"Megan" seemed to be the one in charge, and wao feed an ination to yap about hurtful things. I took a sed to notice all of the differences in both of their features. Her face was much thinner now, elegant but more severe. The eyes were the biggest ge as now they were just a field of blue. "Sally's" face was now equally severe but her boructure was more bold, maybe even slightly mase. Her eyes were now just reticules. Fitting somehow.

  I refocused on what was being said.

  "It doesn't have to be this way..." Megan started. Still gloating so I tu out, I figured I had a moment to initiate a few pns. I cast a Regrowth on myself. While the fre of mana gave the a away, her womaed to it. " ...Despite the words of my colleague, we are not here to kill you. Just agree to e with us, and all this doesn't have to get any worse." Not Megan spoke in a soothing tone, almost hypnotic. She wanted me to drop my guard. Whether to actually capture me, as she stated, or to just end me in a more ve location, I couldn't say.

  My step was clear. I tacted Alina, 'Remove all non summon exceptions on the lists and activate the sedary Pylowork. Leave me, Jaina and the tower visible to everyone.' Won't this be quite the surprise to any allies of theirs.

  'By your and, Executor.' I could swear I detected a hint of hostility in her response.

  "If you wao e along, peacefully, I think a few answers are in order." I kept my voice as ral as possible. I should probably be ag more worried, but I was mostly feeling rage right then. Hard to hide all that anger.

  "My bio monitor says he's up to something." Not Sally barked. Drawing not Megan's attention. Speaking of ahat was all this person who ever she really was feeling. At least we had that in on, but I was going to deluded myself that I could fix her.

  "Of course he is. That's the way the game is pyed, Ingrid. I've told you before, they always have pns, we always have pns. The fun is in seeing whose pns work better." "Megan" turned bae, "That's her name by the way, Ingrid. Mine's Velma, for the record. I figured that'd be one of your questions. Ask your one."

  At that moment, Jaina's spell finished and a Water elemental coiled around her with its liquid grace. She looked terribly distressed. She definitely felt vioted. I know I did. Finding out that people you have trusted were against you hurt in ways I hadn't know before. Knowing that you'd sexual activity with an enemy is a horrible feeling. Guess I should be gd I hadn't gone all the way with them. Jaina's emotions roiled like the water of her elemental. Hmm. No way I was going to get a good read on her feelings. Only thing I was sure of there was that she hadn't been part of this little kerfuffle. Well, not in the pnning at least, she was in it now. I hoped she was still on my side.

  Ingrid grunted, "Didn't know she could do that." She backed up to her rifle. Pure aggression wafted from her in waves. She pointed her on at Jaina.

  Velma shook her head, "Doesn't matter, they 't do anything to stop our people." fidence. She sure was certain, wasn't she. Maybe she was right, I had my doubts though.

  "When?" I asked. I wasn't sure I cared anymore, but the question came out anyway. Bizarrely, I was just empty inside right then. My anger was faded, my was muted, even my pain was almost gone.

  "When, what?" Velma responded, she damn well knew what I was asking, she simply thought it would be more fun t it out.

  "When did you switch with the real Nomads?" Now that my kidney's were mostly healed, I slowly started pumping more mana into my aura letting it grow.

  She gave me a look of amused disbelief. "Oh honey." She shrugged, "About a year ago. If you are w how Miss Friendly over there was able to vingly act like Sally, it ersonality imprint chip that was copied from the real deal. Same for me. It's why she's so grumpy, it overrides your own personality. Deep Cents like us don't get to trol it." She grinned, it was much more disturbing on this new face. That revetion hurt more than I cared to admit. I had hoped, perhaps, that some of it had been real.

  "It's also why Arasaka jumped us. It wasn't about you, it was about us." She tapped her chest with the pistol. "They didn't want us to find out what they had buried there."

  I nodded, and pursed my lips. "Who do you work for and why me?" I didn't really expe ho answer, but sometimes even a lie give you worthwhile information.

  "Militech. Teically, a branch of the NUSA, but you uand how it is." That's cute. She knew I didn't have the fai clue. "As to why you, I think it's obvious. Advaerials and teology." She fashioned Air quotes for her line, "Magid more. Sadly, without you we 't trol it, or we'd have just put a bullet in your brain. Kind of like we did to your friend, who you are almost standing on." The twisted gri into a full horrible smile. I could feel her twisted joy and an anticipation for the pain she was about to cause me.

  Of course, I looked down. I wished I hadn't. I hadn't thought much of the rug when we came in. A fur rug fit right in with the opulent décor. Though I suppose the golden gleam should have given it away. There was no other identifying factor, no head for instance. As much as I wao deny it, I knew who it was. Now that I aying attention to it I could feel the divine energies trapped in the fur.

  All that remained of Lumi.

  Suddenly, I wasn't seeing Lumi's fur before me, I was seeing Ruger's. Hmm. What was that feeling inside? Oh. I was angry. Very angry. My aura erupted filling the whole room. The cast to the green light erhaps a little off from normal. Somehow this didn't bother me.

  Here's something most people don't think about. Did you know there was always some E. Coli present in your iines? What would happen if I caused it to rapidly reprodud grow? What about all the other harmful bacteria that hang out in our bodies, but don't have the o do much harm? My mind had always shied away from these darker ideas. But right now? I couldn't be bothered to care anymore about why it was wrong.

  I admit there was something enjoyable about watg that bitgrid start vomiting blood almost as soon as my mana touched her. But no, she couldn't be allowed to die yet. Even as the rapid expansion of bacterium tore her apart from the inside, I kept putting her back together. It required hardly any effort so why not. Why shouldn't I py with her as she pyed with me? I could feel her pain as if it was my own, so I made it hurt more by exg her nerves directly. After all, I deserved it for failing so spectacurly. Her screams were a bit annoying though. Easily fixed by using a bit of mana to alter her vocal cords. Regrowth really was a versatile spell once I stopped trying to trol it sciously. So many new options to enjoy.

  With Velma my senses had locked on to several groups of cerous cells. Fueling their growth inte ponderous tumors before violently exg the bulk of the masses, and colpsing them bato small clusters. Rinse a. Less overall pain than with Ingrid but a few little ges in her fluid pressures, and her life was now one of endless misery. Thankfully, she didn't scream anywhere near as much as her little friend. The look of horror on her face, though. Priceless. She was right that look was worth it.

  The really hirious part? They were climaxing the whole time. I wondered how long it would take to pletely fry their brains with the bination of pleasure and pain? Maybe we would try that experiment ter after I'd calmed down. Right now every sensation they were living through mixed together so they really couldn't prehend what they were going through, not pletely. To them it just hurt. Immensely.

  They should have passed out by now, but there was no way I was going to allow that. Oh no, I don't think I'll ever let them sleep again. After all my oys o be always ready to be pyed with. It was only fair after what they did to us.

  I turo look at the third dy present. I had actally rendered Jaina into a gibbering asmic puddle ohe floor. Her body was fine, but my aura had overwhelmed her. The Water Elemental had long since been dispersed, disrupted by my seething aura. It seemed the quantity and quality of my mana far exceeded hers at this point. I still didn't think she had done anything unfivable. So I had no desire to punish her, this was just an unfortunate side effey anger. I didn't even feel any strain as I pumped out tons of maion really was fuel.

  And I was very upset.

  tinuing to stare at Jaina lessened my rage. I had no idea how long I gazed upon her. My sense of time was shot. These moment lost while I pulled myself together could have taken seds or days. All I knew was that I didn't want to hurt her anymore than I already had. So I rendered her into a a. Healed her as much as I could, and tried mostly successfully to envelope her in a shield to protect her from my mana.

  Even without my direct attentiowo new experimental voluntolds remained locked in their new personal hells. At some point, I'd started each of them on rounds of their cells tearing themselves apart only to be pulled back together again. This would happen randomly across their entire body, to prevent them from getting to used to any one source of suffering. I made sure they stayed awake so they could watch each others' fates.

  I had long siaken away both of their abilities to scream. The sileher than the sounds of tearing or erupting flesh erhaps worse than their pitiful cries of agony. A wheezing push of air from their lung was all that they could manage in protest to their treatment. Holy, by this point I think their minds might be too broken to uand what was going on anymore. I felt very little other than intense pain from them, it might be all they were capable of feeling anymore.

  Bizarrely, their pain no longer affected me. Was I adapting to it or had I burned out my own paiors? Hmm. Yeah I wasn't really bayself yet.

  There was something both artistid revolting about how their blood and discarded flesh ttered all over the room. I felt a great sense of satisfa while also loathing myself. As my wrath had died down, I thought I might have gooo far. It wasn't that I hurt them that bothered me at this point. As much as it was that I'd let their as brio that state where I felt that this atrocity was the appropriate response.

  In that moment, I felt empty. Empty scared me. It was time to stop.

  I spent quite some time healing them to a physically perfect state. Though I'd disabled the es to their non vital cyberware. Let's see if they could recover from my "treatments". Maybe it wasn't too te to fix this. Probably not. Yeah, I retty sure I was too fucked up right now to trust my judgement.

  Breath in, Breath out. Focus on your heart beat. Keep Breathing. t something odd but iing to myself. Not really helping. Well some, but not enough to matter.

  My BTC was trying to tear my arm off and had been for a while but I was busy and mostly ig. Now I felt I could find out what it was pining about now.

  [ You have seized trol of a Mana Nexus ]

  Huh? Oh. I took Jaina's tower from her. Whoops. Didn't mean to do that. I'd have to figure out how to give it back to her ter.

  [ You have evolved Regrowth into Flesh Crafting ]

  Hey, that didn't sound anywhere near as pleasant as Regrowth. In fact, it sounded kind of creepy. Was I going to bee a vilin? Maybe I already was one?

  [ You have evolved Growth intation ]

  Okay, that didn't sound so bad.

  [ Due to extreme stress you have merged the spell patterns of Flesh Crafting and Propagation ]

  [ You have gaihe spell Life Crafting ]

  hat sounded much more friendly. Though maybe it was too te for me to try to be friendly to folks. Yup, pulling apart two dies piece by piece while f them to watch it happen probably burned all of my nice guy cred. Hey! I put them back together but I didn't know if that was a good thing or not.

  [ Due to extreme stress you have evolved and merged your Auras ]

  [ You have gained Aura of Life Crafting ]

  Ah ha, that's why everything had seemed so effortless. The Aura was more of an automatic effed as long as I had the mana to feed it, an Aura could affect everything it touched. The tower had allowed me to draw vast amounts of mana. Otherwise, even with the evolutions, I doubted I could do so much at once. I o myself, I hadn't bee some all powerful demigod. I was just a pissed off asshole with a huge mana battery.

  [ You have evolved se into Purify ]

  Could I use that to out my brain from the siing things I just done? Ah, seems my sense of morality had woken up. Yup, there's the guilt and remorse, took it long enough. Turns out, no, Purify doesn't effect ethiotional quandaries. I cast it three times just to be sure. My clothes and I were sparkling though.

  Movement caught my attention. Ingrid was somehow, despite all possible odds, struggling to move. Already? Damn she was tough. To be more accurate, she probably wasn't actually aware, this was likely a subsovement.

  Her left hand creeped into her left pants pocket. Her nomad clothes though horribly stained with gore were mostly intact. She pulled out a small box shaped object. I retty sure that was a remote detonator. Ah, that ahat question. They phe explosives, sure it would have been logical to assume so, but it was better to have the firmation.

  Suddenly, I felt a little less horrible about how I treated them. Using explosives was always a bad py in a poputioer, too indiscriminate. If you were willing to sciously risk children, you didn't deserve mu the way of mercy by my standards. Tarhough they were now.

  What kids you might ask? The Nomads' kids. Also a few of the first Lordaeron folks summoned here were expeg. Yay. I hoped they didn't mind having an asshole for a leader. Now that I thought about it, the majority of the Nomads were uo be in on this plot. Whs their kids to a cluster fuck like this. Unless... no that was the path of paranoia.

  Ingrid's finger kept pressing the button, but of course the explosives had all already bee with by the Probes. Robo buddies are awesome, I'll never let anyone say different. I was just staring at Ingrid repeating the same futile a over and ain, when I felt a hand grasp my shoulder.

  I didn't even flinch, if they were that close they were in my Aura. Which ultimately meant if I wahem dead, they were dead. Even Mr. Wick.

  "You okay?" If any of my people might uand my rea it would be Mr. Wick.

  "No, John, I'm pretty fug far from okay. But thanks for asking." I turo look at him, "How much of that did you see?" I wasn't surprised by how much I wanted him to say he hadn't seen anything.

  He grimaced, "All of it." Oh boy, even he was distrubed by what had happened. What I'd done.

  "Let me guess, this was the first moment you felt it was safe to approach." I shook my head, trying not to let my shame get the best of me.

  "Yeah." Good ol' John. He'd always give you the straight answer. He'd never sugar coat that bitter pill.

  "Really sick, huh?" I asked already knowing the answer.

  "Seen worse." John deadpanned. I gave him a ft stare.

  "Take what you did, noly it to children. Sure, not quite as inte any given moment but almost so, over months and then years. That's what they did to failures bae. They became Training Materials. Everything was an Object Lesson." I didn't dete ounce of deceit.

  I nodded, "There's always someone worse."

  He grunted, "Until there isn't."