Men and Monsters: Syndication.

She knew she should have been afraid, afraid for her life or for the lives of anyone that might get caught in the crossfire, including the police when the cashier inevitably calls them. But she didn’t feel any sense of fear or dread, she was shaking for a different reason. She could feel her teeth and claws extending and her eyes changing to crimson, a sensation that put her teeth on edge unlike anything else, unable to stop the toothy grin spreading on her face.

She was looking up at someone with a gun pointed at her face, and all she felt was excited to fight them, the amount of adrenaline pumping through her was almost more than she could handle.

Luckily, she still had her hood up from earlier, so enough of her face was hidden to where she wouldn’t be identifiable other than a few strains of her pink hair poking out from underneath. She didn’t want TSK or anyone else knowing who she was, so as she began to run towards the building, she reached into her hoodie pocket and slipped on the skull mask, it fit her like a glove.

She didn’t take her eyes off them once, knowing she’d need to keep her eyes on them if she wanted to react as soon as possible. She saw them pull the trigger and heard the sound of the suppressed gun firing, she heard the sound of her shoes skidding against the concrete as she stopped herself and jumped forward with her arms outstretched as she tried to avoid the bullet.

She flinched as she felt it just barely graze over her shoulder, then she heard the bullet break apart and scatter as it hit the ground, which could only mean one terrible thing.

*Great, they decided to start using hollow point after last time, fan-fucking-tastic.*

She felt the wound on her shoulder quickly begin to heal, the one on her cheek already being gone. She noticed her healing seemed to have gotten even faster than before, she wasn’t quite sure why. It might have been because her body was adjusting faster, or something else she wasn’t aware of.

Either way, it would allow her to be a bit more reckless. However, now would not be the best time for it. She hadn’t been shot by hollow point bullets before, but that was a first time experience she’d rather go without having.

“For someone who uses a sniper as their go to gun, you sure do seem to be missing a lot. Did getting your ass kicked yesterday throw you off your game or something?” She yelled up at them mockingly, knowing she was loud enough for them to hear.

She couldn’t actually tell any facial expressions they made behind that mask, but she liked to imagine they were scowling. They noticed TSK begin to pull the trigger, but seemed to hesitate as they looked down at her. Then she noticed them suddenly stand up and turn around, holding the sniper in their arms and walking back onto the rooftop where she couldn’t see them.

“Oh fuck no! You’re not getting away from me this time!”

Pinkamena jumped up towards the building, digging her claws into the spots between the bricks as she began to climb up. She had been getting a bit of practice with that recently, so she was getting better at it and it was getting easier.

It didn’t take her long to reach the top, the building was short compared to most. She put both her hands on the edge and used them to pull herself up, jumping onto the rooftop and her feet slamming against it as she landed, her hands clenched at her sides and shaking as adrenaline pumped through her body. She looked through the mask as she could feel her heartbeat with every pulse, itching to rip and tear into something.

She had half-expected to see TSK in the middle of escaping, or already gone with how fast they were. Instead, to her surprise, they were standing on the opposite side of her. Holding the modified sniper rifle in their hands, not aimed at her interestingly enough. They looked almost exactly the same as before, their black suit and mask seemed completely undamaged. Though if she had to guess, they were wearing bandages after the previous night. She wasn’t even sure what Juno did to them, but it likely wasn’t pleasant.

“I don’t know exactly what you are, but you aren’t human. No human I’ve ever known had claws or teeth like that, could heal from bullet wounds, or move nearly as fast as you. But, I am confident that I am capable of killing you, if last night is any indication. Instead, how about I offer you a deal. I won’t put you down like whatever kind of fucked up animal you are, and you give me the information I need,”

They put their right hand right under the barrel of the gun, and then their left hand on the stock. They twisted parts of it that shouldn’t have been able to twist like that, and the gun morphed in front of her, something that was unnatural for something that seemed so solid. The gun seemed to shrink a bit as the barrel receded and became more compressed, but it still managed to keep its relative shape and color. In moments the gun had morphed into something more akin to a shotgun, the parts of The Whispers that were made up of gun fanatics were coming short on what to say as even they were astonished. They held it in their arms with ease as they pointed it towards her, their finger on the trigger seeming ready to shoot at a moment's notice.

“Blake.”

Being called Blake sparked a feeling of such raw disgust and shame like nothing she’d been called before, which quickly turned into rage that just fueled her desire to sink her teeth into their throat. She shouldn’t have really been that surprised, she was wearing his mask, she honestly should’ve expected this to happen sooner considering that Blake was probably well known.

*OK...so they know who Blake is, which means they probably know about The Syndicate. How? And why? This is a lot more dangerous than I thought, I’ll play their game, until I can get close enough anyway.*

Pinkamena cleared her throat, glad that the mask muffled her voice enough to be indistinguishable in terms of gender, or they would quickly realize she wasn’t Blake. Even so, it was obvious they hadn’t actually spoken to Blake before, or they’d notice she didn’t have a british accent.

“Well, well, well, seems I’ve been found out. Tell me, which minuscule maggot told you who I am?”

She tried her best to speak like Blake would, which left a bad taste in her mouth that didn’t seem like it’d be going away any time soon. It was possible she wasn’t acting how he actually would at all, she was only guessing since she had almost never seen how he acted outside of torturing her. Luckily, it didn’t seem this person had ever met Blake, so they wouldn’t know how he acted either.

“Doesn’t matter, they’re very dead, a mercy considering whatever you would have done to them. The only information I have on you is that you’re The Syndicate’s poster boy for torture, and you just might be one of the most hated people in The Syndicate. But the previous leader died and you did something to really step on the toes of the new one, so you got tossed out for a bit until they decide to get that stick out of their ass over whatever you did. Which works out perfectly for me, you guys don’t exactly make it easy to get anything but surface information. So you and I are going to have a nice long talk, and I’ll let you off with what you’d consider a slap on the wrist.”

The gun stayed pointed at her the entire time, not wavering for even a moment. Pinkamena took a step forward, hoping they wouldn’t notice. It was obvious they did when they lowered the gun, pulling the trigger and shooting her directly in the shin. She felt the bullet dig into her leg and then shatter apart, digging deeper into it and only stopping when it hit bone, engraving itself a few inches in.

She grit her teeth together as she crouched down, feeling warm blood begin to drip down her leg onto the roof. She could feel wounds beginning to heal, unable to push the bullets out as they were in too deep, so they had to heal over them.

*I’m going to have to dig those out later, that’ll be fun.”

Pinkamena began to slowly stand up, her leg wobbling a bit under the weight as she tried to ignore the pain. “Do I even have a choice?”

“Of course you have a choice.” They said as they raised the gun to aim at her chest again. “You can choose to do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

It was a good thing she was wearing a mask, she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing the grimace on her face as she tried to figure out what to do. As painful as it was to get shot with hollow point bullets like that, she could deal with it, and it wouldn’t kill her. As long as it wasn’t somewhere vital like her heart or lungs, she could handle it.

Giving them whatever information they wanted wasn’t an option, if it was something only Blake knew, that would quickly escalate into a bigger problem. And if they wanted information about the current leader of The Syndicate, that might be worse.

It didn’t help that she really wasn’t in the mood to talk, getting shot only increased her desire to give them a few new orifices.

“Well, you know what they say.” Pinkamena mumbled as she brought her arms in front of her, covering as much of her chest and head as she could. “The hard way is usually more fun!”

She jumped forward on her good leg, trying to close the distance between them. They didn’t hesitate to shoot her, another silenced shotgun shot hitting her across her forearms. Luckily they were using slug rounds, if it had been something that had spread, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to deal with it. On impact with her forearm the bullet spread, digging into the bone of her arm. She ignored the pain and took a swipe at them, trying to injure one of their arms so they couldn’t properly shoot.

They reacted quickly, jumping to the right with relative ease, they seemed to be quite light on their feet. She only managed to just barely nick their arm, she wasn’t going to retract her claws this time, she wasn’t even going to give them the possibility of living through this if she could help it.

The second their feet landed on the ground they lifted their left leg and spun around on their right leg, building momentum as they slammed their left leg into the shin they shot earlier. Pinkamena grunted as she fell to her knees for a moment, TSK tried to take the moment to put their gun against her head. But as soon as Pinkamena was on her knees she slammed her hands against the roof, using her arm strength to lift her lower body off the ground. She kicked the gun out of their hands, watching it clatter to the ground as they pulled a combat knife from a hidden sleeve from under their elbow, slicing her leg as they jumped back, doing a backflip to get to the opposite side of the roof.

“You know, for someone who uses guns so often, you sure seem to lose it a lot when it comes to close combat.” Pinkamena said as she got to her feet, noticing they were already in a combat stance.

“That’s because I’m not that good at using guns in close quarters, and also I don’t really like it. I’m actually much better in hand to hand, guns are a coward's weapon, this is much more....intimate.”

Pinkamena glanced at the shoulder she tried to cut, not being surprised there was barely anything there, not even deep enough to have scratched their skin.

*First, I need to draw their blood, then I should be able to tell if it was their blood at Rainbow’s. After that, I need to inject the Imperium like I promised Michael I would, and then I can cut loose.*

Usually, The Whispers were just that: whispers. But after thinking that, they got a bit louder. It sounded more like background chattering in a lunchroom cafeteria, it was a bit hard to tell, but they sounded...perturbed. She couldn’t tell why, but luckily she had gotten pretty good at ignoring them.

Pinkamena brought her hand up to her neck and popped it, the sound of it cracking was loud enough for both of them to hear. She began to walk towards TSK, her arms at her sides as her claws got a bit longer and sharper.

“You got your ass kicked last time, do we really have to do this song and routine again?

“This isn’t last time. Besides,” They too began to walk towards her, still holding the combat knife in front of them with their left hand, reaching behind them with their right like they were grabbing something. “Even if that dude from before is around to save you again, I’ll just have to kill you before he gets the chance.”

As soon as they stopped speaking, they tossed something forward. It was small and metallic, bouncing off the ground a few times before stopping and rolling in front of her. As soon as it came to a stop she recognized what it was, but wasn’t fast enough to shield her eyes before it went off.

With a high pitched screeching sound, the flash bang exploded in front of her, only made worse by her heightened senses. Her eyes burned in deep pain, forcing her to cover her eyes unable to see anything. Along with it was a sharp, painful ringing in her ears, loud enough to where she was unable to hear anything else, she likely wouldn’t have even heard her own voice if she had tried to speak.

Before she had the chance to move or do anything, she felt a stabbing pain in her stomach as a knife dug into her. She tried to swipe in the spot in front of her where she guessed they were, keeping her eyes closed and trying her best to ignore the pain, only for her claws to hit nothing but air. She felt dazed and off balance, her senses slowly coming back, just barely able to hear anything but the piercing ringing.

She felt another knife stab her in the lower back, luckily just barely missing her spine and not piercing deep enough to reach her lungs. What bothered her was that she could still feel the knife in her stomach, which meant they had more than one knife. That was bad because if they decided to leave the knives in, it limited how much she could heal, and she was still trying to ignore the bullet fragments embedded in her shin and arm.

Considering they also brought a flashbang, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that after their last encounter they prepared specifically to fight her, it was obvious this person was very paranoid. They knew about her healing factor and that’s likely why they switched to hollow point bullets, they almost certainly have other things prepared for this.

“You’ve got a pretty significant healing factor, reminds me of Deadpool a bit. But I figure that If I prevent you from healing by keeping things in you like hollow point and knives, it’ll at least slow you down.”

Their voice sounded distant, like it was a lot farther away than it actually was. It was hard to hear over the ringing, but her senses were coming back quickly. Despite being at a disadvantage, it only made her more excited.

She turned to where she thought their voice was coming from, opening her eyes slightly and trying to ignore the searing pain. She was just barely able to make out their shape, and noticing they were standing right in front of them, holding a small object in their right hand. This time, she reacted when they stabbed the third knife in her shoulder, something they clearly weren’t expecting. She grabbed their right arm with her left, keeping a tight grip as she tried to cut them with her right hand. She was aiming for their mask, what she guessed, and hoped, was the weakest part of their suit.

Though surprised, that only stopped them from reacting by a second or so. They swiftly headbutted her, which didn’t do much with the mask, but the action of it made Pinkamena loosen her grip for just a moment. They took that moment to quickly bring up her left leg and kick her just under her chin, letting go of the knife and jumping back.

They either didn’t notice or ignored the small cut across their neck, just barely enough to reach their skin and draw blood.

*Barely is all I need.*

She was a bit more dazed after getting headbutted and kicked, but the ringing had become negligible and she could open her eyes up halfway without it being unbearable. She brought the claw that she swiped them with up to her nose, sniffing the few drops of blood on them, her eyes widening a bit as she recognized the smell.

TSK was pulling out another knife from their suit, reaching behind them, likely to get another flash grenade or something.

“Why were you in Rainbow Dash’s apartment?”

They noticeably flinched when she asked that, surprised both by the question and the fact they were being asked it in the midst of combat. “Thought we were doing this the fun way? It’s a bit too late for either of us to be asking questions.”

“Yeah, kind of figured. Guess I gotta beat it out of you.” Pinkamena said with a sigh, reaching into her hoodie pocket with her right hand.

*If I remember what Discord told me, this is supposed to make me stronger, bulkier, and heal even faster than I usually do. Just need to regulate it, don’t want to end up breathing through a mask like Michael.*

As soon as she grabbed the syringe, she felt some kind of...pressure. The Whispers chattering became louder, turning into something like hushed screaming. It was just barely enough for her to occasionally make out some of the things they were saying, stuff like ‘stop’ or ‘you don’t need it’ were some of them. She also noticed that her right arm was now harder to move, it felt a lot heavier even though it didn’t weigh anymore, and also felt weak, like it was asleep. She could barely even move her fingers, her hand shaking as she struggled to keep a steady grip on the syringe.

She strained to pull her arm out of the hoodie, The Whispers only seemed to get louder each second, the pressure on her arm getting stronger with it. She had intended to inject it directly into her neck, but it didn’t seem they would let her do that, so she had to settle on somewhere else. She slammed the syringe into her thigh, piercing through the jeans she was wearing and directly into skin.

“Oh no you don’t!” TSK said as they began running toward her.

Pinkamena struggled to bring her thumb up to the plunger, but did it fast enough to begin pushing down, feeling the thick red liquid begin to enter her system. But when about half of it was inside her, they tackled her to the ground, pinning their knees on her shoulders and holding the knife over their head, both their hands on the handle as they brought it down, aimed at her chest where her heart was.

She had to let go of the syringe, surprised she didn’t hear it shatter against the ground like Michael’s did, Discord probably made that syringe out of some kind of durable glass since it was the emergency dose. She grabbed them by the upper arms, the only place she could reach with her limited mobility, and tried to stop them. They weren’t stronger than her, but she still had three knives in her body and bullet fragments lodged into her arm and leg, and being against the ground with them on top of her didn’t make it any easier.

Her right arm was still a bit weak, she tried to resist but it was difficult, the knife inch by inch was getting closer to her chest. Right as it made contact with her hoodie, feeling the sharp edge of it digging into her chest, she felt an abundance of energy course through her. It was something much stronger than adrenaline or endorphins, it felt...it felt like raw power

She felt all her muscles get bigger as she bulked up a bit, her arms, legs, and upper torso in particular got considerably bigger. At the same time, all the chemicals and energy coursing through her body started overwhelming her sensory systems, it was like her nervous system was beginning to dull. The pain in her body was starting to fade away almost like it wasn’t even there, even the sensations in the rest of her body were lessening, she could barely even feel their arms as they held them or the rooftop she was on. While her other sense’s seemed to become amplified, specifically her sight and hearing. She could hear their heartbeat without having to focus, even the sound of their blood pumping through their veins and creaking as their bones moved. Her sight had improved so much that if she focused, she could somewhat make out some facial details, though not significant enough to tell who they were.

She couldn’t help but smile as she felt the overwhelming energy coursing through her, her entire body shaking as it begged to be used and released, and she knew just who to use it on.

With ease, she began to push their arms up, digging her claws into their arms. She could just barely see them wince at the pain, their eyes widening at her sudden strength as she was being pushed back. They decided to let go of the knife, jumping back before her grip got too strong to get out of.

There were deep cuts on their arms where she pushed her claws in, managing to get through the armoring on their arms, which was only a bit more protected than their face. They kept their eyes locked on her, trying to figure out what just happened.

“What was that? What the hell did you just inject yourself with?”

She just stayed laying down on the rooftop for a moment, like she hadn’t even heard them. Then with little more than a twitch of her hand, she stood up like a doll being pulled forward with a string. Her feet moved forward as she pulled her entire body up effortlessly, slouching forward and hunching over. Her arms dangled downward in front of her, the tips of her fingers almost touching the ground. Her head was facing the roof, only the top part of her mask was visible.

After staying hunched over like that for a few seconds, she then straightened up, leaning back a bit with her arms hanging behind her, looking up to the sky. “I’ve experimented with a lot of drugs in my life, but I’ve never felt this...spectacular!” She said in a deranged tone, lowering her head to look at them as she brought her right hand to her head, abruptly stabbing her head with one of her claws, the claw stopping about halfway.

Blood began to spurt out of the wound she made, covering her hand and staining her hoodie, She twisted it back and forth, somehow restricting herself from digging any deeper. They couldn’t see their face, but they were sure she had a demented smile on her face.

“I can barely even feel this, and it's all thanks to Discord’s combat drug! This is the greatest high!*

She suddenly stopped, her claw no longer twisting, like she’d suddenly realized something.

*It's...quiet, really, really quiet. I can’t hear The Whispers anymore, like...at all. I forgot how peaceful this was, just being the only one in my head. Did the Imperium stop them somehow? He mentioned there would be some cognitive improvements and sensory adjustments, something it did must have suppressed them. But this drug is going to wear off, and when it does, they’ll be back.*

Pinkamena brought her hands up to her face, they hovered a few inches in front of her with her fingers outward and her palms open. Her left hand was soaked in her own blood and her right had bits of blood on the tips of her claws, she had almost no feeling in them, like she was in a dream. She could feel traces of steam coming out of her head, the wound was already practically healed, another benefit of the drug she injected into herself. Yet she had only managed to inject half of it into her, she could only imagine how she’d feel if she managed to put in the full dose.

“Alright, it’s pretty clear you’ve snapped. I don’t think we can play around anymore, and I doubt you’d be willing to tell me anything useful. So, I’ll just end this right here.”

They said as they put the knife away, reaching down to their ankle and pulling out a slick, black desert eagle, the same one that shot her before. They began to aim it up at her, their finger quickly wrapping around the trigger.

She saw her body move before she actually felt it, it was like she was inside a robot watching it carry out the orders she issued.

Her body felt lighter than a feather, she felt faster than she ever had before. She put her foot forward, jumping towards them and launching herself off the ground. She felt the wind blow past her like when she’s freerunning, but much stronger since she was going faster than before. In the blink of an eye, she was in front of them, faster than they could react. She used her left hand to hit the desert eagle, knocking it out of their hands as it slid across the rooftop. She clenched her right hand into a fist, slamming it into their stomach with as much force as she could muster.

She hit them so hard that they were lifted off the ground for a moment, she didn’t need her enhanced senses to hear the sound of several of their ribs cracking, despite whatever armor and padding they had underneath. She didn’t give them even a moment of respite, stabbing all the claws of her left hand into their chest. She purposely held back, her claws digging just enough into their chest for her to keep them off the ground. She turned around and threw them over her head, retracting her claws and letting go of them as they landed on the rooftop.

The second their body hit the floor, letting out a shriek of pain, she pounced on them. She was on top of them in a second, putting her knees against their shoulders and straddling them like they did to her before. She watched them struggle to get out of that position, able to make out their wincing at the pain they must be in.

“I’m supposed to kill you, and I know the police are on their way, but we’ve had them on our payroll for a pretty long time. Plus,” She cracked her knuckles, bringing both her hands above her head. “You’ve really been pissing me off, so I’ll think I’ll take my time killing you.”

“Wait!” They suddenly shouted, giving out a sigh as they stopped their struggling. “If you’re going to kill me....can you at least answer a question? It’s the whole reason I’ve been doing this, and I just need to know.”

They sounded sincere, but that was hard to tell with their voice modifier. But they at least stopped struggling. To Pinkamena, it was obvious this was a ploy to buy time, though she didn’t know what for. She could kill them in an instant if she really wanted to, and everything in her is telling her to do just that. Both the battle drug coursing through her veins, and her instincts recognizing how much of a threat this person was.

But….she was also very curious, what would cause someone to go to such extents as to challenge the biggest crime group in the world? She was also interested in who this person was, nobody normal would have the skills they do or have access to all the things they do.

*I’m going to regret this.*

“Fine.” Pinkamena mumbled as she lowered her arms, though she didn’t move any other way. “You get one question, but if I don’t know the answer to it, then there’s nothing I can do about that, so choose wisely.”

They shifted around a bit, she pushed down a bit harder with her knees to try to limit their mobility so they wouldn’t try to attack her again.

“Is….Pinkie Pie still alive?”

Despite the voice modifier, there was evident concern in their voice. Pinkamena felt her heart stop for a moment, the blood in her veins freezing for a moment. She lowered her head to their face, her mask inches away from there’s.

“Why are you searching for them?” Pinkamena growled.

They didn’t flinch at all to her getting as close as they did, they weren’t even wincing from the pain from before. It was still hard to tell anything about their facial expressions other than slight indentations in their mask, right now, it just looked like they had a blank expression to her.

“Doesn’t matter, just answer the question. Is. She. Alive?” They said with heavy emphasis on their last three words, she could see their eyebrows furrow as they scowled at her.

She only stared back for a moment, before uttering back her response.

“Yes.”

She swore she heard them give out a relieved sigh, she could feel their body relax a bit, like they had been told good news they’d been waiting on for a long time.

“Good, then I’ve gotten what I’ve wanted.”

Before she could respond to what they said, she heard a clicking noise and then the sound of blades piercing flesh. She looked down, noticing that two small, finger sized blades were sticking out of their sides, stabbing her in her stomach. It seemed they had some kind of built in blades in their suit, activating it somehow and causing them to extend. If she had to guess, this was something they built into their suit for when they get stuck in positions like this, it really wasn’t that surprising they’d have something like this.

The thing that really worried her is what was on the blades, her senses didn’t need to be enhanced for her to smell the poison.

“When I was fighting that guy last night, he cut me a couple of times. He had something on his knife that slowed me down and made me feel really sluggish, but luckily it didn’t last long. It gave me an idea, so I put some poison on just these blades. It won’t kill you, probably.”

They said as they began to move around, their body moving differently than before. Pinkamena felt something strange in her lower body, a weird tingly feeling beginning to spread through her body. She struggled to move her body, the energy that was coursing through her seemed to just begin fading away. She couldn’t stop herself from collapsing, her body laying on top of theirs as she struggled to move, gritting her teeth as she tried to force her body to do anything.

“I was going to coat it in poison to kill you, but I need time to make something potent enough to where I’m confident it will. Right now, that should have only been able to paralyze you, for a couple of minutes hopefully.”

Since Pinkamena wasn’t able to move and her body had mostly become limp, it was easy for TSK to slip out from under her. They stood up relatively slowly, their hand on their side as they walked with a limp. They walked over to their desert eagle, looking over at her for a moment, pointing the gun at her.

“If...you’re going to kill me, just do it.” Pinkamena tried to say, but her voice was muffled by being against the concrete and with the mask.

They kept the deagle aimed at her for a few moments, before shrugging their shoulders and putting the gun in whatever hidden holster they kept it in. “Nah, not like this. My pride wouldn’t allow it. I may not seem like it, but I have some morales, and I wouldn’t do something so cowardly and unhonorable as that, I have to keep some parts of myself I like after all.”

They walked over to their shotgun they got knocked away earlier, picking it up and slinging it over their shoulder. It attached itself to their back perfectly, like the suit was made specifically to work with that gun.

“Pride and honor....are just excuses for stupidity. If you don’t kill me here, you’ll regret it.” She tried to say, though her words carried no meaning with how muffled they were.

“I’ve already regretted plenty, what’s one more thing?” They said as they walked back over to her, looking at her for a moment before glancing at the spot beside her.

Their eyes locked on the syringe on the ground, still having half of the Imperium inside of it. They reached down and picked it up, putting it in a pocket on their suit. Then they pulled out another flashbang, turning to Pinkamena.

“I can promise you one thing; The next time we meet, one of us is going to die.”

They rolled the flashbang right under her face, she was unable to do anything as it went off point blank, her heightened senses only made the effects worse. The pain was immense, she couldn’t see and the ringing in her ears was deafening. She was screaming out of pain and frustration, but she couldn’t hear her voice. This flashbang lasted longer than the other one, she must have been like that for at least ten minutes before the effects finally started fading away.

The first thing she heard was the distant sound of police sirens, they sounded like they would be here any moment. She slowly began to stand up as she opened her eyes, the pain dulling to an almost non-existent burning sensation, similar to keeping her eyes open too long. She also had most of the feeling back in her body, quickly being reminded of the various knives still stuck in her body and the bullet fragments in her arm and leg. She began pulling the knives out letting the wounds quickly heal, but the fragments were going to have to be something she’d need to do later.

She wasn’t entirely sure if it was because of the poison or if it just wore off that soon on its own, but she only felt slight remnants of the Imperium. Overall she felt...weak, her entire body felt sluggish and weak. She couldn’t tell whether that was from the poison or not either. Even if it was some kind of after effect of using it, she should be fine, there were very little things that could actually risk killing her.

She looked around the rooftop, only blood in a couple of places showing there was a fight here at all. But there was nothing else, none of their guns, the Imperium, anything. Most of the blood was hers, but luckily she injured them a lot more than they injured her.

*Even so, I still…*

Pinkamena looked down at her hands for a moment, noticing her claws had retracted at some point, her hands covered in both her own blood and theirs. It was like she was completely drained, and yet she couldn’t ignore the burning anger and frustration still inside. She had them, she could have killed them and been done with it, but she didn’t. All because of her stupid curiosity! Now all she knew was that TSK had been staying in Rainbow’s apartment, which just brought up more questions. And even if she knew where they were staying, the fact that she asked just insured they wouldn’t be there again.

“I’m so stupid!” Pinkamena shouted as she clenched her hands, gritting her teeth hard enough for it to be audible.

Her throat felt raw and dry from her screaming earlier, but that didn’t stop her from letting out another shriek of frustration as she brought both her hands over her head. She brought them down as hard as she could, slamming her hands against the concrete of the rooftop. She barely had any strength left, so she did little more than cause some dust to move around. Painful vibrations reverberated throughout her body, but it was somehow relieving to be able to feel her hands again. She missed the feeling of pure energy going through her body just moments ago, but not being able to feel anything was just...hollow.

“You can be quite idiotic at times, but that is a discussion for another time. I believe we have other, more dire things to talk about, yes?”

Pinkamena felt a shiver down her spine as she heard those icy words, glancing up slowly to look at the source of the voice, though she already knew who it was. As soon as she turned her head upwards, she came face to face with Alice. Her green eyes seemed to pierce in her soul, completely empty with no soul behind it. She was leaning over with her hands behind her back, a wide, evidently fake smile on her face. She could tell that she was furious, and was already missing her brief time without them.

“However, dealing with the police right now would be...a hindrance. Get out of here and head home, and then we can talk.”