Close Enough (Alex, Hayden, Ask to Join)

The cheeky grin Alex had worn was gone the moment Hayden said those words. The words cut through not only the word, but through Alex's usual cool bravado. Nothing tended to do that, because he knew getting angry was a recipe for disaster with the way he was. But it took every single ounce of willpower he had not to let the raging inferno in his chest overtake him, and the focus on it was so overwhelming that he honestly didn't even have the awareness to lessen the force of the attacks Hayden had just unleashed.

As the beam flew into him, Alex was sent careening directly into the wall of this cavern, slamming into it with a loud clang that echoed through the whole place. Everything hurt a lot more now. Hurt a little too much. He was getting hot, not a good hot, not a fun hot. He just kept his breathing even, practically shoving the Riot of the Blood down now as it screamed desperately to get out.

"...Yeah...yeah, Yaksha wanted a quiet life. Every fuckin day I think about that. I think about the fact that I couldn't do anything to save him. Save all the friends I had in that city."

Despite the tremendous pain he felt, despite the obvious cracking in his bones and the feeling of his own body cooking in the heat it had built up, Alex still stood up. He spat on the floor, though the saliva simply evaporated before it even came close to the ground, and he looked at Hayden with what could only be described as a murderous intent. The unbridled fury, the anarchy of the Riot, it was practically visible in his eyes.

"I always wondered what it was like to be someone like you. Have the whole world in your fuckin hand. I thought it'd be pretty fucking radical, you know that? Thought it'd kick ass to be able to just do whatever the fuck you want."

More cracks, more flame, and Alex only bit his lip as he felt the fire of Maiden Masher start to move unbridled across his body. He was already fucked here, wasn't he? Whatever. Hayden wasn't gonna kill him, right? Abalia'd be fucking mad. Nel'd be mad too. Did he trust Hayden? Good question. Took a lot of trust to put his life in someone else's hands.

"Turns out it fucking sucks to even coem close. Didn't ever think about what it'd be like to actually give a shit. Gotta worry about everything. Gotta fucking live with the shit you couldn't stop. But I'm here now, huh? Too fuckin' late to go back, too fuckin' late not to do everything I can for Nel."

Yeah. He trusted Hayden. Shooting the man a finger gun as his cocky grin came back one more time, he pulled the trigger as one more immense font of Maiden Masher poured out. If it hit him didn't matter. That was enough to fuck him up. Here came the Riot.

"Nel's gonna fuckin kill you if I die here"

And then, all at once, the fury of the Riot of the Blood exploded forth. Alex's formerly aggressive energy seemed to mutate all at once, growing outright acidic, as if its only goal was to destroy everything in its path. The weight of it was far worse, the heat skyrocketing all the more until the whole cavern was practically an oven. But far worse was Alex himself. As the energy released itself, he let out what could only be described as a roar of total agony, his mind and body lost wholly to pure rage. Even at a glance, he was no longer human. His stance had lowered, his eyes were empty and sunken in. He twitched angrily, and it seemed as though his hair might simply fall out of his head. He looked like nothing short of a dead man walking, and this was all the more reinforced when the skin of his right forearm simply fell off, landing upon the ground and burning into ash not long after.

And then...the creature that had once been Alex lunged toward Hayden. It had only one wish, only one desire. To kill, to succeed, to deny any authority over itself. It would do anything in that aim.