The soft, emerald glow being emitted from within Conner's aquatic bubble was a jarring outlier in the total darkness of their underground prison. It beat with a strange, disturbing rhythm, sending creepy, twisted shadows onto the surface of the water, lighting up the terror and perplexity on Wally and Robin's faces. Aqualad, his Atlantean senses going into overdrive, sensed a jarring energy emanating from his teammate, a disorderly vibration that harmonized badly with the natural magical flows of the planet.
"Conner?" Aqualad's voice was a soft rumble, tinged with alarm. "Are you okay?"
The only answer was a guttural snarl, a noise that appeared to come from some deeper, more primitive region of Conner's body. The green light grew stronger, and the water in his sphere started to ripple, stirred by some hidden power. The wild energy of the warehouse's ruin, having permeated their environment, was playing off the odd geometry of Conner's artificial DNA, releasing dormant potential, warping his very physiology in strange manners.
Outside, under Zatanna's straining magical barrier, Michael experienced a cold fear clutching his heart. The torrent of unstable energy had caused a feedback loop with Conner's Genomorph form, a compelled evolution fueled by disharmony. He knew the symptoms – the unnatural glow, the savage cries – reminders of magical corruption he had seen in the past, though differently manifested.
"Zatanna," Michael's tone was tight with urgency, shattering her intense focus. "Conner… the unstable energy… it's impacting him. His Genomorph matrix… it's responding."
Zatanna, her face creased with effort as she sustained the shield against the ponderous tonnage of the debris, sensed the shift in the ambient field of magic. A fresh, unstable signature was appearing, woven through the lingering energy of Umbra's enhanced magic.
"I feel it," she panted, sweat trickling across her forehead. "It's.unstable. Volatile."
Through the heavy dust and the soft emerald light, they could still feel the presence of Umbra, a malignant flash of erratic energy in the silence of the ruined warehouse. Her twisted voice resonated through the wreckage, infused with a cold victory.
"Yes… let the madness take hold! Let it mold you! You were destined to be a weapon! Now… you will become something… more!"
Her words, though spoken to some unseen power, brought a chill of fear through the captive heroes. The "more" she mentioned sounded less like an improvement and more like a grotesque metamorphosis.
In his watery confinement, Conner flailed wildly, the emerald radiance now spiking erratically. His limbs twisted into unnatural shapes, his features becoming sharper, more inhuman. The growls grew louder, transmuting into savage snarls that testified to agony and a growing, animal fury. The anarchic energy rewrote his story, imposing a new, horror-filled chapter on his resisting form.
Conner, stop!" Wally's voice was laced with fear as he watched his teammate's grotesque transformation. "What's happening to you?"
Robin, his thoughts reeling, attempted to break down the situation, his strategic mind wrestling with the sheer unnaturalness of what was happening. "The energy… it's acting on his DNA… it's speeding up his growth… warping it…
Aqualad, his sympathy extending to the tortured clone, attempted to create a mental connection, only to be confronted with a maelstrom of agony and bestial fury, a psychic cry that repelled his telepathic intrusion.
"I am unable to contact him," Kaldur'ahm informed him, his tone somber. "His mind… it is shrouded in chaos."
The green glow grew to a fever, and with a spasm of violence, Conner's physical body became remade on a more extreme level. His flesh grew coarse and scaly, his elbows and shoulders sprouting bony growths, his face stretching into a more savage countenance. The "S" shield on his chest contorted and deformed into a jagged, otherworldly symbol.
The water in his sphere shattered and splintered at the power of his change, and Conner, a twisted mockery of his previous incarnation, burst from the wreckage, a snarling, green-eyed beast of untrained power and wild energy. He directed his vision, rage-filled and unfocused and primitive, toward the soft glow on Zatanna's shield.
"Conner… it's us!" Wally shouted out, quivering. "Don't you remember us?"
The beast that had been Conner Kent unleashed a deafening roar, a bellowing cry that mirrored the atonal concert of the falling warehouse and the malevolent murmurs of Klarion's anarchic magic. Sanity was lost, replaced by raw, unadulterated rage, a monster forged by the unnatural union of Kryptonian genetics and anarchic magic. The cost of this coerced evolution was the possible loss of their team member, and the events unfolding catalyst had the potential to convert their rescue operation into a last-resort survival struggle against a tainted friend.