THE RAIN NEVER SEEMS TO STOP FALLING here, an undiluted tide of smog and acidic moisture. The underbelly of the city did little to keep steel structures and pavement dry, but it did serve to send the rat citizens scurrying back into their hovels like disturbed wildlife. Prey, could of course, sense the arrival of an apex predator, even if he was as silent as the shadows and night sky itself. Where Zed walked, the inky blackness was impenetrable by light, casting the most ominous of shadows far, far into the alleys he slipped to and fro. People did not leave their homes. He encountered no one in the streets (not that they would have seen him). Zed was, for all intents and purposes, an omen of war and violence and death. He would eliminate his target, and he would enjoy doing it.
The pain in his back is phantom. He knows it not to be there, knows that the steady pulsation of agony is simply in his mind, but the mind has long since lost it’s fragmented touch with reality. He sees things as a hunter does, a wolf with the scent of blood in it’s mouth. Zed had long since been losing fragments of humanity with each augmentation but... with that blade to his back, the severing of flesh and cybernetic, it was as if an emotional connection to his mind had been cut completely, and PROJECT had not bothered to fix it. After all, morality and emotion were simply a liability.
Yet in a way, it had backfired. He could still feel - could still process complex emotion. But all that came out? Rage, oblivion, hunger. He still saw the visions He produced, the macabre programs and artwork with the same clarity of horror. Despite everything, despite Jhin cutting away the last vestiges of his humanity, the hacker’s work and betrayal still triggered a visceral, pained part of him. It was as if he had inserted the blade knowing exactly where to slice to ensure Zed could not forget that trauma.
There is no point on sneaking up on Jhin, no point in appearing from the shadows as he would. Rather, heeled and sprung feet slip silently through puddles, up, up, up through an alcove, until he had reached the roof he’d been so meticulously monitoring. A gleam of red flashes beneath his helmet, blades thrumming with pent up energy - his own, inner essence fueling the power that had become him. Technology, sin, death... It had become his single-minded creation. He was the pinnacle of killing, a machine built for murder. And Jhin? Jhin was the one creation that still held the rationality of human emotion to him. He could not disassociate from their past, what he had done. For PROJECT - he needed to be eliminated. For Zed? Even more so. His voice comes out in metallic fragments, perfectly understandable, still silken and honey in tone, like a man who had once been impossibly attractive. Now all he cared for was death.
“ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴘᴇɴᴄʜᴀɴᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ᴅʀᴀᴍᴀ ɪꜱ ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴀɴɴᴏʏ ᴍᴇ.
ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴘᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴏɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ. ”
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