The sound of crackling fires accompanied by Eleven's sobbing confirms that I'm not dead. Everything hurts. I can't see anything, I can't feel my eyes. I tried shielding Eleven with my body before the blast, but she sounds so far away from me. Each ragged breath forces more toxic air into my lungs. Every part of my body burns, my suit must be gone, the sensation of acid-soaked needles stabbing into me, melting my skin. The smell of chemicals, acrid smoke, burning garbage, and cooked flesh is overwhelming. I feel my stomach churning as bile builds up and irritates the burns inside my throat. Moving any limb hurts, but I'll choke if I don't roll over. It takes a herculean effort to flop over onto my chest, vomiting out a puddle of stomach juices. I don't have any more strength to shift my face out of the pooling liquid that is agitating the open wounds. It's all too much; my senses are overstimulated. Even knowing I will eventually regenerate from this doesn't ease my suffering. I did this. I fucked up.

I hear a door opening followed by movement in the air. It must be the door to the basement, like an airlock on a space station opening up; all the toxic chemicals and smoke start getting shunted up and out of the room. My tongue is covered in bubbling growths, and my mouth is completely dried out; my lips are cracking, splitting, and bleeding. What the hell was stored down here? Some awful concoction of combustible chemicals and propane gases. She led us down here, trapped us in here, and then tried to kill herself with us. It doesn't make sense. I hear rushed footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Hello. Is anyone down here? I'm coming."

I know that voice. It belongs to the kid. Hearing he's alive is a relief. We saved someone. Eleven's painful murmuring should tell him we're not dead, but I haven't heard a peep from Forty-four, and my throat's too messed up to speak. I can't believe he came back. I hear him approaching, flipping me onto my side even as I attempt to tell him I'll be fine and to look after the others. His hand touches my forehead, sending excruciating waves of agony through me.

Leave me! I'll heal eventually. You have to check on the others. I want to scream, but I can't. The only sounds I can muster are gurgling croaks. He grabs my wrist, holding it gently. It's useless to protest; I can only hope he finishes checking on me swiftly to move on to the other two. His hand is still around my wrist after a few minutes, which is odd. He should've found my pulse already. That instinctual feeling that something is wrong is back. His other hand starts rummaging through my clothes, clearly looking for something. What does he want? The only thing I have on me is my communicator. My gut's screaming at me, and then it goes still suddenly. My mind is blank as I struggle to make sense of what's just happened to me. He drops my wrist onto the floor, getting up and walking away. Instead of feeling relief at him finally moving on to the other two, I'm filled with dread. He took it; he removed my abilities. I'm dead. He as good as killed me.

(NOBODY POV)

The basement must be in shambles. The rush of smoke and chemicals that pours out of it makes me wonder whether my plan accidentally killed everyone. The whole house shook from the explosion, but it's still standing. Don't let all of this be for nothing. I rush down the stairs and see burning boxes coated in greenish flames. There must have been old insecticides down here. The generator is half melted, half exploded, and the area around it is on fire. The mixture of normal orange and yellow fire amongst the green is a pleasant one.

"Hello. Is anyone down here? I'm coming," I called out.

I hear a sobbing sound as I step off the staircase. It's Eleven, and she's in rough shape. Not yet. Where are you, Nine? My power is telling me that Emma is alive and on the other side of the room. Which means the crispy, deep-fried body lying face down in a small puddle of puke is Nine. Her hyperweave is fused with her back, but bits of bubbly blackened skin are visible. The entire back of her head is hairless, and only a few bloody, singed clumps remain on the top of her skull. Crouching down, I remove the yellow rubber gloves I stole from the cabin. I flip her onto her side so that she is facing me. Face the facts, Nine, you look like shit. My helmet doesn't project the half-chuckle I let out at my shitty joke. Her eyes are gone, and the front of her face has dissolved into a disgusting mess. She looks like melted plastic with the bile glistening between the wrinkles on her face, caused by the skin contracting due to heat.

I put my hand against her head, and she makes some choking, dry, blubbering noise. Good thing she's alive, or else I might react badly to the situation. I pick up her wrist in my hand and start taking her power. Her regeneration doesn't seem to work like Isaiah's did; it's a slower process. Or is it because there is so much to repair? I rifle through her suit, looking for whatever item she can use to contact Technologica and hoping it didn't get destroyed in the explosion. She has to have some way to do it that doesn't rely on cell phones. I find a small metal rectangle and pocket it. She's messed up enough that she can't do anything as I steal both her property and her ability. It's done. I feel the power nestled inside of me next to all the other abilities I've collected. Bruiser/Mentalist with bodily regeneration, above peak human in all physicals, and enhanced senses. She can hear heartbeats, see in the dark, etc. Not bad. I'd give it to Vivienne if Emma didn't need it to survive. Now, for the personality piece. Damn, I'm giving up a good one. An adaptable mindset could help balance out the more problematic behaviors I've picked up.

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Without the regeneration, Nine is a goner, but I'm not leaving a potential enemy alive. Twisting my ring, my helmet displays the pressurized spray symbol. I shove her onto her back, and blow, sending a stream of bleach and ammonia onto her face and into her open throat. The liquid blasts a piece of her charred lip off, and the rest flows down her esophagus. She'll drown in agony, unable to move a muscle. Goodbye, Nine. Nothing personal, but you represent a portion of Technologica's influence regardless of how minuscule that may be.

Time to take the other power I came down for. The sound of Eleven crying makes her easy to locate. She looks bad. Burns cover the majority of her legs, roasted black with the musculature below visible through cracks in the skin. The rest of her is in only slightly better shape; Nine must've tried to protect her with her own body. The flames may have left the rest of her body alone, but the chemicals didn't. I thought Vixen looked rough after what I did to her. Eleven looks worse. Her skin is covered in chemical burns, giving her skin a blistering red. She looks like a boiled hot dog, and she even has pieces of her arms that split open from the heat. I don't want to touch her, but it's necessary for the transfer. Her face is puffy and swollen, probably from some allergy to the cleaners; her eyes are milky white and bleeding from her tear ducts. I don't know how she's sobbing without her lips moving, but she is.

Her burned flesh is like dried bark to my touch, and carefully I start stealing her power. I've wanted this since I first saw it in action. The five minutes go by faster than usual to me, but my hand is starting to tingle from the air down here. Got it. Ruler ability to create up to sixteen summons, each themed after a different chess piece. Each type has a different ability/specialization and runs on a unique cooldown. Pawns can be triggered to explode. Rooks are capable of moving near instantaneously in any cardinal direction. Bishops can fire laser beams that can bounce off surfaces at ninety-degree angles. Knights can briefly turn intangible as well as swap themselves with another summon. The Queen has omnidirectional spatial movement and single-target telekinesis. The King can paralyze one target, but it also freezes it. Very useful power; I'll be keeping this one in-house. A positive personality piece as well: gratitude. And I know exactly who to give it to.

Eleven's injuries are too severe for the elderly woman to survive much longer. But there's one more woman down here, and she's a lot more important than the two numbers. Emma is on the opposite side of the basement, and I walk around the fires still burning and puddles of mixed chemical byproducts. I almost step on Forty-four's head; he's on the ground, covered in trash. His suit is in tatters, the right side of his face is roasted, and he's missing his right arm from the elbow down. The faint movement of his chest is the only indicator that the child-man is alive. I leave him be and approach the metal storage locker that I emptied out earlier. It's on its side; the explosion clearly knocked it over.

Three knocks spaced a second apart, that's the code Emma and I decided on. My knuckles rap against the metal, waiting to hear her response. Three knocks come back from inside, so I rip the doors open, finding a little worse-for-wear Emma. She's covered in burns, but not the type everyone else got, and noticeably no chemical burns. The flame got its licks in on her, but she used the turtleneck as a substitute facemask to help with the smoke and toxic air inhalation. Her eyes are half closed in a glare as she frees her mouth from the turtleneck.

"Took you long enough," Emma said, grinning.

"Sorry. Remember the plan," I said, taking her hand and shoving a folded-up piece of paper in it.

She puts the paper in her pocket, and I place the back of my hand against her forehead. Starting the transfer, I begin removing her original power and give her Null and Nine's powers. There's no telling if there are some underlying health problems caused by being down here with all the toxicity. She also needs the regeneration for the last portion of the plan. Her eyes fully open as the two powers are sent over. We never talked about Null's power, but it'll be a good fit for what I want from her. I shut the doors on her again, with my love emotion back inside me. I won't be seeing her for another week at least.

Now that the powers have swapped hands and Emma is back in her hiding place, I can put this whole place behind me. The last command she sent to the shadowspawn before I took it from her was for them to scatter in random directions, only moving at night, and to attack anyone they ran into. My hands are getting itchy, so I'd like to get out of here before I end up with permanent scarring. First up is Eleven, and I place her arm around my neck to make it easier to lift her. She wails at my touch, but I drag her over to Forty-four. His childlike body is actually an advantage in this situation, and I put his torso under my arm, holding him tightly. With my extra baggage, I make for the stairs before the fire spreads there.

Each step is a pain, made worse by the hysterical woman shifting constantly. Fucking stupid old bitch. I shift Eleven, hitting her head off the wall. It takes a few strikes before she stops, but she does eventually stop, and I get the three of us to the kitchen. I kick open the back door, marching out into the cold. The storm seems to be finally dying down. The furious flurry is more of a slow few flakes falling. I dump my passengers onto the snow, taking my windbreaker off, and I wrap it around Forty-four. Going back into the house, I open up two of the bottom cabinets in the kitchen, which are where we hid two tanks of gasoline. Twisting off the lids, I pour a bunch of it all over the kitchen, and then throw them down into the basement. The fire will spread until the house is consumed completely, burying Emma and destroying Nine's body. Emma will use her new power to free herself in about a day. By that point, we should all be gone.

Pulling out the item I stole from Nine, I take a good look at it. It's old technology, a single button on the side of it, and a circular one just below the screen. I tap the side button, turning the light green glass display on. Blocky white letters spell out the word contact with a question mark. Tapping the circle button once makes the word blink, and tapping it again makes the word disappear. Replaced by a dot within a circle, the whatever this item is starts making a pinging noise. Forty-four's chest is still rising, but Eleven has gone silent. With that done, I sit down on the snow, falling onto my back. I shift my helmet into its mask form, breathing in the cold, fresh air. The white snowflakes slowly drift down as the fire begins spreading throughout the house. This adventure has been so fucking tiring, and the crackling of the flames combined with the structure collapsing has me drifting. I'd say this was a pretty successful mission.

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