Chapter 36
"He fought the darkness, the darkness won."
—Dr. Light, Unrest in the House of Light by The Protomen
July 2220
The tale of David and Goliath was bullshit. There was no defeating an insurmountable enemy, there was no standing firm in the face of impossible odds, and worst of all - there was no running. The SIGMAs prided themselves on only ever leaving survivors if they were ordered, and this was a situation in which leaving survivors was the furthest possible thing from the surviving SIGMA's mind. Jorell'Sahn could tell just by looking at the way the monster fought - there was no machine-like efficiency in his movements, no cold, calculated skill, just a sheer, horrifying brutality. He didn't care about finishing his mission in a timely manner, he was angry and he needed to vent.
The SIGMA wore a heavily modified version of his battle armor, Jorell didn't know what all the monster of a man had done to it, but it was the patch-jobs, mismatched plates, and small strips of duct tape that gave it the look of having seen no professional hand in years. The SIGMA had a rifle on its back and a pistol on its hip, but it used neither of those things, instead it was angrily beating and ripping apart anyone within arm's length. Its method of killing, the violent maelstrom of physical blows, showcased an anger the likes of which none of the Marines could find any experience even remotely close to being considered comparable. It completely forgoed its ranged weapons simply because it wanted to revel in the feeling of physically tearing apart the Marines responsible for destroying decades of work, and the worst part was that it was winning.
Wild gunfire, ringing plasma blasts, the screams of men in pain, the death-cries of those who saw their chests cave in or their limbs be ripped from their bodies, even the gurgles of those who were simply hit so hard that their bones and organs nearly liquified and their bodies shut down, it all permeated the grassy, flaming clearing they were all fighting in. Nothing the Marines did phased this monster - their only chance, the Marines with the Painter weapons, were prioritized and beaten to death before everyone else. Regular gunfire did little other than stun the monster of war, the only way to actually damage the man with ballistic weaponry was to hit him with a shotgun at point-blank range, but Jorell had had his skull get cracked and multiple ribs get broken when he tried closing in on the man and attempting such a tactic. The SIGMA was outnumbered at least thirty to one, and despite all logic, he was winning.
Jorell watched, wheezing as he laboriously crawled towards a nearby Marine's corpse, as three men tried rushing the SIGMA from multiple angles, two hammering him with their weapons and one trying to leap onto his back and distract him, even if only for a moment. The SIGMA shielded his face from gunfire in the crook of his arm, the bullets impacting first his shields with the noise of static discharge, and then hitting his armor plates with the loud metal on metal pings, as he braced his legs behind him, waiting for his opportunity to strike. Jorell risked a glance over at the corpse he was crawling towards, its chest burst outwards from a savage knife-hand jab, blood leaking outwards. He forced another arm in front of the other and dug his feet into the ground, laboring onwards as the battle raged on.
The Marine who had come up from behind the SIGMA leapt upwards and wrapped one arm around the SIGMA's throat, whilst he savagely stabbed at the SIGMA's neck with the knife in his strong hand, managing to draw a little blood before the SIGMA reached up with both hands, grabbed the Marine by his uniform, and ripped him off of his back. The augmented monster bodily hauled the mortal Marine over his back, the Marine screaming as his allies' gunfire briefly raked his back in those precious seconds before they realized what was happening and ceased fire.
The SIGMA, the moment they ceased firing upon them, whirled around a quick circle and tossed the fully armored human as easily as he would toss a pillow, the dead Marine colliding with another, who let loose a pained shout. The unharmed Marine started backpedalling, forcing himself not to take his eyes off of his opponent as he reloaded his rifle and kept unloading into the unflinching monster above him. The SIGMA tanked the automatic gunfire, shrugging it off as it impacted his armor plating harmlessly, leading the Quarian to wonder what even could kill it in the first place.
"Dosdon…" Groaned the Quarian, as the SIGMA reached the Marine, who tried to smash the stock of his gun into the SIGMA's face, "pleeeease tell me you're still kicking." The SIGMA physically reacted to the blow, staggering a few steps as he turned his face away from a dumbfounded Marine but slowly turned his head to face him, showing the man that the monster was less than affected by the meagre attempt at a physical assault - he was annoyed.
"Reporting." Groaned the sniper, over the sound of twigs and branches snapping and groaning.
"What the fuck are you doing, climbing a -" Jorell grunted, "never goddamn mind… How good a shot are you?"
"Haven't we gone over -" The Sniper interrupted himself with a grunt, "I'm a washed out SIGMA with ocular augments… How good of a shot do you need?" There was another round of gunfire and the loud yells of a Marine who got kicked in the chest and sent flying out of the clearing, followed by the wet, bodily smack of him impacting a tree, and the snap of his spine upon impact.
"Concussive rounds… They don't pierce, they punch. I need you to… Make a chink in that monster's armor…" Jorell groaned painfully as he finally reached the body and grabbed at the grenades hanging off of the man's tactical vest.
The SIGMA slowly turned to face his next opponent, haphazardly tossing away the arm he had ripped off of the marine he'd kicked away. The other two Marines were scrambling to their feet, one wildly screaming and firing at the SIGMA with his pistol, barely managing to land any hits and even then, they only hit his armor, itself designed specifically to defend against modern ammunition, to say nothing of the Mass Effect rounds. None of these men knew any of the weaknesses in the SIGMA's armor, they had been taught through exposure that there were none to begin with, so their fight was less one of determination, and more of desperation. Without the Painter's weapons, the man was all but invulnerable, so Jorell prayed that his plan would work. All they needed was just a few seconds - even one would suffice - to provide a window of opportunity for the surviving Marines to make a run for those weapons.
It has to work… Jorell ripped the grenade from the vest, and pressed the primer button. It has to. They can't have sacrificed their lives for ancestors-damned nothing! He tossed it into the air as hard as he could, not even aware of where the sniper was in relation to the SIGMA, simply praying, to the Human god, to his Quarian ancestors, to anyone who would listen. Fortunately for the Quarian, someone listened, because a thunderclap from the treeline echoed out and a nonlethal concussive round sailed forth, smacking into the grenade and flinging it directly at the SIGMA.
To Jorell's horror, just as the grenade got within range, and the Marines got their signal to make their run for the plasma weapons, the SIGMA whipped around and caught the grenade as if it were a baseball. The entire forest, all of the fire, all of the dying men, and even all of the gunfire that had been suppressing the SIGMA, it all silenced as the grenade nestled itself in the hand of the SIGMA, who turned to the sprinting Marines and tossed the grenade in one uninterrupted motion. The grenade exploded in mid-air, shredding several of the marines as the shrapnel and the fire reached them, though as a testament to their will - or their desperation - the ones who weren't killed outright in the blast kept running, limping, or tearing at the ground to try and get to the Painter guns.
The SIGMA, in response, ran for the Marines as well, but stumbled when the joint of his left leg was shot by the sniper. The stumbling motion opened him up to another shot, which hit his head, causing a visible recoil, and showing Jorell that of their ballistic weapons, the only ones with the force required to actually cause him any pause were point blank shotgun blasts, and now too Dosdon's sniper rounds - both of which were in short supply, meaning all of their hope relied upon the plasma weapons haphazardly dropped around a small pile of corpses.
The SIGMA, befitting his skill, reacted almost immediately to this newfound addition, cursing himself for not confirming the kill of the washout. Not many people could survive a full-force kick to the chest and an uppercut to the jaw, but apparently a washed out SIGMA was tenacious enough to not only survive, but make an impossible shot on top of it. When he hit the ground, he rolled into the momentum of the impact of the sniper's round, and when he got back to his feet, his rifle was in his hands, and his finger was on the trigger of its underbarrel grenade launcher. With the sound of air being pushed out of a tube, however muted it was by the battle raging around him, he launched a grenade through the air, and leapt to the side to avoid his opponent's response. His opponent, however, missed this impossible shot and had to drop out of his tree and onto his broken body in order to dodge the oncoming grenade.
With a pained howl, the sniper tried to get to his feet, or even back onto his chest, and to a position where he could fire his rifle again, but the SIGMA was on the move before he had even gotten halfway to the ground, barreling back towards the Marines, who were scrambling for the egg-shaped weapons. Jorell, however, now on his knees, chucked another grenade at the SIGMA, who batted the grenade out of the way and reared his fist back to launch a savage punch at the nearest Marine, the grenade exploding harmlessly behind him.
Full tilt, nothing held back, a punch from a SIGMA was horrifying to behold, even as Jorell struggled to grab and prime another grenade. The SIGMA put everything he had into the punch, his entire body twisting as his fist flew so fast that the air hummed behind him. Starting at the shoulder, working its way down to his chest and then his hips, the SIGMA's entire body turned into the punch. His fist slammed into the terrified face of an unfortunate Marine, who had almost no time at all to realize that the SIGMA's fist was nearly as big as his entire head. For a millisecond, nothing happened, but slowly the augmented monster's fist overcame the comparably nonexistent defenses of the human marine's skull and flesh.
First, the man's skull started cracking, beginning in a muted fashion but soon becoming audible even to Jorell. It caved in to the point that it looked as if the marine's head was absorbing the SIGMA's fist like a sack of putty. Soon, the strength of the SIGMA's fist won out over the elasticity and durability of the marine's face, and the skin started tearing apart, blood and bits of bone, skin, and muscle flying into the air as they tore off of his face. The horrible squishing sound of the man's flesh being flattened and torn apart was lost over the frightened yells of the marine's allies and the panicked dives and scrambles for the alien weaponry. In less than three seconds, the marine's head exploded into a shower of blood, bone and muscle, the SIGMA's fist destroying it and being covered in its gore. The Marine was dead before the pain even registered to his pulverized brain.
The Marine's corpse fell to the ground with a wet smack, and the SIGMA didn't even pause as he kept dashing forward, dropping low to the ground and sweeping the legs of the Marines out from underneath them, effectively toppling a group of seven men in half as many seconds. The SIGMA slowly stood to his feet, staring at the groaning Marines, all of whom were struggling just to squirm and convulse in pain, let alone actually try and attempt to get back up again.
Teeth gritting in pain, Jorell himself was struggling back to his feet - the vest was out of grenades, and he didn't know what to do other than grabbing his shotgun and trying to fight. His groan turned into a struggling shout as he tried to stand up, but he fell down and onto the corpse after several seconds of struggle, falling onto the corpse with a grunt. He clenched his jaw and shut his eyes tight, trying to fight through the pain, but when he opened his eyes, he saw something magical. It wasn't a missile launcher, but he'd be damned if it wasn't comparably magical - one single vial of cell fluid. Where the Marine got it, despite not being a medic, didn't even matter at this point, he wasn't complaining.
Okay… I'm already swimming in antibiotics and painkillers, and I'm so hurt that none of it's working… So I shoot up with a stim, I get back to fighting, if only for a minue before he punches a hole in my chest… Or, option two, I pray that other SIGMA - fuck it. The cell fluid worked in stages, depending on how injured he was dictated how well it tried to heal him, and given how badly a shape he was in, it would go for the most drastic, equilibrium. It wouldn't heal any of his surface wounds, instead going for setting his bones and trying to undo any internal damage. It was temporary, and would probably only last him one hit, two if he was lucky, but he had to do it.
The Quarian reached forward and grabbed the needle, yanking the bright blue container and securing it to one of the ports on his suit as he heard the frantic shouts of his allies and the loud ringing noise of plasmafire. He felt the cell fluid enter his body like a shot of ice-cold water, and he let out a loud bark of pain as he felt the nanomachines first scan his body to ascertain what species it was dealing with, and then he felt almost all of them converge on his torso as they grabbed his broken ribs and forcibly set them back into place, and then began accelerating his cell division so as to heal his organs. He forced himself onto his feet as the cell-fluid began flooding his system with even more painkillers, all the while ignoring an audible warning from his suit that he couldn't take any more drugs without risking his life in the process.
Jorell heard grunts and groans of pain in his comm, and a moment later, Dosdon's voice floated into his ears. "I can see you getting up, Jorell… I'm not doing good, but I can get you your one shot... " He said, as Jorell looked over to the SIGMA, who was defending himself from a plasma strike by dodging around the beam and using a corpse to absorb the errant shots, almost looking like he was dancing around the beam and weaving in and out of the men trying to kill him. "All you've got to do is stun him... " He groaned and Jorell heard a sick snapping noise, "buy the Painter guys just one second… That's all they need." The sound of rustling leaves and metallic clicking floated through the comm, and Jorell started forcing his legs to move, at a slow stumble at first, but soon progressing to an all-or-nothing sprint, as he ripped his shotgun from the magnetic clamps on his back. "When I fire, you shoot and you don't stop shooting! This is my last bullet, so make it count Marine!" Barely a second later, a thunderous clap echoed throughout the clearing, temporarily drowning out the sounds of fire and plasma, and everything happened at once.
Jorell closed the last few meters between him and the SIGMA, he dropped to his knees and slid across the ground, taking aim with his shotgun and firing at the SIGMA's chest, as his head snapped back from impact with the sniper round. Jorell fired the shotgun and it roared in its hands, bucking up and falling back down as Jorell slid the forestock. The pellets slammed into the SIGMA's side, causing him to stumble. Jorell fired again, as he slid to a halt and the Marines with the plasma weapons ceased their fire to regroup. The BB's slammed into the SIGMA's leg, drawing some blood and sending him to his knee. Jorell slid the forestock again, and the chunky, metallic clicking sound told him that there was only one round left in the weapon. The last shot slammed into the SIGMA's visor, just as he turned his head to leer at Jorell. The force of the impact buried several BB's into the man's glass visor, and snapped his head back away from Jorell, where it was then met by a savage right cross from the only other SIGMA on the planet. The impact of the blow sent out a wave of deep violet energy, and resounded with a loud metallic clang, like a hammer on an anvil, and the SIGMA's head recoiled violently, as he finally fell to the ground.
The other SIGMA, with the numbers 2-15 emblazoned on the combat harness over his chest, straightened up. He was wreathed in a fiery cloak of violet fire, his gas mask-helmet's eyes glowed a bright, menacing red as he slowly lifted his gaze from the SIGMA to the Marines, none of whom knew whether they should be shooting, or running.
"Fall back." Said the SIGMA, as he lowered his gaze, the other SIGMA slowly rousing to his feet, so slowly in comparison to his earlier attacks and movements that everyone present knew in the back of their minds that it was deliberate.
Jorell scrambled to his feet, grabbing the arm of a close by Marine and hauling him to his feet, as the other Marines did the same for their injured comrades. As the enemy SIGMA rose to meet the new SIGMA, the Marines vacated the battleground.
The SIGMAs, one One, one Two, stood solitary mere meters away from eachother. The man in power armor and the boy in the muscle suit, each staring into the dehumanizing masks of their opponent. John S2-15 wore a look of pallid fury, and the SIGMA with 1-61 painted across his dark chestplate in old, faded, chipped white paint merely wore one of disappointment. Silence ruled the air between the two, as they communicated so much through the mere act of staring at each other, immobile.
John's shoulders were squared, his fists lightly clenched, his head ever so slightly tilted down, his right leg just barely placed behind his left, his foot braced against the ground. 2-15's biotic aura radiated off of him with a silent violet blaze and his chest visibly inflated and compressed with every livid breath, his weapons were loaded, with his plasma rifle placed just an inch higher on his back than his ballistic rifle, magnetically clamped to the right side of his back as opposed to his left, his knife secured in the sheathe hooked onto the harness on his chest.
1-61 held himself with his shoulders sagged, his hands open and limp, his back slouched and his neck hanging just slightly forward. His head was bowed, but his eyes and his visor still made contact with John's. 1-61's armor bore the scars of a long and endless war, his weapons were loaded but crusted with the blood of his enemies and scarred with the flashes of his muzzle. His legs were shoulder-width apart but were merely braced against the ground, simply supporting him and his tremendous in-armor weight. His visor was cracked in places and the metallic mouth was heavily dented in the shape of the II's fist. His breaths were even, deep and slow, almost sounding like a sigh with every exhale.
Finally, the silence between the two was broken by the One. "You're a biotic." The One said, almost conversationally, his voice deep and slightly garbled by the damaged speakers on his helmet.
"Why?!" John demanded of the man.
"Why are you biotic?"
"Why are you fighting me?" John asked in a tone that approached pleading.
"You're a Two, aren't you? Oh kid… There is so much for you to learn…" 1-61 sighed, "so much they hid from you. This? This isn't me fighting you. This isn't even me fighting the Alliance. It is me fighting the anti-66'ers. I am the king, waiting to be checked. You are the knight, begging to be placed. They are the pawns, who always go first." He waved to the marines moving to the forest's edge, slowly taking a few steps away from John as he spoke.
"This is not chess, it is war." John stated, watching as the SIGMA paced.
"What is war but the language of opposing forces?" The SIGMA asked, slowing his pace to a halt, now six and a half meters from the II. "You know nothing of what you speak, because you know not the history behind it, and those who do not know and learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Tell me - why do the SIGMAs exist?"
John squinted at the man, "to protect mankind." No three words were more burned into John's soul than the three just uttered.
"And have you ever considered - has it even been mentioned to your kind - what happens if the enemy humanity faces is itself? You Twos face the same problem the Board faces, you see the past as this golden age of perfection and you place humanity on a pedestal, looking to it as an abstract ideal, not a true concept. The Ones, however, do not face this problem as we instead separate ourselves from mankind and see it as it is: A structure waiting to collapse under its own weight, an ideal that cannot be realized, a program that must be restarted periodically so as to facilitate further growth." The SIGMA gesticulated with his hands as he spoke, driving home his conviction. "Jason McGraw saw a problem inherent in human society, a problem that would only grow as he brought us to the interstellar stage. The universe is an incomprehensibly large place, and has innumerable threats, but none so big as the one we pose to ourselves.
"Obviously, the first threat needs no explanation to a man such as you. You as well as I and as well as anyone else know how enormous our universe is, and every day we discover something new that redefines our understanding of it, every day we see something that we believed once impossible… Every day we realize once again the dangers of the enormity of our universe. McGraw knew that these dangers would one day look to us, that we would one day have to face these threats, or perish.
"The second threat is the one you are blind to. It is arguably the reason we exist in the first place. McGraw knew that it would only be a matter of time before we were used less for defense against the foreign, and more for clandestine actions and eventual military force against the domestic. It wasn't a possibility, it was an inevitability. He knew that the system was temporary at best - that eventually it would become corrupt, or would become too powerful and arrogant, or it would begin to die, but no matter the scenario, he knew that eventually the system the UN created would attempt to use its power unlawfully. Small sacrifices here and there, slowly building up to a tyrannical rule. A few small, seemingly insignificant freedoms sacrificed over a long period of time, towards the idea of peace and safety, until it was too late and the ideal that the system was founded upon was buried underneath the power fantasies of those who ruled it. A force so powerful that nothing could stop it… But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. There would have to exist a force completely parallel to the system, one capable of dismantling it and rebuilding it if need be.
"So the senior McGraw created the SIGMAs, as a way to combat both threats. He wanted a breed of warrior capable of defending against all threats… Foreign, and domestic. A fighting force capable of staring death in the face, a breed of warrior so indomitable and resilient that death would blink first. A solitary sentinel willing to sacrifice its own humanity so it can find the dark things in the black corners, and force them into the light… But so too a secret police, whose secret was hidden in plain blue and black ink - where no one in history would think to look, save for those few whose common sense truly is. In our charter, he wrote Protocol Sixty Six, specifically for the scenario in which our ruling body is no longer fit to rule… In which the ideal all humans unconsciously strive towards is no longer the ideal our leaders bring us towards.
"Should any SIGMA decide the incumbent ruling government of mankind is unworthy of serving the common man, that SIGMA is therefore obligated, honor-bound, and most importantly granted the authority, to formally secede from said government and work to dismantle it." The One said, with a deep exhale, as if forcing his mind to stay in the present, as opposed to drifting off to the past.
Damningly, John remained silent.
The One continued, "strictly speaking, the SIGMAs as an institute are already separate from the incumbent government. Our own faction, our own government, our own country, our own people, and, by virtue of technicality, our own species. But we have an agreement of sorts with the Alliance - with the system. We serve it as long as its interests align with ours. We are not one in the same, but merely two entities walking the same path. Should the incumbent government deviate from that path, Sixty Six allows us to formally, and legally, set them back on that path." He shook his head, "it is every SIGMA's nightmare to have to call Sixty Six, for the chaos it implies will follow. Civil War. Dismantling a working machine - no matter how rotten and corrupt - without turning it off will only cause more problems in the short term." He paused, noticing the way John lifted his head and straightened his neck, and sighing as he realized what it indicated. "I can see my time grows short, so I shall give you my best example." He lifted his hand, and then waved it towards John. "You." John frowned at the man, and tilted his head downward to display his contempt. "I once believed that though it wasn't truly righteous, the Alliance was good… But when we made first contact, we made all of the wrong decisions.
"Instead of sending a contact delegation out to the Citadel upon meeting the Quarians, Jason Whyte insisted we adopt a 'wait and see' stance. Instead of seeing the conflict with the Turians for what it was - a state in which no side had all of the facts - and waging a purely defensive war, he utilized our unexpected military might and superiority to crush them and bluff the galaxy into thinking we had much more power than we did. Instead of talking to the Citadel himself when we pushed the Turians from Earth, he sent a Quarian whom the Citadel despised, and an AI that the Citadel feared, and expected two negatives to form a positive. Instead of limiting our conflict to the Turians, he launched an unprecedented assault on the Citadel, bringing all races into our war. Instead of accepting the surrender of one alien leader, he displays to the galaxy our barbarism by convincing them that we destroyed a planet, and alludes to the fact that we could do the same to their Citadel. But perhaps worst of all is what he did after the fighting was finished.
"Humanity has shown that it is largely incapable of leading itself to peace and prosperity… The only true reason we have gotten this far is because we have had no other option - we HAVE to do it! To see if it can be DONE! But the Citadel? The Council? In the time since the Krogan Rebellions, there have been zero - absolutely zero - large scale interstellar wars, and an infinitesimally small amount of minor conflicts and skirmishes. They have a system that works, period. So when they give their apologies by offering to bring us into the fold, to introduce us into their system… Jason Whyte, speaking for all humans, spat in their face, and refused outright, preferring to rest in the arms of repeating history. Since then we have had several major wars with many hundreds of thousands of deaths, a full-scale insurrection, and a cold war… And before all of that - during a time of what one could call peace - they sanctioned the kidnapping of children to serve in their military.
"It was the final straw. Myself, and the two others who have died today, we stood alone against the others, the only SIGMAs in history to call Sixty Six… The only SIGMAs in human history to stand against the incumbent government. We fight simply because we as a species are incapable of leading ourselves… We need time to learn, we need to see what it is like to truly know peace. The Citadel can provide that. It will be painful… But after those initial years of hardship, we will rise, like a phoenix from the ashes… Like a pawn reaching the other side and turning to a queen. Stronger than we have ever been before. Ready to face the universe itself." The man once again sighed and shook his head. "But I can see it in your posture. My words have reached you, but you need time to digest them… Time you do not have on the battlefield. Time we have run out of… The calm has passed. The die has been cast. The final pawn sacrificed. If you truly want your answers, speak to Joseph Ducard, he has been here since the beginning, seconded only to John Doe…" He stretched both arms and turned to face John, slowly turning to the side, one hand hovering above his pistol, and one twitching, ready to snatch his rifle off of his back. "You and I both know that I will not go back, that I will not surrender, and that you cannot - in your own words… 'Help me'. There is only one way this ends… With a corpse to burn. So… Two Fifteen… Are you ready?"
John stood there, six and a half meters from the SIGMA. His breath had calmed, his head no longer tilted, and his fists loose. They both knew the true meaning behind the man's words, it wasn't the question of whether or not John was ready to fight, it was whether or not John was ready to live with victory. The only way to win was to bring the SIGMA into a melee, they were both just too indomitable with ranged weapons. Fortunately for John, he had the exact tools needed to do such a task. With a simple, light sigh, that went unheard of in the backdrop of fire and recovering warriors, John gave a small, barely perceptible nod.
Biotics are a gesture based art. Without your own ability to move, all you can do is alter your own mass. If you want to change the world around you need to MOVE! Were the words that the Asari instructor had branded into John's soul. The most simple, and the most deadly, of these gestures is the singularity. Create your own gravity well, force your opponents to go where you want them! Control their movement and control the battle! Were the words that flew through his mind as the violet flames that covered him grew in intensity. The II threw his right hand into the air, his fingers splayed open wide and his palm facing the SIGMA, who was in the middle of leaping to the side to avoid John's attack.
As 1-61's feet left the ground, a small black hole the size of his fist appeared directly in front of him, violet fire spraying out of it in all directions. For a split second, 1-61 was held aloft in the air as the singularity cancelled out gravity in the area its cold fire reached. The SIGMA realized what was happening the moment he felt himself get suspended in mid-air, but was unable to react as John yanked his fist backwards, raising his left hand as the right retreated past his shoulder. The singularity collapsed, going from the size of a fist to the size of a thumbnail in less than a millisecond. The sudden exponential growth in the singularity's gravitic pull ripped the One from his hovering position in the air and sent him flying towards John. In less a second the One reached the Two, but by then the One had adapted his strategy; the One swung his legs around so his feet faced the Two. When the One got within range, he opened up his legs and then scissor-kicked the Two's face, locking his legs onto his head and his neck. With a great heave, the One threw both hands over his head, reaching a sitting position on John's shoulders, which he used as leverage to throw a devastating straight at the Two's face, and rip the plasma rifle from his back before tossing it away.
As soon as his head recoiled from the punch and he felt his plasma rifle vanish, John jerked his upper body backwards and twisted it around, falling back towards the ground. With only a thought, his body flashed with dark blue flames as he increased his entire body's mass. When he and his opponent crashed onto the ground, the force of the impact blasted a massive, deep crater out of the dirt and stunned the One. In the center of the crater, John ripped the One's legs off of his neck, scrambled to his feet, and locked his right arm around 1-61's left leg. John dug his feet into the ground and with a great heave, lifted the One off of the ground, he kept his grip locked to the man's leg as he swung in a great circle. After one complete revolution, John released his grip and sent the man flying into the side of the crater, spraying dirt, dust and debris on impact.
Heart rate 300 BPM, blood loss moderate, previous injuries still present… Flew through John's mind as he read the information displayed on his suit's HUD.
"John -"
"I know. What can you tell me about his suit?" John demanded of his AI, "it is heavily modified."
"I don't know, he locked me out, I would need a hard connection."
"I can get you that." All he needed was open-handed contact with the man so he could let his own suit work its magic.
"But John, your body - you can't keep -"
"Then we'll have to finish it fast." It was time to experiment - he had to see what his absolute limit was and he had to see how much damage it could do. 1-61's greatest strength was his armor and the way it protected him, but just like his last opponent, if he could remove that armor, he would be able to compound on that weakness. He knew of one universal biotic attack that worked on all armor. He lifted his hand up and concentrated hard, pouring everything he had into the rapidly shifting and oscillating mass effect fields in his right hand. Just as the smoke from his last attack began to clear, the Warp attack was ready, and he thrust his hand forward, launching it towards the SIGMA, who came out from his crater literally guns-blazing.
As the biotic attack flew through the air, the SIGMA somersaulted out of the wall of the crater and had his rifle in his hands, bucking and barking as it blasted away at John's shields. The Two shoved his left hand forward and created a hardlight shield which defended against all of the ballistics, and just before the One saw the warp attack arcing down towards him, John sprinted forwards. The One tried to jump out of the way and dodge the attack, but was again unprepared for the raw biotic force the Two was capable of; the warp attack missed the SIGMA, but hit the ground next to him and detonated in a massive flare of blue fire and rippling gravitational waves. The One was covered in the shifting mass effect fields, and in less than a second he saw on his HUD that his mass was slowly being shaved away.
Before the One could attempt any of the tried and true methods to removing a biotic field, the Two was already next to him, his hardlight vanishing as his right hand swung forward and collided with the man's chest. The mass effect field surrounding and penetrating John's fist interacted violently with the warp field eating away at the One's armor - a textbook biotic detonation. The One hit the ground at the edge of their crater, digging into it. As his HUD informed him that his armor's integrity had gone past the point of vacuum-rating, he scowled deeply and dug his hands into the ground, pushing himself up and onto his feet. He'd been ready for a fight, and he had been ready for a fight with a biotic, but he hadn't expected anything like this, this kind of biotic strength was on the level of some Asari he had fought. The force this Two brought about was something no normal human - and, to some extent, no SIGMA - could even hope to bear.
But… Thought 1-61, as time slowed down and he saw the Two launch himself forward at a dead-on sprint, leaving deep divots in the ground with every footfall. Mass isn't the only way to increase force. He braced his right foot behind him and lifted his right arm, fist clenched in a white-knuckled grip. He heard the light hiss and felt the metallic grinds of the suit's micro thrusters as they extended outwards and revealed themselves to the world. Rule number one when fighting hand to hand with a biotic was unavoidable - meet their increased mass with increased acceleration.
As the Two grew closer to the One, the thrusters started flaring with a constant burn at their highest possible output - the sounds of roaring engines suddenly filling the clearing and drowning out the flames in the background, as the small engines generated much more thrust than their small size would suggest. It was only through his own strength, and the locked servos on his power armor, that he kept his arm from blasting forward at speeds impossible to reach without assistance. With his strength, the strength of his armor, and the acceleration provided by the thrusters sticking out of his pauldron, the SIGMA estimated that he would generate enough force to equal out the biotic child soldier's.
As the Two closed in, the One thought it appropriate that two humans brought to the absolute limit of bio-technological development, would have a duel that brought itself to the absolute limit of reality. The Two was within one meter of the One, crouched down low and with his arm reared back, its mass so highly increased by his biotics that the light around it bent ever so slightly. When the Two got in range, he slammed his left foot into the ground, digging in deep as he pushed himself forward and swung his right fist in a wide upward arc. The moment the One perceived the Two beginning his swing, he unlocked the servos and stopped resisting, and less than a second later, their fists collided with each other.
The raw force the two brought to bear upon impact managed to shatter the already weakened armor plating covering the One's hand, and manage to severely damage the Two's gauntlets, shattering and splitting a few of the plates on his digits and knuckles, but the damage to them paled in comparison to what occurred upon impact. So strong were the two of them, so powerful were their attacks and so great their respective sides of Newton's equation for force, that the impact of their fists sent out a shockwave that managed to shatter the One's visor and and damage both of the the Two's face plates, leaving them both without HUDs. As the shockwave blasted outwards, it managed to topple some of the standing Marines, and send much of the flaming debris flying into the air, spreading their heat and their fire all around and creating a small, brief firestorm, effectively sealing the two augmented warriors off in their arena as various trees, bushes, and blades of grass all caught fire.
To the credit of each of the SIGMAs, neither of them took more than a millisecond to bask before they reengaged each other.
John grappled onto the One's deteriorated chestplate, "NOW!" He yelled at Cassidy as he sent a fist flying at the SIGMA's exposed face.
1-61, his dark brown eyes blazing with a fire that wasn't a reflection of the flames encircling their clearing, caught John's fist with his left and slammed his free right into John's side, his micro-thrusters flaring with each swing, dramatically accelerating the impact and increasing the damage he was doing to John, who felt skin break and organs bruise with every blow. The sounds of metal striking muscle at jackhammer-like speeds filled the air, and after four brutal punches to the abdomen, the One grabbed the Two's harness and lifted with a deep bellow. John was swung over the One's head and slammed into the ground, the two of them nearly sliding back down into the crater as the impact destabilized the section of the wall they were standing on top of. John almost had the wind knocked out of him, and was forced to let go of the SIGMA's chestplate and roll out of the way when 1-61's thrusters flared brightly and his fist hit the area John's face had just been in.
Cassidy, using the momentary distraction granted to him by the SIGMA's fist being dug into the ground, spoke to John in a hurried tone. "His suit's EVA thrusters have been modified to reach higher in-atmo velocities - it's crude, but he can match your biotics." John didn't bother ordering the AI to find him a weakness, the SIGMA wouldn't have let any flaw in his armor last that first modification. "A lot of his systems were damaged by your Warp, but he's deactivated everything nonessential -"
"If there's another surprise I need to know about, I need to know now!" John shouted, planting his hands on the ground and spinning to his feet as the One ripped his hand free of the ground, sending dirt into the air to cascade down in a wide arc. "You're wasting valuable time by saying it - I have a PBI and it works, use it!" A picosecond later, before John's feet had even twitched towards the ground, Cassidy transmitted to him the data she had stolen from John's momentary contact with the SIGMA's modified Titan suit.
The implications were not good, but at least now John had a tactical advantage - he knew, and his enemy had no way of knowing that he knew. This man had left when the Twos were announced, so he had no possible idea that Titan II suits could interface with computers through touch, he had no idea that John's mind was partially synthetic, and as such he had no idea that John's contact with his chestplate had given him a direct hardline to his suit's computing systems. John had everything on the man, and 1-61 had no idea.
But… Thought John, as his feet arced towards the ground and they and his hands dug in like an olympic sprinter waiting for the starting gun, the first rule of anti-SIGMA warfare is to plan for everything. Even if he can't possibly know, I have to assume he does. In the two seconds it took for the two to recover from 1-61's attempted strike to John's head, they were already barreling towards each other again.
While what basically equated to two physical gods dueled to the death not one hundred meters away from them, inside an arena encircled in flames no less, the surviving Force Recon Marines were busy simply trying to not die. There was no fighting to be done by them except the fight to stay alive - they had no more than fifteen of them left, out of their original company of eighty, and fewer than half of those fifteen were in any fit state to fight. Jorell, who was at this point high on stims, painkillers and antibiotics, was doing what the other Marines were doing - watching the chaos unfold.
There wasn't anything else they truly could do - they had no more medical supplies, even when one stretched the definition to include anything that could be used as a bandage or a splint. Everyone was as patched up as they could possibly be, and the two that had volunteered to check the crashed evac shuttle had yet to return. Even their radios, their communicators, anything they could use to call for help, it was all destroyed, damaged, or otherwise out of commission. Truly the only thing they could do was focus on staying alive, and watch the fight, the SIGMA being their only hope at escape.
Jorell watched as the two collided with each other and traded blows. 2-15 ducked under a wide rocket-assisted right cross and countered with a devastating biotic uppercut. 1-61's head hadn't even finished snapping back before he'd grabbed 2-15's arm and yanked him forward, choke-slamming his opponent and delivering a brutal punch to the face, the clanging, ringing sounds of metal striking metal just managing to sound over the growing flames. Like a hammer on an anvil, it was distinctly audible every time one of their fists hit the other man.
"Jesus…" Groaned Jorell, as he forced himself to his feet, breaking eye-contact with the fight to check the fires that formed the arena in which the SIGMAs fought. While loud and a potential threat, the grass on the ground and the trees they tried to burn were all too alive and too wet to spread to, meaning the growth of the flames was slow, and easy enough to stave off by kicking dirt onto it; the Marines had cleared themselves a small dirt circle of anything flammable. "How can people even fight like that?" It was hard for any of them to keep up with, the two SIGMAs just moved and reacted at speeds nearly impossible for anyone else. One moment they would be grappling and struggling with each other, the next there would be a flurry of movement and all of a sudden something would explode, a crater would form, and they would move three meters in two seconds, to say nothing of their strength.
"That's why they're SIGMAs, superman." Said one of the Marines, as he did the opposite of Jorell and slowly slid to his rear, groaning as the pressure on his nearly broken leg was lifted.
The green-suited Quarian shook his head, pressing his hand to his face and squinting his eyes as he tried to shake off the dizzy feelings he got as he tried to keep up with the two supersoldiers. Was there nothing they could do? Absolutely nothing? They were Marines, damn it! They couldn't just sit here, the SIGMA was buying them time to think, so what could they do with that time?
Our only advantage are those Painter guns… Jorell looked at the surviving Marines, of whom only one had had the presence of mind to not abandon his weapon when the new SIGMA had told him to flee. But we might kill our SIGMA if we try using them… Jorell removed his hand, and after a moment, found the SIGMAs again. Both of them had their hands locked to eachother and their legs braced behind them, trying to best their opponent in a battle of strength. The biotic, 2-15, was practically covered in his biotic blue flames, whereas his opponent's vambraces were flaring brightly as their micro-thrusters balanced out his half of the struggle, the winds caused by them kicking up tons of dirt and debris. 2-15's helmet had a major dent in it, and part of his harness looked like it had taken a severe hit.
Jorell squinted his eyes. Can it be that simple? He thought, as 1-61 cut all power to his thrusters and slammed his knee into 2-15 when the latter lost his balance. 1-61 then let go of 2-15's hands and elbowed him in the head, using the recoil from that blow to create enough space to launch a front-kick that sent 2-15 sprawling about the ground. To his credit, 2-15 hadn't even landed before he had reacted and started clawing at the ground, intent upon tackling 1-61 and taking their fight to the ground.
Jorell turned around, an idea forming in his mind, but the only way it would work is if a certain sniper was conscious enough to say 'yes'. Unfortunately for the Quarian engineer, the sniper was unconscious, with more dirt clogging up his wounds than there was bandages and torn strips of cloth binding and covering them. Jorell sighed, and turned back to the fight. 2-15 was straddling 1-61, one hand smashing his face while the other blasted his helmet with a biotic attack. 1-61 caught 2-15's hand and tried to stop him, but the warp field was already eating away at his armor, and with a loud roar, 2-15 overpowered 1-61 long enough to get a grip on his helmet and forcibly tear it off of the man's head. Unfortunately for 2-15, 1-61 would not let that go lying down, and after a brutal rocket-punch to the face, he threw 2-15 off of him and drew a knife.
Jorell frowned, and turned his gaze to the small pile of corpses that marked where the Painter guns had been before the SIGMAs had started beating the hell out of eachother. After a moment's thought, he turned to the marine closest to him and spoke clearly, "I've got an idea."
The Marine, without even turning, ran his hand over his buzz-cut head and groaned in a satisfied manner, "oh thank god…"
The One, it seems, had his own defense-penetrator blade. Unlike his comrade, however, this one wasn't designed simply to create lasting injuries from the slightest nick, it was designed to cut through his defenses like butter. A blade with a cutting edge less than a molecule wide - even if it couldn't cut through his bones, it could damage his muscle suit and if he got a good stab in, when the suit broke it to pieces, it would just keep cutting into him as the suit failed to immobilize and remove the fragments.
John twisted his chest as the one stabbed forward with the knife. 1-61 tried to remove himself from John's effective range before the Two capitalized on it, but the Two's reaction time was just good enough to allow him to react faster than his opponent. Now seeing his opportunity on the silver platter it had been handed to him upon, John chopped down on the One's arm and locked his hand to it before he twisted violently. It did nothing to the One's grip, but it hurt enough to stun him, to the point where the only force behind the punch 1-61 launched at John's helmeted head was that offered to him by his thrusters. The impact stunned John, long enough for 1-61 to rip his hand out of his opponent's iron grip and jam the knife into his gut. 1-61 got three stabs in before John's suit shattered the blade. John, despite the blood pouring from his gut and the shards cutting apart his innards, continued fighting.
With a deep bellow, John collected biotic energy in both hands and slammed them onto the One's exposed head, the shock going directly into his brain and stunning him long enough for John to beat the man's face with a flurry of fists before he stunned the man with a brutal biotic roundhouse kick. The SIGMA landed on his hands and feet, and tried to sweep John's out from under him, but John jumped over the SIGMA's attack, but due to the injuries to his stomach and his extensive biotic use, the child soldier was a fraction of a second too slow to dodge the second spin.
The impact of the man's leg on John's sent John to the ground, where 1-61 knife-hand-chopped at John's throat. John felt his windpipe collapse, and barely a second later he felt the One's punch slam into his stomach, pushing the razor sharp blades further into his gut, which, despite his suit's best efforts, was still leaking blood. John, at the outermost edges of his vision, saw his world losing color. With a pained grunt, John caught the next fist as it went for his chest with both of his own hands, but that left 1-61 free to get to his feet and smash his fist into John's already profusely bleeding face, all but destroying the front of his already mangled helmet.
With a loud yell, John yanked away both of his fists and coated the both of them in hardlight blades, before he slammed both of those blades into his opponent's weakened chest, and used his newfound leverage to bodily toss the man away from him. John was on his feet in two seconds, his hand cradling his gut and his ears ringing. His opponent was in no better shape, his ears and nose freely leaking blood, many parts of his face cut open and bruised, one of his eyes swollen completely shut, and a noticeable limp in one of his legs.
"John, you -"
"Mute." How his internal speakers were still functioning, John didn't know, but he didn't need Cassidy, or a functioning HUD for that matter, to tell him how bad a shape he was in. Overusing his biotics, severe internal lacerations and blood-loss, stressing his body so soon after augmentation, what advantages he had over this SIGMA thanks to his training and his biotics were being beaten out by the SIGMA's stamina, plain and simple.
Out of the corner of his eye, sprinting through the fires, John saw the Marines, making a mad dash for the pile of corpses near the edge of their arena. With a deep frown, John hurtled forward, intent on not letting his opponent see the schemes of the Marines. John blasted the man with another Warp and hit the man in his chest with a biotic side-kick. The One grabbed John's leg and elbowed it at the knee, hurting John enough for the One to have long enough to yank John forward and grab him by the throat.
1-61 didn't even get the chance to squeeze before John felt a very invasive feeling in his stomach. Before John even realized what had happened, he felt his suit grow into the wounds and grab at all of the shards of the One's knife, before shooting them out of his body the same way they had come in. John saw the knife fragments falling from his gut in slow motion, and acted as fast as he could - grabbing at the largest shard he could see, he jabbed it into the One's neck.
1-61's hand clamped onto his neck, but his grip on John slackened enough for the Two to break his grip and slam both palms into the man's mangled and ruined chestplate, which was so damaged that even his ID Tag had been lost to the battle. John ripped his knife from its sheathe and leapt into the air, smashing the One's face with a spinning back kick and jamming his knife into the other side of the One's neck, giving him two knife wounds to deal with, as well as shards from John's own knife, when the One's suit shattered it into pieces and left it a jagged, useless hunk of metal.
When John landed on the ground, he was greeted by the sight of a Quarian in a forest green suit leaping onto the SIGMA's back and locking his arms around the man's neck. John, already seeing the SIGMA begin to reach back, sent a biotic fist right for the SIGMA's nose, sending the man stumbling backwards. John followed it up with a right cross, as the Quarian squeezed the man's neck as best he could. When the SIGMA's head recoiled from John's attack, the Quarian took a pistol and jammed it at the base of the SIGMA's skull, and while the bullets failed to penetrate his skull, the force of impact was sent directly to his brain, stunning him as well as any of John's punches could, and the added blood-loss from the bullet wounds certainly helped.
1-61 was almost now solely acting on instinct, and John knew that instinct would dictate that he remove the man on his back. This in mind, John barreled forward and slammed his biotic fist into the man's chest; this impact proving to be the final straw and John's fist finally penetrated the armor plating. Now with direct access to the SIGMA's core, John opened his palm and clenched onto the man's skin suit, yanking him forward and reaching around to get at the marine, who received two pats on the back, a silent order to let go. The Marine slackened his grip and slid off of the SIGMA, ripping a shotgun from his back and loading a shell, which he deposited in the back of 1-61's weak leg just as 1-61 smashed his rocket-assisted fist into John's face. John, however stunned he was, kept his grip on the SIGMA and ripped his fist out of the man's weakened armor - taking a significant chunk of the man's skin suit with him, and silently revelling in the fact that, had the SIGMA I skin suit been made of the same materials and synthetic muscles his own had been made of, this maneuver would have been impossible.
1-61 stumbled forward, still reeling from the gunshots to the head and the stab wounds to the neck. His armor, his face, and the back of his head were quickly becoming drenched in blood, barely managing to mask how pale his skin was becoming. Now with space to maneuver, and a window to act, John ripped his assault rifle from his back, and time slowed down as he took aim. Blood-loss was a good, but slow method of killing a SIGMA, he needed to destroy the man's organs. The SIGMA regained his footing, his face a blood-stained painting of pure rage, mixed with the smallest amount of realization as he saw where John was aiming - right at the weak spot in his chest.
John opened fire, his gun bucking and barking as it sprayed ammunition precisely at the fist-sized hole in the supersoldier's armor. The SIGMA, to his credit, tried to block it by covering the hole with the arm that still had some modicum of armor plating, but when he did so, the green-suited Quarian marine opened fire with his shotgun, blasting him with dozens of pellets, each with a spread small enough that their collective force was just enough to cause 1-61 to recoil with each impact. The gunfire didn't end at John and the Quarian, however, as the other battle-ready Marines leveled their plasma weapons and all opened fire, multiple bright green beams of ionized plasma soaring through the air and hitting the One in various areas around his midsection and head.
1-61 roared in pain as he was assaulted from all angles by gun and plasmafire. He fell to one knee as John and Jorell reloaded their weapons. His hands and arms covered his head as the more seriously injured marines joined in, using their side-arms to add more sheer mass to the ballistic assault. The One struggled for a total of seven seconds under the weight of the weapons being brought to bear on him, the clearing around him drowned out entirely by the metallic rat-a-tat of ballistic guns and the metallic ringing of plasma. The gunfire was slamming into his armor and either penetrating the weaker sections or being reflected with a loud metallic clang and a brief spark, whereas the plasma was slamming into his back and spraying out in all directions, like water sprayed onto a flat surface.
The SIGMA slowly, laboriously, struggled back onto his feet, one hand covering the hole on his chestplate, the other slowly lowering down to his side as he stared directly at John, making direct contact with the severely damaged, soulless red plates on his gas mask/helmet. He managed to stand up despite she gratuitous amounts of damage being done to him, looking for a moment like a monster as it withstood the awesome amounts of firepower and stayed on his feet. After a moment, however, his life finally ended, vanishing as quickly and as suddenly as the lives of all of those he had fought during his life. For barely a second, his dead corpse stayed standing, before it finally crumpled to its knees and fell face forward.
John lowered his rifle, and as everyone slowly realized what had happened, and ceased fire, he thought of the look on the SIGMA's face just as the light vanished from his eyes. His face had been severely disfigured, more exposed skeleton and burned tissue than skin and muscle, but the expression in his eyes was unmistakable. It hadn't been one of hatred, anger, or malice, nor had it been one of peace or acceptance. The man hadn't been angry he was dying, nor did he give John - his enemy - one final loathful glare before his life ended; he hadn't had the bright shine that came with accepting his fate, nor the dull glow that came with the peace of knowing he was not long for this world. 1-61's eyes hadn't even had within them the strained look of a man in impossible amounts of pain, the look in his eyes as he died had been one of pity. Completely focused upon John's angular, blood red, dehumanizing glass faceplates, the SIGMA had given him a remorseful look of pity in those few moments before he fell to his knees and stopped resisting death.
"Uh, ho - HOLY SHIT! WE DID IIIIIIIIIIT!" A Marine screamed, lifting his rifle into the air and howling in victory.
John ignored the Marines as they all roared in victory and embraced eachother in euphoria. He heard the speakers in his helmet flare to life, but they were garbled and damaged, leading whatever the speaker was saying to come out as little more than gibberish. John reached up to the base of his neck and released the magnetic seals on his helmet, he pulled it off and turned it around. It was unrecognizable from when John had gotten it less than two hours earlier, the face and sides horribly dented, crushed, and mangled, a few scars from where bullets had hit and been deflected, one of the plates cracked and chipped, almost broken, it looked like it had survived exactly what it had - a fist fight with two SIGMAs.
But it's better than no protection at all. John placed the damaged piece of armor back on his head and sealed it back together, before he opened up his smart-watch and synced it up with his radio, Cassidy was there a picosecond later, her gray holographic form practically buzzing with barely-contained panic.
"John, I've got a casevac coming. In addition to your previous injuries, you're suffering from thirteen internal lacerations, bruised organs, intense shock, and severe burns all along your spine and in your ears. Both of your eardrums have been burst, nine of your surgical scars have reopened, you've lost forty three percent of your blood and your heart is -"
"Cassidy." John interrupted, "I need you to do something for me."
"What is it?"
"Have Admiral Hacket contact Commander Ducard, and have three cell fluid containers waiting for me when I land, my spinal mount was broken." John said, "I know I need help… But I need something else too."
"Message away - What is more important than getting the intense surgery you'll need to survive?"
John looked up from Cassidy's holographic image to 1-61's smoldering, bleeding corpse, where some Marines were kicking it and prodding it, to make certain it was dead. John scowled, "STOP THAT!" He roared, stalking up to the startled Marines and forcibly separating them from the SIGMA's corpse. "Have respect, he is dead." He growled, so deeply and so forcefully that not a single Marine even considered refusing him. After a moment of tense silence, John kneeled down and fished inside of the One's armor, searching for the hidden 'white box' in all suits of Titan armor. He found it after a moment's searching, and removed it from the SIGMA's corpse; upon opening it, he found the man's dog tags, completely unscathed.
Phillip Montrell, S1-61. John read, before he stowed the white box in his harness and he quietly answered Cassidy's questions. "I want answers, Cassidy. And I am going to get them."
A/N:
So, this chapter wasn't longer than the last one, like I thought it'd be, but the last one's fist fight was more of a closer than a main event, whereas here, the fight was pretty much the entire chapter, and keeping it going any longer than it did would have made it feel like it was dragging on, so I think that'll make up for it.
Now, the good news is the hiatus is over, the bad news is its cessation is temporary as well - there are only a few chapters left before the first third of this story is well and done with. My plan is to have them all up before Christmas rolls around, that way I can take some time off (again) and enjoy the holidays with my friends and family.
If you're interested in News, check my profile! If you're interested in more frequent updates (or just the random BS that pops into my mind), check out my Twitter, -at- ProfFartBurger!
'Till next time, folks!
-PFB