A/N: Set shortly after the end of I Want You Bad, this is a little insight into Mars's POV as he reflects over the events that unfolded during the Gen X Saga (told in first-person narrative), and what happened to him after he fled from the hospital. Needless to say, this contains SPOILERS for my previous work.

I have written this in body text form as opposed to dialogue, as writing this in Mars's complex accent would have just detracted from the point I am trying to get across.

R rating is for bad language and explicit sexual references, including references to rape. Please note that this fic is much more "grown-up" than it's prequel, and as such, it FULLY deserves an R. Can't stress that enough. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ultimate Muscle, Yudetamago do. I also don't own the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams, the fantastic Green Day do (I've been a fan for like 10 years now!).

Recap: At the end of I Want You Bad, Mars had told Kiki he was leaving, and asked her to go with him. She said she needed to think about it, but while she was gone, Mars ran away without her, without telling anyone or leaving anything behind.

I Walk Alone

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

The sky over my head is black, the ground at my feet is black, my hands are black, my mood is black, and even my heart is black.

I think the sun has set now, although it is so hard to tell; the sky is so dark, filled with brooding storm clouds. Obviously it will rain again. Which is quite infuriating, as it seems to have done nothing but rain since I got here.

I do not know how long I have been here, and I do not even know how many times I have visited this spot now, yet here I am again. I am only confusing my already addled brain by being here. I can honestly say that the torture I endure sitting here now like this really makes the Hercules Factory, and even the DMP academy, seem like Heaven by comparison.

Physical wounds can be mended and healed so easily, even for someone without my abilities. But this… This is different…

I hate myself.

I am not strong enough to endure this. Nothing I have ever been taught could have prepared me for this. I always felt so strong and so in control of my life. I knew where I was going, what I was doing, and how I was going to do it. My life was so much easier when I could just rip people apart, use them to get what I wanted, to get where I needed to be. I could just use people, and toss them aside once I was done with them.

Life was so much easier when I did not care.

Care? Where did that come from? I growl at myself in anger, and I could swear that first drop of rain that hits my forehead sizzles. I have to get away from this place. Now.

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone

But even now, as I walk away, I feel that urge to look back. I feel that urge to go back. I do not want to go back, but I know that I will. I do not want to, I do not need to, and yet I know that I will. There is nothing there for me, and nothing to be gained by going there; and yet still I find myself going there, night after night, day after day.

Why am I even still on Earth? Nobody wants me here, and, quite frankly, I have no desire to be here myself. There are far more luxurious planets than this measly little mudball, and I did vow to leave Earth after I was defeated by that idiot Kid Muscle.

But still I am here. And still I pass my time wondering from the city to the top of the mountain, musing my way through the remains of the DMP fist spacecraft. Why do I even bother?

I start to walk faster; I am almost at the foot of the hill now, and the sounds and smells of the city below are invading my senses. Good. I need a distraction.

As I reach the outskirts of the city, I quickly realise my timing is even worse than I thought; it is nothing hour. I am too late for the late night crowd, and too early for the early morning rush of people. In a city with a population of millions, I am completely alone.

But maybe I need to be alone. My thoughts right now are company enough for me in my fragile state of mind.

I walk alone
I walk alone

Fragile. I am Mars, named after the God of War. Feared and envied for my power, I should be striking terror into the hearts of these pathetic people, not wandering around in their midst, trying to blend in as one of them.

I really hate myself.

There was a time when I was the best. I was on top of the world. I was unstoppable. I could have done anything. I was a fighter, a survivor, I needed no-one. I topped the ranks of the DMP. I had planned to stab them all in the back after Sunshine and his pathetic "Nightmares" failed to defeat the Muscle League, and his killing them all merely saved me the bother.

I had aced my way through the famous Hercules Factory too. Of all the members of Generation X, I was the best by a long shot. I bested all the first generation Muscle Leaguers, and I destroyed the second generation completely. I can say I destroyed the second generation because I know, as well as anyone does, that my loss to Kid Muscle was tainted. Had that been a real battle, had circumstances been different, had I not been distracted like that, Kid Muscle would be lying flat on his back right now, under six feet of dirt.

I am at the top of my league, the pinnacle of my profession. But it is lonely at the top, and even someone like me can miss the company of others.

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Til then I walk alone

Which brings me right back to my dilemma.

I have never believed in love. I always thought it was just something people pretended to believe in, in order to help them deal with their pathetic, mundane lives.

I thought I knew what love was.

I thought I knew my heart.

I thought I knew myself.

But then there was her.

They say that love changes everything, and in my case, it certainly did. She could have asked me to do anything, and I would have done it gladly; a fact that seems all the more ridiculous when I remember how she did not even know she had that power over me. She had no idea how I felt about her, no idea what she had done to me, how she had changed me.

Changed? Have I changed? Probably not. If I had, I would have joined the Muscle League like all my other former DMP team-mates who "changed".

I start to laugh out loud at that thought. I have never needed to "join" the Muscle League: I graduated from the Hercules Factory! And even after I revealed my allegiance to the DMP, that fat old fool McMadd still honoured me as a fully-fledged Muscle Leaguer. A Justice Chojin.

So I guess that means I am a Muscle Leaguer.

I still feel like a member of the DMP, but at the same time, I never really was a member of the DMP. I was just using them to become more powerful, for the thrill of the fight. Just like how I used the Muscle League.

Just like how I used her.

Damn, I never thought about it like that before. I used her. I did. I used her. I only wanted her in the first instance because of who she was; the only seemingly single Muscle League groupie. I only meant to use her for information. It was only when I got a little closer to her that it became something else.

But even then I was wrong. I mistook her for a girls' school girl, sick of being good all the time, looking for a bit of rough. I saw her as an easy fuck. The Hercules Factory, unlike the DMP academy, banned all sexual activity, and by the time I had graduated and landed on Earth, I was hornier than a truckload of rhinos. I am not ashamed to admit that the sight of those three giggling teenage girls in their short skirts sent my blood southwards.

But even that changed. It was when I first kissed her that I began to realise I had been wrong yet again. I had mistaken her previous responses to my touch as being down to the fact that she was well versed in how to seduce a sex-starved Chojin warrior such as myself. It was only when I felt the cautious way she moved her tongue against mine that I knew something was not right.

Kiki really was a good girl. She was a sweet, innocent and good girl. She was like an angel. So good, so kind, so caring, so giving. And so forgiving. And so pure. She was a virgin before I got my hands on her.

I even managed to make a mess of that one.

I really hate myself right now.

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

I had accepted she was not as experienced as I had previously assumed, but that night at the lake had shocked me. When she loitered at the edge of the water, staring at me with those big green eyes, I thought she was just playing hard to get. When she kissed me, when she touched me, I could feel she was aching for me; but I pushed her too far.

It was just as bad as rape. She said she wanted it, but I wanted it even more. She probably thought it would be something beautiful, like something out of a watery romance novel. But of the many things I am, romantic is certainly not one of them. She wanted me to be gentle, but I could not hold back. She wanted something sweet and tender, but I lost my ability to hold back. And why? Because I was pathetic, and I had no self-control. I could not stop myself.

I can still hear her ragged screams in my ear, I can still see the faint red cloud of her blood in the water, and I can still feel myself passing the point of control. The sight of blood had never made me feel sick before, but it certainly made me feel sick that night. What have I done?

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
And know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I feel like an animal. Of course, I have raped before, but it was never like that. I never enjoyed it before. I have raped for revenge, hatred, anger and just for the hell of it. It was meaningless, uncomfortable and the act itself gave me no pleasure; only the ramifications.

But it was different with Kiki. Damn, it felt so good it hurts me physically just to remember it. Words cannot do it justice. Hot, wet, tight; yes, words can describe it, but they cannot describe the total feeling of utter satisfaction I felt. It was almost as though, for the very first time in my entire life of 27 years, my mind and body were working together.

Normally I can only ever find happiness on the outside. But to feel it inside, and to feel it so intensely outside at the same, blissful moment…

But my actions immediately following our shared moment of passion are what bring me the most pain to recall. I do not know what came over me. I had been about to roll off of her, when she reached up one finger and touched my nose. That was all she did. She just touched the tip of my fucking nose with one finger, and I cracked.

I dropped back down on top of her, holding her down so she would not see what was happening to me. She never said anything, she just held me. It took me the best part of five minutes to get any sort of control over myself, to harness my emotions, to maintain my aura of… My aura of what? Who am I trying to kid here? We had sex, and I cried. What sort of man am I?

I hate myself so much right now.

I walk alone
I walk alone

Kiki. Kiki was an angel.

Me? I am a demon. So evil, I even betrayed the DMP, the Demon Making Plant. They say the DMP is actually owned and run by the Devil himself; so I guess that makes me the ultimate in evil, because I was so bad, I was even worse than the almighty Satan.

I am dirty, vicious, evil, wicked, uncaring, cold, selfish and arrogant. I have a heart of the purest evil.

If Kiki was light, I would be dark.

But they say opposites attract. And they say an angel's duty is to save souls. And even the blackest of hearts is not beyond salvation, right?

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Til then I walk alone

Salvation? What am I thinking?

I need to find something to eat. I need to clean the ashes of the DMP crash site from myself, and find somewhere with food.

I need to cleanse my soul. I mean, I need to cleanse myself.

This cannot be happening to me.

I just need to focus. Find food. Focus.

I stop, looking around myself in a weak attempt to get my bearings. Where am I? I seem to be a part of town I recognise, but cannot remember ever walking through before.

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone

I hang my head, and walk on, quickening my pace. I am losing it. I know I am. I have just realised I am walking around without my headdress on. What the hell was I thinking? I never take that thing off! I have left the stupid thing at the top of the mountain, beside a pile of burnt out debris.

I have to go back for it, of course, before I can find some food. It would be just plain stupid to leave the Mask of Madness lying around for any old weakling wannabe to get their greedy hands on. But this will be the last time I go up there. There is nothing there for me, and it really is about time that I moved on.

I start to run as the path slopes upwards, reminding myself that I am sorely in need of the exercise. I have not trained at all since that joke of a match against Kid Muscle, and if I am not careful, I will quickly start to lose some of my powers.

And it seems the rain only ever falls on that stupid mountain, because as I run higher, the rain is getting heavier and colder. The cold and wet is causing me to yet again regret the results of a prior fit of rage; during a particularly bad night spent reliving the memories of my life at the academy, I tore the DMP symbol from my chest. My memories of my time as a student at the academy burn inside of me, but my memories of my time spent there as a teacher invoke far deeper feelings of bitter hatred and anguish. Being at this crash site just seems to bring it all back to me sometimes, so vividly that I cannot stop my mind from playing out each painful circumstance in full; all the more reason for me to leave this place.

I look around myself at the top of the mountain, quickly locating the soiled and torn form of my scarlet headdress; but it is too late.

I looked down.

I am looking, and I can see it. How could I miss it? It is huge, and surrounded by floodlights.

It is a truly beautiful piece of architecture, located near the outskirts of the West side of the city, surrounded by a chunk of green land.

I wonder what it is that she studies there at that university; but am reminded that, like the self-centred idiot that I am, I do not even know. I never even bothered to ask her. How could I have been so insensitive?

But what other way did I know to be? I have lived my entire life alone. I never let anyone get even remotely close to me. The walls I built around my heart protected me and kept me strong.

But those walls crumbled the day I laid eyes on her.

But she is a good girl.

And I am a bad man.

She is good, and her life is so perfect. If I wanted to be with her, I would have to be one to change, the one to make the sacrifices. And she agrees with me on that, at least. That is why she did not come with me. That stupid, condescending gazelleman took great pleasure in coming to the hospital to tell me how much she hates me now, and that she had taken consolation for my sins in his arms. As angry as I was, I could not argue the point. She is a good girl, and he is a good man, and I know he will take good care of her; he, at least, will treat her the way she deserves to be treated. He can give her the life she deserves, the life I could never have given her.

The angel tried to save the demon, but he was beyond salvation.

I am beyond salvation.

All I have left now is this. At one side, the city: with the university, with Kiki, with beauty, with love and with hope. And at the other, the remnants of the DMP: the remains of my allies, the remains of my independent, carefree life as a demon.

And still I do not know which to choose.

Not that I have much of a choice to make.

I lost both the day Kid Muscle defeated me in the ring.

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Til then I walk alone

The game is over; my fate has been decided: I walk alone.

Next Chapter: Although there isn't another chapter as such, but this story continues in the sequel fic, The Reason.