Did somebody say perspective swapping? As it so happens, writing two fight scenes at the same time in different areas is somewhat trickier than it sounds. I feel like I need to add a seizure warning.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bioshock or any of the characters. Does anybody still read these?

"Oh god, it's filthy in here!" Isabelle exclaimed, retching at the sight of the room. Every wall was coated in layers of bee refuse. Even Hammer, who was no stranger to disgusting smells and vile sights, couldn't help but feel nauseous just standing at the entrance. It took an absurd amount of effort to keep from gagging when his foot squelched into the sticky substance that had replaced the floor.

His companion alternated between complaining at the state of the environment, and cursing Cain with every foul word she could think of. He simply tuned her out, choosing instead to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. He knew he'd feel better when they found the two people they were supposed to kill. Crushing a couple skulls always improved his mood.

Suddenly, Isabelle snapped out of her cloud of self-pity.

"What was that?" She demanded, hoisting her massive weapon into a firing position. Before Hammer could even think of responding, a sharp twang echoed throughout the room.

The brute grunted in surprise as a tiny pinprick stabbed into his chest. Dumbfounded, he looked down at the little crossbow bolt that had appeared there. With a grumble of annoyance, he went to pull the offending object out only to have it explode in his hands.

A cloud of shrapnel raked across his body, tearing miniature holes in his thick flesh. It wasn't enough to do any serious damage, but it sure as hell pissed him off.

"There they are!"

In a rage, the giant man turned towards the direction Isabelle was directing him towards. Sure enough he spotted the two colony troops taking cover behind an ancient looking market stall. Hammer's eyes narrowed as he started barreling towards them.

"You're gonna pay for that you little shits!" He bellowed. His targets scrambled out of the way in different directions as their cover was pulverized to splinters by the charging behemoth. The smaller of the two raised his crossbow and fired it at near point-blank range. He couldn't have missed if he tried.

The bolt punched into the brute splicer's cheek, embedding itself almost a third of the length into his mouth. The following explosion tore a massive chunk out of the surrounding flesh.

Hammer recoiled, howling in agony while gripping the mass of tattered skin that had once held his two jaws together. Blood seeped through his fingers as the wailing only widened his injury.

Isabelle stood back, shaking her head at his stupidity. She could easily pick off the crossbow wielding boy, but right now he wasn't a major threat. He had been too close to the blast and now was cradling an arm that had been shredded by pieces of his own explosive bolt. By the look of suffering on his face, she could safely say that he wouldn't be able to reload that thing any time soon.

"Come on you bastard." She whispered to herself. "Show me your head. Just give me one shot and I promise; it won't hurt a bit."

The other man had dashed behind another stall once the first one had been destroyed. She knew he was hiding back there, and was fully aware that he had nowhere to go. His weapon was ill suited for long range combat, so she had the advantage.

All she had to do was wait for an opening. This was going to be too easy.

Archer tried his best to block out the pain that shot up and down his damaged arm. He had known that the blast was a bit close, but he hadn't expected this much of a hit.

Move damn it! He silently shouted at himself. You're still right next to that freak! He knew all too well that his target wasn't going to be very happy when he recovered.

Turning his head, he could see Tomas shouting at him. Whatever words the man was trying to say were drowned out by the thought-rattling ringing in his ears. But he was gesturing over Archer's shoulder, what could he be…

Oh no…

A slow turn of his head revealed a hellish image standing over him. The brute splicer was a towering figure up close, and his appearance was the stuff of nightmares. His right cheek had been all but blown to pieces, revealing cracked teeth and bloody muscles beneath. The grisly visage only served to make his rage all the more terrifying.

With a scream of rage that Archer couldn't hear, he hefted his meaty fists high above his head and balled them together. The young man could only watch as he prepared to crush him underneath those mighty appendages.

"Get out of there!" Tomas shouted, wildly gesturing towards his fallen ally. "He's recovering, don't just sit there!" The boy hardly responded. By the time he realized the danger he was in, the brute was already preparing to finish him off.

He was going to die unless Tomas did something quickly. The other splicer was waiting for him to make a move. He knew that much for a fact. Steeling himself, he made ready to do something recklessly dangerous.

"Hey you fat fuck!" He shouted, successfully getting the giant's attention. "Chew on this!"

Not giving himself a chance to think about the danger, he sprinted out from behind his cover and raised his shotgun. His target's eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen, but he was far too slow to do anything about it.

The colony officer pulled the trigger. His shotgun barked loudly, firing electrified pellets that erupted on contact with the splicer's skin. Sparks of electricity flew in all directions as the beast spasm violently, his own weight causing him to fall backwards with a crash.

A click was the only warning Tomas got before the waiting splicer fired. Instinctively, he threw himself backwards hoping to get behind cover before she pulled the trigger. She had been expecting that.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the drug ravaged woman tracing his movement with her gargantuan weapon. As her finger tensed in preparation to fire, he dug his feet into the ground in an attempt to stop his momentum.

The weapon fired with a wicked snap, not all unlike the sound of a massive crossbow. The arrow it fired however was far different. Despite the incredible speed it had flying through the air; the shot was so large that Tomas was actually able to see it.

His quick thinking had just saved his life. The spear had been positioned to skewer him through his center of mass. As he skidded to a halt, it missed his body but impaled his left hand instead. The speed and weight of the shot yanked him off his feet, sending him spinning into the far wall.

The splicer's shot had hit him. There was just one problem for her however. Tomas wasn't holding his gun in his left hand. As he fell, his right hand whipped up the gun in a rapid aim that was two parts muscle memory, one part quick thinking, and at least ten parts sheer dumb luck.

He felt something tear in his arm as the shotgun fired. One-handing such a weapon was usually a terrible idea.

At such a long range, the pellets it fired spread out significantly. This would be a problem for normal bullets whose stopping power depended entirely on hitting the target. For the electrified rounds, it wasn't even an inconvenience. The spread on the shot created a miniature lightning web arcing out between each of the projectiles. The splicer had miscalculated.

Caught out in the open, she was hit full force by the deadly electricity. Her body, being much smaller and less durable than the brute's, was exposed to a massive amount of amplitude. She screamed, dropping her weapon and contorting in agony on the floor.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye.

Tomas slammed into the wall, carried as an unwilling passenger on the end of the spear. The pain was so intense that he nearly blacked out. His left hand was spit on the metal projectile right through the middle. What's worse, the damn thing had pierced through the wall meaning that if he wanted to get free, he needed to pull along the full length of it.

The man spent almost no time thinking about how bad this was going to be. He'd spent too long in Rapture to pause any more.

Holding a deep breath, he forced his destroyed hand along the shaft. The wave of agony that blasted through him was unreal. He'd been shot many times in the past, struck by plasmids, even had his sternum cracked by an angry bouncer. Nothing had hurt this bad.

With self-control born of long experience, Tomas forced his mind to shut out the sensation that threatened to overwhelm him. It was someone else's pain. He was simply a bystander watching as this tortured figure pulled itself off the pin that held it in place.

Inch by inch, he pushed forward. The damaged limb slowly made its way up the shaft until, finally, it slid off the end with a disgusting squelch. Collapsing to the ground, he immediately emptied the contents of his stomach all over it. The blinding trauma was still there, but he didn't have time to worry about it. Hopefully it wouldn't get infected in this blighted atmosphere.

Tomas stumbled to Archer's side and roughly forced the young man to his feet. Behind them, the brute was slowly recovering but neither of them were in a position to finish it off.

"Move." He ordered, despite the fact that he knew the boy couldn't hear him.

As quickly as their damaged bodies would allow, the two of them dashed through the exit.

The element of surprise was a powerful tool, but it wouldn't last for very long. Epsilon had to make the most of it while she had the chance.

As soon as she rounded the corner into the open, both splicers turned to face her. In the split second that it took them to register the charging sister, she had crossed most of the distance separating her from them.

Her attention was focused on the shirtless one. He looked to be more combat ready than his friend. More muscular definition, fewer scars, and a general air of lethality. If she could finish him off quickly, the other wouldn't be much of a threat on his own. She'd only come across one splicer who'd gotten the better of her in a one on one fight, and that was more due to a mistake on her part.

Putting on an extra burst of speed, she drove her harvester towards the man's exposed chest. It was aimed directly at his solar plexus, and he had yet to even budge from his initial position. By rights, he was as good as dead.

It was a pity splicers didn't fight fair.

The instant before she impaled him on the end of her needle, the splicer vanished in an all-too-familiar puff of red smoke. The bastard was a Houdini too.

A whoosh of air alerted her to his reappearance behind her. Spinning around, she came face to face with him right as he pulled out his twin hatchets. She jumped backwards out of his reach and tried to re-target so as to salvage some of her failed attack. Unfortunately, the other man hadn't simply been standing around this whole time doing nothing. One of his hands clenched around thin air as a blood red polyp formed in the opening.

"Hey bitch, catch!"

Epsilon didn't have time to dodge away. Raising her arms to protect her face, she braced herself for the explosion, or blast wave, or whatever other atrociously destructive force would be unleashed. It came as a rather anticlimactic surprise when the orb popped on contact with her armor, and coated the sister in a gooey substance.

Both she and the Houdini stared blankly for a moment, while the other splicer looked particularly pleased with himself.

Was that supposed to hurt? For some strange reason, the protector found herself becoming very annoyed that he'd deigned to waste her time with such a weak attack. Who did he think she was, some kind of pansy little girl that would fall over and die to a stiff breeze?

The red liquid oozed into the cracks in her armor, sliding against her skin.

Oh! Fan fucking tastic! Now this crap was inside her armor also? Well wasn't this just turning into one hell of a day! First the god damn bees, then her brain dead sister had decided she'd look better as a corpse, and now on top of all of that the inside of her suit was being coated in this filthy sludge!

Noticing the big sister trembling in barely contained rage, the Houdini turned to his companion.

"Jericho?" He asked, keeping Epsilon well within his line of sight. "What did you just do?"

"I wanted to try out this new plasmid I got." He explained, eagerly watching the effect it was having on her. "It's a hypnotize thing. Supposed to drive people crazy and make them go mental on their buddies! I thought it'd do wonders against the two we're after."

The other man closed his eyes, fighting a mental battle to keep him from severing Jericho's head from his shoulders.

"Had it occurred to you…?" He began, speaking through clenched teeth. "That she has no targets to go after besides us right now?"

The overzealous splicer frowned at his words, before realizing what they entailed. Turning back to Epsilon he realized the gravity of his mistake.

"Whoops…"

Her thoughts clouded with images of absolute hatred, the big sister shook the walls of the city with her murderous battle cry and shot towards the two men who dared stand in her way.

It had never been this bad before. Davian had gone through many close calls in the past, but this was unlike anything he had previously experienced. He could hear the sounds of fighting, but it was muffled and distant. Almost like he was under water. It was impossible to focus.

Having trouble?

He couldn't even work up the self-control to formulate a response. All he could do was wrap his arms more tightly around himself in an attempt to stave off the growing cold.

Seems to me like you're in some trouble.

He couldn't gather his senses enough to be annoyed by the voice. It was just another trial heaped on top of his suffering.

You're not the only one either. Can you hear the fighting? Sounds like your lady friend is having a hard time out there.

Davian's mind struggled to make sense of the words that the voice was saying. What lady? Was it talking about Amelia? But she was dead… No, wait. There were… two…? Images of his older sister and the armored girl flashed back and forth in his field of vision. He could no longer fully remember which was which.

Tell you what, how about we use this little mishap as a learning experience?

Before he had a chance to process those words, another sensation took hold of him. The young man was gripped by panic as he realized what was happening. Little by little control of his body was being dragged away from him.

"Nuu.. Nuuhh. Staahh.." The sheer effort it took to form words was quickly becoming an impossible feat.

What's the matter Davian? I thought letting an illusion take control was perfectly acceptable. After all, didn't we have that long discussion about how Wren deserved to be manipulated?

He opened his mouth to try protesting, but his vocal cords were no longer under his control. With terror mounting in his system, he realized that he was now nothing more than a prisoner in his own body.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride. I'll take it from here…

Very slowly, the world faded to black.

As it turns out, fighting in a state of perpetual rage was rather tiring. The effects of the splicer's plasmid were wearing off, but Epsilon knew that the damage had already been done. Her two opponents had taken advantage of her blind fury to bait her attacks. Each time she would close in for a killing blow, she would be assaulted by the other. The scarred man had already scored several painful blows with his twin blades, and she'd been hit by numerous plasmids as well as a few grenades from his companion.

Leaping back away from the fray, she took a moment to re-gather her efforts. Sadly, her opponents could smell blood and had no intention of giving her any breathing room.

The Houdini dashed forwards electing a direct approach instead of the usual vanishing act. Epsilon growled in frustration at his persistence. She parried the first swing with the edge of her right gauntlet. As the other hatchet whipped towards her neck, she caught a hold of the arm that held it. Now she had an opening. Punching forwards with her harvester, she tried to kill the grappled man before he could escape.

It came as little surprise when her needle passed through nothing more than smoke and air. She hated fighting Houdinis.

Suddenly, her armor became coated in a thick sheen of ice as the other man hit her full on with a Winter Blast plasmid.

"I got somethin' else for ya freak show!" He shouted. "Here's something to scream about!"

Unable to move, Epsilon could only watch helplessly as he tossed a handful of home-made explosives directly at her feet. She strained against the prison of ice to no avail. Her strength was fading after so much fighting in such a short amount of time.

A small hiss acted as the harbinger for the blast. Bracing herself, she turned her head so as not to be hit by its full force. It was a small gesture, and made little difference in the end.

The bombs detonated in a blinding explosion, shattering her icy prison and sending her crashing to the ground several yards away. Her ears were ringing. Her head was spinning. She genuinely feared that she would be sick. But there were still opponents standing in her way, and the big sister's combat training forbade her from giving in. Struggling back up to her feet, she made ready to go on the offensive again.

The splicers mirrored her actions, taking up a pincer formation to strike at her from different angles. Defiance in her heart, she decided to target the bomb thrower. At the very least he couldn't simply disappear when she had him pinned.

She never got that far.

Footsteps interrupted all three combatants. Six eyes immediately turned to look over Epsilon's shoulder. When the figure was revealed, she felt the inside of her stomach turn to lead.

It was Davian.

The young man swayed drunkenly as he surveyed them with a half-lidded gaze. A crooked smile was plastered on his face. The whole thing seemed so thoroughly out of character for him that Epsilon couldn't help but be shocked.

"You guys…" He rasped, his voice sounding like sandpaper.

"…Are so fucked."