The green acid did not just drip; it hissed, a predatory sound that ate into the cold concrete floor of the vault, leaving bubbling, black pits of toxic sludge.

Jack Mercer stood with his back pressed against the rusted metal rack holding the Alchemist's research canisters. The air in the shipping vault was freezing, smelling of stale ozone and industrial waste, but the heat radiating from the melted doorway was stifling. Through the thick, yellow-grey smog of the Aegis Waste Disposal Site, Acid Annie stepped forward. Her gaunt, pale face was twisted into a manic grin, her yellowing hair plastered to her skull by the greasy rain. She wore a stained green leather jacket, and her thick, industrial-grade rubber gloves were coated in a bright, neon-green fluid that sizzled with every step she took.

"Well, well," Annie rasped, her voice a dry, rattling whisper that sounded like dry leaves scraping across asphalt. "Look what the storm dragged in. Victor said a gutter-rat was sniffing around our trash. I didn't think it'd be the legendary detective. Or should I say... the Memory Butcher?"

Jack didn't answer. His mind was racing, analyzing the narrow confines of the vault. To his left, the metal walls were reinforced but rusted, offering no secondary exit. Behind him, the three biological canisters sat in their secure rack, their green bio-hazard seals catching the faint, toxic orange light from the wasteland outside. His right hand, fractured during his brutal escape from the scrapyard, throbbed with a dull, nauseating heat beneath its tight layers of medical tape. His left wrist was sprained, wrapped in synthetic binding that felt stiff and cold. He had no gun. His father's service revolver was gone, lost in the dark, flooded sewers of the Black Sump.

He was weaponless, physically broken, and cornered by a Tier 1 Acid Mutant.

At his neck, the DIY Neural Collar hummed steadily, a cool, rhythmic vibration that kept Brick Malone's gravelly voice locked in a dark, silent corner of his subconscious. The heavy-duty batteries Gears Vance had installed were at a full one hundred percent, but the physical pain of his injuries was a constant, draining current.

*"Let me out, cop,"* a faint, gravelly echo whispered from the back of his skull, Malone's bloodlust scratching at the edges of the mental partition. *"She's a fragile little thing. Let me turn our knuckles to granite. I'll cave her chest in before she can spit that green poison again."*

*Not now,* Jack thought, slamming his mental doors shut. He reached into his duster pocket, his fingers brushing the cool, tarnished silver of Sarah's locket. He squeezed the metal, using the sharp pinch of pain to ground his drifting thoughts. *I am Jack Mercer. I am a detective. I solve the case. I don't become the monster.*

"The Alchemist's canisters," Jack said, his voice flat, devoid of the panic that threatened to claw its way up his throat. "They don't belong to Victor Vance. And they don't belong to you."

Annie laughed, a shrill, erratic sound that echoed off the vault's metallic walls. "Everything in this graveyard belongs to the Seven, detective! Especially the things that can keep people like you from screaming in their sleep!"

With a sudden, violent snap of her wrists, Annie flung her hands forward.

A barrage of corrosive green projectiles rocketed toward him, cutting through the smog with a terrifying hiss.

Jack tensed his muscles, focusing on the raw, heavy memory of Brick Malone. *Concrete Hardening.*

Instantly, the white of his eyes flashed a brilliant, unstable blue—the unmistakable sign of his copied superpower. A dull, stone-like grey texture surged across his skin, starting from his neck and spreading down his forearms, turning his flesh into a dense, rough, granite-like armor. But the transformation was agonizing. The fractured bones in his right hand ground together like broken glass as the muscle tissue density spiked, forcing a muffled groan from his gritted teeth.

The acid projectiles slammed into his chest.

*Sizzle. Screech.*

The impact was like being hit by heavy, molten lead. The corrosive fluid didn't bounce off; it clung to his grey, hardened skin, screaming as it ate into the stone armor. The chemical reaction produced an intense, suffocating heat that burned his underlying flesh through the density of the concrete. Jack gritted his teeth, the smell of singed leather and burning stone filling his nose. His concrete skin was pitting, dissolving into a wet, grey paste where the acid pooled.

"Oh, look at you!" Annie squealed with delight, her bloodshot eyes wide as she danced backward. "A big, strong stone man! Let's see how long you can keep from melting!"

She lunged forward, her movements surprisingly agile for her gaunt frame. From her green leather jacket, she pulled a pair of long, wicked knives, their steel blades coated in a thick, dripping layer of green acid. She targeted his joints—the elbows and knees where the concrete skin was thinner and segmented to allow movement.

Jack reacted on instinct, drawing on his decades of gritty, old-school police hand-to-hand combat training. He stepped to the side, his movements heavy and sluggish due to the immense physical weight of his hardened skin. He blocked her first strike with his concrete-hardened left forearm, the acid on her blade hissing violently as it sliced a shallow groove into his stone armor.

Annie was relentless. She spun, using the momentum to thrust the second knife toward his unprotected neck.

Jack's mind screamed. He couldn't block with his right hand—the fractured bones would shatter completely under the impact. Instead, he lunged forward, using his shoulder to ram into her chest, attempting to lock her in a crushing grapple.

It was a mistake.

As his body collided with hers, the acid secreting from her skin burned through the heavy fabric of his duster coat, the green fluid eating into his shirt and searing his chest. The intense, chemical heat was unbearable, a white-hot agony that forced him to break the hold and stumble backward, his boots splashing through a pool of toxic runoff.

Annie smirked, her knives spinning in her rubber-gloved hands. "You're slow, detective. Slow and heavy. Victor's blue flames are going to turn you to ash, but I think I'll dissolve you first!"

Jack leaned against a metal support pillar, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. The acid was eating deep into his concrete chest plates, the stone armor structurally weakened and beginning to flake away in large, smoking chunks. If he stayed on the defensive, she would systematically dissolve his joints until he was completely paralyzed.

He had to change his tactics.

He forced himself to calm down, his detective's logic taking over despite the excruciating pain. He watched her movements. Annie was erratic, her eyes darting constantly, but she always paused for a fraction of a second to focus her gaze before flinging her acid projectiles. She relied entirely on her sight to aim her lethal chemistry.

Jack looked around the vault. The ceiling was low, crisscrossed with heavy, rusted industrial pipes. To his left, a thick, insulated conduit vibrated with a low, rhythmic thrum—the main high-pressure steam line that fed the old Aegis waste-processing systems.

He had his target.

"You talk too much, Annie," Jack rasped, his voice deep, carrying a subtle, brutal rumble of Malone's persona.

"And you don't talk enough!" Annie shrieked, her face twisting in rage as she raised her hands for another massive volley of acid.

Jack didn't wait. He tensed his legs, utilizing the density of his concrete skin to launch himself toward the main steam line. He focused every ounce of Malone's brute strength, channeling the heavy, stone-like density into his right fist.

*Stone-Fist Strike.*

His right hand swelled, the skin shifting into a solid, jagged block of dark, rough concrete. The pain was absolute, a blinding flash of agony that made his vision turn red as the fractured bones in his hand cracked further under the immense pressure. But he didn't stop.

He smashed his concrete fist directly into the rusted joint of the high-pressure steam pipe.

*CRACK. HISS.*

The metal joint shattered under the devastating impact.

Instantly, a massive, screaming torrent of superheated, scalding steam erupted from the broken pipe, filling the narrow vault with a blinding, white fog. The high-pressure steam expanded rapidly, creating a deafening roar that drowned out Annie's sudden scream of panic.

"I can't see!" Annie shrieked, her voice muffled by the roaring steam. She fired a wild, blind barrage of acid projectiles, but they struck the ceiling and the walls, far from Jack's position.

Jack dropped low, using the thick, blinding steam as cover. The scalding vapor hissed against his concrete skin, but his stone-hardened flesh shielded him from the worst of the heat. He moved silently through the fog, his boots making no sound on the wet floor. He reached the metal rack at the back of the vault, his left hand prying the three biological research canisters from their secure mounts.

He slid the canisters into the deep, lead-lined pockets of his duster coat, securing them against his chest.

He looked back through the steam. Annie was stumbling blindly near the ruined doorway, clutching her face as the scalding vapor burned her eyes and throat. Her active camouflage and acid secretion were useless in the blinding fog.

Jack didn't stay to finish the fight. The sounds of the steam explosion would undoubtedly alert the automated Aegis patrol drones or the nearby military forces. He had to escape.

He slipped through the jagged, melted hole in the vault door, his heavy boots carrying him out into the acidic rain of the waste site. The cold, wet air struck his face, a sharp contrast to the suffocating heat of the vault, but the pain in his body was a crushing weight.

His right hand was a ruined, swollen mass of cracked bone and raw flesh. His concrete skin was deeply scarred, pitted, and smoking from the corrosive acid, the stone armor slowly dissolving back into his bruised, burned human skin as the power deactivated. Faint blue veins flickered on his temples, a warning sign of the immense physical and psychic load he had just endured.

He dragged his bleeding, smoking body toward the dark, circular opening of the drainage pipe, his fingers clutching the canisters tight against his chest. He had secured the Alchemist's trial, but the cost was etched deep into his flesh.