Olivia’s face was a bruised and bloody mess. If not for her hair, Eik wasn’t sure he’d have been able to recognize her. He couldn’t draw breath. Everything stood still. Why? Why did she look like that? Why?

Eik just stared, blood draining from his face as his brain tried to comprehend the scene before him. Slowly, subconsciously, blue bubbled up on his skin and rose into the air like a cat bristling its fur.

Rock Fist Bart’s fists were still dripping with blood. An ember of anger in Eik’s stomach instantly grew into an inferno of rage.

“What?” Bart sneered. “What’s the matter? Did your big mouth suddenly shrink up? Speak!” he roared.

“Bart… Bart, what are you doing?” Eik asked, horror and fury somehow stripping all emotion from his voice. What in the world was going on?

“What am I doing? No, what are you doing? You think I can’t see your true intentions under all that bravado?” the large man spat.

“O-Olivia?” Eik asked, confusion rife and not comprehending Bart’s words. He stepped forward. “Olivia, answer m—”

“Not a step closer!” Bart screamed, slamming his fist into Olivia's stomach, her unconscious body lurching in response. “I’ll kill her!”

“Eik.” For the first time he noticed that Sonja, Heath, Michael, and Michael’s mother were in the kitchen. They held weapons and had clearly been there since before Eik arrived. In the corner a man was slumped against the cupboard.

“Guys?”

“Eik, he’s serious,” Sonja said with a nod toward the back of the house.

Eik craned his neck and saw a corpse collapsed against the wall. It was Olivia’s mother. Tears blurred his vision. He couldn’t see her face but her body was broken, blood pooling thickly on the floor.

“Are Atla and Mikla still at the alliance?” Eik asked, his voice returning to that strange calm.

“Yeah,” Michael said. With the extra protection granted by Mission Central through Travis, they now only made the occasional visit, prioritizing their actual duties back home. That had clearly been a mistake.

“Weren’t we supposed to have two guards?” he asked, eyeing the man sitting against the cupboard with his head hanging limply.

“Bart killed the other,” Sonja said gravely. “He came in suddenly and overwhelmed us… I’m sorry. I don’t think anybody knows this is even happening.”

“Shut up!” Bart yelled, sweat visible on his forehead. “Don’t speak unless I tell you to!”

At a glance he hadn’t noticed, but now Eik saw that Bart’s face looked pallid and sickly. For a moment he didn’t understand why but then he remembered the mist of Profound Toxin Bart had inhaled.

“You’ve been encroaching for long enough!” The deranged C-ranker said.

“Does your father even know you’re here?” Eik asked, his eyes constantly returning the broken body of the woman who had treated him like a son, even if he had had difficulty reciprocating.

Profound Toxin sat in the back of his head, shrieking soundlessly for him to thunder forward. His words were steady, but inside he was a storm.

“I already told you, I’m not my father!” — Bart’s face was turning red and he looked ready to pop — “I don’t need his permission for anything!”

“Why are you doing this?”

Bart’s eyes seemed ready to pop out of their sockets as he goggled. “Why…? Are you stupid? You’re trying to take everything from me! You have been undermining my authority since the day we met!”

“Bart, do you really think this is going to solve anyth—”

“If you, your fucking friends, and this bitch dies, then I’ll be on top again! And I’ll take over your potions as well!” he said, spittle flying everywhere. What the hell was going on here? There was something completely wrong with him right now. It didn’t make any sense that the toxic mist had such a strange effect, especially not in such a small quantity.

Eik took a couple of steps closer, hands raised placatingly, his eyes glued to Olivia. How bad were her injuries? She was so battered that he couldn’t tell. “Bart, please…”

“I said don’t come any closer!” the man screamed, raising his fist to batter Olivia more.

Activating Movement Boost, Eik blurred forward, leading with the tip of Viper Fang but Bart side stepped the attack and redirected his own fist into Eik’s back instead. The floorboards broke under the force of his body and the momentum sent him bouncing off into the wall. He coughed and heaved but Bart was already coming again.

Three quick punches threw him across the room. He watched Bart shuffle up, eyes crazed. He stuffed three clumps of poison into his mouth and washed it down with a Potion of Mighty Strength. “I’ve been waiting for this,” the man growled and prepared a fist to crush Eik’s leg.

Heath’s shield bashed the C-ranker in his exposed ribs, followed by a heavy blade which tinked harmlessly off Bart’s gauntlet.

“Heathy, no,” Eik gasped and shot up to push Heath out of the way but wasn’t fast enough. A thick shield of solid toxin shot out from his body and took most of the impact but it still sent Heath reeling back, the barrier of Single Protection breaking.

Viper Fang drew a deep gash in Bart’s arm, Profound Toxin diving into the wound like a burrowing snake. For a moment he gawked at the sudden increase in his opponent’s power but it only seemed to anger him more. At this point he’d started frothing, which was both alarming and mystifying. What the hell was wrong with him?

The large man swung wildly, destroying the interior of Eik’s house in the process. Even then, he was still a C-ranker and Eik couldn’t avoid everything. In fact, more than half connected to some degree. The potion and the poison allowed him to survive the onslaught, but it wouldn’t be long until both began to wane.

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“You vermin!” Bart bleated. For a few more seconds he kept going but then a smirk flashed over his features. Eik leapt back to avoid another attack but Bart pivoted instead and leapt for Olivia once more.

“No!” Eik screamed but even with the buffs, Bart was much faster an got in a series of punches, slamming the slim woman through the table she was lying on. She spat up blood, staining the gauntlets when Eik slid a disc of solid toxin in to block the barrage.

“You’re fighting me!”

Bart giggled, his mind seemingly growing more lunatic by the second. “You? You can’t fight me! She could, but she never will.”

Wings of blue roiled into the air and crashed down over Bart. Like a rock into water, a gauntleted fist ripped through and knocked him into the floor. The shield of poison wasn’t fast enough to block it in time.

Eik tasted blood and a sickening noise told him something wasn’t right with his ribs. More blood came up to soak into the floorboards. Fragments of his wooden plaque plopped out of his shirt after it. He looked up again just in time to see a gauntlet crush Olivia’s nose.

A pulse ran through his body. Like one enormous heartbeat rocking his entire body at once. It caught him so completely off guard that he stumbled back onto his ass.

Rage made him dizzy. Tears welled up in his eyes and he watched another fist buried in her gut. Olivia was being murdered. Three steps away she was being murdered and there was nothing Eik could do but watch. Bart wanted him to watch.

Running for help would only make Bart kill her quicker. Eik had to do something but what could even be done. He was helpless.

Another pulse. It almost felt like Accelerant. It shredded through his system like a flood through a sink pipe. It didn’t quite hurt, but it felt like his veins would burst at the pressure.

But none of that really mattered in the moment. All he could see was Olivia’s bruised body.

Heath came back loyally, Captain’s Tower raised high. He stepped in front of Eik protectively but Bart instantly slapped the shield aside, the tank’s body hauled along by the straps. Michael tried to catch him and immediately cast Heal. Sonja was nowhere to be seen and Eik could only guess that she had run for help.

“Stay out of my way,” Bart snorted, drool running down his chin, his words slightly slurred. “I want him to see what I’m going to do.”

Eik saw red. His heart was racing away, threatening to jump out of his chest. A third pulse and then a fourth immediately after. They came in rapid succession now, the booms reverberating throughout his body.

Starting from the tips of his fingers, his skin began to glow a bright, luminescent blue. It traveled up his arms and in under his clothes. It burned. It burned with the intensity of live flames. He groaned in pain.

Bart paused his rain of punches and stared open-mouthed with some manner of macabre fascination. The expression on his face said he wasn’t all there anymore.

With the pain came a strength unlike anything he’d ever felt. Even the hair that fell in bloody locks over his face shone gently. The pain never stopped but the power just rushed in.

As the chaos within his body continued to mount, Eik lost control of the passive aura that kept status messages from being displayed automatically. According to Atla it would persist even through unconsciousness but something was throwing it off now.

The wooden plaque was destroyed so when the message came, it etched itself into his arm instead.

[Spontaneous skill evolution — (Unique) Profound Toxin]

[Evolved skill (Unique) Profound Toxin. Skill acquired trait Backflow]

Through the pain and rage he could barely read it. But something was happening and he wouldn’t waste the chance. It was one of the traits he had passed on in favor of Accelerant. The trait must have been allowing him to circulate and be affected by his own toxin.

Eik triggered Movement Boost and leapt. Before he had finished the thought, he collided with Bart, carrying the man bodily through the floorboards and into the earth below. A gauntlet came up but a solid sheet of toxin bashed his attack away and Eik delivered five solid punches to Bart’s gut eliciting moans of pain.

A boot kicked him back through the house but he flipped in the air and launched himself at the fighter again like a jet as something in his calf tore under the stress. Profound Toxin was pumping through his veins for the first time, Noxious Invigoration pushing his body beyond safe limits.

Finally, Eik understood, at least somewhat, what he had been subjecting his victims to. What a horrid way to go — the feeling of one’s body burning and decaying from the inside out.

As his skin began to flake and fall off in patches Eik realized that this wasn’t going to be sustainable. It had to be finished quickly and decisively. Bart was simply too dangerous.

Eik’s insane speed brought him to Bart as if by teleportation, and a single slash of Viper Fang severed the man’s bicep like a loaf of bread. Unable to control the power, Eik rocketed past and only barely managed to catch himself on the kitchen counter, the force crushing the wood before he blurred again.

Hatred and fear took his mind and Eik drove Viper Fang into the deranged man’s lower back deep enough for the tip to peek out through the stomach. Profound Toxin gushed out and quickly filled Bart’s abdominal cavity.

With a bestial howl Bart fell to his knees, ignoring his stomach and arm but clutching his head in clear agony. Eik triggered Accelerant even as toxin kept flowing. The shock wave forced the knife out and Bart tumbled to the ground.

His face was pale, bordering on green and he heaved once. Eik buried Viper Fang in his heart. A soft gasp was all the large man gave as his mouth bobbed oddly. Something was moving in his throat.

A shrill shriek jolted Eik back as a long, wiggling, worm-like organism slid out onto the floor. From its maw flowed a substance like black tar. It looked completely alien with soft, reddish skin undulating as it struggled. Eight pairs of legs suddenly sprouted along its body on which it skittered toward the door.

“Kill it!” Eik shouted just as Heath’s heavy blade bisected it. It screeched again before lying still.

The teammates stared at each other for a long moment, unable to form words as the blue glow faded from Eik’s skin along with the pain. Most of his skin was covered in what looked like burns and he felt weakened to the point of collapse.

Then Heath was there to support him while Michael fed him some medicine, including Eik’s own pain killers, and started with his Heal.

Eik looked down at Bart. The crazed look had left the man’s eyes and he just looked weary as his eyelids fluttered. With Viper Fang still in his chest, he was breathing his last.

“What the fuck was that thing?” Heath muttered, craning his neck to look at the disgusting thing.

“I… have no idea,” Eik breathed. “How long has it been inside him and what has it been doing to him?”

“That was n-not fuckin’ n-normal,” Michael stammered. Even though he wore the helmet that helped him focus, with his fingers trembling as they were there wasn’t much focus to improve in the first place.

Exhausted, Eik gently shook off Michael’s rejuvenating hands. “Mikey, please take care of Olivia first. I just… I just need to— to rest for a little bit.”

Heath carried him to his bed and laid him down carefully. “I got it! I got the venom,” he said, a sense of relief washing through him, even with the horror of what had just happened still all too clear in his mind. “I got it and I can save her.”

“Yeah, dude. You’re pretty awesome,” Heath grinned.

“You know, I promised Torbjørn I would protect her,” he said and snorted a laugh. “As if I could fucking protect an unstoppable ogress like her. But here I am. She’s gonna be alright now.” Eyelids suddenly very heavy, Eik found it exceedingly difficult to keep his eyes open. The edges of his vision began to darken. “But what about S-Sarah? What about her mom…?”

A rustle by the door pulled Heath’s attention away and within a second, Jake’s grimy face came into view above Eik. “Eik, stay awake! Hey!” he said firmly. “It’s bad over here too!” he shouted to someone Eik couldn’t see.

But he couldn’t stay awake. Eik was too sleepy. It would seriously just be a little bit and then he’d definitely be all good again.

The Unified Mass would learn not to fuck with Earth.