It hurt. Something other than his blood was boiling under his skin. Fizzing and popping like molten carbonated glass. Thoughts were difficult to string together, only focusing on the task at hand seemed to give Alex a moment's clarity. More mechanical lubricants and blood replacements slid down his arms as he finished dismembering his most recent Target. The Ripper was tossed to the side, this one having so much augmentation that they no longer even had a proper mouth. The hammering in his ears made it hard to tell if the cyborg was screaming or insulting him. 

Agitation. The glass shard armor coating him shifted and rattled. Artifacting for a moment before settling. Its blue glow being cut through with greens and reds for moments. Alex showed no sign of awareness to the shifts or how the thunderdome was “glitching”. 

He registered to look at a figure that showed up back down the road he had just come from. The lack of iconography or visible cybernetics on display was enough for Alex’s fight or flight-addled brain to recognize that this person wasn’t a ripper.

[b][color=Deepskyblue]"Gotta find all of them, break their limbs… keep everyone safe."[/color][/b]

The words came out almost slurred. And soon came on repeat as he began to stalk in the opposite direction. All but dragging his feet along, head on a swivel looking for any more cyberpsychos. It still hurts.

[center][color=8493ca][i]Are you really gonna [b]let[/b] me kill all these people?[/i][/color][/center]

Yue swallowed static, thankful that her visor was down. No need to have the expression layer animate the look of horror she was wearing. Her breath shuddered as she forced herself to exhale. Everything would be okay. This was her [i]friend[/i] and not the monster that forced her to kill. Her fingers twitched before she forced herself to trot after him, ignoring the swears from the quadriplegic Ripper Alex left in the street. She popped them with riot foam as she passed just to be safe, careful to keep it out of… well he didn’t have a mouth.

[b][color=#CE2B95]"Aegis? You okay?"[/color][/b] She knew the answer to that. [b][color=#CE2B95]"Things are winding down… I can take over for you,"[/color][/b] she said, reaching to put a hand on his shoulder and hesitating. She wasn’t sure if Forgemaster’s armor would protect her from those Psionic shards or not.

Alex’s head snapped around. Yue flinched and his gaze bore through her for just a moment before he shrugged her hand off. There were no clear signs that he even recognized who she was. Pain flashed across his face and all of his constructs artifacted again. Blue, red, then green before settling again. While his armor settled, the thunderdome only seemed to grow worse and continued to glitch. He shook the pain off and moved to continue stalking the streets, seeming hellbent on finding any more active Rippers. Regardless of whether there were any left within Shieldtown's walls.

[center][color=8493ca][i]All you have to do is step out of your ivory tower…[/i][/color][/center]

Yue fidgeted for what felt like an eternity before trotting after him. Lights were on, but Alex wasn’t home. She’d been there one time and it broke her. Pushed into a corner, faced with a monster that shrugged off pain and injury. The only thing that could even inflict a bruise on it was… Phantom numbness prickled along the knuckles of her right hand and shot up her arm at the memory. She shook her hands out vigorously, trying to pull herself back to the present when a wild scream caught her attention.

A Ripper with an axe in each hand and implants flickering red with amped emotions ran out into the intersection ahead of Alex, hyping himself up to take on the giant. Yue launched herself towards the intersection, sliding past Alex as the magnetic catapult on her gauntlet whined with electric anticipation. With a [i]snap[/i] and wet sputtering hiss, the Ripper was enveloped in sweet smelling foam. Alex had lunged a few steps towards the Ripper, but slowed once it was incapacitated… like an escort NPC with a bad aggro trigger. Yue huffed… there had to be some way to snap him back into the present.


More screaming. The emotional amp was overriding their fear. Two this time. Air hissed out of the vents in her helmet in a long sigh as she aimed her gauntlet and fired. A deep thud and an explosion of sand knocked one on his ass temporarily. Yue’s eyes flicked to her HUD in surprise, catching the red 0 next to her supply of Restraint Foam. Fuck.

Alex didn’t wait for any prompt, launching forward with a sudden jagged pillar of blue psionic glass from under his feet. Alex clotheslined the other Ripper. Said Ripper was stuck in the crook of Alex’s arm, all their limbs flailing in the air for just a moment, right up until Alex swung his arm downwards. Spiking the borged individual hard enough to crack the ground with a resounding thump. There were no screams or yells coming from the cyber ganger. Just a string of audio filtered coughs and wheezing. Alex still had the mental facilities to not just snap the person’s neck with a move like that. Somewhat impressive given his weight, size, and the speed he had suddenly been moving at.

 Their legs seemed less augmented than their obviously chrome and carbon fiber arms, so arms it was. Alex slowly reached down and grabbed the ripper by each of their elbows. There wasn’t any malice or hatred to be seen or felt from the big guy. Just more of that detached fugue he seemed to be lost in. 

[color=#640640]”Was wonderin’ where you’d got to.”[/color] 

A new voice entered the scene, joined by the sound of boots coming to ground lightly behind Yue. It was a familiar voice, dressed in a familiar cloak. Silver dust hung in the air around her like a fine mist, and Máire met Yue’s eyes only briefly before turning her attention to the gladiator. [color=#640640]”Thought I might find you in the middle of something.”[/color]

[center][i][color=#640640]There you are…[/color][/i][/center]

For a second Yue was covered in blood. Artificial rain poured down from above, pooling at the bottom of the crater she’d made. Her breath came heavy, shuddering gasps as [i]The Usurper[/i] finally lay motionless beneath her. She’d turned his skull to pulp. She had to [i]Mach Punch[/i] him thirty times to do it. She knew her arm was broken. Her fingers would barely move and that numbness she’d associated with [i]pain[/i] danced up and down her insides.

He wasn’t going to stop. Never stop. Even if we put him in prison. He’d squirm his way out to inflict more pain and death until one of them died. He spat her name with venom and vitriol. [i][Promised][/i] her.

[center][i][color=#640640]Was wonderin’ where you’d got to…[/color][/i][/center]

[center][i][color=#CE2B95]Static.[/color][/i][/center]

Yue forced herself back to the present. That wasn’t a monster. That was her friend. Her right hand twitched before curling into a fist.

[b][color=#CE2B95]"He won’t stop,"[/color][/b] she muttered.

[color=#640640]”No?”[/color] Máire glanced at Yue for a moment. Her eyes studied the face of her helm for a moment, faint rings rotating back and forth in her irises. One hand went to the belt of her jeans, seeming to grip something that wasn’t there, then turned back to Alex’s cyborg dismemberment. [color=#640640]”No, I suppose he won’t. He seems rather focused on his task, doesn’t he?”[/color] She looked back at Yue. [color=#640640]”What about you?”[/color]

[b][color=#CE2B95]"I’m rotten inside,"[/color][/b] croaked Yue, after hesitating for a long time. The Usurper’s last words to her echoed inside her head. Familiar [Crimson] thorns curled around her heart as she stepped after Alex. She had to do [i]something[/i]. If he killed one of them while he was like that, he’d hate himself.

[center][i][color=#CE2B95]As much as I hate myself.[/color][/i][/center]

[color=#640640]”Is that a fact.”[/color] Máire looked back at Alex, watching his back as he worked to disarm a ripper. [color=#640640]”Well, you would know best.”[/color] A sword appeared from the air beside her, shooting off to the rear and dragging her backward up to a nearby rooftop. [color=#640640]”I’ll leave you to it, then. Let me know when you’re ready to head back.”[/color]

[center][color=8493ca][i]Show the world you're just as rotten inside as everybody else.[/i][/color][/center]

[Crimson] braided down her arm to her fist in burning threads as she approached him. Her eyes closed against the image of him turning to make eye contact with her while holding the dismembered cybernetic arms of a ripper. It didn't help. All she saw was [i]him[/i]. The [i]monster[/i] that Damon Glass had become. Disheveled. Distorted from Kingsly's drugs. Covered in blood. Eyes daring her to do something, [i]anything[/i] to stop him. His lips split into a jagged smile.

[center][color=8493ca][i]What's it gonna be, [b]Princess?[/b][/i][/color][/center]

Yue was moving before she could stop herself. The concrete cracked as she braced, twisting through the hips. Familiar power ripped through her body until she thought she'd burst. Her fist caught on the sound barrier, straining her shoulder for what felt like years before she finally forced it like a brick through a glass pane. A sharp twang of numbness danced up her forearm to her elbow as she carried a wave of super-heated air straight into Alex's face.

Confusion. Fear. Anxiety. Surprise. Pain. Yue got to watch it all cross his gaze in agonizing slow motion as her blow carried the Brute off his feet. His flesh distorted comically with ripples of [Force]. The impact was deafening as she snapped back into realtime. Alex disappeared like he was deleted from existence, carried across town clear to the wall by the pressure wave. The psionic glass on his body, and every un-battened window shattered as the shockwave boomed across Shieldtown.

Alex lay still at the end of the trench he'd carved in the concrete, crumpled in the crater his impact had created in Shieldtown's reinforced wall. Air hissed out of the vents in Silver Fang's helmet and tendrils of smoke curled off the gently glowing metal of her clutched fist. She turned and made eye contact with a Ripper that had rounded a corner. He dropped his weapons, paralyzed as though he could see the invisible Haze of bloody [Crimson] burning off her skin. He turned and fled, a new emotion pulsing through their network: Dread. Yue turned on her heel and stepped purposefully back towards Máire as the dome of psionic glass over Shieldtown dissolved into motes of glitching light.

[b][color=#CE2B95]"Let's go."[/color][/b]