The sound of explosions and gunfire from somewhere within the factory I was already in told me the onslaught which had made Xandra desperate enough to cry out for help hadn't relented.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, feeling the flames lick at my furred and leathery skin, as well as my partially shredded clothing.

My feet in particular felt the aftermath of walking on the hot steps, but the new leathery-ness of my soles and, after a brief moment of inspiration, ever so slightly bulbing up my feet, the heat ceased to be a concern.

To my surprise the foyer was empty. I hurried forward, turning to the corridor I had considered going down before.

There, packed inside the corridor, were at least eight Pied Piper officers, including the one which had used the flamethrower on me standing among them in the middle of the corridor.

Another explosion boomed from the room at the far end of the corridor, and another scream, this one at a normal volume, but no less desperate, from Xandra sounded out. Worse, the scream had a horrible finality to it, as if to say it would be the last Xandra would ever give.

Some of the Pied Piper Task Force officers were distracted by the chaos ahead of them, but a few had been watchful for my approach and raised their guns and started firing at me.

I ducked to the side, hiding behind the adjacent wall.

Fighting this many officers was going to be suicide. But abandoning Xandra, or failing to help her in time, was far worse and too dreadful to consider with any sincerity.

I needed to get to the end of that corridor no matter what. Or die trying.

Any solution which came to mind seemed less likely to succeed than the last. If there was a perfect way to handle the situation, I didn't have the time to work it out. So I prepared as best I could, trying to keep sane above the monstrous changes which were threatening to make me fly off into a mindless rage instead.

Bulb up, I thought, and I concentrated only on generating a heat across my entire body like the embers of a dying fire. This was to protect against the worst of the flamethrower when that would inevitably be used against me.

Bone up, I thought after, using the power to the best of my ability to create an armor-like coating of bones over much of my body. What sections weren't covered in white bone instead glowed with the bulbing heat, like lava beneath white stone.

I felt fury inside me, so much so I was scared to even breathe for fear I might begin an onslaught against the Pied Piper officers I couldn't stop.

You can still run away, a part of me said, like a cool sip of water on a scorching hot day, You don't have to do this.

And, had I been the Burgess on the day of the evacuation, had I only known the things he knew; then perhaps I would have listened to this cooling voice of reason.

But I wasn't that Burgess any longer. Because the memory of George's smiling face, the laughter we shared together, the song we had sung, and finally how he had been murdered; all of it was a reminder of what would happen should I choose to relent. To not push myself.

Another one of my friends would die and it would be my fault.

The fury which gripped me like a bolt of lightning, causing me to give a frightening froggish belch which then became a fox-ish cry, started as something feral but ended in a very human, very righteously wrathful anger.

I whipped round, turning the corner.

The onslaught of rifle fire started immediately. I pounced, bullets ricocheting off the armor, some getting through to the gaps between but losing some of their impact due to the burning heat and the toughness of the skin (though the pain of the impact, reduced a good deal by adrenaline, would surely be known to me if I survived.)

The darnedest thing about beginning the onslaught was that I had the song, I could have danced all night, from My Fair Lady singing in my head. I rather like the musical, having watched it plenty of times on VHS alone in my room growing up.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Maybe my mind needed a slight distraction from the fact I was cleaving whole chunks of flesh and bone from the officers in my way.

Their screams filled the corridor, mixing with the hail of bullets. I stuck a clawed hand through the gut of the officer in front of me, then cut him open from the waist up, a torrent of blood coating not only me but the nearby walls, ceiling, and officers too.

The coppery scent of the blood filled my nose, the stench of it burning against my bulbed up skin acrid.

I held onto the dead officer and charged forward, knocking one other and then, with my right arm, slashing the throat of another. It was so easy, far too easy for such a gruesome act.

Flames burst over me, the searing heat making me see nothing but red. I bulbed up more and shielded myself with the officer in my grip.

The dead officer's body collided with the officer using the flamethrower. He lost his footing, aiming the flamethrower up at the wall as he fell back. I stomped on his head, crushing it like a grape.

I kept on this way along the corridor, digging, clawing, tearing, wrenching, giving myself to the complete abandon of violence.

I never understood the lure of it until this moment. Maybe I had caught a glimmer of it when fighting back against Tommy, punching his face in until his nose broke. I had laughed back then, just as I screeched like a demon in the corridor among the Pied Piper officers. One after another I tore them apart; blood, so much blood, drenching the corridor like paint.

Then, some minutes later, the corridor fell quiet. Only the sound of my own heavy breathing remained.

I was dripping blood, several bullets had wrenched open my skin, but the healing factor of my power was busily getting to work patching the worst of it all up.

My mind was all but useless trying to keep the monstrous side of myself at bay. I moved forward slowly, taking big lumbering steps.

I took one last look back at the corridor, seeing the open ribcages, the charred remains of the officers cooked by the flamethrower, eyes that were open; faces which were no longer complete.

A vision of some hellish dimension.

I felt nothing about what I had just done. Not a damn thing. And I couldn't muster even a glimmer of remorse.

At last I stepped into the next room. It was a large storage space, with dozens of thick metal shelves, some filled with the decayed, cob-webbed covered machines and tools of the textile trade, others bare.

And there, on the ground, atop a smoking, blackened spot, lay Xandra.

Her eyes were closed, and her legs, from the knees down, were meaty, charred stumps. Much of her left side, including her face, was cracked and raw and exposed from having taken the brunt of what I could only assume was a grenade blast.

I lumbered over to her and crouched down, removing the bulbing from my body and placing a hand to her face.

"Xandra?" I said in my monstrous voice.

Her eyes stirred weakly open. Then widened at the sight of me.

"Bur–" she began, but her eyes started to roll into the back of her head.

I gripped her, "Xandra," I said, "Concentrate on healing. Use the power. You have to concentrate."

Xandra's eyes continued to lull around. She was trying, clinging to life.

"Please!" I screeched.

Clock-clock-clock-clock!

I looked over my shoulder. The corridor, already filled with the gruesome remains of eight Pied Piper officers, was filled at the far end with at least another eight, if not more.

The state of Xandra had changed me. What tiny glimmer of me had been left inside my skull, just barely controlling the monster I had become, fell away so that I was truly trapped within my own body. The beast was in control.

I move forward, naturally moving down to all fours; my arms seemed to have grown longer to make an on-all-fours movement easier.

The officers at the end of the hall didn't seem intimidated by me. If anything, the sight before them, of their fallen comrades, gave them all the more motivation to see the end of me.

They inched closer, stepping over the pools of sopping blood and exposed organs.

The next round of violence was about to start. Stamina renewed in me, my body at least fresh and ready to murder yet more officers.

Inversely, having lost control of my physical self, the inner sane part of me became that much more present to my own awareness.

Stop! I cried from within, as if pounding my fists on the inside of the beast's eyes, Please! No more! Please!

But there was nothing I could do. Maybe I had come so far in this form that returning to normal would no longer be possible. Maybe, like the Adam-George-Amalgamation; becoming a mindless monster was all that remained for me.

It was then, at the far end of the corridor, a sudden rush of white steam exploded into view.

Some of the officers kept their guns aimed at me, not yet firing as they wanted to get closer to make every shot count. But the others, residing at the back, turned to see a new face.

A tall young man, incredibly muscled and lean, with messy, oily-black hair, stood before them all.

He wore three quarter length shorts, and a Zeba sleeveless top, and trainers on his feet.

Steam rose off him, and the veins across his body bulged, particularly in his arms and legs.

"If you want to live," said the young man, "Throw down your weapons."

He raised a muscled arm and pointed to me.

"You can't beat him."

The officers looked from one another, and at the gore spread across the corridor, and saw the truth in the young man's words.

"Drop them," he said, again, "My name is Azad Osman, and I'm going to be the world's greatest hero."