Collaboration with Glorifiedscapegoat.

Shion basked in the glory of his reclaimed freedom. Lab Coat and Rikiga were the only ones who knew he and the other "Terminated" VCs still lived, so with the doctor under control and Rikiga as his ally, he had nothing to fear from taking a moment to breathe. But he knew that they would need to move soon, and do it quickly. Escaping from their cages was only step one, and Shion had no idea what obstacles lay between them and the true freedom they sought. He glanced between his friends' cells and found that all were awake and staring at either him or the man he had suspended on the ceiling of his former prison.

"Holy shit," Rin whispered, echoing Rikiga's sentiments. They sat up from their bed and looked from Lab Coat wriggling impotently in the air to Shion. "He did it," he said to Hitomi, and then louder and faster to Aki, "Shion actually did it! I mean— I missed the whole thing! You couldn't have waited until I woke up?"

Shion laughed, and suddenly the whole basement was rebounding with laughter, light, euphoric, and a little manic. The relief of success and impending freedom was intoxicating, but it also brought with it fresh anxieties.

"Mr. Rikiga." Hitomi slipped off her cot and came against the glass. "Can you free the rest of us?"

Rikiga chewed his lip, but mumbled something that sounded like an affirmative. He approached her cell and laid a hand on the holographic surface. The door to Hitomi's cage slid down, and Rikiga moved on to Aki's, then Rin's.

Hitomi stepped out of the confines of her cage like a starstruck fawn emerging from the sheltered treeline into an open meadow. She stood outside the glass walls and moved no further, as though paralyzed to take any more initiative. Rin scuttled out like a ferret, furtive and energetic and eager to explore as much as possible. Aki remained as tranquil as ever. He wandered out of his cage and over to Shion as though he was given free range of the basement complex all the time. He stroked his long, wispy beard and studied the pinned Lab Coat, his dark eyes inscrutable.

"He doesn't seem so fearsome when he's stuck up there," Aki murmured, his voice soft and plaintive as an autumn wind.

"No," Shion agreed.

For the first time, the doctor who haunted his dreams seemed like nothing more than a man. He looked exactly how he made Shion and his fellow superhumans feel: small, inconsequential, breakable. Shion hoped that the man was finally realizing his mistake in treating them like lab mice rather than human beings—though he didn't think Lab Coat was at all capable of feeling remorse.

Hitomi and Rin joined Shion and Aki in staring down the nightmare that had kept them locked up and drugged in limbo. This was the moment to find peace, to recognize that the worst monsters were men and that they could be conquered.

"You ready?" Rikiga said a moment later. "I can give the others something to help restore their abilities." The group turned to the man immediately at the mention of their powers. Rikiga shuffled from foot to foot and gestured toward the examination room.

Even behind the closed door, Shion kept his hold on Lab Coat. He couldn't help but feel frightened of letting the man free of his mental grasp, even though he knew he was locked behind unbreakable glass and could no longer harm them. But as Rikiga bustled around the room, grabbing vials from the cabinets and syringes from drawers, Shion shifted the connection to Lab Coat to the back of his mind and tried to focus on a game plan.

"What is that?" Hitomi asked, her voice fluttery. She drew away from Rikiga when he approached with a syringe filled with clear liquid.

"It'll reverse the effects of the dampeners." Rikiga offered her a cautious smile. Hitomi didn't relax her rigid posture or draw nearer at this explanation. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "Look, um, I know you're probably not keen on getting stuck again, and maybe you still don't really trust me, because I've been useless and I've never bothered to help you before. But, uh..." Rikiga cleared his throat and forced himself back on track. "But I'm helping you now. I helped Shion out, and you all, and I want you to succeed, otherwise I'm dead. So, yeah. I promise, after I inject this, you won't need any more. You'll be yourself again."

Hitomi defrosted a little, but before she could decide whether to take the injection, Rin stepped in front of her and held out their arm.

"Sounds good to me," Rin said. "Stick it in."

Rikiga emptied the syringe into the crook of Rin's elbow and grabbed a fresh needle for Aki, who told him he'd rather administer the injection himself. Rin studied the puncture wound with a frown.

"Doesn't feel much different," they muttered.

"It will take some time to combat the dampeners," Rikiga said. He smiled gently at Hitomi when she crept forward for her shot. "I gave you each as much as I could based on your body weights, but it's not going to be an instant thing. Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe."

Rin performed a massive eye roll. "That's forever! How are we supposed to fight back until then?"

Rikiga shrugged and collected all the wrappers and needles to discard in the biohazard bin. Rin clicked their tongue and folded their arms across their chest.

"I wanna burn stuff," Rin muttered, glaring at the chair where they'd all spent too many terrified minutes under Lab Coat's penetrating gaze.

Shion turned to Hitomi. "We have to figure out how to get that mask off…. Mr. Rikiga, do you know the combination?"

"No. Only the boss knows the combo. I kept my eyes well away when he had her in the office. No offense."

"Oh." Hitomi's shoulders dropped. "Oh well, that's alright. We can leave the mask on."

Shion chewed the inside of his cheek. It didn't seem fair that Hitomi had to keep that horrible mask locked onto her head. "I could probably pull it open with telekinesis," he suggested. "Hold still, Hitomi—"

"NO!" Hitomi threw up her hands and stepped back against the wall. The room went still. The mirrored mask flashed as Hitomi glanced between everyone. "No, please," she said, softer. "I don't want the mask off."

"Is it because you're bald?" Rin asked. "Because we promise to say you're beautiful anyway."

A light laugh bubbled out of Hitomi's throat, but it sounded more water than air. "No, it's not about my hair. I can't control my powers like you can. I'm not like you and Shion; I'm like Aki. I can't turn it on and off. If we remove my mask, I could turn innocent people to stone." Hitomi brushed her fingers over Rin's cheek. "The mask has to stay on."

Shion's heart clenched. Of course. He had forgotten the nature of Hitomi's powers. The mask wasn't only a prison or punishment for who she was, it was necessary for her to interact with other human beings without causing them harm. Shion's skin crawled with the unfairness of it. Hitomi would have to wear the shackles of Horizon Laboratories all her life, unless they found another way to let her live.

Rin placed their hand over Hitomi's and scowled into her palm. "Basically you're saying you can never take that thing off. That sucks big time, Tomi."

Hitomi sighed and dropped her hand.

"In that vein," said Aki, "I would also like to remind everyone not to touch me from now on. Once my power is back, the slightest brush of my skin could be fatal." He made this warning with a slight smile, but there were ghosts in his eyes. "I would put gloves on, but I might need to keep my hands out to fight."

Rikiga eyed the old man with more than a little trepidation. He rifled through a drawer and offered Aki a pair of disposable latex gloves, holding them by the very tips of his fingers. "For later. If you want," he grunted. Aki thanked him and pocketed the gloves in his jumpsuit.

"I'll make sure you're both protected," Shion said. "Until all your powers are back, I'll make sure no one touches us."

"You guys want to go up now?" Rikiga's expression flitted through many variations of terrified and uncertain, but occasionally a flicker of hope and queasy excitement slipped in between the fear. "We could wait down here a little longer, if you want, no one's going to come looking for you, but…" His shoulders twitched, and he tapped his pointer finger incessantly against his thigh. "I don't know. I kind of have a bad feeling? Like we should get out as soon as possible? Might just be me, though…."

Poor guy. To Shion and the others, this was an exhilarating, powerful moment. But for Rikiga, every second passing second must feel like a torture of what-ifs. Shion felt some of the same pressures, but he was a fighter—in fact, he wanted someone to discover their breakout so he could retaliate. Rikiga was just a simple man who wanted to do the right thing and return home to a hard drink at the end of the day.

"We'll go now; there's no point in waiting," said Shion, though he looked to his companions for agreement.

"Great. Well, there's a staircase just back here…." Rikiga's voice trailed off as he crossed to the back of the exam room and turned a corner around one of the tall cabinets.

Shion followed and saw that there was a hidden door which led out to a concrete staircase. Shion hadn't realized there were two staircases down to the basement. The times he had been in the room, he had been strapped down, and the vantage point from the chair had not allowed sight past the cabinet. It made sense now how Rikiga had inexplicably come out of the exam room that one night, when no one had heard him come down.

But the discovery made Shion's stomach twist. How many times had Lab Coat crept down this secret second stairway and spied on his captives? He buried the feeling of violation. It didn't matter anymore. The man could never hurt them again.

"The staircase leads to a first floor file room," Rikiga said. "No one's ever in there, so we'll be safe."

Shion drew in a deep breath, his limbs tingling in anticipation. I'm coming, Nezumi. Just a little longer.

Just before Shion mounted the staircase, he released his hold on Lab Coat in the other room. He would need all his faculties to fight the Lab employees and agents who stood in their way as they scoured the floors for other VCs to free and lab data to destroy. A moment after Shion released Lab Coat, he heard the man shout, as though in pain.

Shion's chest warmed at the sound. He hoped it hurt. He hoped the man had broken something on the way down.

Nezumi eyed the amplifier serum suspiciously. It was very tempting to try it out, but now that he was staring down at the pale vial and drug paraphernalia he had doubts about whether he should be experimenting with something he knew so little about. Horizon Laboratories had already done so much to him, inside and out. Did he really want to inject more Lab poison into his body?

Shou stood at his side, staring into the middle distance like the dumb soldier Nezumi had made him.

"This serum," Nezumi said, gesturing, "you said it's completed and safe for injection?"

"Yes. It's safe to use."

"Are there side effects?"

"No, not anymore."

"Anymore, huh?" Nezumi intoned, giving the serum a deadly side eye.

"The compound has been perfected. You won't experience any ill effects if you take it." Shou paused, as if wanting to say more.

"Yes? Anything else I should know about 'the compound?' " Nezumi prompted. He really hated the people who fought his control. Getting information out of them was like pulling teeth; they'd only say the important stuff if you asked them directly so they had to tell you.

"The serum is still in its infant stages," Shou said, "so a dose doesn't last very long. It will last only around five to ten minutes, depending on the subject's metabolism. Once we've done some more testing, though, we hope to extend the life of the serum to upwards of an hour."

"Great, thanks." Horizon Laboratories wouldn't get the fucking chance for "more testing."

Nezumi plucked one of the vials off the table. He could just use the techs he already had under his sway as he made his way through the Lab, but controlling six people while also looking out for threats or fellow VCs to release was a lot of strain on his powers. He couldn't afford another slip-up. This was his last chance. If he used the serum, he might be able to control more people, might be able to reach out farther and eliminate risks before they had a chance to get too close. If it did what Shou said it did and had no adverse effects, it could be the key to breaking the Lab wide open.

The ends justify the means.

Nezumi gripped the vial tight in his fist, pressing the cool glass against the bones in his hand until he felt it would shatter. Then he tore open a syringe packet. The feel of the needle sliding through his skin made Nezumi's heart race. He had never had a fear of needles before, and he wasn't afraid of them now, but he knew that from now on his body would always associate injections and medical exams with danger and frustration, no matter what his mind rationalized.

The serum felt creepily warm as it trickled through Nezumi's veins, like blood that was not his own. Nezumi regretted letting this foreign substance into his body. He wanted it out. He—

Nezumi's breath hitched in his throat. A slow-building buzz spread up his arm, radiating out when it reached his chest. Suddenly everything tingled. Starbursts exploded in his head and the world sharpened. Colors brightened, hitherto unheard sounds whispered to him, the taste of chemicals and fear and freshly spilled blood danced on the tip of tongue. The strain of holding six people under control evaporated. Nezumi Reached out, confused that somehow he had dropped them, but he realized that they were still very much his. Except now he could easily perceive the gaps in his control over them. The places where he failed to completely overtake their minds were glaringly obvious, like a leash that holds well enough to guide, but does not fit tight to the animal it's securing.

Nezumi flexed his powers. His Influence cinched around his victims' minds fully, the action coming as easily to Nezumi as tightening his hand into a fist.

"Shit," Nezumi laughed. His mouth drew up into a massive grin. He wasn't even sure the last time he smiled so big or felt so good.

His mind stretched out, the mental signatures of persons floors below him lighting up like stars in a seething cosmos. He could sense them all, Reach into them all. They had no idea what was about to come down on them. Nezumi's hands tingled in anticipation.

Nezumi released the five lackeys from the holding cell room and marched his army down the stairs, keeping himself shielded in the middle. The first person they met was another useless laboratory technician. The man didn't even seem to realize there was something wrong, but simply stared at the procession in confusion. Nezumi snatched his mind on the way by, pulling him lockstep into the advancing horde.

By the time they finally met an officer, Nezumi had amassed several more mind slaves. The officer froze in the middle of the hallway and stared at the sea of white coats and blank faces.

"What the hell...?"

The lab techs parted to reveal Nezumi nestled at the heart of them, and when the officer's eyes fell on him, swept over his loose, wild hair and green jumpsuit, his face went pale as the white-washed walls. He went for his buzz baton first, and then he decided to try for his radio.

"I don't think so," Nezumi said.

His army surged forward like a silent wave and swallowed the officer whole.

The man sat on the floor of the cell, grinding his teeth against the aches in his body. His back and ribs throbbed from absorbing the impact of being dropped from a height, and his elbow screamed at him. He had hit it on the frame of the cot when he fell, though he didn't think it was broken. His foot, however, might very well be. He heard it crack when it hit the doorframe as VC-402 yanked him into the cell, and when he flexed his toes, he swore the bones grinded against each other in a not natural fashion.

But the man considered himself lucky in spite of all this—he could have cracked his head open on the concrete floor when he fell, and he had not. His brain was his most valuable asset, after all.

The basement was silent, all his carefully kept specimens sprung from their cages and roaming free about the lab like errant mice. The man was displeased. He, of course, expected the VCs to always be plotting and looking for ways to slip the proverbial lead, but never had he considered that Rikiga would betray him. The cleaner was a shell of a man, propelled by self-preservation and alcohol alone. How had he drudged up enough self-respect to think for himself? Disappointing. The man hated when his calculations were off, and it appeared he had fatally misjudged the help.

The timing of the betrayal couldn't have been worse. I was close. So close!

A pang of dread shot through the man's chest, and he shoved his hand into his coat pocket. His elbow complained, but the pain was eclipsed by the relief that flooded the man's body when he found the vial inside perfectly intact.

The vial contained his newest pursuit: a perfected amplifier serum. Today's trial promised to be the best one yet, the results of which would finally bring Horizon Laboratories closer to creating the next generation of humans that he had dreamed about for so long. It was a cruel twist of fate that all his hard work had to end here when he had been on the precipice of the greatest scientific evolution the world had ever seen.

Though, maybe the journey doesn't have to end here.

The man examined the vial, admiring the way the bioluminescent light strips glanced off the glass. He wondered, would the amplifier serum would work on him? He had never given himself the VC injection to awaken his powers. He had hoped to make more headway in discovering the biochemical makeup that predicted what sort of powers the injection would awaken in its host. Once he found out a way to link the cause with the effect, he fully planned to join Project Valiant. As the creator of the new race of humans, he ought to advance with them. But the answers proved elusive and he never made the leap.

But now….

Well, he would lose everything if he didn't try. No one knew he was down here, no one knew this place existed apart from himself, Rikiga, and the escapees. He would die down here if he stayed put and did nothing. But if he used the serum, and it was able to supercharge whatever powers lay within him, well, he might just have a fighting chance. And the data would be even better with himself as the subject, as he knew what he was looking for.

If the serum didn't work on him, that was no real loss. With any luck, he'd just die quicker, skip the whole dehydration and starvation bit which seemed a rather less glorious way to go than stroking out on the serum he had poured his life and soul into.

The man rolled up his sleeve and injected the serum into the crook of his arm. At first, he felt nothing but a shimmering warmth trickling through his veins. But once it hit his shoulder and his heart pumped the serum into his brain, everything burned. The man's muscles clenched. He doubled over and retched, head pounding, eyes streaming, mouth screaming. His skin felt like it was being stretched taut over his bones, and every vein pulsed white hot anguish to his extremities. The man writhed, throwing a hand out for something to hold on to, something to ground him and carry him through the pain until it—he—ended. He latched onto the edge of the cot, and for a moment he had the threadbare sheets balled in a vice grip. But then his hand sank downward, grasping at air. His palm hit the concrete with a wet slap.

The pain rolled down his spine, but slowly, tortuously, it ebbed and dissipated into static tingles down his arms and legs. The man gasped, tasting acid on his tongue. After a moment, the only thing still burning like hot coals were his palms. They felt skinless, scraped raw. The man stared down at the gray concrete floor, trying to focus on his broken spectacles. The shattered lenses were dotted with tears, and something else. Something pale and viscus and half melted.

The man forced his aching body into a kneel and lifted his burning palms. They were smeared with the same pale gunk as his spectacles. On his left hand, tatters of fabric and metal shavings stuck like dust to his fingers; on his right hand, bits of salt and pepper grit. The man turned to the cot. A hand-shaped hole had been burned through the mattress and frame. A similar divot had been eaten into the concrete floor where his other hand had bore down on it.

The man stared at these aberrations with wonder. He reached for his spectacles—hoping to view the holes a bit better through the least broken lens—and the metal frames bent and melted in between his fingers within seconds of meeting his skin.

"It...worked," the man gasped. He rose on shaky feet, his heart pounding so hard his ribs groaned at the violence. "It worked!"

He screamed in triumph. The empty space swallowed his exaltation, but no matter. No walls could contain him, no cell could keep him. He had ascended. He had welcomed the new age into his body and he had not died—he had been reborn.

The man cackled and pressed his acid-dripping palms to the glass holding him in. The pane melted like butter and congealed at his feet.