It was a long six days to reach the surface. I had consumed every ounce of biomatter in the cave systems during my ascent. Though there hadn't been much, it was just enough to give me the strength I needed to build a form that could punch up and through the salt flats. Hundreds and hundreds of feet of arduous digging through corrosive sands. From there, I stayed hidden. I didn't want to be visible on satellite imagery, alerting Seraph to my survival. Using camouflage just in case, I would be no more than a white blotch among a backdrop of the same.

I did permit myself to raise my head up, however, as I came to the surface. Shaking off nasty salt, I was a wormlike form and had to create new eyes just to take in the sights. There, I saw something beautiful.

The salt flats had flooded in the time it took me to recover from the blast. All the water that had previously flowed through Alejandro's jungle waterfall had not ceased at its source. So, it found itself meeting an infinite flat plane. It settled out, creating a shallow and still lake as a result. One that was utterly quiet and picturesque.

The enormous sky was reflected in its surface. Grand cumulonimbus clouds drifted lazily above. Altogether, it created a sight that I was the first person to appreciate. If I was, in fact, a person. No mountain or edge in view, like other flats on the Earth. Only two unending skies to look at, reminding me what it was all about.

I would live to see many more vistas. Some, perhaps, even greater. That was the dream.

After that, I kept my head below water, swimming merrily along towards the south. Hours would pass that way, as it usually went. Bored but satisfied in my direction. No more bombs came in the meantime, so I carried on.

The effort it took me to traverse the many miles was a blur and, before I knew it, I had caught sight of a black line across the horizon. Not green yet, unfortunately, but a change in scenery nonetheless. There, the transmutational effect gave way to simple old-fashioned firebombing.

When at last I traversed the ashen wasteland and came up on its own border, two days of swimming and crawling through salt and charred mud had passed. Under the sudden canopy of the green and lush forest beyond, I scraped the dirt off my smooth skin and moved to rest beneath a great old tree.

Behind me, I could still see the black wasteland. But up ahead, the vegetation quickly grew too thick to penetrate. With my own body systems recovering, I set about sending off small parasitic flies. Nothing that could be detected, just subtle enough to go out and infect those small animals that could be brought back and added to my mass. Regaining mass was my first priority.

The world was solitary as I waited. Due to the blast, very few large animals had remained close to this area. They had all been scared off. Therefore, I had to take my time in hunting. Yet, little by little, I accumulated what I needed. As my weight became equal to that of five individual adults, I ordered my Power to construct exactly that. I gave the souls trapped inside me the bodies they craved, with just one leftover for myself.

The process of recovery was complete, and I vowed never to be wiped back to nothingness again. I was sure, with stealth and cunning, it could be done.

I did not bother to stylize the forms I constructed. My new friends would have to make concessions if they wanted to work with me, and chief among them was a detachment from the anthropocentric dogma. They would not get to be human. They would be superior.

Each of us ended up as an eight-legged insectoid, akin to a spider. That was what I deemed fit. I did lack confidence in altering anyone's brain, however, so those organs were left identical to how I found them. Perfect carbon copies, while the rest was merely infused with the genes I believed to be relevant to their Powers. 

In the last step, I sent a jolt of life through their systems and watched as their first breaths flowed into new flesh. And, of course, I kept my own cells living inside them. Just in case I had to retake control. They were not to be trusted, anyway. Failsafes were necessarily put in place.

The first person I brought back was Daniel. I believed that he would have the calmest reaction, and I had found myself to be right. His endocrinology stayed surprisingly stable as he announced. "This is, uh... new."

The older man and woman were likewise calm if a little angry and confused. The younger girl posed the most problem. Her screams went out over the jungle and the ruins. 

"What did you do to me!?" she demanded. "Why would you change our bodies?!"

I raised two forelegs in a shrug. "I told you that you'd have to work. I wasn't just saving you all out of the kindness of my heart. I need to see if your Powers can be harnessed willingly to my needs..."

"This is the bargain we struck," Daniel told her, trying his best to be mature and consoling by placing an awkward limb on her back. I recalled that he was no more than three or four years older.

The middle-aged woman addressed me, then. "If you are to be our new King, then we need to be properly introduced." She seemed quite the stickler for manners. And so she continued, "I am Paradise. I served as a comforter to the Great King Alejandro."

"As in you were his...?" I started to ask.

"I am an Empath Type," she explained. "I can influence emotions and, for the King, I helped to cause rest and relaxation. I eased his heavy head. I should say, there were... younger women for what you imagine."

I laughed. "Okeydokey then. You're like King Smiler in China. Got it. So what about the rest of you? Title and Power. Let's hear them!"

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Daniel was quick to go first, still proud of his newly granted abilities. He was practically beaming. "I did not get to receive a title, as I hadn't yet finished my trials... But! What I can do, is I can create blasts of explosive green energy. I can absorb energy, too. I was going to be a Crystal smuggler, before... But I knew I was destined for the Tower Guard position."

An offensive ability, I noted. That could be useful. Not that I couldn't bio-engineer just about any volatile chemicals imaginable. Rather, his blasts would be metabolically free and of a higher and more consistent quality. The best I could do would be half what a strong Blaster Type might yield. So this was good. "Carry on," I motioned.

The old man simply pointed back at the forest. "A monkey is going to call out," he said. And predictably, it did. "That is my Power. It is detail-oriented foresight, focusing on things that specifically stand out or break a regular pattern. Most often that's threats. Beyond that, it's not important what I did for the dead King... Only that my name was Foci."

So we had Paradise, Daniel, and Foci. But there was one more who still refused to speak. She trembled where she stood, looking frantically from one alien detail of her anatomy to another. "You'll have to get used to it eventually," I told her. "Your friends have certainly adapted quickly." It helped that I was pumping all of them with carefully designed cocktails to ease the transition and stimulate different brain regions.

"I don't seem to have a gag reflex," the old man chimed in. "That's the only reason I'm fairing so well." Apparently, he was repulsed. I made a note of that sensitivity to disgust and moved on.

Once a teenage girl, now a monster spoke with the same soft voice. "I don't think I can live like this..." Her struggle was real, placing enormous stress on her physiology. "Why would you force me to look this way, Creep?"

I sighed. Reluctantly, I made a concession, ordering the cells to quickly reform. "It's not like we absolutely have to start at the extreme end of things, but the goal is not negotiable. People need to learn to despise their limitations more than anything..." I watched as all four of them took on a more human appearance. Their limbs retracted up into their bodies, which in turn moved fluidly into a new shape. Once rehardened, the body remained insectoid, but resembling basic human structure. I left their faces still intact to give some small comfort of the familiar. "We're going to keep it fair. Hopefully, this will calm you down a little. But it's only temporary."

Slowly but surely, the girl's breathing began to relax. She remained deeply uncomfortable, but at least she was no longer in full panic attack. "I just... can't take it. Thank you." At last, her voice eeked out an answer to my questions as I stared expectantly. "M-my name was Number Twelve. But my title was Cyber... I'm a Technicist."

I found that curious. "What kind of a name is Number Twelve?"

Seeing that she was already emotionally exhausted with one question, Daniel provided her answer. "The Conquistador was her father, though they never really get to know him. His Sires, I mean. He tried a lot of times to create an heir with his Power, to continue the dynasty or whatever. But she must have taken after her mother."

Interesting, I thought. He hadn't been successful, I assumed. Unlike Buckstop and his son, Turvy, Alejandro's abilities were far rarer. Naturally, they were unlikely to reproduce.

"So, that makes four. And two of you can fly, to boot. How wonderful. The million-dollar question is, do your Powers still work in this form?"

Daniel blithely raised a hand at the forest and released an enormous burst of green light. Two trees had their trunks completely disintegrated before the bolt ran out of steam.

I was more than pleased to see this. "Dreams really do come true," I said.

While I was unable to forcibly activate their Powers, they would cooperate willingly with me as long as I had them in my debt. It was their natural state. These were people used to a degree of enslavement, after all. Who was I to play savior? 

"We'll need to get more people on board if we want to beat Seraph," I told them. "A lot more. But in the meantime, we head South. Unless there are any objections?" The illusion of choice was comforting, I knew. Hopefully, they didn't call my bluff.

"Isn't that where all the big monsters are?" Cyber asked.

I couldn't hold back my laughter. Then, trying to be more humble, I cleared my throat and shook my head. "I handled the Conquistador's Kizmet in under ten minutes. We should be alright."

"There are worse things in South America than Kizmet," Foci warned. Suddenly, his eyes turned to the Horizon, transfixed by something that had not yet appeared.

My interest peaked as I swiveled around and readied for whatever it might be.

The sound of beating wings was the first thing to reach me, giving an immediate sense of amusement. This was followed shortly by a black spot moving rapidly through the air. The answer was obvious.

I stamped my eight legs in excitement. "Oh boy, Mary survived. Isn't that nice, children?"

"Possibly." Paradise was hesitant.

"Of course it is," Daniel scolded. "She's great."

Ignoring that little comment, I stood up straight and waited for the enormous crow to land. The moment it was finished transforming back into a regular woman clad in black and red, she congratulated me. "You bastard... You really just had to go and survive, too? After all that you've ruined?"

"Glad you made it," I chittered happily. "Sorry about your boss."

"I recognize these faces," she said, looking at my comrades and trying to keep herself composed.

There was a mixture of shame and indifference among them. Being seen this way was not such a pleasant thing; not least of all by an old superior. It made them self-conscious of their loss. 

My cells were already probing and setting in place for a kill. If Mary was going to be trouble, I would take care of it swiftly. "What brings you out here?" I asked.

She grimaced, thinking long about her answer. "You won the duel, that much is true. Even leaving out the bullshit about a right of conquest, many of us have nowhere to go now. Some will try running to Nemesis, but they are not likely to get far. Soon, the jungle will be crawling with kill squads. Even still, some of us are yet loyal to the Cause."

"Cause?" I prompted.

"Alejandro was not just some drug peddler like you thought. He was a good man, and you have done nothing but help Seraph in killing him, you Puto," she said. "We were amassing an army for a singular purpose: To retake Latin America from the menace of Imperialist scum. That is the Cause you have fought against."

Her grandiose statement warranted nothing more than an eye-roll from me. Still, I could work with this. "Sure," I nodded. "You make a good point, so why not?" I was reminded of my briefly lived domain in the jungle valley. How I had let all the little animals run free. Perhaps, I thought, humans could be the same. "When I kill Seraph..." Yes, this was forming a wonderful idea. "...Then you can have whatever land you want. I don't care! Let's achieve this big special Cause while we're at it." Once my major threat was resolved, the rest of humanity would be liberated. Not merely from unnecessary subjugation, but from their mortal limitations as well. All would be under my benevolent watch... "And so it's settled! Lead the way to your camp."

With a malevolent glint in her eye, Mary agreed.

We started off towards what might very well have been a trap. We would simply have to see. Either way, I was prepared and cautious.