"Titan Hessiah, a Gene Tyrant…" Muzazi murmured, hand on his chin. "And you're… absolutely sure of this?"

The wind washed over Muzazi and Marie as they stood on the roof of the ExoCorp building, talking. Over in the distance, at the entrance back into the building, a security camera blinked -- but they made sure to keep their backs to it when they spoke.

They didn't want Hessiah reading lips, after all.

"I am absolutely certain," Marie replied, staring out at the empty desert. "He hasn't exactly made it a secret to me, especially after he figured out who I was."

Muzazi took in a deep breath -- his hand resting on the sheathed Luminescence for reassurance. He'd already thought this situation was far outside his frame of reference. Now that was even more true.

"He's got plans…" Marie continued, biting her lip. "Plans that would mean the end of everything. Supremacy, UAP, just… everyone. He's very close to pulling it off, too."

Muzazi took a deep breath. "Then we need to inform the Supremacy."

"We can't," Marie shook her head. "He's done something to the communications -- got the all clear on a loop, maybe. If we try and fix that, he'll know -- and if he knows before we're ready, we're fucked."

"What, then?"

Marie crossed her arms, glancing over at him. "I have a plan. Do you trust me?"

His hand slipped off of Luminescence's hilt. Right now, that kind of reassurance was unnecessary.

"Of course."

----------------------------------------

As Atoy Muzazi regained consciousness, his hand grasped and found only empty air. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open.

He was lying down on a soft bed, with a light above him. Even as his vision adjusted, he could hear the gradual beep-beep of a medical monitor, confirming he was alive and well. He went to try to sit up, but the aching of his numerous wounds quickly put a stop to that.

It was coming back to him now.

He'd stood between that Gene Tyrant and those people, held off that endless barrage of blows with nothing but his Aether and his sword. He'd stood against a monster out of legends and lived to tell the tale. Even just the memory of it made his heartbeat quicken and his palms sweat.

"Looks like you're awake," someone commented.

Muzazi blearily looked up, a triumphant smile already spreading across his lips -- but premature. It wasn't who he'd expected. The person he was looking at, leaning against the wall with their arms crossed, was not Marie Hazzard.

"You don't look too happy," Dragan Hadrien said, raising an eyebrow. "I thought you came here to find me?"

For a long long moment, Muzazi just stared at the Cogitant, the light in his own eyes slowly dying. Then, finally, he collapsed back onto the bed, head thumping against the pillow. A heavy sigh escaped his lips.

"Of course it was a trick," he muttered. "Of course."

Hadrien opened his mouth to reply, but was quickly interrupted.

"If it helps," Marie said. "He's saying it wasn't a trick. Apparently, he really was dead for a while."

It seemed that Marie was in the room -- just not where Muzazi had looked. She sat at a table at the foot of the bed, balancing a pen between two of her fingers. A script lay on the table before her.

"What do you mean?" Muzazi asked, making sure to keep Hadrien in his view as he shifted in the bed.

This time Hadrien interrupted Marie. "I got shot in the head, my brains blown out," he answered without being asked. "Then I fell down into where the Panacea grows and it brought me back. Now I've got it running around inside my head rent-free."

This time Muzazi powered through the pain, sitting up in his bed, looking around for his weapon. "Like the Repurposed?" he asked, urgency in his voice. White Aether crackled between his fingers.

Hadrien rolled his eyes. "Same disease, different strain." Then he winced for some reason. "At any rate, don't worry -- I'm not gonna go crazy and tear your face off or something."

Muzazi glanced over at Marie. "You believe this?"

She held her hand out, adjusting it in the light to look at her nails. "He definitely does. Besides…" she looked over at Hadrien. "It's better if you just show him, kid."

Muzazi frowned, his eyes flicking between the two of them. "What do you mean, 'show me'?"

Hadrien groaned. "Seriously?"

"With you, it's the only way he'll believe it," Marie shrugged. "It'll save us both a lot of time."

A sliver of irritation entered Muzazi's voice. "What do you mean, 'show me'?" he repeated.

Again, Hadrien didn't answer -- at least not with words. Instead, he reached into his pants pocket, fumbling around for a moment with an annoyed expression on his face. When he pulled his hand back out, it was holding a small pocket knife. He flicked the blade out, tapping the point of it with a finger to test the sharpness.

Seemingly satisfied, he nodded to himself.

It was Muzazi's turn to sigh, looking back at Marie. "Officer Hazzard," he grumbled. "May I ask what the point of this ridiculous exercise --"

Hadrien drew the exposed blade through his palm, blood striking out and splattering onto the bed sheet. The words trailed off in Muzazi's mouth as he saw Dragan put the blood-soaked knife back into his pocket, flapping his injured hand back and forth as if that would mitigate the pain.

Muzazi furrowed his brow. "What are you doing?"

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"Just watch," Hadrien replied, sucking in air through his teeth. "It'll start in a second."

"What will --"

"Just watch," he snarled.

And indeed, as Muzazi watched, orange Panacea began to pool out from the cut on his skin and spread out to cover his wound. When it retracted and faded a moment later, there was no sign that he was even injured at all.

"Same disease," Dragan repeated. "Different strain."

Muzazi blinked, slowly nodding as he looked at Dragan's healed palm. His eyes flicked back up to regard him. "And you did that with your head?"

"Apparently."

With a frown, Muzazi allowed himself to relax slightly, even as he kept a careful eye on the Cogitant. With all the insanity of the last few hours, Dragan Hadrien being alive was the least of his worries. Even if the circumstances were somewhat… unbelievable.

"And why have you come here, then?" Muzazi asked cautiously. "Previously, you've done everything you can to get away from me. I hardly pictured you visiting me on my sickbed."

Hadrien jerked his head in Marie's direction. "She says you two took down a Gene Tyrant."

"There were more people involved than just the two of us, but yes," Muzazi nodded. "We forced him into a cryogenic vat and froze him."

It was Hadrien's turn to frown. "You didn't kill it? Why not?"

Muzazi had no answer for that; he'd been in support of that option during their initial planning, but Marie had quickly overruled him. Even now, the thought of that beast being in the same building -- frozen as it was -- sent an almost sympathetic shiver down his spine.

He looked to his partner to answer.

Marie put her hands flat down on the table, a complicated expression on her face. "This situation is unprecedented," she said, looking down at the white surface of the furniture. "Not one where we can act on our own. We need to get in touch with our superiors before we know the next step."

Muzazi wasn't stupid. He knew the real reason without being told: Marie didn't want to be the very last of her kind again. Or, at least, she didn't want to be the one to make that happen.

He couldn't very much say that, though. Hadrien had no idea that Marie too was a --

"It's actually because you're a Gene Tyrant too, though, isn't it?" Hadrien asked, cocking his head. "That's why you don't want to kill him."

Muzazi blinked, tilting his own head slightly to clear the blockage in his ear. Surely that was it. He'd misheard. Dragan Hadrien had not really just said that.

Again, his gaze flicked over to Marie. Her face was expressionless as she looked over at Hadrien, but her eyes held pure murder.

He really had just said that.

"You do realize, of course," she spoke softly, body tense like a coiled spring as she sat in the chair. "That I have to kill you now."

Hadrien didn't hesitate for a moment, continuing to stare her down. "You can't."

A slow, humourless smile spread across her lips. The face of a cat before it savaged a mouse. "You sure about that?"

"Absolutely. Like I said, I've got the benign Panacea in my head -- and the only way to fix this situation is for it to take back control. Otherwise, those Repurposed aren't going anywhere, and the situation will just keep getting worse and worse. But hey, if you're fine with that, go ahead." Hadrien spread his arms wide, a smug smirk on his face. "I'm told crushing me into a paste would work, so you should try that."

For a moment, Muzazi genuinely wasn't sure what Marie would do. She just stared at Hadrien for several long seconds, before the feline smile vanished and was replaced with a glare.

"You say one word," she quietly promised. "And I'll make you wish I had killed you."

The smile on Hadrien's voice did not budge. "Sure thing," he said.

----------------------------------------

As the security teams began to hand out weapons -- Ruth and Bruno helping to instruct the refugees in their use -- Skipper took a seat at the back of the warehouse, pulling his knees up to his chest. He didn't glance at the person beside him.

"People move fast when you motivate 'em, huh?" he said.

His eyes fixed on Ruth as she corrected a miner's grip on his rifle. Bruno was having better luck, but Ruth had potential as a teacher too. That was good to see; if they were to defend this place from the Repurposed's next attack, they needed all hands on deck.

Ansem del Day Away's croaky, venerable voice rumbled the air. "And what would you say is the motivator here? Fear? Hardly the most noble form of morale."

"If it works, it works," Skipper lightly shrugged. "They'll thank us later."

Out of the corner of his eye, Skipper saw Ansem turn one of his huge eyes in his direction. "Not all of them will survive this, you know," he murmured. "If they were instructed to hide, instead, perhaps --"

Skipper interrupted before the false hope could finish gestation.

"We'd be hopelessly outnumbered," he said. "And the Repurposed would win. And then they'd find those people hiding and kill 'em anyway. So some of them can maybe die now, or all of them can die later. It's not even a choice, man."

Ansem slowly raised an eyebrow. "You're a surprisingly pragmatic man."

"Seems the universe wants me to be," Skipper murmured bitterly, clasping his metal hand. "Hopefully that changes soon."

"Well, in the topic of pragmatism… I trust you haven't forgotten our arrangement."

"Funny…" Skipper finally turned to look at the Scurrant, his eyes cold. "I was about to ask you the same thing."

Ansem del Day Away's words were as slow and deliberate as his form -- instructions that allowed no room for convenient misinterpretation. "When the fighting begins, and opportunity presents itself, you shall head to the communications floor and make the adjustments we discussed. My colleagues in the Coalition of Three will receive word of the situation before the Supremacy or the UAP, giving us time to secure evidence of ExoCorp's wrongdoing. In exchange…"

"In exchange," Skipper finished, turning back away as he lost interest. "I get all the Panacea waiting in the docks for transport. You take it to the coordinates I've given you. And you don't ask questions, capiche?"

Ansem shuffled on the spot with his hands and feet, a heavy sigh leaving his puffy lips. "I don't know why you'd want them taken to that historical curiosity, but so be it." He blinked slowly. "To be honest, I'm surprised you're willing to use that Panacea after what we've witnessed here."

Skipper grinned, but there was no friendliness in it. It was the smile of a dog ready to bite.

"When it comes down to it, you're an idealist, Mr. del Away," he sighed. "Not in the sense that you're not willing to get your hands dirty, but -- when it comes down to it -- you really believe your victory's assured because you're on the right side. That's your disease."

If Ansem was offended any, he didn't show it. "And what is your disease, if you don't mind me asking?"

The smile dropped.

"Revolution," Skipper said grimly.

And, as if on cue, there was a great tremor -- strong enough that quite a few people were knocked off their feet. In the distance, Skipper could hear the sounds of goods falling off automatic shelves and smashing. Metal creaked as the very earth turned against them.

For a moment, it stopped.

"So it begins," whispered Ansem.

"Yup," Skipper echoed, standing up. "So it begins."

The next rumbling was stronger than ever.

----------------------------------------

The settlement of White Village shook under the sun, each individual building shivering under the tremors like frightened children. Dust billowed off the sides of the plateau like an orange waterfall. The plains cracked --

-- and, finally, like a fist breaking through a wall, the earth exploded.

A great geyser of debris flew upwards, propelled by immense force, the entire settlement ruptured and shattered in a single instant. Chunks of white building flew high up into the air, raining back down like a storm of meteorites. The splinter left by the quake was such that White Village had been replaced utterly by a long and stretching ravine.

Before the nightmare could so much as settle, the next stage of the horror began. From deep within the ravine, from the darkness of the earth, a gargantuan dark leg -- like the spindly limb of a spider -- rose up and found purchase.

The roar that followed shook the earth again.