Alexei didn’t deny the truth.
He had always liked neat simply because neat ant control. Not only that, but neat also ant the difference between a weapon and a tantrum. Neat was the difference between life and death, and Alexei would always choose his own life before anything else.
That was, until he t Sera.
Sera didn’t live in a world that demanded neatness and control.
Instead, she made her world, and Alexei was drawn into it.
He watched her drop the half-eaten man and catch another one by the vest. This one was trying to retreat toward the ridge’s secondary line, still listening to orders like obedience might save him.
Sera yanked him back, slamd him into rock, and bit into his cheek hard enough to tear it away.
The scream that followed was high and raw.
She ate his tongue next.
Not as a joke but as a solution to stop the noise.
Alexei felt a low heat in his chest that had nothing to do with Zubair’s fire. It wasn’t love the way humans would call it.
It was recognition.
It was the clean, cold understanding that this was the kind of woman he would have chosen if he had ever been allowed to choose freely.
Psycho felt it too. Say it, his creature urged, its voice sliding toward seductive. Say she’s perfect. Say if you had the chance to build your dream girl, you’d build her. Say you’d break the world for her if she asked.
Alexei didn’t resist the thought. He resisted the idea of speaking it like it was weakness.
He had been taught that desire made n sloppy.
He had been taught that wanting was a liability.
He had been taught that obsession was a flaw.
Those lessons had been built for n who could be killed by bullets.
Alexei watched a Black-Badge officer lift a mic and shout again toward Zubair, Lachlan, Aerenyx, and him. The man was still trying to fra the fight as a rescue, still trying to convince himself there were victims and villains and that the story made sense.
"You four! Move toward us!" the officer yelled. "We’re not here for you! We can get you out! She’s compromised! She will destroy you if she could."
Lachlan didn’t even glance at him. He kept moving, lightning snapping out to tear a drone’s stabilizer apart. The drone spun and detonated against rock, showering the ridge with tal fragnts. Lachlan ducked without breaking stride and kept going.
Zubair’s attention flicked once toward the officer, and then away again, like the man wasn’t worth the oxygen.
Aerenyx turned his head slowly, black eyes eting the officer’s visor. Sothing shifted in the officer’s posture, a sudden stiffness that wasn’t courage. It was the mont his instincts finally understood he had made eye contact with sothing that did not consider him a threat.
The officer swallowed audibly and Alexei stepped forward.
He didn’t hurry. He didn’t need to. The officer was behind portable cover that was ant to buy him seconds against normal enemies. Alexei raised one hand and sent cold across the cover in a smooth sheet. The barrier iced over, cracked, and sagged under its own weight.
The officer tried to backpedal.
His boots stuck to the frozen ground.
Alexei walked up and crouched in front of him, close enough that the officer’s breath fogged inside his visor.
"No," Alexei said softly. "You can’t."
The officer’s mouth worked. He tried to speak, but fear stole his voice.
Do it slow, Psycho whispered, cruel and delighted. Freeze his eyes first. Let him see the end coming and still not be able to blink.
Alexei didn’t freeze the eyes. He wasn’t interested in theatrics for its own sake. But he understood Psycho’s point. The officer needed to learn what his arrogance cost.
Alexei put two fingers against the officer’s chest plate, found the seam near the collar, and pushed cold inward.
The officer convulsed once and went still.
Alexei withdrew his hand and stood. He didn’t look back as the body slumped forward and began to frost over from the inside out.
Psycho laughed anyway. You still think you’re moral because you didn’t torture him. That’s cute. You killed him because you wanted to. Admit it. It felt good.
Alexei looked toward Sera again.
She had turned her attention back to the drones.
The heavier ones had shifted into a new firing pattern, their panels opening to expose recessed emitters that looked nothing like the earlier sonic systems. The hum changed pitch. Alexei felt it in his teeth, a vibration that wasn’t ant to scare. It was ant to disrupt nervous systems and coordination.
It hit the ridge like a wave.
So of the Black-Badge n staggered imdiately, their bodies reacting like the signal was ripping through their muscles and joints. A few dropped to their knees, hands clutching at their heads. Others kept their feet but their aim went sloppy, weapons jerking in uncontrolled arcs.
Alexei felt it press against him and then slide off.
His creature adjusted inside him with a lazy, contemptuous shift, and the pressure disappeared.
Sera laughed, not because it hurt, but because they had tried.
She stepped forward into the field of fire like she wanted them to waste everything they had on her. Rounds tore through her torso and abdon, holes opening and closing in the span of seconds. Blood sprayed, splashed, and then vanished as her body repaired itself.
The Black-Badge line broke further.
Soone scread, "It’s not working!"
Soone else shouted, "Keep firing!"
A third voice yelled, "Fall back to secondary line!"
It didn’t matter. They were reacting to her, and the mont they reacted, they lost the ability to control anything.
This is what you wanted, Psycho said to Alexei, voice shifting back into persuasion. Not a safe life. Not a quiet life. A life where your instincts are correct and nothing punishes you for them. She is proof that you were never wrong. You were just restrained.
Alexei froze another man mid-step and shattered him because he was in the way.
He could feel the old parts of himself trying to label this feeling as dangerous. Desire. Attachnt. Obsession. Those were words that ca with consequences in the old world. In the old world, they got you killed.
In this world, consequences were different.
In this world, the only mistake was pretending you weren’t what you were.
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