“I’m...me?” Nealon responded unsurely.

Raven dug her fingers into Nealon’s hands. She tried to pray open Nealon’s arms from around her, but his iron grasp proved to be impossible.

“Let. Me. Go,” She said with strain.

“I’m afraid you’ll run If I do that.”

“Well, no shit I’ll run!” Raven replied, stomping on Nealon’s toes.

He did not flinch. “Why are you so afraid?”

“I’m not afraid!” Raven briskly answered.

“You’re panicking,” Nealon said,

“I’m not panicking,” Raven said, in a calm manner, as she was panicking. “You’re neither Jack, nor Nealon. This was not supposed to happen. It makes absolute rubbish. How-”

“See. Panicking.”

“Fuck you!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind,” Nealon said with a vulgar grin.

“Nealon would never say that,” Raven sharply said, “And Jack would never do that,” then, after a slight pause, added, “...most of the time.”

“Sure?” Nealon replied, not following.

“Who are you? What are you? What happened to Nealon? Why did he not devour Jack? Did any of them survive? What is Jack’s real modification? I thought he was a failure, with no abnormal abilities. What is his specialization? What did he do to me? How did he control me, the way I control other people? Where is Jack?” Raven said, running out of breath at the end of it all.

“Arrr….yes?” Nealon said.

“Argh! Why are you so stupid! Can’t you answer any of my questions?”

Nealon narrowed his eyebrows. “I hate being called stupid. If you’re so smart and dandy, then why can’t you ask questions that I can answer?”

“That makes no sense! Why do I have to make up for your stu-” Raven began, but immediately stopped upon the tightening of Nealon’s thick muscles. She swallowed her emotions, and became slightly more level-headed. “Fine. Are you one of Jack’s four…” Raven stopped, unable to find the correct word.

“Things?” Nealon suggested hesitatingly.

Raven twisted her head to glare at him, but budged after seeing the soft look on his face. “Not an accurate word, but sure. Things. Go ahead.”

Nealon thought about it. He played with the question for a while, and then, with astonishing surprise, asked Raven a question “Who is Jack?”

Raven bit down a couple unflattering curses. “Him,” Raven said, pointing with the tip of her chin towards Jack’s still body. “Were you inside him?

A sudden flash went through Nealon’s face. He wildly smiled and opened his mouth “Um, I’m not-

“No! Stop it. Stop it! All of you are--” Raven began, raving (+230 author points) wildly within Nealon’s arms.

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“--not into guys,” Nealon finished, bellowing with ground shaking laughter.

Raven pouted, tears welling up in her eyes as Nealon shook behind her. “Why did I do to deserve this?”

“Oh, well,” Nealon began, attempting to calm down his chuckles, “You did try to kill me, that’s for starters.”

Raven’s eyes opened wide. “So you were wi-” she started, but paused for better words. Unfortunately, because Raven had nothing come to mind that could not be sexually interrupted, she was forced to continue “-within Jack’s body.”

Nealon smirked but kept his tone flat. “Yes, I was. Am I? No, I was.”

“Did you know me?”

“Kinda.”

“That doesn’t help,” Raven said, her tone low and rough.

Nealon frowned. “What else am I supposed to say?”

Raven softened her glare. She almost apologized too, but thought better of it. “What do you remember before having woken up?”

“It’s all a blur, as if I was in a dream for my entire life. Some days it feels more lucid, others more…” Nealon stopped, unable to find the words, or imagery, to describe it.

“If you've never met me before, why are you holding me?” Raven continued. She was getting the hang of speaking to a slightly lesser intellectual being.

“Because, we agreed I would to hold on to you tightly, and then proceed with the plan.”

“Who is we, and what is the plan?” Raven blurted, then began to curse herself for asking two questions, instead of one.

“We? Who other than us?” Nealon replied.

“How many are in the we?”

“Three? Four if you include the fifth, but he’s not really a part of the we; he’s kinda outside of us, but like, still a part of us. But, even though sometimes he’s a part of us, and for only a bit, he’s still not really a...thing,” Nealon said with a shrug.

Raven swooned against Nealon’s chest. She held her fingers to her forehead. “And, how come Jack...I mean, how come Nealon, the Nealon I knew, is no more?”

Nealon’s hands had held her from the back, and had been resting on her belly. Now that she leaned against him, however, his hands were lowered slightly. Suddenly, he became acutely aware of how warm and soft Raven was, especially now that her back was pressed against him. He swallowed, attempting to ignore the lovely fragrance bathing his nose.

“I-I’m still him, I guess. A small part of him, though. I kinda...just took over,” he said.

“But how?” Raven pushed on, the side of her head pressing against his cheek.

“I’m not sure. I think it’s cus’ he tried to devour the fifth? But like I said, the fifth isn’t really the fifth, so he kinda...failed to devour nothing?” Nealon said, perplexed.

“Then what happened to the other three, or four, or five…” Raven began, but trailed off. She was looking at Nealon’s eyes mare inches away from her face. Blood rose to her cheeks. “...W-w-w-w-why do you suddenly have feelings for me!"

“W-what! How did you know!” His eyes went up and his mouth fell agape, and his hold on Raven loosened. Raven used this chance to duck under his arms and bolt away. Surprised, Nealon took one step after her, reaching for her wrists as she ran, but as he was mere inches from getting a grasp on them, they moved abruptly. Nealon then jumped after Raven, his steel quads hurling him forward at an astonishing speed and distance, and reached for her legs.

But that too, was deftly dodged. Without even as much as glancing behind her, Raven had jumped up, allowing Nealon to bounce off the floor. She placed one foot on the top of his head and propelled herself forward, leaving him in the dust. “As if I need my powers when you’re going to do look at me like that!” she yelled in between strides, and without slowing down, ran out the gate as it automatically lifted itself upwards.

Nealon got up, his hands holding the top of his head. “And so she goes. I forgot she can do that,” he said, wincing from the pain. He trundled forward, feeling terribly humiliated. “Wait...was I seduced? And you guys told me so too...One of the greatest warriors of humanity, and yet he can’t even hold onto a girl half his weight!” he said, voice full of hurt. "I really hate it when people toy with my feelings."

He took a few more steps before stopping suddenly. He looked around the room suspiciously. “No one...no one is saying anything?” he said, somewhat confused. “Oh, how odd it is, to not have any voices to converse with...How do people live like this?” A cold shiver ran down his spine. The accumulating silence began to frighten him. He shook it off and began to jog towards the gate.

He glanced at the clock on the computer screen as he did so, and felt a terrible terror coil around his heart. “Oh, no! Oh, no! I’m behind schedule!” He yelped, and with a few steps, 200 pounds of tight muscle and steel tough bones began sprinting at an inhuman speed. He was going so fast, in fact, that the automated door simply could not open in time, like it had done for Raven, and like Nealon had expected it to.

With a surprised squeal, Nealon turned his body to the side, ramming the innocent gates with his flexed shoulders.

The metal gate broke off at the hinges with a horrifying crunch and was carried through with Nealon’s charge. After he stopped, the door tumbled a few meters forward, bouncing off the train tracks and landed on the other side.

He turned his head right, seeing nothing down the hall for a couple miles out, and then turned his head left, to see Raven sprinting for her dear life a couple hundred meters away.

Raven had heard the terrible sound of metal being crushed, and had seen the unsavory condition of the unfortunate gate flying through the air.

She decided she was in no way or shape eager to stay behind, and that she would rather not find out what he would do to her.

She had seen murderous intent in his eyes, back then, when he had held her.

He began sprinting towards her, and inside him, he held something which perplexed even Raven.

He was by far much more terrified than her, which was generally the other way around for the killie, and the killer. Unfortunately, she did not the time to ponder this curious discrepancy, as her doom was cutting the distance with long, ground denting strides.

As any other young, forty-year-old girl, she did have the guilty fantasies of hot guys chasing after her, preferably naked, of course, but this was definitely not what she had in mind.