I stared down the brute, who was trying to find his balance, mashing his meaty full-size hand against the needles that hadn’t gone away when the breaker bled out. No eyes, no ears, just a mouth and flailing limbs.

I might not be able to do it if he had a face or the capacity to look me in the eye.

I flew at him, and I put my foot out, because a hand might have felt too personal, too close.

I kicked him, and I didn’t hold back. Foot drove head into wall, and I felt the shock of soft bone and pulpy flesh crumpling beneath my boot.

Headless, he dropped like a puppet with the strings cut.

“I hope there isn’t too much more like this,” I said, as I watched to make sure he didn’t get back up.

“These aren’t even his handpicked ones,” Gong said. He turned, raising his voice. “Breakthrough and other second wave attackers, get analyzed, make sure you aren’t sick, hold this spot, watch for more trouble! My group, this way, we’re flanking to help other teams!”

When it came to the body, there was no ‘thank you’, perhaps because there was nothing to be happy or glad about. There was no ‘good’ either, or anything of the sort, maybe because it wasn’t good.

Just… back to business. Putting cold blooded murder in the heat of battle immediately behind him and us. My foot stuck to the floor when I set it down, and for an instant I could imagine that it and the entirety of me were impossibly heavy.

His group left, and with their absence, I could see the bodies left behind. Some thralls. One of Teacher’s capes. I’d seen glimpses before I’d heard Caryatid shout.

Chasmal sat against the corner. His veins had been blown open, to the extent his body looked like a husk and the blood was on the floor around him. Someone had shoved a thrall’s body up beside him, which served to wall in the spreading pool of blood, leaving only streaks behind.

Another cape was missing her face. Rotted away.

For the third, it looked like both things had happened to them, but it wasn’t the face that was missing. Everything from crotch to bellybutton had been turned into bloody necrosis. I couldn’t tell with the mask they wore, but it looked like they’d stumbled a few steps before dying.

Fume Hood, Samuel, Juliette, and other members of Breakthrough caught up, being careful of jutting syringes and the fact the floor was more broken glass, needles, and gore than it was white tile.