Derek's dreams were misshapen, fluid, fraught with confusion and pain. They were dark dreamworld paintings of beast men, sprouting fangs and descending upon him to tear his glowing green flesh apart. They were landscapes of his own skin, suddenly rocking and rolling like a dark sea, the smooth ground suddenly erupting with a forest of thick, black fur.

He sank through it, plunging into a pitch black ocean bottom, lightning curling and arcing in the distance, dancing up and down his arms and legs in flickers like the shutter of a thousand camera flashes. He fell through that darkness deeper and deeper until he was falling, falling, falling. Just falling through the air, the ground slowly rising up to meet him. It was the star-speckled grid of New York city, its peaked roofs and spindly towers twisting, too thin and too wide, narrow as sewing needles and as blunt as bricks. The lights glowed green, green, everywhere he looked.

As he pitched headfirst towards the earth, soaring towards oblivion, he saw a figure falling with him. A man with thin, hard features like they'd been carved out of very old wood. His hair, which would have just brushed his jaw, was a silvery-white. He wore a gray suit with a string bowtie that fluttered crazily in the wind like his hair.

"Dad?"

Peter Maza didn't seem to see him. He seemed to look through him, beyond him. It was a sad look. As if he had just witnessed something terrible and tragic. His old eyes fretfully squeezed shut, as though he were trying to banish a terrible dream. He accelerated faster towards the ground, soon leaving him behind.

"Dad!"

The earth seemed to yawn before him, the streets impossibly huge, empty of cars. He curled into himself, bracing for impact, waiting for the end when he would wake up. He heard a sound like a parachute opening, felt an enormous strain in his chest, the wind rushing through his ears. And then? He wasn't falling.

He was flying.

"Heeyyyy."

Derek groaned.

"Wakey-wakey, eggs and bac-y!" A grating voice crooned. "C'mon, get up! It's your first day after the change, they're gonna give you food!"

To say he just felt 'sore' would have been a disservice to just how much movement sucked. He felt like he'd been rolled down a hill in a barrel full of boulders, each heavy stone colliding with every bone in his body. He still felt pain in ways and in places that he couldn't connect to anything that made sense.

"Okay, so it ain't 'eggs and bac-y'. But hey, day old muffins ain't all that bad, considering."

He felt something cool, fluffy, and a little sticky forced into his hand. He slowly peeled his eyes open, everything around him an incomprehensible blur. "Mm I b'ind?" He mumbled.

"Happened to me too." The voice replied. "You'll adjust eventually, man. Then? Damn, you see colors like you've never seen 'em. In the dark, too! Sure, a lot of this sucks, but some of it is kinda neat."

"Whuzziss?"

"Welp. The 'New Normal' is probably the best way I can put it." There was a heavy sound that seemed too sharp, too clear to his ears. It was the sound of a blanket unfolding. He felt a whiff of air ruffle the… hair on his face? Since when did he have a beard? How long had he been out?

An impossibly deep, rumbling voice spoke up. "Do not antagonize him. He has suffered much."

There was silence in the space. A small, girlish voice spoke up. It was muffled, as though on the other side of a wall. "Umm… Leatherhead's right. Please, l-leave him alone."

"You can talk?!" Another voice squeaked incredulously.

Derek raised a hand to his eyes, trying to rub his knuckles into his eyelids. He gasped. Hair? On his hands? He felt cold fear flush the bleary confusion out of his senses, reaching up to feel his face.

"OH MY GOD!" Derek screamed.

"Ah, yep, there it is." His cellmate laughed, a sound of pity as much as it was amusement. "The realization."

He stood up, wobbling crazily. He felt air whoosh, that blanket flapping behind him. His cellmate stood up quickly to grab him. "Easy, easy! Don't smack me with that thing!"

He put a hand on the blanket, and he realized, for the first time, what it actually was.

"W… what?!"

"Yeah, you get used to them. Here, lemme show ya a trick." He felt rough, furry hands grab both edges–the bony joints–of his wings and force them under his chin, linking together above his collarbone. "There. Keeps 'em outta the way when you don't need 'em. It'll be reflex eventually."

Derek swayed on his feet–feet that were the completely wrong shape–eyes suddenly swimming with pinpricks and colors. "Ohh…"

"Hey now, don't pass out again. Ya only got 10 minutes to eat before they take it away from you. So you better chow down on that muffin, because that's all we're gonna get until supper. Oh, by the by, Sevarius dropped off a new scrip for ya. Damn, didn't think he'd give you that much Advil to start."

"A what?" Derek asked.

"Med-i-cine." His cellmate said, enunciating every word clearly. "He wants us to live long enough to see what the ooze does. Probably, because he's a RAT FUCKING BASTARD WHO DESERVES DEATH!" He raised his voice, shouting down the hall.

There was no reply. Not even from the other prisoners.

His cellmate's shape shifted, shoulder-blurs rising and falling in a shrug. "Anyway, you oughta take it. Helps with the swelling. I got it, the other guy got it. It's Advil, he ain't gonna poison you if he wants to kill you. That happens in Exams."

Remember those names, Mr. Maza. They will be on your next Exam.

"Do…" Derek's tongue felt thick and fuzzy. "Do we have water?"

"Yeah, here." He watched the blur with a voice lift another small, whitish blur. He heard the sound of water pouring. It was so crisp, it was like he'd spent his whole life listening to the world on mono and had suddenly been given theater-quality surround sound. The blur found his hands, and forced what felt like a small plastic cup into his hands.

He greedily threw it to his face, trying to drink. He gasped when he realized how painful this was. He coughed and spluttered. "Whuh–?!"

"Oh, yeah. Right. The water thing. Gonna have to teach you how to drink water all over again, ain't I? Gah, that sucks." He felt a hand on the back of his head, tipping down to the glass. "You know how cats drink water, right? Try that."

"You're shitting me." Derek balked, voice as rough as sandpaper.

"You'll get it once your eyesight comes back. For now? Just trust me."

"..."

"You gotta trust somebody in this world, man." His cellmate sighed. "I think you'd have better luck trusting me than Sevarius."

He tucked the pill into his cheek with a clumsy hand, and did as directed. He felt his gut sink as he realized this man was right.

Hours passed. Slowly, his vision got better. And with it, came the slow and dreadful realization that nothing was ever going to be the same ever again. He curled and uncurled his thick, black-furred fingers, watching the claws extend and retract. He curled up into a ball, back against the wall, with his black bat wings wrapped around his knees, tail wrapped around his ankles. At least they were warm.

The cells were arrayed down a single hallway, three on one side, and three on the other. They were each three concrete walls and one plexiglass wall, sealed with a sliding electronic door. He could see out and anyone could see in clearly. There were two steel beds in this cell, padded with thin, simple cushions.

His cell was shared by another winged cat-man, with dark brown fur and round ears on top of his head that twitched whenever he heard a sound. His wings were huge, black, and batlike, their wrists tucked under his chin like the clasp of a cape. Subtle, barely visible rosette patterns speckled his fur, like a leopard. And the man never, ever stopped talking.

"And so then I tell him, 'I? Owe you $200? It was MY car you hit!' "

"Do you have an off switch?" Derek complained.

"If you can find it, my ex would love to know about it!" His cellmate laughed.

There was a heavy thump on the wall, and a deep growl that made the fur on his neck and shoulders stand up. His cellmate's tail fluffed up, ears flattening against his head. The terrifying growl from the cell next door faded to quiet. His cellmate said no more for a while after that, fear buttoning his lip. Leatherhead's patience for his chatter had apparently run out.

As far as Derek could tell, there were six others imprisoned here. Some enormous terrible beast called 'Leatherhead' who neighbored his cellmate's wall. A boy and a girl, who shared the other neighboring cell that he couldn't see. The one across from them, which housed a huge bat with some steel protrusion near his shoulders and a mosquito as big as a cat. Across from Leatherhead, an empty cell that belonged to the winged were-tiger he saw the day before. The one across from the boy and girl was apparently still empty.

As far as he could see, all of them had collars, except for the mosquito-man. The bug mutant was locked into a big, steel dog crate that was bolted to the floor of his cell.

Later, the third winged cat-mutant reappeared. He was being wrestled down the hall, struggling against two more black-clothed ninjas with long poles hooked to the collar on his neck. They steered him into his cell, the pneumatic door quickly wheeshing shut behind him. His black lips curled, soundless, as he hunched in the dark of his cell.

"Oh. Hey, he's back." Derek's cellmate pressed a cheek to the glass, knocking on it. "Hey, Claw! Glad you're still breathing! Everything go okay?"

The tiger-man looked up. He was bleeding from his scalp, blood matting his mane. The bug tried to crane his neck out of the dog crate, looking up. His face looked just a little bit too human, with a human jaw and a mouth, but enormous insect eyes that swelled out of his face like two black water balloons. A long proboscis, growing where a nose ought to have been, curled up under his chin. His compound eyes couldn't really express much, but his mouth curled into a frown. "I smell blood. Is he okay?"

"Looks like he got hit on the head." His cellmate reported. "He's bleeding pretty bad, but he doesn't seem to be out of it. Just pissed. Hey, Claw! Guess what? I finally picked one out!" He grinned with glee. "I'm Fang! That way, we match! Eh? Sound cool? You know, 'Fang and Claw, Winged Cat Freaks From Hell!' "

Claw only looked over through the glass. He made a big show of rolling his eyes and putting his face in his hand. It was then that Derek realized that he was intelligent. The second thing he realized was that this must have been the man Sevarius had mentioned earlier. The one whose voice he had removed.

His blood ran cold.

The bug's frown deepened. "I wish I could help him." He said quietly.

Derek looked over to the bat and the bug. "So… what are your names?" He asked.

"I'm Elder Screwloose." The bug lifted one of his four arms in a wave. His wings shimmered as he moved, thin and translucent like clear mylar. He pointed to the bat-person. "This is my mission companion, Elder Wingnut."

Wingnut, for his part, looked almost as ghastly as his companion. He wore no shirt, only the blue scrub pants that seemed to be the prisoners' uniform. There was no humanity left to his face. A thin, fluttering flap of skin, shaped like a narrow leaf, quivered over his wrinkled nostrils. His long fangs were thin and sharp. His ears were massive, long and pointed, with pink ridged insides. His fur was dense and dark, but his muscular arms and legs were bare of it, with veiny translucent skin. And when he turned, he could see a long line of interlocking metal plates up the base of his spine and back of his head, bridging across to each metal socket embedded into his spine. With a shudder, he realized that there was probably more metal in this bat mutant than bone.

"Just Wingnut." The bat corrected, pointing an accusatory finger at the bug. "I told you, I'm done."

The bug seemed to deflate at this, heaving a heavy sigh. "Alma the Younger strayed too." He grumbled.

Derek gave them a slightly concerned look. Screwloose gave him an apologetic smile this time, shaking his head. "Religious differences. It's okay. When your lives depend on one another, you have to make some compromises. We've both just had a bad week."

"Your lives depend on each other?" Derek asked. "How do you mean?"

"It means," Wingnut answered with a sigh. "That we were…well, designed for each other, I guess you could say. Screwloose has a little hidden talent, and it complements mine. It came with some drawbacks."

Screwloose pointed to his curled proboscis. "My venom can heal wounds. I think the biggest thing I've been able to fix with a bite was a broken bone. It means I have to take some blood, but you'll feel right as rain. For… about sixty seconds, anyway."

Wingnut smirked, pointing a thumb at himself. "When he changed me, he took away my endocrine system. Screwloose gives me my hormones. Everything from insulin to melatonin, he makes it and he sticks me with it. I have a higher tolerance for his venom. It boosts my strength. Anyone else, it'll heal their injuries, give them Hulk Mode for a minute, and then they pass out."

Screwloose shrugged. "And if I try to bite anyone else, it'll make me violently sick. So, well, our lives depend on each other."

"I'd die without him." Wingnut affirmed. "Just like he'd die without me. So, the religion question is one we don't bring up often. We have bigger issues to handle, usually. It's kind of our truce."

In a way, Derek could respect that. Derek gestured at Wingnut's metal implants. "Something tells me that whatever slime Sevarius used on us didn't make those."

"Ooze." Wingnut shrugged. "We call it 'ooze.' And you'd be right. They're cybernetic. He grafted them into my spine. Replaced everything from my skull to my hips with titanium. Some of my ribs and sternum, too."

Derek frowned. "Why?"

"He messed up when he made me." Wingnut shrugged again, those empty metal sockets moving with him. "He expected a bat mutant to have wings. It didn't happen. So, he just…" He sighed, looking down at the floor. "He just made do. 'I'll need to change the formula', he said. 'Find a creature with the correct limb arrangement.' It wasn't too long after me that he made Claw, Fang, and now you. Guess I was still good for something. He didn't kill me like he did the other failures."

"He made you a cyborg?"

"He did." Wingnut nodded. "Last time we escaped, it was because he didn't take my wings. I got lucky, grabbed Screwloose and busted out. Bastard doesn't let me have them anymore unless he 'needs them' for something. Usually, running us through an Exam."

"I'm sorry."

" 'S not all bad." Wingnut tried to smile. The light on his collar blinked. The fur around his neck was dirty and badly groomed."Honestly, flying's great. You end up falling in love with the air, once you feel it. You know?"

"Yeah, I–" He stopped. The words seemed to get stuck in his throat. His face fell as he reorganized the thought before it left his lips. "I was a pilot for the NYPD. I was going to fly private for Xanatos Enterprises."

The boy's voice chirped in the cell next to him. "You sound sad, Mister."

"Yeah." Derek's wings tightened against his knees. "I was really looking forward to it. What are two kids doing in here anyway?"

"We came here by mistake." The girl answered. "We were just trying to find somewhere to spend the night, and we came in here to try and stay warm. It was so cold…"

Derek's heart panged. "You were homeless? Where were your parents?" He asked.

"Not around." The boy answered. "I'm Benny. This is my big sister, Erin."

The girl piped up. "Hi."

"I'd offer to shake your hand, but I think that's not really an option right now." Derek said apologetically.

"That's okay." Benny said, voice muffled by the wall. "You sound like a really nice person. I hope you live. Tasha didn't."

Derek asked without thinking. "Who's Tasha?"

Fang opened his mouth to speak when he heard another growl and a thud on his wall. This time, hard enough that Derek could swear he saw the ceiling tremble. Wingnut and Claw both pinned Fang with a spectacularly vicious glare that cowed him into silence.

Screwloose pursed his lips together. "We… don't talk about Tasha."

Derek nodded, deciding to not press the subject.

He had to wonder, quietly, what would have happened if Elisa had been here too. Hearing poor Benny and Erin murmur to each other on the other side of the wall, he felt his heart break when he remembered. The last time that he and his own sister saw one another, he'd said some truly cruel things to her.

As he scarfed down his stale muffin, he wondered if he'd ever get the chance to tell her that he was sorry.

Across the hall, Screwloose looked up at him. "Are you okay?"

"No." Derek answered. "No, I'm not."

Screwloose tried to give him a comforting smile. His wings fluttered on his back. "You know, my dad always taught me that God will never give you a burden heavier than you can carry."

"God brings the wicked to Hell. And I… am God."

"I… honestly never gave the God question a ton of thought, before now." Derek answered truthfully. "My parents never made religion all that important. Mom took us to a Methodist church for Christmas and Easter, but other than that, nothing."

"I understand." He said. "I guess if I had to take God out of the question then, it'd make that comfort feel pretty pointless."

"I guess it does."

"Then maybe I can phrase it a bit differently." Screwloose offered. "You seem like an incredibly strong person. You just have to keep up hope, and that strength won't fail you. Maybe you believe in yourself, or maybe you don't. But I believe in you."

Derek was surprised by his earnest optimism. Such open, genuine intent. Somehow, he got the feeling that this mosquito-thing had come from a life that, before, had been very sheltered. Free of strife. "You're… a glass half-full kind of guy, aren't you."

Screwloose's smile was bright, even if it looked unnatural. "One of the perks of being me!"

"I envy that." Derek chuckled.

Beside the dog crate, Wingnut smirked darkly to himself, shaking his head. "Me too. He's a damn ball of sunshine. Always has been." He looked across the hall, through the glass that separated them. "I think we got a lot in common, guy. You and me? We're not that different. Are we?"

Derek could see his own face reflected in the glass. It was such a terrifying, foreign shape to him. "No." Derek said quietly. "We're probably not."

"What's your name?" Wingnut asked. "If you want to pick a new one, well, now's a good time. No one here would know."

Derek had a faraway look in his green, slitted eyes. He thought back to a time when he was happy. He was a kid with a kickball in a street. A group of boys, much taller and much older than he was, were facing him. He'd just saved their ball from rolling into a fast moving lane of traffic, and he was giving it back. The day he'd met his first friends.

They asked him what his name was. Delighted, he'd picked the coolest name he'd ever thought possible. A name he ended up writing on the mixtapes he sold in the hall through high school and college.

"Talon. Call me Talon."

"Talon. Call me Talon." The voice was quiet, distorted by static. In his office, Sevarius put a hand on his chin, nodding thoughtfully.

"Hmm… Well, they match." He chuckled. "How serendipitous. What do you think of your new clan, Draxum?" He looked over at a video monitor. "Do you think they'll be an improvement over your other two?"

On the screen, a pair of blue lips curled with a wicked, fanged smile.