John watched as Lexicon rushed back to the console and hooked back in. Soon he could hear more water rushing in, from the outside. He knew that Lexicon had opened up the doors to let more water in. He didn't know why but he didn't ask. He trusted this girl. She was smart and she had no reason to hurt them. So he continued to tread water.

The water was coming in far too fast for Al to stay idle long. Some strange new instinct had told him not to touch the water,and he was struggling to avoid it like the plague. If he didn't figure something out soon he and the others would drown when the ship finally went under. He wasn't about to let that happen. His hands, and feet became covered in fire and he found himself slowly starting to lift off the ground. "I can fly? Awesome!" By concentrating his flames he found he could propel himself into the air. Lexi was doing something at the console, and some strange voice was yelling something in Vitus. He didn't know what was happening but he hoped it meant he wasn't about to drown.

Rowan felt more water creep towards him, and the touch of it on his boots was frightening. He looked around, seeing the water rush in. "Eurgh..." He grunted, the stress of it all forming a wooden box around him, with a little air hole on the top. He continued to stay in there as he awaited what was next. He then formed a box ontop of the box, and forcibly crammed himself into the second, air hole almost touching the ceiling as he sat there looking up. The roar of the water calmed him now that he could no longer see it.

Sky was taken off guard by the sudden embrace, eyes wide with surprise. It was somewhat comforting to be treated like a kid even in such a disaster and she was finally calming down again when she heard Allen break through the ship. Moments after they were alerted over an intercom and then blasted with water. "Good news, I think I found him. Bad news, you'll be rubbish in a fight." She braced herself against the on rush with an irritated growl. "What the hell do they think they're doing?" She growled, tearing some of her shirt off and turning toward Jack. The water felt cold against her skin but she pushed the discomfort aside. "There's not much else you can do now." She wrapped the cloth around his forehead and tied a knot, looking sadly at the torn shirt. "That should help somewhat with the blood in the eyes but I can't promise the blood will stop. I can't remember what to do in the case of head wounds. I'll go find that friend of yours."

Jack was surprised to hear Allen's voice and he was even more surprised by his tone. He sounded like he was going to go berserk any minute now. It didn't take Sky's sense of hearing to listen to the sound of firearms that were used after that. He had to get to Allen to see if he was ok, but the water was flooding inside, already above their feet and rising awfully fast. He was glad that Sky calmed down and didn't have to worry about her as well. Also, the other boy seemed to have loosened up too. Jack stood still as Sky wrapped the cloth around his wound, gritting his teeth from the discomfort. After she was done, she said:

"That should help somewhat with the blood in the eyes but I can't promise the blood will stop. I can't remember what to do in the case of head wounds. I'll go find that friend of yours."

Jack wiped off the remaining blood, clearing his vision somewhat, but not completely. He gently touched the top of Sky's head and said:

"Thank you..."

Then he did two things. He threw a shard of glass on the ceiling behind them, blocking the water coming from the bridge and opening a hole on the top of the ship, leading to the outside and then instantly pushed Sky back to Rowan and jumped back himself, so they would have enough distance for his to throw some mor shards, thus blocking the path between them as well. While on the other side of the rubble, he said:

"You have done enough, kids. I am sorry for my rude behavior, but I cannot endanger you into a gunfight. Use the hole I made behind you to escape the ship and wait for Al and the others. I will go on by myself now..."

Then he walked away. He paused for a moment.

"I promise I will buy you a new shirt, princess...", he said and once again headed for Allen's location.

Al was hovering above the water. The instinctive fear of water was strange and new to him, and he could only guess it had something about the Vitus experiments and his fire powers. He was stumbling in the air constantly since he had no idea how to control his new found flight abilities. Whatever Lexi was doing had to get them out of here fast..

Suddenly something slammed into him out of nowhere, knocking him straight out of the sky. Whatever had tackled him sunk its teeth into his shoulder, as they both plummeted into the hallway. Pain shot through his already sore arm and he could feel the blood leaking down his arm as his attacker continued to dig its teeth into his left shoulder. There were still surviving Vitus on the ship? Since when did they start biting people? That really didn't matter right now, because if he didn't get it off of him soon it would take off his entire arm. "Get...the hell.. OFF OF ME!" His entire right arm burst into flames burning his attackers mouth, and it jumped off him shrieking and screeching in pain. Now that he was free from his assailant's weight Al could finally get a look at his attacker. The beast that he was looking at was clearly not a Vitus. With the fire in its mouth now out, the beast was angry. He clutched his wounded shoulder with his right hand, and set his left hand aflame. "Did that hurt you overgrown dust mop? Come try and get another taste!"

Allen slammed to his feet the ground melting partially under him, "I have to save them...she would want me to help them..." Allen calmed his power forcing it back into himself. Slowly the energy that was making him look like the human nuke slowly faded as his skin reappeared and Allen was back to normal. "God that fucking hurts!" Allen walked over to the door he had melted shut and blasted it open, then he began walking down the hall only to be met by another large Vitus in an armored suit, "Guess its just you and me huh big guy?" Allen raised both his fists as his arms started to glow again, "You know I'm really a man of science...but I gotta say...I just love melting your kinds skulls in." The armored Vitus charged him and Allen let lose a straight blast of EMP energy shutting the suit down, "sucks doesn't it?"

Jack kept searching all over the ship for Allen, but to his dismay the gunfight and the loud voices had stopped, once again leaving him clueless as to where he is. To make matters worse, some leaks in the spaceship opened up more, steadily rising the water levels which were now at his knees, hindering his already slow movements. He let out a curse for the unfortunate turn of events.

"What could go worse now, except for me drowning?" he thought, trying to be sarcastic.

But he soon figured that he shouldn't count his chickens before they hatch. Still wandering the labyrinthine passageways, Jack suddenly heard something crawling around, but he couldn't spot anything around, all the more with his vision blurred from the blood that dropped in his eye. He approached carefully, not knowing what awaited him. Suddenly, something grabbed him and pushed him to the bottom of the water, trying to suffocate him.Inside the water, Jack could see a large arm holding him down. He tried to touch the hand so it could explode, something that didn't work, because of his ignorance that his powers work only on inorganic objects. With little time left to breathe, Jack quickly fetched a metal shard, ignited it and pierced the arm, causing it to explode afterwards. Quickly emerging from the water, Jack saw two humanoid creatures with streching arms with some kind of spikes on the inside of their palms quickly moving on the ceiling of the spaceship. He also noticed that his chest was pierced fronm those spikes, but it wasn't deep enough, probably thanks to the water's resistance.

"Crap, I am in no good condition to fight, much less with two opponents with much greater mobility, while I am hindered by water...Besides, why are they looking like humans, when the Vitus do not resemble the human race at a..."

His thought was interrupted by another long-ranged attack that slammed him in a nearby wall. Barely standing, Jack said:

"Vision blurry...water rising...fast...Have to...end this...quickly...and find...the other fellow..."

Then he picked metal shards from his pockets, ready to engage the creatures in combat.

Allen charged the Vitus at full force his eyes and arms glowing furiously as the Vitus charged towards him as well, "I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU MONSTER!!!" Allen moved quick slamming his shoulder into the Vitus and exploding at the exact moment of impact, this managed to obliterate the Vitus's suit front entirely. "IF ITS THIS EASY THEN YOUR PLANET WILL BURN IN A MATTER OF HOURS!!!" His EMP had ruined the weapons in the suit and now all the Vitus had was his fists, Allen didn't mind in fact he liked a good test of physical ability as the two of them started swinging on each other.

That's when Allen saw it for the first time a glowing toothed monster, not a Vitus but something deadly for sure, Allen blasted the Vitus through the chest focusing on his new enemy, "Well aren't you cute." Allen started to glow fully, the creature started growling, "come get me mutt..." The creature snapped forward only to be met by a blast of pure radiation, "sit!" Allen blasted it hard enough to shake the whole ship, "STAY!!!"

The two creatures were moving swiftly around the walls and ceiling of the passageway, making Jack miss his shots, resulting in opening holes around the spaceship. Luckily, the holes were still above the water level, so they didn't fill the ship with more water, at least not yet. The creatures stretched their arms, grabbing things to enable them to move fair distance in a short amount of time. Jack was already at his limit and had no idea as to how to attain victory in this battle, or at least come out of it alive. Then, one of the creatures stretched his arm around Jack, binding him, while the other used his arm like a whip, slamming him once again in a nearby wall. Jack's head wound opened even more, with Sky's cloth unable to keep all the blood.

"Damn creatures...If only you could stay still!" Jack thought.

His legs gave up sometime ago, rendering Jack unable to move at all. He desperately used the shards he had to maintain some distance with the creatures, but he didn't have many left and the monsters wouldn't allow him to get any even if he wanted to. Through the smoke an explosion of his caused, a spiked palm emerged and grabbed his whole head, once again banging him to a wall.The creature now at an arm's length from Jack, trying to crash his skull, while the spikes in their heads pierced through their heads. The creature then screamed in a monstrous, alienlike voice:

"PAIN...SO MUCH PAIIIIIN! MUST DEVOUR...FLESH!!"

Lingering between consciousness and unconsciousness, Jack heard the creature talk.

"Wait a moment...That was human language! Is that thing...a human?"

Jack's justification for his thought was that if the Vitus used technology to make these creatures understand and talk the human language, then they would be able to speak it too, but not a single Vitus speaked in that language. So the only possibility was that these things are-or were-human. This thought enraged Jack so much that he temporarily ignored his pain and quickly forced a piece of shard in the monster's belly, exploding it from the inside. He was full of the monster's blood, which was also washed by the water, now covering Jack's legs. His whole face was full of wounds from the monster's spikes that pierced it. He was panting heavily, but turned to the other creature.

"I will put you out of your misery as well. Then I will avenge the one who did this to you. You have my word..." he said.

Allen moved down the hall the first thing he saw was jack barely standing in water and his own blood with the exploded corpse of some monster next to him, Jack was wounded badly and much more would kill him, Allen knew this for a fact and without any warning his whole body covered in glowing energy, "Get away from my friend!!!" Allen charged his beam and real eased it burning the creatures arm badly but this thing was faster than he expected, a spike impaled Allen through the chest. Allen let out a surprised gasp as the air escaped his lungs from the force. Allen lost his balance and fell slightly melting the ground where he had landed. Allen was bleeding the spike was close to his heart, he knew he was more than likely going to die but he forced himself to blast the creatures skull melting its whole head, Allen laid back after that slipping in and out of consiouness, "Jack...do me a favor okay...when you get back home...look up Helen Willows...I don't think I'll be seeing my wife again..." He started coughing hard, "She deserves to know what happened..." Allen was barely awake, "so close..."

Sky stood silently for a moment, staring off in the direction that Jack had run off in, contemplating whether or not to try and follow anyway. Instead she turned around and pounded her fist on the side of the box Rowan had encased himself in. "Come on, we've got to go." She called before climbing out the makeshift exit and onto the top of the ship, looking around as if confused. Movement caught her eyes off to the side, a giant black beast attacking what looked like one of the survivors. "What the hell is that thing?" Her breath was caught in her throat, eyes wide in wonder. The Vitus had been repulsive to her but the sight of this beast had her fascinated. Never before had she heard of any other form of the Vitus other than the kinds that she woke up to after being experimented on. This was either something they had kept well hidden, or something totally new. A slow whistle escaped her lips as she stared on in terrified amazement.

**Removed**

Jack was shocked to see Allen in that state. He has seen people on the verge of death in the slums, but they were never his comrades in arms, people he would look for like he did. The view of Allen floating motionless, barely alive and speaking to him so earnestly like these were his last words made left him speechless for some time. He quickly turned to his senses, realizing that he had to act fast and find a way to save his friend's life.

"Listen...I don't have a family to wait for me at home. If someone deserves to live and return, it is you. So, just forget what you said right now that seemed like your will and think of it as the next thing you are going to do after we get out of here! Besides, how am I supposed to let you die, without even hearing your name?" he said, with his words filled with passion.

He had dealt with wounds before, but never fatal ones. However, he had to act fast, or Allen would be dead. He mustered all of his strength to approach him, examining the wound. The spike was near Allen's heart and Jack wasn't a surgeon to know exactly what to do. He knew from experience that if he pulled the spike out, the blood would flow, but if he let it like this, it could possibly reach his heart. Jack used his powers to make another wall explode and used the heated up metal shards that were blasted to make a shallow cut in Allen's wound and open it. Then, he slowly removed the spike from Allen's chest and placed a big mettalic shard on top of the cut, which burnt into Allen's flesh, thus closing the wound.

"I know it hurts, but put up with it. We have been through worse..." Jack commented.

He knew that just this would not keep him alive, just give him a slightly more time. Then he took advantage of the water level to minimize Allen's weight, to take him on his back.

"You are getting out of here friend...Then we are going to find some help!" Jack said and steadily moved through the passageway, trying to find an exit for them to make their escape.

Allen watched as the world started to spin and a cold hand rubbed across his spine, death had found him for sure...and then when all hope was lost Jack went into motion doing everything correctly as if he were a trained surgeon. Jack blew up the wall and used the shards to open his wound and then remove the spike, then he used another super heated shard to seal the wound closed, when he sealed it Allen let out a roar of pain. And then something Allen would never forget happened Jack picked him up on his back the same way his brother had carried him in desert storm...after he'd been shot...Allen pushed this memory away as they started walking, "Listen if I can get back enough strength to stand...I can heal myself..." Allen let out a sigh, "I'm Allen by the way."

Al charged at the black creature head on and the two of them clashed head on. It was a complete mess as the two of them fought against each other tooth and nail after that for every flaming punch he landed on the beast its black claws streaked across his body. The beast glowing jaws snapped constantly in front of his face as it got on top. The monster was trying to rip into his jugular and take him out. The damn mutt was a lot smarter than it lead him to believe. This thing was putting up way more of a challenge than nay Vitus did. He punched it in the head to get to get it off of him. "You got some fight in you? Interesting!"

Jack nodded to Allen's name, because he couldn't do otherwise. He could barely move with the both of them, so he had to keep as much power as he could. Sometime later, Jack encountered a door, which he blasted open. However, a shock awaited him in the inside of the room. Hundreds of tubes, just like the ones Jack and the others were trapped, were in the room, all of them keeping inside the same monsters that attacked him and Allen. There was also another Vitus inside, albeit different from the others. This one appeared to be a scientist. It was undisturbed from the blast and didn't seem to notice Jack and Allen at all. Instead it seemed to be mumbling something in Vitus. Jack calmly let Allen on the floor.

"Hey you! What are you doing here? Answer me!" Jack said as loud as he was able to.

The Vitus noticed them for the first time and said calmly:

"Oh, humans! You seem to be part of the escapees that did all this damage to the ship!"

Jack was shocked that the alien could understand and speak the human language, although in a different, more creepy voice. The alien continued:

"Ah, I see you are surprised that I can communicate with you. While it is true that Vitus don't speak other languages, I am an exception. For the IQ of a Vitus' scientist, learning a language, is like you learning the alphabet. As to what I am doing here, I am harvesting. Harvesting new weapons! You see, you humans possessed untapped potential that has never been seen before in another race. Your genetic code enables you to acquire powers beyond normal limits. Yet still, the research is incomplete. I have yet to discover if the powers you acquire are random or not and I still haven't found a 100% effective way to bring out these powers, thus the failures you see all around us!"

Jack was full of rage and sick of listening to the alien's speech.

"FAILURES? YOU TALK ABOUT HUMANS LIKE THEY ARE A MASS-PRODUCTION ITEM?"

The alien approached a big construction and replied:

"A superior race can say whatever he want about an inferior one. Weren't humans doing the discriminations based on colour, country and nobility? Aren't you considering yourselves the top of the food chain? Then it is correct to say that we are the superior as well, not to mention obvious! Look at what we did with our technology. You have discovered nuclear fission more than 80 years ago, yet still haven't unlocked it's boundless potential. On the other hand, I can create super soldiers with just one nuclear reactor! The Vitus are supreme!"

Then the alien calmly went towards Jack, who replied:

"I swear you will regret what you said just now!"

But then, the Vitus stabbed Jack in the stomach with a lancet, while Jack reflexively threw a metal shard but it didn't hit the alien.

"Foolish race...I act all calm around you and you are not prepared for a sudden attack. How are you going to make me regret what I said like this? You can't even aim properly."

Jack laughed on the Alien's comment. He grabbed the Vitus' arm to not fall down, his pupils dilated.

"I never told you I was the one who was going to make you regret it, Allen will...Look behind you. I didn't miss my target."

The metal shard was heading to the nuclear reactor the Vitus demonstrated.

"You idiot! Everyone will die if this thing explodes! What have you done?"

"I couldn't possibly defeat you in my state and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to destroy this place and put the souls of those humans to rest. This guy can drain radioactive energy, so he will contain the explosion and he will have recovered enough to smack you one and destroy this place....for good."

As he said that, Jack fell on the ground, his eyes closed. Then the shard touched the reactor's exterior and exploded.

Sky watched as the beast attacked the fellow survivor, the fight breaking her shocked stare. "Hold on, I'm coming." She called, watching her path as she ran towards the two grappling bodies. "I'm not weak, I don't need to be protected. I can fight." She mumbled to herself as she raced across the top of the ship. An explosion within the ship sent her toppling over but it didn't keep her down, in a second she was on her feet again, harnessing all her hate for the Vitus and their way of life. Taking a deep breath Sky screamed, willing the damage to only be done to the beast, the pitch continuing to rise past what the normal human ear could comprehend. She had to press her hands to own ears to dampen the sound for she could still hear it when others around her should not have been able to.

Allen listened to the conversation with keen ear and when the moment came, Allen sprang into action absorbing the radiation at full force keeping it from burning Jack but allowing it to slightly burn the Vitus, Allen absorbed it all healing himself at a rapid pace, then he rose to his feet. The blast was over the room was still intact and Jack and the Vitus had been thrown apart, Allen walked over to the Vitus and with his immense strength lifted him up, ripped off his lab coat and snapped both of his arm, "Now that you are no longer a danger, I'd like to speak with you scientist to scientist. Now you said that you are a superior in all respects yes? Obviously you made a miscalculation, because I was already intelegent enough to build weapons of mass destruction and now I have a never ending fuel source... Do you know what you've done? You have given me the ability to send the human race far past you in the evolutionary ladder...I will build ships, WMD, weapons, cities and a new world powered by something we have never had before...stabilized nuclear energy." Allen started glowing brightly as a dark smile played across his lips, "Now tell me...how does it feel to know you created a god...and then have him kill you?"

(Inferno I'll let you be the Vitus it makes for more fun and adds to the conversation.)

(Cool, since Jack is out cold, I will take the helm!)

The Vitus scientist couldn't coprehend the being in front of him. Just like Allen said, he was a creation of infinite possibilities. He was taken aback from that ascertainment.

"This body...These powers...They have no finite element! I created it! I CREATED THE ULTIMATUM OF SCIENCE!"

He was delirious from the sight before him.

"I created you...You belong to me! You could never reach this level yourself! You are mine, human! Mine and mine alone!" he said, his mouth drooling.