Swimming in the thoughts of her foe, Chimera absorbed the bio-material she could from the body.

She noticed the rather invasive thing lodged into her foes brain almost immediately.

It was a mechanical part that looked like some kind of injector.

The fluid that came out was immediately absorbed by the brain, disappearing into the wrinkles of the brain matter in seconds.

Chimera absorbed a bit of it, and suddenly felt an urge to murder in her own mind.

Nope! Shutting that thought down right the hell now!

She purged the fluid from her body, which was absorbed into the brain around her.

Okay, this can’t be good for the poor bastard, so I’ll do you a favor ol' Gideon old pal.

She crushed and then absorbed the pieces into her space with her computers and stuff.

After disposing the chemical inducer, Chimera floated around inside the bastard’s head some more, checking out his surface thoughts.

The place she was in now was what was known as the limbic system in doctor talk, or the place in the brain that controlled emotional responses.

Seeing as the device was here, it must have been doing something to the murderer’s feelings.

He did seem a bit stabby happy when we fought.

Sarah couldn’t claim to be a brain scientist, despite having literal access to one now, but comparing it to her friend Meghan’s mind made it clear that this part of the boy’s body was underdeveloped.

Chimera had an evil thought at that.

Well, I am a hero now, so I should help this bastard in need, yes?

Copying the brain data around her, she placed a tendril against the pituitary gland and the amygdala.

Hope you like the changes, asshole.

…

Gideon awoke in a medical ward.

He knew it was a medical ward because he was strapped to a bed and had his left arm filled with tubes.

He felt sore, and in pain, and a bit empty, which made no sense to him.

What was worse though was the thoughts of what put him here.

“That damn… monster!”

He felt a wince and a snarl come from him as his face protested any movement of any kind.

Gideon thankfully shifted back into a human, but his face must still look like a mess from the quills.

He felt stiches and twine holding his smile together.

“It could be worse, I guess.”

Wait… what?

Gideon was feeling a bit different, and he knew it despite his injuries, that some things didn’t make sense.

His father, Dr. Pox, engineered him and his siblings to feel nothing in regards to emotions or distractions, to only give them what they needed to pass for humans.

His sister Crysa was the objection to this, being the only one who resisted this conditioning.

It was necessary, at least that was what their father told them.

‘If you start to feel for these lesser creatures, you will have given into their disease of normalcy.’

He knew that, his mind told him as much, that father was correct.

Yet…

Gideon felt strange, he felt things about himself that he didn’t like.

Why am I alone in this bed?

Where’s father… big sister Monica?

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I hate this.

These thoughts, they came from him, but they felt wrong.

“I shouldn’t even care what those two are doing. I never cared before…”

Until I was near death.

Until I almost died to a disease father helped make.

Was this what it felt like for all those people…

He shook his head.

“No! Stop it. What is this?!”

But they wouldn’t stop, especially when he thought about the faces of the people he had ended.

The women at the café.

The man going home from work.

That little girl who asked for his help.

Bodies upon bodies he had laid low for his father and his siblings, because he believed it to be right to do so.

Innocent lives that had done him no wrong, forced into experiments that he helped run.

Why did he do those things?

“This… this is…”

He knew what it was.

Because he saw his sister Crysa go through it too.

When the conditioning no longer worked, when the thoughts of all the crime and murder they committed came rolling back in a wave.

She has asked their father why he did these things, these terrible crimes and horrid experiments.

And he beat her within an inch of her life, and called her a failure.

Crysa no longer spoke to father, and Gideon felt that she might have been the reason father was in jail right now.

No proof though, Crysa was too good with computers for that.

I wonder how she is…

He felt tears run down his face.

I miss her, I hate this, why did father make me this way?

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

He felt his body try to change, only for it to stop.

“None of that, I just wanted to let you know that I kept my end of the bargain. Goodbye Gideon.”

His enemy turned to walk away, the tendril she had in his wrist no longer connected.

“W-What did you do? Why do I…”

Chimera turned to face him, and what greeted him was a look of pity.

“Your dad placed a device to inhibit emotions. Apparently it constantly fed you with adrenaline and endorphins whenever you killed someone. It also inhibited your other feelings from surfacing. Don’t worry, I fixed it.”

She smiled, but the smile almost seemed devilish, “now you get to feel about all the things you did, you’re welcome.”

“Take it back!”

She shook her head, “no, you get to live with it. What you’re feeling right now? It’s your real self-coming out, the one your father suppressed with his medicine and science. He’s a right evil bastard I’ll give him that.

Have fun living with yourself.”

Gideon tried to shift, but couldn’t. He tried to reach out to her, but the bed held him down. He tried to plead with her to take his emotions, but she shook her head and left.

His feelings came back, the regrets, the guilt, the pain he inflicted in the eyes of his victims.

This was hell, and he couldn’t escape it.

…

Chimera walked out of the room with a smirk on her face.

Part of me hates what that’s doing to him, but those people he hurt deserve some retribution too, also I got the information I wanted.

Her smile turned into a full evil grin.

Much, much more than I figured.

Even an unconscious person’s mind was open to her like a book, and it came with the caveat of not having to deal with their emotions.

Or at least not this murderer.

She honestly did not want to feel those sick thoughts of his again, and with him being asleep, she could shut them out rather easily.

It was worth it though.

She now had the data regarding Monica’s operation in Chemtech, which proved to be a front for the death children’s experiments.

She also had the ideal whereabouts of one of the death children that resisted the conditioning Gideon and his sick relatives shared.

Chimera had a lot of information to give to the Hero's League… but should she?

Sarah thought about the implications.

If the Hero’s League finds out about Monica and her experiments, how long will it take for them to connect the dots about me?

What will I do once they have that knowledge?

Is there a scenario where I can come out of this without being labeled a bioweapon and experimented on or terminated?

She ran the calculations in her head, and the numbers were looking grim.

I am not really Sarah Bockman anymore… am I?

Her body was Crimson R, her mind was an imprint from the original Sarah, the one who died to gunfire.

Her memories may be Sarah, but was she?

That was the argument that would inevitably ensue, and if it was proven that she wasn’t, then it was likely that any sort of protection she could expect from the Hero’s League would be null.

That file I have, it proves that I’m a Class Z event waiting to happen… what if I lose control?

This experiment was made by supervillains, there was no way they didn’t have some kind of failsafe for their subject leaving.

Whether it was termination or control, Sarah was vulnerable, that gas in the warehouse below the Zoo proved as much.

I don’t have enough information; I don’t even have people to count on besides Aden and Meghan.

But I can’t just hide and wait for Monica and the death children to continue their experiments. If mind control or forced evolution is their endgame, then everyone’s in danger.

She continued to ruminate, her fellow teammates walking besides her as they discussed their mission.

Apparently, Dr. Zlo left to screw with them after his conversation with Gideon, and it was only through a stroke of luck that they managed to shut down the generator powering the place up.

That would explain why it got so dark after I entered Gideon.

Glow was especially happy, as she got to banter with the villain and distract him enough for Bullet and Chase to wreck the generator.

Apparently there was also a mutant panda involved.

“Thankfully Chase got the thing wrapped in tarp before we used the tranquilizer darts that Gideon gave us. Still… can’t believe he was one of Dr. Pox’s death children.”

Glow was grim faced as she spoke, her normally cheery smile stained with worry and betrayal.

“He trained me, and us. I’m so dumb, I can’t believe I never noticed it before.”

Bullet shook his head, “there was something off about him. I never got the feeling he was a betrayer, but his smile… it always unsettled me.”

Chase looked between them all and tried to cheer them up, “guys, we got the bad guy and secured the lab. We completed the mission! Stop being so mopey and let’s celebrate!”

Glow shook herself, her smile returning, “you're right Chase, we completed our mission. Let’s head to the Donald’s for some burgers. I’m buying!”

The rest of the team shouted agreement, and Chimera couldn’t help but smile.

Maybe I do have some people to count on after all.

But first.

“Hey guys, where’s that mutant panda you captured?”