---

---

"Come out, come out, wherever you are~," Chiroptera's voice lilted over the piles of scrap as she stepped with slow, purposeful strides through the yard. "C'mon, Grimm... why don't we make today our last date? Those Eagle 5000 XS UHD optics will make fine additions to the colony... They'll look real~ nice next to the 3000 series eyes I took from you last year. That hydraulic jaw? Just think of how many implants I can tear out of your friends with that."

F-ffuck, Grimm hissed quietly in response to the eerie, humorless monotone. The quiet flutter of wings overhead alerted him to the fact that stepping out from the engine compartment of the wrecked semi-tractor he was hiding in would immediately get him spotted. He held his breath and tried to quiet the pounding of his heart as one of her beastly, taloned, digitigrade cybernetic feet silently fell into view just a few paces outside the grill. He flinched as his audio implants registered the harmonic *ping* of muted ultrasonic waves bouncing off the outside of the compartment.

The microscopic vibrations caused a bolt to dislodge and bounce out of an adjacent scrap pile. Chiroptera's movements were like lightning. Grimm's UHD optics barely registered that she was out of frame. An afterimage seared his vision for a moment while the optics compensated, and he cringed away from the shriek of an integrated mono-molecular vibro-sword rending rusted steel and air alike.

Confrontations with that predatory, cybernetic wraith were always tense. She had some kind of hyper-advanced neural acceleration or wired reflex unit that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Probably some fucked up Tinker implant. It made her ungodly fast- the boys were always drooling over it like it was some kind of cybernetic Holy Grail. "If we could only-," they'd say, while scrawling up plans for an ambush some hotheaded scrapper would undoubtedly fuck up. Even if they did manage to pry it out of the bitch, they'd all kill each other fighting over it. Idiots.

To make matters worse, his call for help had only yielded the shrieks of over-amped cyberpsychos screaming about some cloaked lady and Rat pulling swords out of thin air, and something about Mantablack pulling a tasty haul from Shieldtown. Like, no wonder everyone considered them uncivilized monsters right? Not that he could talk: he'd done his fair share of "forcefully repossessing" implants, and other unsavory things. The only thing that made this situation different was that his one fear in this wretched world was gliding around outside like a goddamn ghost just steps away, and he could feel the amped emotions of the nearby swarm itching at the back of his skull.



Chiroptera paused in her stride, turning her masked face towards something in the distance only she could perceive. Grimm nearly took the attack of opportunity. The reason he didn't? Well... that's how he lost his first pair of eyes.

"What luck," she breathed, knocking on panels with her alloy knuckles in "Shave-and-a-hair-cut..." as she strode past. "Two-bits!" banged against the engine compartment loud enough to make him jump. "Looks like 'all I can eat' over at Shieldtown, and all~ your little friends are coming. Hope I see you there, Grimm..."

---

---

“Cute kid, reminds me of my sister.” She could still imagine Luolan’s crying face, like she had left yesterday. The girl was probably old enough to have lost most of the baby-fat around her face by now. Putting both her hands in her pockets, Astrid mused about the Den, found families, and the cost of protecting others as she followed closely behind Wolf.

“She is… a handful,” Wolf murmured, chuckling with a tired note and idly rubbing a hand over the numerous scratches and scars on her cybernetic arm.

Astrid couldn’t help but smile as she thought of the pouting girl Wolf had shooed away, “On the contrary, I walked into a situation unexpected enough to qualify myself as flummoxed…” She looked around the room a bit, the well-kept furniture that held the mark of age. How long had these people been hiding out here? How many wanderers had come here seeking respite, and how many had found it? The thought made her almost hesitant to ask for help. They would be taking on risk for her sake, and she wasn’t even sure she could be honest about why. Not that she knew why in Jahannam, JAHANNAM wanted to know about the bombing.

She gave Wolf another once-over, seeing the stranger in a new light. Good people like her were hard to come by in Titan’s Fall. “I’m Astrid, Grunewald. Formerly of the Children of the Skye. Some people ‘round here have heard of ‘em.” Her words slowly lowered to a mumble as she said the last part. “You know… On second thought, I’m not sure I should be asking you for help. You seem like you have your hands pretty full with…” Her left arm gestured to everything around them lamely. “Wouldn’t want the Horde following you back here.”

“Well. Firstly, if you’re going to stay here for any length of time you may wish to pick another name,” Wolf began. “I’m… familiar with the Children of the Skye, but who you were in the past isn’t important. The Den is where you come to leave all that behind and start with a clean slate,” she explained. For a moment Wolf’s eyes flicked up and to the right: HK had left her in passive recording mode, but there had to be something going on outside since HK was scrambling the Manta Interceptor with the Lockdown Suite, and “Black Betty,” the enormous flying sedan that was basically a gun they'd ripped out of a wrecked A-10 and slapped thrusters on to the catapult. Wolf resisted the urge to run out and check on what was happening. The girls would call her if something got out of hand.

“As far as Halcyon is concerned, we’re unofficially considered part of ShieldTown. We pay for our part of the tithe in the security and services we provide to our neighbor, if that’s what you’re worried about. They also know better than to come snooping around here or trying to settle old grudges,” she quipped. Wolf had sent them a pretty clear message and a bill for the damages last time that had happened. The Dragon, of course, wasn’t pleased. The thought brought an amused smile to her face.

"I'm not, that is to say, I don't-" A new name did sound nice. Something more refined than the ones she'd haphazardly been stuck with. She shook her head to dispel the notion before she could succumb to the temptation, "I just need help getting topside. If you think you can assist me with that, and it won't cause any blow-back on you from the Horde, I'd be very grateful."

She grew quiet for a moment while she carefully thought of what exactly to say. "I'm sure you heard about the explosion in Justice Square. The rest of my family is up on the Plates, some of them not far from there; I need to check on them." None of that had been a lie so far, she nodded slightly before continuing, "And, if it isn't too much trouble, I was hoping we could arrange to have my bike sent up with me? It was a gift from my sister, and she'd kill me if I showed up without it." Telling Wolf more would go a long way to cementing trust between the two, but... Her eyes darted about the room, spartan by necessity, refugees only a few rooms away; thoughts of that little girl's golden eyes, and that feeling of something crawling in the back of her mind while she shared that psychic view of the ocean.

There was no reason to divulge further, these people had their own problems. "I know it's asking a lot, and I don't know when I'd even be back to repay you." Her right hand anxiously reached behind her back, closing around her left upper arm. “I could pay; not much, but I have some Clat on me. I can pay more if you accept credits.”

Wolf’s chair creaked as she leaned back in it, maintaining eye contact with Astrid. She supported her elbow with one arm and pressed a knuckle to her upper lip in thought. The dimming lights and the resonating *thud* of the catapult through the bulkheads above them reminded her that HK was too busy to verify Astrid’s statements. News traveled rapidly in the Undercity, and Astrid’s story tugged on her heartstrings, but was that enough to put herself and her pack at risk for someone she didn’t know? The thought gnawed at her for a solid minute and her cybernetic wolf ears twisted to follow the sound of someone dashing down a hallway in another part of The Den.

“Well…,” she muttered uneasily. “The Lifter won’t breach the surface with your rig.” Wolf didn’t know Jade either when she shot the two men accosting her and brought JAHANNAM down on the pack. “Unless you can carry that thing while climbing the crater wall we’re booking a trip on one of the elevators,” Wolf muttered while staring off into the space between. HK was busy, so she was queuing intel reports from The Den’s servers manually to her HUD. From what she could tell, Freight had been hit pretty hard by some unknown masked Deviant followed by the Hunt. They’d missed a scheduled lift trip. Probably scrambling like hell to get it moving again.

“Someone move the ‘Vulture’ to the catapult when there’s a spare moment, please,” Wolf muttered into her sub-vocal vox. The faint sound of a double-click reply was only just lost to the ambient room noise. “I haven’t pissed off the Dragon in a while… Tell you what: I’ll get you to the surface to check on your family. You bring me back something pretty next time you’re in town and we’ll call it even,” Wolf smirked.

Máire sent up a cloud of ash as she hit the ground on the other side of the portal, her arm flipping her back into the air and landing her on her feet. She only had time to cast a quick glance at her surroundings before a new cacophony of alarms ripped her attention back toward Shieldtown, a glimmering blue dome on the horizon. Five miles out? No, closer to seven. Far enough that she wouldn’t be getting back quickly on foot.

Máire’s eyes dropped to the portal, now barely the size of a baseball. She thrust her hand back into the blackness, her arm severing below the elbow as it closed. She had done what she could, now. If Máire had misjudged and SIlver Fang hadn’t come through here, she would at least have a way of getting back on track.

She turned back toward the wastes, the near-imperceptible reticles of her eyes turning back and forth as they scanned the area for the ever-dwindling energy signature of the Ripper she was hunting. Silver Fang was meant to be one of the Templar’s finest; doubtless if Máire had picked up the trail with a starting lag, Fang was already on the cusp of running them down.

Her HUD tagged something. Not a Ripper. It looked like a woman, not far from where Máire had come through the portal, marching through the dust. A sword lanced through the air, and Máire was pulled after it.

---

Máire’s hand flopped into the damp floor of the sewer like an undesired sea bass, tips of her fingers dangling over the water flow. It sat still for a moment, silver dust drifting silently off the stump where it had been severed by the portal. Then the dust froze in mid air, hanging in the shards of light poking through the open manhole cover, before reversing direction and rejoining the amputated limb.

The hand bulged and shifted, silver sand flowing over itself as it reformatted and rebuilt itself into a new form resembling a lizard, its head replaced by a stumpy, featureless tendril that raised itself up to the air as though trying to catch a scent. The metallic “reptile” then twisted itself around, reorienting its direction, before skittering up the wall of the sewer and back through the manhole, vanishing onto the streets above with astonishing velocity for what should have by rights been a dead hand rotting with the sewage.

It certainly was an experience being carried around like a 200 pound sack of potatoes at blistering speeds by the local number one Templar. Then again, not the worst way he has ever crossed a distance and would probably still be more comfortable than being fireman carried by Alex. Seeing as how Yue made her way towards the edge of town it seemed she wanted to meet up with the other Templar first, and that meant looking for Zolya. "Flock of ravens on your left, she's over there." He yelled as soon as he spotted those feathered menaces against the blue of the dome... Was it just him or was that dome excessively spiky this time?

After a very rough and jostled ride Raudd was dumped near Zolya to recuperate for a moment while Fang with frustration pouring out of her every move went after the Templar that had decided to once again evade rendezvous. "Don't know what you're gonna do, I'm gonna take a couple of your wolves and find Alex. Something is very wrong with him, and I think he might be actually angry." Raudd said as to his sister the moment his senses properly reset and he got his bearings again. "Alex angry? And how exactly are you gonna find him? I'm coming with you." She replied as Raudd mounted the stag that the second problematic Templar had left behind.

"Follow the trail of destruction I guess, you hear that sound of smashing machinery, that's probably Alex ripping apart the rippers." He retorted as he took off in the direction he had been hearing the wave of destruction move towards with his sister in hot pursuit as she sent out her Ravens to look for the hero in blue... Or red or green, though hopefully blue.

However it did not take long before they crossed paths with some friendly cybernetically enhanced fiends themselves. A rare rush of adrenaline shot through Raudd's head as he watched the ripper raise an intergrated shotgun to the head of a small child in a struggle over some crappy prosthetic leg the kid had. Not thinking he charged the ripper with the stag piercing it's arm and it's torso onto the antlers like a macabre cybernetic ornament as the stag continued it's charge fiend first into a nearby building.

Zolya in the meantime had rushed over to help the kid, and more importantly make sure what Raudd was going to do to the ripper wasn't going to be seared onto the boy's retina's for the rest of his life. She'd seen that spark of fire, and the result wasn't going to be pretty.

As the dust settled from the impact and the cyber fiend got his first look at his assailant he was met with the sight of the viking axe in hand standing next to the stag that was pinning him against a solid steel barrier, axe blade already launched into a vicious attack. If there was any reading the expression on either face even through the cyber addiction fueled psychosis there were clear notes of dread. Raudd's on the other hand would be more befitting on a berzerker, rage, vengeance, and a fire fueled by resentment could be read in his eyes as the axe came down on the ripper's one free arm.

Saying it was a clean cut would be an overstatement the ripper had attempted to protect his arm by shielding it with his hand resulting in it partly slicing partly ripping the fingers in it's path off the hand, and when the axe made contact with the upper arm the flesh rended quickly to energy blade of the axe. However the bone yielded more resistance and felt like trying to hack through a gnarled piece of wood and snapped crudely as the full force of the swing came down on it. The rippers scream and following pleadings that followed the sound of the arm flopping lifelessly onto the ground could probably be heard streets away, luckily Zolya had isolated the kid from the horrible sound of the murder ready ripper finding his equal treatment less than pleasant. "You're never gonna hurt anyone." Raudd snarled at the creature struggling against the stags pin and he wound up another big swing.

This time when the blade made contact it was across the metallic skull enhancements the ripper had. A mixture of wet metallic crunches, cracks and smashing sounds followed as Raudd unobstructed by the ripper re-engineered the cybers skull into a modern art exhibition. The result of which had more in common with the aftermath of falling into a junkyard's metal press than a cybernetic enhancement, and if the ripper wasn't already past tense it would be soon enough given the amount of blood and other mechanical fluids it had lost in the process of it's execution.

After kicking the macabre antler decoration free from the stag head into a secluded trash pile he returned to Zolya and upon seeing that the kid was fine he was finally able to calm himself down somewhat, but it was practically guaranteed that the next ripper they were to come across would share the priors fate for daring to associate with such trash and as a sacrifice to quell Raudd's anger.

Leaving the kid to it's fate with god knows how many rippers still on the loose just didn't sit well with either of them, and they took a little detour to bring him to a shelter of some kind, or rather a little resistance strongpoint where there were at least some people with weapons and armor to protect the civilians. After the detour it didn't take the siblings all that long to get back to tracking their target, especially not given he'd left a trail of broken and trashed bodies in his wake, some still breathing others having been dealt with, but most looked to have some additional trauma that didn't look like Alex's unusual savagery. "Is...Is Alex usually that violent?" "No, he's not. And that's why I'm worried."

Tucked in one of the more dismal and out of the way corners of Northbridge was one of many hideaways found in some hole-in-the-wall or forgotten back-end alley. The ramshackle door would be easily missed, but shine as black light over it and you could see the paint and writings on the wall around it. Neon designs of organic Gigeresque imagery fused with street graffiti. All wrapped around lettering that constituted a sign for the hidden establishment.

Cortex

The paint and taggings were well kept, and the signal pheromone's some of the Cult of Flesh members used were strong here. It was definitely the place Kiran was looking for. He knocked on the door five times in a circle pattern and waited. Moments later, an eye slit was pulled to the side. A voice like someone who chained smoked all their life growled out in mild irritation.

"Password?" A pair of toad like eyes glared out from the slit.

Kiran smirked, pulling their hood back and giving the doorman a cheerful look. "Do I really need one?" He batted his eyelashes almost innocently before their tail whipped out from behind them, Its stinger extending and pointed at the doorman's exposed eyes.

"Shit!?" The eye slit was slammed shut as multiple locks were undone before the door was thrown open, revealing a large, almost literal toad of a bouncer stepping aside and bowing their head. "S-sorry boss. D-didn't know it was you." The man gulped loudly as Kiran walked past. The scorpion tail trailed behind, Its stinger gently tracing the whimpering bouncer's chin for an agonizing second as The mad tinker made their way into the den.

Black lighting made the halls explode with colors. Some of the splatters on the walls and ceiling may or may not have been blood. The thumping music became louder and louder as he approached a second pair of double doors. Pulling their hood back on, Kiran let out a satisfied sigh as he pushed forward.

The air was thick with sickly sweet fumes and raging hormones.
Cortex was a gang hideout in some sense, but it was also equal parts a club, drug den, and underground fight ring. In the mass of bodies mingling and getting lost in the atmosphere, not a single one was unaugmented or mutated. There were a rare few that just barely looked human anymore, flesh twisted and sculpted Into beautiful and terrifying images one would normally only see in fiction or media. Some danced, some drank, others partook in the copious amounts of narcotics that were plentiful. Outside of the bar/dispensary that took up one side of the room and the dance floor space, a good chunk of the room was dominated by a roped off pit. Said pit was full of cultists in what could be best described as a bloody "bare fisted" brawl. Ironically one of the fighters did appear to have bear paws for hands.

Kiran Slipped past the crowds and made it to the bare. One of the bartenders, a multi-armed woman with patches of iridescent scales on her skin That was in the process of making multiple drinks came to serve him.

"What can I get cha?"

"A Synapse Scorcher. On nitrogen, no ice."

The bartender faltered for a moment before quirking an eyebrow. "Got a death wish there buddy?"

Kiran Leaned over the counter, Still smiling. "I think i can handle my signature drink love. By the way, Is Finger's in? I have some business that requires his-" Kiran gave an amused snort. ",Delicate touch." "

The bartender's eyes widened. Her 'Primary" hands immediately going to work making an amber colored drink that looked like it had bursts of green static dancing inside the liquid. "He's down bellow. shouldn't be too busy for you." She kept herself professional, not even shaking as she poured the lethal cocktail.

Kiran took the glass, sniffed it before taking a sip. It trailed down the throat with a spicy and minty flavor. what came next was a pleasantly warm numbness. To anyone else though, the Synapse Scorcher would be an agonizing experience like swallowing ground up glass and being injected with some demented form of neurotoxin. Kiran liked to put their augmentations through their paces.

He left the woman a generous tip before moving on. The bartender took the two strings of clat, not sure anyone believe her if she said she made a drink the "God" of the cult approved of. Not that the club's boss would give her a raise for something like that.

---

Walking down a flight of stairs littered with electronic cables mounted on the walls and spilling on the steps, Kiran was careful not to trip before entering what looked like a server room from hell. Given the flesh growths on some of the tech and what looked like grown brain tissue plugged up to various computer towers.

A thin man sat in a chair in the back of the room. Working on multiple keyboards as their head twitched and flicked back and forth between several screens. Each of his hands had far too many fingers of varying lengths. Cyber plugs and various medical equipment were attached to him in almost asymmetrical placements that he didn't seem to care about.

Kiran walked up behind the man, taking in the various screens while sipping at their drink. "Fingers."

The man didn't even stop or look away. "Boss."

"I've got a job for you. one that I'm working on. Personally."

That put a pause to the man's work. He turned his head to regard the tinker. Large, unblinking compound eyes stared for a minute before Finger's scared face split into a needle toothed grin. "I'm listening~"

Fang's feet skittered across the rough concrete of ShieldTown's Streets, attempting to find enough friction or stability to stop the pointy semi-tractor of flesh and metal from pushing her clear across town as its sword-like claws skittered lamely against Forgemaster's armor. She was only just holding the gnashing mandibles away from her face and keeping it from grappling her entirely with a straight-arm. That luck wouldn't last... eventually it'd find a gap and cut into her under-suit.

"C'mon...," she grunted with a note of frustration as her heel skipped off a rock and buckled her knee for a moment. Fang braided [Silver] threads down her leg and stomped as the Collector thrust her out of an alleyway and into the thoroughfare next to ShieldTown's wall. The pair stopped abruptly as the concrete shattered beneath her, and the tail end of the creature buckled and jack-knifed like a de-railed train. Her HUD outlined Raudd and Zolya in her peripheral as she pushed with her toes to buy enough leverage for a straight punch directly to the collector's thorax.

The impact echoed through the alleys and streets like a gunshot. The force ripped a plate of armor off its back and hurled it into the side of someone's house as the collector tumbled after it, scrabbling at steel armored walls and concrete to regain its footing. Fang took a breath, pulling time to a crawl to buy a moment to think.

What's the plan here?

Got pulled away from an endangered citizen, need to get back to her.

Can't delegate this though, too dangerous.

What do I have to work with?



Reinforced buildings. Some juicy corners. Lots of concrete.

Many hard and durable surfaces. Iffy traction: liable to skate over the surface of these streets if I'm not careful.

And the creature? ... Strong, but can't overpower me. Fast but can't outpace me... confined quarters. many pointy ends.

Some bruises. Armor is holding. Friendlies in the line of fire...

Relentless assault. Pull it out into the open across town where I have the advantage. End it quickly.

Fang stepped after the collector before it could regain its balance, spinning the weapon wheel in her HUD until her hand closed around the shaft of Alex's spear, materializing in a flash of white. Windows shuddered as she whipped past, the spear sang electric bass in low "E." The collector was angling to intercept. Fang bounced herself up and skipped off a wall to change angles, driving the spear down towards a seam in the collector's armor that looked like it was protecting some vital plumbing. It twisted a sword up and sparks flew as the collector's arm was sheared off.

It was just enough of a deflection to throw her strike off target and gouge the armor. Fang let go of the spear as she felt the shaft bend, allowing it to spin in place as it ricocheted off the collector instead of getting flung from her grip. She deflected an overhead slash with her forearm as her momentum carried the two together.

It was leveraging the confined space to keep up with her. Perception enhancing implants… this was starting to feel eerily familiar to the fights she had with Violet Glass a couple years previous. Fang turned her shoulder into the collector and checked it to the ground, grabbing the spear as her feet found the street again. She swung the flat side of the spear awkwardly, and it crashed like a cymbal as it slapped the collector’s torso. Her feet found traction and she hauled on the end of the spear, feeling it flex and trusting that it wouldn’t break as she swept up the collector. Servos and hydraulics complained as Fang crushed it into the reinforced corner of somebody’s house.

The collector’s limbs bent and folded at uncomfortable angles as it braced itself against the building and shoved down on top of her. Fang was off balance as its full mass hit her shoulders. Change of plan… hopefully Raudd wasn’t rushing into that intersection. She let herself fall back, rolling with the momentum and planting her feet on the collector’s thorax. When she felt her shoulders rolling up, Fang braced her hands against the ground and took a breath, shoving with her whole body and launching the collector. It tumbled back through the intersection chased by sparks as it twisted and flailed to try and find purchase on something before hitting ShieldTown’s outer wall.

Fang was in motion as soon as her feet touched the ground, twirling the spear’s point into position and aiming with her free hand. She dug her toes into to the concrete pushing off for one step before planting, twisting through her hips and throwing the spear. It boomed through the intersection like a cannon shot, and cracked like thunder as it impaled the collector against ShieldTown’s wall. The collector’s thorax was crushed by the force, splintering the wall, and sending a shockwave rippling through the defensive perimeter and dome overhead. There was a short but tangible pause before the spear’s pommel sparked and fired its rocket thruster, shuddering lamely as the collector’s spindly legs writhed in its final moments.

Fang’s breath hissed out of her helmet’s vents as she took a moment to regain her bearings. There was only a moment or two to catch her breath before she needed to get back to that trapped civilian.

Dean really wasn’t kidding when he said that thing was rocket powered…

Why? Why the hell did the world feel like it was crashing down around him? Oils, blood replacements and cybernetic lubricants dripped from Alexander's jagged form in a display of cybernetic gore. The jagged spikes and scales of blue glass glowed eerily through the oil slick as it ground and cracked while he stumbled down a street he couldn't name in his current daze. He didn't appear to be all there mentally, looking confused but still searching for any Ripper they could see. It was a wonder how Alex still had the mental faculties to leave all of his "victims" both alive and in less then critical conditions. Their mental states from being crippled and dismembered was still more then questionable.


Buildings over a block away were locked down and sealed. Not a single window was open, nobody so much as took a glance outside. Whether it was out of fear of the Ripper's or the Shieldtown rogue having seemingly gone mad was anyone's guess.
Alex paused, remembering something. He looked behind him, Looking at the street riddled with the moaning and `blubbering forms of Ripper's that couldn't get away in time. The one he had been dragging by their one remaining leg was pulled around and lifted into the air. Their fear stricken face dangling upside-down and forced to make eye contact with Alex.
There was a pregnant pause as Alex looked the cyborg up and down for a minute that dragged on far too long for anyone's comfort. most of their face looked like it had been carved away. Eye sockets replaced with an array of sensors and cracked optical lenses making them look like a scrapped together tactical spider. It was nearly impossible to read their expression if it wasn't for their quivering lip.

"Mmh." His grunt portrayed enough anger and frustration to make the Ripper flinch. Kind of impossible to empathize with people that willingly chopped people up for parts. Alex didn't show any sign that he was aware or cared that some of the people might have been kidnapped, forcibly augmented and hopped up on drugs until they were raving cyber psychos.

Alex dropped the poor soul and moved on at a trundling pace. He seemed fit to just continue hunting the fanatical cyborgs until he felt better at this point, Dove having been kidnapped was barely even in his thoughts at this point. He didn't even know the face of the Ripper that took them. Hell, Alex wasn't even trying to question anyone anymore. It was impossible to think straight anymore.
A glance down a side street caught his attention, spotting a group of Ripper's frozen stock still having realized they had been noticed. There was just a second stillness before Alex exploded forward.

---

---

Leaving Shieldtown after Thunderdome Protocol physically hurt. The girls had assured her that that they had everything under control. Vi had radioed that she was en-route to locate Jade, and Wolf had seen the cyber-warrior crash into a wave of Ferals on their way out. Getting pressed against Astrid's back during their ride to Freight made up for the anxiety a little.

[HK] had slaved [Albatross-02] to Wolf's receiver, and the matte drone sailed silently behind them like a wraith on insulated thrusters. It had a couple of AGM-65 Mavericks, and a .50 Cal machinegun along with the Enhanced Observation suite. Not a lot of ordinance, but in a pinch nothing turned the tables like a surprise missile from a platform nobody knew was there. Wolf knelt on the lip of the overlook where they had stopped while [Albatross-02] highlighted all the Halcyon goons wandering around in the open, and a few inside buildings that pinged on thermal. The structures of Freight weren't very well insulated, thankfully.

[OBSERVING 24 HOSTILES]
[NOTATING 13 PRIOR DISTURBANCES]
[RUNNING PATH_TO_VICTORY.SIM]
[PROCESSING] . . .
[SUGGESTING KINGSLAYER.PRTCL TO HOST] -|

No, [HK], I know we want this elevator but we aren't here to conquer it. This is a stealth mission.

Wolf rolled her eyes a little as [HK] highlighted several infrastructure targets for AGM strikes insistently. It was still technically considered "stealth" if nobody was around to talk about what happened, and sowing chaos in the settlement would be so easy. Wolf stamped out the notion firmly.

Stealth means nobody knew we were there, [HK].

[HOST REJECTS SUGGESTED COURSE OF ACTION]. . .
[REGRETTABLE] -|

"Well... Looks like we're dealing with about twenty that aren't working or otherwise distracted. They're spooked, moving in full fireteams. Looks like someone did a number on one of their transports, and a large number of them are still cleaning up from the early Hunt. No Rippers, thankfully,"

[LOCATING TARGET FOR INTRUSION]
[PATHFINDING]. . . -|

[HK] drew a NAV-line into the Elevator facility for the [Vulture] drone on her back to follow.

Yes, [HK] we can get in and out that way without being seen, that doesn't get Astrid inside.

[CONSIDERING SUGGESTIONS FROM... guest] -|

Ugh. Fine. I'll ask. Brat.

"If we cause too big a disturbance they'll probably lock down the Elevator again, but from what I can tell it looks like they're in a hurry to launch it. Got any ideas?"

Astrid frowned slightly while looking at Wolf. She pondered how to answer the question, running her her left hand through her mess of raven hair, subconsciously working her fingers through a tangle. "Uhhh...." She drew a blank before puffing out both of her cheeks and admitting, "No. Not really. If I had any of the sort, I wouldn't have came to you." Crossing her arms, she added lamely, "I don't like asking people for help..."

Never one to be deterred, she clapped a hand onto Wolf's shoulder, "I assume the brute force attempt counts as 'too big' of disturbance?" In an instant Astrid shifted, her skin becoming a whirling pool of quicksilver. "Then... I don't suppose you could add a motorcycle to the freight manifest?"

The Scottish woman's form whirled before rising up slightly, like a mini tsunami, crashing down onto the bike, engulfing it in a wash of silver liquid. Then, in half a second, her form stabilized the bike, its engine letting out a low drone as the turbine started up. "You might also need to cause a distraction so no one notices a bike driving itself onto the elevator."

Fang stared a the collector for what felt like a long minute. Its legs twitched and writhed like a dying roach, which sent an unpleasant sensation down her spine. Whatever it was has been twisted into a sick monster. It's in more pain than I could imagine. There's no saving it. Put the animal down. It's mercy.

Sairyn's cold words rang through Fang's mind. Words he had spoken to her when a collector had made its way to the surface and caused a panic in one of the Executive sectors. She had balked at his orders to kill it. It never felt right to take a life.

Monsters were made.

Fang turned her head to check on Raudd and Zolya, and her HUD highlighted them moving towards the town interior. Right. Couldn't dally. She got pulled away from an endangered civilian. The spear came free with a firm tug and dissolved into white light with a flourish as she turned to get her bearings. According to the map her HUD was generating, she'd been pushed nearly to the opposite side of town by the Collector. Going back the way she came meant navigating some narrow alleys, but the wall did curve around back to her destination. She could go faster around the perimeter where there were fewer obstructions.

She took a breath, feeling the world slow to a crawl as she pushed off.

---

The Knight got taken away.

Try not to panic. Jade gulped large, unsteady breaths while she tried to maintain feeling in her feet. The Collector was incredibly heavy, and it's pointy ends dug painfully into her flesh as she tried to squirm out from underneath it. The wind cracked and rushed around her angrily, biting into any crevice it could find and slashing at the soft tissue beneath.

Crowded. She had managed to get her knife free as Rippers poured over the wall. Paul had stopped moving. His thoughts were static. Collectors drugged their victims with a pretty intense cocktail of tranquilizers, so that wasn't surprising. Probably for the best, he'd be as terrified as she was.

Trapped.

Voices approaching. Cackles and sneers, thickly coated with the wet rattle of cybernetic rejection. She froze as Ripper thoughts drifted through the weave. Of the things they would do. How they would cut her up. Force experimental implants on her. Drug her.

For a second she was back in Northbridge with a Jahannam thug forcing her down, ripping her clothes. They were standing over her, and all she could do was brandish her knife at them lamely with a shaking hand. Her gun was pinned in the Collector's mouth, and even then... only nine bullets left in it.

A loud scrape on the concrete at the wall grabbed her attention. A streak of silver and a shower of sparks, leaving a hundred foot gouge in the wall as it bled off speed around the curve. The Rippers all turned in time to get scattered like bowling pins. The Knight reappeared in a shower of dust and gravel. For a fraction of a second the knight was a coiled reptilian beast buffeting enemies with its wings, and lashing with its whip-like tail. Her reactions were lightning... in fact Jade swore she saw an errant bolt of electricity in the blur. She even smelled ozone.

It was a dance of terrifying speed and grace as the Rippers were taken down and restrained in expanding foam that smelled of almost sickening sweetness. The body of the collector creaked and groaned as it was lifted, and Jade gasped raggedly for air as the pressure on her chest was released. She managed to pull her gun out of the Collector's mouth and wriggle free before it crashed back down to the ground a few feet away.

"Wait!" The knight paused. Anxiety. Worry. "It's not empty. Paul!" Informed Jade. Guilt. "Name? What's your name?" She was still shaking. Everything felt wobbly. Ears perked up and turned towards her. Cute. A vox clicked on.

"Silver Fang."

Woman's voice. Her visor peeled away into a braid down the back of her helmet, revealing a pixelated LED display. Red circles for eyes; small triangle nose. It mimicked her expression. Concern. Fang gently rolled the collector until she found Paul, peeling him out of the prison of synthflesh and steel on its back. The restraints were strong enough to totally immobilize its victim, and Fang was pulling the finger-like appendages off the collector as though she were cracking crab legs. Jade couldn't suppress a shudder, but tried to remain vigilant for more Rippers nonetheless.

"Can't stay here. Are you hurt?" Fang had Paul over one of her shoulders. It didn't seem to impede her at all. Jade was in awe of the raw strength, and wondered for a moment if Fang could lift Aegis.

"A little. I can walk."

The dome flickered and glitched above them, causing Fang to stop and look up. Worry etched the animated display on her helmet for a moment. Jade bit the inside of her lips. Aegis wasn't okay.

"Paul first. Shelter nearby: any reinforced building. I-... I can't carry him. I...," Jade fumbled for words for a moment before Fang just nodded.

"Lead the way."

---

---

She couldn't be more than 18. Yet here she was with a knife and a pistol leading Silver Fang, a seasoned Templar, through the cramped alleys of ShieldTown towards some unknown shelter with "Paul" on one shoulder. Yue swallowed a lump of guilt: she shouldn't be the one following, yet this "Jade?" definitely knew the city way better than she did. Then there was the autonomous psionic defenses the girl had? She couldn't let anyone touch her, let alone carry a wounded person. Might be trauma related. What kind of trauma would cause someone to form automatic defenses that prevented others from touching her? Yue shuddered. She could guess.

Focus. We're not out of the woods.

Jade led them quickly around corners and between buildings as if she could see through walls. Without her HUD Yue would be hopelessly lost. Finally they emerged into a large open area that might have been a market if all the stalls weren't packed up. Jade pounded on a door

"Open up, we have Paul! Um. Alive! Um. I'm from The Den!" There was a tangible pause before the door opened and Yue stepped forward carefully with Paul. Jade moved aside so that Yue could lay the man on a sofa. She spent a couple of tense minutes administering first aid to the man's lacerations while the sounds of battle echoed outside. Just enough to stop the bleeding and prevent infection.

"He's been drugged. Little banged up, but he should wake up in a couple hours," Yue announced. "I need to leave and assist Aegis. Can you shelter this girl in the meantime?" The woman, Paul's wife Yue guessed, nodded quickly. "She has automatic Psionic defenses she can't control, please be cautious about about physical contact with her," Yue instructed.

"Crap. Thank you. Almost forgot," Jade exhaled a shuddering breath. She was shivering. Shock.

"Are you injured?" Yue stepped towards the girl. Jade shied away like an abused dog, driving a spike of guilt into her chest.

"Few scrapes. I'll be fine."

Yue nodded, leaving a small bottle of medical alcohol, gauze, and some bandages on the counter before striding out the door. She paused, taking a breath and studying the map on her HUD. She needed a vantage point to find Alex. Most of ShieldTown's buildings weren't that tall, unfortunately. It might be hell on her knees, but she could just leap towards the apex of the dome... one of the enhancements Forgemaster had made to her armor was "improved areal control," though she didn't really have any idea what exactly that entailed. Time to find out.

She crouched, taking a breath and bracing with her core. Braids of [Silver] wove down her legs and... Yue went down hard as some immense weight slammed the side of her head into the concrete. Her face was numb. Taste of copper in her mouth. The HUD shuddered, discolored in her vision for a moment as she swung a fist up reflexively. [Silver] threads braided along her arm in that tangible moment of impact. She felt metal yield against her fist before Force rippled through its structure.

The ruined object launched into a reinforced building corner and shattered like a cheap plate as Yue threw herself to her feet. A dark shape dove from above, silhouetted by the glitching, flickering psionic dome. Beastly, taloned cybernetic feet kicked out at the last second, catching Yue in the stomach before she had a chance to get anchored. The ground hammered her spine, knocking the breath from Yue's lungs. The world became a blur of dizzying impacts as she was dumped back into realtime.

For a terrifying moment Yue couldn't differentiate up from down and gulped an awkward breath to slow things down, ignoring the splatter of blood on her visor. She needed to disrupt the blitz long enough to find her feet so she could fight back. [Silver] threads braided across her whole body as she spun the weapon wheel on her HUD. An impact glitched Alex's spear into her hand in a flash of white. Not what she wanted but... something [Green] vibrated beneath her fingertips, intermingled with the [Blue] that resonated inside the weapon. Experimentally, she pulled on it with a [Silver] thread.

Yue lurched, pulled by the spear awkwardly. Shoved by pure kinetic energy. Her shoulder complained as she impacted concrete and tucked maladroitly into a roll as a dark blur ripped past her face. Whatever it was had to have been moving FAST to be a blur while she was accelerated. That narrow miss was enough for Yue's feet to finally find purchase.

The spear came down and swatted another blur, knocking it into the ground. It slid in a shower of sparks, twisting itself around to gain purchase on the concrete. It was a vaguely bat-shaped amalgam of salvage and cyberware. Ice poured down Yue's spine as it's "head" split open and a lance of heat and light ripped the moisture out of the air. Yue flinched, touching something [Red] in the spear inadvertantly. It locked into place like an Immovable Rod, wrenching her wrist and catching the beam. It deflected at an ungainly angle and raked across one of the merchant stalls, cutting down an awning and leaving a molten gash across the armored wall.

"Fuck," she muttered, regaining control of the spear in time to parry another drone rocketing for another head shot. The blade of the spear scraped against the slabs of armored plating protecting its wings. "Double fuck." Space. She needed space. The weapon wheel spun as she stepped, careful not to lose contact with the Earth lest she get juggled again. The spear dissolved into white light as she dropped it and closed her hand around the hilt of the Sword of Justice.

She swatted the flying battering ram with the sheathed blade, knocking it into a dumpster. The sword sang a crystal tone as she ripped it from its scabbard, and a staccato beat of lightning scattered a number of dark shapes. Force rattled her shoulder as the sword's quantum locked blade clashed against a mono-molecular vibro-sword, throwing sparks fluttering into the air like angry fireflies. An eyeless, black and red Kitsune mask was suddenly in her face.

What the fuck was Violet Glass doing here?!

---

Jade watched from the doorway. It sounded like a train hitting a mini-van. She just disappeared out of the door, leaving a gouge in the concrete outside. By the time Jade had ran outside to see, Fang had found her feet and was fighting back. It was a tornado of motion, sparks, crackling lightning and shrieking lasers.

Jade was paralyzed, bombarded by strict focus and hate-rage-death. Rippers couldn't fight like that... could they? Motion in the corner of her eye snapped her head to the side. A dumpster crashed onto its side, dispensing an armored ball that unfurled into a vaguely bat-shaped robot. It loped towards a pile of shrapnel that jerked and spasmed, vomiting sparks. The heavy set upon the destroyed drone, discarding damaged parts and integrating anything that still worked into itself in an unsettling display of electronic cannibalism. Jade shivered.

It was Vi? It was Vi! Jade screamed at the whirlwind until she was hoarse, trying to get them to stop. It was no use. They couldn't hear her while they were moving like that. Maybe she could use her powers to separate them? No. No. No. Jade couldn't control it like that: she might hurt one of them, or herself more likely. A thruster roared to life and the Heavy rocketed back into the fight.

Would they carry on until one of them died? Hate-rage-death. Yes. Vi would. Probably. Fang was all steely concentration and laser focus. Whatever thoughts and emotions she was having flickered by too fast for Jade to catch.

What should she do? They had to stop. One of them would get hurt, and there's still rippers, and Aegis who needs help!

"Dammit dammit dammit!!" Jade puffed herself up and ran towards the tornado of clashing blades, lightning, lasers, and certain death. She clamped her eyes shut and shielded her face. This was dumb. She would definitely get yelled at if she survived.

Noise, crashing thunder and shrieking heat all paused. Vi skidded to a halt and Fang vaulted over Jade's head, slamming the cyborg into the ground with a clothesline she only just managed to block. Jade found herself picked up despite the thrashing of her psionic wind slashing at any crevice in Fang's silver armor it could find. Jade stumbled, finding herself standing behind Fang, who crouched in a defensive posture between her and Vi.

"Wait! Wait!! Vi is my friend!" Jade yelled into the deafening silence. "Vi, stop! Fang rescued me!! ...and Paul!" Fang was a statue, one hand gripping a scabbard, the other open, resting gently against the hilt of the sword, ready to draw. streaks of red were seeping out of some of the armor's seams. Jade winced. Her psionic winds were most likely responsible.

"What are you doing here, little gem?" Vi asked as she pulled herself to her feet. Her drones circled overhead disconcertingly.

"One of Wolf's drones fell. I went to see why, and then...," Jade gestured to the flickering dome. "I... I was just trying to be helpful. I-I'm always such a burden." After a while Vi laughed slowly, making Jade frown. She didn't remember saying something funny.

"Are you injured, little gem?"

"Some scrapes. Got lucky. Fang pulled a collector off me. Saved Paul."

"Is that so? Did you rescue my little gem, Silver Fang?"

"I did."

"And are you here to arrest me?" Violet asked as her swarm of drones began to land and gather around her. Fang paused for an uncomfortably long time, unnaturally still. Coiled, like she could be a flash of death if Vi moved wrong. Vi did not feel concerned... though her hate-rage simmered below the surface.

"I'm escorting civilians to safety and assisting local defenses with the protection of ShieldTown," Fang answered, coldly. It wasn't a "no." More like an "I have larger fish to fry at the moment." Vi shrugged.

"This one is under my care. So is ShieldTown, after a fashion. Can we agree to settle this another, more appropriate time?" Long pause. Fang's thoughts were static. It was kind of nice actually.

"Please? Aegis needs help. He's not okay," Jade pleaded. Fang very slowly lifted the sword. Frustration. Resignment. Concern. "I'll be safe with Vi, promise." Fang let go of the sword, and it dissolved into white light, though she did not relax her posture. Jade knew the woman was terribly strong, even without a weapon.

"Another time then, Chiroptera."

"Another time. But don't keep me waiting, Princess," Vi dismissed. Fang flinched. Vi let her swarm of drones climb up and nestle into her torso. The Heavy perched on her shoulders and draped its armored wings across her shoulders.

"Promises are binding," Fang warned, and slowly uncoiled. Jade nodded. "I'll come check on you after I see to Aegis," she asserted.

---

Leaving felt wrong, but Yue also couldn't help Aegis while tied up with Violet Glass. If they continued, neither of them would leave unscathed. Amazingly, Forgemaster's armor was undamaged. Yue, on the other hand, was not so lucky. She flicked her eyes towards the biomoniter readout showing the contusions, bruises, lacerations and fractures.

Triple fuck.

At least the girl seemed at ease with Vi, and Yue knew the cyborg had a strict "no-kids-hurt" policy. It wasn't a lot, but it was something. Air hissed out of the armor's vents in a sigh after what felt like an eternity, and she turned away. Yue felt Violet's threatening presence tingle against her spine. Suppressing the urge to whirl around and lunge, Yue crouched and leapt towards the apex of the dome.

ShieldTown shrunk below her as she climbed, careful not to get too close to the flickering psionic dome. Control surfaces flared out, and she seemed to glide a short ways. Taking a deep breath stretched those scant seconds, and for a minute Yue just closed her eyes and floated in the void with her thoughts. Just long enough to clear her head.

Her eyes opened and she used the suit's telescopic optics to scan the city. Pockets of Rippers were still moving about, though most inside the city had been subdued and the overall swarm seemed to be losing steam. Violet had done a number on the Rippers gathering at the wall if the number of bats she had with her was any indication. The flying armored battering ram and the laser bats were new, and there had been a large number of smaller flying razors as well. They'd have turned Yue into hamburger if not for Forgemaster's armor.

The Erling twins were rounding up stragglers, and other pockets of resistance were keeping the Rippers under control, which just left... There! A beacon of [Blue], though it seemed off. He was all jagged lines and didn't appear to be wearing a helmet, which struck her as odd. The spear flashed into her hand, and she tugged on that [Green] with a little more intent.

It was less... "shovey" this time. A pulse of momentum and she was flying towards Alex and dragging afterimages. The suit's control surfaces flared to steady her. She tapped it a second time to "bounce" as she neared ShieldTown's rooftops. Yue landed a few meters down the street from Alex, dropping the spear and letting it dissolve back into white light.

"Aegis, I-" Her breath caught in her throat. Icy dread poured over her. Her hands trembled as Alex held a Ripper up and tore their limbs off.

John frowned down at his phone. As technology advanced, it became increasingly difficult to misinterpret what they were saying. Lately, the kind little machine spirit that lived on the phone would even read aloud messages you received, which had led him to his current predicament.

“Special Agent Doe: Report immediately for assignment pursuant to HR-4272; attendance is mandatory.”

“I heard you the first time Xeri. Make it stop, block the number, or whatever.”

“It is part of the Emergency Alert System and cannot be disabled.”

He took a deep breath. That was the problem with the government these days: always looking to stick its nose into facets of life that were previously considered sacred, just like in the 19th century. He cocked his arm back and threw the phone, watching it soar into the sky and disappear behind several particularly ominous-looking buildings. For a few seconds, all he could think about was being rid of the earsplitting alert sound. Then he remembered that he had been using that phone to find his way to a seafood buffet.

“Son of a-” John jerked his head to the right thirty degrees, a rifle bullet barreling through where it had just been.

“I told you he wouldn’t come quietly.” An Echo-Zero unit landed in front of John, one of the newest corporate enforcers, its propulsion system throwing up a cloud of dirt as it did. ØTech brand drones came crawling out of the woodwork, no less than a hundred, not that it mattered; thousands of them wouldn’t change the outcome of this fight. After a moment he realized he had crossed paths with the person in the corporate mech before.

“Well, what have we got here?” John pursed his lips and let out a low droning whistle, eerily similar to a cicada. “Long time no see! Did ya ever find Lou?” He braced himself to move, ready to cover the distance in a few inhuman strides. The Ech0 unit readied herself on reflex, one spear held reverse, as if it would give her a fighting chance. He darted forward, a hail of bullets going up from the drones, tiny pinpricks of hot metal tearing through his flesh as he moved. A spear stabbed into his shoulder, the one she’d been holding in the reverse, then it exploded into white-hot fire.

“That’s new,” He mused before ducking the second spear and grabbing Ech0 by her throat. He held her off the ground, his proportions seeming to grow and extend as her feet moved further from the ground. Burned flesh sloughed from his shoulder, falling to the ground unceremoniously.

A voice crackled to life from each of the drones, “I didn’t say he’d come quietly. I said there was a .00012 percent chance he refused our offer.” The words echoed out of the drones, the ones furthest away seeming to whisper. It was a familiar voice. He let go of Ech0’s neck.

---

Doe laid lazily in the dirt, his stomach protesting his current assignment. Why should he have to chase a rabbit when there was plenty of food in Shieldtown, just right behind him? Not that he was going to argue with his current handler. He figured it was an infinitely smaller headache to just do as he was told and get it over with.

“She’s approaching.”

He didn’t move. There was a particularly fat pigeon fluttering about in the eaves of a nearby building. He thought briefly about the plight of the bird, having been almost entirely reliant on humans before they were deemed obsolete and made pests; that thought was quickly replaced by what the pigeon would taste like, and whether or not it was worth the energy expenditure to catch it.

“If you don’t leave now you’re going to miss her.” The handler was starting to sound annoyed.

Pursing his lips, he lifted a hand and let out a cooing noise. The pigeon responded in kind, flying down to alight on his fingers. It was cute; the tail feathers wildly frilled out, some kind of designer pigeon. They stared at each other for a moment, sharing a few silent words. He put his palm on the bird's back, cradling it in his hands and jumped to his feet. “Run this by me one more time, Panopticon. I need to intercept Jemma and funnel her back to Northbridge… Why exactly? How does that help me catch my rabbit?”

His handler scoffed, ire slowly building in her voice, “You don’t need to know the full plan, you just need to know it was approved by command and executed flawlessly in all the simulations. Not that any of that matters because you are [missing] your window.”

“Hmm…” Doe pondered that notion for a moment. The pigeon flew away with purpose.

“Three… Two… One… You missed her. You no longer have enough time to catch her. Mission failed. The boss is going to be so pissed. Remind me to have you executed for insubordination.”

“After I intercept Jemma, you go elsewhere to execute the next part of the plan, like the briefing said? ”

“Yes, but you can’t possibly catch her anymore.”

Doe smiled smugly and allowed his thoughts to clear.

“Are you fucking with me right now? You were half-assing it for all of Argentina. Why!?”

“Thinkers are overpowered. It's half the reason I’m even here.” He stretched his arms and set himself into a runner’s stance, phalanges forming themselves into ones more suited for a dead sprint. “The easiest way to trip your type up is to feed them bad info. Now give me room to work.” Doe launched themself into action, their body making alterations as necessary.

---

Doe landed in the no man’s land between Shieldtown and Northbridge, directly in Jemma’s projected path. She took a few moments to make final adjustments to her body. Long raven-colored hair pinned back tight, her sunkissed skin extended down to her waist, where it turned to dark almost black fur, ending in hooves. She matched her height to that of her suit, making her just over six foot, and folded the bear skin over her arm like an overcoat.

Jemma could be seen in the distance, leaving the Ripper hideout at exactly the time Panopticon had given. Doe frowned, “Let’s get started then.”

She waved at the person in the distance, smiling as she called out, “Bonjour.” She took a few more quick strides forward, no malice or ill intent behind the movement, just the look of someone eager to see an old friend. “I’m Jane Doe and I was wondering if you knew this area well, Jemma?” She smiled and took a few more tentative steps forward, then several to the right. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. They’re an albino rabbit. It’s quite a bother really, I took too long getting ready and now I’m running late.” She continued walking as she talked, so that Cortex was straight ahead, into the city, with Jemma in between. “It won’t take long.”

Her mouth was dry.

As she stumbled out of a back door of a ramshackle storage warehouse, she noticed that her mouth was dry, which was a first in the … not even a week? A month? Of freedom. Escaping had been… uncomfortable. Unpleasant. Waking up trapped, again, and being forced to do someone else’s bidding, again, was infinitely unpleasant. She didn’t know where Alex was, she didn’t know what had happened to Iron Works, if they’d been looped into this situation? She didn’t know ANYTHING! It was agonizing! Worrying! Stressful and heartwrenching! Were they hurt?!

Finding freedom again was and is infinitely more pleasant, especially since the ‘people’ who held her were … incapacitated. Jemma nodded to herself, staring down at her feet as she walked. It’d been maybe, at most, five minutes? Ten? She could still smell her most recent escapade on her hands, which was a weird thing to notice, since she’d been thorough in her clean up.

An animal, gamey smell, like a deer, or some great bear… underlied by blood, and something just off enough to make her half.

“Bonjour,” came a voice— Unexpected and temporarily welcomed! Up until the woman walking over kept talking, and the smell grew… More. Jemma’s eyes narrowed as she came to a full stop. The world rippled in her vision as she relaxed her focus. Everything was doused in shades of black, outlined in foggy strands of white; colors in all sorts of prismatic clouds and streaks, banded through the air. This woman, Jane Doe, as she called herself, was surrounded by a miasma of her own.

Tiny ‘instincts’, foreign-intrusive thoughts, were quieter now than they had been, though they still whispered. Unfamiliar. Wrong. Deceiver? Subjugate. Consume!

Whipping lights streamed away from Jane, some of them riddled with primal fear and panic, while others were gnarls of all colors of the rainbow, nothing concrete, nothing recognizable. There were emotions of all kinds, and Jemma frowned when she couldn’t read them with any… accuracy.
So, she spoke, her voice thick with tension and wariness.

“Hi Jane, uh, have— I’m sorry, have we met? I have… had a very bad day. And I would really rather just… get home? I’m sorry about your… uh… albino rabbit friend? I uh, if you have a phone, I can give you the contact of someone who can help?” She muttered, hunching her shoulders and doing everything she could to try to keep her expectations high. Maybe this woman was … normal? The fuzzy legs definitely weren’t normal, but neither was Jemma, so who was she to judge?

Máire twirled a sword languidly in one hand, stepping through piles of dismembered flesh-turned metal. She’d seen their kind too many times. People turning themselves into weapons… it was as disgusting as it ever was. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in a pool of oil and blood, lingering on it only briefly before smearing it away with her foot.

There were still battles waging elsewhere in the settlement. If Silver Fang were here, she would likely be where the fighting was thickest. She would look for the heart of the violence, where people were most in danger. Assuming she was still here, of course.

Máire’s sword vanished into silver dust, disappearing back beneath her skin as she scanned the nearby buildings for a decent vantage point to spot her quarry from. They were all short, barely more than a couple stories tall. Honestly, it almost reminded her of-

D̴̡̡̢͈͖͇̖̩̳͈̼̺̞̻͔̟͆̓͛̀̏̀͆̔̋̑ǫ̷̛̠͎̖̜̟̮̤͎̙̩̖̱̩̬̲̬̥̭͓̯̱̪̤͓̝̰͚͇̌̈́̋͐͑̓̾̒̍͑̿̃͂̍̑͂̏͐̐̔͝͝n̷̡̧̧̨̝̼̦̟̫͍͇̖̺̼̟̲͉̟̰̜͉̹̞̱͔͑̃́̌̊̀͐̈́͑͜͝ͅͅͅ'̶̛̼̮͍̰̟̘̮̤͖̱̥̥͈̖̲͗̽̐̑̏́̿͆̈̓̌́̍̋̓̂͜͝͝t̴̢̧̟̝̙̣̟̗̲̞͇͍̖͇̮̠̪̙̦̎͑̎̌͌̈́͗̈́̽̆̑̆̓͂̕͜.̶̨̢̥̱̼̰͖̙̫̘͊͋̆̋́͊̓͠͝

A flash of silver rocketed skyward at the corner of her vision, drawing her gaze like a motion camera. Bayushi? Had to be. One of Máire’s blades manifested and rocketed forward, her arm trailing behind as it carried her in its wake.

Jane frowned at Jemma. She gripped one wrist loosely, the bear skin slipping over both of her hands as she let out a sigh. "No, we haven't met before. A little birdy told me your name." Idly kicking a stray rock, Jane grumbled, "And I lost my phone earlier today. There was a... software issue." She stuck her tongue in her cheek, biting down on it lightly while she thought about what to do next. "I warned them that people tend to be inherently wary of me, especially Thinkers. What to do, what to do..."

She shifted her bear skin to one arm, scratching the back of her head with her free hand, "Agh, this is so freakin' annoying!" Her foot tapped impatiently against the ground while she wondered what would happen if she just went home. Panopticon flashed through his head, along with the glut of psychic information she delivered when they lost their target in Argentina; it still gave her a headache to think about. What in hell even was a Labubu? "Whatever," Jane turned, as if she meant to walk away, taking a few steps in the opposite direction from Jemma. Her emotions went wild, voices screaming to eat, while others whimpered to be spared.

She took a few more steps, then threw her bear skin into the air, causing it to splay out and hover in the air for far longer than a bear skin should have been able to. Halting, but still facing away from Jemma, she put her hands on her hips and straightened out to her full height. "Perhaps I wasn't clear. I am Special Agent Doe, and pursuant to HR-4272, the Undercity cleanup initiative, you are to accompany me to Northbridge now, causing no further delays. We're already late." Jane's rampant emotions boiled away, leaving one single thought: Violence.

The bear skin began its descent to the ground, and in that same moment, without turning around, Jane made her move. Her joints dislocated, snapping back into place wrong, and extending with great force, launching herself at Jemma and closing the gap in several disjointed strides. She stopped in front of Jemma, bringing one knee up, as if ready to kick, but instead brought that foot down, launching herself in an arc over Jemma. "Naazh," Jane looked up (which was currently down) and pointed at her target before landing behind it.

The bear skin finally fell to the ground, just a few feet from where Jane had thrown it, its flesh filling out the skin until it stood larger than any extant species of bear. Wasting no time to follow orders, its claws found purchase in the dirt, and the over two-ton beast charged at Jemma, intent on forcing her back.

"Just help the poor deer, Jemma." Jane spoke in a borrowed voice behind her target, as the voices in her head screamed in terror. Memories of being eaten alive by a creature very much like Jemma flashed vividly as she moved, hands clasped behind her back, feet dancing backward, ready to lead the way to Northbridge. Those voices were quickly drowned out by excited laughter, like hyenas jostling for food, and Jane became suddenly aware that the noise was bubbling up from her throat.

Jemma hadn’t really expected a lot out of the day. After all, getting kidnapped within hours of reuniting with people that were family really left her… Unsure of how to approach the world. She had wanted to hope that the furry-legged woman who approached her was normal. That’s all. Just a little hope!

Having Jane Doe crackle and snap her shape into a distinctly monstrous recreation of her own already unique physiology was not anywhere on the list of things expected today. It wasn’t surprising, per se, just unexpected. And deeply irritating.

The instincts in Jemma’s psyche hissed, writhing in her thoughts like worms on a salt pile. “It threatens! Subjugate— Oh— Is that a f—”
Jemma screeched, letting the whirling bloom of [Indignation-Confusion] run wild in her chest. “Is that a FUCKING BEAR?!”

Ink pulsed in her core as her voice ripped into the air, stretching fractal veins of pitch running along her flesh with each beat of her heart. Her form shifted, quieter perhaps than Jane’s, but no less rapid. Hair became bristled fur, layered throughout with barbs to hook into skin and fur, and coated with an anticoagulant venom. Another pair of limbs rose from her torso as it extended, ending in three-toed claws in the shape of daggers. Her first pair of arms slid behind this new pair and resolved into legs that were almost tiger-like in shape.

Jane paused for a second, her steps slowing to a halt, head tilted to the side as the other shapechanger became battle-ready. “You threw off that human suit quickly enough; perhaps there is hope for you yet.”

Jemma’s hind legs followed suit, taking on that tiger-like shape, before the whole of her form began to swell in size. Five feet and seven inches in height became seven feet, which then became nine at the shoulder. Scales erupted over her body, growing into thick scutes on her extremities and along her spine, neck, and back. Those same scutes, vaguely turtle-like, began growing fur in the spaces between, which would break off like a tarantula’s. The difference was the agonizingly potent neurotoxic venom they would secrete when lodged.

A tail whipped out behind her, stretching out from her spine and growing in length until it was longer than her body. Once it was her body length, and then half of that again, the growing stopped. The latter quarter of the tail ended in an odd, blade-like length of bone and enamel. It too was coated in scales, scutes, and quill-fur, and had an oddly eel-y quality. All together, she had become some fifteen feet in length.

Her skull changed last, lengthening and broadening until she bore a snout that resembled something like the offspring of a stork, a snapping turtle, and a shark. She had a beak, one that was lined with triangular protrusions and backed by additional triangular fangs. There was no tongue, only an adjustable tube that sat near the back of the mouth, like a snake. The ridges of her head were heavily armored, and so were the sides of her neck. With a pulse of pitch, a pair of horns rose from the sides of her head, seeming to curl down and protect her jaws like a helmet, before jutting forward.

Lastly, Jemma’s eyes shifted, ink whorling into the sockets as the changes finished. She had four small yet powerful optical organs, that were beady little things. Two settled where one would expect them to rest on a turtle's face, while the others took shape on her second pair of shoulders.

Muscles flexed and tendons groaned as the ink writhed away, leaving the changes for all to see. Her eyes locked on Jane, on the waves and ripples the other shapeshifter left in that otherworldly vision, just long enough to mark her position. The special agent sat eerily still as she met Jemma’s gaze, the sort of stillness that did not normally exist in nature, no heartbeat, no breath, just horizontally slitted eyes watching and assessing.

Then, Jemma— As the world began to slide back, so that her instincts could drive— turned and met the massive ursine, giving it an apoplectic roar of challenge as she leapt upwards. Her landing zone of choice? Its spine, if she timed her pounce right.
J-3 would rip the flesh apart.

The bear growled, low and guttural, instinct begging it to rear up so that it could meet its opponent. Jane’s will held stronger than any instinct, and instead the bear faltered and froze, as if it would fall over with the slightest provocation. As J-3 soared down, perfectly on target, the bear’s body spasmed, shoulders and ribcage breaking themselves open as sinew and bone met with her impact.

There was a beat of surprise from the shapeshifter, before viscera flew. Toxins were delivered through J-3's defensive hairs, and her claws sheared through flesh, causing rivulets of blood to pour, but despite the carnage, the bear’s bones continued to move. Gnashing jaws made of broken ribs clamped down on Jemma wherever they could, the end of its spine wrapping around two of her forelimbs like a constrictor. Then the bear started to claw its way to Northbridge, dragging the two of them forward.

“What in Shieldtown is so important anyways?” Jane goaded from a short distance away, hooves keeping pace with the bear as it started to slow. “People who claim to be your friends? People who aren’t like you and could never even begin to realize what it’s like to be you. People who don’t share your hunger.” Her throat made several changes, and she probed further, ”People who don’t trust you to control it.”

J-3 remained silent, one eye indignantly noting Jane as she avoided joining the melee. The hooved lady smiled earnestly in response, pearl-white teeth clashing with caramel-colored skin as her doe eyes looked the shapechanger up and down. The bear's movements started to falter, blood pouring from its mouth, ears, and nostrils as its body rapidly underwent neurotoxic failure. The trapped shapeshifter continued their silence, staring balefully at Jane while the not-a-bear’s body ceased to move.

“Can you blame them?” Doe reached into her inner suit pocket and produced a cigarette case. She flicked it open and grabbed a cigarillo. “People like us? We’re monsters.” Doe flicked the case closed and returned it to her pocket, “Ishkwaase.”

The bearskin beast began to stir, as if Jane’s words alone granted it strength. Two extra forelimbs clawed their way out of its flesh, and despite J-3 pulverizing its lower half, the beast began to crawl again, leaving a bloody smear in its wake. Neurotoxins flowed through its blood, bright red arterial sprays pumping blood into the dirt as it began to pick up speed, flesh scraping onto the ground as it moved.

It assumes. Speaks too much. No creed. No geas. Seems… Impulsive... Is Leashed? Irrelevant. … Seeks emotional instability. Not good enough. ‘Mother’ better. J-3 thought, the embers of hate in their gut beginning to churn. A thought sparked in their mind, and rather abruptly, the turtle-tiger-shark shape they wore exploded with ink. Veins of pitch raced across the myriad bones holding them in place.

The special agent let out a low whistle of appreciation as she lit her cigarillo with a match and took a drag.

There was then a, perhaps unexpected, ‘ssssLSH!’ sound. The noise was akin to water pressing through a faucet: weak and soft at first before sunderingly loud. Calcium-phosphate and collagen, blood and plasma, even the provided enamel from the teeth that had latched onto her scutes; biological material rushed away from the not-a-bear and into her. The veins of ink pulsed twice, even as the bones of the puppet-monster seemed to fill in whatever J-3 stole.

That was fine; there was enough material for conversion. The ink receded as quickly as it came, before J-3 rammed their bladed tail and what available claws they had into the ground.

Jane wrinkled her nose, “You can’t eat bear meat raw like that, it’s too gamey! Not to mention thousands of years old. That is so gross.” She continued to feed flesh from her reservoir to the bear, carefully assessing how fast it was being consumed.

In that other vision, where [emotions] and [MANA] were more real than instincts and ephemera, a ring of concentric circles bloomed into existence at J-3’s feet. There were five circles in all, with writhing script fluttering along the exterior edges of each circle. The edges of the largest circle were only barely behind Jane’s hooves. With a snarling roar, J-3 physically twisted their upper torso, uncaring of the physiological damage wrought by yanking her shoulders, neck, and arms out of the grip of the not-a-bear.

Salty black water erupted into existence below them and the not-a-bear, rising up like a spontaneous geyser. Earth ripped, pulling itself up in chunks and flinging J-3, the not-a-bear, and Jane up into the air, tossing them away from each other.

As she was lifted off the ground, Jane hurriedly adjusted the proportions of her mouth and used her tongue to pull her cigarillo into it. As she soared through the air, she contemplated the morning sky, how the plates overhead couldn’t quite blot out the rising sun, and how she would rather have been anywhere but where she currently was. Landing on her hooves, suit soaked, hair coated in saltwater, mud on her boots, she spat the cigarillo back out and readjusted her mouth. The apakozigan mixture had remained lit, so she inhaled again, grabbing it out of her mouth with her left hand to admire the ember. “Small miracles, right?”

The last of the water fell to the ground, dousing the end of the special agent’s rolled tobacco medley. For a moment, she was too stunned to move, then she crushed the cigarillo with her hand. “Oh, ha-fucking-ha. That was my last smoke, and the guy who mixes my tobacco is out of town for the rest of the fucking week. I’m not going to be able to-” Crossing her arms, one of Jane’s hooves started to tap unrelentingly against the ground, something that should have been impossible with ungulate legs. “Mother is going to…” She glared at J-3, murder in her doe eyes, then turned to her bear companion; an explosion of emotions bubbling over into cold, ruthless logic. “Fine, we do this the hard way.”

The bearskin’s flesh finished being pulled over its bones, the fractured skeletal system snapping back into place, bones knitted together with fresh marrow. It stood up on its hind legs, just over twelve feet tall, and began to shrink, rapidly losing fur in the process. In just a few seconds, it resembled Jane exactly, except it was a man with impressive antlers, and completely naked. The deer and doe stood stock still for a few moments, left and right index fingers pointed toward the sky.

Jane’s furrowed brow relaxed as she exhaled, then took a deep breath, “Ambe!” The male let out an angry bellowing noise, starting low and then transitioning into a high-pitched shriek. The moment it opened its mouth, Doe sprinted forward, wings reminiscent of a mantid opening on her back, increasing lift and speed as she once again threw herself into a flip over J-3’s head.

At the apex of her jump, her left arm exploded into eight distinct tentacles, J-3 launched themselves upwards, maw open wide to snap shut around the woman’s torso. Then each one of Jane’s tentacles dove into the ground around her target, creating an octagonal prism. Every tentacle sprouted another eight tentacles, crisscrossing the others, before suddenly constricting towards J-3.

One trunk-tentacle whipped around J-3’s throat, wrenching their head to the side as it sprouted its branches. Their snapping jaws closed around empty air. Hate bloomed in their heart, especially when that Fucking. Deer. Made its own move.

The deer version of Jane sprinted forward, spit flying from its mouth as it continued to bellow at an ever-increasing pitch. It collided with the constricting tentacles, tearing them from Jane’s arm as it leaped into the air, membranous wings unfolding from its back as it soared into Northbridge proper.

Jane landed, raising her now missing arm to the sky, envisioning herself still holding her finger pointed toward the sky. Several pigeons landed on her shoulders, the rest not far behind.

---

Glass shattered throughout Northbridge, an ultrasound shriek emanating from the biomass speeding through the air on dozens of pairs of jittering dragonfly wings. It crashed into Cortex, smashing unceremoniously through the roof, upper level, and landing on the base floor, turning a literal toad of a man into paste as it did. The bellowing lowered to levels audible to human ears, shattering every glass in the room, then died off altogether. Several patrons seemed unfazed by the biological monstrosity, but it drew confused stares from the rest.

A brightly-feathered bartender wondered idly if it had something to do with Kiran being here, and if that made it one of his pets. There was something that itched at the back of his mind about Kiran’s best pets, but he couldn’t quite place it. Pigeons flew in after the beast, no doubt looking to make homes in the rafters. He sighed, at this rate, he would be the one climbing up there to deal with the pests.

The writhing tentacles relaxed, extricating themselves from the mass, before losing suckers and growing scales, teeth, and fangs. The newly formed snakes dispersed into the bar, turning on its patrons, leaving only the male Doe standing next to J-3 as they rose, all while hissing and seething furiously; their form becoming more unnatural and yet taller. Their tail thrashed, slamming against Doe and throwing him into the nearest wall. Their head rippled with ink, only became more like an action movie “velociraptor” while a pair of sharpened bone-blade crests rose from the tip of the snout.

Ink whirled over the body of J-3, before their changes settled. Two arms, two legs, hardened plates of calcified enamel as body-armor— not terribly dissimilar to a modernized set of S.W.A.T. armor in a way— and six digits on each limb with wicked sickle claws. Only two eyes, though the pupils were five pointed stars in seas of purple-orange.

A furious shrieking roar sundered the quiet of the room, following on the heels of the male Doe’s screeching.