"Hurt?! What do you mean hurt?!"

A wave of panic quickly spread across the gathered crowds, voices speaking over each other and desperately demanding answers. Some of the soldiers raised their weapons, taking his statement as a threat while the Director himself whirled around and grabbed Seth's collar.

"You said you were going to help us you bastard! Why are you doing this to us?!"

"Ah, no... I said I was going to explain, not help. I can't stop what's going to come. It seems that I mistimed that a bit. Maybe if we just give it a few... there we go."

He nodded to himself as one of the individuals in the crowd started to convulse and scream in pain. Before anyone could panic more, they all began to drop like dominoes, the mutagen infecting their systems through the mana they had been protected from for so long.

They probably would have never guessed that their own prisoner was inadvertently saving their lives, or at least stopping their evolution.

Prometheus was greedily sucking up all the mana in the area in an attempt to awaken himself. But their planet's paltry amount wasn't enough to sustain him, it was only after Nugget's addition he could finally wake up.

His attempts to sustain himself, however, had acted as the perfect defence mechanism for these people. They just never knew it. Irony at its finest.

Seth gently pulled the directors hand from his collar, helping the convulsing man down to the ground. Fear filled the Director's eyes as Seth retreated from his field of vision, and some unknown force tore him apart at the deepest level. His entire body felt like he was being dunked in the heart of a volcano.

All of his organs were boiling and melting, only to be reforged and melted again in an endless loop of volcanic suffering, overwhelming his mind to the point that he simply blacked out from the pain.

***

Zero peeled his eyes open, his breathing haggard as his organs had finally stabilised themselves. He was hot, unbelievably hot like he was an egg frying on the road on a sweltering summers day, but it didn't feel uncomfortable. It felt natural, as if this was the way he was always supposed to be.

A screen was floating in front of him, its letters illuminated and pulsating softly as if to draw his attention to them. But before he could fully focus his eyes enough to make out the words in front of him, a monstrous face lunged through the screen.

It was a monster in human skin. Its complexion was pale, lips bright blue as were it's eyes which burned with feral hunger. Flakes of ice covered its entire body, and it's hair was made completely of ice. As were the teeth that were gnashing in the air, it's mouth snapping and sending droplets of ice cold spittle flying with every chomp.

But no matter how much it tried, it couldn't reach him.

It's arms were limb, bones jutting from its deathly pale skin, as a metallic hand was clamped around the back of its neck, keeping it in place like the abominable snow man was nothing more than a barking dog.

"Hey you, Finally awake I see."

Seth said with a smirk, laughing softly to himself as he lifted the newly formed aberration into the air. It gnashed and snapped at him, writhing in his grip, but with broken arms all it could do was flail its legs uselessly.

A giggling infant swooped down from the air, a steel arrow clutched in her tiny fist, as she stabbed the creature in the eye. She floated next to it, sitting on thin air, as she stabbed it repeatedly, even after it was long dead and more holes than flesh. The Director almost puked at the sight and yet couldn't take his eyes off of the horrific sight.

Seth titled his head at the traumatised look in Zero's eyes, frowning softly at the reaction before finally looking up at what his daughter was doing.

"Nixie! That's enough sweetie. It's dead, you can stop! No need for that, can't you see you're making the nice man uncomfortable."

Nixie pouted adorably at the chastising, at least it was adorable in Seth's eyes. For some reason Zero was unable to overlook the blue blood painting her cute face and saw it as horrifying.

How he could think that, Seth had no idea.

"Sorry Daddy... Sorry Mister."

"That's a good girl. Now, did the fairy give you anything nice?"

"Yeah! The fairy said I got a... got a... Reck... Reck..."

Director Zero looked on in utter bafflement as the two talked so casually after killing a monster. He was so distracted by the horrors of the new world, horrors that the others had long grown used to, that he didn't even appreciate the cuteness of Nixie stumbling over the word Requital. How rude.

It also meant that when the toddler manifested a bow made entirely out of ice, simply out of nowhere, that he almost thought he had died and this was some delusional dream he was having in his final seconds.

As he clambered to his feet, the floor beneath his supporting hand started to glow brightly as it heat up, causing him to quickly recoil in horror.

He was not the only one confused and terrified with his new body. The rest of the crowd, those who had successfully mutated, were all gradually waking up and coming to terms with their changes.

Some were more evident than others. Some having full body changes, such as the man who turned into some insect-human hybrid with six arms and four legs, while others were more subtle, like the Director himself.

While most of his changes were internal, his eyes had turned into a volcanic stone which had glowing magma filling the cracks in the stone.

Only four of them had ended up Aberrating in the end, a good ratio compared to the rest of the world, but that was probably due to how they were selected for this place. All of those Aberrations had been given up to little Nixie, so that she could gain some early Requitals.

Even if they were only at the basic tier zero level, it was better than nothing. They could always farm better stuff later on.

Before they could freak out too much, Seth quickly took control of their attention and started to finally give them the explanation of the way the new world worked. He introduced them to the concept of evolution, now that they had their own bodies as the evidence for his claims, and gave them a brief overview of how the world changed.

The communication gifts were perfect for this, as they helped show the facility workers videos of life in the new world. Even if they didn't choose those gifts for themselves, they could be shown through other peoples.

They were surprisingly adaptable to the new changes, taking them in stride and with little argument. Perhaps that was the benefit of working in a facility that harboured an ancient alien from the start of human history and the spaceship he crashed in.

Speaking of spaceships... Once he was done with a brief history of the new world and had the facilities newly evolved workers sufficiently calm and understanding, Seth quickly pawned them off... I mean elegantly and intelligently deligated the rest of their introduction to his Dead Men.

A delegation that meant that he could sneak off into the spaceship and have a look around.

He hummed happily to himself as he peeled away from the group. With Astra's hand linked in his, holding Nixie in his other arm while Bob drifted alongside him and amused Nixie by shifting his body into different appearances, it was like a little family vacation as they slipped into the spaceship and started to look around.

He was so invested in the sights and the fantasy of it all, that he was completely ignorant of the fact that the Volcanic Director Zero was trailing behind them like a lost puppy.

Uncaring of their tail in their exploration, Seth wandered through the spaceship like it was just a museum that he was visiting on a family vacation. Which was an easy mindset to put himself in, not just because it was incredibly old but because the interior of the spaceship itself was absolutely enormous. Which made sense, considering the natural size of its pilot.

So when they eventually wandered into the control room, just one of the chairs were more than ten times their height. Cranes, cherry-pickers and scissor lifts filled the grandiose chamber that was the command room. At least that's what Seth assumed it was, considering all the computers and the important looking chair in the middle.

If he had to guess, that's the one that would be the captain's chair. Which also meant it was the most logical place to keep the start button. After all, how could he go into a spaceship and not push some buttons? It was just human nature.

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