One vast improvement Life Control had over Regrowth was that I didn't need to concentrate exclusively on healing.

I made sure that Smasher was in plain sight and moved around Morgan. Then I starting dragging him towards the AV as gently as I could. Life control was working well, but I had to excise cells that were themselves, putting out more rads. I was slowly winning the war, but it was going to take a few more minutes.

If it wasn't for our shields, I'd be worried about our ability to reproduce viable offspring in the future. I noticed the occasional small red streak pass over them.

I was missing Jaina's Tower right about now.

"Where are you going with Blackhand, Meat?" Smasher taunted. He stepped right into the middle of my team's killbox. "That's my prey. No one likes a Scav."

Anyone else and I'd have said they were the dumbest son of a bitch ever born. If half of what Sinn had said about this dickhead was true, his arrogance was well deserved.

Then Raynor opened up on him, followed by the others. Except John, he was staring at Smasher with an intensity I hadn't yet seen from him before. The results of armor piercing crysbronze rounds slamming into the borg's body? Surprises for everybody.

We were not shocked that Smasher was rocked back a few feet, with a few dents and small holes in him, but by the fact that didn't even begin to flatline him.

He was shocked he took any damage at all, if I was reading him right. I got it, he had just tanked a small nuke after all.

Then he started laughing again.

"Use the lasweapons!" Raynor hollered. Good idea. Melt his damned armor.

I wondered what it was made of?

For probably the third time since we entered this messed up place, I wished we had a Probe to scan things.

I wondered if there was a Hero Probe, somewhere?

Serious why does my brain go off on these tangents?

Smasher started stalking towards Raynor, "I'm guessing you're in charge of this little bunch." Beams from Eager and Borfen hit him.

Smasher looked down where the beams barely started to turn his armor to a dull red glow. "Lasers? Seriously? My armor's made out of the stuff they use for space shuttles, if you think you can melt through it, we'll be here all night." Oh, at least one layer of ceramic composite. Nice.

My guys started to back up, firing their SORs, while their suits' VIs focused the lasweapons on very specific areas.

Hey, where had John gone? He did the vanishing thing again, hadn't he?

Morgan started to stir. He muttered some garbled noise.

"Stay still, asshole." I growled at him, "Don't waste my work." Pouring more mana into him, I felt a stutter in the flow. I was reaching my limit.

He complied.

I took stock of the situation.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Eager and Borfen were playing flank the borg. While Raynor kept putting rounds in the same spot over and over. Damn, color me impressed.

Still what was Smasher's play here? He had to have some weapons hidden in his tin can shell. Why wasn't he using them?

Fear? Tension? Was he just a Drama Queen?

Suddenly he leapt, and I couldn't track him.

When I saw him again, Borfen was knocked flat with Smasher's foot pressing against his shield.

"Huh? What kind of bullshit is this?" He pulled back his foot and slammed it into the shield rapidly before it shattered. Borfen managed to roll out of the way of the next stomp. Which demolished the concrete.

"The eggheads are going to love getting a hold of you, once I scrap you." This guy never shut up. He reached down to grab Borfen.

That's when John made his move, and dumped his whole mag into the back of Smasher's skull at pointblank range.

The Borg's skull was heavily dented and he staggered, but he didn't go down.

"W-what?" Smasher spun, he seemed unsteady but still very much functional. What kind of braincase did they put in there?

John had already vanished again.

"What the fuck happened?" Smasher scanned the area. Whatever chrome he had, still couldn't detect John. Not surprising, even Observers lost him when he pulled this stunt.

Raynor's next round torn through something major. Disgusting fluids leaked out of the borg's chest from right about where the heart would have been on a normal human.

"Arrgrgrgrg!" He vanished once more.

This time he had bullrushed Raynor and knocked him 50 feet away. His shield disabled, Raynor tumbled ass over teakettle.

"Fucking gnats! I'll crush you!" Smasher disappeared again.

This time the borg rammed his fist into Eager. Popping the shield and throwing Eager into the railing at the edge of the roof.

Then a crouching John showed up and dumped another mag into Smasher left knee joint, before just fading away.

The joint was trashed. Sparking, burning and leaking oil, yup toast.

Smasher's leg wobbled. It possibly could have held him if he didn't move quickly, but Smasher didn't get the memo.

He spun around trying to backfist whoever had shot him and fell with a massive thump. He flopped about like an overturned turtle.

Borfen had managed to get a hold of himself and was approaching Smasher while pumping burst after burst into the borg.

Raynor was raising up. He staggered a bit before stabilizing himself with his rifle.

"God damn it, I'd just broken this baby in," he mourned. His rifle's barrel was bent almost 90 degrees. He pulled his side arm and started plinking away at the borg.

Eager was off the railing and also working his way toward Smasher, changing his mag to explosive rounds. Those seemed to do a good bit of damage now the the ridiculous armor had been breached.

Morgan, still under my hand said, "I don't believe it. You have TPW on the ropes." (AN: If you know, you know. Yes, kind of a Fourth wall break.)

I looked down at the asswipe I was treating. "No, he's already dead. He just hasn't stopped breathing yet." I growled.

"Why are you so hostile? Why are you healing me? Why not just let me die?" He asked it calmly, like ordering the same meal for the thousandth time. The man just didn't value his life, how could he be expect to value others.

I looked back toward the closing act of the fight. It was all over, but the dying.

"Because I want you to see the consequences of your actions. You used fucking nukes." I shook my head. "I get it, I really do. Fuck Arasaka. You thought the building infrastructure would shield the rest of the city from any fallout. Maybe you were right. But rads are hitting us right now, all because things went wrong. Things always go wrong."

"Yeah, I didn't like it either, but things had to change." Morgan voice was flat.

I nodded, "I understand. It's why I didn't put rounds into all of you, but it doesn't make me any less pissed. It might make me a hypocrite, but who isn't?"

He chuckled. "You sound like an old friend of mine."

My attention went back to the fight.

Smasher was trashed. His mighty borg body was ready for the scrap heap.

Maybe we could take it with us when we exited the Mana Sink?

John had stopped hiding. He walked over to Smasher ready to finished it.

"1-1 Johnny-boy. S-see you n-next time." The defeated legend started to laugh a deep rolling sound, like he knew something we didn't.

I had a bad feeling.

"John!" I yelled.

I needn't have bothered. John was already gone, rushing away with his chrome jacking him up to superhuman speeds. He had great instincts.

Smasher's body exploded. It wasn't a huge blast. But if you had been close enough to deliver a Coup de Grace you would've been pasted. Nasty and effective. A good summation of Adam Smasher.

"Good bye, asshole." Whispered Morgan.

I had fixed enough of him that any doc worth his salt could finish fixing him.

I stood up, "Let's get out of here guys. Time to go home."