In the midst of  the cloud of fog obscuring the stairwell, the sound of heavy stomping can be heard to resonate throughout the metal. 

Hydraulics lowers himself to a ready position just before the stair’s top, his geared arms ready for grappling. A POV from behind his goggles shows us that he cannot see through the fog, yet is still searching vainly through it.

As Zain’s footfalls come louder and nearer to them, the rest of the team, farther from the fog as they may be, still shuffle on the spot.

“There!” Hydraulics yells as one of Zain’s encrusted hands reach out of the smoke towards him.

As he reaches the top, Zain grunts and summons Colossus as he finds his path blocked by Hydraulics. From past the one opening in his armor, a small slit just beneath his nose, Zain’s nostrils can be seen to flare.

Colossus’s arms interlock with the mechanical claws built onto Hydraulics’ steel-wreathed forearms, producing a forceful clap.

“Wait, what…?” Hydraulics utters as he sees his arms pushing against nothing, a powerful pressure squeezing on his arms as they near Zain’s body.

Cloud calls over, all joviality having left her voice: “You’ve got the spirit by the arms! Hold him like that!”

Zain steps forward, walking through Colossus’ form as it continues to hold Hydraulics’ guard open.

As he’s raising his own arms towards Hydraulics’ torso, their faces but inches from each others’, two shots of a silenced pistol p-tang against the side of Zain’s armored head. Though he doesn’t look over to see it, they’ve both been fired by  Ronnie, who lowers her long-barreled pistol in astonishment as the bullets ricochet harmlessly.

Zain grapples Hydraulics’ body directly, with one arm on his shoulder and another on his side, and panic can be heard in Hydraulics’ voice as he yells “Goddammit, would you just sleep-gas him already!?”

Zain’s eyes can be seen to widen under his helmet, and for a moment a quiet cracking noise can be heard to come from it.

Colossus de-manifests as a small silver canister slides by Zain’s feet, and Hydraulics’ arms close towards him, guillotine-like.

Colossus’ leg alone then re-manifests by one of Zain’s, stomping at the ground hard enough to crack the floor’s tile. Zain falls backwards, the force of the kick bringing Hydraulics with him.

Colossus’ arms can be seen to overlap with Zain’s as, mid-fall, he hefts Hydraulics up, and positions a foot right at his abs.

With Colossus now strengthening his leg, Zain hits the ground hard. Using Hydraulics’ elevated position and the residual momentum of the fall Zain delivers a kick-shove into his abs, sending him over and behind him, down into the stairwell.

A brief yell followed by a painful cacophony of clashing metal can be heard from within the slowly-parting smoke, Hydraulics apparently having landed by the time Zain has gotten back to his feet.

As the canister opens, beginning to release a nigh-invisible vapour from its top, Zain initiates a charge towards Cloud.

Back within the sewer, Jordan can be seen still sat, wincing at what he’d just done to his leg. 

NARRATOR: This is Jordan.

As if it were spreading relish over a hot dog, Scorched ‘El, floating above him, pours very minute amounts of the corrosive Scorcho sauce over his other leg at different parts. 

NARRATOR: He’s a fan of Weezer, and very outspoken regarding his musical taste besides.

His breathing becoming ragged again, Jordan shifts his leg around so that the substance can be applied to its every side. 

NARRATOR: All too often, when faced with uncomfortable circumstances, Jordan will revert to humour and irony. A natural, yet complex defense mechanism, oft used to make situations seem less dire. Jordan most prolifically uses it to avoid having to face strong emotions and intimacy.

As it finally begins to eat past the jumpsuit and into his flesh, liquefying it, Jordan screams again. His cries resonate throughout the sewer tunnel, assumedly reaching even the opening where he’d fallen in from.

NARRATOR: Now, in the face of his own mortality, there is nothing to say.

Goggles and his entourage far above, peering down into the grate-hole, can be seen setting up a pulley-and-grapple mechanism, rigging it firmly to the still-intact sections of the floor.

NARRATOR: This is reflected by the spirit behind him, Scorched ‘El, itself a reflection of his very soul. It represents his fear of the roiling emotion trapped just beneath his skin, and so sports a hard-yet-brittle carapace of taco shell.

We see Scorched ‘El’s back as it leans over Jordan, focus being put on the yellow, crusty material that covers much of its body like armor-plating.

NARRATOR: It represents his tendency to degrade all true expression and meaning with his irony, making it into something that could never hurt him. So, it fires a substance that consumes and reduces all it touches to nothing, often not even vapours being left behind. 

Through Jordan’s pain, Scorched ‘El continues to apply the sauce like a salve over the dry bits of the leg.

NARRATOR: It embodies his tendency to run from all that makes him scared, all that he cannot degrade. As such, it can skate on the corrosive sauce that is his irony, gliding with the grace and speed of a professional.

Jordan’s screams resonate throughout the entire tunnel, making their way to Goggles and his team. Some of the guards look at the hole, and some at each other, while the rest ready their harnesses, seemingly readying themselves to rappel down to Jordan’s level.

NARRATOR: He screams not for the pain, but for his realizing the greatest irony of all:

Jordan clenches his teeth as once again the liquefying jumpsuit enters his wounds.

NARRATOR: He had sworn to leave this place together with Zain, his friend, yet now seeks egress to save his own life.

Jordan drags himself aside to rest his back on the pipe’s sloping wall, his legs still shaking and his face straining. He buries his head into the filthy wall, allowing more tears to waterfall down his agony-marbled face.

Meanwhile, outside the facility, amidst a flurry of white near a mountain’s peak, two small, red lights can be seen floating about each other. From afar, they are like two fireflies in a mating dance, but coming closer they are seen to be two glowing marshalling wands.

They are in the hands of a man dressed like a guard, and who is standing in the center of a large, flat cliff-plateau.

The man starts backing up, looking upwards as a conglomerate of chopping sounds come nearer and nearer.

Their quickly-whipping blades separating the dense veil of snowfall before them, three helicopters come into view.

As the first among them land on the plateau, a massive line of orange light manifests behind the guard with a deafening, metallic groan. A moment later, frost is rushing into a newly opened and huge hangar garage-door, with warm light flooding out in turn.

Through this opening, we see the same hangar as the janitor had been in before.

A guard can be seen to step out from the helicopter’s cockpit, stepping toward the one holding the wands. The janitor can be seen to follow, shivering in his thin work uniform. “‘Was told we have a situation?” the newly-arrived guard can be heard to utter.

“A double-breach, and one of them may be making their way right here” the other says, jabbing a finger at the ground they stand on.

He puts away the wands as the two other helicopters land a ways away. Then, out of a fold in his riot gear, he pulls a sheaf of papers.

This here is a summarized briefing on both of them. The larger one is the more immediate threat”.

“All right,” the other guard concedes, turning to wave at the helicopters. Out of another of the helicopters, Wenji and Angosin can be seen to be shoved out at rifle point, the two guards following them out. Angosin is as serene as ever walking forward as they instruct, while Wenji needs to be pushed, looking as if she is more likely to try biting one of the guards.

“we’ll deal with that after we bring these three into the on-site bunker”.

Behind the guard and the janitor, stepping out of their own helicopters, a total of eight additional guards can be seen, all armed and armored in riot-gear.

Suddenly, a shadow can be seen to grow over the group, beginning at the cliff’s edge and coming to envelop the entire scene, as if there was something very large floating overhead.

The janitor can be heard to scream, sprinting straight into the hangar. All the guards from the helicopters turn, slowly and falteringly, to face upwards towards whatever is casting the shadow.

As Wenji and Angosin do the same, Wenji’s fear is visibly written on her face. Angosin’s expression, however, betrays only a deepening apathy.

As the guards begin to yell, levelling their weapons towards the sky: “What the hell is that?!” “This can’t be real!” “Back up! Back up!”, Angosin grabs Wenji’s shoulder and whispers to her, snapping her out of her shock:

“Run”.