"What's he doing?" Ozzy asked as he helped Adem pull the silk from Drake's eyes.

"It's... changing," Gaunt answered. His eyes were closed but still the man saw what was occuring within the shadows of the cocoon's inner wall. "Mueller's mutations are quickening. There was obviously more in that concoction than just locust DNA. His body is morphing into some hybrid meta-insect."

"A Superfly?" Icarus inquired.

Drake pulled himself to his feet. "We need to stop it." He picked up his sword. "I'm not going to let Mothra run wild in Kiel."

{Drake.} Jym's face buzzed to life on his cell phone. {Lykopis will be rejoining you in just a moment. I suggest you move.}

"What are you...."

{There is no time. She is about to take a left on Hassenberg.}

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Lykopis held her foot down on the gas pedal as far as she could. She was used to being chauferred around from place to place, but navigating an automobile did not seem that difficult to her. The people leaping from the sidewalks into the safety of open shop doorways. She spun the wheel in her hand as she came to Hassenberg. Paying no heed to the red light suspended above her, the bumper of the vehicle swung in a wide arc, narrowly avoiding collision with other cars. Before her, the road was relatively clear. Her foot did not let up as the image of Munich road flashed away and was replaced by that of Dr. Mueller's driveway.

The team immediately noticed the speeding auto and reacted as quick as they could. Adem leapt straight into the air. Drake did a backflip out of the path of oncoming car. Icarus's jets came spit fire and propelled him upwards. Gaunt dissolved into nothingness. Ozzy ran as fast as he could out of the way, but the front bumper caught his leg. The boxer was sent twirling like a top, making him very dizzy by the time his body collapsed onto the ground. The car slammed to a halt, the frame wrapped around the cocoon. Inside, the airbag had deployed as the Spactial Inducer hummed to a stop.

"What else can go wrong?" Drake asked while Ozzy was trying to decide if he was going to vomit or not.

Another wall of Mueller's house burn away from a crimson beam. From inside the house, the VE team leader could hear a Columbian voice yelling, "My eyes! What did that stuff do to my eyes?!"

Drake readied his sword. "Why do I keep asking rhetorical questions?"