The Killing Kind

- Winner of "Best Overall Fanfic & Most Thought-Provoking" 2005

The Killing Kind

This fic is my idea of what might have happened between X's capture by Depth Charge and his being sealed in a pod. Note: I have deliberately only hinted at Meliri's troubles in this story, because her suppressing them is what's important to the story. Beast Wars and its characters belong to Hasbro, Mainframe and Alliance Entertainment.

Prologue:

The door to the hangar opened like a great yawn, ready to swallow in all the ships heading its way. The pilot of a worn Starchaser steered his ship with nervous hands. His entire body was trembling with anxiety, with shock and with an emotion something like excitement, but deeper. He was vaguely aware of the hailing frequencies still blinking on his console. Two of the escorts came alongside him as he pulled the Starchaser into a parking bay.

"Stand down, and wait for further instruction," came orders over his communications unit. As soon as the ship touched down and before the engines had stopped whirring, the bot leapt out of his chair and rushed down the small corridor to the main exit. He did not pause for the automatic ramp to slide down and instead jumped the eight meters to the floor. The two escorts which had landed on either side of him opened up and two bots from each started coming down their landing ramps.

"Hey! You were supposed to wait in your ship," admonished one to his left. He ignored him and made his way to the rear of his ship and stood there, whipping out a scanner. He narrowed his optics and scanned for life signs from inside the holding chamber on the other side of the steel metal door of the boot. Life signs were low, as he'd expected. He slowly put the scanner away just as the four bots came up beside him.

"You can stand down now. We've got the situation under control," said a pitch femmebot to his left. In the background he could hear many heavy footsteps coming his way.

"There's no way he's getting away now."

His fists clenched and unclenched. "That's what they thought. It was a fatal mistake," he growled so lowly the bots beside him could barely hear him.

"Move aside, Depth Charge. We'll take it from here. You can supervise if you wish but then you must report to the Chief for questioning."

Depth Charge suddenly seemed to snap out of his daze and he turned on the speaking bot sharply. "You'll listen to MY instruction. I know this freak better than any of you! He'll deceive you!"

The grey and ebony bot looked slightly taken aback. He exchanged a worried glance with the femmebot who shrugged.

"Look, just don't get in the way," another of the bots spoke up, larger and sporting a captain's insignia. With that he shoved past Depth Charge and put his hand over the panel that would open the hatch at the back of the ship.

"Unlock it. The guards are standing by now. We'll move in straight away."

Depth Charge looked around him at the dozens of armoured guards all wielding tranquilliser guns and heavy artillery as if he'd only noticed them for the first time. His contemptuous gaze swept over them. Omicron had plenty like them, and they fell like dominoes to him....

"I need to punch in the code myself," Depth Charge replied gruffly, fixing a hard stare on one of the more cocky-looking guards. He snorted and shifted his gun in his hand. Depth Charge turned away from him and strode over to the keypad. He paused a moment and the bots closest to him could just hear him take a deep, shaky breath before he entered the code. Slowly he pressed the keys. The hatch embossed and hissed and gradually lowered to the ground. There was an intense, expectant silence and Depth Charge noted with irritation the wide-eyed curiosity that was on all faces but the impatient captain's. These idiots were expecting a show! If they weren't careful, they'd get one. He had to make sure they didn't botch up this operation, or else he'd be back to square one, if he even lived that long.

The hatch met the ground and all were granted a clear line of vision into the depths of the ship. There, in the gloom at the very end of the holding chamber was the infamous Protoform X that the guards had only recently been briefed about; the mass-murderer who'd levelled and entire colony, rumoured to be indestructible.... There he lay stretched out on his front, bound in electric chains and with heavy weights pushing down individual cages around each of his hands and both his feet, with blades in the center cutting into the wrists and ankles. The hands were almost severed completely. The optics on the giant Transformer were dim.

"What...have you done to him?" asked the grey and ebony bot as steadily as he could, but Depth Charge was all too aware of the edge of fear in his voice.

He turned on him sharply, "If you're going to start panicking already I want you out of here! This freak feeds on fear, do you understand? It might wake him, and we're obviously not ready for him to be online yet."

The bot blinked at him, shocked, but then he regained his composure. "I'm not afraid. I merely want to know what you have done to his hands and feet."

Depth Charge snorted. "Obvious, isn't it? I've pinned them with blades. Not completely, just enough to hold him in place. It'll be agony if he tries to move, and if he did break free his hands and feet would be severed. He'd regenerate them eventually, but it'd take time, and time's what I'd need if that happened."

"He...regenerates?"

"Do you know nothing about him?!" Depth Charge nearly yelled.

"Right, enough of this chit-chatting, let's move in and get him into a proper cell," declared the captain. He beckoned several guards over to him and they started up the ramp.

Depth Charge attempted to follow them but three of the remaining escorts gripped him on either side firmly, but not aggressively. "There's more than enough of them in there. You'll be better use to us if you supervise and make sure they do the right thing," the femmebot reasoned. Depth Charge's body tensed, but he remained stationary. He watched intently as they closed in on the bot he'd been hunting for four stellar cycles. A profound feeling of emptiness came over him. His spark fluttered in his chest as the realization dawned on him that it was over. The hunt was finally over. X had been captured and brought in, just like he'd vowed he'd be. But that sense of closure Depth Charge had been seeking for so long was not there. His hands trembled slightly as the anxiety and shock swamped him again. No, it wasn't over. There'd be no closure if X was not destroyed. He had to make sure that happened.

A soft beep from his internal computer alerted him to the fact that his scanner device was trying to communicate with him. Instantly, Depth Charge reached for his subspace pocket and drew out the device. Seven red light were glowing, but the eighth was green.

Depth Charge's head snapped up and he looked at the bots in the ship who were blocking his view of the bot on the floor. "Watch out!" he yelled. "He's waking!"

In retrospect, it probably wasn't the most tactful thing to have said, as his words immediately caused confusion and panic.

"He is?!" exclaimed the fearful grey and ebony bot restraining him.

"No...he's not moving at all," the leader of the squad around X said dismissively. "He's as still as the dead."

"Fools! That's what he wants you to thi---" Depth Charge stopped abruptly as another light changed from red to green. "Primus! He's coming to, damnit!"

He jerked his arm away from the bots loosely holding him and started forward.

"Keep back, Guardian!" the captain snapped viciously. "This is OUR prisoner now! You agreed on that the moment you pulled this Starchaser into OUR hangar. Now you will stand down and let us do our job or I swear I'll have you arrested like you deserve to be!"

"You're handling this like an idiot! He'll get away under your command!"

"Restrain him, slag it! He's distracting everyone!" the bot demanded and several rushed forward and grabbed Depth Charge, hauling him back and off the ramp he was climbing. They knocked the scanner from his hand and it fell to the floor just as another light turned green, indicating that another active life sign was present in the killer. He grunted and strained forward, but found he was overpowered. "At least tranquillise him!" he cried out desperately. "My scanner's reading that he's coming back online. If you let him progress any further he'll---"

But the leader was not listening. Instead he made a hand signal to two bots on his right and they bent to lift the weights off the prisoner's arms.

"No, sever his hands entirely!" Depth Charge shouted. "Don't give him that advantage!"

"Will someone take him away?!" the gruff bot turned momentarily to bark the indirect order at the bots holding the Omicronian guardian back. They all nodded and started to pull Depth Charge backwards. "No, NO! Listen to me!!"

As he was hauled in reverse, Depth Charge watched the bots struggle to pull up the weights keeping X immobilised. Two others moved to do the same to the ones over his ankles. They managed to get the ones off his ankles just after the other two were removed.

Depth Charge stopped thrashing and went limp in cold horror as he saw all the remaining lights go green on his scanner, several meters away. The world seemed to go quiet in that same instant and everything happened as if in slow-motion. "Nnnnnrrrrrraaaaaaaaar!" he roared and writhed and bucked in a desperate attempt to get free.

"Whoa!!"

Depth Charge paused to look across the room (he was nearly at the exit) and saw four of the guards back away as X's body jerked violently.

"H-hey....is this guy spazzing or is he...?" one asked, surprised and uncertain.

Then, all hell broke lose. X broke his chains and in one swift motion he tore upwards and upright. Immediately he cried out in pain as his injured ankles gave way. He fell to his knees, but not before swiping out widely and knocking over three of the guards. Depth Charge began to struggle again.

"Let me go! I can stop him!"

The standing guards opened fire and X let loose a terrifying wail. Depth Charge felt one of the guards holding him loosen her grip as she staggered backwards a little at the noise.

For a moment it looked like the barrage of laser fire was subduing the robot kneeling on the floor but then he found a spurt of strength and lunged forward, grabbing at the legs of three more. He yanked them towards himself and they toppled over him, arms and legs flailing. With amazing speed, X snatched and grabbed at the limbs and tore them from their bodies. Depth Charge watched the same carnage he'd seen too many times before take place, and screamed.

"LET ME GO!!!"

When the captain turned to flee and was tripped up and pulled back, clawing at the ground and screaming, the guards restraining Depth Charge were finally convinced. They let him loose. Depth Charge started running forward just as X raised his fist over the head of the wailing captain of the guard.

Before he could bring it down, and before Depth Charge could reach him, several dozen stun pulses impacted on the killer's body, shocking him off the captain. He fell back into the corner, dazed but not completely motionless. For a moment that seemed to last an eternity, X and Depth Charge's eyes met. For the very first time in their four stellar cycles of cat and mouse, Depth Charge saw pure hatred in X's eyes. Before, there had only been infuriating amusement, disdain and sometimes curiosity, but never total hatred directed at him. The moment ended when several more stun pulses were fired into him, followed by a dose of tranquilliser. X's form fell limply to the ground. Depth Charge stopped in his tracks, a mere three meters away from him and stared, wide-eyed. Slowly, he turned his head and looked across the silent hall behind him to see the grey and ebony bot standing out from the others, looking terrified and holding two guns, one a stun-gun, the other a heavy-doze tranquilliser. The hunter noticed how the bot was trembling.

But then, so was he.

Chapter One: Session

Three week's later: Caltron Containment Facility

His head was bowed and his optics were shut off. He sat hunched on a bench glued solidly to the ground and rested his arms over his knees. It was darker back here and he preferred the darkness.

He felt her before he heard her light footsteps coming down the hall. Of course, at the time, he wasn't aware she was a she. He did not consider gender terribly important. What was mildly important to him was how much he could glean from the bots he encountered on the other side of the bars. Their emotions were the only things he could toy with now that he was kept from doing physical harm to anyone. Not that he had had much chance to try, or much want to. He was captured fair and square. Depth Charge had outsmarted him, and he had resigned himself to that fact. That didn't mean he wasn't keeping an eye open for a way out. The desire to escape was always there, but the energy wasn't. It was partly because he knew a second attempt at fleeing a high-security prison had extremely poor chances of success, and partly because they had been draining him in regular sessions, to keep his power cells down. They weren't risking having him at full strength, even if he was in a cell.

He heard her coming closer until she was right before his cell and then she stopped. He did not raise his head to look at her.

"It says on my datapad that your title is Protoform X. It doesn't seem like a dignified name to address you by. Is there perhaps something else you'd prefer me to call you?"

Her voice did not betray her emotions. X could sense the suppressed fear in her but then it was just that - suppressed. She was wary of him, but not terrified. She had a wise amount of fear for him that she tuned to caution. She was nervous, but more so she was curious. There was something else in her that he couldn't quite pin, but the emotion was vague, buried.

"Since when did anyone care for my dignity?" he asked lowly. X was dimly aware that his voice was chilling. He knew this by watching the way others reacted to it when they couldn't see him. So he was not surprised to feel to a slight rise in that carefully contained fear.

"So you don't care if I call you by the same name as you were dubbed originally, when you were in the labs on Omicron?"

She was blunt and straightforward, this one. Daring, despite her fear. X raised his head slowly and stared at her, keeping silent.

The femmebot was of medium height, blue and cream in colour and slight in figure, with the alt mode of a small vehicle. Her lime optics gazed into his emerald ones for a moment and then she busied herself unfolding the chair she had brought with her. X watched as she settled it down and seated herself, a bold two meters away from him, though there were power bars between them.

"I was rude. Let me introduce myself," she started, apparently unfazed by the steely glare X was giving her. "My name is Meliri. I am a psychoanalyst. I've been assigned to you by the High Council."

X continued to stare at her, showing no sign of interest in her words. She continued.

"I've been given the task of talking, but mostly listening to you and trying to understand why you did what you did on Omicron, and after."

Why should it matter now? he thought. They were going to destroy him, or at least get rid of him in some way. Wasn't that enough? Did they really need to know his reasons? Was it really important this late in the game?

"I don't want to lecture you on things you already know. I'd rather you do that. So I'll ask the questions, and you answer."

His hard stare did not waver, but neither did her poker face. X did not sense much rise in discomfort in her. She reminded him of the Guardian. It did not matter how he looked at Depth Charge, what he threatened, what he did to him - there was no fear in him. Depth Charge had long denounced fear in favour of hatred and determination. So driven was he to achieve his murder, the possibility of losing his life in the process failed to scare him. It was partly why X had kept him alive. Depth Charge was different because of that, and it intrigued and amused him. This femmebot before him was not free of fear, she just had more control of it than others. For that she had earned a tiny amount of respect from him, but just a tiny amount.

She shifted in her chair and idly tapped a button on her wrist, which must have been some kind of inbuilt recorder or comm. unit. She had the air of a veteran in her field and treated X as yet another one of her many subjects, another job for her to get through and be paid for. But X knew better than to accept that easy-going self-confidence at face value. When she had been approaching him, the first emotion he had sensed from her was nervousness. It was still present, though not as clearly as earlier.

"Tell me what the first thing you remember after coming online is."

X blinked slowly and only half-opened his eyes as he turned away from her with a disinterested snort. There was nowhere he could retreat to as the cell was bare, save for the bench. Every once in a while a panel would open in the high ceiling and release a stun-pulse, which kept him immobilised long enough to allow the energy drains to come from the sides and pierce his body armour in the correct places, drawing out his energy. They were becoming less frequent now. At first his spark would gradually replenish what energy was missing from him, especially when he recharged, but now that they were rationing him such small amounts of energon, it had little to draw on and so X was kept weak. He was sure they were breaking him down for something. They were going to move him soon, that much he was certain of.

"Listen," she started, "I've met a hundred non-speakers like you who think they're too good to answer my simple questions. And you know what? We have many long, desperately boring and frustrating sessions of silences until finally they crack and just get it over with. And you know something else? Once some of them start, they actually enjoy it after a while. The process is physically painless and it means you get to talk all about yourself and nothing else, if you please. So why don't we get this ball rolling and be done with this session, so you can be left alone."

X shifted his massive body around and lay on his back and on the bench. He barely fitted on it, but it sufficed as an uncomfortable bed when he needed rest. He folded his arms across his chest and shut off his optics.

"Oh joy, the sleep-tactic," he heard her mutter.

"There's no couch. I'm just making do," he said quietly.

Meliri blinked in surprise, and then caught on. She barely stopped a small smile from crossing her face at this glimmer of humour.

"So you'll talk?"

"Ask a different question."

She paused, wondering if it was too early to allow him to make demands. She decided that any compliance on his part was worth bending her rules for. "All right," she conceded. "What makes you angry? It's a general question."

X was silent for a long time and she wasn't sure if he was ever going to reply, when he said, "Stalled engines."

She frowned slightly, caught by surprise at the unusual answer. She was aware of X's vast intelligence and so she expected deep and clever answers. She was intelligent too and so she usually was able to read the answers her patients gave her when they were trying to throw her. But she couldn't understand this reply from him.

"Stalled engines are a nuisance, they annoy me too," she said slowly. "Are stalled engines all that make you angry?"

X smirked briefly, optics still shut off. He looked amused that she hadn't pursued the meaning in his answer. It had been simple, really. Whenever he was trying to flee a place he'd visited when either Depth Charge or the authorities had come after him, he'd hijacked ships. X had little flying knowledge beyond putting in co-ordinates and setting the ship to auto-pilot. One problem he'd encountered several times during his four-stellar cycle adventures was stalled engines. They'd nearly cost him his freedom on some occasions. Eventually, he had exhausted his luck when it came to working spacecrafts....

"Protoform X?"

At the sound of his name his good-humour vanished. Meliri noticed the grave expression returning to his face.

"Ah, so calling you 'Protoform X' does make you angry, after all. We really should agree on another term to address you by, then," she said.

X rolled his head to the side, optics bright, and directed a frightening look at her. "How about I ask you a question now?" Meliri did not like the malevolent undertone to his voice. She stared at him in silence as she ruminated if she should agree to that. It was obvious he was laying some bait for her to take.

She glanced at the clock on the far left wall. She still had a minimum of ten minutes remaining. If she left now, her employers would not be impressed.

"Or do I make you too nervous?"

She turned to face him sharply. "No," she stated a little too quickly. "It's a fair trade. What do you want to know?"

X watched her closely, studying her thoroughly. Meliri felt a cold chill pass through her. The way he was looking at her was as if he were reading her, seeing into her. She'd been spooked before in her early days as an analyst when her patients pretended to be getting into her head. But there was a look in his eyes that told her he wasn't pretending. There was something wrong, something amiss....

X tilted his head up slightly and a fleeting look of understanding passed across his face, as if he'd just figured something out. Then, "Who made you sad this morning, Meliri? Assuming it's noon, now. You lose track of time in prison."

It was noon, she noted dully, but his knowing the time wasn't what unnerved her. Someone had made her sad this morning. But how could he know that? 'Don't read too much into it. It was a lucky guess. Just because you don't think you've displayed any hints as to what you're really feeling doesn't mean you actually haven't. He's sharp, that's all.'

She cleared her throat. "Have I said anything about feeling sad, or shown any signs? What makes you think that?"

"No, no," he admonished gently, condescendingly, "you're asking questions again. We agreed you'd answer one of mine, first."

Meliri inhaled deeply and quickly a couple of times as she tried to compose herself. She was losing control of this one, if she'd even ever had it. This wouldn't be the first time she'd been misled. Still, it was very unwise to give any details of her personal life to her patients. They would use it against her. Then again, it was detrimental to her relationship with them if she lied. If X was as sharp as he appeared, he'd pick up on her lie immediately and then he'd have no respect for her at all.

He was watching her intently, patiently. Meliri felt a surge of anger go through her at his calm demeanour, but she quickly quelled it. X's optics lit up in a smile as if he'd actually seen the flare of emotion inside her.

"Someone I care about was tactless," she said eventually. She longed to get up and leave but it would be handing him a win if she retreated now.

X nodded slightly and continued to stare at her. She quickly tried to think of another question to fill the silence.

'What's wrong with me? I've done this a thousand times. What's so special about him that he unnerves me so?' Meliri knew in part why she was more affected by him than the other psychopaths she'd interviewed. While some of her other patients had an air of arrogance about them as they regarded themselves as immortal, with X it was true. There was no threat of death for him and that itself was a stimulant to his aggressive nature and insanity. But he was intelligent, too. Most of her patients were unstable, paranoid and neurotic. Very few were as cool and collected as he was. To think that this bot had murdered as savagely as the images in his file depicted was chilling, especially now when he was silent, thoughtful and calculating. These things she could clearly see, but there was something else about him she couldn't understand. His burning emerald eyes bore into her with icy perception.

"All right. Tell me what makes you sad?" she asked, feeling her spark flutter a little at her boldness. She was being quite forthright with him quite early on, but then she was capitalizing on his compliance. Usually she had to work her patients a lot more before they opened up at all.

"Sad?" he repeated, surprised. "That would be assuming I feel."

"Yes, it would be," she replied levelly.

X shifted back into a comfortable position so that he was staring up at the ceiling. "Right now, you make me sad, I suppose."

She frowned and fought back the quiver of fear at his involving her in his answer. "I make you sad? How do I make you sad?"

"I don't want to play anymore."

She blinked at his abruptness. "We're not playing anything. I'm just asking you a question."

He remained quiet and completely still. "X?" she queried after a long silence.

He shifted slightly as if he was about to answer when suddenly his optics widened and he tensed. A split-second later a bright yellow pulse of light plunged into his body from above. Meliri shot up off her chair and took a step forward, shocked. He lay there now, arms hanging loosely off his makeshift bed, and stared at the ceiling with a dazed look. From each side of the cell a metal arm ending in a thick needle sought him out and thrust into him, one on his right side the other below his right breast plate.

"What?! Hey, hey what's going on here?" she cried out. A door opened to her left and a tall blue and yellow bot approached her. "I apologize. There was obviously a breakdown of communication when the techs were ordered to delay his energy-draining until your session with him was over."

She looked at him incredulously. "Energy-draining? What's that for? He's behind the highest-voltage energy bars I've ever seen. What can he possibly do?!"

The mech stopped beside her and shook his head. "Didn't you read his file? This guy broke out of a high-security laboratory and levelled a colony. He's incredibly strong, he---"

"I read his file! But I really think this is overdoing it. It only makes him hate us even more, and thus makes my job harder. I think he was just about to speak when you stunned him. Primus knows that's probably ruined any trust we were establishing!"

The mech glanced over his shoulder at another bot who was standing at the entrance to the hallways, looking impatient. He turned back to her and said, "Look, I'm sorry about that, it won't happen next time. I think your session's up now anyway. You can leave. He's going to be groggy for the next megacycle."

With that he turned away from her and headed back down the hallway. Meliri glared after him, then turned to fold her chair up, shaking her head. She placed it under her arm and looked at X. The metal arms had retracted but he was still lying in the same position, staring at the roof. The dazed expression had left his eyes and instead there was something else there. She narrowed her optics as she studied him, trying to pin the emotion.

"Meliri!"

She turned to the call of her name and saw the bot she'd been talking to earlier beckon her. "Come now. You've got a phone call."

She sighed softly and walked down the hallway, her thoughts changing from the limp bot she'd been interviewing to who could be calling her. Though he was motionless, X could detect the faint hope in her as she headed off.

Time passed by but he was largely unaware of it. X wasn't sure if it had been a day or a week when Meliri returned to interrogate him. The hours melted together to form one continuous event of repetitive motions and sensations. Weariness, pain and boredom were his world now, in no particular order. Meliri was at least a break in the monotonous rhythm of his current life. He felt her coming now, before she even entered his section of the building. There was raw pain in her. She was seething, aching with deep hurt and anger. Something had really upset her. She was also terribly anxious.

He waited patiently as she walked briskly down the hallway. She deliberately slowed her pace just before she came into his view. She looked calm and composed, but X knew better. Her job was to look that way, despite what she was really feeling. He did it too. He was almost always lusting to do something violent, but he didn't always display that desire; it wasn't always easy.

She unfolded the chair and seated herself quietly. She looked at him in the eyes for the first time. He was sitting now, facing her.

"Greetings," she said. "How're you feeling today?"

X almost snorted at the irony. If anyone needed to talk about how they were feeling today, it was her. He didn't grace her with an answer.

She sighed quietly. "Right. Okay, let's just get on with it, then."

That's more like it.

"First, though, let me apologize for last time. They weren't supposed to...do that to you until after we were finished. I was extremely angry with them---"

"I know. I heard you."

She stopped and felt embarrassed. Yes, of course he did. He was right there. He hadn't been comatose, just stunned.

"Yes. Let's begin. I'm going to go a little more in depth now, so I'd appreciate longer than one or two-word answers."

He just looked at her, impatience creeping into his gaze. "An easy one, first. Does violence give you pleasure?"

The question was simple, so he answered with a simple "Yes." Meliri did not look fazed, in fact she looked somewhat relieved. Perhaps it was a predictable answer, he didn't care.

"Okay. Now tell me, what was going on in your mind when you broke free?"

She certainly had stopped beating around the bush now - it was very direct. X had wanted her to stop the tentative probing long ago and just ask the big questions that he knew she really wanted the answers to. If he just gave them to her, she'd file her report and go away. But if he played a little cat and mouse, it would be more entertaining...

"I'll answer you," he said at length. "But not before I ask you a few questions first. In answering them, you'll be answering your own question."

Meliri was very still as she pondered that proposition. He was laying bait again, but somehow she couldn't refuse it. She felt that if she did she'd lose the connection she had with him. "I agree to that."

X leaned forward so that he was resting on his elbows that were at angles on his knees. "I want you to imagine something. I need you to really try. Can you do that?" he asked quietly. She nodded and he was pleased to see he had her full attention.

"Close your eyes. Pretend you are in someplace cold, hard, quiet." She shut off her optics. "You're nervous. You don't know where you are. There's something stirring in the heavy, muffled silence. You can't make out what it is, but you know it's something dangerous. Something that, when it finds you, will hurt you." Her face was calm as she was still sinking into the imagining. He continued, his voice low, almost a husky whisper. "There's a pinprick of white directly above you. You try to reach for it, but find your hands are tied. You strain forward, but something insistent is restricting your movement. It's all over you. You feel a panic rising in you as that stirring grows louder. It's close now. The pinprick above you is growing, too. Gradually it becomes a painful, burning white light that is shining right into your eyes, but you can't close them. Then you hear it: a high-pitched drilling noise that intensifies when suddenly there is a stab of pain over your spark. You feel something boring a hole into you. The pain increases at a rapid rate until it's nearly unbearable." She was frowning now. His voice took on an edge of malice and desperation at the same time. "You cry out, but no sound escapes your mouth. The hot white burning coupled with the extreme agony over your spark is making you writhe within yourself. Then it stops, briefly, before retuning again with a vengeance, this time bearing down into your centre, your core. You are naked, and they are raping you, slowly and methodically. You see their shadows and you know them now. You remember them. They control you. You've begged them to stop before, but they have no mercy. They never answer you. They are cold, ruthless." She was looking uncomfortable now, but she still had her eyes shut. He went on, "It's excruciating now, as they push an icy, sharp drill, hard into your spark. You know they will do this for an eternal moment, when time stands still to watch you squirm against the anguish like a worm under a pin. This is not the first time they have done this, and they will do it again. You hate them."

Meliri's facial expression was grim and sombre and her fingers were twitching slightly. X could sense the rise in fear and hatred in her. He was drawing on emotions he knew she already harboured, and this was getting the desired effect. He continued to massage the experience into her mind with his descriptions. "Then, something snaps. You feel the pressure on your right side loosen. They continue, unaware. This is your chance. You can break free, and you do. With the terror of a trapped animal, you burst out of your restraints. The world is a shocking white, marred only by the dark forms of your torturers. They yell at you and suddenly swarms of shadows move in. Some of them grab you and try to pull you back down onto that bed of pain, while others afflict you with burns and stings. But nothing they can do will ever match the torment you've experienced, and will continue to experience if you remain here. They are trying to stop you, but you aren't going to let them....are you, Meliri?"

She shook her head absently, a slave to his voice, waiting instruction. "No, you're not defeated so easily. You lust for life. You want your freedom. But there's only one way to achieve that. You have to stop them before they stop you."

She was breathing deeply now, almost rasping. "How do you stop the black shadows? How do you stop them from coming at you with their drills, their needles, their shockers?"

Meliri struggled to reply, looking confused for the first time. "I--I don't kn..." she stammered.

"Think Meliri. What's the solution? What do you WANT to do to them? They hurt you, oh yes, over and over, and they revel in it, too. What do you think they deserve?"

She was looking alarmed now. Perhaps the realization of what he was getting at was dawning on her.

"They make you so angry, so sad," he lilted softly. "So murderous." His voice changed to a vicious, barely-contained growl.

Meliri's eyes opened. "No! Keep them shut," he ordered, and she did so immediately, like a scorned child.

"You know what they don't deserve, don't you? They don't deserve to live after all the horror they put you through. No one in that facility does. No one knows pain like you do. But you will amend that, and they will be the first to feel your wrath. With the power they gave you and kept from you for so long, you strike out and kill them," he snarled.

Meliri's optics lit suddenly and she drew back, looking aghast. "No," she stammered, but it came out weak and unconvincing. "No I..." she stopped, battling to confidently deny it. She wanted to tell him she was not like him, that she was above effecting such a primitive form of revenge. She wanted to say she wasn't the killing kind. But she couldn't, because she didn't know how she'd react in a situation like that.

"That's about as close as I can come to answering your question," X said, almost matter-of-factly. He settled back against the wall, folding his arms loosely. "But really, Meliri, you don't want to know what was going through my mind when I broke free. Nobody wants to."

Meliri stared at him in silence. He expressed no discomfort at being under her intense gaze. In fact, he looked bored, as if getting so inside her head and being so captivating had been nearly effortless for him.

"There was no mention of torture in the file on you, X," she said quietly, eyes still wide and alarmed.

"Of course there wasn't!" he snarled viciously. It was the first time he had verbally lashed out, and Meliri was caught off-guard. He had more than frightened her with that sudden outburst. She jerked and gripped the sides of her chair.

"Do you think Maximals would admit to that?" he sneered. He glared at her venomously for a moment longer, then the look subsided into irritation. He settled back down again and his posture relaxed. "Have you any more questions to ask of me?" he asked curtly.

Meliri was still trying to get over her scare. The stricken expression on her face faded only a little as she shook her head. "Not today. I think we're done."

X snorted once and promptly rearranged himself into a sleeping position. He folded his arms across his chest and shut off his optics.

Quietly she picked up her chair and folded it. She left without a word. X, strangely, felt discontent that she left with such a vague idea of what he'd gone through. He found he wanted to explain more - more fully and more physically....

Chapter Two: Revelations

Two days later:

She entered the the Caltron Containment Facility to a commotion, something she did not need first thing in the morning. She'd had a terrible week and last night had been no exception. She had missed her session with X because of 'personal difficulties', which she was sure had not gone down well with her employers. Psychoanalysts weren't supposed to have their own personal difficulties. She was hardly upset for missing the session, though. X was far from a favourite patient. She'd dealt with others like him who were more confused than malicious and had even managed to bring some around. She thought fondly on a handful she had interviewed, back from the times she was allowed to try and help. Her job description had changed considerably since then.

She shoved her own thoughts and pains aside to focus on what was happening at the desk in front of her. A harassed secretary was listening in obvious dismay to the raging Transformer before him. The angry bot was positively huge. He was almost the same size as X, of turquoise and purple colours. Currently, he was roaring some complaint at the secretary.

"You're wasting time on containing him for psychoanalysis when you should be figuring out a way to destroy him! The longer you keep him here the more time you give him to plot a way out! He doesn't DESERVE to live. He doesn't deserve anything! He thinks the Universe owes HIM something and he will wreak havoc on everyone and everything he comes across until he gets it. Do you really want to risk that again?"

Meliri frowned and approached the bot cautiously. The bot under verbal assault spoke: "Listen, it's not up to me what happens to him. I might be the chief of this facility, but my orders come from above. If you've got a problem with what we're doing here, you should take your complaints to the High Council."

Ah, so not a secretary. The angry bot had demanded he speak with the guy in charge, who, as it turned out, wasn't in charge. Meliri wasn't surprised. She had not been informed who had made the initial decision to send her in. Her employers remained anonymous to her, and her only contact with them was through a bot called Vel, who was a rank below the chief currently under attack.

"You think I haven't tried? Look, at least let me examine the cell he's in. Check for any loose bolts. I KNOW this guy, I know what he can do."

The chief rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "And we've come full circle to the original question! And my answer is the same. No, you cannot enter this facility. I have strict orders to allow only appointed personnel access into this place."

The large winged Transformer looked ready to throttle the chief and so Meliri spoke up. "Are you the surviving Guardian who hunted and captured Protoform X?"

His back was to her and she could see him stiffen. He turned around and Meliri found herself facing a pair of fiery red optics on a weary and furious face. "Yeah. Who are you?" he asked grumpily.

"I'm the psychoanalyst this facility is wasting time with," she replied calmly.

"Oh really? Well have you discovered anything astounding about him yet? Or is he still just a sick freak who has absolutely no remorse for all the lives he's destroyed?"

Meliri was used to contempt in her business. Her patients often held her in it, and there were those who looked on it without belief in its practices. The Guardian obviously thought little of what she did.

"You'd be surprised how much you can glean from him once you talk to him like an equal," she responded knowing full well that it would upset him. Still, she had to try to defend herself.

"An equal?" he echoed, disgusted. "He's nothing like us," he hissed, bending over her slightly to make himself more imposing.

"Have you ever considered that it's because he's always been treated that way that he acts differently? From what information I have on him, he was created a 'freak', as you call him."

"I don't care," he replied in a low, callous tone of voice. "That still does not justify the thousands of lives he took."

Meliri cut him off before he continued. She was surprising herself by the way she came so readily to X's defence, even though a part of her abhorred him. "All right, tell me this: have you ever considered his reasons?"

"REASONS?!" he shouted at the same moment two security bots entered the room from the far left. "He doesn't NEED reasons! He enjoys it!"

The bots came up beside him and one said, "Take it easy, fella. You're causing a real fuss, d'you know that?"

He turned on them, distressed and on the verge of a breakdown, Meliri could tell by witnessing the same desperation in his eyes that she had seen in some of her patients, when she simply didn't seem to understand them. She decided to take a different stance and try to calm him down.

"Look, Guardian, I will be your eyes. Tell me what I need to look for and I will check that his cell is secure. I'm scheduled to go in there now."

He turned back to her, the wild look still present in his eyes. He regarded her for a few tense moments and then his posture relaxed a little. "Depth Charge."

"Huh?"

"My name is Depth Charge."

She nodded and smiled softly. "I'm Meliri. What is it that you're concerned about?"

Depth Charge was still angry but he forcefully swallowed the scornful words he had for her to take advantage of what she was offering.

"Check the voltage on the bars and find out where their power cells are. They shouldn't be anywhere near him. Also find out how much power the back-up generators have. If there are hatches in the cell, see how well they are sealed. What's on the other side of them? Are they weaker areas in the cell? Is there any object inside that he can pull off or out and use as a weapon or tool? How strong is the metal in his walls?"

"I'll check all that," she interrupted before he got carried away. She glanced at the wall clock and turned back to him. "I have to go in now. If you'll wait for twenty cycles..."

"Yeah," he said gruffly and made his way to a bench on the right wall. The security guards turned to their chief who nodded that it was okay now, and they left. Meliri headed for the door.

"Meliri?"

She stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Depth Charge. "Yes?"

"Does he know where he's going, after all this?" Depth Charge asked with an unreadable look in his eyes.

She shook her head. "No." She turned away from him and disappeared down the passageway.

X was woken by a strong presence of anger that he instantly recognized. He sat straight up and listened, trying his best to hear the owner's voice. The walls were either very thick or soundproof and so he had to content himself with just feeling it. He was quite certain it was Depth Charge. The Guardian was here, most likely to see him. Someone was obviously denying him that privilege, as his fury only seemed to escalate. He fancied the jet-bot was about to kill someone when his anger lessened suddenly. It didn't decrease much, but someone must've said something to calm him down. X was very curious to know what. Just then, he sensed another. He'd been concentrating so hard on his old friend, he'd missed the presence of his only regular visitor. She was coming towards him now. He heard the door clicking open.

A few moments later she was seated before him. She did not look at him. Instead she studied his surroundings, scanning the walls. She tilted her head to the side and tried to look up to his ceiling. She strained but couldn't get it in view.

"It's not a terribly interesting ceiling," he said. She sat upright and faced him. "No, I don't suppose it is. But I must look at it nonetheless."

"You'll have to come closer to see it then. Or I could describe it to you."

Meliri was unable to suppress an exasperated, short laugh at the absurdity of the situation. She had been so preoccupied with getting her favour for Depth Charge done that she had temporarily forgotten her nervousness in seeing X again. This was a coping mechanism she'd utilised throughout her life; she concentrated on trivial things to avoid thinking about her worries and fears. How absurd it must seem to him that she should suddenly be concerned about the ceiling of his cell. X did not seem to have any comment on it, though.

"It would defeat the purpose if you described it, I'm afraid," she said. She inched her chair closer and tried again to see. She still wasn't close enough, and she didn't care to get any nearer to him than she currently was.

"Ah," X said and looked up. She sighed and stopped trying to see it. Instead she looked for any indication of the power cells to his bars. She had poor knowledge on the mechanics of such things, so when she didn't spot any sign of them, she dismissed it.

"It's not actually that important," she heard herself say and was immediately a little ashamed. Of course it was important. Had she become too detached from what this bot was capable of to ignore Depth Charge's fears so quickly? But...no; she couldn't dwell on it. She was meant to be detached, just not to the point where she let her guard down.

"Was Depth Charge throwing a tantrum?"

Meliri's head snapped up at the question. She stared at X. "How did you know he was here?"

"How do you think I avoided him for four stellar cycles?" he retorted, evidently expecting her to figure this one out for herself.

She frowned. "I don't know. Why don't I make that the first question of our session?"

X chuckled. The noise was haunting and unnerving. Meliri didn't like the sound of it at all. It was the laugh of someone who knew something that she didn't, and that something was important.

"How did I avoid Depth Charge for four long stellar-cycles," he repeated with mirth in his voice as he nestled himself into the corner, looking away. His gaze became distant, like of one reminiscing. He snickered once, as if enjoying an inside joke with himself. Finally, his head rolled to the right and he was looking at her again. "How did I know you were sad? How do I know that right now, you're distraught, broken inside, quashing that biting sense of loss?"

Meliri felt a spike of the misery she'd been holding down for so long. The feeling was amplified by shock. How DID he know that?

"You're also scared of me. Not terrified, but unsettled at the thought of what I can do that you know, and what I can do that you don't know," he leered.

At his last statement, her shock quickly turned to anger. "I asked the first question," she said through gritted teeth.

"Actually, I believe I did," X reminded her. She glowered at him. "That was rhetorical. You knew Depth Charge was upset. You knew he was there. I want to know HOW."

"I think it's obvious," X replied dryly. "If you can force yourself to stop looking for scientific explanations long enough."

Meliri's frown deepened as she tried to grapple with what he was getting at. X watched the confusion on her face slowly change to understanding, then shock.

"You can feel others' emotions," she stated softly.

X merely looked at her. There was a mocking 'so-she-finally-catches-on' look in his eyes.

"That's how I made you sad," she whispered, shifting her gaze to the floor. After absorbing this realization for a few moments, she looked at him once more. "But did I? Did I actually make you feel sad, or did you just sense the emotion?"

"Do I look angry?"

Meliri's slowly caught onto his reference to Depth Charge. "You mask everything so well," she uttered, trying and failing not to sound so in awe.

"You don't do a bad job yourself," he observed.

Meliri realized at that point that it would be futile to continue with him. How could she analyse a bot who could read her far better than she could him? He might not have the care or understanding of a trained psychiatrist, but he had a unique gift to see into the souls of those he encountered and absorb what was there. She remembered, once again suddenly, what this bot had done. He had killed several thousand Transformers, but not before he tortured them. She could not stop the visible shiver that rushed through her at the thought of how unpleasant he could have made that for them. Torture of the physical kind was one thing, but to feel it as you were performing it and still enjoy it was on another level. Meliri was forced to admit that she had met her match and been defeated. She could not interview this one. She was out of her depth with him.

"I can't hurt you," he spoke up. She watched him with a new light in her eyes. Her caution had increased tenfold and there was strong distrust, now.

"Not from in here," he went on. "You needn't be so alarmed. I haven't used my ability against you, have I?"

"Not openly," she said contentiously.

"What? So now it becomes unfair for me to do some probing of you after all that you've done to me?" he gestured his hands upwards with a sustained shrug. He shook his head and folded his arms.

"Let's get this straight, X," she said warningly, "I am the interviewer and you are the interviewee. You knew this from the beginning. That's the way it's meant to be."

"I've never much liked the way things are 'meant to be', but if you insist," he sneered derisively. "Go on then. Interview me."

His condescension had just made this personal. Meliri's sensible side was telling her to back down now and get out, before it grew into something ugly, but he'd touched a soft spot in her pride and ignited her determination. He was demanding to see her perform in her profession and prove that she could do what she said she could. If she retreated now, she'd be sending the message that she wasn't good enough for him. Although it was true, she was too angered and too insulted to admit it to him.

She decided to go for his pride in an attempt to get even. "Fine. Then tell me how you were caught? Tell me how you slipped up."

X's face darkened a little but other than that his expression remained the same. "Very well," he said after a deliberately long pause.

Chapter 3: Verdict

It had been some time since he'd tasted mech fluid. For a while he'd been landing on planets or satellites that had different species of beings. They were chartered planets and so the Maximals and Predacons knew about them and obviously did not deem them a threat. If they were any threat they would have been destroyed by now. The last planet he'd visited had a disappointingly small amount of intelligent life forms on it. Now it had none.

But this place...this place was home to a few hundred Transformers, all of them labourers. Here at the far end of the galaxy, ships were assembled by machines and private, well-paid worker bots. They were not drones, for the ships they constructed were unique and highly specialised. He had found their craft mildly interesting at first, as during his travels he'd flown a variety of ships, but later he would find those special vehicles to be the bane of his existence.

X prodded at the prone form of a femmebot. She was lying on her side but her head was still facing the sky. Her optics were dim. A moment ago they'd been bright and terrified. A moment ago she had also been very animated. And then, quite suddenly, she'd stopped. Had he killed her already? She hadn't lasted long if he had. He gripped her side and pulled her over so he could see her front-on. He narrowed his optics as he searched for the blue light that should have been coming from the hole in her chest beneath her spark. There was none. With a dissatisfied grunt, he batted her away and sent her limp body rolling a few meters. He stood up and looked around. The entire area was bereft of life. A slow sunset cast a hazy orange light through the thick, seemingly permanent mist of dust that hung above the ground up to about two meters. Lying below this layer were a few hundred still forms. X had been hunting for any survivors for the past few hours. Now he was quite sure there were none left. The femme he'd just discovered hiding beneath the corpse of one of her co-workers had died within cycles of being found. Maybe she'd passed away from shock.

He surveyed the scene for an unknown amount of time, trying to sense anymore feelings of fear or pain; there were none. All traces of emotion were gone. They must all be dead, then. X enjoyed the silence, both internal and external.

Then that same, creeping feeling of emptiness came upon him again. The temporary satisfaction he felt at his accomplishment began to fade and the unquenchable thirst returned. He soon became restless.

Picking his way through the maze of bodies, he headed over to the enormous hangar that contained the completed ships the workers had built. The door was ajar, like he had left it. He'd already been in there to finish off the ones who'd tried to hide. All these magnificent ships and no one had thought to fly any of them to get away! They deserved to die for their stupidity.

He stepped into the darkness. The lights that had illuminated the spaceships had gone out when he'd thrown two bots into the power station generating them. The action had been a spur of the moment thing, and he regretted it now. He'd never been given infra-red. X had relied on his sense of empathy to find victims in the dark, but finding much else was difficult.

He widened the staff entrance of the hangar with his fists, allowing some of the dying light to come in and give him some direction. There were no windows in the structure.

His gaze swept over the twelve beautiful fighters. Who they were meant to fight would probably be something he'd never know, but it was unimportant. He needed them simply to get off this planet before the authorities, or Depth Charge, caught up with him.

Finally he selected one. He pulled up a ramp and attached it to the side of a vicious-looking stealth fighter. He moved his way up to the door and to his delight it was open. He seated himself at the controls and hunted for a familiar set of buttons. Usually he was able to work out where the initiation panel was. After searching for a frustrating amount of time, X turned to the computer screens. He switched on the monitors. The main screen displayed a password window. X groaned. Nearly every ship he'd stolen so far he'd hijacked and so the engines were already running and there were no passwords for him to guess or hack past. Only twice had he stolen unmanned ships, but now that he looked back on those occasions, he realized how lucky he'd been that they were unlocked.

With an angry growl he clambered out of the ship and tried another one, only to get the same result. At first he was baffled as to why the ships had passwords already, when they didn't even have pilots yet. Soon it occurred to him that each ship had been designed for someone specific, and only that bot was able to start it. His suspicion was confirmed when he tried typing a password and an error message told him he was supposed to speak it aloud for voice recognition. In that moment X realized his error. He should have kept at least one of them alive, to hack past this security measure. He had no other option than to keep trying and hope he struck lucky on an unfinished ship in which the password-system had not been installed.

X was busy trying to find a manual switch in the tenth ship's engine room when he sensed a distant emotion. He froze completely and waited. It was getting closer... Finally, the bearer came close enough for him to decipher what the feeling was; it was anger, and a familiar anger at that. Depth Charge. The hunter had found the hideout of his prey once again, only this time X was not a step ahead of him like usual.

With renewed vigour, he searched the walls for any switches or buttons he might use to activate the ship, but luck was not on his side today.

He left the ship and entered total darkness. Auto lights had switched on in the ship and he'd lost track of time. It was was well into the night now and the place seemed lost in time, the silence was so total. Things would not remain this way for long, however. He moved to the back of the hangar where the last two untried ships stood waiting. The first he tried was locked at the door and there was no point in smashing his way into it. He couldn't pilot a ship with holes. By the time he was at the door of the twelfth, he could hear the faint rumblings of Depth Charge's starchaser as it came in to land, not a mile away. Time was running out.

He tried the door and found it to be locked. With a grunt of frustration, he gripped the handle and pulled with all his might. The door didn't budge. After struggling with it for a few more moments, he let himself fall from his perch on the narrow foot ledge. He landed on both feet with a painfully loud thud. Something creaked in the otherwise deathly quiet hall of ships. So this was it. He had been caught without a means of escape, or at least one he could find. There were possibly other ships located elsewhere on the planet, but X hadn't the faintest clue where to start looking. The area he'd chosen when he came into land looked to be the only populated area, and was, according to his ship's computer. He'd landed on the tiny colony out of necessity, as his latest ship had suffered some asteroid damage and was almost out of fuel. Had he more time at his disposal, he might have been able to repair and refuel it enough to get him going, but time was a luxury he was without.

He felt Depth Charge approaching. The Maximal had a keen sense for disaster. He'd probably tried contacting the communications tower to state his business when he came in to land, and when he received nothing but static, became suspicious. X thought that perhaps he should destroy communications towers first in future.

"Then again, you're always hot on my trail, aren't you, old friend?" he mused aloud, voice disturbing the silence.

He looked around and saw nothing he could use to his advantage. This would have to be a fight. This would not be the first time X fought his hunter. In the past he'd always won, because he'd always planned it so that he could get away when the situation became unfavourable and still leave Depth Charge functional enough to come after him. He wasn't sure why he kept the Guardian alive. He supposed it was because he was one of the few constants in his life he actually didn't mind so much. Depth Charge was his only form of company.

Deciding he'd preferred to fight out in the open where his movement was less restricted and he had at least the light of a moon to guide him, X left the hangar and lurked behind an overturned fuel bin. He didn't have to wait long before the hunter came in sight.

Depth Charge walked carefully, watching where he stepped, as the area was littered with bodies. He stopped a mere fifty metres from X and shook his head as he took in the devastation. There was quiet fury brewing inside his adversary, he could feel it building. Depth Charge knelt beside one of the corpses and examined the wound that had ended its life. Briefly his optics shut off, and when they reopened they were burning bright with rage.

"X!" he shouted as he stood. "I know you're still here, you coward. Show yourself!"

"Do you wish to join the one at your feet, my friend?" X hollered, not quite ready to show himself yet.

Depth Charge turned sharply in the direction the voice had come from. X could see him searching the area around him. Depth Charge started forward, towards him.

"This ends tonight, X, I swear it."

X smiled, unafraid. "Well, I'll hold you to that, guardian..." He emerged from his hiding place, drawing his weapon as he did so.

"He's a stubborn one, that Maximal, very set in his ways, but he broke his usual routine on that occasion and tried a different tactic. We fought, like we always had, and he gradually lured me over to his ship. He must have figured out I lacked transport, for I rarely lingered so long at a place I'd destroyed. We tussled close by his Starchaser and then I knocked him out, or so I thought. I was distracted by the sound of engines approaching. I decided it was time to beat a retreat and entered his ship, too much in a hurry to think further than using it to escape. It was then Depth Charge activated energy bonds which strapped me to the chair. He moved in quickly after that and put me into stasis lock with several crude tranquillisers. He told me later, when I came to and found myself chained and bound, that the sounds of engines had been staged, to spur me into action. He also informed me that it was my arrogance that had been my downfall, and not his planning ahead for once. He didn't keep me awake long enough to agree with him. And so, now I am here, reined in, as was promised."

Meliri had grown very still during his recounting of events and for once X was unable to properly interpret what she was feeling. Perhaps it was because she wasn't sure what she was feeling, either.

She shook her head, as if breaking a daze, and rolled her shoulders once, stiff from being so tense. "You made it incredibly far, all things considered," she said.

"Was that a compliment?" he asked with a gleam in his eye.

She regarded him coolly. "No, it was an observation."

"Ah. Have you finished observing me, yet?"

Meliri was quiet for a lengthy moment. "Unless you have anything more to say..." she trailed, in effect saying yes. Meliri had already stayed longer than was wise, but she'd been unable to help being captivated by this bot. He was terrifying on a whole other level than she'd experienced before, and so unique because of it, that she found him both repulsive and interesting at the same time. A part of her was itching to get away, while another was still curious of him.

X shook his head. "There's not much point in saying anything more, is there?"

She nodded softly. "There was never much point in this, I'll admit."

She slowly stood and picked up the chair and folded it quietly. She was about to turn away and leave him for one last time when he said her name. His voice was gentle and curious. She kept her eyes trained on the ground and stood still. "Yes?"

"You know what they're going to do to me, don't you?" he asked quietly.

She nodded once, feeling a peculiar rush of sadness. He deserved his fate, of course, and yet, somehow it seemed unfair....

"Tell me... Will it hurt?" he questioned.

A barely-visible frown creased her face and her optics dimmed a little while she paused, considering her answer. Finally, she said, "I don't know, X. And to be quite honest, I don't want to."

She walked away then, unable to stay in his presence any longer. She felt colder with every step she took, knowing that he was sensing the unwanted feeling of guilt inside her, the sadness and sickening fear. She left the facility and returned to her lonely world of strife and heartache. She would face the countless imbeciles and fanatics that occupied this planet, still holding the same secret contempt for them that she always had. She'd chosen her profession because it meant she got to spend more time with society's rejects, and less with society itself. She'd never admitted it to anyone, but she fancied X could see it in her; that he could read her inner feelings so easily was what had finally made her run.

She came to the front desk of the facility and used the phone there to call Vel, to tell him she had resigned from the case, due to 'personal difficulties'.

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You will release you life
Forgetting what's forsaken
The reason why
You are alone again
You will believe the lie
Judging from what you've taken
You breathe, alive
You are alone again

From the heart of darkness
You call to me
Spirit raging on
There is nothing I can do
For you are next to no one

You will release your life
Joining with the god damned world of the dead and the lonely
You'll never leave alive
Now do you think you're too damn good for the killing kind?

You will release your life
Forgetting what's forsaken
The reason why
You are alone again

You will begin to cry
Hearing the silence breaking
You breathe a lie
You are alone again

From the heart of darkness
You call to me
Spirit raging on
There is nothing I can do
For you are next to no one

You will release your life
Joining with the god damned world of the dead and the lonely
You'll never leave alive
Now do you think you're too damn good for the killing kind?

Nothing I can do
Nothing I can do

"Breathe", by Disturbed