out.
Zeri froze.
"No—" she whispered.
The children collapsed together.
Then they began to merge.
Skin melted into skin. Limbs fused. Dozens of arms tangled together, compressing into a massive writhing sphere of bone and muscle. Faces surfaced briefly across the surface—screaming—before sinking back into the mass.
The floor bulged.
With a wet, explosive tear the thing burst upward into a towering abomination.
Zeri staggered back.
"What the hell did you DO to them?!" she screamed.
The monster shrieked.
Its body was a cathedral of fused children—arms protruding like broken branches, torsos half‑formed, faces embedded across its flesh. Black tendrils pulsed through it like veins, forcing the structure upright.
Zeri's gauntlets flared.
"I'm killing it!" she shouted.
She launched forward on her hoverboard, blasting the creature with a barrage of holographic plasma bolts.
The shots tore chunks of flesh away—but the wounds immediately sealed as the children inside screamed in distorted harmony.
The scientist watched quietly.
Then his gaze shifted toward the approaching footsteps in the fog.
Ravion.
Darian.
He sighed softly.
"Ah. The rest of the audience arrives."
The monster swung an enormous limb toward Zeri.
She dodged sideways—but the impact shattered a train car behind her in an explosion of rusted steel.
"ZER!" Darian shouted as he sprinted across the yard.
Ravion landed beside him, spear spinning into a ready stance.
Both of them saw the monster.
Neither spoke for a second.
"That's new," Darian said.
The scientist chuckled.
"Children are such fascinating vessels," he said. "So much potential for growth."
Ravion's eyes narrowed.
"Put your hands up," Ravion said coldly.
The scientist slowly raised them.
"Of course," he said pleasantly.
Then his fingers twitched.
The monster roared.
Zeri was forced backward again, her blasts growing more frantic.
The scientist took a slow step away while everyone watched the creature.
"You see," he continued conversationally, "true discovery requires sacrifice."
Ravion took a step forward.
The scientist's smile widened.
"But I believe my work here is finished."
He pressed something on his wrist.
The monster convulsed violently.
A shockwave blasted outward across the rail yard, forcing everyone to stagger.
By the time the dust settled—
The scientist was gone.
"Damn it!" Ravion cursed.
The monster turned.
Every face embedded in its body opened its mouth at once.
The scream that followed shook the entire yard.
Darian's jaw tightened.
"Not here," he said, voice low, controlled. "We end it now."
Ravion grunted in agreement.
Both of them dropped down to the lower yard where Zeri steadied herself, forcing her hoverboard upright despite the blood still at her lip.
The monster moved first.
Not toward them.
Toward the street.
Where civilians were running.
Darian's eyes widened.
"It's heading for the people!"
The abomination lunged forward on dozens of fused limbs, its massive body smashing through the rail yard fence like paper.
Screams erupted from the street beyond.
"Flare your Essence!" Zeri shouted, pushing forward.
Ravion's expression hardened as he surged ahead.
"It's not reacting to us," he snapped. "The city center has higher concentration. Because of its size, it's being drawn to a stronger source farther away to feed on it."
Ravion struck first.
He launched forward in a burst of raw power, spear carving a blazing arc as he slammed into the creature's flank.
The strike punched deep into the mass of fused flesh.
The monster barely reacted.
A massive arm of tangled bodies whipped sideways.
Ravion blocked—
—and was driven back, boots carving trenches through the ground as he struggled to hold it.
"Move it back!" he growled.
Zeri came in from the other side, cannons flaring as she unleashed a barrage point-blank.
Plasma tore into the creature, slowing it—but not stopping it.
The thing kept pushing forward.
Toward the city.
Ravion dug in harder, veins flaring with Essence as he tried to redirect its momentum.
Zeri angled her fire, trying to force it off course.
Still—
It moved.
Slow.
Unstoppable.
Like gravity.
Darian stepped forward—
Then stopped.
Something shifted.
Not loud.
Not explosive.
Just—wrong.
A presence.
A figure stepped into the street.
POND uniform.
Black coat.
Scarred face.
Where his right hand should have been—
there was nothing.
Only an empty sleeve tied neatly at the elbow.
In his remaining hand he held a katana.
The blade gleamed once in the dim streetlight.
Ravion and Zeri were still straining against it—barely holding the line.
The creature roared.
Its limbs surged toward the man.
He drew the sword.
One motion.
Clean.
Silent.
The blade flashed.
For a moment—nothing happened.
Then the monster split.
A perfect line cut through its entire body.
From crown
To pavement.
The massive abomination simply slid apart.
Both halves collapsed into the street with a wet thunder.
Silence swallowed the yard.
The man flicked the black blood from his blade.
Then he sheathed the sword.
Only then did he look at them.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—casual, almost amused despite the destruction around them.
His eyes moved across the three of them, measuring.
Then he spoke.
"I heard you three needed help."