Gunfire tore through the room.
Loud. Relentless. Disorienting.
The first shots weren't even aimed properly—panic had already taken over. Trained men reduced to instinct, fingers tightening on triggers as fear swallowed discipline whole.
"Hold your fire—!"
Too late.
Bullets ricocheted off reinforced walls, sparks bursting into the air. One struck the ground near a group of Shifted, sending them scattering in pure instinct.
Screams followed.
Not from pain—
From realization.
The slime user didn't flinch.
If anything, he smiled.
"Yeah…" he muttered, watching the chaos unfold. "…that's more like it."
He lifted his hand again—
And more of that thick, elastic substance shot forward, snapping across the room. It latched onto another guard, yanking him off his feet and slamming him hard against a metal console.
The machine shattered.
Lights flickered instantly.
"Contain them!" someone shouted.
"No—fall back! FALL BACK!"
Commands clashed.
No one listened.
At the center of it all—
Fire met force again.
Terry drove forward, his hardened arms absorbing another burst of heat as the fire user lashed out violently. Flames surged higher now, no longer controlled—spreading, licking at the edges of the room, feeding on everything.
A strike landed.
Hard.
Terry staggered slightly, his armored skin cracking under the pressure—
Then rebuilding.
Slow.
Grinding.
But holding.
The fire user saw it.
And his grin twisted.
"You just don't break, do you?!"
He surged forward again—
Faster.
More aggressive.
Less control.
Their next collision sent a shockwave across the room.
A table flipped.
Glass shattered.
Someone screamed as debris scattered.
And that's when it spread.
A woman near the far wall clutched her head suddenly.
"Make it stop—!"
The air around her distorted.
Objects lifted.
Chairs.
Metal trays.
Fragments of broken equipment.
They hovered for a split second—
Then shot outward violently.
"GET DOWN!"
Too late.
A guard was thrown back as debris slammed into him, knocking him off his feet.
Another hit the wall hard, his weapon clattering across the floor.
"Everyone calm down!" a voice yelled.
But calm didn't exist anymore.
A man near the back stumbled as his arms began to stretch unnaturally, extending beyond their normal length as he panicked.
"I—I can't control it—!"
His hand lashed out unintentionally—
Wrapping around a support beam—
Crushing it.
The structure groaned.
"Structural integrity dropping," a system voice echoed overhead.
Cold.
Unfeeling.
"Containment breach risk increasing."
"No kidding!" someone shouted back.
The head of security struggled to his feet, ears ringing, vision blurred.
This wasn't control.
This wasn't protocol.
This was a disaster.
My daughter…
The thought hit him again.
Stronger this time.
Louder than the chaos.
He forced himself up.
Forced his hands to steady.
Forced himself to aim.
"Stand down!" he shouted, voice cracking but loud. "ALL OF YOU—STAND DOWN!"
No one listened.
Because now—
They were all changing.
The fire user roared as his flames surged outward, spilling across the floor in a wave of heat.
Terry braced himself—
Then charged through it.
Straight into him.
Their bodies collided again, this time sending both crashing into a reinforced pillar.
The impact cracked it.
Deep.
Visible fractures spreading across the surface.
"…You're gonna bring this place down," Terry muttered, voice low, controlled.
The fire user laughed.
"Then let it fall!"
Across the room—
The slime user spread his arms wide now.
Multiple strands shot out—
Grabbing.
Pulling.
Binding.
He dragged two guards together, slamming them into each other before tossing them aside like they weighed nothing.
"Stop resisting!" he called out casually. "We're leaving anyway."
A shot rang out—
Close.
Accurate.
The slime user jerked slightly.
Looked down.
Blood.
Not much.
But enough.
His expression changed.
Not pain.
Not fear.
Just irritation.
"…You shouldn't have done that."
The substance around him thickened.
Darkened.
Expanded.
And then—
It burst outward.
The entire front line of security was hit at once.
Pinned.
Thrown.
Disarmed.
"Fall back! FALL BACK!" someone screamed.
Too late.
The telekinetic woman lost control again.
Everything around her lifted violently—
Then slammed down.
Hard.
The floor cracked.
Systems sparked.
The lights flickered harder—
Then some went out completely.
Darkness crept in.
Broken only by fire.
And chaos.
Terry felt it.
The shift.
Not in the room—
In the situation.
This wasn't a fight anymore.
It was collapse.
Another impact.
Another crack.
The pillar behind them gave way slightly.
Dust fell from above.
"Warning," the system voice returned.
"Facility stability compromised."
That did it.
Panic fully set in.
Some ran.
Some fought.
Some froze.
And the worst part?
No one was in control anymore.
Not DARC.
Not the guards.
Not even the Shifted.
This—
Was something else.
Terry grabbed the fire user mid-charge—
Driving him backward—
Slamming him into the fractured pillar.
Hard.
For a moment—
Everything paused.
Then—
The pillar broke.
A deep, violent crack split through the structure.
Chunks of reinforced material fell—
Crashing down around them.
The ceiling trembled.
"…You feel that?" the fire user said, breathing hard.
Terry didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
They both knew.
This place wasn't holding.
Not for much longer.
Across the room—
Someone screamed:
"THE WALL—!"
A section of reinforced containment cracked open under pressure—
Just enough to show darkness beyond.
A way out.
And suddenly—
Everyone saw it.
Hope.
Escape.
Freedom.
Or something worse.
The slime user smiled slowly.
"…Well," he said.
"That solves that."
Gunfire had stopped.
Not because it was over—
But because it didn't matter anymore.
The system voice echoed one final time:
"Full containment failure imminent."
Terry looked around.
At the chaos.
At the destruction.
At the people losing themselves.
Then toward the breach.
And for the first time since all this started—
He made a choice.