"-and that's the long and short of it. If you can be a dear and get as much info on who might have snatched up my precious GIFT's, that would be lovely." Kiran lounged across one of Finger's desks like a cat, their empty drinking glass being balanced precariously on the stinger of their tail.

The computer mutant scoffed in mock insult. "Give me a challenge why don'tcha boss? Give me twenty-four, forty-eight hours tops. Will need some time to re-calibrate a few of the spy vermin." Cracking the knuckles of their copious digits, Finger's got to work. One of the medical tubes leading to the back of their head filled with an oily orange fluid drip fed its way into the brain. This caused the mutants head to swell somewhat, making the lack of a full skull apparent as Finger's cephalopod-like upper head kept swelling till it bulged and pulsed.

Pleased with the results of a steady supply of Ego, Kiran hopped off the desk and kissed the top of Finger's swollen soft head and trailed a hand over their head that practically glowed with hyper-neural activity. "Thats a good boy, Keep it up and I'll make sure to give you an extra special batch of your brain juice." All they got in response was a chuckle akin to a goose choking.

That was the exact moment the glass still balanced on Kiran's tail popped like a balloon.

Then came the loud crash and screaming, Screeching? Noise up above.

All of Finger's screens were a synthetic crystal and didn't so much as crack from the ultrasonic noise that had assaulted the building. The man was already too lost in their work to even register that something had happened, just grunting in annoyance. The tinker however was a lot more curious as to what the bloody hell was going on. Commandeering one of the screens to flick to Cortex's security feeds revealed the source of the disturbance. Some deer person and a strange creature that Kiran couldn't recognize. Curious. And not one of theirs either. Well, this certainly warranted some attention.

Feeling as theatrical as usual, The lab rat flicked the screen over the the clubs music system and scrolled till they found the music they were looking for. Perfect. Presentation was the hallmark of a true supervillain after all. And Kiran Kingsley prided themselves in their work and reputation as one of the worlds foremost villains. What kind of Malefactor would they be if they didn't address trespassers in their space personally? The thought was sickening and amateurish. No self respecting black hat would dream of such gross lack of theatrics and pageantry. No, the personal touch was always the most gratifying and impactful.

A vial was pulled out of one of their many pockets and slotted into a hypodermic needle gun. The vial glowed a soft sickly green, the most standout part of its labeling read "TYRANT" in bold lettering. With little hesitation, the gun was put to their neck and the trigger pulled. Kiran tensed their mutated muscles as power coursed through them before settling like a pleasant warmth. Now they were ready.

They hit play, and made their way upstairs.

The heeled boots they had chosen to where clicked and echoed up the stairwell as the music cut through the club. Many confused faces dawned with horror as several of the less durable or combat geared patrons scrambled like cockroaches out of the establishment. Several grabbing any drugs or money that wasn't immediately in hand or attended to on their way out. The bartender had already pressed buttons that caused the bar-space to fold in on itself and tuck into the wall. Most of the bottles and containers only surviving the noise due to not being glass in the first place. Said bartender disappeared along with it all as a wall slid up to block themselves and the merchandise from the oncoming violence.

The double doors leading to the back flew open, A pair of artificially glowing red eyes stared out at the central floor. There was the tiniest of moments between the songs lyrics before a grin filled with fangs glinted in the dark, and the figure of many people's nightmares stepped forward.

Kiran flared Their coat out dramatically and slid their hands into their pockets with an earned confidence. Their tail clicked mechanically as it swayed behind them. Shutters in their goggles shifted in a way to mirror their eyes expressions, giving them a bemused look as they surveyed the damages. They clicked their tongue and shook their head slightly like A disappointed parent. "Well, this is going to take some time to repair, and bribe slash threaten the locals to not let any of the other gangs know about this place." Their gaze moved to the two that didn't smell of the appropriate pheromones used to mark members of their cult. Their frown quickly turning upwards again into an uncanny smile.

"So, who might you dearies be~?" Their voice Sardonic and dripping with honeyed malice.

The snakes dispersed, driven by nothing but instinct and an insatiable hunger for human flesh, a hunger that very few ever experienced. Hunger that required one to understand the nuance of starvation, and to make a horrific choice to avoid that fate. Most of them were cleaned up, made short work of by the bars' genetically enhanced patrons. The unluckiest of the patrons, however, had pod-shaped growths in his ears, tumors that picked up on 2.4 gigahertz frequency, and he was currently on the toilet rocking out to the song that had started playing throughout the club.

Doe hated to murder someone while they were on the john, but she was working and there was no room for mercy in her line of work. A tiny iridescently scaled reptile made its way into the stall, biting the man and injecting him with a sample of stored neurotoxins J-3 had created. The man slumped to the ground immediately, his enhanced physiology unable to keep up with the slurry of harm that the Thinker had created. Jane hopped down from the rafters, fluttering her pigeon wings as they shifted into arms and landing in the stall. The snake turned and bit her, its body going limp as it made contact, being subsumed into Doe's as suddenly as it struck.

The man before her was butt-ugly, function taking precedent over form as he made bodily modifications, and for some absurd reason, he had entirely removed his neck. It was no wonder these people were wanted dead or alive; they were disgusting. She placed a hand on the man's stomach, sliding her hand up to his bare chest. Digging her fingers into his flesh, she pulled her arm back, taking his skin off in one fluid motion, sending his body slumping to the floor. "Let's see here. There's a specialized tissue giving off identifying secretions... Not near the pineal, then the pituitary perhaps?" She continued haruspicy for several moments before finding what she was looking for.

---

There was a pause as Kiran threw open the back doors and entered the room. The male Doe extricated himself from the wall that he had been thrown into, the poor thing looking both confused and hurt; one of its horns missing after the violent collision with the club interior. He stood up woozily and shook his head as if it would shake off the fatigue from all his recent activity. He raised a hand to the missing horn, rubbing the spot where it would've sprouted from his head and letting out a low whine. Pigeons continued to filter in at regular intervals until it seemed as if every pigeon in the Undercity had gathered at Cortex. One of the more handsome birds began to coo, and several females responded in kind, prompting their fellows to act; before long, there was a constant dissonance of pigeon sounds that was audible in the lulls between musical notes.

Jane pressed her foot against the door, kicking it open as she practically skipped into the main room of the club, moving with the undeniable swagger of someone on their own turf. She found herself nearly halfway between J-3 and Kiran, her appearance tweaked to resemble none other than Kiran Kingsley himself. The mimicry wasn't perfect; she'd acquired cult pheromones but had no way of creating a tinker alloy tail. Instead, it was an osseous frame covered with an iron shell she copied from a particular gastropod, then colored with pigments. She had rolled the sleeves up to her elbows on her white dress shirt, the left arm halfway buttoned. Polka-dotted red suspenders supported black pants that led to bare feet, all with a lab coat thrown haphazardly over everything.

She used Kiran's borrowed face to look around the club as she walked, "Well!? You heard me, this is going to take some time, so get to it! Whoever disposes of these eye-sores will be rewarded with a lifetime supply of my chems, and oh, what the hell, bring the velociraptor thing in alive, for vivisection, and I'll even throw in some biomods, as a treat." She hooked a thumb back at J-3. When no one immediately moved, her tail darted out, coiling around the legs of one of the unfortunate souls who didn't flee. She held him upside down, so that his face roughly aligned with her own. "Perhaps a little chemical assistance will get my point across." Her hand went into the lab coat, producing a grainy red powder that she blew into the man's face. "Anyone who flees or doesn't act will be dosed with Berzerk, which I don't recommend, as those who metaphorically lose their heads in this fight, will likely do so quite literally. Have fun, my dearies."

Her tail relaxed, dropping the wolf-faced man she had been holding. For a moment, he didn't move, his eyes staring at something far, far away; then the Wiindigo overtook him. Crouching down, he sprang at Jane, who used her tail to bat him away from Kiran. The man scrambled upright and threw himself at a nearby trio of lizard-like men, sinking his teeth into one of their necks. The remaining two took a few steps back and reached for their autoguns, spraying bullets at the man, filling him full of holes as a keenly amplified sense of fear caused ricochets and stray shots to be fired at J-3.

The wolf-face man kept chewing right up until his body went limp, at which point one of the lizardmen turned and bit his companion, who dropped his weapon and bit back. The two scuffled for a half second more before hissing and redirecting their rage at nearby gang members. Another spray of hastily fired bullets went through Cortex, chaos breaking loose as an infectious psychosis swept through the bar patrons, as cult members attacked J-3 in a desperate bid to acquire Kiran's tinkertech.

The Gestalt mind that was J-3 and Jemma blinked in unison, stunned into silence and with abject [Irritation-Disgust-Confusion] whirling in their thoughts. They tried to keep calm, tried to whip their thoughts into rapid motion as things began to i-fucking-mmediately fall into chaos around them. Which only further heightened the emotional whirlwind that spiraled within. In an attempt to at least rapidly cold-start their mind back into motion, they reflected on the day thus far. Or at least the events that led them here.

First was being trapped. Again. Twice. In a row. By the Rippers first, then again by Jane Doe, only to now be dropped off into, apparently, highly hostile territory. Second was the ghoulishly pale, disgustingly [wrong], insufferably arrogant, aggressively unappetizing thing that wore human skin like a disguise before them. The aether-scape around the ... Human...? Was twisted and wrought with seething emotions and echoes. Suffering, Madness; Hate; And sickening petulance hung around the thing like a cloak. Foul vibes, not necessarily similar, but not dissimilar either, to Jane's. Speaking of whom: Thirdly was Jane! Who was now walking back into the room with a disguise borne out of J-3's combined imagination. Jemma knew her cyber-prosthetics. J-3 knew the synesthesia inducing taste Jane's Aether-Painting chaos-maelstrom. The tail was masterfully disguised, and the chaos was a perfect cover to distract from any well and proper observation and detailed notation of any discrepancies with said appendage. To say nothing of the biological imprint that Jane had delivered unto the stage.

If one didn't know any better, or wasn't [AWAKENED], Jane and the [Abomination] were one and the same on a physiological level. If perhaps, not on the cybernetic, mental, or astral level. Not that that mattered, because in a moment of true and sincere beauty, that Fucking. Jackass. Cock-biting. Deer, threw them under the bus!

And then people began fucking screaming, and shooting at them! Why!? WHY?!

J-3 dove into a slinking pounce, dropping from their towering loom into a lurching double handed swipe. Their claws cleaved through one of the [Junkie Cultists] that charged them. His legs were scythed into chunks, with the spray of sanguine liquids that followed being splashed into the eyes of multiple others to J-3's left. Their claws then dug into the ground, and their shoulders groaned loudly as all of their some 294 kilograms yanked in an abrupt shift of momentum. Their back legs flew out, sweeping wide in a slicing whirlwind kick. Four more cultists went down, screaming as sickle clawed talons carved through stomachs and hips like their namesake farm-tools through wheat.

Their bladed tail followed behind their legs like a crescent guillotine. More fell back with shrieks, roars, and screams, as J-3's tail well and properly acquainted many cult-members with two new challenges in life, chiefly: Blood loss and Dismemberment.

J-3 completed their spinning maneuver, feeling ink pulse through their arms as their joints cracked with force as they threw themselves into a spinning leap. Their mass slammed into the far wall of the building, leaving them as much space as they could get from Jane, the chaos, and the [Abomination]. Their claws dug into the wall they rested against, and they used their new vantage point to get a vague read of the newly created arena. They spotted at least ten more [Cultist Junkies] still standing, and when another burst of autocannon fire made its way to them, the Jemma half of their gestalt quailed at the roaring report. Their body lurched into motion again, narrowly dodging the initial barrage, before a second caught them across their chest, neck, and face. Nerves died, and their vision vanished into oblivion. For a moment, their body was headless... And then ink swelled as their flesh knit itself back together.

Vengeful, J-3 threw themselves at that one next. Their head was changed, gone was their mouth, instead a solid plate of bone-enamel armor took up residence where their mouth and chin used to be. Twin blades of bone curled forward from underneath, edges gleaming in the light cast throughout Cortex. A screaming roar made it's way out of them regardless, vents along their ribs having opened up as their body heat began to slowly, but steadily, rise.
Their eyes twitched first to Jane, even as their body slammed into the now shrieking augmented mutant. Their forearms grappled with the body of a particularly agitating auto cannon, and J-3 marked Jane as their next target when this one inevitably fell. The Awful. Loathsome. Malefic. Baleful fucking Deer. She would go next. And they would flee. The [Abomination] would only have to tolerate their presence for a moment more, surely. If it didn't interfere, J-3 would be out of it's hair sooner than it would blink.

Twitch.
The urge to use everything and splatter everything in the room was hard to hold back. But... no, can't have that. There were higher standards to hold up to. Though, any self respecting Villain would be hard pressed to stay cool in... This situation. No, Oh no. This certainly just wouldn't do. Copycat's were anything but flattering. Derivative slop with no sense of imagination. This wouldn't stand. As fascinating as the inky shapeshifter was, the individual committing blasphemy right now took priority. The head of their tail split into a four fingered claw before lashing out. Grabbing the head of the nearest cultist and dragging them before Kiran. The cultist, in a moment of fear and clarity, fell to their knees rather then struggled as they looked up at what constituted a god to them. Their skin was covered in a layer of grey fur and their appearance resembled some form of lagomorph. Kiran's was was a contorted mask of rage. The skin and muscles of their face in an exaggerated display of anger that no natural face could achieve. They produced a wide necked bottle from their coat, its metallic cork popping off audibly.

When the cultist tried to speak they found the bottle forced into their mouth. "Drink."And so they did. Not even able to take the time to register the embryo like creature that came with the viscous liquid now running down their throat.

Kiran flipped the cultist around, ignoring the ensuing chaos. Their tail became a stinger again and pierced the rabbit man's spine. Chemicals flooded into the man in seconds as the change began. It first came with screaming. So loud and forced that you could hear the vocal cords damaging themselves. What started out human before turning deeper, guttural, and more animal.Eyes going bloodshot as every surface vein burst at once. Bones and joints broke and reshaped. Flesh and muscle swelled and ballooned so quick that skin split open. Bioluminescent light flooded out of every orifice and wound. A sickly yellowish green.

All the while, Kiran simply laughed. "The funny irony about imitations? Is that they are cheep! The creature in front of them stopped growing. What stood where the cultist once stood was an Apex. It resembled some fusion of rabbit and chimpanzee, lower half more rabbit and upper half more chimp. The things head was like a rabbits, long upright ears and everything. But its mouth was wrong. Too wide, and wicked teeth that would scare any sane creature. Covered in dark grey fur etched with glowing yellow green stripes similar to a tigers. It was easily larger then a hippopotamus if not more muscular. Even under all that fur, flesh and muscle rippled with power. Kiran watched the transformation closely, their tail stinging the beast periodically in different places as he typed away on his forearms and muttered to himself.

Some of the cultists that had stopped to watch the spectacle suddenly found themselves with needles sticking out of their flesh. The lucky ones simply exploded into showers of viscera. The rest mutated randomly and rapidly into warped humanoids, filled with rage and pain as they flailed and lashed out in unchecked violence. Kiran lowed their hands and let out a sigh. their face looking slightly more normal as they calmly walked towards the imposter and the shifting monster. "Your first mistake was deciding to wear one of my faces, the second was thinking you could order around those that are mine, and third... eh." He reached over to his left bicep and pressed the buttons on a few bulges no larger then a matchbox. The sound of an aerosol going off in their mask activated as injections went through their body. Berzerk, Nitro, Nerve, Ward, Jolt, and a host of other chems made Kirans body filled galvanized.

He sighed out a shuddering sigh, before cocking their head to the side. "Ahaha...haaaaagh . . . Kill them." The Apex screamed like a base boosted Ape. The ground under it shattered as it crossed the room in a single pounce, right towards the imposter. Meanwhile, pink gelatinous orbs popped into kiran's palms, their purpose unknown as he continued his slow advance.

Jane frowned as several evolutionary disasters were forcibly fast-tracked toward extinction at Kiran’s hands. Maybe she should have just ducked out of the city for a bit, lived off people migrating in and out of the place. This was a valuable chance to expand her repertoire, but why did it feel like she was going to be left out to dry? The Undercity Initiative was supposed to be the brainchild of some unknown bigwig who had bought up a majority share of one of the plates; an up-and-coming Corpo, at least that was what Panopticon had said, and he’d never known her to lie. She was purposefully misleading and tended to speak in half-truths, sure, but an outright lie? Not really her style. So what the actual fuck was she supposed to be doing here? An anti-gang movement to win points with Congress? It wouldn't be the first time a Corpo tried that maneuver, but it was far too simple for Panopticon’s M.O.

It didn’t matter at that exact moment, but it was still mental gristle for her to chew on. Organic weapons stood on either side of her, moving in for the kill, and Jane would’ve hated to disappoint. “Irony? You want to talk about irony. The Wiindigoo can’t order anyone to do anything; it amplifies what is already present. If your men are trying to kill you, that’s on you.”

She gave him a shit-eating grin, “Can you blame them? That is easily the worst bottle service I’ve ever seen in a club, and I’ve been to a lot. I’d rather be back with the Founding Fathers trying my damndest to get blasted on wine and cider.” Jane took a few steps to the side as Kiran’s "bottle service” turned the gang member into what could only be described as a rabbimpanzee.

“And the funny thing about people who play God?” The newly created beast threw itself across the room, as Jane jumped ever so slightly into the air, ready to meet the creature’s advance. Her body shifted, along with the flow of manitou in the room, as she turned to meet the Tinker’s creation. The two collided mid-air, the force of the impact sending them flying towards J-3. “They’re predictable.” Jane bit down as her body expanded like a pufferfish, driven by a boiling chemical reaction typically found in ground beetles. Her tail dove into the ground, splitting itself into several anchoring points that were driven further into the ground by spring-like muscle coils, slowing their advance to a manageable speed for her unwilling ally.

Her ribcage shattered as she was sandwiched between an ape and a rooted bramble-patch of iron spikes she had driven into the ground; her abdomen burst, the boiling chemicals within her body released in a gaseous spray, carrying the last of J-3’s neurotoxins into the air around the rabbimpanzee.

The male Doe let out a low keening noise, all but lost in the chaos of the club. Rather than join the fray and potentially meet the same fate as Jane, it scaled the wall it had been thrown into, body shifting as it tore a hole in the wall and disappeared into the wall cavity. He made his way to the skylight he had created, tearing through wall supports where necessary.

---

J-3 flinched away, leaping straight up into the air when the mutated cultist-turned-Apex sailed in her direction, tangled with Jane as it was. They watched as some cultists tumbled over, writhing with pain as boiling hot acids and potent toxins attacked flesh and nerves alike. Others simply rose and continued fighting, turning their attention to either the Apex in their midst, or the now airborne J-3.

They landed, once again on the back foot as the Apex charged into their space. Its massive arms came down in an overhead slam, leaving cracks in the floor and shaking the foundations of the already trashed building. The shapeshifter had leapt to one side, only to launch themself into the chest of the apex as they dodged another wild swing.

Faster than they expected, J-3 found the arm of the rabbimpanzie rocketing into their chest as it then launched them into the air. For moments in a heartbeat’s span, the Polymorph simply… Watched. A plan had already taken root in their mind, and they prepared their body accordingly.

J-3 watched impassively as the Apex leapt up at them, leaving small craters in the ground as its immense mass rushed up into the air. And then, they acted: ink whorling over their face as a newly formed pair of jaws yawned open. When the rabbimpanzee collided with J-3’s form, their neck flexed against the shoulder that sought to choke them up. The bone blade ridge on the dorsal (the top) side of their skull sliced through flesh, muscle, and then collided roughly with bone. Something in their chest cracked, and the roaring scream that they had been keening, stuttered.

Lightning fizzled along their spine, rippling down from their torso as nerves disconnected from the biological whole. Their roar stopped entirely, cutting off with a sharp, shrieking chirp. The room, for a moment, fell silent.

And then the Apex fell from its surging leap, clutching a twitching J-3 that seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be dead already. The rabbimpanzee turned and began stalking back towards its creator, leaving the now seemingly limp reptilian body of its foe to hang from its shoulder; an awful trophy of visceral, if brief, combat.

Jane sputtered out a last few breaths as she looked at J-3 and the Apex, more a product of leftover gaseous agents than any real attempt at oxygenating herself. Her mangled body spread across iron brambles, flesh necrotizing rapidly due to her being unaccustomed to the toxins. The face she had borrowed from Kiran struggled to look down at the real Dr. Kingsley, the tendons and arteries in its neck using themselves like tentacles to prop up her skull. It had something in its mouth, flesh, fur, and gristle; a piece of forearm from the rabbimpanzee that she chewed slowly, deliberately, making eye contact with Kingsley as she swallowed, life leaving her body.

The male Doe screamed in horror, a dismayed braying noise that sounded like a donkey having intercourse with a hyena. Its voice emanated from the skylight his arrival had created. A vortex of conflicting emotions settled into Doe as his mouth contorted and his form shifted, coughing up a rolled-up bear skin in the process. The skin hit the floor with a wet thud, rolling into the corner of the joist space as he unfolded himself from his hiding spot, falling to the ground in the center of the bramble patch; the phantom taste of rabbimpanzee still in his mouth, despite it not being the one he had used to take the bite. He retrieved Jane’s head from the mess and sighed as a whirlwind of intent rushed into it, flesh knitting itself back together until Kiran’s serenely sleeping face sat in the palm of his hand.

Ink pulsed over the whole of J-3’s form, shocking some of the still living cultists into movement. Brightly glowing bioluminescent markings rippled to life over J-3’s flesh, with their armor pulsing in rapid flashing colors. Their flesh was now dotted with oddly ovoid nodules, each of which had a trailing line of pale gray-blue tissue connecting them.

Doe’s eyes flashed with recognition, “Oh fuck.” He bowled Jane’s head straight up, sending it full of intent soaring through the hole in the roof.

The Apex had enough time to ‘hrrf?!’ with surprise, before a crackling, electric ‘ZAP!!!’ rippled through the room. J-3s form lit up brilliantly, each nodule revealing its purpose as a roughly grapefruit sized sack of specialized cells, along with holding some of the same compounds found in a firefly.. Similar in function and form, even, to a species of South American freshwater eel. From their mouth, their claws, and the base of their tail, pitch black salt water began to pour. Gallons of it, sloshing off their body and spraying in all directions.

The electrical current hit Doe, carried along by the saltwater, causing his muscles to contract violently. His heart ruptured as muscles spasmed, bones breaking in kind, eyes melting, even frying his brain. The Apex’s bodily system was, politely, not quite robust enough to keep up with both being electrocuted with enough volts to knock elephants twice as big as the apex down, alongside a sudden drowning.

J-3’s victorious roar as they rode the Apex to the ground like a predator would a large herbivore was proof enough of that.

They had felt the beast’s breathing stop, felt its heart stutter to a halt; thus their confidence was thorough: the mutant was dead, surely. It was nearly silent for a moment, the shock having put out most combatants; even the pigeons had momentarily ceased their cooing.

“What fun!” Intent slowly coalesced around Doe’s burnt corpse as his flash-fried throat struggled to get the words out. Its arm lurched upward, ulna sticking out at an odd angle as it pointed an index finger toward the sky. “Re-mind-ss me of Tox-cat-lll.” A bolt of elation crashed down from the sky, invisible to the unawakened eye. The skull with Kiran’s face on it landed in the corpse’s upraised hand. The corpse smiled at the actual Kingsley, gesturing with his chin at J-3 and the Apex, all the while metaphysical Haze and cloying physical smoke poured from its mouth, “Seems mine was bigger.”

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.

"Gotta find all of them, break their limbs… keep everyone safe."

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.



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 friend 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.

"Aegis? You okay?" She knew the answer to that. "Things are winding down… I can take over for you," 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.



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 snap 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.

”Was wonderin’ where you’d got to.”

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. ”Thought I might find you in the middle of something.”



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 The Usurper finally lay motionless beneath her. She’d turned his skull to pulp. She had to Mach Punch him thirty times to do it. She knew her arm was broken. Her fingers would barely move and that numbness she’d associated with pain 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. [Promised] her.





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.

"He won’t stop," she muttered.

”No?” 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. ”No, I suppose he won’t. He seems rather focused on his task, doesn’t he?” She looked back at Yue. ”What about you?”

"I’m rotten inside," 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 something. If he killed one of them while he was like that, he’d hate himself.



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



[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 him. The monster that Damon Glass had become. Disheveled. Distorted from Kingsly's drugs. Covered in blood. Eyes daring her to do something, anything to stop him. His lips split into a jagged smile.



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.

"Let's go."

Their advance stopped.

The fight was mildly entertaining to watch. With the supposed death of the imposter was satisfying to a degree, though they really couldn't care less what they had been buzzing about. Nothing worth remembering, he had expected some more tricks at least. The suicide chemical bombing was old hat for Kiran and had little inspiration to it. Having had figured out the mechanics involved in passing second, along with how to improve and add onto it. They couldn't even be disappointed in their performance, Kiran had no expectations of them from the beginning. Anger at the unmitigated gall to impersonate them aside.

No, the one that really grabbed their attention now was the polymorphic specimen fighting their Apex. The ease of mutation and transformation they showed was nothing more then a gorgeous spectacle to behold. The temptation to clap was there, right up until the use of bio-electricity and the sudden surge of what registered as sea water to Kiran's senses.

Hyperactive mental impulses connected to their chem set fired off commands rapidly. Several needles darted in and out of the orbs in Kiran's palms, filling each with a new sequence of chemicals. The pink orbs were dropped, bursting before they even hit the ground. Bubbly foam rapidly expanded until a rubbery, hydrophobic mass that buffered the electrified water for the Tinker. That's what years of built up technology and experience netted a tinker. Sure, there wouldn't be an answer for everything all the time, but water and electricity was easy enough to counter for him personally.

Once the pair, trio? Once the ruffians before him were thoroughly basking in their victory, Kiran casually dislodged themselves from their protective cocoon. Taking stock of the current situation, They regarded the still smoking body of the rabbimpanzee. "Get up."

With a sudden lurch, what should have been dead mutant flesh began to animate. The dulled out markings of the apex flickered and glowed twice as bright then they had before. The Apex's body quickly filled with sickly life, burnt out cells and destroyed organs revitalizing themselves and repairing with such speed that the energy caused the body to heat up. The water drenching it soon turned to steam. Not even a minute later and the beast was back on its feet, Its eyes now glowing the same color as its markings and crackling with energy. "That's a good boy, now Split." With a roar, it then did something that would surprise and annoy everyone but its master.

The Apex ripped itself in two. Straight down the middle. But instead of trying to knit itself back together, new halves grew out of the energy saturated flesh layer by layer in such rapid succession that there was some loss of mass. But not enough as to reduce the bulk of the now two rabbimpanzee's. There was a pregnant pause at the asexual mitosis that everyone had just witnessed. The apex's flicked their ears, glaring at J-3 and Doe. The two rested into a knuckle walking position, took a few breaths, then screamed.

A yellow green tinted pressure wave exploded out of the two. This wave of concussive force pulverized any remaining furniture, blasted away any remaining water on the ground, and carried everything along with it. Turning every bit of debris into shrapnel. Both beasts were quick to leap along with the resulting pressure wave, each going after J-3 and Doe respectively, each humming with force.

Kiran simply stood behind his creations and smiled. Their tail clicking softly as it wagged back and forth with anticipation. They themselves being virtually untouched by the ongoing violence. They didn't really care how many cultist remained at this point, they were replaceable and willing to martyr themselves most days anyways. He tilted his head and kept his eyes on the ruffians. It was cute that they thought it would be over so quickly. The first phase of experiments hadn't even finished yet~

Well, the hard decision had been made. Golem was proud of him, but Dean still felt like he had been strong armed into it. For the past hour, wards and glyphs hidden within street art and carved into cobblestone roads all throughout Shieldtown had begun to thrum and reinforce all of the structures. All unseen to the still "sleeping" masses.

Dean rested his bat on across his shoulders as he followed Golem's lead. The former piece of sport equipment had every inch of it carved with interlocking geometric runes, jade studs were embedded in any place where a rounded space had been carved. The implement's etchings pulsed with a dull green light, a note hinting at Dean's current agitation and anxiety. "You sure he's this way?" He questioned the earth spirit. Golem didn't stop their trundling march, simply waving the man to continue following.

He was going to complain, mostly to fill the air since the general commotion and chaos brought on by the Ripper's had been getting quieter and quieter by the minute. He had buried a few up to their necks before the cyber freaks got the hint to leave him alone. Weren't these guys supposedly smarter with all those augments and upgrades? Guess not. Thoughts steering away from complaining, Dean was about to make some form of witty jab at the chromed up gangers-

That was when the thunderdome shattered. In an abrupt display of multicolored light, countless fractaline shards dissipating into nothing before ever touching the ground.

The pair stood still, eyes turning to meet one another after a moment of staring at the faint remains of the three colored lights that hung like an aurora over the town. The artifacting and glitching had already made Dean nervous about his friend. The dome shattering instead of simply dissipating meant one of two things; either someone or something had broken through it... or Something had happened to Alex. "Shit." No time for subtlety, had to get moving fast.

All of the assortment of curios and trinkets worn on his person resonated with him as Dean trusted the top of his bat into the street. immediately, the ground swelled underneath his feet and began to carry him along like a surfer riding a wave. the stone and paving resetting itself behind him as if it were never disturbed in the first place. Golem surfed along the ground with him, pointing the way with more urgency now.

Shieldtown became a blur for only a moment right up until Golem let out a sound of alarm akin to a geode cracking in half. Dean skidded to a halt. What he saw was a first for him. Alexander Dalton, out of costume, knocked the fuck out, and a visible bruise growing on the side of his face. On top of it all, there was a tench in the ground leading into the impact crater Alex was in the center off... right up in the face of Shieldtown's wall. "Holy crap..." Dean had been certain that nothing really could knock the big guy down for long, much less knock his lights out. He scrambled up to the wall, manipulating it and the surrounding ground to pull Alex free and set him down. No way in hell Dean could lift the guy if he wanted to.

"Come on big guy, please give me some sign your ok." Dean fretted and checked Alex for any other injuries. However, despite his worry and the seriousness of the situation, he did get a reply from the unconscious man... In the form of a loud snore.

There was a pause. Dean leaned away from his friend, With the look on his face that conveyed all the worn out emotion of someone who worked decades in customer service. "...He's Fine."

Golem misread the situation and began to clap his earthen hands.

Dean began to rub his temples, letting out a sigh that seemed to deflate him ever so slightly. Today was one of those days.

J-3 could only watch in mute confusion as the APEX lurched back to life and began once more dancing to its' creator's malevolent whims. Between its' sudden revival and the then just as sudden reveal of its' once hidden power to multiply by division, the Polymorph found themselves drawn up short, struggling to adapt for the briefest moments.

In those very moments, the polymorph regretted this failing of theirs. They flailed away from the rolling wave of force that preceded the guttural impact of however many hundreds of pounds made up the damn APEX. It had charged them, taking one of its' meaty fists and slamming it into J-3's chest in a savage uppercut, launching them with enough force to powderize their sternum and rib-cage. A roar had been building in their lungs, though now it once again croaked short and cut off. Before their momentum could kick in, they felt the middle of their tail get snatched up in a vice-grip.

Half of their gestalt mind found itself stunned into continued stillness, with the more human half of themself screaming in horror as they were slung into the concrete floor hard enough to- for want of a better term- pancake them. A horrid, comically pathetic 'YIPE!' shrieked out of their chest, before they were wrenched up and out of the ground once again.

The clone of the rabbimpanzie that they found themselves in the grip of decided, evidentially, in that moment that J-3 would be better as wall decoration. They were spun in a violent circle, bereft of any recourse but to watch as the world blurred around them before their spine was impacting the reinforced wall of Cortex' basement. For a long moment, J-3 simply sat there and stared, doing nothing as ink slowly oozed throughout their well and truly brutalized body. All they could hear was a faint ringing, and while they had been lucky enough as to not damage their core... Everything still hurt.

Irritation was the first thing to spark in the depths of their stunned thoughts. It caught like a wildfire, and before long, their blood boiled with a seething fury that was only barely restrained. Perhaps it was the process of getting slammed around a few times too many, perhaps it was the seemingly constant state of 'Go! Go! Go!' that they had been in since their freedom, but the Polymorph seethed like nothing else. They just wanted to go home! That was all, just go home, take a very short nap, and finally relax.

But no! Now, instead, they were locked in combat with- of all people- THE MOTHER OF MONSTERS! And the abhorrent aberrations that came with such an individual. Fine! Their body ached and their bones groaned with the desire to 'just be home already!' Fine! The apparent MOTHER OF GODDAMN MONSTERS had just sicced a product of his awful chemicals on them. Fine! Jane wanted J-3 and Jemma to be a monster so bad? Fine! They'd fight like a monster then!

---

The rabbimpanzie had not been still while J-3 threw themselves into that same red-haze that came with being in mortal combat. Once more did the mutant ROAR, sending yet another shockwave of noise to crash into J-3. In return, J-3 answered with their own battlecry: A warbling, alien, predatory shriek, undercut with a horrid buzzing like thousands of furious wasps. [MANA] and [INTENT] swelled around them, forced into an array and wrought to bear. At the tip of J-3's snout, an orb of black water hissed into physical space. [FURY] throbbed between their temples, and narrowed their focus. With another flex of [MANA], J-3 brought their spell to bear.

Their head whipped to and fro, another shrieking call pressing its' way out of their throat as a lance of pressurized water sliced through the air. The beam of aquatic force was no bigger around than a half-dollar, though it cut through concrete and bone with the same ease as a sickle through wheat for harvest. Their opponent tucked, dove, and leapt over the beam as it crossed the entirety of the room. Cultists fell to the carving line, and as the rabbimpanzie clone continued to dodge and leap away from J-3's assault, it soon found itself boxed into a corner.

Caught between one jump that would bring its' legs within the scything beam of water, and another that would see its' head lopped from its' shoulders, the beast came to a stop and once again ROARED! The shockwave was enough to disrupt the beam of water, and when its' vision cleared, the mutant found that J-3 had left their crater-turned-perch. A quick glance around the battlefield revealed nothing, only its' clone beginning its' own tussle with Jane-

From above, J-3 landed on the Rabbimpanzie with their entire body weight, hind claws cleaving through flesh and muscle with ease before coming to a 'CLACKING!' stop on the bones of the hips of the APEX. The mutant screamed with fury and pain in equal measure, straightening it's posture and flailing with desperate over shoulder swings, all the while J-3 returned the noise in kind. In a burst of savagery, J-3 began ripping and tearing with their fore-claws, mauling the rabbimpanzie's throat so as to prevent another shockwave.
The mutant's voice petered away, inhibited by viscera and sanguine ichor as it was.

With another flare of primal brutality, J-3 slammed their fore claws into the top and bottom jaw of the mutant, leveraging all the muscle available to their form to keep the abomination's mouth open. Ink whorled over their shoulders and arms, reinforcing muscle and bone as the Apex sought to close its' maw on J-3's pain inducing fingers. Even as it bucked, J-3 kept the beast's mouth wedged open, before their body lurched forward and drove the blades on their face into the now easiest to reach weak point they could see.

J-3's eyes closed, leaving them blind to the world save for their ability to sense [MANA] and [EMOTION], as their armored and bladed snout crashed into and then through the soft palette of the rabbimpanzie. They felt a moment of resistance, before the relatively weaker interior plate of bone that separated the brain from the mouth was forced to give way under J-3's insistence. There was a mild shudder from the abominable mutant, and J-3 almost began to celebrate... But it was never that easy, of course.

Almost as if prompted by their choice of coup-de-grace, the APEX yet again began to split and copy itself, falling apart under J-3's attacks like a rotten gourd, before condensing once again into a pair of- distinctly, if still only somewhat slightly- smaller clones.
The Polymorph screamed another cry of hate, before they were once again punched hard enough to send them flying.

Yue's HUD flickered, highlighting distant movement in the corner of her peripheral vision. She turned towards it, flexing her fist as familiar numbness prickled along her fingers and wrist. Dean. Checking on Alex, no doubt. She should say something. Concern that she'd maybe hit the dolt too hard hovered at the back of her mind for a moment before it was smothered in [Crimson]. Air hissed out of her helmet's vents in a long sigh as she turned back to Maire. The ears on her helmet flicked before folding down, and she nodded her head in the direction she'd confronted Chiroptera.

"I have to check on someone," Yue stated pointedly, and started walking. Exhaustion flickered at the back of her eyes. Pushing the Haze out to her extremities so it could bleed off helped a little, but the fight with Chiroptera had taken a lot out of her. Once her Fortifications went down, she'd probably collapse. "After that we can probably go: the local defense force is cleaning up anything that's not fleeing."

She could keep pushing. Just a bit longer...

Doe frowned, he would have raised a hand to his mouth and pantomimed a yawn, if he had time, but the lop-eared assailant flew at him with impressive zeal. Casually tossing Jane’s head behind its shoulder, the charred body readied itself to meet the assailant. “Is now really the time to be shadow boxing?” The rabbimpanzee collided with Doe’s charred body, intent and flesh exploding outward into cloying smoke and a lance of obsidian that embedded itself in the creature’s shoulder. The pressure wave slammed into the wall at almost the same time, rebounding off of it and scattering the cloying smoke further.

The wave of air pressure left mangled and broken cultists in its wake, tossing Jane’s head along like so many dead or dying pigeons. Rather then let them go to waste, the head opened its mouth, unhinging the jaw like a snake and devouring whatever birds it could reach, before using an oversized tongue to pull itself toward a cultist’s corpse. Her tongue shot out like a spike, embedding itself in the throat of the corpse, dragging itself toward the body. The corpse jittered, as a wave of intent swirled into it, causing it to stand up. Jane’s head looked at the cultist she was joined at the neck with, life slowly came back into his eyes as he regained consciousness. The cultist screamed, but his form continued to shift, and before long he lacked the physiology to do so; shortly after that his soul was devoured by Doe, but he never stopped screaming.

Jane looked at the second head on her body, its form began to settle, a face that could have been her brother’s looked back at her. She slapped him awake, “John, focus up, where is Ziinzi?”

He looked at her and pointed with his chin toward the skylight they had smashed into the ceiling.

“Good boy.” The club was filled with smoke by this point, getting thicker as time went on, it smelled vaguely of copal. The two-headed duo dashed toward their rabbimpanzee, intent coalescing around them as they moved. Doe closed the distance, not acting until the chimp did first, swinging both of its massive fists downward. The elastic bands of muscle that were holding them together relaxed, and Doe split into three pieces. John’s head rocketed off the body, hydraulic force propelling it and the spine into the rafters. The legs launched a straight kick, also propelled by the same elastic energy. The Apex would have to finish its strike, or be launched across the room by the force. Jane’s spinal cord ended at the shoulders, her arms distending on either side, hands reaching for the obsidian she had speared the beast with.

The Apex brought its fists down, turning the legs to paste. It let out a hoot and elbowed Jane in the head, but it was too late. The intent that had been gathering in her body dispersed as her left index finger touched the piece of obsidian. The stone jittered and shifted, its shape distorting much like the way Doe’s own form could. Intent bloomed, and the obsidian expanded into an inky black disc, bisecting the rabimpanzee diagonally at the shoulder as it did. Jane swung her arms as she reeled from the Apex’s blow, righting her momentum as she was sent soaring through the air. The skin on her head and shoulders crawled until a torso formed, and then legs, which planted themselves firmly on the ground. She took a few steps toward Kiran, ensuring her face and his looked the exact same, “Splitting into two is kind of my bag, but I guess its true what they say about imitation.” She pretended to examine her nails, "Tell you what, i'm feeling generous this morning. The MegaCorps want something from your workshop, give it to me, and I'll let you off with a warning."

The Apex reproduced again, two smaller versions of itself appearing on either side of the obsidian disc. The first Apex looked at Jane and Kiran before confusedly realizing if it looked in the opposite direction, it could still see Jane and Kiran. The lustrous black stone perfectly reflected the duo, and the four Apexes, resulting in what appeared, at a glance, to be two J-3s, four Kirans, eight Apexes, and enough copal-scented smoke that it was hard to see and breath.

John, for his part, slithered into the ceiling, devouring pigeons as he made his way to the bear pelt. Then the work began, churning out homunculi, moving to another point in the ceiling, before creating another homonculus, rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. Jane always took the more glamorous work, it would have been upsetting if John wasn’t so impossibly handsome and humble.

Okay, it was well past the time to complain about the situation. Alex was fine... for the most part at least. Whatever had been going on had hopefully past. In the meantime, he had another wayward idiot to take care of. Dean stood up, brushing himself off and about ready to instruct Golem. He paused with an annoyed grunt.
"Right, This mess." The remaining damage left behind by... whatever had sent Alex into the wall. Yeah, didn't want to hear this added to the list of damages he would be expected to fix with a "wave of his hand" by the locals. Even with being the most [Fortified] place in the Undercity, the big man still somehow caused damages to the brutalist paleo-punk haven.

There was a minute where Dean was digging around in his pockets before pulling out one of his jade coins. He then flicked it like how one would launch a bottle-cap, it making a resonating ping when it hit the ground. The moment it touched the trench, it was almost like someone decided to rewind the footage of reality. Earth, stone, and asphalt slid and tumbled itself back into its original place. The ground and wall fusing itself back together with a steady thrum of power that died down along with the coin, which crumbled to dust in its newfound burial place. The only thing left over was the faint signature of Dean's Mana and hints of [reinforcement] Applied to the wall.

Golem seemed to have read Dean's intentions, having increased their size enough to lift the quarter-ton rogue. Dean gave the Spirit a nod of approval. "Get him home. And put some ice on his cheek." He kicked his etched bat into the air, the implement only spinning perfectly into his hand because of his enchantments. Tapping the ground once again, The same spell as before flowed into the earth and began carrying him down Shieldtown's streets. Specifically in the opposite direction that Alex's crash had come from.

---

Lo and behold, There was Silver Fang... along with what he could only guess was another Templar. He couldn't remember her for the life of him, and really could care less right now. _{"Oh for fucks sake."} Now he was really happy that he had picked up the pace to get here, Fang looked ready to leave with the energy of a kid worrying about getting caught for something. Thank Forge Master for making her current suit as expressive as her usual. Dean cleared his throat, bat resting on his shoulder and free hand on his hip. "And Where do you think you're going missy?" Dean summoned all the authority he could, projecting similar energy one of his grandparents would when a child was about to do something stupid. He tapped his foot impatiently, A spell beginning to form in the ground to remove Silver Fang's friction to the ground so that she couldn't just bolt without explanation.

He looked to the other woman, giving a nod of acknowledgment but keeping his focus on Yue. Letting his usual snark for law and authority figures die in the back of his throat. Now wasn't the time for that.

Absently, he felt his phone buzz occupationally. The haptics weren't for calls, which lead him to assume that they were updates from the neighborhood enforcers hopefully. Power trickled into a few of the lucky charms he wore on his person. Here was hoping this mess was starting to clean up in earnest.

Maíre turned at the sound of the man's voice, a faint cloud of silver dust appearing by her hand when she saw who it was. "Lazy-cap," she greeted, eyes scanning the area around him. "We were just leaving. I'm sure you have larger messes to attend to."

There was movement to her left. Was Bayushi... sliding? It was faint, but she was definitely drifting from where she had stopped. The big man's "roommate" must have done something. Her hand came up, gripping the rear collar of Silver Fang's armor to keep her still.

Air hissed out of the vents in Yue's helmet in a long sigh, and the visor clapped back down over her face so her scarlet glare could pin Dean through its quartet of eyelets. Her body adjusted automatically as she felt the rough concrete turn to smooth, wet marble beneath her feet and very nearly lost her balance as Maire snagged a fold of her armor to keep her from sliding away. Alex's spear twirled out in a flash of light, and she slammed the heel of the haft into the concrete, reaching out for [Red] with a flicker of [Will] and [Intention]. It coursed through her Fortifications and rooted her in place. The impact rumbled through the nearby buildings not unlike thunder.

"I have a Promise to fulfill," Silver Fang replied in monotone. Possibly also a bitter duel to the death with someone she wasn't sure she could beat in her current condition, though she left that part unsaid. "After that we'll be departing to return to our jurisdiction with haste. I'm sure my presence on the surface has already been missed."

Dean blinked his eyes slowly at the two. The rumbling of the spear not even making him flinch.

. . . Ah. Promises and bindings. That was annoying. But it did little to dissuade him. He did let the ground turn to normal. Though a Pulse of [Will] and [Intention] of his own caused his the latent power of his territory to thrum slightly.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, No." Dean rolled his eyes and flicked his free hand back and fourth. "The promise I understand, I get it. Buuuuuuuuut . . ." He then pointed the bat at Silver Fang. "You will be coming back here and talking with Alex." It was less a demand at this point and more a statement of fact.

The whole clusterfuck was on the verge of wrapping up, he was not going to let possible the one chance at breaking Alex's burnout streak just walk out of the Undercity with no word of even so much as visiting.

It made sense to leave for the moment. Wounded needed to be tended too, a head count was still ongoing, and the Rippers needed to be rounded up for the Dragon's goons. It was probably more practical for the Templars to not be here when that happens at least.

Though, if Yue was even remotely like how she had used to be back in the day online? Dean cleared his throat. "The big man, you, and I still need to have a chat once things are cooled off. Got it, Miss kitty cat?" The hung his wrists over the bat on his shoulders, leaning forwards and raising an eyebrow. The pose was very reminiscent of his demeanor back in Final Odyssey.

"No." Maíre stepped forward with her interjection, positioned between Silver Fang and Lazy-Cap. "We have larger priorities than to kiss and make up with your big man."

She turned her gaze sidelong toward Bayushi, the faint shimmer of her iris reticles visible under her hood. "My mission was to find and retrieve you quickly, and enough time has already been lost chasing after you. I won't waste more playing tag along with side quests."

A broken comms device appeared in her hand, and Maíre tossed it to Bayushi. "You still have your own mission with a target still at large, remember?"

Hmmm, rabbimpanzee loss of mass due to splitting higher then projected parameters. Combat situational awareness above average. Use of concussive powers minimal and uncreative. “Moon Freak” strain requires refinement. Need to lower potential growth curve to prevent population bomb and biome scouring. Personal note, ingrain instinctual pack tactics and multiple forms of species communication to increase group coordination for future implementation. Current test run underperforming. Conclusion: Violent termination upon further drop in current engagement effectiveness.

Disappointing. Though their current opponents combat performance and lack of response to fear and shock tactics did lend itself to the drop in this strains effectiveness. Just bad luck in design choice it seems.

Kiran tilted their head at the black stone. Curious, but ultimately unimportant. What did grab their attention was the Doe’s comment. "Oh ho! Business then? Well by all means, we are not all so savage that we can’t come to some form of agreement hmm?" Their tail flicked about too and fro. Meanwhile the rabbimpanzee’s huffed and growled in frustration at the sudden lack of hostilities.

Kiran rolled their eyes and let out an overly dramatic sigh. ”Petulent children as always… go play with the other guest why don’t you. I appear to have more important matters to attend to.” The beasts and remaining reaving cultists were quick to turn their attention to J-3. Kiran looked back to the uncanny individual before them. ”While I still find your imitations of me quite bold and tasteless, One cannot help being flattered by such displays. Would you by chance require refreshments? Do forgive the lack of staff, I seem to have left nobody to wait on us. But i refuse to be anything but an excellent host~”

Jane tilted her head, so far so good. Her pupils dilated until the whites of her eyes were no longer visible, body shifting as she grew slightly taller, skin turning a sunkissed bronze. “Refreshments? But of course! Toxcatl is a day of feasts, after all.” Her right arm shot out, still unnaturally long, fingers elongating into fangs and digging into the flesh of a nearly dead cultist. Her other arm returned to normal while the right contorted, constricting around the body while biting chunks from it. The cultist protested weakly, eliciting an annoyed glance from Doe.

”And Feast we will!” Moving behind what remained of the club's bar, Kiran was quick to begin mixing a pair of Synapse Scorcher’s with nitrogen. The level of presentation wasn’t necessary, but one should never shy away from theatrics. Ice was cut into the shape of a diamond, glasses were spun, and the drinks were poured smoothly. Kiran’s tail bloomed open into a clawed hand that transported Jane’s drink to them.

Taking the glass in her hand, she inspected the glass contents with a disinterested expression. “This smells disgusting.” To punctuate her thought, she shot the drink back in one quick swallow. The liquid was so cold it froze the saliva in her mouth, creating a layer of icy spittle that the drink slid across. It was unpleasant to say the least, and stuck to the roof of her mouth like peanut butter. “Ugh,” Her tongue scraped lazily across the roof of her mouth, tissue and synapses dissolving as she scoffed the drink. “You have one chance to make an impression and you hand me spicy ice water.”

Kiran took a moment to sip and savor their drink. An overacted, satisfied sigh being let loose before they refocused on Jane. ”Now, business then? Do ignore the beasts and sideshows, they won't be bothering us.” They leaned forward, an excited glint in their eyes. There was then a hiss of depressurized cold mist as a small rack rose up from the counter, revealing several blood bags with listed types and added narcotic saturation levels. The blood was presented with a hand in a wordless “help yourself” gesture.

“Thath bether,” Her words came out garbled as she spoke around a scorched mouth. Starting with the lightest saturation, her tongue snaked out of her mouth, piercing a bag of blood and greedily slurping up its contents with a makeshift proboscis. Tilting her head back she gargled, blood sloshing and coating her mouth as the hemoproteins transformed into cells that replaced the lost portions of her mouth.

“Now, let me see,” Jane coughed and retched, spitting up a bound journal she had swallowed earlier that day. It was covered in slobber. “Knew I had it in here somewhere...” The book’s cover opened on its own, vellum pages turning frantically until the book was about halfway open. Her right arm dug into the chest of the cultist, retrieving the heart and releasing her victim as it did. “Ah, here we are. So first we need… Theta-J. Then I am to drop Theta-J through the roof of Cortex. Oh wait, no… That’s… something else.” The pages of the book slowly flipped several more times, passing a two-page fold featuring a surprisingly well-drawn doodle of Kiran tied to a rocket that appeared to be carrying him to the moon. “Here it is.”

Jane turned the journal toward Kiran, showing him another detailed picture. It was an atom painstakingly drawn to scale and neatly annotated so that there was no mistaking it. Only it was denser than anything normally found on Earth. In fact, it couldn’t even be found in this part of the Universe, as Kiran examined the drawing, it became obvious why the atomic structure had needed to be drawn out. There was no known name for this element, it didn’t rightly exist on the planet. It could exclusively be found in Kiran’s laboratory, a product of his unique capability, and it wasn’t the only one. Several atoms that only Kiran should have known about were drawn out. The page flipped, revealing another few atoms, listing quantities and isotopes; the beginning of a recipe, or at least an ingredient list. The page flipped again, and again, just over ten pages of details, including instructions on how to transport the more unstable isotopes. After that there was just a list of names and contact information, with several names circled.

Doe closed the journal, slamming it shut with her hand, “Ignore that last page. Just some ‘friends’ of mine.” Her right arm gingerly held the heart in its mouth, in the dark of the club it almost appeared to still be beating. “So if you could just load up a van or something, I’ll be on my way.” She confidently informed Kiran with a crooked grin.

Looking over the notes and listed materials, Kiran was quick to recall everything they currently had within their laboratory complex that matched each little ingredient. Several potential concoctions and compounds one could make or stabilize with such creations came to mind. What fun to be had with more people actually trying for larger projects these days. ”A good start for sure! Capital even! You should have solicited me sooner on such matters my dear, I find the direct approach towards hospitality to do wonders.” Their sardonic charm remained as Kiran chuckled to themselves happily before giving Jane a sharp side eye. Though I would refrain from attempting any burgling of my abode in the future.” The threatening statement was left to hang in the air as if it were a fact of nature. Grass grows, fish swim, wind blows, and you don’t steal from Kiran Kingsley.

”I will need a day to synthesize fresh batches, low quality product is beneath me. Where perchance should I send the delivery to? Unless you would like to accompany me to my lovely estate? We do still need to go over payment, from you or your contractor.”

“Deal. Send it topside, Plate five, Main Street.” Doe paused while the journal they held twisted and writhed, before becoming one with her skin and crawling its way up her arm, disappearing into her center mass. “And in the future, I will not be involved in any attempts to burgle you. Scouts honor.” She flashed a grin of bone white teeth while giggling madly at the joke.

[Hr]

John knitted together another homunculi, tucking the lifeless body into a particularly snug section of the crawlspace. The work was a lot easier without having to split his attention between his task and fighting Kiran or his chimps. He half expected Kingsley to ignore their offer, but it never paid to bet against Panopticon, and sure enough, he hadn’t.

He half crawled, half-shimmied through a vent that opened into the room that the Tinker must have come from. Someone sat in the room, a man with a bulging head, completely oblivious to the chaos going on above him. Unfolding himself from the vent, he fell to the floor. Nerves, flesh, and skin grew out of his spine, flowing out of his reservoir until he was whole of body again. Taking a few steps toward the man, John idly wondered if it was rude to eat him while Jane parleyed. Then again, Kingsley did offer refreshments, and there was something that looked temptingly akin to Tang flowing through the man’s tubing. John’s jaw unhinged as he loped excitedly forward, biting into the man’s head, slurping down the mysterious orange liquid.

Fingers seized and spasmed for a minute, plugs and IV drips popping out of ports along his skin. Their veins quickly became more and more vascular while fluids began to leak from the cracks in their compound eyes. A hint of condensing energy was occurring in their brain and chest . . . almost like something that was about to explode. Fingers gurgled in response.

The oily liquid tasted almost exactly like the drink Jane had been given, albeit without the freezing sensation; some party. Normally potential toxins and unknown substances like this were swallowed using a specialized digestive tract that opened into a massive portion of Doe’s stomach and left to inevitably neutralize itself against millennias’ worth of devoured foodstuffs. He did no such thing this time, and the drugs went straight to his head. John went nearly limp, jaw still locked shot onto the man as he witnessed everything that had ever happened to him all at once.

Every forgotten bliss, every meal full of disgust, the contempt and fear he felt hunting himself down; every memory like a raindrop cascading through that moment as Doe’s brain kicked into overdrive. A few thousand feet away, Jane’s body was undoubtedly experiencing the same torpor as her mind raced.

And that was when Fingers exploded in a violent burst of bioenergy. Though the process was helped due to a number of mutagenic chemical properties all reacting at once inside the poor man thing.

There was not so much as an explosion, more of a loud wet pop. Sizzling lukewarm gore and liquified bone splattered across the room.

All accompanied by the sudden ding not dissimilar to an oven timer going off. John fell to the floor amid the viscera, pieces of what used to be Finger’s skull embedded in his grey matter, Ego racing through his veins.

Kiran however was unaware of this development, too focused on being a host.

[Hr]

Kiran clapped in delight. All the while trays of organ meats had been produced, which Kiran was in the process of making perfect cuts out of and occasionally mutating to let Jane taste test. ”Splendid, it will be an unmarked red van. Though I would prefer you don’t eat my people up topside, finding good help that blends in with polite society is a chore I’d rather perform sparingly. They sipped their drink and returned to cutting.

Something struck Kiran then. ”What do I call you my dear? A thousand pardons for my rudeness. The whole spread before you is yours to take of course, I would however be curious if you were interested in some work of my own in the future? I will compensate you handsomely.” They gave Jane an equally toothy grin, rows upon rows of fangs slid out and on display.

Jane tried to answer, but her mouth suddenly felt like it was full of molasses, or maybe marrow; regardless the end result was that she sputtered out something about a “Mr. White’s petite lapin,” before falling to the ground in a pile, tripping over her own elongated limb. For some reason, she was suddenly seeing double. Just her and John, in that other place, J-3 barely visible in the background against the smoke and fear; against the pain, anger and chaos filling the air around them. She could feel her tongue lolling out of her mouth as she mumbled “The wall Mr. Gorbachev,” before she lost consciousness.

"I do," said Yue, catching the comm. "I can't forget. My target may well be anyplace on the planet by now. She dropped me in the dark under the plates from the 46th floor Tower, so unless she shows up in the square here we'd be wasting our time looking around."

Yue huffed, hissing air out of her helmet's vents. A mental impulse brought up her biomonitor, and she just stared at the list of cuts, bruises, cracks, and her not-quite-recovered concussion. She considered Dean while she rested the spear against her shoulder like she would her greatsword.

Yeah, 2Fast, we know. She wondered if Maire would accept "I have some ouchies" as a valid excuse as she considered her next response.

"Their Rogues have offered to help me to the surface. I'm sure one additional passenger is going to be fine?" Said Yue, as the quartet of glowing red points beneath her mask's visor flicked towards Dean. "We can talk then. Besides, I need medical attention or you're gonna have to carry me out. I have a civilian to check on."

The 'Crete crunched under her boots as she turned on her heel and twirled the spear away in a flash of light. A civilian to check on. Yeah, and probably a bitter duel to the death, but Maire didn't need to know that just yet. At least Chiroptera might be hesitant to engage her with another Templar around.

She hoped.

There wasn't going to be any winning that fight in the condition she was in.