Sylvester had won the struggle.

Now that the creature had nothing to leverage with, and he had plenty to spare, he demonstrated his superiority by lifting it several inches above the floor and his own head.

He handled it like a toy and in the same manner tossed it to the other end of the room. It crossed the hallway as if it were flying.

But it didn't make it to where he had thrown it. Gray tentacles emerged from its back, very thin, but they served to break its fall, hitting the floor with them.

The tentacles hadn't even come close to the windows, but it didn't matter.

All the glass exploded as soon as the tentacles hit the ground. The rain of shattered glass headed in his direction. A normal person would have been impaled by the tentacles and died almost instantly. Although it would have been a quick death, it would also have been extremely painful.

To him it was no threat at all. He didn't even need the overclocking.

He fended off the shards of broken glass with his sword. Indeed, his sword, he had picked it up from the ground behind him fast enough to react that way.

All the shards of glass were flawlessly repelled. Not a single one came close to cutting into his skin.

But the monster hadn't stood still. It had run towards him amidst the crystal rain it had created itself, without a second thought. Not that the beast was slow, but he had taken about two seconds to deal with the crystals.

In the third second from the explosion of the crystals, they collided again.

Tentacles versus katana. It wasn't a real competition. It didn't even take a good blow, the blade grazing past was enough to rip off those weak, thin tentacles. Soon the back was empty and Sylvester was still on top of the world. Full of energy, full of power.

The creature emitted grunts of pain and rage as he cut it down, but refused to speak even if it was to insult him. He knew it could speak. It had to be capable of that if it was smart enough to come up with a plan, to take hostages. It just didn't want to talk. Well, he'd make it talk. Everyone changed their minds on the verge of death.

He ran towards the creature, leaped, dodged its furtive paws and the jaw that tried to close over his torso like a castle door in mid-air.

He landed on its head and thrust his sword into its forehead. Straight to the point, but it was okay, something like that wasn't going to kill it. Not too quickly, at least. As proof, the monster screamed.

There was more rage than pain in that voice. It screamed as it twisted and jerked, trying to shake him off. Unsuccessfully, but it couldn't be said that it hadn't given its all.

Unfortunately, intent was of little use to humans and monsters alike. The only thing that mattered was the result. The only thing that had a lasting effect was that.

Sylvester split its skull in two with the katana. Exposing the blindingly white bone, exposing blood and other fluids that escaped through the wound.

The creature jumped backwards. Sylvester didn't react in time and was crushed between the wall and the beast's body as a result. The impact robbed the oxygen from his lungs. The katana slipped through his fingers and he almost lost it.

Only almost. His grip held, but not his superiority over the creature. The katana slipped out of his skull and he fell to the ground.

He spun, his head split in two, brains and blood sliding down his forehead like water from some dark baptism.

He spun and lashed out with his claws.

Crack. The ground where his head had been less than a second ago exploded from the monstrous force of the creature.

He dodged the second blow in the same manner, with identical results.

Before the Remnant could destroy the ground, both falling to the floor below as had happened to him on that island, Sylvester thrust the sword into its belly. He had done enough to its head, he had to go for another weak spot instead of just repeating what hadn't worked.

Stolen story; please report.

"Why take hostages if you have no demands? Was it all just to lure me here?"

The blade sank deeper, but not because of him. The beast moved in of its own volition, as if it didn't feel the bite of steel, and grabbed his shoulders with its claws. Sylvester twisted his face in pain for the first time since the beginning of the short fight.

Well, it might have been short in an objective sense, but anything where your life was on the line took forever.

"Why wouldn't I want to kill you? Your only purpose in life is to slaughter beings like me. Even when some of us don't want to kill, the only alternative, what you call cooperating, is to be locked up in some dark place for the rest of our lives in the name of research. It's kill or be killed. Sooner or later you would have come after me no matter what I did."

As he spoke, he dug its claws deeper and deeper into his shoulders. Sylvester gritted his teeth, enduring the pain, enduring also that incoherent rambling and the saliva that splashed his face as he spat out each word.

"And your way of proving you don't deserve to die or be locked up is to start killing innocents. I get it."

"I just told you, you leave us no choice! You think you're superior to me, don't you?" By now, its claws were scraping against bone. "You think you're superior just because you're lucky enough to live a normal life."

What a bad joke. He didn't even feel like laughing, more like throwing up.

"There's nothing normal about my life, you freak. Otherwise I wouldn't be seeing the likes of you."

He'd had enough in more ways than one.

Sylvester spread his wings again. He could have called on many of his other skills to get out of this situation, but he chose that one out of all of them. He'd like to say there was no particular reason, instinct or anything like that, and it was true.

But only to a certain extent. It wasn't the biggest part of the reason he had decided that, but he felt free.

There was nothing more liberating than flying through the air like a bird. With nothing that could tether him or drag him back to the ground with the others.

That is, nothing except time, the amount of energy it took to use the skill. Well, nothing was perfect.

He flew.

He flew very close to the ground, almost grazing it, but he flew. Dragging the creature with him at high speed. And when he stopped... that monster flew next. Over his body, crashing to the ground and sliding across it like a mop. Well, in the end it did nothing but the opposite of cleaning, spreading its fluids all over the place.

It would take a few hours to sterilize the room after that mess. Fortunately, the operation he was about to perform didn't need to be "clean".

He'd heard enough. Now he was just going to erase it from this world.

What it had said made sense. Whether he was right or wrong, it was reason enough to set this up. Kill or be killed. A ridiculously simple principle, and so it was impossible to argue against. Not that he had any interest in it either. Just...

He took a step forward. Really, he'd heard enough. Time to die.

The tentacles emerged again, to attack. Sylvester struggled against that mass of tentacles and somewhere in that scramble he found himself with three tentacles buried in his chest and an arm in the beast's jaw.

"Goodbye."

Which was exactly where he wanted.

Darkness expanded and spread through the monster's innards. After reaching the peak, it exploded violently. It wasn't the only thing that exploded, of course. Nothing recognizable was left behind.

Its remains reminded him of those of that victim, as yet unnamed.

Nothing but a huge, anonymous bloodstain. Oh no, wait. He had to correct himself. Of course the tentacles had remained more or less intact and buried in his body. He grabbed them and ripped them off unceremoniously, without the slightest care. Blood was gushing out but hey, who cares, he had plenty to spare.

Anything that didn't kill him was no big deal. Maybe he had more in common with the Lunar Remnants than the average human being, but he knew very well whose side he was on.

This was Agent Sylvester's power, the weapon of humanity.

He realized he had forgotten something, so he raised a hand to his ear.

"I took care of a Lunar Remnant. But one of the hostages said they saw two." Communicating directly with Cynthia. Ryan also had an earpiece, but hey, habit. Besides Cynthia was his only true partner. Ryan was just a prisoner.

"Understood. We haven't seen anything so far. I mean, scared people, blood and guts. But we haven't seen or heard that thing."

"All right."

Sylvester kept moving through the tower. Beyond the broken glass, beyond the bloody remains of the creature, across the hallway, was a kitchen. As if he had been waiting for his appearance at that very moment a shivering man emerged from the refrigerator, his eyelids frozen shut and his eyes half closed, a man who was twitching and writhing as if he were on fire, actually fire and ice weren't so different.

He ran toward him and Sylvester grabbed him to keep him from falling.

There was something wrong. Very wrong. His instinct, which had never failed him in his entire life, urged him to leap backwards and that was the only thing that kept him from being impaled by bones like spikes protruding from what was no man at all, but in reality a worn corpse, a wrapper for a trap.

As if it were a pupa...

A creature like the one he had just killed emerged from the man's corpse.

Sylvester took a step back, the kitchen was a pretty tight space to fight in, but he could manage, it was more of an obstacle for the creature than for him. The real problem was what was in front of him.

The second creature, or something more sinister?

Namely, what if it really was a pupa, what if it had been born right now, right in front of his eyes?

Then, quite possibly...

The trap wasn't the corpse, but the whole tower.

And the hostages were not hostages but replacements.