#armstrongstyles

"HOLY [[Cungadero]] DO I FEEL GOOD …"

Euphoria and pain mingle in his stolen body, its limbs twitching and flailing erratically as he continues ranting at Kris. Spamton NEO's memory plays out just as it should, the realization that his new strength still isn't enough to cut his strings dawning quickly,

"KRIS." He moves closer to the teenager, "KRIS." They know what he needs, "KRIS." He knows what he needs, "KRIS." What they need, "THAT'S RIGHT." He lurches forward, "YOU. I NEED YOU." He's desperate, they're desperate, "TO BE BIG. WITH ME. VERY VERY BIG. SO BIG WE'LL STAND UP TALL AND SEE PAST THE DARK"

They understand what he means, "STAND UP WITH OUR HEADS IN THE CLOUDS AND LOOK INTO" He fights past the spasming of his arms, "H E A V E N" Raising his blaster to take aim, "I JUST NEED THAT LITTLE, [[SOUL]] Y O U HAVE"

Until their friends interrupt, until the teenager's SOUL finally reveals itself to take that first big shot at the madman. More words are exchanged, but they're largely unimportant. He doesn't care to remember the boring parts of his greatest achievement,

❛  don't be afraid. i'm a friend.  ❜

“Do you think I am a fucking idiot?”

Yeah, no. Chara’s shoulders bristle; their wooden knife is held in front of them, a warning towards the older man that Chara isn’t afraid to use it. They’re not going to mess around or pretend to be friendly this time — though they won’t attack.

Not unless threatened.

"Oh man, where to start?" says Uzi, sighing. " How long you got? Every classmate I've ever had, my teacher, my dad, my mom, my boyfriend, my friend, this little keybug I was chasing, some corpo bootlicker, a skinwalker, a robot dinosaur-"

Brad looks down at her with his typical inscrutable expression. "No, I meant that you're bleeding."

"Oh. Oh yeah." She looks down at the cut on her leg, from which a dark, thick liquid oozes out. She's seated against a wall, waiting while her body's repair functions knit the gash closed. Meanwhile, the blood-oil mixture continues to pool onto the ground. "That's norm- Not normal, but expected, I guess."

Looking up at Brad, Uzi just offers him a small shrug. "You play with power tools, sometimes it bites you. And before you ask, not literally playing, but it's fine. It'll heal."

Wincing, Uzi presses a hand to the injury. Ichor trickles from between her fingers, but the pressure helps some of the pain go away. Damn whatever human programmed those pain sensors into drone bodies. When she looks up, Brad is kneeling at her side, reaching out with halting hands. "No, not like that," he says, voice even. "It's not sanitary. You should- Here."

He holds out a strip of dark cloth, glancing up at her. "Can I?"

"It's really okay, my repair systems are just a bit-" Uzi cuts herself off with a sigh and a frown. Her nerfed repair system will fix the problem before long, and she can just have a can to refill her oil reserves, but... The guy seems insistent. Let's just humor him.

"Yeah, alright," she says, pulling her hand away and sticking out her leg. "Don't worry about it being too tight. My circulation's not like a human's."

"Alright," says Brad. "Just let me know if it hurts."

Uzi's violet eyes just watch as he ties the scrap around her leg. He knows what he's doing, but his movements have a struggling gentleness to them, as if he's trying very hard not to be too forceful. "Doesn't hurt even a little bit," she says.

"Good." Brad gives the knot a final tug, rising to his feet. "That good enough?"

"It's fine. I've had worse, you know? That skinwalker I mentioned, she tore my core out," says Uzi, tracing a circle on her chest. "Now that hurt, but I used to be able to self-repair a lot faster. So, y'know. I got better."

She flashes a toothy grin, and Brad just frowns. "You're pretty... blithe about all this," he says.

"What, am I supposed to angst about it? No thanks, I've already got plenty of stuff to get emotional about, a little injury's pretty far down on the scale," she says, rolling her eyes. She almost folds her arms over her chest before remembering she doesn't want to get an oily hand print on her favorite coat. But looking down at her hand... It smells kinda good, actually. Waste not, want not? She sticks her tongue out as she moves her hand to her face so-

"Hey, c'mon," says Brad, placing his hand on her arm. "I get that you're a machine and all this human stuff doesn't apply, but... Have some dignity."

Frowning, she yanks her arm away. "Ugh, whatever. If it makes you feel better, then fine. Not like it'd actually fill my tank, anyhow."

An awkward silence follows, and Uzi places a hand on her bandaged leg. Finally, she sighs. "Well... Thanks for helping, or whatever. Before you ask, I can get home fine on my own."

Brad's expression is barely visible beneath his darkened brow, but he gives her a small nod. "Alright. Don't push yourself too hard."

"I'm okay." Dam-bi says cooly. It's almost as if she hadn't just tripped over some pants that were too long for her. The way she quickly stood up and brushed herself off as if she was just brushing off some feather.

Welcome to scenic Isola Radiale, Brad!

You will be housed in TOWNHOUSE 204.

You’ll retain everything you were given in your previous stay.

“ who did this to you ? ”

They don’t know who this man is — they’ve seen him briefly a few times with spamton, but had never spoken to him — and Quite Fucking Honestly was too frightened to even think about asking about it.

But here he is, hovering over them, as Chara presses themself into the wall outside the flower shop. There’s a bruise on their arm right below their wrist, blossoming against their laughably pale skin. Chara can hear their heartbeat hammering against their ears and they despise it.

“I.”

They open their mouth to continue speaking, but … nothing happens. They try to call out to their coworkers for help, but nothing happens. They reach for Frisk in the depths of their SOUL, but … nothing happens.

(They knew the last thing wouldn’t work anyway.)

Chara’s hand moves to grip at their wrist. They won’t look up at him. Their shoulders shake with the exertion of even trying to keep themself standing.

“… n-nobody. I … bruise easily. I fell into the boxes … a-at my job.”

(He’s so much bigger than they are.)

Spamton stares up and into the sun's burning rays with as much of a scowl as he can manage, still feeling physically ill from all the fresh new memories he'd woken up with that morning,

"HOW COULDN;T HE RECOGNIZE /???" He dramatically draws his arms in to cross against his chest, "I KNOW IM LOOKING A LITLE [New & Improved] THESE DAYS, BUT AM I THAT [hideous] -- ???"

He glances to the lawn chair set up next to him outside his home for one long, agonizing moment before forcing himself to stop,

"... of course it wasn't a dream." Spamton leans over his own seat to pick up one of the cold beers he's dragged outside, "I think I know the difference between reality and..." Cracking it open, he pauses to watch steam rise from the bottle as the day's heat hits its contents,