Shook wasn't the right word to describe the look on all of their faces. It was devastation. I looked down at Percival and smacked him before he had time to think. The blow sent him through the door at the back of the room and out the window behind it, disappearing into the darkness. As much control as I had, I had no idea how strong the beast I was riding truly was. Pain flared up in my hand or rather a paw, and the bones in my body, although changed, were still broken. Next to where he stood was Coraline, terror freezing her in place, with less force than before I pushed her against the wall. She hit it hard and crumbled to the floor like putty. 

Hamish and Margot were all that stood before me. Hamish, now, standing at the door wondering if it would be smart to leave the room and Margot just stared me down with amusement and fear dazzling within her eyes beside the shorter boy. I lumbered towards them in all fours until we were face to face, they wanted to react but they were stopped by unsurety. I could have growled or attacked but I simply shook my head. Margot took Hamish's arm, to which he flinched violently, and pulled him away from the door. The door frame was normal-sized, which was a predicament for the giant panda form I had taken. I had to take a few steps back and bound at the entrance. The wall surrounding the crumbled like a cookie, any more force against it at the speed I used and I would have been following Percival out the window. I looked out the window to see where he had landed and he seemed to have just barely landed in a rose bush about five stories below. The surrounding area was a city, the building I was in seemed to be on the outskirts of a city. To the left, the sky was tinted in a sherbet orange which regressed to a deep blue. It had to be around six in the morning, which means I'd been with Transgress for about nine hours.

Back to my own predicament, I found myself in an unlit hallway, windows ran across the right side of the wall and the room I had just left was to my left. I had zero plan, a second ago I was coming to terms with death, so I'll give myself a pass on that. There was also the fact that I was a freaking panda. Steadily, I was beginning to understand the movements and how much strength I need to add to my actions. It was an interesting learning curve but my leg was still my leg just as much as it would have been if I was standing in my human form. I prowled down the hallway carefully, the walls were a dreary grey that lacked a sense of personality. There were offices on this floor that were cautioned taped off or looked as though were being renovated. There was even an open area that still equipment like a microwave, and coffee maker as well as cubicles with layers of dust and scaffolding close by. Transgress must have been renovating an old office building into something, but it wasn't my concern right now. Stealth was hard though. How does a giant panda sneak out of a building especially after making a lot of noise to begin with? Noise that hadn't gone unnoticed.

A door swung open in front of me and a few Transgress soldiers in casual clothing like hoodies and sweatpants, it was slightly amusing that they all stopped in their tracks when they saw me. Where they stopped, I charged. I came at them like a bowling ball and knocked them to the floor, steamrolling through the door behind them. The frame crumbled around me, not slowing me down as I slammed into a wall headfirst. The walls shuddered for a second but stopped promptly afterwards. I was in a stairway now, one that was clearly too narrow for my overgrown body, the stair probably descended down four of the five stories the building had. In my head, my head began to swim with thoughts and ideas of escape, more thought than I needed buzzing around inside it, eventually the thoughts came to conclusion. Get out and plan on from there. It took a little pushing but I squeezed between the railing and the wall, moving down the stairs slowly.

Gradually, the tightness around my body began to loosen. As if I was shrinking and it turns out that I had. My body no longer touched either the wall or the railing but I was still in the form of a panda. The extra space gave me more space to move, but more specifically run. Good timing as well because a fire alarm boomed through the building. Even with the added speed, I was basically hobbling down the steps at a brisk pace. The more the adrenaline subsided, the more the feeling of pain returned. I got to the bottom of the stairs and pushed down a door that stood in my way, maybe it was my decreased size or maybe the toll on my body was beginning to take root but it took more force to break it down. I pushed forwards, searching for another set of stairs, huffing and puffing. The floor was a carbon copy of the previous, only emptier and with a stronger scent of paint. While trying to get to the opposite side of the building, I was stopped in my tracks. I didn't stop myself, I was stopped. My body refused to move, it was like everything inside me had turned solid. At first, I thought that my body had just given up on itself at the worst moment but if that were so, I would still be touching the ground. However, I was hovering about a foot off the ground and slowly rotating towards the way I came. In between me and the door I knocked down was Nina, one hand raised up towards me and the other was holding an ever-changing ruby red sword. The blood that was leaking out of me slowly trickled off of my fur and towards the girl.

"Tsk tsk tsk." She sounded as she shook her head. "Where do you think you are going, cosas calientes. You're supposed to be tied to a chair and an Idlite."

I tried to speak back but all that left my maw was a gurgling growl.

"No silver tongue for me this time. Shame." She lazily closed her hand and my blood felt as though it turned to burning daggers. "I'm assuming you didn't end up giving anything up during the interrogation. I kinda saw that coming but I liked seeing you piss Percival off so I let it slide. He can be a real ass at times."

She rotated her hand gently and my blood began to pool out of me into her other hand. Whatever energy had within me was sapped out of me with my blood as it coagulated together, shifting its shape until it was a long crimson scimitar that was almost her arm's length. In the dark, it shimmered in its shifting hue as it caught the moonlight differently as it rippled in its form. She held the sword up towards me and with her other hand motioned to come forward. My blood dragged my floating form towards the tip of the blade, but stopped just short of skewering me. "As much of an ass as he is, he is still my teammate and you are a criminal. As a member of the Gemini, I sentence you to death."

She lifted her sword into the air and before she brought it down, I began to shift again. My bones began to crunch and reshape, condensing and shrinking, forcing my body down until it was less than a quarter of the size that I was before. My legs were now stubbier to support my nimble body, and upon my ass sprouted a long fluffy black and white tail. Nina stared at me in bewilderment and then in horror as she realized what I had transformed into. It took a moment for it to click, but when it did it was the perfect, disgusting little creature for the situation. She tried to swing her bloodied blade but the new muscles kicked in like an auto defence. I sprayed the girl with the most noxious, revolting and vile liquid that she had probably ever encountered in her entire life. The perk of being a skunk. She screamed as it sprayed all over her face, losing her concentration on the blood. The sword lost its form and splat onto the floor alongside me as I landed on my paws. Even in my smaller form, my limbs shoot in agony. I wanted to stop for a second but who knew how many more people would be coming, so I scampered as quickly as possible to the second set of stairs. With no other interruptions, I made it to the bottom and out the door. I was immediately blasted with a freezing gust of wind that bit at my open wounds. Before me was a thicket of trees that ate up the horizon that glowed with the fizz of a glass of cider. Faint lights of the city flashed behind the trees. To the right were two Transgress trucks parked in the shadow of the building. In a bush to the other side of the building, Percival crawled his way out looking worse for wear. I scampered towards him and looked him dead in the eye before spraying him in the face and fleeing into the cover of trees, the screams of Percival echoing behind me.

Once I was deep into the thicket, I stopped to analyze my current state and think of a plan. My body was in shambles, it was barely holding itself together but I could still manage like this for a few more hours before I need medical assistance. Based of the fact Coraline had to drive in rather than teleport in meant that I was still in Oregon, probably a few hours away from the hotel. My best option was to find a way to go south to the safe house. Only issue besides all that was that I had no clue how to transform. The last two times were purely instinctual and out of necessity. Any new Amp would have seen this as a roadblock, but after years of growing up with Amps, watching them struggle to use their abilities, and waiting for my powers to come in, I studied them. The way they moved, breathed and thought. Even with the variation between people, the end result was the same in a sense. I slowed my breathing and became conscious of the flow of my blood, the pulse of life through my veins, the impulses shouting through my nerves. My form was my will, to change it just needed a single thought. My bones started to once more, shrinking down more and more. My front paws were exchanged for streamlined wings, fur being replaced with chromatic black and blue feathers, tail coming down to point with smaller feathers jetting out of it. Once my body had finished its transformation, I was ready to take to the skies as a white-throated needletail, the fastest flying bird. After a few attempts at trying to figure out how I was meant to actually fly, the animal instincts kicked in and I caught the wind as if it were second nature. I wanted to try and do backflips or some sort of aerial tricks but even in a different form, my body was damaged and blood still leaked from me. Changing shape seemed to change the injuries, they still existed but were smaller. I pushed the thoughts of injuries aside and thought about getting to the safe house. If I really was still in Oregon, heading south was my best chance of getting there.

After five and a half hours of flying and stopping on cars to rest, I finally recognized the location of where I was flying over. As flew east over Sacramento, into the hill exertion finally high. My tiny wings could barely keep a glide as the injuries had become too much for my body. I traced the freeway as best I could, my vision fading in bursts. Finally, hidden between the trees, a house that didn't belong greeted me. Light reflected off the skylight as I flew towards it. Correction, glided towards it. Correction again, fell towards it. My muscles had shut down completely and I could feel my bones begin to change shape again. My form grew as I slammed through a pane in the skylight and into the tiles of the floor. The cold tiles comforted me as my consciousness waned. I twitched on the floor as my muscles and bones stopped shifting and I was back in my brutalized, bruised and bloodied human form. My eyes were barely open but I could see Stephanie looking down at me, panic heavy within the purple of her eyes. Her lips were moving but the words were shrouded in pain. A single voice cut through that shroud as she came into view, Lydia looked down at me horrified and held my head.

"Juan, say something. Please."

"I... promised I'd... meet you-" I forced the words out of my lips before blacking out cold.