“Okay Chimera, see you at the Donald’s!”

She waved back at her friends and teammates, turning to stare at the beast her friends fought.

Chimera stood behind a cage in front of a fifteen-meter panda.

It was an impressive specimen, with a few metal parts and mechanics thrown in to give it a cyber bear look.

Besides that, it was normal looking, eating an entire grove of bamboo trees.

The facility that the Hero’s League put the massive thing in was both laboratory and terrarium, and from what Chimera could see, the people investigating the panda were also supers.

One of them in particular was seemingly made of plants, with vines for hair, glowing green eyes with no pupils to be see, and flowery appendages for legs and arms.

She even had two fingers on each hand fashioned from a venus fly trap.

The spines on the trap seemed to move freely, and the hero scientist was testing blood from the dark look of the viscous material in front of her.

Sarah felt a moment of glee and pride as she looked at the place she once dreamed of working in.

This was what she always wanted once upon a time, studying mutants and villainy with her fellow peers.

Helping the heroes figure out the bad guy’s plans.

This place was Sarah’s dream… it’s a shame she never got to become one of those brave people.

Sarah was starting to feel a disconnect within her once she thought back to the information, what she got from the death children laboratory.

It started to feel like she had stolen someone named Sarah and was using their knowledge for herself.

Just like she did with Meghan, and Gideon.

She shook her head.

None of those matters, whether I’m Sarah Bockman or not. I have to stop those assholes from turning people into superpowered slaves.

She walked up to the cage and entered, shifting into her true form to pass through the bars.

With a bounce she launched herself up towards the panda, who was busily munching a stalk.

Once she made contact with the panda, she entered its flesh in an instant.

Okay, time to gather info.

She absorbed the panda’s DNA, cataloguing the features of the rotund beast.

She also noticed the metal parts were injecting copious amounts of something into the beast’s body.

Chimera decided to investigate, swimming towards the location near the beast’s back left leg.

As soon as she did so, she noticed the chemical that was being introduced smack into her.

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Okay, lets see what you do, mecha juice.

She absorbed it.

She cringed.

She felt sick and better all at the same time.

W-What the hell? This stuff is a stim pack of some kind! Why the hell would someone shoot this into a panda?

She turned to stare at the device pumping the stuff.

Sarah was impressed, the device showed no signs of rejection, which was a big problem of introducing this kind of technology to a living organism.

The body would try to fight back, thinking the cybernetic was some kind of foreign body to be destroyed.

Sarah knew a few supers who had to take cocktails of drugs to keep their bodies from rejecting their cybernetic parts.

She looked back at the stim pack.

This must be what’s keeping the beast from rejecting the mechanical parts. It’s a stim pack and a drug dispenser.

Now she knew why the scientists kept the thing alive.

If they could figure out what this cocktail is, they might be able to improve and reduce the need for dangerous drugs for cybernetic rejection.

Say what you will about villains, but most of them were geniuses before they went bad.

Having got what she wanted from the device, Chimera swam to the most important part of her journey.

The creature’s brain.

Settling on the creature’s lobes, Chimera began to read the thoughts and memories of the beast.

She immediately saw her friend’s fight with the beast, looking rather cool as they trounced the bioweapon.

She went further back, back to where all of the important bits began.

Mainly, when the panda was turned into what it now was.

She noticed something though, and as she stopped herself to stare at the image in the beast’s brain. Chimera felt a twinge of worry.

In the beast’s mind, stood a figure that it feared above all else.

A smile that seemed to stretch more than any humans should stared back at her, and a visceral fear took hold of Chimera’s mind.

Bang, Bang, Dead.

…

Disconnecting from the panda’s mind, Chimera took stock of what she witnessed.

All this time, she had thought that it was Dr. Zlo who was in charge of the animal-based crimes, that he was the one to produce them.

This confirmed it, it was Monica Ferrous.

Which meant that these animals were all test subjects made for a purpose.

Did she pawn these off to Zlo for some kind of…

The Data!

The Data that he was holding for Pox, the data the death children were desperate to get based on Gideon’s reaction.

Zlo would obviously milk the villainess for help with his crimes, and that meant that the Data was worth that much more to the death children.

The one about Crimson R… possibly.

This only confirmed her fears, that whatever that Data was, the death children were willing to work with other villains to get it.

Shaking herself, Chimera dived back into the panda’s thoughts, but the fear of that scene seemed to shut the panda’s mind.

Taking a stock of what was happening, she realized the panda was dying!

The scene played over and over in the panda’s mind, causing the panda’s heart to beat faster and faster.

Primal fear took hold of the beast, and after a moment of distress, the heart exploded.

Chimera was stunned.

It made no sense! Why would the image keep repeating, and why did it elicit a response that killed the panda?

A trigger maybe?

Was Monica afraid of the panda giving something away, that she made a trigger in case the panda even thought about her?

Chimera sighed inwardly as she made her way out of the panda’s corpse, careful to move away from the hero scientists.

As she moved into a nearby vent and rolled into it, Chimera took account for the foe she was facing.

The death children of Pox really are monsters, and completely fine with silencing even their own. It’s a wonder Gideon’s heart didn’t give out when I searched his thoughts.

Like Gideon would let her do that to him, I get the feeling he and the others are rather independent as long as their father isn’t leading them.

With a shift to a ball-like form, Chimera rolled through the ventilation tunnels, bouncing and curving around corners to pick up speed.

The sprawling complex of the Hero’s League Headquarters meant that she had plenty of ways to get around.

With so many underground labs for safety, air had to get to them somehow, and that meant that Chimera had a way to go through the place without waiting for elevators and ‘security’ checks.

Likely this place had some kind of motion sensors same as her old lab, but she hadn’t been confronted about it yet.

Must be fine then.

Or they’re searching right now and have no leads.

She laughed as she rolled through the tunnels of vents and fans.

Enough doom and gloom thoughts, lets get some burgers.

…