"Enough bickering, you incompetent wretches!" Hollered the shadowy crime boss, Lord Skull. His face remained obscured by a bone mask with dark smoke pluming from the sockets. Even the Toxic sisters cowered weakly under the palpable rage.

Skull gestured and ghostly appendages coalesced from darkness behind him, poised like serpents ready to strike deadlier than any of Poison Dart's tools. "I've been more than patient while you imbeciles fail repeatedly. But no more!"

One murky tentacle lashed out, backhanding Tess brutally across the room into steel barrels before she could scream. Toxica and Dart wisely kept still and silent.

Seething darkness shrouding him, Lord Skull paced menacingly. "Your last chance has nearly expired. I expect a fresh Loki-7 supply in my hands before dawn. Otherwise, my pets will feast on your souls!" His threat hung heavy.

Toxica and Dart both fervently promised this deadline would be met, grovelling and making hasty excuses. With a final warning glare, Skull stormed through a dark portal which vanished behind him. Only once their dangerous boss was gone did the Toxic gang release their held breaths.

"That maniac will slaughter us all if we fail him again," Tess said shakily, cradling her injured side as she rose unsteadily again. The pressure was overwhelming.

Toxica hastily got back to mixing vials and reagents, though her hands shook. "We have just enough concentrated Sapphire Dust left to formulate one final batch of Loki-7," she told the others urgently. "It should suffice to pacify Skull until we can retrieve Cain and force more out of the coward."

Her sister was mentally psyching herself up. "Right. Our lives depend on this, so no errors allowed!" Tess took over combining the unstable compounds carefully.

Hidden nearby, The Blur soaked up everything. So Lord Skull himself had been behind coercing Cain and hijacking the teen's powers for some ominous agenda. They were speaking of brewing more of the dangerous mutation drug from Cain's charged Sapphire Dust. The Blur knew he had to stop the brewing and also get evidence of Skull's operation through Cobalt's helmet footage.

From the cramped pipeline, Cobalt was growing restless eavesdropping on the villains' schemes. "Come on, we know enough. I say we jump out and ambush these punks now!" he hissed impatiently.

The Blur silently signalled his ally to keep waiting and watching. Tipping their hand too early could ruin their advantage. They still didn't know the full scope of what Lord Skull was having manufactured down here.

After what felt like ages of tensely observing the Toxics resume their procedures, The Blur noticed Dart receive a discreet call that made her face tighten with unease. Hanging up, she whispered urgently to the others. The Blur strained to listen in.

"Trouble. Skull's inspections of our inventory just found multiple high-value Coco relics missing," Dart updated nervously. "The auction cargo never made it back to storage after the raid."

Toxica froze mid-titration, almost spilling her vial. "Does he suspect us of betrayal?" she asked shakily. All knew Skull's wrathful punishment for perceived disloyalty.

"Maybe, but we have to stay focused on meeting this deadline first and foremost," Tess decided, keeping her jittery hands steady on the critical formulation. One fatal slip could doom them under Skull's threat.

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From his hidden vantage, The Blur felt rising concern. Lord Skull was already wise to stolen treasures tracing back to himself and Cobalt. They had to move swiftly once acquiring enough evidence of the full operation. The Blur gestured for Cobalt to be ready.

However, his ally was done waiting. "I'm getting bored just spectating," Cobalt growled. "Time for an intermission!" Ignoring the Blur's frantic warnings, he leapt out firing scalding energy blasts from his powered lance at the Toxic gang's equipment stations.

Boom! Boom!

"Surprise, scumbags! Cobalt is crashing this party," he shouted cockily amidst their shrieks, destroying vials and flasks rapidly to their outrage. His ambush succeeded in sparking complete chaos.

Cursing under his breath, The Blur had no choice but to accelerate forth from hiding and join the fray. "Destroy their drug supply but keep them alive!" he shouted urgently. But Cobalt was too amped wrecking anything within reach. Soon, a deafening alarm klaxon blared signalling intruder breach. The warehouse erupted into mayhem.

Inside the expansive underground lair, chaos continued erupting as Cobalt gleefully wrecked the Toxic gang's operations. The Blur tried urgently reining in the destruction, seeing the villains' rage mount dangerously.

"Cobalt, enough already! We need to grab evidence and go," The Blur insisted. But his reckless ally only ramped up the bedlam, clearly revelling in the chance to cut loose.

Suddenly a reinforced door on the far wall burst open and a squad of brawny men rushed out. "You two are done!" the lead enforcer yelled.

At first, The Blur assumed these were more Coco-powered bodyguards. But as the dozen thugs moved closer, an unsettling revelation dawned. The men's forearms bulged with thick ropes of pulsating sapphire veins. Their eyes shone with the same azure glow amid contorted facial features. All were undergoing the grotesque physical mutations induced by consuming concentrated Loki-7 pills. Now a rabid pack of artificially enhanced living weapons.

"Let's crush these whelps, boys!" the lead monster hollered while charging alongside the others.

“Huh!” Cobalt balked realizing these drug-maddened men had been gifted the strength of ten. The underground lair was soon shaking violently from the intense brawl breaking out.

"Keep them contained!" The Blur shouted, trying to lock the fiendish brutes down with his dread webs to minimal effect. Their Loki-laced muscle tore through any restraints.

Meanwhile, Cobalt desperately moulded shields and spiked mallets from insects he had stashed on him to fend off the vicious gang. He was nearly crushed by a slammed fist that obliterated his fluctuating beetle armour easily. The odds were worsening.

From the perimeter, the Toxic sisters observed the futile struggle with smug delight. "Adorable, like watching insects in a jar!" cackled Toxica. She casually inhaled more emerald vapours from an eldritch vial, magnifying her deadly smog powers that kept the heroes at bay.

"Almost got it, freak...just need to crush you first!" Cobalt was bashing aside two assailants while narrowly ducking a third's haymaker. The fight was slowly sapping his stamina.

The Blur struggled evading attacks that pulverized the very ground, intent to overpower him through brute force alone.

After five more minutes of intense skirmishing and several near crippling hits, the tide turned when The Blur managed to web up three thugs tightly against a cracked pillar. "Cobalt, light them up!" he yelled.

“Don’t tell me twice!” Acting swiftly, Cobalt aimed his lance and fired a sustained beam that lit the restrained men up with sizzling voltage. Their smoking bodies slumped still.

"Hell yeah! Who's next to fry?" Cobalt challenged the remaining mutate adversaries. But the electrocutions had clearly unnerved them. The pack began retreating warily from the space between Cobalt's reloaded lance and The Blur's sparking dreadlocks.

"Cowards! Get back here!" the lead thug demanded, yet his followers' will to fight this powered duo further had diminished significantly. They turned and stampeded back through the interior door in a rush.

"Haha, too easy!" Cobalt boasted, though he leaned against his lance panting heavily. The vicious melee had exhausted them both.

Across the lair, the Toxic gang exchanged concerned looks realizing this pair could not be easily contained.

"It's my turn to put you freaks down now," The Blur announced, shooting twin conductivity arcs towards the Coco drug station that left the villains scrambling for cover.