Three Hours

"All. Of. Them. He says. So casually too…" The woman muttered in a violent haze.

Grey waited patiently, hoping this would all blow over.

"So now, Mr. Mask. You going to explain how you ran into three Brawlers, you didn't kill anyone, yet everyone [probably] died? Ha. Haha." She asked with a sinister laugh.

"Sure." He began cautiously.

"From the beginning." She demanded.

Grey sighed inwardly. "When I walked outside, one of the Brawlers tried to dry mod me with a faction patch.

To protect myself from being dry modded, I had developed a type of oil that activates and rebounds the effects of whatever attributes the dry mod patch contains." He began.

"Ha. Haha. Oh, I didn't know something like that existed. On second thought, it probably doesn't, that's extremely advanced.

Tell me, Alyx. Does the oil adhere the patch to their hand as well?" She asked with a rabid voice.

"... Yes." Grey said cautiously.

'Damn, this woman is way too good.' He lamented. Only a developer would understand just how brutal his defensive measure really was.

"I see. Makes sense. Makes sense. What a feisty little bugger you are. Please, Alyx. Please continue." She requested, imploring him to continue.

Ice cold sweat was moving down his back. Nevertheless, his poker face was still as durable as a bronze statue.

"Sure." He began.

That "classic Alyx" type of response made her eyebrow twitch as she stared at him with a dangerous bewitching smile.

"The man's hand was on fire, so I thought I'd help him out. So I threw him a bottle of water." He added as if he was helping the man.

"To which hand, Alyx?" She asked sarcastically while raising her eyebrows.

Grey groaned inwardly.

"... The hand that was on fire." He clarified after a slight pause.

"And it exploded." She asserted while blinking multiple times. Her reply wasn't a question—it was a declaration.

"... Yes, long story short it blinded him." He added.

"Long…? Surely you jest, Alyx. It blinded him quite instantly didn't it?" The pressure she was putting on him was getting hotter.

"Quite instantly… that's a very accurate way of articulating what happened." He remarked, agreeing with her shockingly expressive choice of words.

"Yes. Yes. Perfect, glad we're on the same page." She announced, letting him know that she had caught up. "Please, tell me what happened next."

"I then started creating a reverse clone on one of the Brawlers." He explained.

"Reverse clone, as in putting your image over the top of someone else?" She asked dangerously.

"Correct."

"And your voice, I'm sure that it was also added over the top of his, as well?" She continued.

"Correct."

The instability in her eyes was reaching a tipping point.

"Excellent idea, Alyx! All you had to do was piss someone off, and they'd turn into your war puppet! You're a natural at making people angry, so I'm sure it's a very powerful weapon.

Someone attacks you; you rip their shoulder off—oh, excuse me, you just so happened to make a dry mod that could do that." She alleged.

Dry mods typically performed a singular action or sabotaged a person with a debuff. Therefore, a patch like this didn't exist on the market. It was too specific and impractical to use in battle.

So she was telling Grey she knew that he intentionally designed the patch to rip the Brawler's shoulder off.

'She's got me.' Grey sighed inwardly. 'The speed in which she's putting the pieces together is devastating. This woman is terrifying, even when she's on my side…'

"Now how did the tweaker die? Oh, you pissed off one of the Brawlers, they killed your clone," she began, completely skipping the need to confirm that he made a clone.

She had heard various stories about different applications of his clones, so it was implicit that he was using one the minute he walked out of the door.

"You stuck the arm ripper patch to the tweaker knowing they'd attack you, so naturally it rips their arm off. "She continued without pausing.

"They take some drugs, you incite the other person, and it becomes a deathmatch.

Tweaker goes against the other person, who is obviously stronger. The other person gets wounded but kills the tweaker.

Crippled and broken, they probably died of blood loss or scavengers. Or am I wrong?" She concluded without taking her eyes off him for a second.

"No, that's pretty much the gist of it. I take it that you've seen a case involving Red Out then?" He asked, confused about how she knew Dikines was stronger than Tweak.

"Yes," she stated matter of factly, "the person on Red Out killed a dozen people despite being riddled with bullets.

Hence I knew that the person the tweaker fought was stronger than him. Otherwise, there was no possible way the tweaker would die while the other Brawler lived.

As I recall, the tweaker was the only person who died while you were there. So that's the only option." She explained, outlining her reasoning.

"Impressive." Grey replied in genuine amazement.

"Thank you." She replied curtly.

After that, the two of them sat there in silence. Then, about 30 seconds later, the woman started up the conversation again.

"Whew. That Red Out case I was assigned to was gruesome. Horrifying sight. But I must say, Alyx. You put those cases to shame, you know that?" She laughed sardonically.

"So far in your story, one person killed themself, another probably killed themself, two people killed each other, and you blinded someone with an unopened bottle of water.

You cooked illegal drugs, cut off a person's hand, and made yourself an enemy of the most notorious syndicate in Nerve Network history.

Right, I almost forgot. You're heading to a deathmatch tournament without body enhancements or weapons right now in the story." Her eyes twitched with madness as she said these words.

How long had you been in Dark Paradise at that point?" She asked sarcastically.

"Three hours, give or take." He replied casually.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes. It finally makes sense why every place you go to ends up a devastating crime scene.

You have noooooo idea how much paperwork we've had to file because of you. But guess what, I do! Hah. Haha. Hahaha." She announced with a frightening amount of glee in her voice.

"I'm sorry." He replied with a straight face. His statement sounded nothing short of sarcastic with that poker face of his.

"Oh, no. I should be grateful, Alyx! I've lasted countless hours in this room with you. As you can see, I've neither killed Adam nor myself. Is this what respect looks like for you? I'm honored." She joked facetiously.

"You're a walking calamity, Alyx. I'm blessed to have met you while you were sitting." She joked with a lighthearted laugh.

While she was laughing, her eyes were not laughing.

"Hah. Okay, where were we? Ah, yes. That's right. So you're about to rob people of their limbs and weapons so you could parade them around as trophies.

Please, continue." She requested with madness flickering in her eyes.