Sell my soul... (Alexander, Faust, Coronel, Khell. Arc NPC: C.O.N.D.U.I.T)

Blindside just stared at the electric guy, wondering what he was on. But he did take what he said seriously. "Its quite a long story, but i'm sure if we get out of here we can make a deal. Your correct, i am not equipped to deal with this level of radiation. But i am burning most off it off and phasing through the rest, I'll be fine" Bernard said to his previous target before following him too the hole.

"Smells like Paris, you guys ever been to Paris?......Ok, i'll stop talking" He said looking down into the hole. The gore was quite disgusting though, semi dried blood caked on every thing and bodies everywhere. Mostly cut up or crushed, but some were scattered everywhere. He didn't want to get in the hole, but for some reason he knew it was the way out. "I have a feeling this has something to do with that barrier, and we might as well go underground with all the radiation moving around" He said as he followed the armored dude down the death hole. This was getting scary.

The metahumans were busy fighting themselves. That was acceptable, they might not even find the Death machine, in that case there was nothing at all to worry about. They did manage to find the sewer filled with bodied. Something that the smell alone would probably gag a maggot. Waterlogged, bloated some of then fresh, some of the skinned and strung up. Many of them were missing body parts or had horribly shredded and mangled parts of their body. One looking closely could even see little maggots eating away at the bodies...the strange part being any intellectual person would note that maggots would not likely have already been within the wounds if these were recent kills. A most suspicious little tid-bit.

 These maggots (picture in link near bottom) were of a mechanical nature, though it was not obvious or as apparent as they strangely enough were not able to be perceived by any form of technology. Poor little Kehllendros couldn't scan them, couldn't detect them other than with the two eyes. No manner of genius could unravel these things. No pictures, no X-rays, no from of anything could be used other than ones eyes to perceive these little technological maggots. The purpose of these things were quite simple, they served as disguised video cameras. Not the only ones following them in secret, but still cameras as the lens on an attachment would indicate. Though they were cameras their true purpose was much darker than simple recording information. These mechanical maggots were to collect metahuman DNA from the dead and living. Though one could stipulate and speculate all they wanted the second the maggot touched it and got ahold of it's DNA, the Agency knew the power, and they knew the person. Of course no one knew they were Agency drones... they belonged to this "Death machine" after all...

*******

 "Look at it. Beautiful! Shock factor! You can't fake this, this is genuine, this is the real deal. Oh we're gonna get this on the first take too!" There was an awe and excitement in his voice. The monochromed humanoid known as Noir was sitting safely within the Agency stronghold. The raw footage alone was enough to make him salivate. Well maybe not literally, but he was indeed elated to "work" with this group of renegades. This was going to be one of the greatest creations yet, especially with a group like this! They had such internal conflict, and while a little forced, they managed to pull themselves together just in time for the introduction of the big baddie! This scene here with the corpses and the maggots were enough to give a sense of peril and an ominous foreboding of what fate awaited them. Would the protagonists prevail? Would they become just another group of bodies for the gutter? Oh regardless their fate, win or lose this footage was all too good to be true.

Darrick turned out to be in a pretty shitty mood. The man named Khellendros, the big hitter, turned out to be a decent person. The other one, who didn't even release his alias, was pissing Darrick the shit off. He didn't even shake his hand. Fucker.

Anyways, rude manners aside, Darrick went down into The Hole with Khellendros and Fucker, the name that he now dubbed the speedster, and was immediatly somber. Inside, The Hole looked even more grotesque. Almost like.... a sacrificial chamber. Darrick had a run-in with one of those before, yet he did not think the amount of ruin he had seen there even matched the grotesqueness of this sewer. Smelled like Paris, too.

As they went down through the tunnels, he noticed something gleaming from the bodies. The doctor's curiosity piques.

"Hey, the bodies look....interesting...."

Darrick went over to one of the hanging bodies. He then began to grab a fistful of...whatever part of the body it was, it was too mangled to tell, and ripped it from the body. Darrick puked.

"Fucker you were right, it does smell like Paris."

Darrick wiped his mouth on his sleeve and proceeded to shock the remains that were in his hand.  Shiny bugs began to fall out.

The toothy smile returned.

"Well what do we have here?"

Darrick picked one up and began to look at it. It was a maggot. A metal maggot. Maybe camera.

"Well I thought we were all alone! But I guess we're not the only ones here!"

Darrick laughed maniacally. It was to scare whoever was watching, if there was. But he doubted that his crazy doctor persona would scare the bastard that did this massacre.

"You've messed with the wrong doctor pal! Hannibal Lecter would shit his pants if he could see what I'm going to do to you for doing this!"

Darrick laughed like the Joker once more.

He then crushed the maggot he was holding. Darrick the handed it to Khellendros.

Darrick became stoic once more.

"I'll be honest. My knowledge is in medicine, not in tech. Please analyze it and check if it's a camera, this maggot looks only half-organic if you ask me."

He then saw their disturbed body languages.

"What the fuck is your guys' problem?!"

It's official, I'm travelling with a madman as well as someone who's tried to kill me in the past half an hour... Meh, could be worse, could be like that time in Russia, never facing down that many tanks again, EVER, not even for that amount of money again. Taking the proffered "bug," Khellendros started examining it. "You're right, it's not entirely organic," Clicking external audio of for a moment, "Alex, scan it for any energy or signal emissions."

Alex pinged back, "No signatures of any kind detected. Entity does not register on scanners."

"What the crap? Magnify it, I need a closer look, scan surfaces for photo-sensitivity or anything that indicates an optical input or output device." Looking closer at the magnified image, Khell thought he could see what appeared to be a miniscule camera lens among the wreckage he'd been handed, clicking external audio back on, "Looks like the good doctor is right, there's definitely optical equipment in these things, too small to be a storage device so probably a live feed." Reaching for an intact one, he was very careful not to disturb any of the bodies. "Blindside, if you would be so kind as to scout further down the tunnel, we need to know if we're alone down here or expecting a nasty surprise when we get to the end of it."

Looking to the doctor, "We really need to know what could have done this to them, some of the damage is from these little bastards but they don't pose a threat to any of us. Also, why would someone need this many small machines in a veritable graveyard? Seems like a waste of such advanced technology if you as me, some of it is beyond anything I could do right now, and that's saying quite a bit. We need information about what's doing this or we could all suffer the same fate." Know your enemy, a simple mantra, but will it even help with whatever this thing is?

This electric guy was a nut bar, what in the flying fuck was wrong with him?  'He just called me a fucker...' Bernard thought to himself. "Call me a fucker again and you'll be dead in under a second" He said as he looked around the disgusting room. This was too much gore for even Bernard, he almost puked in his helmet seeing it all. Then the lightning guy picked a fucking maggot off a dude, he assumed he would eat it shortly after but then he explained it was some kind of camera. Nut bar handed it to the armored guy and he elaborated a bit more. So what did that mean? A huge watery grave full of nano tech, a barrier around the block, and radiation off the charts. There was something going so unbelievably wrong here. "....Wait, i didn't tell you my handle. We're gonna have quite the talk once this situation is over. And yeah, of course the speedster has to go scout shit out..." He said mumbling a little as he dashed out of the twos sight. He sped down the sewer system looking for anything out of the ordinary, but it just looked like more bodies. He reached what looked like the a dead end (pun intended) and scanned the area, hoping to find what was responsible for these bodies and maybe an exit out of the barrier.

Once Blindside reached the end of the tunnel there was a white light that shined down. A manhole that leads out of the sewer...oddly enough it was shrouded. There were noises from above, it sounded like people...one of them crying. The voice quite obviously belonged to a man, pleading for something. There was a rather dark and menacing laughter, a heavily layered laugh of many tones and pitch variations. Whatever was beyond the shroud was obviously either heavily demonic, or something incredibly large, or just flat out evil. Proceeding alone was a terrible Idea, and anyone with more than basic level knowledge (1 Int) would know it.

  It wasn't much...but now it was time for Blindside to decide...would he go alone, or would he gather his battered and blended team up and go forward into the unknown together?

"Where did the Fucker go?"

Supercharger and Khellendros had watched the Fucker run away from them. He was gone for about two minutes. That was extremely unusual, unless he was still going. In all honesty both the doctor and the mercenary could probably care less. Darrick was unforgiving of rude-mannered people, and the merc had no reason to like someone who tried to kill him not forty-five minutes ago.

"Darrick looked around at the pit. Darrick puked again.

"FUCK, this shit is gisgusting!" He shouted as he wiped away the acid from his mouth.

Darrick picked up another steel maggot. One that was thankfully only crawling around on the floor. The doctor didn't think he could stomach desecrating another body like that again.

"Nasty little fuckers, aren't they?"

Darrick then slowly began to apply pressure between the fingers that held the maggot.

"They just watch, wait, and listen, all while eating the remains of some poor bastard..."

The maggot was destroyed with a final, yet satisfying CRUNCH!

Darrick wiped his hands off on his pants. He then looked at Khellendros.

"Fucker's been taking too long. Let's go find him."

And let's pray that we do before whatever did this does....

Shrugging, Khell was a little more than perplexed as to why someone would need to or even want to create things the created and monitored such carnage, but that would have to wait for a later time. Hearing the doctor talking about their scouting party, he simply shook his head, If you send out a scout, you generally wait until they report back or give them five minutes, but what the hell why not right? Discarding the wrecked biomechanics he'd been looking over, he started following Dr. Faust, If we run into this thing can we even handle it? "You may want to slow down and exert some caution, if anything did him in we should take the time to scan ahead of ourselves and avoid the same fate." Clicking his mike to off, "Alex, scan for any irregular biological or energy signatures, give the proximity warning at 200m." Noting the tunnels overall condition, he couldn't rule out a tunneling enemy either, "Keep an eye on seismic activity as well. Warning for any magnitude greater than 2."

"Orders confirmed, scanning surrounding area and active tremor sensor active."

Eventually catching up to the doctor, they continue on to where Blindside is standing, noting him standing and looking up, "What did you find?"

Looking over to where he heard a familiar voice, Bernard would respond. "Uh...I think i might have just found what did all this.... I'm actually glad you two are here. This is the only way out it seems, and as you can probably hear there's a not so friendly.....thing up there. I see only one option with two outcomes, we go up there and kick ass, take names, and leave. Or we go up there and die horribly." Saying this Bernard chuckled a bit and ran as fast as he could away from his two 'partners'. He ran up the wall using his incredible speed, sticking to the walls and even the ceiling until he was out of the hole. He quickly looked around and sized up whatever monster was infront of him.


((sorry for the short post, I'm super tired))

What was before them could only be described as an incredibly eerie scene. The buildings had been toppled making an alleyway of sorts. at the end of the alley way stood a monster of a being, measuring at least twenty foot tall. The creature had a pile of cars in front of it, a nest that it had built itself as a large black tattered cloth was draped over it. (I know it's brown in the picture, and his face isn't exactly as described but just deal with it. Please and ty ) The creature had blood red eyes a gnashing maw, at least six rows of fangs, each one with rotating mini blades, making each tooth essentially a massive chainsaw. The creature could not be seen form the waist down as it built a barrier of crushed and condensed cars around it and the cloth blocked everything else but half the creature's face from view.  Khell would find this most annoying as this thing was not able to be perceived by technology either, no scans, no targeting and hopefully his helmet didn't function like Ironman's or else he wouldn't even see this thing. The creature stood there, towering over a man who was on his knees, this man wasn't a metahuman, he was an innocent who was on his knees, pleading to this thing.

  "Please! Please let them go! We'll leave I swear!" The man pleaded, though one might question what he was pleading for, but alas that would not be a problem, as all would be made clear quite soon.

 "Ah, we have guests. Come now, perhaps these Heroes will lessen your burden." The creature said as it raised a hand. It then brought one finger over at a time, index finger to pinky, and the second he did that the "Protagonists" would be surprised most likely.  A barrier was erected behind them, and one between the man and the mechanical being. The barrier behind the protagonist moved forward, urging them to the man's side. With that being said they could now notice the two silver cylinders, each one unable to be seen through or scanned through, made out of the same technology as the damned creature itself. "Oh yes, come heroes! Save him, save his family!" The creature cackled after it mockingly pleaded on behalf of the man.

   "No, please!" the man whimpered, the mechanical creature made a motion with it's hand and silenced the man with what appeared to be a telekinetic blow. The creature then turned it's gaze to the three heroes that joined the group. "H-he has my family! Please, please oh God please this can't be happening!" The man was in full blown tears. The mechanical creature rolled it's eyes theatrically with a heavy sigh.

  "Be thankful you are human, or else you would be joining them!" The creature bellowed before looking to Faust, his voice whispering to a hiss of a whisper that pierced the air like knives. "Or at least one of them yet!" It's eyes narrowing as it studied them all, finally it's focus on the most well armored of them all, Khell.

  "It seems as though this man cannot make up his mind. So now I leave it to you three." The creature said, spreading it's arms wide, the cloak spreading out and still concealing everything. The cloak then pointed to the two cylinders. "One is poisoned. One is not. Choose wrong and the child dies... choose right and the child lives." The creature's chuckle growing all the more menacing.

  "M-my wife... the other one has my wife in it. H-he won't tell me which one has either!" The man was hysterical at this point. The creature lowered it's head, still protected by this barrier of his.

 "Three choices. I will take majority as the answer. To not answer is to sentence BOTH the child, and the mother to the same fate. Now...choose." It growled, impatiently looking upon the group for their answer.

Darrick could not breath. Literally, the air smelled even worse than the Hole. Figuratively, the decision the Death Machine (because that is most likely what it was), was unthinkable. It was against his code.

He couldn't choose. He wasn't allowed to. He wouldn't let himself choose. Even Dark Faust could not object to the inherent cruelty of the decision. Then again, he doesn't give two shits. He would rather feed on the anger that came from it.

Darrick had to bow out of this.

"Guys...I can't decide. It goes against my fucking code. I have to bow out of this decision."

Darrick looked at the Death Machine.

"I would sell my soul to save these two., but never to a demon like you. You won't have the satisfaction of my agony in taking part in a death."

Darrick looked at both his allies straight on.

"You guys have to choose. I just pray to the God I don't believe in that you choose right one."

Hearing the doctor's plea, Khellendros couldn't help but wonder at the intended purpose of this... creature's challenge, instead of acknowledging the doctor's anguish and the other merc's probable lack of caring on the matter, he decided to take a different tack to the situation, he had a plan.

"You mentioned that this man is human and that it is linked to his not being harmed, does this mean that you cannot harm humans only those such as we?"

Quickly switching off external audio, "Alex, start scanning the cylinders, I want any tech readings you can get off of these things." "Yes sir."

"I may harm whomever I please. It simply brings me more joy to hunt more challenging game. I have taken great care to cause no human casualties in my time here, however."

"Sir, no technological readings to be found, entity under cloak appears to be entirely mechanical in nature though."

Damn it, but the bit about this thing being mechanical means he was manufactured same as those maggots, file that away for later "Try for atmospheric readings around them or toxin residues in the air"

Hoping for a possible reprieve, maybe even get the civilians out of here so that maybe they'd be able to go full tilt at this thing. "Most fascinating, so there is no real reason for you to harm either of them if we were to take their place in your little game instead?"

"One would suppose not. I'm simply having too much fun watching this human try to scramble to save his wretched family. I wouldn't get the same effect from him if I did so to you."

"No atmospheric indicators surrounding the apparatus, nor any trace elements of any known toxins in the immediate vicinity."

Oh great, a sadist, just what we need to be dealing with right now. And that just ruled out being able to treat it, can't administer an antitoxin if you don't know what you're dealing with. Wait a minute... THAT'S IT!! "Check the overall temperature of the area and compare it with the temperature of both the piping and the air immediately next to it!" I HAVE YOU NOW ASSHOLE

"But fear is such a paltry and passing amusement, would you not rather face opponents that are capable of defending themselves? Battle is by far a more... entertaining activity than simple choices of life or death for simple human beings. Would you not agree?"

"Defending themselves? Like all those bodies you encountered on your way here? No. I admit you may be right under normal circumstance, but I've had enough of the so called challenges. Now is the time for fear. Alas, I do believe you've delayed enough. What is your choice Machina-sapien?"

"Sir, there is no temperature variance in the surrounding area, why did you make this inquiry?"

I GOT YOU PRICK! "The choice you offer up is that of no choice at all. Neither cylinder is poisoned, otherwise you would actually require the tubes to be pressurized, which is not possible because they have none of the indicators for being as such! Any sort of vessel or container, when pressurized, has a variable effect on the atmosphere directly around it. There is no inherent pressure change, nor any temperature variance indicative of pressurization around your apparatus. Coupled with the fact that you enjoy toying with those you intend to kill, and that you have been actively avoiding killing regular humans, inflicting mental anguish on us before attempting to kill us would have granted a possible advantage in an encounter, especially if you decided to rub salt in the wound as it were during the ensuing conflict possibly creating a fatal opening in one of our defences, that would more than suit your purposes without the need to actually harm anyone other than your intended targets, those like us."

Giving it all a moment to sink in, Khellendros takes two steps towards the barrier behind which his adversary is hiding, "You stand bested in your game, hold up your end of the bargain, let these people go and face your true targets on even and honourable footing," Drawing Wrath and readying Aegis for what he believed to be the impending duel, thinking of one key point he'd been missing, Khellendros knew that he needed at least two vital pieces of information. "I am the Black Knight, Khellendros. If we are to conduct ourselves as the warriors that we are I have two remaining questions. What is your name or designation? And who is it that you serve?" Taking up a defensive stance, "Your move."

After making their way out of the hole Bernard nearly crapped his pants, there was a giant metal....thing surrounded by crushed cars at the other end of the make shift alleyway. The creature-robot-monster-thing was terrifying, all Bernard wanted to do was go home now. "I knew i shouldn't have came to this piece of shit Chicago." He thought to himself before being pushed forward by a barrier from behind them.

Once in front of the imposing beast Bernard would sit there and listen to the monster and the armored guy talk about something involving the crying dudes family. They went back and forth speaking, Bernard wasn't cut out for debate with a huge monster so he said nothing until the other merc challenged the metal monster. "It's official, these two are both stupid and crazy" He thought to himself as he took an instinctive fighting stance "So i guess we're fighting this thing?"

There was a chuckle. The creature stood impressed indeed but not bested. No, he had been watching them. He knew from the moment Khell had noted from the worm that Khell would be the one to call him out. It was all about to come to a close. It was this death machine against these three people. The human father seemed happy, he seemed elated that Khellandros had seen through the mechanical creatures ruse. But the chuckling disheartened him. The mecha being then drew in a breath and exhaled, a little growl as a smile plastered on it's wicked face. Khell had done well, this much was true.  Yet it was still so strange for the creature to be laughing as it was.

 "Of course. That theory works...on paper. The answer you've given is two dimensional. You oversimplified thing my adversary. You do not detect poison because you're answer and that which you seek is two dimensional within a four dimensional world. You see, both of the metahumans in these tubes are very powerful, but one far more so than the other. Consider the wording of my challenge. It is true, there is no poison of the body within these tubes. However, you see there is far more to a person than simply their body." The machine said its hands crashed through the large cylinders and withdrew two people. In his left hand there was a young child squirming, dirt smudged all over his face as he cried out for his mom and dad. The machine brought him close and the in his right hand he brought fourth a beautiful woman was screaming for the child as well.

"MOM!!!" The boy called out reaching for his mother, as if somehow that would bring them closer.

"JESSIE, VICTOR!?!?" The mother called more in confusion than anything. Both of them looked like they had been literally drug through the mud and locked away.

"OLIVIA! VICTOR!!!" The human father was calling out for them too, actually running into the barrier, the barrier then shooting him back with incredible force, enough to knock him out cold. The machine brought them close together, allowing the mother to grab hold of the son's hand as he tried to cling on.

"Oh hush you two. the grown ups are talking." the machine said, allowing them to be together a moment before looking back to Khell. The child whimpered, true it was sort of pathetic, but it was understandable. The kid couldn't have been a teenager yet. The mother was crying too, but she was trying to be strong.

"Victor! Victor, listen it's gonna be okay!" She tried to assure him. The death machine snorted as he looked to Khell.

 "You see, hope...is a poison to the soul. In times of desperation people flock to false hope like moths to the flame. Then like fools they get to close and they burn just as men stranded at sea begin to thirst they foolishly seek sea water. In their most solemn hour...they turn to love... or vengeance....Vengeance the truest poison of the soul." The machine said, looking to the mother comforting the son. His voice trialed off at the end, almost as if he were seriously contemplating his actions. His eyes were dim, indicating a distant look.  There was a process to this machine, though it was not one they could possibly comprehend. The machine looked to Khell, Blindside and the Doctor. "The poison I promised was not of the body...but of the spirit. There is an expression..." He said as hs shifted, his cloak slightly shifted "Kill a boy's mother!" The machine lifted the woman into the air and his cloak in the chest opened revealing five mini steamroller rollers with sharp meat-tenderizer like diamonds atached, between the diamons were teeth like needled that shot out and then retracted with each rotation. "AND VENGEANCE FESTERS WITHIN THE SON!" He cried to moving both hands forward feet first the mother began to slowly descend into the grinder. Blood spurting everywhere as she screamed. Horrific pain no doubt. The machine proved to be a true sadist as it even brought the boy closer with her. Blood splattered his face as he screamed and began to cry. The mother held on until her entire abdomen was processed through the grinder. He let the boy hold onto her that long...and then finally in her lifelessness...she let go. He pulled the child away as the mother's arm still protruded from his grinder. He plucked the arm out and looked to the child.

 "You should have held on...you could have saved her... and now she's gone." He said before literally tossing the boy outside of the barrier. He landed on the ground, a sickening crack from his right arm and his head bouncing off the pavement, leaving a gash and maybe a minor concussion, but nothing life threatening. The machine then tossed the left arm, dropping it in front of the boy. "To remember her bye." He chuckled, obviously enjoying having traumatized the child beyond repair. This machine was a real bastard... it just revealed that it intended on Khell trying to trick him by calling him out on the poison, revealing wordplay to force Khell into personally deciding for the machine to kill the more powerful of the metahuman threats. Then he rendered the other one virtually useless by scarring it for life, forcing a woman to hold onto her son as she was slowly fed feet first into a grinder...and the poor boy watched it all.

 "My name? Ehahahahahahah! My name.... He began as he seemed to begin breathing heavily, bent over do that his entire body was covered by the black cloak grasping at his own head as if combating an inner demon of sorts. "I. AM. C.O.N.D.U.I.T!!!!" the creature screamed as it arched it's back, the cloak fell off and exposed the entire machine in it's macabre glory. The thing had almost no metal, save for it's face. The entire thing was bone...tissue and raw meet. It's bone plating like armor and exoskeleton was stained silver with trace amounts of metallic properties that adorned it's face. The grinders in it's chest going full gear. This creature quite obviously utilized EVERY part of the metahuman's it consumed...and it probably consumed some rather durable ones. No part was wasted. It was a highly elaborate and fascinating if not entirely fucked up machine. C.O.N.D.U.I.T smashed forward and let out a roar and it's bones began to frost over, ice crystals protruding from it's bones and metal as his "breath" became a chilled mist.

"Ah, Cryokinesis... how... fitting." He chuckled as he got into a stance, the barrier lowered and the bio-mech known as C.O.N.D.U.I.T was ready for anything.

Spoiler:

Darrick was not thinking at this moment. In fact, Darrick wan't even there. No, he was long gone. Darkness had taken over. And it was about fuckin' time.

The gruesome sight of what he did to the boy and his  mother....that was fucked up. It made his blood boil.  He was going to destroy him then and there if he wasn't smart enough to think that C.O.N.D.U.I.T. could destroy him easily enough. No, he had to think about it.

Darrick, sorry, Dark Faust, ran towards the helpless man. Unlike Darrick, Dark Faust had no qualms about killing, nor did he care that those that were killed were the man's family. No, innocents needed to die in order to save the rest. After all, Dark Faust was not a monster.

Darrick ran through the barrier. No amount of force or pain could withstand his current power. He was a living generator. Nothing could hope to stop him in his moments of wrath.

He grabbed the still unconscious man by the shirt and charged him, stopping his heart. All the better, compared to the fate that would have occurred had he still have been alive. The body slowing began glowing, and more and more electricity began to crackle around the two. He threw the man towards the middle of the air.

The others better be fucking ready!

The man exploded in a blinding burst of energy burst of electricity that vaporized his body. Then all was still.

A burst of electricity in that exact point began to expand, vaporizing most objects the field came in contact with.

The dark doctor knew it wouldn't kill the machine. It was just going to buy time, while leveling the place enough so that they could have some breathing room.

The barriers exploded in bursts of white light. The doctor charged through the havoc. Towards C.O.N.D.U.I.T.

"NO!! YOU MONSTER! I SHALL SEE YOU DESTROYED IF IT IS THE LAST THING I DO ON THIS EARTH!" Khellendros could only watch in horror as the woman was fed into the infernal workings of this creature's chest while her child was forced to hold her hand. He had been witness to many atrocities in his mercenary career, but nothing like this before in his life, nothing so personal or sadistic in nature, it was beyond redemption. "I AM C.O.N.D.U.I.T!!!!" "ALEX START THE OVERDRIVE!" "By your command, Sir." His powered armour, Stormbringer, began the sequence that would only take seconds, all the lighting accents began to shine with an overpowering glow as the suit began to compensate for the excess power starting to flow through it when something just as unspeakable took place.

"Faust! What are you doing?" He watched in abject terror as the doctor grabbed the helpless man who had just watched his wife be brutally murdered before him and hurled him at C.O.N.D.U.I.T. only to vanish in a catastrophic blast of light and sound, "Sir, that was an energy overload of an unknown nature." What the hell!?!?! This is too much to handle right now! How did I get into a situation with TWO murderous assholes? Starting to panic, Khellendros took a step back from what he could only call two monsters with no regard for human life whatsoever. We have to escape! There's no way to go up against these two and survive with my sanity intact here! And what about the kid? He just witnessed the murders of BOTH of his parents! Fuck the contract! No amount of money is- his chaotic thoughts were cut off when a familiar tune started blairing both inside and out of the suit, "Through the Fire and Flames?" "Sir, your vitals were outside of normal parameters indicative of an anxiety attack, favoured music was administered as a known calming factor. Overdrive system is prepared, awaiting final initiation command."

Taking a calming breath and allowing the music to calm and focus him, Khellendros made a final decision. "If he's this large and seemingly slow, he must have ways to compensate for it... Alex, we are mercenaries, varitable dogs of war are we not?" "Sir, I am not sure if I understand the inquiry..." "Trigger the overdrive, command word Aries!" Upon uttering the command word, the brilliant light of the armour began to fade slightly, turning a darker storm grey as data and information began to pour onto the HUD of his helmet, accounting for every variable that could factor into the fight, servos in the suit winding up to help keep in line with what his reflexes could now do coupled with this new information. (+2 FS, increasing Khell's to 8) "Initialized, good luck sir." With that he rocketed forward and past Faust and C.O.N.D.U.I.T, crashing into the pile of cars and debris at the end of the alley, using it as a backstop for his momentum and a springboard for himself. He launched into a furious assault against his chosen foe, there was no more time for hesitation, no time to think, no time for anything but the battle ahead.

His chosen strategy was twofold, he would cripple and then dismantle this crime against humanity, starting with bringing it to it's knees, he aims a devastating thrust at one of C.O.N.D.U.I.T.'s knee joints and if he succeeds in getting the blade to bite even a little, he will hammer it in further with his shield to try and sever the leg at that point.