_{In collaboration with @Horrid, @Stairdweller, and @GingerBoi123}

---

The three of them had ascended atop the bordering walls of the tower. Using the front doorway seemed... too obvious, to say the least. Each of them was well and capable of climbing the tower in their own manner. Once they were rested upon one of the four bordering rooftops, they eyed the happening below, in the central courtyard.

Aggressors. Several of them, but... not the same ones they'd seen thus far. Not burned and ragged and wielding pipes and nailed boards. These ones were uniformed in dark, belted garbs and masks that hid all their features save their eyes. They had exquisitely crafted firearms at their sides, and they stood at least a head taller than the three of them. They counted five of them, four standing behind a group of kneeling Denizens, bound by their wrists and with heads lowered. The fifth Aggressor, supposedly the commander of this group, was at a nearby table. He was carving strips of meat and flesh out of the body of a Denizen, riddled with oily chemicals that bled from its innards.

Ursula peeked out around the crumbling frame of what used to be a window. There was some sort of terrible, ritualistic cannibalism occuring down below them and the sight of the Aggressor's hands slick with the inky liquids of the Denizen's body made her stomach unsettle itself once more. She looked for as long as she dared, to assess their forces and what it was they were up to before tearing her gaze away with a look of sickness upon her face. Her stomach's reaction was less powerful this time around, which made her worry.

"Christ Almighty, that shit is just sick." She whispered harshly to her companions, cloth strapped hands gripping at her abdomen and covering her mouth once again. "I seriously hope we're going to do something about that."

Nora surrepituously wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her flesh arm. "Yes," she said, monotone. "Sick."

"We can't let the others die." Malcolm said to the other two as his gaze also fell upon the gruesome butchering.

The Aggressor set his knife down and carried the strips to the Denizens. Without so much as a warning, he grabbed one of them by their jaw, forcing it open, and shoving it down his throat. The Denizen swung his head about, struggling, doing everything in his power to resist the consumption of the body of one of his own. The commander, however, was stronger. He forced the Denizen to swallow the strip of flesh, and then promptly pushed him aside to the courtyard floor. The Denizen lay there, thrashing about, twisting, contorting. His vaporous skin quickly began to show streaks of red, and within moments, he has turned. From an innocent civilian, into a bloodthirsty monster. One of the uniformed Aggressors held the newly turned on the floor with his foot, and the commander approached the next Denizen down the line.

"Is he..." Ursula pushed aside her lessening nausea to look closer at what was occuring beneath them, attempting to push up her glasses and finding that they weren't there. "Is this thing trying to make an army?"

"Succeding in making an army, I would say," Nora thoughtfully murmurred.

"Let's stop them!" Malcolm said as he descended upon the appaling scene below. He used his gloves to dig into the tower to slow his fall before jumping the rest of the way down. He did a forward roll when he landed which put him right infront of an aggressor who was taken off guard. The perfect opportunity for an uppercut. Malcolm sprang up from the ground by pushing his legs for extra power, while at the same time bringing his right fist straight to the aggressor's jaw. When Malcolm gained his footing he immediately crouched again and threw his fists up into a block, letting the bullets bounce and ricochet off of his metal gloves.

"Wait, we're just jumping straight in? Is there a goddamn plan?!" Ursula rasped as she tore a piece of the stonework from the nearby architecture with a pulling motion of her hands, before using it to lower herself to the courtyard. With a motion like a gorilla slamming its fists on the ground, she brings the stonework to the ground in front of her and crouches behind it as she hops off, taking cover from the incoming gunfire.

Nora was the last of the three to jump down into the courtyard. "So, we're fighting now? Fine." Clearly annoyed, she held her skeletal metal arm up in front of her face and torso, trying to shield herself as much as possible from the gunfire. It made a pretty damn poor shield, skeletal as it was, so she combat-rolled her way behind Ursula's hiding as quickly as she could.

"So..." she drawled, "Any idea how we can do this? Preferably without dying?"

Ursula ducked her head as a bullet pinged off the cover and sent a shower of stone dust into the air. She looked to Nora with a look of uncertainty, biting her lip and eyes darting. "Uhhhh. That depends. Does that arm of yours shoot lasers or something?" She jested, but the feeling of panic was looming. The cover was deteriorating rapidly under the hail of gunfire. They had to make a move soon.

"Nope. It's just a large arm."

"Lemme try something," Ursula said, and with a grunt of effort, she made a motion of pushing at the cover she had made. It made a sound of stone grinding stone before it began to move forward, toward their Aggressor assailants.

With the Aggressors focused on the shifting stone barrier, Nora dived left, bouncing off a column with her metal arm, before crashing into one of the gunmen at knee level. His partner immediately shot at her, the bullet grazing the outside of Nora's thigh before the cyborg managed to flip the Aggressor over, wrestling the rifle up into a choke hold across his throat and pulling her enemy in front of her as a shield.

She had barely managed to force her way to a half-crouch when the commander turned on his heel and neatly shot her 'hostage' between the eyes. "Motherfucker!" she swore, legitimately angry. The exiting bullet had richocheted off the protruding knobs of her enhanced ear, splattering her with gore and sending a warbling scream of feedback down her aural nerve. She dived away again, back behind some cover, stolen rifle in hand.

Upon seeing the others moving into action, Ursula takes advantage of the sudden divide in the Aggressor's attention and vaults her cover, hands out to the sides as she advances. Her cover emitted a loud crack before splitting into to smaller parts, about the size of two basketballs. With a spin to the side on her heel, she catapulted one forward, where it found its mark soundly between one of the Aggressor soldier's neck and stomach, crushing his ribcage with a series of disgusting snaps and squelches. The second Aggressor stood stunned for a moment before turning its rifle on Ursula as well, but by then it was already too late. The stone projectile caught him in the legs, bowling him over as Ursula dived to the side, scrabbling to find cover once again.

As she peeked out to see the fallen Aggressor, Ursula mimed as if she were picking up a sphere before pulling her hand down into a fist. The stone ball followed the action, and lifted into the air before coming back down with a terrible crunch. Ursula's skin crawled at the sound.

Malcolm, who was thankful for his team's assistance, set his eyes on the commander who was readily aiming a revolver. Malcolm ran forward keeping his left arm infront of him as a shield whereas his other arm was gearing up for an uppercut. The commander fired a bullet which harmlessly bounced off the metal glove and threw the revolver on the gorund as it ran out of ammo. Malcolm went for an uppercut but the commander was certainly adept at combat and rolled out of the way, letting Malcolm hit the desk, sending it a fair few metres across the table. Malcolm yelled in pain as he felt the back of his calf being slashed by the commanders knife. Fortunately it didn't cut deep and only left a long cut that could easily be bandaged.

Malcolm turned around and entered his standard boxing pose. Bouncing lightly on his toes with his left fist just a bit infront of his right. The commander took a similar pose except he kept the knife pointed at Malcolm. Malcolm made the first move, stepping to his left and throwing a right hook. The commander feinted backwards before going in for a slash, however Malcolm's left fist was there to block. Malcolm brought back his right and landed a body shot, straight into the commanders gut. The lead aggressor howled in pain before being cut abruptly by another gut shot, keeling him over. Malcolm pushed back the knife and used his now free left to land a left cross on to the back of the leader's head. Finally bringing him down. Malcolm dropped down tih his right fist, letting gravity pull it down to crush its head, leaving Malcolm kneeling next to the body and panting.

That was it. The battle was over. With the commander felled, the trio stood before the newly turned Aggressor, still bound and struggling on the floor.

Ursula gestured to the prone Aggressor, speaking in between pants of fatigue, "Well what do we do with th-"

Nora took a knee beside the struggling, bound aggressor, and caught his snarling face in the elbow of her long metal arm, articulated fingers braced on the opposite ear. She twisted sharply, until there was a satisfying crunch and the struggling stopped. "Problem solved," she said, lurching back to her feet and dusting off her knees. Fresh blood oozed from the wound on her thigh, beading on the polyuerthane surface of her pants.

With a flinch at the sickening crunch, Ursula looked away quickly and mumbled, "Fair enough."

Malcolm stood up and turned to the other two zoners. "Good job guys." He said between pants. "Now... let's wrap this up." Malcolm looked for the leaders knife to cut the bounds however when he found it his large metallic fingers couldn't actually pick it up. "You know what..." Malcolm said as he walked to the first bound denizen, Malcolm pulled the rope apart that bounded its hands. "Fuck it." He finished saying after the first one. Malcolm then freed the same two in a similar fashion.

The three of them made thankful gestures towards the Zoners. Two of them approached the body of their fallen friend and lifted him by his arms and legs. The third picked up a few of the weapons left lying on the floor, and dragged the body of a trooper by his foot. They left for the bridge leading out of the tower, back towards the rooftops above the cityscape. The trio of Zoners was left with four dead Aggressors and a supposed base of operations. They looked around a bit, and that's when they noticed one peculiar piece amidst it all.

Above the table, where the commander cut away at the body of the Denizen. Resting on the wall was a large, heavily ornamented painting. Two figures, both female. One was seated in an ornate chair, with the same dark skin and ghostly veil as the rest of the Denizens. She was dressed in a simple mix of blacks and whites in a long, flowing gown. Her face, however, was crossed out with a rather rough-looking red cross. In fact, most of her side of the portrait was damaged, seemingly intentionally. Standing beside her, however, was an opposing figure. An Aggressor, from the looks of it, though it seemed as though her red skin had been painted over some time ago. Split, ragged red hair. A torn dress that dropped to the bottom of the frame. Her side of the portrait was well-kept and surrounded with lit candles on the table. Clearly, she was the favored figure. But the question...

Why?

"Wow, this is... unexpectedly beautiful. Do you think they are some kind of god figures or something? Monarchs?" Ursula mused, walking up to the damaged side of the portrait and running her hand over the textures of the decoration, feeling the deep scores cut from the surface.

"It looks like a shrine," Nora added. She tapped one of the candles with a metal finger, standing unneseccarily close behind Ursula and examining the painting over her shoulder.

"Certainly a SHRINING example of figure worship, huh?"

"Puns aren't funny."

"Do you think they could have been the leaders?" Malcolm asked, staring at the two women. "Like queens?" He pondered. "Turned sisters perhaps?" He suggested. The painting may certainly have been beautiful if it weren't for the graffiti that defaced it. Some people...

Nora snuffed out one of the candles with her metal fingers, unmindful of the hot wax that spilled over her hand when she lifted it, and licked the side of the taper. Then she leaned around Ursula and gave the painting the same treatment, licking both the damaged and undamaged sides of it.

There was a pause amidst the trio before a loud scream pierced the silence. A familiar scream. The same they heard when they first entered the Zone. They turned and looked upward as, atop one of the corner towers, stood their target. He stared down at them with his searing, crimson eyes practically cutting through the frame of his mantle. In this moment, he was the true embodiment of anger.

---

---

Malcolm turned to face the Ram above. "Guys, stay behind me." Malcolm advised, worrying for the safety of the girls and not himself. Malcolm readied his biological power for the first time in the Nexus. Malcolm yelled in agony as his own bones began to thicken and grow. His bone sprouted out of the gash in the back of his leg and formed a thick protective layer over it. Some bone spiralled out of his shoulders and formed some sort of spike shapes that went from big to small as the bone spikes littered his shoulders. The Ram dropped down and brought an explosion with it as it landed. Knocking Malcolm back, the Ram bellowed as Malcolm slowly stood up. Entering the same boxing stance before, Malcolm stared directly at the aggressor in front, gasping from the pain of the newly formed bones which had stopped growing. Malcolm was immediately put on the defence as the Ram charged and shoulder barged him. Malcolm hit the floor hard and looked up, seeing the Ram descend upon him at such a speed that Malcolm couldn't have dodged. Malcolm simply turned his gaze to his allies, praying they'd be safe until being engulfed in fire as the Ram stomped on him, letting loose another famed explosion. Malcolm's vision went black. He couldn't see, hear or even feel anything. Then a bright white light slowly but surely began to engulf his vision. There was nothing left of Malcolm in Zone 1.

Nora lurched away from the painting, raising her stolen rifle and squeezing the trigger. The firearm helpfully jammed. She dropped the useless thing and decided to go for broke, dashing diagonally toward the Ram. She managed to get her metal hand on his coat, and thought for about half a second that she was going to succede before he kicked backwards and caught her in the solar plexis. She was aware, in a disconnected, slow-motion sort of way, of the explosion, the brittle cracks of her shattering ribs, and the unfortunately delicious smell of her own flesh cooking. There was an extended moment of weightlessness before she slammed into the distant wall and slid down it, puddling bonelessly on the ground.

The mangled body persisted for a few seconds, sparks arcing uselessly off her shorted-out implants, before it vanished.

Frozen in place for a moment by the scream, Ursula's muscles tensed with panic to the point of immobilisation. She watched as her allies rushed off to face the terrifying new opponent that was accosting them, and she saw as they were soundly dealt with as if they hadn't just triumphed in a major conflict not thirty seconds beforehand. Fear overtook her common sense and as the Ram advanced, she tore up small fragments of stone from the roof around her and propelled them forward in a flurry of slicing grey projectiles.

It didn't phase the creature at all. It advanced slowly, red feet sizzling the ground with each step. Her mind raced, pulling up no option that was useful to her. What could she do? Was she going to die here? With a swing of her arm, as if she were throwing a wild punch, she launches another chunk of stone architecture at the Ram which it easily dodges. She repeats the motion, attempting to swing the chunk around and hit it, but only succeeds in whiffing the air around it as it bends to the side. It was too close now to pull the debris around for a third swing, so Ursula did the only thing she could think of. She heaved up her arms with a grunt of exertion as the stone rose to form a wall between her and the Ram, but too little too late as he let loose an explosive roundhouse to knock it down completely and send her sprawling to the ground.

Her vision blackened for a moment before returning to look up at the Ram, it's foot raised above her head as she slipped into unconsciousness. Her body flickered from sight just as the steaming foot came down where her head once was.

The Ram reared his head back, letting out another crazed, bellowing scream to announce his victory over the Zoners. It echoed across the red city from atop the tower.



Eli, in rapid sequence, hit each of the three buttons corresponding to the three Zoners, causing them to cease their flashing alarms. He stood up and looked over the console as Malcolm, Ursula, and Nora each slowly arose from their seats. Their encounter with the Ram just now... dear God, it was brutal.

"Hey!" He called out, "You three alright?"

Jazz Berdeen

Jazz notices the other Zoners coming out of their hiding territory and she notices, specifically, Bobby and Jared are below her. They look wounded really badly and she cringes at the wounds. She is not much of a medical person. She then notices some advancing aggressors toward them and she yells, "Heads up!" She jumps to the ground in front of them, turning her back to the aggressors as they fire off two shots as them. She cringes as the back stings her wings and she looks at Bobby and Jared, the people who she just saved the lives of. "Uh, hi!" she says carefully. "I'm Jazz, if you didn't know already. You guys might want to move, since I was the one who distracted them in the first place."

She whips back around, cools the small flames that lit up her wings, and she leaps at the group of aggressors that are approaching. She swipes at the front two with her talons, passing the poison from her claws into them, before knocking them aside with ease. She stabs the next ones straight the neck with her talons, tossing them to the side like they were rag dolls. She smiles and laughs, the power flowing inside of her making her feel great. She takes out three more of the aggressors before suddenly, she feels a sharp pain in the back of her left leg and she notices a large, sharp piece of metal sticking out of her skin. Blood begins to pool up around it and she quickly whips around, slicing the head clean off the aggressor that attacked her.

She falls to the ground, cringing as she grabs at her leg. A lot of aggressors begin to swarm around her, but she beats them off with her large wingspan. She yanks out the blade and almost immediately blood begins to pour out of the wound. Oh that's not good. She turns to Bobby and Jared and calls, "A little help please?!" She rips off a couple feathers and presses them to her legs, hoping to stop the bleeding somehow. She feels some of the feathers on her wings catch fire and she looks at the advancing horde of aggressors, noticing one of the bigger ones looking her way. "Okay, maybe more than a little..."

@Stairdweller
@Twisted Fate
@Empour
@UrbanEvolution

@Twisted Fate @ScarlettWaters16

Having the dead weight of the dead Aggressor off his arm was a huge relief. Alright, no more eye gouges, he thought ruefully. "Thanks!" he shouted to the air-elemental, who was currently in the process of lifting the other attacker into the air, before dropping him onto the pavement. Bobby gave the enemy's neck a solid stomping as Jared landed. He could see that his fighting partner looked pretty singed from the encounter with the flaming Aggressor, but he couldn't think of any way to offer assistance.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said sheepishly, "From now on, you oughtta skip any more hand to hand. Blowin' things around is good, thou-" he was interrupted by the arrival of the avian, who introduced herself as Jazz and proceeded to battle a new wave of advancing, gun toting aggressors on their behalf. Which was kind of funny, as Bobby had been planning to save her.

She got surrounded awfully quickly, going down with a knife-wound to one leg. Bobby dived back into the action, this time sticking to throat-slashing claw strikes and full-power hoof kicks that snapped bones and occasionally slashed through soft flesh. They were able to take down enough of the enemy that both sides temporarily fell back - Bobby guiding Jazz back behind the pile of overturned benches and the Aggressors retreating behind a line of k-rails to open fire.

He eyed the deep wound on her leg, the blood-soaked feathers sticking damply to it, and started ripping clothing off one of the nearby dead aggressors. In the process, he revealed a nice looking hand gun in a shoulder holster and grabbed it for later use. He turned back to Jazz, holding up handfuls of ripped cloth. "It's been a few years since my last first aid refresher, but I oughtta try to bandage that."

@Stairdweller @ScarlettWaters16

Thing’s really didn’t seem to be going well for their side. Bobby seemed mostly OK, but Jared’s arms were blistering – the flesh bubbling up in painful red sores from his wrestle with the Aggressor. To top it all off, another Zoner who held the shape of a large human-bird hybrid had just arrived, and proceeded to get instantly stabbed by an Aggressor in her attempt to defend the group. Fortunately, her actions seemed to have bought the trio some time; the Aggressors had briefly retreated behind some cover a small way away from them.

He watched as Bobby attempted some basic first aid on the avian, who had called herself Jazz. The bandages would be largely ineffective in a real life situation, but he suddenly came to the realisation that they probably weren’t in as much danger as they thought they were, here.
“Guys!” He called. “Just a thought, but surely if anything bad happens to us here Eli’s just gonna pull us out? I mean he wouldn’t risk our lives on a mission this insignificant, surely?”
He didn’t even wait for a response, a crazy plan forming in his mind. He propelled himself into the air and forwards, directly at the area that the remaining Aggressors had fled to. He crashed into the center of the group with as much force as he could produce, before pushing his powers to the absolute limit of this Nexus form.

Remaining positioned roughly in the middle of the Aggressors, he began to spin in mid-air. He kept accelerating, picking up speed at an impressive rate, and whipping up the air around him into a tornado. The tornado grew as his speed increased, until it was the size of a small building; tearing up the ground and sending the Aggressors flying off in various directions. Most of them crashed into walls and were brought to a halt, but others landed on the ground and skidded along it – their flaming flesh peeling off in chunks onto the road.

He stopped spinning and stumbled back towards Jazz and Bobby, feeling weaker than he ever had before.
“Maybe… That wasn’t… Such a good idea after all.” He gasped in ragged breaths. He took another few drunken steps towards the pair before collapsing to the ground, drifting slowly out of consciousness.

@Twisted Fate@Stairdweller

"I'll be fine in a little bit," Jazz lies, looking at Bobby. She cringes as he begins to bandage up her wounds and she looks passed him toward the aggressors. "Damn, these things are tougher than I originally thought." She notices two other Zoners going after an electrokinetic aggressor. She looks towards Bobby. "We need to take down those big ones. Those two--" She points to Kayla and Henry, "Are getting that one. We need to take out the one with the gun." She points to the other big aggressor. She points upward and begins to explain. "I can draw his fire from above, get him to target me with his gun while you two--" She looks over at Jared, who is slowly becoming unconscious. She raises an eyebrow. "--or you yourself attacks from the ground. With my leg, I won't be as much help on the ground, but you don't need legs to fly. Or to bob and weave." She grins and him and stands up carefully, putting her weight onto her non-injured leg.

She nods to him before she leaps up into the air, her wings catching the current once more. She flies overhead and begins to wave her arms at the aggressor. She feels the blood seeping from her wound and she cringes, but she keeps going. "Hey, you! Big, fat and ugly! Yeah, you!" The aggressor turns toward her and aims the minigun toward her. Her eyes widen as he begins to shoot and she begins to bob and weave. "Okay, maybe this was a bad idea."

Malcolm awoke back in the facility in a violent shock, almost collapsing out of the chair he was hooked up too, he knelt on the floor with on knee and keeled over, his head spinning and throbbing with pain as nausea overcame his body. "Hey!" He heard Eli call. "You three alright." Malcolm shook his head frantically just before he began to puke over the floor. After two minutes of violent hurling, he turned at onlookers and mouthed "sorry", wiping his mouth with his arm and swallowing. "I'll clean that up." He commented, rather monotone. Damn, the ram was so powerful. Wait... this is his first hurdle, this is how he was going to start becoming a better fighter. He clenched his fists in determination as he stared at the floor, lost in his own thoughts. It was cut short when an assistant came over with a bucket and mop. "Thanks." Malcolm said before he began cleaning the mess he made.

The only thing that filled Kayla’s mind when she was falling from the rooftop was terror. There was no room to ask herself why her magic hadn’t worked, no room to ask what the heck had yanked her off the building. There was only oh god I’m falling help oh god I’m gonna die oh god oh god-
Crack

Suddenly, her fall was broken, as was whatever it was she landed on. It let out a roar of pain that sounded very familiar. Henry left before Kayla could get up. The side she landed on hurt, but not really that badly. Henry must have been surprisingly soft. By the time she was on her feet again, Henry was surrounded by flaming agriculture-zombies. There were no others in sight, but Kayla didn’t want to go looking for them. She was supposed to help fight the flameys, and Henry definitely looked like he could use some help.

Kayla half-ran, half-stumbled her way over, and shot a jet at one of the pipe-armed ones, which was facing henry’s back. The magic, yet again, didn’t show up. Additionally, Kayla suddenly lurched forwards, as the mysterious yanker-force pulled her again. She wasn’t on top of a building this time though, so her mask took the brunt of her faceplant.

She got up again, and tried getting closer to the brawl. If her powers were just going to fling her across the ground, then she would have to help with her bare hands instead.
For a moment, Kayla wondered where the pipe Henry had given her had gone. It would certainly be handy right about now. Kayla was about halfway there, when all of the monsters were suddenly bathed in fire. Kayla skidded to a halt- she didn’t want to go near Henry if he could breathe fire, not when he was fighting anyway. She would have to find someone else to-

Suddenly, Kayla was knocked over, with a searing pain in her left arm. She spun around on the floor, and found a flaming janice-zombie with a massive sword standing over her, pulling the sword back over its head for another swing. Almost reflexively, Kayla shot a massive jet of magic at it, hoping it would, for once so far, work.

It did, but not the way it usually did. Instead of incinerating the top half of his body, like it usually would, the monster was flung high into the air and to the right, far away from Kayla. Right as it reached the peak of its sudden flight, the agriculture’s torso suddenly let out a burst of sparks, smoke, and blood, accompanied by a loud bang from behind her. It then fell to the ground, and didn’t move any more. Another bang-burst, but out of the head this time.

Kayla got up, and picked up the sword that it dropped when she flung it. It was heavy, and she had no idea how to actually use it, but the grip fit her hand perfectly, and it had a sharp edge. It would work as a weapon, for sure.
If these were the agricultures she had been fighting for the shadow-people the entire time, she was glad she had kept her distance from them. These things were scary. Somehow, though, she didn’t feel nearly as intimidated as usual, though. Kayla looked around. There were a bunch of agricultures apparently too stupid to notice there was a fight going on, so she ran towards one that was alone, lifted the sword above her head, and let out an involuntary war cry out as she brought it down on the agriculture’s shoulder. It staggered, apparently surprised, and Kayla took advantage of said surprise to hit it again, and again, and again, until it just stopped moving altogether. The action left her bent over and panting, the sword was much heavier than it seemed.

After a moment of recovery, she attacked another one in the same fashion, with a little bit of difficulty this time. The knife it was using was useless against her suit, and it was dead before it could figure out why its attacks weren’t working. Kayla looked around. There were plenty more to defeat, and she was getting the hang of fighting them. She picked a duo of club-wielding brutes, and went ran towards them.

---

"Hey!" He called out, "You three alright?"

The familiar feeling of consciousness rushed back into Ursula's mind, the feeling of her cloth uniform touching her skin and the cold, filtered air touching her throat. She jolted up from her seat and immediately launched herself into a fit of rapid breathing. Her head throbbed with dull pressure from her temples, and her body was wracked with aches like deep bruising. Whether they were phantom or not, she couldn't tell for sure but they made her groan and wince as she moved. Her breath inward was quick and her exhales were short, ragged breaths, on the verge of bursting into tears as she threw herself from the terrible chair contraption to the floor. Crawling on all fours, she attempted to pull herself away from the Nexus machines and reach a safe place. Elias' words hit her finally and she spoke in a half-scream, half-weep as she said, "N-n-not exactly! We nearly f-fucking DIED. Jesus Ch-christ!" The dryness of her throat hit her after she spoke, her voice hoarse, and she coughed hard as she crawled into the corner and put her back to the wall.

The walls felt as if they were bearing down on her, closing her in. How was the Ram so powerful, that with all their power, they couldn't do anything to stop it after their previous victory? He shrugged them off like flies off a semi-trailer. Ursula reached into the pocket of her uniform to retrieve her glasses and attempt to put them on her face once more, hands shaking so much that she poked herself in the eye before managing to put them on. A long crack now ran through the corner of one of the lenses. She didn't notice. She just gripped at her knees and pulled them to her chest, looking around at her team-mates to see how they were doing. The deluge of sick coming from Malcolm to hit the floor only confirmed how she felt. She felt like she was both feet in the grave, and he was throwing up his soul.

At least it wasn't her this time.

@GingerBoi123
@Stairdweller

@Horrid@GingerBoi123@SepticGentleman

Nora lurched to her feet, both hands clawing at her chest, drawing in a harsh, gasping breath. She knew she was dead. She could remember with literally heart-stopping clarity the sensation of her sternum flexing inward past its breaking point, and sharp bone piercing her lungs as her ribs splintered. She knew with absolute certainty that this had happened. She had to be dead. She was mortally wounded. She could feel it, still. And yet at the same time, her brain was receiving signals from her limbs that she was whole, and healthy, and not in any immediate peril. The two realities warred in her mind as Nora struggled to breathe, fighting to convince herself that her ribs weren't broken and she could inhale without searing agony ripping through her thoracic cavity.

A wave of intense dizziness washed over her. Her vision narrowed to a silver-edged tunnel, her heartbeat drumming in her ears. Cold sweat beaded up on her skin and she was concerned for a moment that she was either going to vomit or crap her pants, possibly both. Fortunately, neither happened. The blonde sank to a half-kneeling crouch, both palms flat on the floor to keep her from collapsing completely, but slowly the attack - whatever it had been - passed, and she became aware of the Nexus room around her again. Huge, hot tears were running down her cheeks. Malcolm and Ursula didn't look any better - one was mopping up the evidence of his digestive mishap, while the other was retreating to a corner to presumably shed some superfluous alveoli.

"That was-" she began, panting, "that-" she sat down on the ground, legs sprawled out in front of her. "I didn't like that," she finally finished. She took another couple of breaths, then clumsily tapped her nose. "But I think I can track him by smell now. Does that help? I want that to be helpful."

---

@ScarlettWaters16@Twisted Fate

Jared didn't look so good. In fact, Jared didn't look good at all, now that his death-tornado had expended itself and he was collapsing on the ground. Bobby would have really liked to stay and defend his fallen ally, but Jazz was already beginning the assault on the larger, mini-gun armed Aggressor, and was probably in quite a bit more peril than Jared was at the moment.

"Here," he said, pressing his stolen gun into Jared's burned, nearly-unconscious hand. "So you can shoot anyone who gets near. Uh, if you're, you know, still alive." He smiled weakly, his enormous teeth pulling the expression into a slightly awful grimace.

Jazz was taunting the Aggressor and swooping through the air, dodging the stream of bullets from the revolving barrels of the Aggressor's gun. Bobby grabbed one of the sticks-with-nails from the fist pair of attackers and leapt into the fray. The aggressor was a few inches taller than him, but had more human-like proportions than gangle-legged Bobby. He didn't anticipate that being a serious problem. While his enemy was looking up, shooting at the be-winged and be-taloned aerial assaulter, Bobby swung his improvised hakapik at his foe's head. He spun with the strike, putting the torque from his torso into the blow. The Aggressor leaned away and under the blow, saving himself from a braining. At the same time, however, Bobby aimed a powerful cloven-hoofed kick at his nearest hand, the one supporting the barrel of the gun. The were's kick broke bones in the Aggressor's wrist, and the minigun slipped out of his spasming hand, swinging down to point at the ground where a spray of bullets shattered the pavement and sent up a cloud of stinging shards.

---

Eli knelt down next to the Nexus console and grabbed a plastic-wrapped container of water bottles. He thought this kind of thing would happen and he was right. He raced down the side stairs and walked over to Malcolm as he wiped his regurgitated mess off the floor. Why, he had no idea. There were service bots stationed at the door. He could have just gotten one of them to do it.

"Hey." Eli said as he approached the boy, "You okay bud?" All he got as a reply was a reassuring nod, followed by a bit of a gag. Boy wasn't feeling too good still. Eli opened up the container and handed Malcolm the first bottle of water. "Drink up." He told him, sounding rather insistent. Malcolm took the bottle happily, and resumed mopping. Guess he liked the labor.

Good kid.

He turned his head to the opposite aisle, where Ursula was. He pried another bottle of water from the container and hurried over to the girl. "Hey. Hey!" He said as he knelt down, offering her his hand. "You alright?"

Ursula's shaken frame recoiled slightly as he extended the hand towards her, still unsure of where she was and slightly disoriented from the consciousness displacement. Was she still dreaming? Was this another Zone trick? She looked up at him past her cracked glasses and listened to his question, before shaking her head rapidly. "N-no. No no no. Not at all. That was the single most terrifying experience I've ever had." Her voice was shaking and raspy as she reached out for his hand. Eli pulled her up off the cold steel floor and promptly unscrewed the cap off the water bottle in his hand. He handed it to her, knowing full well she'd need it.

With a vicious swipe, she made a grab for the water bottle he held in his hand, raising it to her mouth and gulping it down greedily and messily. Rivulets of water ran from her chin to dampen her uniform as she drained the bottle completely, the cool water helping her body to cool down.

Eli couldn't help but chuckle. He patted Ursula's shoulder. "God damn." He said, doing his best not to come across as an asshole. "You three did one hell of a job."

The bottle crumpled as Ursula sucked the last of the liquid out and crushed it in her hand, dropping it on the floor as she stumbled for a moment. Her footing was unsure, but the disorientation was fading now. Her breathing was still ragged and quick. "We... we got our asses soundly handed to us. We beat down a small squad of Aggressors and then got a nun's beating from one dude in a ram helmet. Did you know he'd... he'd be that strong?"

Eli hesitated a bit. "I, uh..." He said, separating his hand from Ursula's shoulder and scratching the beck of his head. "Kind of figured, yeah. BUT... with your, uh, investigation... I can safely confirm that he's working for the Crimson Matriarch. So we've got that." Ursula coughed into her fist and made a gesture in between a wave and a clawing motion, towards the bottles of water. With a harsh clearing of her throat she inquired in an unsure squeak, "Can I have some more? Also, the Christmas what-a-what?" Eli handed her another bottle, which she promptly uncapped and began consuming.

"I'll fill you in when everyone's out of Zone 1." He responded, "For now, three of you take it easy. Trust me, you've done plenty for your first time in the Nexus Projector." He turned his head over to where Nora was seated. He took out one more water bottle and left it on a chair monitor for Ursula, just in case, and made his way over to the last of the trio.

He approached her and delved down again. "Hey, you good?" He asked. He took out another bottle of water and held it out to her.

Nora stared at the bottle for a solid ten seconds before reaching out and calmly taking it. "Thank you," she said, twisting the cap off and taking a sip that devolved rather quickly into a gulp. Then she choked slightly, spilled water all over her scubs top and quite handily ruined her attempt at looking cool and collected. She glared at the bottle with red-rimmed eyes like the whole fiasco was its fault. "I'm good," she said finally, and rose to her feet.

Eli held the water bottle container under his left arm and patted Nora's shoulder with his free hand. "Good work out there." He said, "You rest up while I check on the other team." With that, he turned and left the girl to her own devices, heading back up the aisle towards the console. He set the container aside and sat back down in his chair, switching the neural comm over to the group involved in the workshop assault.

"Hey." He called out to all of them, "You guys holding up?"

@SepticGentleman

Jared grunted as the gun was pressed into his limp hand. He was still conscious, but only barely. He watched as Bobby and Jazz went toe-to-toe with the minigun-toting aggressor; his vision was blurring and distorted, but he was fighting the urge to lose consciousness with everything he had. Lifting his hand by about an inch, he squeezed the trigger of the gun, letting out a couple of shots that went absolutely nowhere near their intended target. He tried to lift his hand again for another shot, but it felt heavier. He watched in horror as his arm seemingly began to fade out of reality, before everything went black.

He awoke with a gasp, thrashing violently in the Nexus chair. He flung himself onto the floor, attempting to hold himself up but failing - ending up lying face down on the clinical tile. He simply lay there for a few minutes - retching - before pulling himself to his feet, grasping onto the chair for support. Looking up, he saw that he wasn't the first to have been ejected. There were 3 other Zoners, but more importantly he saw Eli manning the console. He stumbled angrily towards him, weakly grabbing his shoulder for emphasis.

"What the fuck was that about!" He attempted to shout, but instead it came out as a hoarse croak. "You send us out there with absolutely no training and expect us to just fight off a bunch of mutants as if it's nothing?!" He fell against the wall as another wave of dizziness swept over him.
"To hell with this, I want out." He said with as much conviction as he could muster.

@UrbanEvolution


Kayla was swordfighting. This agriculture was the most difficult one yet, even more so than the hulking monster she had been chased by only moments before. This one obviously knew its way around a sword(1), and try as she might, Kayla couldn’t land a hit on him. The zombie was having similar difficulty, and kept missing due to Kayla’s size. Of course, when the agriculture DID land a hit on her, it certainly hurt, but didn’t do any lasting damage. It seemed like her suit was impervious to being cut.
Kayla pulled off a particularly awesome move in which she ducked forwards to avoid a swipe and slashed at its legs, which it dodged by leaping backwards.
Suddenly, as they stared at each other, catching their breath, a voice rang out in her head. "Kayla, knock it off with the sword and just Vader strangle or something!" Eli’s voice said in a very exasperated fashion, as though he had been watching this fight for a while now and was getting sick of the stalemate.
Vader Strangle? that sounded familiar, what was a vader? Vader, strangle, vader, stra-
Realization flooded through Kayla’s mind as an image of a dark man in a cape and helmet choking a man in midair appeared.

Kayla imitated it. She formed a hard ring of neon around the agriculture’s neck, and lifted it upwards, careful not to let it slip around his head. The monster dropped its sword in surprise, as it was lifted slowly off of the ground. Then, she compressed the ring, making it close tighter and tighter around its neck. It struggled for a minute, before going limp. This agriculture was smart, though, so it could be a trap. Kayla kept it floating a few feet away from her as she moved over to where Henry was. He had decimated the zombies around him, and was looking up at the ones remaining on the fortifications. Kayla made the floating agriculture slap him in the back, getting his attention. He turned, saw the zombie floating there, and ripped it in half instantly, before noticing Kayla.

(1)Note, they’re of equal skill with the sword, which is to say that they both have all the proficiency of an action film nerd that watched a lot of sword fighting scenes in their time. No, I’m not going to explain how the aggressor has that knowledge. Use your imagination.

Jazz looks down and sees that Bobby has knocked the minigun from the aggressors hand. She smiles and immediately dives down on the aggressor. She lands on top of its shoulders and it begins to thrash about underneath her. She looks down at Bobby and nods to him before shoving her poisoned talons into the aggressor's throat. It isn't long before the aggressor falls to the ground, dead from the poison. She flies out of the way, but does not go to far. She lands directly next to Bobby and gives him an awkward side hug for a brief moment. "Thanks for the help!" she says with a small, backing away slightly. She turns around to look for Jared, but doesn't see his body. She sees the gun.

"Uh, Bobby?" Jazz asks, looking around, among the dead bodies of aggressors. "Where's Jared?" She examines the ground, looking for any signs of Jared's body It is not there and she panics slightly. "What if he was killed in this realm?! Does he die in real life too?! What if we just killed a man?!" Jazz is freaking out slightly and her wings flutter nervously around, nearly smacking Bobby once or twice. She doesn't know if she wants to do this if there is that much risk in fighting off these people.

Her panic and the loss of blood from her leg begins to make her feel dizzy and she collapses to the ground, her head spinning. She whimpers and says, "I want to go home."

@Stairdweller

_{In collaboration with @Twisted Fate}

---

"Out?" Eli responded, "You ARE out."

"I mean out of... this.” Jared said to him, “Whatever crazy shit you've got planned here, I damn well don't want to be a part of it anymore."

Here we go.

"So now that you're on the ground you suddenly don't want to do your part? Just fly around for shits and giggles?" Eli snapped back at him, taking his finger off the neural communication button.

"I never signed up for this in the first place! I'm not a fighter, I'm just a regular guy!" He yelled back. He raised his hands and sighed in anger before lowering them again. He continued, "I'm useless to you, I can't even handle your stupid trial."

Eli was starting to get pissed at this point. "Like it or fucking not, you're linked. So you're staying here until we have this situation under control. Get your fucking head out of the clouds, man up, and learn how to handle a fight."

"So what? You just hold me here against my will?” Jared retorted, “Do that, and I'm not fucking co-operating at all. You need me a hell of a lot more than I need you."

Five seconds ago he said he was useless.

"Yeah, I do!” Eli stood up, shouting, “I have been here for YEARS getting ready for this shit! I CAN'T DO what you can in there! So the moment one of the few capable people around here, meaning YOU, decides he wants out because he's acting like a petty fucking CHILD, I have to be the one to pull you back in because I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN OPERATE THIS FUCKING THING."

There was a moment of silence between the two.

Jared shook his head and replied, "Whatever, it's obvious I've got absolutely no say in this anyway. But I've got a condition, if you expect me to go and risk my life in there again, I expect you to at least provide some level of training, got it?"

Eli’s just a code monkey. He doesn’t know how to fight worth shit either.

"You want training? Talk to someone from Zone 1." He snapped back at him.

"I mean real training, man!” Jared called out, “I've got no problem with my powers - at least when I have full control - but I can't fight for shit. Surely you've got some sort of physical instructors around here?! Or if you're so underfunded that you can't even afford that, I want that chick to train me. Miriam, was it? She's the only one around here that seemed like she knew what she was doing."

Underfunded.

"Yeah, Miriam. The one with cancer. Talk to her." He said, as he took his seat once more.

"Wait, cancer? Nobody told me anything about cancer!" Was Jared’s response.

_{This guy can’t be serious.}

"TALK. TO HER about it.” Eli shot back, “Now sit down and let me do my job."

Another pause before Jared responded, "Whatever, asshole. Just remember, if I get killed out there I swear to god I am haunting you for the rest of your fucking life." He turned and made his way back down the steps from the console, down the aisle.

_{"Oh you don't have to worry about dying."} Eli muttered to himself.

---

Henry turned around, feeling the light tap, to see an aggressor just... floating there. His eyes shot to the side and he saw Kayla holding her hand out, more than likely concentrating. What was she doing...

Oh

OH

THATS what she did. Henry released a roar, grabbing the creature by it's head and wrenching it forward, grabbing it by it's leg despite it's fiery skin, tore the creature's head off. He placed the skull in his maw and promptly bit down. After a second or so, the skull collapsed on itself with a gut wrenching crunch. Remaining aggressors stepped back, appalled by a ferocity, a lack of care, a lack of humanity that even they themselves did not have. In their hesitance however, Henry had used the body as a baseball bat, crumpling another two aggressors like a house of cards.

Henry was about to attack another, when it's head was suddenly blown out in front of him. The body crumpled to the ground and his head gazed upwards to the source. The denizen that had caused this, on the roof, it was helping them. Henry nearly smiled, but in the absence of attention, he was sent to the ground by six or seven heavy caliber rounds, which blew holes in his armor and re-inflicted the damage he had compensated for by eating. He pushed himself slowly upwards and looked over his shoulder, before an impossibly painful burst of electricity fried the little armor he had on his stomach. There were two aggressors, heads and shoulders above the others. Huge beings nearly as large as himself. One had a conducting rod of some kind and crackled with electricity in all places, while the other was huge and as muscular as himself, wielding a chain gun. The sources of his suffering no doubt.

---

---

The one with the chain gun turned around, and unleashed hell upwards at the foreman, who threw himself behind cover as to not become swiss cheese. Miriam, seeing this, shot from the sky and over to the denizen's location, letting out an excess of smog as she flew, enshrouding the battlefield in a smokey fog. The aim was to mainly limit the heavy's vision, and keep that chain gun to a short rang where it was mostly ineffective. She landed, hitting the ground and rolling next to the foreman. She took one look at him and frowned. "Give me that!" she snarled, ripping the weapon from the foreman's hands and pulling herself out from behind cover. She leaned into the shot, like her uncle had always said. She searched the ground, seemingly completely unaffected by the smog, as if she could see through it, and fired.

The gun fell from her hands, as she was unused to the kickback. The denizen, seeing this, swiftly took the gun back and dove behind cover. There was a sound of pain, and suddenly more heavy duty shots were fired upwards in their direction blindly. Miriam, unable to get herself out of the way in time, had half her face blown off.

Her body fell backwards, her body landing roughly on the room. The denizen seems to mutter something along the lines of 'idiot' in it's own languages, but was able to mouth off no more as smog from the air was pulled back to her body, reforming on what was left of her face and reconstructing. Miriam sat up, and shook her head. She looked at the denizen for a moment, who seemed genuinely surprised, and then wiggled her eyebrows. "Glad I'm on your team?" she said, knowing full well it didn't understand her. She stood up and pointed her hands down at the ground again, and shot out bursts of fiery red, grey, and orange fire/smoke balls down to the ground below.

"Kayla!" Henry's voice roared, his voice hoarse but strong. "Do what you just did to sparky! Keep it's hands off me, I cant take much more!" Henry shouted, before charging forward in the position the large aggressors had just been before the smog rolled in. His armor was near shot and it was a miracle he was still functioning, but he was. He was a killing machine, and a machine operated until it couldn't operate any more. When he caught sight of his target, it had it's arm up, shielding it's head and aiming the other at the roof as if it were about to fire off another bolt of energy at the source of it's suffering. Henry didn't care though, instead he plowed into the aggressor shoulder first intent on tackling it and pile driving the monster, only for more pain to shoot up through his body and for his leg muscles to seize up. His inertia caused him to still smash into the aggressor and still throw it several feet backwards, but he fell again, in pain and somewhat seizing. The other was being taken care of by the others it seemed. A rare lucky break. But that thing had electrical skin! How was he supposed to fight tha-

He still had the body of the aggressor Kayla had killed in his grasp. He could beat it to death with that but... He couldn't fight with it. It was a body, not a sword. Like a giant war club that wasn't made of metal or wood and more of just crumpled when it hit rather than bashed. A far inferior weapon to the conductor rod. He pulled himself to his knees and stood up again.

"Kayla I could really use your help right now!"

---

@Empour

@ScarlettWaters16

Bobby returned the side-hug, patting Jazz companionably on the opposite shoulder. "Nice teamwork," he said with an unnecessarily toothy grin. The danger seemed to have passed, at least in their immediate surroundings. There was still the sound of fighting from around the corner of the building, but he felt like the three of them - Bobby, Jazz and Jared - had earned a break.

"Uh, Bobby? Where's Jared?" Bobby turned to look at the place where he had left the collapsed Jared, and spotted the now abandoned gun lying in a small pile of dirt.

"What if he was killed in this realm?! Does he die in real life too?! What if we just killed a man?!" Jazz appeared to be panicking. Bobby stepped back to her and patted her somewhat uncomfortably on the shoulder. He didn't want to seem too handsy, because A) Jazz was a giant murder-bird and B) she was way too young for him. Like, criminally too young.

"Nah, Twinkle's fine," Bobby reassured. "None of us are really here, remember? We're still sittin' back in that programmer's basement. He probably just got pulled out 'cause there's no use in him flopping around on the sidewalk over here." He bent down to pick up the abandoned gun, sliding out the magazine. It was completely empty - Jared had gone out shooting, at least. He showed the empty magazine to Jazz in hopes that it would make her feel a bit better.

Evidently, it didn't work. Jazz collapsed in an ungainly sprawl, her bleeding leg folding like a hide-a-bed. "I want to go home," she whimpered.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Bobby agreed, kneeling beside her. He raised his voice. "Eli?" he asked, "You hear that? Jazz here's down for the count, wanna wake her up?"

---

"Eli? You hear that? Jazz here’s down for the count, want to wake her up?”

Eli nodded in response to Bobby’s request. Jazz had done plenty enough to warrant herself a break. “Yeah, sure, I’ll pull her out now. You and the other three should be able to handle the rest of the Aggressors. You’ve done a great job so far.” He responded over the neural comm. He ran his finger along the button array until he reached the one corresponding to the chair Jazz was seated in. He pressed the button, and her mark in the Zone disappeared.

Moments later, Jazz’s chair shut down, and she was awake. Eli grabbed another bottle of water from the container and hurried down the aisle to welcome her back to Earth.

---

@ScarlettWaters16

After Malcolm accepted the generous water from Eli and mopped up the mess he made, Malcolm saw another Zoner named Jared ejected from the nexus, what followed was Jared promptly storming his way to Eli and argument ensued. Malcolm listened in, well, eavesdropped, and heard that Jared was looking for fight training. Hopefully, if Jared would accept, Malcolm would teach Jared the basics of what he knew. Malcolm followed Jared as he walked away from Eli before piping up to grab his attention. "Hey!" He said. "Jared, right?" Malcolm asked. "I heard you wanted some help? In fighting and stuff?" He said, not too loud so anyone else would hear them. "I know a bit, I'll teach you if you want?" Malcolm offered.

Jazz Berdeen

The last thing Jazz hears is Bobby asking Eli to wake her up and she jolts awake, gripping at her leg. When she realizes the wound does not trace out into reality, she takes a deep breath and looks around. She notices that a lot of people are back, including Lenora, but Bobby and a few others are not back. She sighs and runs a hand through her sweaty hair before looking over at Eli.

She takes water bottle from him and chugs it down, wiping off her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt and she looks over at him apologetically. "I'm sorry. I could've stayed in there and helped. It must've been the pain that came over me. I'm sorry." She was really sorry, especially for leaving Bobby back there alone, but she just had so much panic when she saw that Jared was not there anymore and the loss of blood from her leg probably gave her a panic attack.

She sighs and takes another swig from the water bottle. She pauses for a moment, looking back at Eli. "The wound I sustained during the battle. Will that come back when I go back in?" She looks at him curiously. She has never got a wound that bad before in her Zone, as they've been calling it. So, now she was curious.

---

“Nah.” Eli replied, “You get a clean bill of health whenever you jump in.”

There was a pause before he continued, “Should take advantage of that in the future. After today, I’m gonna have all of you running in each of the Zones, not just the red city. I’m fairly certain that after a few more runs in the Nexus Projector, you’ll all be well acquainted to it. No more nausea or headaches when you jump out.” He patted Jazz’s shoulder and concluded with, “You just take it easy while the rest of the team wraps it up in there.”

He turned his head and called out to everyone in the room, “That goes for all of you! You wanna head upstairs and get something to eat, go for it.” He walked back up the aisle, towards the console, to observe the final leg of the mission with Henry, Miriam, Kayla, and Bobby at the helm.

One big mark left, one to go. They had it in the bag.

Hopefully.