Back in Zain’s cell, in a corner by the ceiling, we see a security camera. We see also as its lens is pushed in, shattering under the force of seemingly nothing. The entire camera is then twisted, its “neck” being warped so that it is looking straight up into the ceiling.

We hear the alien’s echoing voice of the alien, as if it were mumbling to itself, though its speech is disturbed by unnatural pauses:

“You think you’ve trapped me?”

There is a slow-zoom towards the room’s door, bent and broken but kept in place by chunks of invading crystal.

“Disable their cameras, and they’ll assume something’s wrong, given you’re already out of the room.”

In the room’s center, an arc of electricity can be seen, going from the ground to high in the air, though only briefly.

“Then, they’ll come for me, inadvertently letting me free.”

Another arc, in the same place. It is followed by more. They all seem to be tracing the figure of something roughly humanoid.

As the arcs intensify to become a single veil of light covering the entire figure, its invisibility can be seen to shut off.

This reveals the very far-from-human features of the thing. The armless torso that ends in a massive snake-esque tail on the tip of which the thing stands. The white-pigmented head with massive pear-shaped eyes, topped with a sort of fluffy mohawk. The many short skewers that take the place of its arms, floating disjointedly just before the shoulders of the thing.

“…eventually. Honestly, my exclusion suit will likely have fully recharged by the time they’re done with you.”

As the alien’s last words leave its lack-of-lips, we flip to Zain, in the midst of three guards in a long, spacious hallway, currently charging the skinniest among them: Cloud. 

On the ground behind him, still emitting a shrill squeal and jets of nigh-invisible gas from its nozzle, is a chrome canister.

A close-up on Cloud allows us to hear her quiet gasp of realization.

Her vision is affixed on Zain’s face-plating: where a single aperture could once be seen, just beneath his nose, there is now flat crystal.

Cloud yells to her squadmates as she backs up, panic in her voice: “He’s closed up his goddamn breathing hole!”

A ways away, Ronnie can be seen to slug Decibel’s helmet, with him nodding in reply.

A moment later, an ear-bursting screech washes over the entire scene. The deafening tones vary in pitch rapidly, from low, hard buzzing to a high, razor-sharp cry. Grunting as if in pain, Cloud moves to cover her ears with her palms.

Zain, in the midst of his charge, can do naught but release a muffled scream as his armor shatters at many places on its surface. He falls to a roll, sending sparks and salmon shards flying as he skids on the ground.

The huge speaker, being braced to the spot by Decibel as he holds it down, shakes as it produces these waves of destructive sound.

“That’s enough! Fuck, that’s enough!”, Ronnie yells, her voice barely audible underneath the shifting tones as she batters Decibel’s back, her other hand pressing hard over her ear. In the background, Zain can be seen spasming on the ground as he scrapes fervently at the splintering crystal plating over his ears. The ground underneath him can be seen to begin growing over with a layer of thick, jagged crystal.

Turning to face Ronnie, Decibel flips a switch on the speakers. They shut off entirely, with the sound lingering somewhat in echoes down the hallway and in the stairwell’s railing.

Zain’s ears ring like an excited friend at the door. The fact that he hears nothing even as he gets to his feet, his armor detaching in chunks from the large plate he’s made in the floor, proves he’s been deafened.

“Fuck, I shouldnt’ve tried to block my ears up with crystal. It just carried the sound deeper in! Fuck! I can’t hear! Fuck!”, Zain thinks to himself as he steps off of the plate.

As Zain bends toward the plate, weariness obvious in his movements, Cloud begins advancing on him. “Go on, asphyxiate!” she yells at him as she draws yet another canister from her sash. “Or open up for a nice breath, I’ve got some more sleep-stuff ready for you.”

As if she were cracking a can of beer, Cloud opens the canister. Again, the squeal of rushing gas jumps from its open nozzle. Again, she tosses it by Zain’s feet.

Colossus manifests over Zain, grabbing the edges of the massive plate on the floor, where handles and sharp edges seem to have formed.

Cloud pauses her advance as she now sees a sled-sized shield-sword hovering just above Zain’s slowly rising form. Her special goggles show her the rough form of Colossus behind the phenomenon. Sadly for her, she’s already too close to avoid much.

“Carrie, get away–” is all that Decibel can yell, his voice cracking as Colossus swings the sled-blade with one arm, in a huge arc, slicing the front of Cloud’s neck clean open.

Zain’s back-plates are riddled with bullets from a silenced pistol as he bends over Cloud’s fallen body.

We see that Ronnie is above him, pressed against the ceiling, flying. Her boots produce intense jets of air from their soles and heels, and her one free hand is producing a similar stream. Angling all of them toward the floor, she is holding herself in place.

“Fuck– goddammit, Schrute, you and Goggles sent us here as fucking fodder, didn’t you?” she mumbles to herself.

Zain, barely sensing the impacts and definitely not hearing them, continues to tear at Cloud’s mask. He angles his head toward the ground as the crystal covering its lower half clatters off, revealing his reddened face, every muscle on it tensed and his eyes about to pop.

Fully removing the lower half of Cloud’s gas-mask, the inside of it being slick with her blood, he slaps it hard onto his unprotected mouth-area. His breaths are loud and desperate. Colossus throws Cloud’s body over Zain’s back.

There is a moment of relative calm as Ronnie lowers herself to the ground, far behind Zain. Zain remains crouched, crystal-fixing the mask to his helmet and face as he continues to pant and gag. The squealing of Cloud’s gas-canister fades.

As Decibel looks between Zain, Ronnie and Cloud’s corpse, unsure what to do, his attention is momentarily stolen by a low clunking coming from the stairwell.

All too quickly, Zain comes to his feet, with Colossus and the sled-blade coming with him.

Both Zain and Colossus do a 360-degree-turn on the spot, with Colossus flinging the blade like a huge frisbee at said turn’s end; right at Decibel and his sound-machine.

The thick crystal mass chops straight through the speakers in a spray of sparks and electricity, sinking itself past them and into Decibel’s abdomen. Decibel reels backwards, sinking to the ground on the wall behind him as the sharp sled slips out of his body.

Zain begins advancing on the fallen Decibel, whose head is inclined unceremoniously up against the hallway wall as the rest of his body is flat against the floor. The folds of his vest are quickly blackened with his essence, doing well to hide his undoubtedly large wound.

The makings of a crystalline pike start to manifest in Zain’s hand.

In a flash, Ronnie lands between Zain and Decibel, barely managing to balance herself. Even as she speaks, Zain continues his slow advance. Ronnie crouches by Decibel.

“Not him!”, Ronnie cries at Zain with her hand on Decibel’s chest and a desperate exhaustion in her voice. “Anyone but him! Please!”

Deaf as he is, Zain does not react at all. His armor produces a clattering groan as the spaces it had before shattered start to close up, new crystals taking the place of what had been lost.

“Goddammit.” Ronnie hisses, the startings of a sob present in her voice. She sits by Decibel and falls to her side, hugging his head and torso. She’s dropped her pistol.

The clatter of Zain’s footfalls mix with his muffled, filtered breathing to create a nightmarish orchestra as he nears the two. Ronnie turns away from Zain to look decibel mask-to-mask. She lifts one of his ear-muffs, whispering something to him.

Whereas before Decibel had resigned to be still on the floor and wall where he’d fallen, he now spams in response to Ronnie’s words. He immediately begins struggling, blocked by his position and Ronnie’s weight upon him as he tries to get an arm into his backpack.

“You tell me this now?”, he says in much more than a whisper, a sort of sickening gurgle present behind his words. “Fuck!”

As Zain comes within a step of them, Ronnie squeezes Decibel even tighter. The pike is fully formed, now.

Ronnie, right next to Decibel’s face, can be heard to gasp as Zain drives the pike into her stomach. Another hard thrust takes it even deeper. 

A moment later, Ronnie’s grip slackens, and her body goes limp on Decibel.

Zain pulls the pike out, slowly, his gaze turning to Decibel. Decibel has abandoned all attempts to get at his backpack, and is now holding Ronnie’s body close. Decibel sobs hard before looking up, to somewhere past Zain, saying in a low gurgle:

“Kill him, Gary.”

Following Decibel’s attention, Zain whips around.

There, crouched by the opposite wall, is Hydraulics, his armor and arm-machines no more than scratched. In his arms is the limp form of Cloud. He sits her body against the wall, her goggles now notably being gone.

Her face, now fully unveiled, is that of the old woman from the ship on which Angosin was found (she’s the one that thought to look below-deck for survivors).

Hydraulics comes back up to his full height, now looking toward Zain and revealing that he’s donned Cloud’s goggles.

His POV shows us the rough shape of Colossus manifesting behind Zain. 

“I see you, you psychotic cunt!”, he says aloud.

Meanwhile, back in Zain’s cell, the alien is “sitting” quietly on the room’s bed (if part of its massive tail can be considered a butt).

Its attention is piqued by some minute sounds from the corner where Zain had stashed the arrow’s head. They are simultaneously reminiscent of tearing paper and splintering wood.

Back with Zain and Hydraulics in the hallway, Zain’s ragged breath can be heard to smooth out. The neck and head of the pike in his hand can be seen to begin thickening, becoming more like a long-handled mace.

Even-footed and measured in his step, wielding the weight of his armaments better than before, Hydraulics begins advancing on Zain.

A low rattle sounds from Colossus’ mouth as it spews a puff of aerosolized crystal, its knuckles extending into short spikes. Zain moves to meet Hydraulics.

As soon as they’re within striking range, Hydraulics readies his armaments in a boxing stance.

Colossus drives a high-drawn fist straight down at Hydraulics’ head, with Hydraulics catching the spirit’s arm by the wrist.

Colossus’s grunt sounds like a phone screen breaking as it drives its other fist towards Hydraulics’ side.

Hydraulics brings his elbow down hard on the encroaching attack, metal sounding against crystal as he knocks the fist down and away from him.

Without even pulling another punch, Colossus just brings the same hand back towards Hydraulics’ side. This time, Hydraulics grabs it at the wrist.

“Look what you ‘done now, idiot.” he says as he catches his breath. “I’m gonna break your wrists a’fore you can grow any rocks on me. There’s no stairwells nearby to save you this time!”

Colossus can be seen to shift to the side, its arms still trapped, revealing Zain behind it. To Hydraulics’ shock, he’s hefting what was once the long-handled mace, ready to swing; its head has shifted into that of a warhammer, a huge curved nail having grown on one side.

Both of Hydraulics’ hands being busy, with crystal starting to encrust them where they hold Colossus, he can’t defend himself as Zain drives the warhammer’s spike hard into his unarmored thigh.

With Zain drawing back for another swing, taking a steam of blood with him, Hydraulics releases both of Colossus’ wrists. The thin clumps of crystal that had formed to hold it shatter under the machinery’s power as Hydraulics yells. 

A fruit-fly lands on Zain in the midst of his movement, just under his chin.

“You little–” is all Hydraulics has time to get out before both of Colossus’ clawed hands dig into his throat, piercing even the metal sheets over his neck.

In but a moment, his adam’s apple is torn loose, and the throat inside-out.

Shoving Hydraulics’ stuttering form to the ground, where it collides with a loud clanking thud, Colossus steps forward and crushes his skull like a watermelon with a stomp of its tree-trunk of a leg.

As Zain turns towards Decibel, who’s gone completely limp just like Ronnie beside him, Angosin and Wenji reach the top of the staircase.

“The sleep-gas shouldn’t be a problem now,” Angosin whispers to Wenji. “Just keep a distance from him”.

Wenji looks about the bloodied hallway with restrained horror as she skirts around its edges, keeping Zain in her vision.

Angosin approaches him directly as he tears the gas-mask filters off.

As Colossus is briefly summoned, kicking Decibel’s face in so that it looks like a deflated souffle, Angosin stops in his tracks.

Once he sees the fruit-fly creep from Zain’s chin into his mask, however, all signs of worry melt away from his face.

Zain turns to face Angosin, and the two remain still on the spot, looking at each-other for a moment as the fruit fly, under Zain’s crystal carapace, can be seen to crawl into his ear.

A moment later, Zain’s eyes lose their focus.

Seeing this, Angosin begins to speak, sterning his face and voice.

“Listen very closely to me, Zain: this world needs saving.”

Zain’s eyes regain focus, and he looks straight at Angosin.

“In Yemen, children too young even to speak are starved enough to be like skeletons. In Nigeria, thousands are made to be soldiers at my age. Here, now, a certain thing you’ve recently read about is threatening the lives of many good men and women; everyone in this facility.”

As he says that last bit, Angosin points down the stairwell.

An abstract representation of Zain’s thoughts take stage, with a million varying beliefs, thoughts and memories playing out like a wall of screens. Then, buzzing in from offscreen like a fly, one thought begins to shine brighter and brighter, soon enough overlapping all the rest. It flutters as Zain’s voice can be heard to echo from it: “Hero– I’ve got to be a superhero.”

“Someone’s got to do it, Zain.”, Angosin finishes, walking past Zain to catch up with Wenji.

Zain has already begun making his way to the staircase, his mouth-plating beginning to re-form as his entire helmet restructures. By the time he’s reached the bottom of the dark stairwell, it’s changed shape to resemble a medieval armet.

NARRATOR: This is Zain.

Zain swings open a door, taking him from the stairwell to the hotly-lit hangar. There, a great many large vehicles can be seen stored. 

NARRATOR: Many things about him are just as the alien had said.

Notably, near the opposite end of the hangar from Zain,  the huge hangar gate stands completely open. Many wrecked aircraft, boats and land-vehicles lie in simultaneously snow-covered and flaming piles near this opening.

NARRATOR: Hungry for meaning, and hypnotized by the fantastical new world he’s found opened to him, he seeks to fill the hole in his chest with power and violence.

Zain continues further into the hangar, straight towards the door, where frosted air and copious amounts of snow are streaming in.

NARRATOR: In truth, he just suffers from what many do–

His fist tightens around his crystalline warhammer as he marches.

NARRATOR: A desire to be important, to be powerful, to be adored. To match up to the legendary figures he reads about in comic books and sees in cartoons.

Soon enough, as he is standing outside the hangar, the snow beating down on him as he is surrounded by the wrecked and burnt bodies of guards and helicopters, he sees it.

NARRATOR: Though his brain is currently addled, and he’s being mind-controlled besides–

A flashback to the paper that Ramsay had before reading shows us that Zain had been able to make out a picture on it. It is one of a massive dragon, golden of scale and blue of eye, coiling through the air without the use of any wings.

NARRATOR: –he remains an immature, angry little man.

This thing now hovers just a ways away from him, before the ledge of the cliff-plateau. It is more massive than the gate, the very cliff itself. Its form is wreathed in shadow as the flurry hides it from the hangar’s light.

NARRATOR: This is best seen in his spirit, Colossus’ abilities.

Zain readies his warhammer with both hands, clenching his teeth as Colossus begins to manifest behind him.

NARRATOR: Like a child, he fears change, and so crystallizes all he–

Zain’s about to say something just as the thing’s huge, serpentine tail, moving with blinding speed and deafening power, smacks him straight off the cliff.

Zain’s armor can be seen to shatter at the impact site, chunks of it digging straight into his chest, skull and neck: bruising and tearing flesh to disrobe bone.

Zain’s slow-motion fall is brought to an abrupt end as he lands on the sloping cliff-face, his skull being cracked fully open against the jagged stone and his body twitching only once before going entirely limp.

Colossus’ entire form cracks, and chunks of it slough and scrape away from each other, its stag-skull head opening to the sky to unleash a roar that doesn’t come. Then, it disappears entirely, leaving Zain’s corpse alone, splayed out amongst the jagged cliff-spikes.

Meanwhile, back in Zain’s cell, the alien is backed up against a wall. Its echoing voice betrays great panic as it jabs a needle at the ground.

This needle is directed towards the arrow, whose wooden shaft is growing anew from its head’s back, with miniscule branches and leaves sprouting from it like a sapling. The shaft is contorting and bending as if it were a snake’s torso and tail, slithering the arrow towards the alien.

“No!” The alien cries. “You keep your damn virus to yourself, awful thing! I’ll do it! I swear I’ll do it! To preserve the balance, I’ll use my wish! I’ll save this world from your horrid blessing!”

The arrow continues to slither towards the alien.

The alien speaks in a low grumble as its eyes start to glow a vivid yellow, and golden strings begin to flow and float from within its ears, meeting to form a sort of half-halo above its head.

“Fine, then.”