Ripley

Diana's eyes shut as Topaz's hand clasped around her wrist, instantly draining away her Energy through his Deviant Mutation. About three minutes later, I had tied her up because… that strength she had just shown was… impossible.

"It's happened," Quartz said quietly. Topaz was even quieter, out of the pain of having part of his tongue slashed open by flying debris. "Diana developed a second Deviant Mutation… she'd absorbed enough of Soul Killer's Fragment of the Source-Shards of Division, Oblivion or Release that… she developed a second one. And it's negatively affecting her."

"We don't know that's true, I have…" I looked at Quartz, and pleaded with him nonverbally to keep this a secret. "…I have two Unique Features, but only a single Source-Shard… since Tier II."

Topaz opened his eyes, mouthing. "Zhazh's impoffible."

Quartz agreed. "It should be, unless... maybe you possess a very high quality Fragment?"

I sighed. Every time I thought I was getting closer, I was only getting further from what made sense.

Diana groaned, her eyes fluttering open slowly. "Wha… what happened?"

I stayed quiet, letting her take in the scene. Debris was everywhere, and enough dead bodies were squished to mush that their blood flowed through the entire room. She shuddered, shaking her head as panic infiltrated her tone. "This… how did… ugh, my head! Why am I tied up?!"

"Because. You. Did. This." Dryder approached from her side. "You… did something very badass-"

"Dryder, parenting mode." I course-corrected.

"-you fucked up." He gulped. "You… uh… your eyes went completely bloodshot one second, you grew several inches in height and tore your clothes. Began mauling the fuck out of Soul Killer even if it twisted you apart, and was freakishly sadistic throughout the entire thing. You created multiple fuckin' shrapnel storms, one of which Dread had to dive in to swat out and protect these two — and you still got Topaz' fingers and cheek sliced open. We pulled you back, you tossed us around like we weighed nothing, snapped up a fire to bind me to a fucking a wall so Dready then protected me from you. And then you popped the damn Nexus' head in like a pimple with your bare hands… then you uh… Dread you want to explain what happens next?"

"Do- do I have to?"

Topaz snarked. "If haffened chu you."

Even when missing some of his tongue, Topaz still had a fucking mouth.

Sighing, I didn't meet Diana's eyes. "You… got antagonized with Dryder, I thought my Water Tendency might cool you down, didn't work. You pushed me into a wall and… well… chomped real hard on my neck."

Her eyes widened as she saw the marks on my armor. "I…"

"You… you were trying to kill me for my Implant." I said, a subtle bite in my voice. "If Quartz hadn't distracted you so Topaz could drain your damn Energy out, I was dead."

"Or you would be, Diana." Dryder rolled his eyes at her. "I had a gun aimed the entire time, was this close to shooting too."

Diana blinked, then stared, then closed her eyes as her hands yanked at the chains on her body. She just tugged them again, and again, her breath getting shakier and less steady until I realized she was having a panic attack. I was quick to pull her out of her binding, her tears breaking out of her as a small stream. She didn't move, but for a moment her breath stopped… wind choking in her voice.

Even after what was one of the most… dangerous positions I'd ever been in, I let her shoulder take some of my Energy in hopes it would calm her. It did, to a little effect, but she just kept shaking and seething, breathing until she stood up, her voice coming out breathy. "I-I'm sorry, I think I'll- I'll head up. I'll them we're done… and… I'm… I'm…"

"It's… okay. I know what it's like to have a part of your Implant… work against you." I held her shoulders tight, and I was going to move closer to her for a hug, but she recoiled away. Wordlessly, she hurried up the stairs, her identity changing once more into Lilian Rose.

I rubbed my frame. "Well, shit… uh… can one of you hurry after her and tell her… that I want them to think I'm dead?"

"Again? Didn't you do this with the R0N1N?" Dryder spat out.

"How did you know?"

"Alcoholic… but functional, remind yourself that." He said with a smugness. "Now… yeah, I'll hurry up after her. Some tough love bullshit, or something."

Quartz pulled Topaz up as well. "I… we… are also in the same situation as her. Let's just wait by the van. I don't want to stay here any longer."

Topaz nodded. "A'ree wiff zat."

And so… I was soon left alone, looking for my Dreadwire mask that was pulled off by Diana's shard storm before hooking up to a broken computer and finding some thrashed Warpcubes discared around the place. I downloaded the information, before I was reminded I was… not alone.

Midnight appeared once more. "So… what Diana mean when she said: 'Remember how I said I'll do it?'"

"Please, not now." I begged. "I just… we'll discuss this later."

"Later? That's all you've said since Maiden picked you up." She said with thick spite. "You're either at Anderson's, Maiden's, or out as Dreadwire. Where the fuck did Ripley Donovick go in my life?"

"It's been a busy month."

"Your months are only going to get busier if you continue mingling yourself with Diana!" She screamed. "She asks you to join in her little vigilante stunt, okay, then, what's next? She'll involve you with her police shit, and don't say you're doing it for the money or the resources… you like being Dreadwire. That's the truth. You'd be Dreadwire and The Ripper all the time if your social life wasn't connected to Ripley Donovick!"

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"I'm both of them to be Ripley Donovick!" I shouted. This was unfair. "And… don't you tell me now that these egos are bad… I don't think I need to tell you why that's a scrapped opinion from you."

She snorted. "Get to acting dead… we'll talk about this with Elsa."

———

Dreadwire

Who said I needed to mimic a living body? Even the dead had Bioshards telling everyone they were deceased. The incoming guards walked in, one after the other.

"Fuck me, the 'ell 'appened 'ere?"

"Massacre, damn mercs are butchers."

"Tch, not all of 'em. Dreadwire's clean with his 'ware. Saw the recordings. What was left for us to see."

"Ah… that same guy who just died. Be glad we get the credit for delivering his Arachne to SynTec."

"You'd think his friends would bother protectin' his trade secrets. No honour among thieves is true as the Old World said."

Four Adapters, all Sharded because SynTec wasn't stupid enough to send a Mutant down where Soul Killer's corruptive pollen lay. And I was excited, because one of them was a Silver Tier III… and another, at Tier II.

"Found the body." They aimed a torchlight from arm, I was splayed up against a wall, my four Arachne limbs fallen to the side… but that wasn't what I would use to kill them. The Livewire in my claws tensed, eagerly awaiting like ambushing serpents.

"Check for a pulse…" The Tier III said, focusing more on the Nexus. "Fucking hell, broke his head like a canteloupe."

"Ain't that a type of deer?"

"No, dumbass! That's a caribou!"

"Let's not get distracted." The Tier III sighed. "We're to deliver this body as payment for our asses being saved, one of you hurry up and get Dreadwire's Shardware. They've probably already taken his Implant."

All this time, I'd been watching their armor for any weak spots or joints… locking on. When one stepped closer and blocked the others' direct sight of me, two claws shot up and jabbed syringes right in his jugular. They squeezed their contents in. As he reeled back, I grabbed him by the neck and took him hostage. The others were quick to respond, but Midnight was quicker.

The nanites had already infiltrated his Frame, 200 Million of them were bound to get somewhere.

Ah, yes… a single bag of blood could create 1 billion nanites to completion. An obscene amount to think of, but in the scale of nanometers… I could hold trillions more.

Guns aimed at me, but I remained calm. 'Midnight, you're in their Frames?'

"Communications are disabled, body cams too."

"Good." I said out loud, pulling my mask off.

Ripley

Now what can nanites do? I needed a little safeguard against them before I committed to the attack.

"Fuck, that's his face! Someone record and get this to HQ!"

"I can't! Something's jamming us. Can't record too!"

"Put him down, Dreadwire! Or we'll shoot you through him!"

"No can do…" I grinned as my distraction worked. My face was just the distraction they needed not to shoot at their friend, who was disposable otherwise in the presence of a Gold Implant.

"Midnight… I hope you'll enjoy venting your frustrations using my new toys." I let out a victorious laugh, speaking aloud as their visors sparked red and black, and they jerked with painful screams tearing out of their masks. My nanites had bound to a Frame and infiltrated their network, now... The Midnight Protocol was free to act.

"F-fuck, what's in my head!"

"G-gah! Get this Daemon out!"

"Countermeasures aren't working!"

The Midnight Protocol forcefully tore out control and seized Shardware like a marching shadow from a skyscraper upon an alley. It would also make them utterly unable to fight off my nanites from within them. As Midnight commanded, their visors opened.

I shot the rest of my claws into their eyes. Each of the four now having 200 Million of my little metallic ants crawling around their brains.

I gave a simple command through Nanomachine Reprogramming.

Brain Aneurysm.

If an Adapter's brain died, they were gone. Not unless you were a Founder. My question was simply the timing… I could clot up my wounds very quickly with 2 billion of them. "Midnight… take your time twisting their bodies, enjoy it."

She growled in my head. "Oh, I'm going to hate-fuck you, later."

I grinned. "Do your worst."

———

Diana

"Ohay," Topaz sat beside me, trying to comfort me while he held a cold beer against his tongue. Cut by my doing. "'you eifer gafe Rifrey za horrest eshfirienshe of hish rife, or za shcariesht."

I couldn't smile, or chuckle, or do anything of the sorts. Instead, I just muttered the thing I should have been able to say. "I'm sorry."

Dryder ripped out a bottle from the van. "Say it to him. He genuinely was the one who tried the most to pull your ass out of whatever the fuck that was. Doesn't matter if it's your fault or not, a person's forgiveness depends on them."

"I-I know." I was trying so hard to pick myself up, but how could I this time?

I never changed.

I was just a monster.

———

Ripley

Four minutes, that was how long it took for the Tier III to die. I hadn't even thought it possible for me… but it was, as long as I had Midnight here to block them from deactivating my Goliath Nanites.

This… wasn't something I wanted Starlight doing for me.

Aneurysms didn't end up being the best way for him to die, it was simply devouring his vessels to lead to haemorrhage. Each liter of blood, to my estimation, could produce 2 billion Nanites. I could just deoxygenate his brain. It was anticlimactic, really.

I reached for the spilled blood dripping from the holes in their heads, if constantly powered… the Nanites could reproduce at a phenomenal rate of multiplying by two every minute. They were hungry little things. 800 Million Nanites became 12.8 Billion over this course of time… putting me at around 15 Billion in total. That was still only 1.5 grams of nanomachinery.

As I reached closer, a vial in hand… the blood rippled, and flowed despite a deceased heart. Blackened, and mine.

———

Diana

So how will you apologize to Ripley? 'I'm sorry for trying to rip your throat out, Ripley — or trying to grab your heart from your ribcage?' I bet I looked like a…

I couldn't even tell what my damn Mutation was! My frame had busted down since I woke up, it was a strange feeling but… I felt my neck itching. Was my Frame being rejected?

Putting my thoughts back on track, I couldn't run from this. I had too many regrets in this life; I couldn't let Ripley be another one.

It took a while, but he arrived without a nick on his suit. Four Shard Adapters had walked in… even a Tier III, yet here he stood without his mask and smiling. I didn't get him, really… but I'd felt so much today from him. Reliability, trust, even selflessness. It challenged everything I thought I knew about him... and... a part of me felt like I understood him now. What he wanted to build.

The things he wanted to fix. And despite myself, I wanted to help him.

I couldn't just… let an impulse destroy everything.

I didn't want to kill him. I didn't. Raising my hand, I spoke with a forced smile. "I- I just wanted to say I'm so-"

A booming sound and a lance of pain through the side of my head cut my vision, speech — and life — short.

———

Ripley

Escaping through the chaos had been easy, but landing in the alleyway… I was unsure of what to say to Diana. From the looks of it, she had an additional issue. I hoped she'd figure out whatever that Mutation was. Maybe I'd even recommend her to my therapist if it were related to her mental state. My mask slid off as I strode closer to the van, Diana looking in my direction with a heavy expression.

She raised her hand, a sad smile lifting on her face. "I- I just wanted to say I'm so-"

A booming sound spurned Preservation Matrix, recognition of it derived from being sourced by a sniper. One I'd heard before, I pinpointed the location, my body already moving a flinch away to keep the shot from glancing at me. Except, I froze when my ocular implant saw the sniper's identity.

Brim. A grunt I was familiar with back from… the Snake Fangs. He was up on a faraway roof and pulled away. I would have chased him down since he'd seen my face without my mask. But then I defragmented where that scope had aimed.

Perhaps if I still had Hypermind Beta, I could have changed the way things happened. All I saw was Diana's utterly motionless face, still awkwardly smiling, her hand raised in the air while blood trickled down her temple, pieces of bone clattering to the floor.

A direct headshot. Her body collapsed like a puppet whose strings were cut loose.

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