INTERLUDE: CAULDRON TAKES NOTICE

Doctor Mother sat in silence, her expression unreadable as she reviewed the report.

The images on the screen were grainy—satellite feeds and drone footage, distant enough to lack detail but close enough to confirm the essentials. Villages wiped out. Patches of land scorched black. Bodies—some partially melted, others twisted in ways that defied human anatomy.

She tapped a key, bringing up the next set of images. A towering figure stood in the ruin of its latest kill, humanoid but wrong, its flesh rippling as if unsure of its final form. Glowing embers clung to its body, flickering in the darkness.

This was no ordinary parahuman.

“I assume this isn’t just another warlord?” she asked, glancing up at Number Man.

“No,” he replied from his usual place at the edge of the room, arms crossed. “His movements don’t align with any known regional conflicts. He isn’t expanding territory, seizing resources, or rallying forces. He moves with intention, but not one we recognize. And then there’s this.”

He pressed a button. A video played—a shaky recording from a surviving dumbphone.

The audio was garbled, but the terror in the man’s voice was unmistakable. The camera panned wildly, catching a glimpse of the creature just as it exhaled a plume of fire, engulfing a fleeing figure.

A known parahuman.

Doctor Mother leaned back. The implications were clear. It wasn’t just killing—it was hunting them.

Not just any shifting, regenerating monster, then. A calculated one.

“It isn’t ours, either,” Number Man said.

“I know.” Doctor Mother closed the file. “But something like it should have been.”

Cauldron’s Case 53s were designed to be controlled mutations—parahumans reshaped, altered, and often discarded when they proved unstable. This thing seemed to operate on a different logic, as if instability itself was part of its evolution. It fed on parahumans. Adapted. Grew stronger. Survived.

Number Man leaned forward. “If it continues unchecked, it may become a troublesome variable.”

Doctor Mother understood what he meant. If it kept growing, it could disrupt the balance of power. If it became known—public—it could draw the attention of parties better left unaware of Cauldron’s work.

That could not be allowed.

“Send a team,” she ordered. “Observation first. If possible, retrieval.”

“And if retrieval isn’t possible?”

Her fingers tapped against the desk. “Then we confirm its limits.”

. . . . .

The portal shimmered open in the dead of night, an oval of nothingness slicing through the humid air. Five figures stepped through, their forms silhouetted against the distant glow of smouldering fires. The land was quiet, but the scent of ash lingered—a sign their target was near.

They moved with practiced ease. This was not their first hunt.

Aegir stepped forward first, reaching out with his power. The air thickened with moisture, the soil darkening beneath his bare feet. A ripple spread outward, water pooling unnaturally fast, flooding the land knee-deep in seconds. It would slow their target down, smother its fire. That was the theory, at least.

Caldera stood at his side, rolling his shoulders as his body absorbed the ambient heat from the scorched earth. A faint glow pulsed beneath his skin, the energy stored like a battery. If No. 9’s fire grew too strong, he could take it, contain it—maybe even turn it back.

Hollow knelt, pressing one hand against the damp ground. He felt the vibrations—the world itself reacting to their quarry’s movements. A shifting mass, fluid and unnatural, closing in. No footsteps. No true shape. Not a human being, not entirely.

Spore adjusted his mask, his body already dissolving into a fine mist of fungal spores drifting through the air. The moment the thing inhaled, his work would begin. Even if it could adapt, there were limits to biology. If it had lungs, if it had flesh, he would find a way in. And he would spread.

Lockstep cracked his neck, shifting his stance. He was the failsafe. If things went wrong, if it adapted too fast, he would lock its movements, force its biology to lag behind its shifting form. Just long enough for the others to strike.

They had been chosen for a reason. Their powers had been selected, calculated, deemed viable.

This was not a retrieval mission.

They were here to test.

And to ensure the thing's body never left the field.