Running around at the speed of sound (Humanity)

The villain would close the paper, not really giving him much notice beyond saying something about terrible tattoos. They had motioned for him to sit, though he was the type to take the initiative to actually sit down, though the anger was likely something that was driving him right now. Next came something about his mother being alright, something about likely already wandering back to his home. That was when he was reminded again, that his home was reduced to nothing more than a smoldering wreck. ”So you burn my home down, kidnap my mother and just...let her go?” There was a barely contained anger within his voice, seething and threatening to burst forward.

He could feel a sensation zinging through his body, threatening to burst outwards and yet he kept control of himself enough. Their eyes were an odd frosty, glassy look, though his attention only wandered over that for a few seconds before he focused back on what he was thinking. ”Was this some kind of sick joke? Do you get your kicks from burning peoples houses down and kidnapping their mothers?” The lights in the restaurant rapidly flickered, a light bulb shattering with a pop. People appeared to react rather obviously to sudden power flickering, but his power itself wasn’t exactly the type to be contained right now.

”Give me one good reason I shouldn’t take you in now.”

The lights were flickering and Humanity didn't even seem to know the difference. They simply sat at the table and watched as everyone else began to panic, looking about for whatever would have been the source of the problem. Humanity, however, didn't remove his eyes from Bolt, unmoving and as if made of stone. Alex had been angered, he was not in the most sound state of his mind. Of course it had taken Cypher some time to re-establish their view inside the restaurant, as the main routes had a more thorough firewall. Proxy was very generous in helping her find a way to maneuver around the twisted man's technical machinations. Though Cypher ended silent when they heard Alex ask the human for one reason why he shouldn't take him down.

Frozen in fear of what they might hear over the radio next. Cypher's eyes fell onto Bolt's vitals, watching them as if expecting for him to suddenly flat-line. But all she heard, after Alex's request for a single reason for him to not take down Humanity was what the man responded. His one reason was quite simply put....

"Because you can't." was all he said as he leaned back. "You know full well that if this turns into a fight, two of us aren't going to leave here alive...." His warning was there his clouded eyes leaning in as the man shifted his weight to get a little closer to Bolt.

"and I'll give you a hint... I have plans elsewhere...so I will be leaving." He seemed to insinuate quite a bit there, perhaps it was overconfidence. Though Humanity was known for beating the absolute shit out of some rather interesting metahumans. Though his reputation and his intimidation alone were not his keys to success. No, his keys to success were far more... intricate to say the least. He leaned back and sighed, his apparently unarmed self settling into what seemed to be a relaxing posture.



"...Tell me something "Bolt." What ever shall you do?" He asked, though the question was almost rhetorical. By this phase in the game Humanity already knew exactly what Alex was going to do. Now it was just time for him to be ready.

Despite how seemingly outgunned they were, Humanity id not even flinch. Bolt would have given them some credit if they weren’t so obviously goading him into a fight. His emotions were not exactly the most stable of things, and the idea of just punching this guy in the face was too tantalizing for him to pass up. He was after all just another criminal, so he wouldn’t fall into the mindgames they were weaving. All he needed to do was make one quick movement, fast enough they couldn’t follow it. Unless they were more than he thought, granted for all he knew was outmatched. ”We'll see about that” The motion was casual, a flick of the finger, releasing a small bolt of electricity aimed at their chest.

Regulating the energy to the level that hadn’t killed people before was difficult, as humans tended to react to sudden voltage differently, but then again something told him this guy could survive a little more than that. So that was why he went a little higher than normal, likely enough to knock him back should it make contact with him. It was however in that moment that he realized that the room was rapidly growing colder, though many were noticing that as well.

Their breaths were becoming visible, pale white clouds appearing and quickly fading into the air. Maybe it was that help that proxy had promised, though Bolt was confident enough within himself that he didn’t need it.

If only he knew how wrong he was.

The electricity went surging through Matthew's suit, the unfortunate part of that was the metal shocked through the metal and into the metal pole that he had planted his foot, or was repurposed. Regardless it went on trying to complete the circuit before grounding himself. The suit itself was highly durable, and he had specifically counted on things such as this to happen? If one doubted it they needed to look no further than how Matthew had to consistently interject and tell the kid to keep a level head, or to logically go about something. Now, his emotions were in a tail-spin and he had just been insulted by a man that made him homeless. Well, that wasn't entirely the case but, hey, it's not as if he knew that. Regardless he had been expecting 2 things to happen. The first one being a fist to come flying at his head, throat or chest. The solution to that was simple. There were special types of substances in the world that were akin to liquids and slimes, however when they had pressure or some type of impact upon them they had become as solids.

    The theory being that when kinetic energy hits the substance it acts as a solid and exerts the same manner of kinetic energy back out in that direction. so if a super-speed fist came to contact with his mask, throat armor or chest plate, then he'd pierce the thin exterior layer before hitting the layer that had this slime as it's contents. That would make for a super  broken fist. The second was the electrical current. There had been three ways he had thought o deal with this as well. First he created areas for the electricity to focus upon, that primarily being highly conductive metals. The metals were focused into two different areas, however. The firs area to help him deal with Ryan's inevitable interference. The second sent the shock careening along copper wires and thin iron fibers into a 4 arrows. 4 Shots for a 4 star threat named Deluge.

    His armor itself could take a good deal, and it's not as if this went without discomfort, though Humanity watched as the sparks jumped all over himself before hitting into the ground.

  "Now, now Alex. You've just used your powers, and out of character. Tsk, tsk, tsk." Humanity said as he stood up with an extension of his arm, his grappling device shot out, aimed right to the booth where the young Ryan had been sitting, or perhaps standing now. If the device would lock on it would send a jolt of electricity into him, likely putting him to the floor before he puddled himself out. "Deluge, is it? Well I'm so glad you could join us, it might make things less stressful for young Alex here..." He announced loud enough for  all the people in the restaurant to hear, none of them had evacuated yet, they were all looking to the source of the chaos now. All of them looking worried as they did.

  "Or should I call you Bolt? Does anyone know? Would you like them to? I have the security footage from this place. I'm sure the news would love to see it." Humanity countered before he let out a small and personally amused chuckle. "Well then... Come Deluge, join us. There's plenty of room." He invited the other hero to join the open, the element of surprise had obviously been lost.

 "Oh my God..."

 "Christ on a Bike!" Matthew said through his radio, the sound of something being thrown in rage on the other end, his seething tone heard as he seemed to breathe heavily, trying to think of something desperately.

The electrical shock went out and did….absolutely nothing. Alex couldn’t help gawking at how painfully ineffective the thing was against the man that just sat there as if it were all just another day. Dammit, if he knew who I was, obviously he knew about the whole powers bit. Alex thought to himself, growing even more irritated as they would continue to speak, mocking as ever. That was followed by them raising an arm and seemingly releasing what looked like some kind of….thing from their hand, quickly darting out and latching onto someone else. This was followed by his help being reduced to a convulsing mess on the floor, suggesting some kind of electricity.

The help he was sent proved to be not to helpful afterall.

Then humanity spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, making a scene of everything, just what he needed. This was perhaps one of the worst things to come out of it, people turning rather than just doing what any sane person would do and run. Why they had to be so stupidly brave he had no idea, but not as if he could undo everything now of all times. Still they continued talking, using the whole hero name low enough that they could make a point and he had an idea what that point was. It wasn’t as if he needed to be a world class intellect to figure this out. Maybe they had something against him, so they were trying to goad him into publicly ruining himself, or maybe this man was just really twisted.

It took the other person that had been tazed a few seconds to actually get up. Being zapped with enough electricity to floor someone tended to make getting back up difficult, especially when technically speaking they were...well more fluid inclined. They muttered something, rubbing their chest before looking around with a glare. ”What the hell are you people staring at? Never seen someone get tazed before?” He grumbled with a glare at the hapless restaurant goers,  visibly annoyed as he just walked towards the two with the whole surprise element ruined. Well it looked like this help was not as useful as he thought it would be. He leaned against the table, palm against the edge with fingertips pressed on the underside.

”Welp, looks like you didn’t zap him hard enough.” Alex was aware of Proxy doing his heavy breathing routine in his ear, but the awareness was a vague one at best. Despite having a little help beside him, he couldn’t help feeling that they wouldn’t be that much help. The realization was a grating one, but a greater display of power would have made things even worse. Unless he was just messing with him, then doing that would have just effectively ruined him. ”Looks like your way isn’t working so well. Something tells me he’s done a little more than electroproofed his armor. Didn’t know Humanity was a creepy stalker along with the whole villain thing.”

"Now... I'm going to twist your arm, navigate you through the kitchen and throw you out of the back door. Then you will go very quickly and come back more appropriately dressed for this situation..." Humanity explained to Alex as he then turned his head to Ryan, coughing a little, if only to conceal the fact he wanted to laugh at the creepy stalker comment. "You should feel flattered that I even researched you, even if it is only to maim you; it's more attention than you'll likely ever get." He then proceeded to step forward and grab Alex's arm, twisting it just enough to make it believable and then kicking Ryan, likely strong enough to knock him down.

 "Oh by the way, I'm kicking you." He said as he escorted the young man through the kitchen, the employees revealing to be mostly tied up and useless.  It would explain why Bolt hadn't seen anyone coming out with treys or taking orders. When he reached the back door he opened it and shoved Bolt through into the alley. "Don't think about running away. I kill a hostage for every half hour you take..." He added with a relaxed little musing in his voice, closing the door behind him and walking out back towards his table. He walked through the kitchen door and he paused for a moment, looking upon a fully geared up Bolt, standing alongside Deluge. Humanity held up one hand, a questioning finger before he partially turned his head and nodded.

 "You are fast...Excellent." Humanity said as he walked forward. Anticipating where Alex would strike was difficult. His types of attacks seemed to be aimed at getting people where they were weakest, or where they couldn't reach him overly. He wasn't an incredibly effective brawler... But he was fast. Looking to Ryan he needed to think about what he was going to do himself. After a second Humanity took what looked to be a very lax stance and flopped a hand out to the side as he asked....

  "Well...are you going to stop me, or are you going to keep undressing me with your eyes?" In the instant his bow shot down out of his sleeve and the two ends flung out as he pre-emptively set it in a position to guard his one side, anticipating Bolt would try there first. Next he was anticipating Lightning as Ryan generated some ice. Pulling out his small Greek-fire ballistic knife he would prepare to hack at some ice and try to keep Bolt away for a moment. His grappling device was ready to go once more, as he began to think the process out. He wasn't walking away untouched by a speedster, but he wasn't going to die tonight...

Alex didn’t have much of a choice in this circumstance, regardless of the whole twisting his arm thing. So he would go along with it, ignoring the rather irate expression this Deluge was wearing, though he could tell he would have a problem on his hands soon enough. His mind would rush, trying to grasp for something that he could do against someone that seemed so prepared for likely anything that he could think up. There was no running away, considering that if he did people would die and out of all things he couldn’t afford to let that happen. He was a hero afterall, despite how mediocre of a hero he was proving himself to be at the moment. Despite how strong their defenses were, no one was perfect and he needed to find the opening in their metaphorical armor.

For a moment he could see that the staff had been tied up, explaining that this was even more staged than he had initially assumed. Then he was thrown into the alleyway, landing roughly on his knees with a dull spark of pain. Letting a hiss of breath through clenched teeth, he would quickly dart to his feet and run to where he had kept his own suit. The change was quick, enough that he could return to the unfortunate restaurant within seconds.

A large gust of wind was thrown up as he appeared, sparks of electricity playing off his suit as he focused upon Humanity. Deluge would turn to him for a second before turning back to Humanity, appearing to be annoyed by something but letting that slide. There was the quip and they had to do something to take Humanity down, so that was what they were going to do. ”Thought we could do both.” Ryan said with a snort, and within that moment Alex was already in motion. Ryan was stagnant, barely moving and so was everyone else within the room as he darted for Humanity, his sheer movement releasing a massive burst of wind. Despite how he knew he would be moving too fast for Humanity to follow, well hoped he was, something told Alex this would not be so easy.

When only a few feet away from him, he pivoted, trying to run around him and aim a strike at the side of his head all within a second. It was so quick Ryan didn’t even have the time to react, or even understand what was happening. Regardless of what happened, Ryan had his own move to make which involved  two rather small constructs from the underside of the table in the form of spiders rapidly scurrying into view to jump onto Humanity's back. Should they succeed in doing that, serving as focal points where moisture would rapidly gather inwards towards them to rapidly create thick sheets of ice meant to encapsulate the vigilante. Should that fail due to something that Humanity had cooked up, well then he would need another idea.

Trying to strike at Humanity's head was a mistake that Alex would not want to make again. As stated earlier the first thin layer was penetraded, but then hit the ear-covering/jaw covering of his mask before a repulsive kinetic force was sent back through Bolt. The effect wasn't truly avoidable as the force was met with immediate resistance. Had bolt been faster, Humanity might have needed a new form of defense, but as it was now; he would be fine. the sheer force sent Humanity moving though, his head ringing as his feet lifted off the air. As his body twisted he tried to mentally guage what was happening and he stuck his one bow-end on the ground, helping himself up. The little icy chitter of constructs could faintly be heard, though the ringing in his ears sort of eliminated that sensory for the moment. As humanity started to stand he noted the spiders jumping. His response was to simply shoot the ballistic shot at it, and in one fluid motion use his own metaflex coat to cover himself from harm, gripping a single arrow as he did. The knife causing an explosion upon contact with the spider, or the building's roof would cause the spreading of greek fire, oil and other flammable substances across the area. The small explosion would be enough to likely wipe out both ice constructs, and knock Ryan down. The explosion would even likely surprise Bolt as it would seem like a regular old knife that made contact and then suddenly there was the seer, overpowering detonation velocity that erupted from it.

The average detonation velocity was close to 1800 meters per second. That pushed the barrier, if not broke the barriers of Mach 5. Granted the percussive force was nowhere near as deadly as the flames. Humanity was already on the draw, the metaflex cloak whipped around and an arrow drawn, nocked and pulled back as he let an arrow sling off at Bolt, hoping to catch him off guard in a flurry of chaos. He tried to be fair about this fight, believe it or not. He had ways to have finished this very quickly...but now he had chosen otherwise. Hopefully he'd not regret it.

Bolt had hoped things would go a little better than this, however what he got upon striking the villain was a sudden sharp pain within his hand, traveling up his arm in an instant. It was most intense in his fingers, though the jarring sensation was still present within the entire arm as he let out a pained sound, quickly trying to distance himself from Humanity. Electrical strikes were useless, and so were physical attacks, meaning that he was in quite the predicament. He had a feeling something was broken, but there was no time to cry about a few broken fingers. Before he could actually do anything, he took notice of something flying through the air, gunshots and then a deafening explosion that caught him within it.

It hit him fully, slamming into Alex as he was ripped off of his feet and thrown back without any time to really react. It was fast, even faster than he was capable of reaching, so trying to avoid anything was impossible. Within that moment, all he could hear was a faint ringing, realizing that he was flat on his back. There was little time to waste, as he clumsily tried to stand to his feet, shaking his head rapidly as if that would somehow help him not feel like any movement would make him hurl. His ally had been thrown off by that as well, though his attention couldn’t rest on Ryan too long when the vague shape of something flying through the air proved more important as it slammed into his shoulder.

The arrowed had stabbed through his costume, piercing through flesh and even likely bones as a little blood spurted from the injury. Alex let out a strangled curse as he looked to the shaft now sticking out of his shoulder,  making even moving his left arm a riot of pain. Either he removed the thing and tried to heal himself, or went with it. There were so many things to consider, but he was in too much pain to really do anything about it. There was only really one thing to do, so he went with it without even thinking about it. He thought of ripping the arrow from his shoulder, and the delay between doing the action was….odd. It still came out along with the sound as the blood spurted from the wound,Alex trying to focus on where he could find some electricity.

That was when a few shards of ice appeared to rise from around where Ryan had been, all of them firing out towards Humanity with a dangerous accuracy, aimed mostly to take out his legs. Rapid quick attacks to make him keep moving, and give Alex enough time to not be so messed up.

His attack had been successful as far as he could tell. The toxin was introduced to Bolt's system, though the delay was noticed it wasn't enough to keep Humanity safe for very long. Estimation was that a few moments would be all the hyper-speedster's system would keep it for before actually metabolizing it out and purging him of the poison. He had begun to think that Bolt might try to do something clever, but his attention was taken by Ryan. The shards were a surprise, but what was even more of a surprise was how well Ryan commanded them. They had good accuracy, but they weren't enough to catch him... Ryan was smarter than he realized though, or perhaps the cheeky bastard knew how smart he was and had did so intentionally... regardless Humanity took an ice shard through his legs armor, barely burying itself into his calf to draw blood.

Drawing out two arrows he knocked them both, one between his index and middle the other being ring and middle. With a slight shift of the ring finger he managed to off-set the second arrow, firing both of them, a wire-wrapped armor penetrating headed towards Ryan, the other headed elsewhere. Trick-shots were never a guarantee, but when the worked out for him, they worked out. An arrow careened and stuck itself in the doorway, right by the exit at about chest level. The other would try to pierce Ryan and offer an electrical surge, a little more powerful than a small taker.

The shots were fired and the flames had taken to the store, and the sprinkler system took off, water pouring down upon them. Humanity took note of this and actually realized he forgot to turn the system off. He had just given his enemy a weapon against him...

"Looks like it's finally fare..." He said as he ducked out, maneuvering himself away if possible, trying to locate Bolt as he walked close to the fires. So long as he kept to the fire, the water wouldn't be as effective. He reached on his waist to grab a small hand-held object as he continued to search for Bolt. It became difficult, however. In the chaos everyone had run screaming, and now Bolt had a good cover.

Alex pressed a hand against the wound in his shoulder, feeling the warm liquid spurting against his hand as he took in a few deep breaths. It just had to be the pain that was keeping him from reacting as quickly as he could, and considering he hadn’t lost this much blood before that made as much sense to him as possible in the moment. Flames roared around them, and within that moment the sprinklers began to fall around them, proving cold against him, Trickles of moisture fell down is forehead, a few of them trying to run down into his eyes. ”Wow, getting shot with an arrow really does suck,” He groaned to himself, looking around as he took notice of what appeared to be  Quickly his eyes darted around the room, taking notice of an outlet against the wall, keeping him curious whether any power actually ran through it.

Only one way to found out. He thought to himself, willing himself to run towards it with a second lag to said movement and then he was moving. His hand pressed to the outlet as he attempted to rip the energy from it, taking a massive jolt from it instantly, the heat flowing through him as he felt the itching of his wound rapidly healing. It had been enough to close the injury, keeping it from bleeding, but it was completely healed. He wouldn’t bleed anymore, so that meant he could save himself from all the potential painful bloodloss that could make the fight itself even more annoying. The downside was that the plastic around the  outlet had been horribly warped and melted from the sudden heat, leaving it not something he could make use of.

Ryan however had to worry about fighting Humanity, them releasing two arrows, one of them directed at him. That..probably has some electricity in it. Ryan thought to himself, remembering the taser dart thing released not so long ago. Likely the guy had something prepared for his own powers, or maybe they just were used to dealing with the hydrokinetically inclined. Rapidly he reduced himself into water, rather than keeping his form he  slunk into a puddle on the ground as the arrow flew over him. Ryan slinking forward before retaking a physical form, the water still rapidly falling as it began to form the beginnings of puddles.

”Looks like things are finally getting good.” He thought to himself with a soft smirk, letting his own constructs scout about within the flames. Keeping them around was difficult with so much heat, constantly having to concentrate on them so they didn’t melt. This meant small things that he could afford attention on without tiring himself out. One would find Bolt, sitting behind one of the tables and another Humanity slinking through the fires before quickly melting as it fell into them itself. That caused a quick feeling of burning to fill his body before dissipating, leaving him suddenly stunned. ”Forgot that was a thing that happened.” He said to himself, as a chair came sailing through the air towards Humanity rather quickly, from the direction Bolt was.

There had be a superhuman level of force behind it, but nothing that would kill if it hit. Taking advantage of that, Ryan tried to break through the sudden burning pain to gather the water in the air and create a miniature hail of water bullet in the direction of Humanity.

Humanity was having a rough day, he could feel that the water around him was pelting him, almost knocking him to the ground as he moved forward. The metaflex suit was designed to handle superhuman powers, but it was still in early phase. This wasn't good. With the cryo-sphere in hand he had to make a choice. The slightly healing Bolt, whom was getting ready to rear a chair at him, or dealing with this goddamn water. The decision was easy, as his mind quickly formulated the plan. To correct his previous mistake he waited for Bolt to reach a twist in his throw, as Humanity then tossed the sphere into the air, smashing it into a sprinkler and the gaseous nitro-frost spread across, freezing several sprinklers and their water in mid air. The chair was coming formidable fast, but Humanity ducked and twisted, trying to simply shift the momentum of the hurdled object as it crashed over by him. Though he successfully shifted the weight and used the chair as a semi-shield for the falling ice, he was smashed with formidable force, causing a sickly crack in his side.

      It hurt to breath...

  But the water was dealt with. He was still alive. He was also certain that Ryan's cryokinetic abilities didn't extend to chemically altered waters, especially not when frozen via other chemicals. His own ice couldn't be used against him, what's more is that Bolt was close enough to suffer part of the freeze. If he somehow miraculously managed to escape...well then props. If not though, it would be a cool situation. It couldn't cause him any permanent damage from how far on the edge he was...but his armor would become more rigid, less likely to survive the friction as he ran. His suit would cleave, and eventually if all went as Humanity hoped...it would create an opening. But now he had other things to worry about. As he stood up he knew Bolt would be coming in, and he'd be ready. Hopefully the armor would make work of itself with the friction...

   Humanity was anticipating another one of those damned attacks. But now with a slightly delayed set of motions, and hopefully being so cold that it hurt would cause some delay. Humanity  released on his bow a little, spinning and doing a 360 sweep of legs, hoping that regardless of where Bolt had showed up, he'd have ducked under and spun, reaching for two more arrows. At the conclusion of his spin he's seamlessly nock both of them and draw back at Ryan.

  "Let's see you try that trick again kid." He said as he let his ring finger slide, everything was almost the same as it was last shot. This time the arrows flew, both of them armor penetrating arrows, likely to shred through ice walls, both of them electrical. Despite the defenses, one arrow stopped short at Ryan's feet, not even a foot away as it shocked the wet ground that he stood upon. If Ryan had turned into a puddle he would likely be experiencing a terrible pain close to now, especially as hydrogen and oxygen split.

   "Fuck..." He muttered to himself as he reached round and grabbed his side, removing his hand to reveal where some of the water and ice had shred through his metaflex and actually stuck through him, his hand covered in dark sanguine. "Dying really takes the fight outta ya."

A gas had spread through the air, rapidly freezing all of the water that it touched and reduced the sprinklers into nothing more than something that once spewed water. Alex didn’t see the damage done to Humanity, but rather the sudden freezing that had suddenly filled the room, making any manipulation done by Ryan even more difficult as an expression of surprise twisted their features. This was followed by an arrow darting towards Ryan, though he didn’t really have the time to react to one of the arrows slamming through his abdomen with a rather viscous amount of pressure, blood rapidly spreading through his stomach as he tried to turn into a puddle, the unwanted effect being that he was leading himself to electrolysis. This being a steam rising from his body, fading into nothingness. This had left Alex rather shocked, seeing someone just die right in front of him, or rather somewhat in front of him.

His eyes darted towards Humanity, teeth grinding as he found himself even more determined to do something about the villain. Alex willed himself to stand, the pain within his shoulder flaring up, not as bad but still proving that it was there. ”Okay, gotta do something about this guy, now.” there wasn’t much he could do, the ground was beginning to ice over, making any movement on it even more difficult. There was only one thing that he could do, which was rush forward at full speed, or at the speed he could reach within this odd state of his. It would likely be difficult for him to follow unless he was focusing, though there was that lag within his speed once again. This was more of a tackle, something meant to slam into Humanity and throw him to the ground, Bolt hoping he wasn’t going to break any of his or the other persons bones in the process.

Humanity let out a sigh as he watched Ryan dissipate into mist. It was Ryan's fault for going against Humanity like that. but of all the people in the world Matthew had to kill, Ryan was amongst the top three of people he'd rather not kill. Of course he knew that Ryan was more than... well... he was no mere mortal. He looked from the puddle and looked to Bolt, Bolt came in to tackle him, forceful as he sped across the ice. Humanity actually allowed Bolt to make contact before latching onto him, a hand grappling onto one of Bolt's arms and making a fist, trying to throw it into Bolt's rib. The man made a small mistake, he allowed Humanity to take hold of him. You can't run away from something latched onto you. The bow dropped from Humanity's hand, sliding across the ice as he was taken down. A hand would try to find Bolt's neck before he utilized his needle clawed gauntlet to try and inject Bolt with the fear-toxin, the most potent version he could offer.

If that failed he might be able to try the gas as well in a short time. But for now he had to work with what he had. The pain in his side was killing him and he was so fixated on trying to be done with this. He had enjoyed himself too much...or rather he had been anxious a little too much. He wasn't as prepared as he thought he was. He was at his all-time low right now. These mistakes should never have happened. Mistakes needed corrected....before he became the problem that was corrected.

Alex had made sudden contact with Humanity, the density of their armor along with the speed jarring him for a seconds as he was aware that he had managed to get close enough. He had managed to knock the man to the ground, not quite sure if he would have even gotten this far. Still, the fist slammed into his rib, proving more of an annoyance than an actual pain. At times being a little more durable than normal was something that he appreciated, especially in this circumstance. He has moved his arm, now seeming to actually heed his thought to slam a fist into humanity’s chest, but before that could happen he felt something sharp jab into his neck.

They were some manner of claws at the end of his fingers, drawing a pained grunt from Alex, as aborted the attack and  tried to pull himself back. Distance had to be made between him, which involved jumping back and slipping along the ice as he ended up hitting it with the side of his head. With the press if a hand to the side of his neck, he felt a blood spurt against his palm, warm but bringing up a question. The damage wasn’t enough to kill him, they hadn’t ripped his jugular open like they could have, His heartbeat had begun to accelerate, a rapid thrumming in his chest as everything seemed to be so...perilous compared to what they once were.

Someone had died right before his eyes, and if he stayed around he felt like he would be the next one to go. This had manifested in him trying to scoot away from him despite the slippery floor, all thoughts of heroism slowly dying.

The injection was successful, he could feel the vile in the gauntlet behind his one finger was lighter than the rest of them. A full dose of the fear toxin would prove to be more than enough for Bolt to deal with. He simply let out a satisfied chuckle as he remained on the ground, working his way to a small crouch. His hood and his overall appeal offering nothing overly scary for the Bolt to react to. Though sometimes the fear was not generated from Humanity alone. Humanity could see how Bolt quickly worked himself up. The illusion of spurting blood flying everywhere. Many people had that perception of fear when his needles made their work into their skin. It was amusing, as the only true manifestation of blood were recurring little semi-spheres around the injection site, though a little more rapidly growing than your typical phlebotomist puncture.

so how does it feel...Alex? The voice was a whisper, difficult to make out what exactly was being said. The sheer voice of the whisper though seemed to make the doorways seem to vibrate eerily, almost as if the distinction between rooms was a bit of a blur. The feeling of claustrophobia began to take place as their own minds began formulating the truths of their inner-most anxieties.

ALEX!? Cypher yelled, though her voice was sudden she seemed to note something on the side. "Alex!? The connection's back! Bolt, Humanity interfered with our connections-Your heart rate's elevated, blood pressure's through the roof and what's with the stress level...it's not the same....Bolt. Tell me what happened." The noise only added to the chaos that much was to be sure. Of course their voice weren't terrifying, but they weren't helping much.

so how does it feel...Alex? the voice came again just a little louder as Humanity seemed to slowly stand up, his entire being whisping a bit, likely not looking like himself before. All of Bolts fears would soon very much come to fruition. The tallish shadow man lifted his head and there was the face of terror with slate white eyes and a bloody finger tip, the stains of just moments prior as it's thick nail had rended his durable flesh like it had been a sheet of tissue paper.

HOW DOES IT FEEL ALEX!? Humanity yelled it this time, the voice modulator changed only so slightly, the fear now being beyond simple door ways as all of Bolts worst fears found their way into fruition. His cloak whipped open and It would appear as though the shadow creature that was Humanity would open their gnashing jaws with a rather crooked smile upon the equally crooked man. Black water would seem to flow from him as he began to slink forward. It wasn't real, but the sensations were. The feeling of the sickly black water flowing forward and corrupting the water that the sprinkler system had laid upon the ground, just beneath where Bolt had careened off to.

The water would gravitate up him, slowly wrapping around, finding ways to go into his lungs. He could close his mouth, hold his breath or even shake as much as he wanted, but there was no respite. The water somehow found it's way into his lungs, his heart likely to accelerate. He would feel the sensation of drowning, and he felt as though he couldn't breathe. He WAS breathing however, he was perfectly fine but his mind had worked itself to such extremes. Thus was the power of fear... His lungs would go into pain as the liquid began to pulsate, reverbing as the source of Humanity's voice seemed to come from both the shadow being's unmoving mouth, and from inside his very lungs.

"How does it feel Alex? To be a hero. To run around and save the day? Does it feel satisfying? Does it feel rewarding? Let me tell you something, "Bolt". Look at the price you pay, for all of what? To save a few people from a burning building? To pull them from the fires of perdition as they stand back and watch you burn in a one story restaurant!?"

The questions became even more intense as his milky white eyes began to shift and change to a red color, blood appearing to take over the entirety of his eyes. Humanity walked up towards Bolt, knowing full well that he would try to run soon, the moment he had any form of freedom, or any respite of sound mind.

"Look how unprepared you are. Look how stupid you are...untrained. Undisciplined. Just a set of powers and you imagine the world will fall on bended knee to worship you as a hero."

In that moment Humanity reached down to pick Bolt up by his collar, and Proxy shouted through his comm, hoping to rouse Bolt from his personal hell.

"BOLT! LISTEN TO ME I NEED YOU TO FOCUS! FOCUS DAMN YOU! PAY ATTENTION! You're breathing. Okay? You're going to live but I need you to get out of there right now. RIGHT NOW! " He shouted, knowing full well that Bolt were strong enough to do that, at the very least.