This Heart Attack (Open)

*THUD*

A body hit the ground, and a ragged Bernard Fenns climbed back onto his feet. As cliche as it was, alleyways were perfect for this kind of thing. it wasn't entirely a cold-blooded murder, either. Fenns needed this to happen. He couldn't cope, otherwise. Would he be caught? Who knew? He'd seen stories in the columns of newspapers.

'UNEXPLAINED HEART ATTACKS IN FOOTSCRAY'
or
'HEART ATTACK: MAN OR MEDICAL MYSTERY?"

Heart Attack. It was hardly a name, but with all the big supers out there who would notice? Bernard slipped his rubber gloves back on and emptied the man's wallet into his own one. Bernard backed deeper into the alleyway, coming out at the other end on Bourke street. He felt it best to move ever since he saw that first newspaper, realizing that he ought to leave no trend to follow. He planned to get on the nearest tram and leave, being careful not to brush up against any of the people walking the opposite direction. Finally Bernard Fenns took his seat at a tram stop and waited. His appearance alone generally warded anyone away from him, and it was hard to think about confrontation when your heart's on a constant rampage.

Amber stood still in the shadows of a nearby building, watching and listening for prey.  She had been there for some time; the exact amount unknown and unimportant in her quest to feast.  The city was not her favourite place to hunt as there were too many humans, too much noise and too many unfamiliar scents but, as she had made the decision to re-integrate her human self with her dinosaur self she had been hunting within more often as of late.  As much as she often strafed at her weak human body, she was coming to remember some of the benefits of having one.  Maybe, just maybe, she'd be able to finally balance her two sides.

A sound to the left caught Amber's keen hearing and she turned her neck to spot a large rat, completely unaware of her presence.  She grinned toothily to herself in anticipation of the chase.  Rats were her usual target when in the body of a compsognathus which was little larger than a chicken.  

Now came the part of the slow and silent stalking, moving up on her target little by little.  This part couldn't be rushed and, in fact, really couldn't be if she wanted to.  Besides, what rush for one such as her?  Once close enough she picked up speed and pounced on it, jumping high into the air and landing on top of her prey, teeth digging into its neck.  Blood spurted into her mouth and bones crunched beneath her jaws.  For a time she fed and, when finished, there was little more than a rat skeleton.  

Once sated, Amber ran back to where here robes were stashed behind a nearby dumpster.  Her shift back to human form was neither painless nor pretty but it was, fortunately, quick.  Human body re-acquired, she stepped out of her hiding place just in time to see one body fall to the ground and a man turn to leave the body.  She didn't bother to check if the fallen one was dead; her unique vision told her instantly that he was.  The fact elicited no emotional response.  

"Hey, what are you doing?"  Maybe she should have just let the figure leave.  Probably.  Probably she should have done almost anything else other than ask a stupid question of someone who had, in all likelihood, just killed a man but she was still getting re-acquainted with the whole human thing and how to actually function properly as one.

Bernard Fenns froze in place. Eyes wide, twitching. Heart rate increased. Voice. It was a voice. A voice? Girl's voice. Where the hell did she come from? What did she see? Fenns didn't have the requirement to kill someone again so soon, and didn't want to put his sane self in that position. Of course she saw it. Of course she did. Why else would she be asking that?

Fenns slowly turned around, to be greeted with a sight he'd like to think was as unholy as his life was. She looked like one of his victims, and it sent shudders down his spine to back up the electronic pulses. A tear would've escaped his eye if it weren't for his tear ducts being almost completely inoperable.

"It-It-It-It wasn't my fault." He whispered, stuttering when his voice got caught up by his heartbeats. "Y-Y-You should l-l-l-leav-leave. Don't want to h-hurt you." Fenns held his own hands, fiddling with the rubber on his gloves. She didn't understand. How could she? They never understand until they feel it. She won't understand until she feels it. NO! He quickly shoved his hands in his pants pockets.

Fenns waited for a movement in the girl. If she drew out a phone, she's dead. Otherwise, he'd at least have enough time to catch a train and leave Melbourne. Fenns was scared, both for himself and the frail girl.

The man's reaction to her presence was what notified Amber that he was probably the one who had killed the man. The reaction was not the reaction she expected from a killer; he seemed more afraid to hurt her than anything else. She remembered, distantly, the first time she had killed a human. It hadn't been entirely her fault, she had been lost within the mind of the predator within her. It wasn't healthy to remained shifted for months at a time and that was something she learned through hard experience. At the time she hadn't even known what she'd done, it was only months later when she had finally been triggered strongly enough to return to her human form that she had realized it. At the time, the experience had been deeply traumatic. Now? Now death was simply a part of life.

"I believe you," Amber answered, voice calm. Why she simply didn't turn around and leave as the man so clearly wanted she couldn't quite say, but something compelled her to stay and talk to him. "I'm not so easy to hurt as you might think." She didn't know what the man had done that had ended in the death of the corps, but she did know there weren't many things that could kill her. She was, after all, all ready half dead.

"What happened?" Amber asked softly. She made no move to approach believing that to do so would cause the man to bolt. He was clearly terrified, although she thought it might be more of himself than of her.

Was this happening? Was this really happening? Fenns continued to remain shocked and still, as this was most unexpected. No one had ever asked him why, not unless they were dying. The loneliness of it all drove into him, it had worn him down and made him vulnerable. Fenns didn't pay all too much in what she was saying and it may have been too good to be true, but all he wanted was to talk to someone. He would take this chance.

"H-H-H-He... He..." Fenns pointed towards the corpse. "He wouldn't leave me alone. He k-k-kept f-following me. And it hurts." His breathing started to shake and his eyes quivered. "It-t-t hurts so m-m-m... M-m-m... " He flinched, cringing at both the pain and his anguish of being unable to speak properly. Suddenly his eyes flicked open again. "The only w-w-way to m-make it better is to make them feel it. A-a-a-and then they understand." But would she understand? No, no. She would need to feel it to truly understand. Make it happen. I don't want to kill her. I won't. "You can't tell anyone, please. They'd k-k-kill me, but I'll kill them first." He thought about what she said about not hurting. Was she serious, did it mean anything? He should ask if he can touch her. If he can take off his gloves and touch her face. Feel her muscles contort and tighten, send her heart into a frenzy of retractions and pulses. You would enjoy it, wouldn't you, Heart Attack?

Before Fenns could realise he was fiddling with his gloves again. His hands went back into his pockets, as he returned his worried gaze to the girl. "W-W-W... W-Who are you?"

"I know what it feels like to hurt." The words were probably truer than the man could ever realize. Every time she shifted forms the pain was indescribably excruciating. Bones and flesh literally rearranged themselves and there was no anesthetic for such a thing. Other shifters, she had heard, weren't so unfortunate and their shifts were painless but she wasn't like other shifters. She was half-dead, something unnatural. The scientists who had forced her to become what she now was hadn't cared about her level of comfort, they just wanted a living weapon. Pitty for them that they were now dead.

"Are your powers new?" Amber watched the man carefully looking for any signs that he was going to take hostile action against her. He was dangerous, she knew that much. The conversation felt a little like playing with fire. It sent a chill of anticipation down her spine, a feeling amidst a world where feelings were rare. The dead didn't feel things and what, exactly was she?

"The first time I changed forms I screamed. There was so much pain, red fire coursing through my entire body. The hasn't left with time but I've learned not to scream." Why was she telling this stranger something she had never before told anyone? She couldn't say except that, perhaps, there was almost a kinship in pain. Pain was the price of their gifts when so many received their gifts for free. "So yes, I understand pain."

Amber's black depthless eyes fell to the gloves the stranger was fiddling with. Some kind of protection against whatever it was his powers did? Perhaps. "My name is Amber and I won't tell anyone." Hiding her identity wasn't something that occurred to her. "Can I ask your name?"

This was a ploy. Some kind of set up, this wasn't real. It couldn't be real. He was hallucinating, she was a detective, this whole thing was a set up. But despite the quarreling in his head, Fenns had given up. And for one pleasant moment, Fenns thought in silence about the last time a girl asked him for his name. That was a whole other world to him. Something amazing happened. Bernard Fenns' heart rate slowed. Still pulsing, still painful, but less so. It was good.

"It's Bernard Fenns." He managed to say with some amount of dignity. It was a huge relief to have someone to confide some amount of emotion in. Or at least, someone living. The last time he tried to confide in someone living, they'd gone into a coma.  "If you're lying, I'll kill you." It was one of those things where you don't realise you said it until you did. Likewise, Fenns immediately regretted it.

"S... Sorry. I don't talk much anymore." With his heart rate lowered, Fenns was able to take in Amber's appearance a little better. He wasn't far off when he thought she looked like one his victims. She looked like she was dead, there weren't too many other ways to put it. It made her beautiful. "You look n-... You look..." He could feel his heart working its way back up, and decided against a compliment.

She was pretty though. Relatable, even. He held an awkward silence, but before he noticed his hands were fiddling again and she kept staring at them. A conversation piece! How exciting! His heart rate increased again, but Fenns welcomed it this time. He even smiled. "I-I-I-It happens when I tou-t-touch." Quickly, Fenns moved down to the dead body and flew his gloves off. "He's d-d-ead-d, so it won't be the same, buh-b-but..." He took a moment to stare at his own hands, with mixed feelings of fright and awe.

He plunged his hands down on the dead man's chest, and three things happened: 1. The body shook rapidly, with every muscle tightening and going berserk. Even his eyeballs appeared to look around frantically. 2. There was a constant zapping noise that was similar to a defibrillator in action. 3. Fenns was smiling. He had to force electricity onto non-living subjects, which meant he didn't get the pain relief he wanted, but it was nice to bask in the act while being observed. Well, Heart Attack? She's watching, show her what you can really do. His heart pumped faster and faster, his eyes grew wild and he started to chuckle as the body danced around. It was good.

When threatened with death, Amber didn't react as it didn't even occur to her to lie. Lying was a human act with human motivations and it had been a very long time since she had thought of herself as anything resembling human. Animals didn't lie, they simply lived their lives as part of the natural order of things. She wasn't even entirely certain, as one who was half dead, whether or not true death was even possible.

"I don't talk much either," Amber answered. When she had first come back into the human world, it was almost a surprise to learn that she hadn't forgotten the art of speech. Only in her human form was she capable of it and there was a very long time when she had been away from it. One of the reasons she was trying to regain her human half. Speech. Complicated, conflicted and yet one could do so much with it. Not always a good thing, but sometimes.

"I look dead." A slight smile played past Amber's lips and there was almost a hint of bitterness in her voice. It wasn't exactly something she was ashamed of; it simply was what it was. Yet, to the human world, she knew well enough that her physical appearance wasn't going to make her reintegration easy. Even if she was capable of standing the harsh rays of the sun for more than a few minutes, which she wasn't, a walking corpse wasn't exactly likely to create a sense of sympathy or understanding. She was a creature of pack by nature but unlikely to ever have a pack of her own, unlikely to ever find belonging. Because, in the eyes of those humans, she was a monster.

Amber watched the fascinating display of the electricity flowing from the hands of Bernard into the corpse. Something in the back of her mind told her that she should feel horrified at what she was watching. Was this how he had killed the man? With a million volts of electricity flowing into his heart? If the ghost of horror flittered through her mind, fascination was the predominant emotion she felt. "Does it happen whenever you touch something?"

Amber paused, considering her next words. She had been shown something personal, the gift and curse that this other man possessed. Perhaps she should do the same? "Do you want to see what I can do?" Void black eyes stared at the man. It was a risk to make herself vulnerable, to display her own gifts, but he had done the same for her and it seemed right.

Fenns never liked to think of himself as a sociopath. But crouching here, pumping amps into a dead body in front of a zombie girl... Socialising. No, he couldn't be a sociopath. A murderer, yes. That much Fenns could own up to. It's ironic, but being seen as psychotic was probably a contributing factor to his insanity. He remembered when he heard stories of warrior-heroes, where 'thunder flowed through their veins'. They didn't know one tenth of the reality. Maybe... Maybe he could show them, in his own little way. But Amber was speaking, and Fenns wouldn't dare let this chance slip up. He released the dead man from his grip.

Fenns first took a moment to appreciate her comment about looking dead. Fenns made people look dead. And if you don't appreciate your work, you as may as well quit. Which obviously was not an option for him. "Y-y-y-y-yes, y-y-yes." He answered, no longer holding back his smile. "It's in the-ah-ah-AHK-" Fenns forced himself to calm down, concentrating immensely on his heart beat. His smile lowered with it. "It's in the skin."

But she could do something as well. Wouldn't it be fantastic if it was the same thing? No, highly unlikely. This Amber's shtick didn't fit the 'Biological Generator' bill. Fenns put his gloves back on and decided to give Amber the respect she so very much deserved. "Yes. P-Please. No one will see." He sat himself down against a wall, watching in anticipation. Like a child at show and tell.

Amber nodded her ascent to show off her own gift. There was nothing pretty in what she was or what she did. Perhaps, if she weren't tainted by death, it might be different. Perhaps, if forms she took possessed what must have been their natural majesty she might have been considered something beautiful. She wasn't and they weren't. To wish for things to be different, to feel envious towards those who possessed beauty, was a pointless feeling. Once, maybe, she might have felt it but that was a long time ago. That was when she still remembered what it was to be human.

The moment Amber pushed her thoughts towards the form of the deninonychus her body began to change. Pain lanced through her body as bones cracked and shifted, scales and feathers bubbled up from smooth flesh and body parts moved around. The whole process took less than a minute and where once a pale human stood now stood a dinosaur, not so different in size than the human that was before. For all intents, she appeared as a dead thing, with patchy scales and molted feathers. The only thing that remained to suggest that one animal was the same as the other were the pitch black eyes.

For all the agony inherent in changing her form, to Amber thrilled to once again take on the form she considered to be her true self. The world lit up to new eyes and sounds no mere human could hope to appreciate filled her ears. Strength infused her muscles to go alongside her natural weapons of claws and teeth. With her now far enhanced senses, she could hear how unusually fast Bernard's heart beat within his chest. She chirped at him, distinctly birdlike, unable to speak as she no longer had the vocal chords to support it.

"Ah-ah-amazing..."

It was exciting. It was spectacular. So dead, so pretty. So pretty... So... Dead... The gloves were off. What?! Why? What remained of Fenns stood up, his eyes ablaze with fear and madness that couldn't possibly be replicated in Amber's. It was far too much, now. The Heart Attack was in control. He stepped forward. NO, NO, NO! FUCKIN' STOP! How could he not know that it would never make a difference? PLEASE! What did Fenns think was going to happen? So what, he made a friend? What does that count for, huh? DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE! We're one and the same, Fenns, you psychotic bastard. Now let's share an experience with our new friend.

Heart Attack grunted and charged towards the Zombiesaur, aiming to get a grip: Somewhere, anywhere. All he needed was contact.

(OOC: Please let me know if I need to edit based upon how your power works.)

IC:

Amber watched the play of emotion across Fenns' face and they were not what she expected. It almost seemed like he was admiring what she was which didn't seem right considering what she was. As something that amounted to the walking dead, there was nothing pretty about her, nothing inherently admirable. Except, perhaps, in the darkest sense of being a prehistoric predator, of being an expect killer.

Amber continued to watch as the man removed his gloves. She should run. She knew she should run. He was dangerous, he could kill with a touch, she had all but seen him do so. Yet. Yet she couldn't bring herself to move, almost mesmerized by his actions. Since becoming what she now was she didn't know if she could properly die. Did she want to know? Yes. Yes she did. On some level, she needed to know if being half dead was the same as being dead. Almost, she felt as if she should be able to see the death in his hands, see the necrotic energy pulsate with a strength all its own. Yet, his decayed and ageing hands showed up just the same as the rest of him and just the same as any other living creature. He was dying in slow bits, minute by minute, just like everything else.

Amber felt the jolt of electricity shoot through her immediately although there was a noticeable delay before she could feel it in her heart. Her heart did not beat as normal hearts did nor, for that matter, did the rest of her organs function as normal organs. It wasn't quite accurate to say that they didn't function at all, but if the breath of a normal human came so slow or the heart of a normal human beat so infrequently, they'd be dead. True death. Nearly a half a minute passed before the true experience of the man she could do hit her and the instant pain blossomed in her chest, her long neck reached around as she tried to take a bite out of his hand in an effort to force him to release his hold.