Contessa leaves. The unpowered people in white coats stay to observe, but through some thick glass. At very close to the same time, the rescuees and test subjects drink their concoctions. It takes some time before any take effect.

She erects her forcefields.

One of the victims cries out, and then—

she finds herself on the ground in her ring of force fields. There are lights and crashes around the outside, and the occasional scream, and then just when she's almost collected herself she loses track again.

Eventually she's alert again. Few of the test subjects are still recognizably human. One person looks like more tree than man. He reaches into the foliage where his rib cage used to be and some organ or other is visibly bird-shaped. He gasps for breath, but, no lungs. Probably not long for the world. Another has been flipped around several axes simultaneously. Right and left arms switched places, head on backwards, and also her entire body is inside out. Even deader, and that one didn't even have a separate power. A third has her legs replaced with a tail, like a dolphin's but covered in small barbs, and her face permanently locked into a snarl of rage. Or maybe she's just angry for some reason. Other people are already dead; if they had usable powers at all Ellie missed them while she was down.

Someone expires, and this time she's able to catch it.

Most of these are probably going to be extremely unusable. But she's expending very little effort to obtain them and the potential variance is high. She catches the ones that die.

The most common result is to transform her into various kinds of mess that would be quickly fatal and probably painful if she ever tried doing it while not metal. Sometimes there are usable active powers. The tree man gained strength and endurance and so on based on how scared of him people were. Maybe he could have survived if surrounded by people who weren't busy being scared of other current events.

The most useful is probably this one. A short-range attack splitting people or objects into two incomplete duplicates, with her getting the choice of which half gets what attributes. The original holder never did get control of it, but did some property damage where the wall doesn't have both its structural integrity and its breadth and a few duplicates with partial power sets. Probably split up personality traits too, though they're a bit too dead to notice. And eventually that power's unlucky wielder got caught in their own crossfire.

That's creative. The Nine probably would have enjoyed it.

Has anyone survived their dose for this long?

The woman with the fish tail is stable. In the sense that she's not actively dying, not that she can stand upright. Not many others look like they're going to survive. One man even stayed human, if you look past the bit where he's glowing.

She'll walk over and collect those two.

The observers come back in, wary of the remaining mutants. "We're using the surviving ones."

"So am I," she says, not stopping.

"Would you rather take these two or be invited back for another round?"

"How sure are you that I'll need an invitation, now that I've been here?" This is surely going to attract attention if it hasn't already. She swaps in Jack.

"If you want us lining up parahumans for you as fast as we can develop the samples? Fairly sure."

"I'm not convinced this is going to continue to be worthwhile use of my time. Not for these dregs."

"Next time we ask you if you want additional parahumans with no opposition you can feel free to say no."

She'll just go ahead and take the mermaid and the glowing man, then.

They're about to try to run—effectively, in the second case—but there's also a potential threat soon to materialize in front of her.

She should probably move, then. Blink to the glower, two birds with one stone.

A door appears and Contessa steps through. After Ellie collects her target. (It's a mover power, twisting space to bring any two points together. Relatively short range but very high usage limits. Not the most useful given that she already has teleportation several times over.)

"Just those two it is, then. I won't say we're opposed to having you as a backstop, but apparently that's not the way to strengthen the army." She is still about to take the other parahuman with her when she leaves.

"Apparently not."

Portal to Bet from here?

She'd have to use Labyrinth's power and then batter down the door with Myrddin's before she can rearrange it. Cauldron might disapprove of that.

Contessa crosses the room toward her rescuee, and two portals appear. "The second one is for you if you want it. It's back to where I met you today."

"I'm not quite done here, yet."

"I believe dregs was the word you used? She's more valuable to us than to you."

There's no visible sign of a change of plans, unless "suspiciousness not otherwise specified" counts, but Contessa's about to leave in self-defense.

She doesn't want Contessa as much as she wants the entity, and causing Contessa to leave will make looking for it easier. So she's going to swap herself for the mermaid and grab Contessa in five seconds. One. Two-

The room explodes. From every direction at once: the walls, floor, and even ceiling.

She's using Jack's and Trickster's shade and isn't currently standing in a barrier, but that still leaves two defensive powers she hasn't swapped out. A little self-destruct isn't likely to kill her very fatally.

The mermaid's shade floats toward her. Contessa's doesn't.