mayfield_rpg | All my life I've been good but now I'm thinking what the hell (Forward dated to release)

[A: Violent]

[Today, Sephiroth is prowling the streets. And to those who know him, or who have talked to him on the phone, he'll be borderline unrecognizable. There's an air of dangerous purpose to his movements, and his eyes - already bright from mako - are blazing. (The particularly observant may note stitches on his head.)

And if he sees anyone - drone or otherwise - he'll be making a beeline for them. There's nothing subtle in the air of menace around him; even though he's visibly unarmed, you'd probably be better off running.]

[B: Lucid]

[In the immediate aftermath of hurting or killing anyone, Sephiroth returns to his usual mindset, and can be communicated with normally - for a brief time - before the pain and violent compulsions start to recur. Anyone can luck out and find him during these lucid moments; you'll have to keep up with him during these moments, however, since he's frantically looking for a way to restrain himself before he loses control of himself again. This is easier said than done, given how strong he is and how little time he has between lapses.]

[OOC: Sephiroth is currently under the effects of experimentation, which is swinging him back and forth between his normal self and needing to harm/kill others! While you can pick either scenario, the nature of his experiment means that he can go from violent to lucid during a thread if you want, or vice versa! Also, HE WILL TRY TO HURT OR KILL YOUR CHARACTER IN SCENARIO A, so please be aware!]

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[The punch forces all the air from Equius's lungs with a gasp, and reflexively, he grabs onto the arm driving the fist into his stomach. It's partly for support too, because the blow made his knees go weak and head swim. He's never been hit like that before. Sure, his robots had knocked out teeth, tried to strangle him, and otherwise bludgeoned the dickens out of him, but with his STRENGTH, it hadn't slowed him down much]

[In this squishy body?]

[He coughed for breath, body curled around the fist, hyperaware of the splintered wood digging into his back. Blood blossomed on the front of his shirt, the infected surgical wound on his stomach forced open from the inside out]

[Yes, the punch hurt. It hurt like amazing]

[The sight of the (indigo?) blood seems to wipe all the pain from Sephiroth's mind in a heartbeat, and it's supremely satisfying...

For a few seconds.

Then self-awareness crashes over Sephiroth's mind like a wave, sanity washing away his desire to inflict random violence and his inability to reason with himself, and - for the seventh or eighth time today - he regains the mental clarity to realize just what he's been doing. And, this time, who he's done it to, because this is the first time he's snapped out of it to recognize someone he knows.

It's been a sickening shock every time, but this time he almost loses his breath. Not just that it's Equius, which is a blow in itself, but that he, a SOLDIER, with his mako-enhanced strength, has struck a child. Forget the lack of honor involved, enough that Angeal probably never would have spoken to him again if he'd been alive; forget the screaming the ShinRa executives would have done about the scandal; forget that harming a child wouldn't really be considered acceptable anywhere. Sephiroth has the strength to kill even adults bare-handed; if Equius isn't completely broken, then it's only by a miracle.

He jerks his arm back, his fist away from Equius' stomach, his eyes wide and aware in a way they weren't a few seconds ago. Before, they had been sinister, but distant - almost dead. He reflexively moves to cast Curaga, only to remember that his materia are gone still, along with most of his equipment.] Equius... [He doesn't know what to say, what to do. He doesn't even know how badly he might have hurt the boy, since he can't clearly remember what he was thinking when doing so.]

[Deep breath-]

[Then Equius sinks to the ground with a whine, head thrown back and eyes screwed shut, arms wrapped tight around his stomach. He'd have splinters in his back, but at that moment, he really didn't care. There were too many other types of pain he was feeling for trivial little itchy things like splinters to even register in his mind.]

[And he was mentally cycling through them all, picking them apart and examining the way they effected him, the way they played against each other, how focusing on one reduced the feel of another.]

[The living body truly was the greatest machine of them all]

[Finally, he took another deep breath, opened his eyes, and forced a small, pained smile] Ow.

[That... wasn't what he meant to say. Although it did sum things up rather nicely. But goodness gracious, he should be far more articulate than this!]

[Sephiroth relaxes ever so slightly. That Equius is able to speak - able to smile - suggests he must have considerably pulled that punch. So Equius isn't dying, at least not yet, and that's a relief.

Though why Equius is smiling at him after what he just did, he has no idea whatsoever.]

I...apologize. When I was taken, they...did something to me. To my head. I don't have long before it starts again. [He gives Equius a look that's somewhere between guilt and pleading - a much more open expression than Sephiroth normally allows himself.] I need to be - restrained. I can't control myself.

[Equius snorts, but it quickly turns into a cough, a bit of the indigo blood coming up and filling his mouth. No, he's not dying, trolls are made of much STRONGER stuff than that, and even if his skin is soft, his guts are hard.]

[Still, that was quite the punch.]

[He swallows the blood from his mouth and shakes his head, gesturing over at the bodies nearby]

Highblood rage. I've been going through the same, though I suspect, not as STRONGLY, as I am used to such emotional uprisings. Eheh, you're talking to the wrong person, if you truly wish restraint.

[Sephiroth's eyes follow Equius' gesture, widening slightly when he takes in the corpses that he doesn't think he made. Had Equius been affected the same way he was...? Although that didn't explain the strange phrase he was using for it.]

Highblood rage?

[He lifts the hem of his shirt, running his fingertips through the indigo blood, then holds them out to Sephiroth] This is the highest blood color a landdwelling troll can have. Higher even than my own. Borne within it, is the highblood rage. A rage that can only be controlled and contained, but never completely quelled. The higher up the Hemospectrum you go, the STRONGER it is. This rage compels us to kill, to spill the blood of others, to seek conflict.

Normally, I would fight robots in order to keep the compulsion in check. There are none here, and the rage is even stronger than before. So... [he gestures back to the corpses, bowing his head]

But even that is not enough. I kill, but they do not fight back. There is no struggle, there is no conflict. I grow bored before I grow sated. And then I feel guilty, though I should have no reason to. By the standards of Alternian society, I have done nothing wrong, but the others-

Don't approve. And my behavior upsets them. So the guilt comes, and I become angry at myself for feeling guilt when I should not. And once the anger comes, I struggle to reign it in, but then I feel guilty for denying what is my hatchright, and then I feel even angrier...

Until it's either hurt myself, or hurt others. And I am already in so much pain...

[Sephiroth can't help it; it's his inner scientist, the inquisitive part of him fascinated by new knowledge that's sometimes uncomfortably like Hojo. He reaches out to touch the blood on Equius' fingers, examining the deep purple on his glove.

He's silent for a moment, considering the information he's been given, and then he looks up at Equius.] How powerful are you?

All my life I've been good but now I'm thinking what the hell (Forward dated to release)

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Aaaaand going lucid

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