sins recast

[Tally]

_initiating damage assessment of organic systems

_o/nervous system_functional_significant damage in hippocampus and cerebral cortex
_o/endocrine system_functional_no damage
_o/cardiovascular system_functional_low oxygenation rate
_o/skeletal system_functional_no damage
_o/digestive system_functional_no damage
_o/excretory system_functional_no damage
_o/psychoemotional biosocial system_no data

_activating organic systems[/size][/color]

The light is too bright. It hurts Cameron's eyes and he has to squint and blink as he opens them. He is on his back, he realizes, staring up at the painful radiance of the sun, whisps of cotton-white clouds suspended in the perfect blue of the sky. An overabundance of carbon dioxide and a dearth of oxygen in his system makes him deepen his breathing until his oxygenation rate returns to an acceptable level. Tingles of sensation travel in sensitive waves down his whole body. Now he can feel the grass itching at his bare skin.

Bare skin?

Feeling as though he has lain here for thousands of years without moving, Cameron pulls himself up into a sitting position. His hair is dark red with a lock of black above his left eye, and he is not entirely human. Parts of him have been replaced with biomechanical counterparts: his entire right leg; his left leg up to the knee; his right arm and half of his torso; the right side of his neck and a portion of his face surrounding his right eye. The biomechanical digineurogenetic parts of him remain lifeless, but those parts of him that are human—those parts he cherishes more than anything—are alive and awake, every cool breeze, every blade of grass, every cheery birdsong supplying Cameron's mind with a wealth of stimulation, bringing it fully back from its coma state. But...

Why am I naked? And where am I?

A slow swivel of his head reveals a lightly wooded area with no signs of human presence, but smoke rises above the treeline some distance away. A settlement is nearby, then, within walking distance. But why does he remember nothing beyond his name? Falling into a daze of confusion, he stares straight ahead into space, the artificial half of his brain taking momentary dominance as it continues its reactivation sequence.

[Anonymous]

The blue haired girl hadn’t bothered to keep her head up as she walked, her bangs covered her eyes and the vampire collar was pulled up to keep anyone from seeing any parts of her face.  Xala was feeling a little down at the moment and she currently wanted to take her clawed gloves and shove them through her chest, but Xana, always being the logical one between the two that shared the body, has stopped herself before she could carry out her thoughts. The green trench coat had pockets at the sides and that’s where her hands where, the claws gloves hooked onto her belt, the sharp side of the blades facing out so she didn’t cut her leg. Xala didn’t notice for a while that she had walked into the forest, nor did she notice much else before that, pulling her hands out of her pockets she lifted her head and looked around. Her eyes were very odd indeed, the left one was as orange as a sunset and the right one was as blue as deep water. Xala walked a little farther, and the just stopped all together, hardly anything made Xala shocked but this did.

Never in her life had she ever seen a naked man with machine limbs. So she just stood there for a moment and stared, she was polite enough to keep her mouth closed, but her mismatched eyes scanned over him for a moment. Nothing perverted crossed her mind other than ‘…he’s naked’ and she walked over to him and looked down, her eyes half closed as she looked down at the man.

You know. You can get arrested for public nudity.

Her hands where on her hips before she lifted them to remove her trench coat, and put it on his legs, before sitting down too. Well, she wasn’t technically sitting down; she was sitting more like a frog with her elbows on her knees and her hands together.

Why are you naked? Did you get mugged or something?

Okay, so she wasn’t the best with ‘hello’s but that would have to do. If he wanted to know her name, he would have to ask it himself.

[Tally]

Cameron's consciousness is bouncing back and forth between his organic brain and his artificial mind like a ping pong ball. The constructed, digital part of his psyche runs it's diagnostics on its own systems, checking first his artificial intelligence for damage, then moving onto his digineuro system and finally opening the conduits between his mechanical limbs and his brain. He bends his arm, shifts his leg...they move with the smooth, fake perfection of machines.

_a/o/psychoemotional connection_damaged or incomplete_seek repairs immediately
_a/o/psychoemotional connection_damaged or incomplete_seek repairs immediately
_a/o/psychoemotional connection_damaged or incomplete_seek repairs immediately
_a/o/psychoemotional connection_damaged or incomplete_seek repairs immediately

Owww. The insistent loop thrashes in his head like a taut rubber band that's been plucked and won't stop vibrating. It rattles his senses, and he shuts off the message without knowing how. Vaguely, he is aware of being unfinished, as though he were interrupted during the process of evolution and left with two different, incombatible halves that are not necessarily warring warring with each other, but not necessarily able to coexist either. The two parts of him tug endlessly at his senses, each demanding control, their constant struggle for dominance jarring his mind with a polarized insanity.

He is just kind of staring down at the grass when the girl walks up. Emotion overwhelms the artificial mind and allows his organic brain to assert full dominance. He feels his face heat up and he just knows he's turning some amazing shade of red. Eyes rather wide, he quickly covers up his naughty bits and pouts up at her sheepishly.

"Er...eh...um..." Okay, so his verbal skills are not functioning. Fortunately, she offers her trench coat, and Cam snatches it up. "Thank you!" he says, still blushing.

"No, I...I wasn't mugged. I don't think. I don't know why I'm naked. I don't...I mean, I can't remember." Some things he is aware of, such as his own state of incompletion. It willl take time and much work between the two halves of his brain to settle himself onto a stable track and puzzle out his memories. "Where am I anyway? And could you...turn around for a second please?" He wants to stand up and put the coat on, but he can't do it while she's watching him like that!

[Anonymous]

Xala listened to him and gave a nod without really knowing what he asked her to do. Her mismatched eyes were on his arm, she wasn’t about to look at his legs, which would be going a little to far down for comfort. It took a few moments before she realized he had asked her to turn around, her eyes snapped up to his and she saw the blush on his cheeks and she couldn’t help but smirk. So, Xala was nice and did what he asked but not before rolling her eyes and smiling a bit.

We apologize for staring at you like that.

Her voice was back to normal and once again the same two voiced voice. Tala’s voice was a bit more noticeable, but Xalas voice in general was still pretty damn creepy. Once again returning her hands to her pockets, forgetting about the blades and how they were turned out and nicked herself on the arm, in three places.

Ow

She said simply looking down at the razor thin wounds, spaced apart like the claws on her gloves, Xala once again rolled her eyes and glared at the glove with the claws, three silver droplets of blood hit the ground before it started to dry on her arm. Looking towards the way she came she decided to answer his question about where they were.

We are just outside of Adela Village. And what’s your name anyway? Or have you forgotten that too?

The grass beneath her boots unbent when she moved her foot to widen her stance, she wasn’t at all afraid of the half robotic man. And he didn’t seem that eager to fight her, and he was naked at this point, which made Xala smirk slightly. Her voice, when she talked to him, was rather sarcastic and she actually looked over her shoulder for a moment, surly he had to be done by now.

[Tally]

We? Is there someone else here? Cam peers around through the trees and the speckled light of the surrounding forest, but he doesn't see anyone else. It's just the two of them. But she had said "we" hadn't she?

Ohh, I hope I haven't gotten one of the crazies.

As soon as she turns around, Cam scrambles up and pulls the trenchcoat on. It'a a bit small for him, but fortunately he can still button it. As the last lingering effects of surprise fade and the adrenaline releases it's control over his system, his artificial mind is once again unleashed. Her back turned to him, she doesn't see him studying her with mismatched eyes as he buttons the coat up. His left eye is entirely organic, still as the Lord God made it, and when it looks at her it sees a woman, a person, someone who is willing to help him when he needs it.

The other eye is entirely fake, constructed by...who? Not humans. No, something else. It looks at her and shifts imperceptibly from one end of the electromagnetic spectrum to the other, studying her and filing away information before it tunes its sensitivity back to the wavelengths of visible light and color. It looks at her and it sees a specimen, a curiosity, something to be examined and catalogued.

Her presence has prompted his AI to begin diagnostics on his weapons systems and self defense procedures. The steady, passionless chant is turning around and around in the back of his head when she looks back at him.

"Ah...done!" he says, grinning despite the AI telling him all his offensive systems are online and ready. "Whew, thanks again. Um, yeah I remember my name! I'm Cameron. You can call me Cam!" He thrusts out a hand—his left, the real one; not the false atrocity. "Nice to meet you! Oh, I'm so glad you happened along. What's your name?" He laughs, light and cheerful and just a little self-conscious.

[Anonymous]

Having turned her head a tad so she could hear his movements better, she couldn’t help but smirk at the sound of fabric. Poor guy, getting dropped in a forest will nothing to cover himself but his hands. Though it was rather interesting to find the being nearly half, well, nearly three quarters robotic. Xala had turned around and then looked him over again, her own mismatched eyes looking intently at the robotic parts before looking at his outthrust hand. She took a small step back and then remember that he had no weapons before hand, and it was very unlikely he pulled them out of anywhere.  Slowly, and with much caution she put her smaller hand in his and shook it, looking from their hands to his face again. A light breeze picked up and Xala tilted her head so her spiked blue hair didn’t get into her face, then gave a quick glance towards her slightly cut arm, the one that was hanging at her side.

Cam… We’re Xala.

Her twin voices were a bit more noticeable, and you could tell there were two, it wasn’t some odd echo, and it was two distinct voices. Xala’s eyes were different two, they both had different looks to them, the blue one, the right one, had more of a mellow look to it. While the left one, the one that was the same orange as a sunset, held more cautious look to it.

We suppose it’s nice to meet you too… Though the way we met could have been… less informative.

Xala couldn’t help the smirk that played on her lips as she quickly, but pointedly, looked down towards his waist. Letting go of his hand she crouched down and wiped off most of the silver blood on the grass before standing up again and putting her hands into her pockets.

Well, We suppose you’ll have to follow Us around for while. And get you some clothes… We will want Our coat back sooner or later.

Giving him one more look then looking at the pocket. Crap, we forgot our stuff. Not really caring about the person who was inside the coat, or that fact that the pockets were around the thigh area, she walked towards him with a quick ‘Excuse us’ and pulled out a pouch which probably had money in it. Putting the pouch into her pants pockets she began to walk away, but stopped and looked back before she left the clearing.

Are you going to come or just stand there? We have to get you normal clothes…

[Tally]

Cameron shakes her hand with enthusiasm. What luck, running into someone like her out here! It could have been anyone who found him. It could have been someone mean. Oh, that would have been unfortunate. Not for himself, but for whoever found him. His weapons systems, he remembers of a sudden, take control at the perception of a threat. It is that loss of control he fears, and the possibility of hurting someone needlessly.

"Pleased to meet you...Xala..." he falters when she says "we" again in a strange, two-toned voice, and his nervous smile freezes on his face. As soon as she releases his hand, he turns slowly in a full circle. Nope, no one there, just like before.

Just how many people does she have in there with her?

Her eyes, though...her eyes capture him for a moment. They are mismatched as his are, though he suspects for a very different reason. Then she just has to go and tease him and the spell of her eyes is broken. A very noticeable blush creeps back into his cheeks and he laughs again and scratches the back of his head. "Eh heh...I wish I knew what happened to my clothes. I don't even see them around here anywhere. Gosh, I don't even remember—hey!"

He does a squirmy little dance to try and get away when she thrusts her hand in the coat pocket. "Tell me before you do something like that!" And there she goes talking like there's more than one of her and speaking in that crazy-freaky voice. And now she's walking away! He jogs up next to her. "So...uh..." How exactly do you ask someone it they're a lunatic? "Is there...anyone else here I should know about? How come you keep saying 'we'?" Maybe she's got like a pet tick or something.

[Anonymous]

The smirk that took hold of her lips was there for a moment before it became an actual smile. Shaking her head slightly after Cam had done his ‘squirmy little dance’ and rolling the bag of money from one hand to the other she looked back at him when he began to speak. Placing the bag of money in her pants pocket she placed one hand on her hip and then other hung down, playing with the fabric of her white pants. Looking away for a moment, up at the sky before blinking and looking back at Cameron, her mismatched eyes on his.

We say we because we are two different people in one body. The owner of the orange eye was once Tala, and the owner of the blue eye was once Xana. We are them and we are Xala, who is going to be someone else.

Xala gave a sigh, know that her explanation was horrible, but how do you explain to someone that you were once two people? Twins even? And that your bodies ate each other and are now one person? Xala ran a hand through her long, somewhat spiky blue hair before closing her eyes and looking at his right shoulder. She should try again.

Tala and Xana were once two people, they were twins. They were supposed to be one person, Xana got hurt, Tala tried to save her, their bodies consumed one another and We are the outcome.

Blowing a gust of air from her mouth up to make the bangs go out of her eyes before she closed them again, wonderful, now she was confusing herself! Rolling her head back and letting both her arms fall to her sides, she balled her hands into fists and looking up at Cam again, this time… This time her little explanation would make some sort of sense!

We were once two people, now we are one person with two souls, two minds and two voices, and two different coloured eyes. After a while We’re sure that we will become one person, though We don’t think much has changed about Tala or Xana… Though we suspect our breasts have gotten bigger.

To elaborate on her comment she brought her hands up, turning to the side of course and placed her hands on her chest then looked back at Cam before looking at his right cheek before placing her hand on his chin and turning his head to the left. Making a thoughtful ‘hmm’ sound she let go of his head and rose an eyebrow towards him, she wasn’t trying to make him that uncomfortable, but sometimes it was more easy to get to the point then blush and ask stupid questions.

Do you have any sort of hidden power that We should know about before We take you to a Room?

No, she didn’t mean to say that. Oh, wonderful she sounded like a rapist, though she was sure no other male would mind that little comment, her hand in ‘his’ pocket made him go redder and do that little dance. So, to show that she didn’t mean it the way it sounded she winced slightly and shook her head at her own mistake, though, she was sure this half robotic man would blush again. Well, he couldn’t possibly be that robotic if he that much blood to make his face so red.

[Anonymous]

Jeral walks out of the woods into a clearing. Grass grows, and two people standing off in the distance. Everytime I go for supplies, something crazy happens near the village. Without fail. Why does the Elder do this? he thinks, pausing to take a look at them. They both don't seem to notice him, but he takes no chances. "I'm gone. I want one supply trip to be uneventful, at least." he mumbles to himself, attempting to stalk off torwards the village.

[Tally]

Cam looks at Xala with open, attentive eyes, blinking at her as she runs through her explanations. After the first, he thinks she must surely have some kind of multiple personality disorder. The second he is quite sure is an affirmative to her lack of sanity. By the third explanation, she's got his mind thoroughly tied up into a most perplexing knot as the AI and his own imagination start arguing with each other over the validity and actual, physical possibility of her explanation being true.

His eyes climb up toward his forehead when she turns to him and grabs her own breasts. "Um...they're...nice?" he says, not realizing that he's staring. The AI takes a different approach, filing away all the information in its apathetic way, even that which it should probably just ignore.

_a/o/socioemotional profiles/Xala-Tala-Xana/bigger breasts

Her hand comes up, turns his head to expose the silver and red metal melded onto the side of his face and creeping along his jaw line. He flushes for an entirely different reason and turns his face away to his right, hiding the constructed, artificial half, his shoulders hunched slightly in embarrassment. First thing he's doing when they reach a town is getting clothes that will cover up his cybernetic parts; gloves, boots, long pants, and a long-sleeved shirt. It's just too bad he can't do anything about his face, and that pains him more than all of his artificial limbs combined.

All he can manage to her odd comment about taking him to a room is a weak laugh. And that's when his enhanced audio receptors pick up the sound of something moving through the forest close by. Empowered by the possibility of a threat, the AI whips his head around toward the sound and shifts the sensitivity of his right eye out of visible light and into infrared, centering on the heat signature immediately. The conflict in his vision between his left and right eyes and their differing vision creates a distorted picture, and the AI closes his left eye to minimize the problem. "We are not alone," he says, alerting her in case she did not detect the presence. The AI makes a quick run-through of each of his weapons and defenses again and finds them all ready and online.

[Anonymous]

Though the small grin was on her face at the look of his she couldn’t help but notice his eyes were on her chest. Okay, so he was a guy, he even said they were nice! Which proves that he was more man then even he probably thought he was, with a quick, and hopefully hidden glace, she cast her mismatched eyes to his waist again and shook her head. Letting go of her chest and letting her hands fall to her sides, Xala smiled slightly and walked towards him.

Well, you can’t be all that robotic if you still stare are our chest. You can pass off the left side of your face as being something tribal. The gods know there are enough freaks on this earth that it would probably be true somewhere too.

Xala grinned then winked then lightly grabbed his chin she turned his face, and he blushed again, and she could guess why. Feeling slightly guilty because she was in fact, the one who made him slump his shoulders, she didn’t hear the sound of someone in the distance and took a step back in surprise when Cam whipped his head around and just looked so, rigid. Xala walked up beside him, putting her gloves on, the six-inch metal claws gleaming in the sunlight that made it’s way through the leaves of the trees. Xala could tell this person â€" Cameron â€" wasn’t quite the same one she had exchanged words with a moment before, but maybe it was the Robotic stuff. For once she wasn’t worried about just herself and was a bit taken back when he said, in a rather non-sounding Cam voice, that they ‘were not alone’. Well, she would have never guessed that at his sudden whip-lash reaction to behind him.

We would have never guessed. You stay here, if We go flying anywhere, then come help. Otherwise, We got it, and We like the trench coat, if you fight without us being hurt, we’ll make you take it off..

Lightly stepping on the grass, her hands out, so she didn’t jab herself. Xala lifted her head, her spiky blue hair giving more of an intimidating look, and she looked in the general direction of footsteps. No one was to be seen, but if someone had been there a few seconds ago, they were surly there now, right?

If someone is there, we suggest you come out of the bushes. You don’t want us to hurt you, do you?

She didn’t quite know if her threat was a real one or not, Xala didn’t even know how big it was. But, having the ability to turn into a dragon, or even just grow scales and claws, usually gave one an advantage in battle. Xala would know, she was one for pulling nasty little tricks like that.

[Anonymous]

Eeep! Caught. Jeral thinks as he comes out of the bushes. Why is it I can't sneak like the rest of my clan? ... Oh well, guess I'll just face the music. Jeral walks out torwards the two strangers, hand covering his favorite rune on the staff. "I don't want any trouble. I don't know who you guys are, and I just want to get to town to get supplies from the town." he says to them.

(ooc: sorry....I'm a little rusty RPing...)

[Tally]

Cam's left eye opens again as the right reverts back to the visible sprectrum. The AI keeps his mind and body in its grip in spite of the stranger's verbal reassurance; oh, his internal computer takes the stranger's words into account as well, but his artificial eye misses nothing. It takes in every detail, every possible weapon, and most of all the staff that the stranger carries and the runes that decorate it. Runes, the AI knows, can be used as weapons, too.

It takes Xala's comment about taking the trenchcoat away to pull Cam back to his senses. He gives his head a shake. "Oh, I'll stay out of it," he says, holding both hands up, palms outward, to show he wants no part of this if it means trouble. It is a lie of course; if violence breaks out, he won't be able to stop the AI from plunging him right into the middle of it.

While Xala calls out the stranger, Cam behaves and stays in the exact spot where Xala left him. He doesn't believe for a second that she'll hesitate to take the coat away from him if he doesn't do as he's told. When it seems everything is fine, Cam takes that as the cue that he can move again.

He goes right up to the stranger and extends his left hand to shake. Oh, that damned AI has an absolute fit over that, screaming warnings at him and nagging at him to keep his distance. Stupid thing won't even let him make friends.

"Hi, I'm Cameron, but you can call me Cam! This is Xala, who is actually Tala and Xana...or something; I'm not really sure. You'd have to ask her, though I wouldn't recommend it!" he says, friendly as ever on the outside though on the inside the AI continues to size the stranger up and file information away into his capacious memory. "So, you're headed to town, huh? Great, so are we! We can all go together! So, what was your name?"

[Anonymous]

Jeral looks the two of them over as he waited for a reply from one of them (which was rather quick). One, the female, seems human enough, except for the eyes. The male, however, seems rather....robotic. Almost like VG in Kolataric....wonder if it is hi--- he thinks as the boy comes up to him, saying his name, the name of the female, and wondering if he (Jeral, not Cam) can go with them. Jeral gives the man a handshake, and says, "Well....my name is Jeral. Sure, what the heck, I'll go with you. Better then going alone...I guess."

[Anonymous]

Lips became a thin line as she looked from Jeral to Cam before rolling her eyes and taking her gloves off. The … Thing looked harmless enough, but looks can be deceiving. Xala gave both males a look then hooked her gloves onto her belt, sharp sides out so she didn’t cut her legs. Running a now bare hand through her spiky blue hair before starting off towards the way she was going before looking back momentarily before rolling her eyes and thinking them fools. Well, let them dawdle and get all ‘buddy-buddy’, lowering her head slightly Xala pushed her ungloved hands deeper into her pants pockets and stopping right before leaving the clearing. Mostly to wait for Cam and Jeral to catch up, also to ponder why the hell she was with them of all people… She had a job to do here, gather info then leave. It wasn’t to make friends and stay here, Adela wasn’t on her ‘places I’m going to live’ list, nor would it ever be.

Looking back at them yet again, her head was tilted up and the golden coloured eye had a bit of a glaze to it while the darker blue one was staring at the two. The look on her face was different too it was a little more depressed looking then when she was spouting comment about Cam's lack of clothing. This version of Xala, had to be Xana, sooner or later, her companions would be able to tell the difference between the two personalities that inhabited the single body. With her shoulders hunched and her chin down she cleared her throat and bent pieces of long grass with her boot.

We think we should go now…  We’ll stay in the front since we know which way to go… And you two can pull up the behind with… Jeral… In the middle. Cam… keep an eye on him.

Xala instructed, though her voice held no authority, it was slightly sad sounding, as if she was just out of it and felt like crying. Which was not the case, she didn’t feel like crying at all, she was just so sleepy. Being in the backseat and watching at your body moved on it’s own was odd, but that’s how the other felt when one of the two held dominance. But most of the time in was both of them at the wheel, which was when Xala argued with herself, though the arguing didn’t happen all to often, and when it did, it was usually creepy for everyone around them who didn’t understand the situation.  Twitching her head to side to get her bangs out of her eyes she looked back at them and hung her head again.

Well? Are you going to come with us? Or are we going to go alone again?

[Anonymous]

"Yea, I'm coming," Jeral tells Xala. "Just don't bite my head off. I had that happen to me by someone with the same style of voice once." Jeral looks to the mugged kid, and says, "Come on, she looks like she's doubting something. Maybe deciding to go with one of us." With this, Jeral starts off.

[Tally]

Now what's wrong with Xala's voice? She sounds so depressed, or maybe tired. It's hard to tell. But it's not the same as it was before.

Maybe she's bipolar, he thinks, and right on the heels of that thought is another: Well of course she is, stupid. She's got two different people in there.

Cam puts a finger to his lips and considers that further. As before, the AI is throwing a hissy fit over the idea of two souls in one body, arguing with his living mind over the biological impossibility of two separate personalities controlling one brain and eventually going on to disprove the existence of the soul anyway and declaring that such a thing is only a false belief and not supported by fact. Xala is, as far as the AI is concerned, suffering from multiple personality disorder, or maybe schizophrenia, and his two distinct viewpoints on her state of sanity combine to form a single, paradoxical opinion that he couldn't have expressed in words if his very life depended on it.

Ack! He must have spaced out! They're leaving him behind! He jogs to catch up and at first he does as Xala said and walks behind Jeral, a decision that the AI is most pleased with.

It gets lonely walking back there by himself, though, so before long he forgets about what Xala said and bounces up to walk next to Jeral—to Jeral's right of course, so he can't see the metalic components on the right side of Cam's face. "Hi, Jeral!" He smiles and sighs. "Nice day, huh? Have you ever been to this Adela place? What kind of place is it? What supplies are you getting? We have to go shopping, too. Xala's gonna buy me some clothes of my own! See, this coat is actually hers."

Man, he can't wait to get some pants.

[Anonymous]

Jeral notices Cam take up the spot to the right of him a little late, then ask him rapid fire questions. "Jeeze kid, you a hyperactive or something? Yea, it's seems like a nice day." Jeral tells the kid off-handly. "Yea, I've been to Adela. Good Village, it is.Heck of a lot less activity then I'm used to, but it seems good enough. I'm looking for clothes, swadlling cloth, trinkets, some iron or iron ore if they got it, and I got a few gold for my self. Need to get something for my self." Jeral finaly gives Cam one good looking over." What in Korasaka happened to you? You get mugged or something?" He exlaims at Cam.

Before Cam gets to answer, Jeral roots through his bag, on a strange feeling something's not right.

[Anonymous]

Xala looked over her shoulder for a second, to see if they actually followed her. She felt a little reassured that they were right behind her, following her like she asked them to. Though the earlier comment and the tone of voice from Jeral made the blue haired girl feel bad about her self again, though she wasn’t about to say sorry to him. He’d had his head bitten off? Well, it grew back nicely. Xala noticed Cam was walking beside the other male and she glared at them, the golden eye steely and not leaving the new one. The Dragon Merger never trusted anyone without a good reason too first, though apparently Cam was a different story to that theory… Probably because she found him naked.

Looking sharply over her should when she heard a pair of footsteps stop she herself halted her rhythmic steps and glared at him. Wonderful, he was slowing them down â€"again-. Xala should have just gone on without them, but then that would have been rude and then they probably wouldn’t like her anymore. Looking back closer towards Jeral, Xala didn’t like what she was seeing and quickly put her gloves one. The green gloves with Six inch metal claws between each knuckle, blinking a few times so her mismatched eyes where equally clear and equally glazed she walked over to the boys in a few quick steps.

You know, the point of having a leader, is for you to follow them.

Her voice was icy and she didn’t head his last warning, the head biting warning. But oh, she could do that quite well if she wanted to. But, in the most literal of the sense.

[Tally]

Cam tries to picture Adela and can't. A village they keep saying, and while Cam knows logistically what a village is there is no first-hand data in his memory, so it would seem he's never been to one though he can't say for sure. His long-term memory is still senseless and incomplete as a half-remembered dream, and the AI hinders his imagination from forming a picture of what Adela might be like.

Some of his short-term memory is returning, though, washing up against the shores of consciousness like pieces of driftwood. Jeral's question is the same that Xala asked him before—to which he responded with a negative— but he changes his answer now to avoid further questions. "I...yes, I think I was mugged. That...that would make sense."

Okay, so he's a terrible liar, but maybe Jeral won't press the issue. A slight brush with his memories shows him fire and chaos and bright golden wings etched against his vision. Cam doesn't want to go there yet. He tries to change the subject. "What was that word you used? What is...Korasaka? I've never—"

The artificial eye shifts, sees Xala approaching with the clawed gloves on. At the very core of Cam's consciousness is a place where time becomes irrelevant, for the speed of the AI's operations exceeds that of human thought and can hold Cam's psyche in an uneasy limbo while the world freezes around him. It is because of this that Cam can watch in a rather detached horror as something goes wrong in the AI. Something triggers or fails to trigger, a counteracting code or a failsafe perhaps; he has no idea what exactly causes the malfunction. But from the hectic shelter of his own mind he can watch it all take place as Xala's approach with the weapon causes the AI to kick in its overriding objective function and self-defense priority. His artificial eye extends its sensitivity to include the whole electromagnetic spectrum.

_a/o overriding objective_eliminate all threats

With a metallic shink, something like the sound a sword makes when drawn from a sheath, the fingers of his right hand extend out five razor-edged blades. His artificial legs give him a speed living tissue could never match and he springs at Xala like a striking snake, going low and swiping the blades through her clothes and the soft flesh of her stomach before darting away again, only to leap back at her, striking for her face this time.