The lobby of the IBC building is a disaster zone; an indoor hurricane must have torn through it with a vengeance. Shattered glass crunches beneath our boots as we step cautiously over the debris. In the middle of all the chaos stands the reception desk, or at least what's left of it—it’s splintered and flung about like matchsticks.

"Wow, looks like your friend had quite the temper tantrum," I murmur, scanning the room with eyes trained to assess danger.

Derek grunts, a sound that somehow carries both sarcasm and awe. "Subtle, isn't he?"

The elevator doors are mangled ruins, twisted metal jutting out into the space where people used to wait for a smooth ride up. It's clear they won't be offering us passage tonight—the elevator panel is a gaping hole, wires spilling out like the innards of some cybernetic beast disemboweled by a creature with more brute force than brains.

"Guess we're taking the scenic route," I quip, gesturing toward the stairwell door hanging off its hinges, its enforced security features having done little good against whatever fury Elias has become.

Derek gives a low whistle, "Elevators out of service, huh? Too bad; I love elevator music."

I suppress a smile as we approach the stairwell. With each step up the concrete flights, the silence grows heavy, the only sound the echo of our movements and the distant, muffled growls of destruction.

The stairwell before us is stark and echoey, a vertical gauntlet. I take the lead, pacing our ascent with a kind of practiced rhythm born from necessity - being a vigilante means I've had to get good at moving quickly, quietly, on my feet, and the soccer practice for years before hasn't hurt either. Derek's right behind me, his steps heavier, the sound of his breathing growing ragged with every flight we clear.

"Shit," he pants after we pass the fourth floor, "you're moving like a bullet. First time I saw you, you were flopping around group therapy like a dead fish."

The corner of my mouth quirks up beneath the mask. "Thanks, regeneration's got its perks," I reply, not slowing my pace.

Derek huffs, almost in disbelief. "Regeneration, huh? Then what the hell had you laid up in the hospital for months?"

I reach the next landing and glance back at him with a raised brow. "Strict no tragic backstory rule, remember? We've got a bad guy to catch."

He nods, silent for a moment as we continue our climb, tension mounting with each step. At each door, we pause, peering through the narrow windows into the floors beyond. Total devastation meets our gaze, an exposition of Elias's rage inscribed in the ruined carpet, the gutted drywall, the crumbled ceiling tiles. He didn't bother with stairs after the second floor—clearly, he's been taking the more direct route, bursting through the floor above in leaps and bounds.

Through the partially demolished walls, the office space yawns open, a void where cubicles used to huddle in corporate formation. A strange silence fills the air, punctured only by the distant sound of something feral.

"I can smell him," Derek whispers, his voice a mix of disgust and awe. "It's like wet fur and… something else. Something I can't place."

I nod, sensing Elias's presence in a different way. His blood. It's minor wounds, mostly, scrapes and scratches sustained during his rampage, but it's enough. The blood is loud and clear in my mind—a neon sign blinking in the darkness. Weird.

My inner thoughts drift, contemplating the form he must have taken. His body shape is weird, a patchwork canvas of animal characteristics pulled together without rhyme or reason. All the veins in his body are wrong, too thick, too thin, stretched and squished in weird angles. I really, really don't like it.

As we near the source of destruction, the sensation sharpens, the scent of his blood growing brighter, fizzier—it reminds me so clearly of that unforgettable Ricochet. I wonder how he's doing. Is he in one of those full-body casts? Is he dead? I stop thinking about it. I can almost taste the fizz on the tip of my tongue, the carbonation of his lifeblood mixing with the metal tang of fear and sweat in the air. It’s unsettling, unnatural—the manifestation of a drug doing its damnedest to rewrite the human blueprint.

I swallow down the unease, focusing on the task at hand. "He's close," I murmur, feeling Derek's presence solid and grounding beside me. Despite everything, I'm glad he's here. Maybe he's not a superhero, not really, but today, he's my backup, my unlikely ally in this chaos.

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"I can tell."

With a cautious push, we open the door to the seventh floor, and step into the maelstrom of Chimera's creation. As we emerge, there's an abrupt shift in the wreckage around us. Desks are overturned and shredded; the carpet is soaked in a cocktail of ink, blood, and scattered feathers. And then, amid the remnants of what once was orderly office life, we come face to face with destruction incarnate—Elias.

Elias looms before us, a grotesque tapestry woven from the animal kingdom's most formidable. His arms, thick with muscle, are clad in coarse fur, the stuff of grizzlies—each of his fingers tapering into curved claws that could rend steel as though it were paper. Yellow eyes bulge from his skull, alert and unnerving against his dark skin, the irises an unnatural, glowing ring. The scutes — armor-like and formidable — traverse his chest and back in rigid segments, suggesting the back of an armadillo raised to battle.

From the base of his spine unfurls a monstrous tail, muscular and undulating with scales that catch the faint, fleeing light—straight out of a swamp, clearly stolen from the gators at the zoo. His face… his face is no longer his, but that of a fox, stretched grotesquely over human bone structure, a distortion of nature's intent, the muzzle stitched in place, replacing where his mouth and nose would normally go. And he balances atop solid bear legs, each step a promise of earthshaking consequence.

"Derek?" Elias's voice, warped and fractured by the fox muzzle grafted onto his humanity, comes as a snarl tangled in human syllables. A combination of high pitched squeak and metal sheets being ripped in half.

"Yeah, it's me, man." Derek steps forward, cautious but defiant. "Look at you, going full Doctor Moreau on us."

Elias snorts, a sound like leaves crackling underfoot. "Moreau was an idiot," he says, his words strange and mangled. "And so are you. You only started making that reference after I made you read it."

"You made him read?" I can't help the quip that springs forth, because if we're not laughing in the face of death, then what's even the point?

Elias's lip curls back in a snarl, a glimmer of contempt in his swollen eyes. "You're the superhero they sent? Tiny little twig. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to." He swings one massive arm wide, indicating the havoc around us. "You can't stop progress, you know."

"We're not here to stop progress, Elias," Derek calls back, measured and sure, "We're here to stop you from being the dumbass who tears down a building because his feelings are hurt."

A growl rumbles deep in Elias's throat, but his yellow eyes flicker—not with rage, but with a glimmer of the friend that once was, struggling against the feral influence of the Fly. "My feelings aren't the issue. It's the principle, Derek. They don't care about us. We're just collateral damage to them!"

"So your solution is to become a wrecking ball?" I interject, positioning myself beside Derek. "To what? Scare them into caring? That's not how it works. They'll just write it off."

Elias laughs, though it's a twisted sound that frays into an animalistic hiss. "Maybe not. But they'll listen now, won't they? And if they don't after I destroy their entire office building, they'll listen when I start knocking off CEOs. Let's see if that golden parachute can stop you from getting crushed to death."

"What did I fucking tell you?" Derek says, elbowing me in the side. "Alright, dude, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

We're in a standoff now, but there's an advantage that Derek and I share—we've still got our humanity on our side. Elias…it's hard to say how much of his is left. I tense my hands and squeeze my wrists tight, straining my forearms until I can feel teeth beginning to pop out, surfacing just from underneath my knuckles, through the slots in my gloves. Tiny pointed knuckledusters.

The office becomes a static cage, charged with the potential for violence. Our trio, silhouetted by the gloaming light, is caught in a Mexican standoff, the air thick with taunts and threats — though none of us has drawn a weapon yet.

"It's a good thing you’re so punctual, Elias," I say, mouth quirking at the new villain moniker. "Would've been a real bummer if you'd started this whole shebang after dinner."

Elias' muzzle twitches as he lets out a sharp, grating laugh. "You think this is a joke, lady? Cute, really cute. But this is real. And I won't have you — or Derek — messing this up for me."

I can see Derek's jaw tighten, a snarl forming at the edge of his words. "So, what? You're just gonna off me? Is that it?"

There's a pause, loaded and harrowing as Elias looks at Derek with a sadness that's oddly human for a creature so modified. "I love you, man. You're my best friend. But if you stand in my way, it's not just you and me. It's you versus the bigger picture. And I can't have that." His snout flares, his eyes narrowing to menacing slits as the weight of his ultimatum sinks in.

The growl in his voice is like a threat from the earth itself, a raw and elemental sound. "Sundown is in an hour and a half," he hisses, swiping a clawed hand toward a sliver of a disappearing sun, seen through the tatters of a broken window. "I know you, man. You can't do shit to me right now. You were always the arms, but now I'm the arms. I'm the hammer."

I edge closer to Derek, our backs nearly touching now, a united front against the distorted chimera before us. My own pulse is a hammer in my ears, throbbing in time with the latent power coursing through my veins.

Derek's lips part to retaliate, a retort perched on the edge of his tongue, but there's something in Elias' stance that silences him—a certainty, a resolve that no words will sway.

"And it's not Elias, either. Call me Chimera," he insists.

Derek rolls his eyes. "Man, shut the fuck up."

"No, you shut the fuck up. For once in my life--" he starts.

"Nobody wants your justifications, Chimera!" I cut across any chance of a prolonged discourse. The time for talk has clearly passed; now it’s action that’s needed—decisive and immediate. "Easy way or hard way?"

Elias grins, a horrible mimicry of joy on his fox's muzzle. "You already know."