<span style="color: #FFFF00"> “What’s going on?”</span>Billy Reynolds shouted over the claxon and alert intercom announcements as he emerged from a small side corridor and into one of the main artery hallways of the containment facility. A team of other facility guards were passing the intersection as he arrived so he joined them as they jogged towards ECU-2.<br/><span style="color: #BFFF00"> “No idea,”</span>one of them barked, his voice slightly muffled behind the riot duty helmet worn by the whole six man group. On top of their regular FSA uniform, they had all donned riot gear as soon as the alarms started blaring, and each guard cradled a rifle.<span style="color: #BFFF00">“We lost contact with ECU <span style="font-style: italic">Three</span> and<span style="font-style: italic"> Four</span> immediately, now <span style="font-style: italic">Two.</span>”</span>he said. Billy didn’t recognise the hoarse voice, and due to the flickering red emergency lights he couldn’t see past the visor. Billy briefly let his mind wander as he fell in with the team. ECU units were specifically designed to contain powered criminals that could draw on any kind of powersource, and as such were completely cut off from the rest of the facilities systems. Conductive materials weren’t even allowed in those units. He couldn’t imagine how a prisoner could escape from one, let alone two separate incidents occurring in such quick succession.<span style="font-style: italic">Maybe it was just a system failure?</span><br/><span style="color: #4080BF">“Jesus…”</span>Someone blurted out as they turned a corner, interrupting Billy’s thoughts and dispelling all possibility of a system failure. He searched around to see what had drawn the remark and it didn’t take long for him to notice the body up ahead.<br/><span style="color: #BF80BF">“What the hell happened here?”</span>A female guard asked with a trembling voice. A guard lay slumped against the wall, a streak of blood painted on the white plaster. A football sized crater lay where his rib cage should have been.<br/>There were others further down the corridors - black heaps and splashes of red on the otherwise sterile tones of the facility's floors and walls. One of the other’s got sick, adding to the gore and bile of death that already covered the floor. Billy almost vomited as well, but when the squad’s leader started moving again, so did he.<br/>They trudged down the corridor, unable to look away from the deformed corpses as they were bathed in the red glow of the emergency lights that sporadically lined the corridor. Gunfire echoed towards them, almost deafening as it echoed in the enclosed corridor. It started with a single shot, but quickly resumed and crescendoed in a torrent of fire before stopping suddenly.<br/>They all rounded the last corner before ECU-2, but stopped as soon as the carnage was revealed by the dim cast of crimson light. Easily twenty bodies, missing arms, legs, heads, were slumped against the walls, each other, or simply lay on the floor in their own blood. A man stood amongst the dead, next to him lay a large metal briefcase. He wasn’t unusually tall, but was incredibly broad shouldered. He wore black military boots, now slick with blood, and a dark green jumpsuit the top half of which hung at his waist revealing his upper body. His skin was almost a charred grey, coarse and paper thin, revealing striated muscles and grotesque vascularity in the absence of body fat. His biceps looked like they were about to rip open, while his striated chest muscles rippled in spasm even as he stood still. Separated deltoid muscles gave way to mountainous traps. His torso was spotted by patches of severe scarring as well as dark circles that were more numerous on his shoulders, traps and cobbled back. A rugged buzzcut kept a few uneven patches of hair at the back of his head as stubble, while there were hardly any traces of eyebrows or eyelashes on his scarred face. His irises were dark, surrounded by bloodshot yellow. The rest of his face was sunken and skeletal, featuring prominent cheekbones and protruding eye sockets. His chapped and split slips were crossed by dark scars or tattoos that were reminiscent of a skull's teeth.<br/>His eyes flickered to the team as they arrived. He turned to face them stiffly, as though his monstrous traps, neck and head could not move independently. He held the guards in his dark gaze for a moment, an irritated expression forming on his fiendish face, before starting to walk towards them with slow, heavy steps.<br/>Billy was frozen for what seemed like minutes as he took in the full extent of the carnage that lay before him. The man slowly walked towards them. Behind him lay the large double doors to ECU-2, unopened thus far.<br/><span style="color: #BFFF00">“Take him out!”</span>Someone screamed, and they were jolted out of the horrific trance that gripped them. They all raised their rifles and began firing at the approaching man, Billy included. The torrent of gunfire that resounded through the narrow corridor was deafening, like a thunderstorm contained in a single room. After a few seconds it began to die down. But, even as each weapon unloaded it's magazine the man continued - unperturbed.<br/>Billy was sprayed with blood as the man reached the first of them and with a single swing sent a guard to the ground without his jaw. They each fell in quick succession, some disemboweled by stabbing strikes of his fists, others simply hurled into walls with sickening crunches. Billy didn’t even have time to think of his kids before he was slammed into the ground with enough force to make his lifeless corpse bounce.<br/><br/><br/>Garrison walked away from the pile of bodies at the end of the corridor, returning to where he had left the large metal briefcase he had entered with. Picking it up, he stepped over the various dead people who had gotten in way. He had tried two other ECU units before this one, and neither of them had what he was looking for. Standing in front of the large double doors that led to the unit, he punched a fist through the steel, using only a fraction of the kinetic energy he had absorbed thanks to the guards and their useless guns. He wasn’t exactly invulnerable, but as long as he absorbed incrementally larger amounts of force he could withstand insane amounts of damage without so much as flinching. Since his powers became apparent, he had been practically unstoppable - well, almost.<br/><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #004000"> “F*cking b*tch.” </span></span>He muttered as he tore a hole in the doors with a burned and scarred arm, the steel crumpling like paper. He stepped through the ruined doors, and then made his way through the small airlock-like entryway that served to disconnect the containment unit from the rest of the facility. The interior of the containment unit was made of non conductive materials, as such the cells had translucent walls, bordered by some kind of plastic compound frames. A few of the cells had occupants, who stared at Garrison with a mixture of curiosity and fear. He was used to seeing that reaction, so ignored them, making his way to one particular cell. The prisoner had been there less than a day, and he was the reason Garrison had been instructed to break into the state's top super containment facility. He stared at the occupant before placing his briefcase on the floor. Opening the metal container he withdrew a syringe and a vial. He held both in one scarred, shaking hand before ripping open the cell's door with the other.<br/><span style="color: #004000">“Do what I tell you and you can leave.”</span>Garrison growled. His voice sounded like an anvil being dragged across gravel.<span style="color: #004000">“Now hold out your arm.”</span>He added, and fixed Charles with a look that made it clear he wouldn’t think twice about smashing his head against the cell wall if he resisted.<br/><br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Kira timidly crossed the threshold of Sabina’s home, following suit and slipping her converse off. She quickly took in the spacious entryway before climbing the stairs behind Sabina. She could hear Sabina’s younger brother playing and idly wondered if it was a game she also had. Despite not favouring first-person-shooters, Kira still enjoyed the thrill found in the genre from time to time - and was pretty good at them if she did say so herself.<br/><span style="color: #FF80FF"> “So, your parents are like, scientists or something, right?”</span>Kira asked after clearing her throat. She dredged up the memory of hearing about them in class sometime during a stupid exercise some freshly qualified teacher came up with to try to “get to know” her new students. The exercise probably only stuck out in her recollection because the thought of having to talk about her own parents in front of the class caused her to make a rapid escape to the bathroom. Kira shyly stood just inside the door to Sabina’s bedroom, her hands fidgeting at her sides as she glanced around at the decorations and details of the room, appreciating some of the nerdier items referencing pop culture as well as music choice.