She should be so lucky. He was actually the protagonist, which made it much worse. The gun's blast hammered into Mercer's armor, not shattering it -- in fact, the armor was him now, his biomass shifted into this new form -- but shredding off layers of tissue. That had hurt.

The claws at the end of her opponent's hands melted into thick knobs of flesh so massive even the superhuman figure seemed to have trouble standing straight against the weight on his shoulders. Abruptly, he heaved them back, then flung himself forward, the twin masses launching him through the air like a weighted dart towards her.