True Potential

[Mani4c]

Viral laughed, "Oh how original, a swarm attack, not the brightest geese in the gaggle are you?"  Viral deactivated his pistol and bladed arm before quickly transforming both of his arms into what appeared to be a coiled mass of fibrous muscle. "What the heck are those?" Viral just smirked. "You ever watch Hellsing?" "No, why?" Viral chuckled madly, "Just watch."

The fibers that made up Viral's arms separated into fine strands, spreading out towards the flock of viral birds, weaving their way through the flock and wrapping around the birds limbs and torsos. Viral's laughter became even more deranged, devolving into an insane cackle. "Now...DIE!!!" The fibers instantly tightened, slicing through the birds in several places all at once, the remains instantly began to dissolve into bits of binary. Viral landed on the floor of the Pit, returning his arms back to normal and folding his wings up against his back.

Lilith was a bit concerned, Viral was becoming a bit excessive when it came to the raving. "Viral, are you okay? You're scaring me a bit." Viral's eyes immediately lost their murderous glint, and he began to panic somewhat. "Oh sh**, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." Lilith cut him off. "Viral, focus. I just wanted to wake you up alright?" Viral sucked in a deep breath and smiled. "Thanks, I was slipping back into that...place." Lilith separated from Viral partially, still being fused from the waist down. "Hey, If you start slipping back into the darkness again, I'll be there to pull you out. You're a good guy, and I won't let you lose control again." Viral nodded, "And I'll do the same for you, powers like your's can corrupt, and I won't let that happen." "Thanks." Viral looked up, "Yo, Bit! How about some foot soldiers this time! I'd say maybe 7-8 of 'em, and give them basic rifles and pistols!"

[Saber]

Bit shook her head and started loading up a simulation this time. since Viral wanted some foot soldiers, and she didn't know of any humanoid viruses like those, she just activated one of the pre-programmed combat sims that had some armed criminals in it "Foot soldiers, common, but still useable. Let's see how they fair against people who can attack from a distance." Baretta watched closely as Viral went a little too far with his attack, but was relieved to find that Lilith was able to snap him out of his killing trance. "...I think staying here will be bad for my stability." "You'll be fine captain. Like I said before, personal stakes on things only get in the way. It's just your closeness to Viral and Lilith makes you anxious and seeing Viral become so easily prone to a violent frenzy is making you fear for your friend's safety. Once the test is complete, you won't have to worry about that anymore."

Eight soldiers, looking nothing like viruses, and wielding ancient firearms formed in the cage, each pointing their guns at Viral, and preparing to fire.

(Story time, have fun with it)

[Mani4c]

Viral smirked at the sight of the soldiers, "Cannon fodder, my favorite form of target practice." Viral summoned his pistols and aimed at the goons, "I might get pegged here, any armor boosts?" "Maybe, one sec." After a half-second, Viral's armor gained a obsidian black color, and a thin veil of purple energy wrapped around him before flickering out of existence. "Alright, if I got the math right, your defenses are boosted by 75%." "Hot damn! that's nice, does the effect stack with my armor?" "Well, it IS a booster program, so I'd think so." Viral smirked, "Alright, seeing as I'm going to be curbstomping these fools, I need some appropriate curbstomping music. Let's see...ah perfect!" Viral snapped his fingers, and a rock song started to blare seemingly from out of nowhere. (Here's the song if you're interested:link)

Lilith chuckled, evidently she was familiar with the song."Should I start calling you Dante now?" Viral snorted, "Do you want me to call you Trish?" "Just kick their asses already." Viral launched forward, unloading a barrage of ammunition at the soldiers, dropping 3 of them within the first 15 seconds. the remaining goons whipped around and started to unload on Viral, but his armor was barely scratched by the bullets. "Hahaha! Nice try, but unfortunately for you I've got +75 defense bitches!" Viral ran full tilt into the center of the goons, and immediately began to whirl around, leaning, jumping and flipping around to avoid bullets and pulling off flashy spins in midair while firing wildly.

After about 5 minutes of Viral leaping around like an extra in a Matrix movie, there was only one goon left, who simply held down the trigger on his weapon and sprayed lead at Viral. Viral just stood still and let the idiot run his clip dry before dashing towards him and wrenching the gun from his hands. "If you can't be responsible with your toys I'm just going to take them." Viral snapped the Rifle in half before grabbing the man by the throat, lifting him off of his feet before snapping his neck like a twig. "Next!" Viral tossed the goon over his shoulder before looking up to Bit, "How about we go for quality over quantity, Bit, last one! I'd like a single armored Virus, preferably one with at least the intelligence to try and fight back."

[Saber]

Baretta rolled her eyes when Viral started blaring his music. Bit, on the other hand, wasn't too pleased that he was hacking her system and taking liberties with it "...I should shut that off just because he hacked the pit without permission. "Let him have his fun. If this is his way of unwinding, maybe he'll be easier to socialize with other staff." She watched Viral dance around and shoot at the simulated soldiers with relative ease, noticing how tough his armor had become with Lilith's boosting abilities "You have to admit, he's handling this simulation fairly well with Lilith boosting his defenses."

Then, Viral started asking for a tougher challenge, and Bit was silent, hands still on the console as she was calculating the best option for Viral and Lilith to fight and test their limits, while not overwhelming them with a virus that required a team of avatars to delete.

"...Armored...Well...If he's that eager for a boss fight..." She started sifting through the lists of viruses, finding a suitable one that fit Viral's needs. She then began modifying it, altering its code "I wonder if he's gone on any European trips lately..."

As Viral waited for the virus, there was an almost eerie silence in the cage of The Pit, before some heavy breathing and snorting of a bull could be heard behind Viral and Lilith. Standing almost twice as wide and three times as large was a minotaur-esque virus, covered in thick metal armor and carrying two double-headed axes, one in each hand. Letting out a bovine-esque roar, the virus reared back and started swinging its axe overhead, aiming to cleave Viral and Lilith in two.

Baretta noticed how Bit was getting a bit too ambitious with this virus, and started getting concerned "Bit? Try to remember we have an avatar there who we don't know if she has a save station for her data. If this thing gets to be too much for them, I hope you have a back up plan." "Well, there's always the cyberblade project. They've been in need of a test run."

[Mani4c]

Viral leaped backwards to avoid being bisected by the Minotaur, "JESUS CHRIST!" Viral landed about fifteen feet away from the beast and immediately transformed both of his arms into curved blades. "Lilith, please tell me that you've got something that can break through his armor!" Lilith searched her code, eventually finding her Cannon driver. "I've got something! It's an armor piercing shot with an explosive charge, and it can be charged up." Viral smirked, "Excellent, anything else?" "I've also got a spread shot that fires energy blades from the tip of any melee weapon, I can make the Blades converge on a single target for enhanced damage." 

Viral nodded, "Let's go with that first, that way we've got something to fall back on." "Agreed. There's one more driver, a speed boosting one, but it'll drop your defense by 30%, however, if you combine our enhanced strength with the momentum from moving at such a high speed we should have an advantage." "Then turn that sucker on and let's get to kicking this guy's ass." Lilith chuckled, "Alright, 3,2,1...NOW!" Viral shot forward like a stone from a sling, moving at twice his normal speed, "Gotta go fast, GYAHAHAHA!"

Viral put all of his and Lilith's combined strength into his legs and leaped into the air. flipping so that his head was facing the ground, their combined power was enough for his feet to hit the ceiling of the cage and still have enough velocity to crouch as they landed, "Center cut? Rib-Eye? T-Bone, nah I prefer my meat RARE!" Viral pushed off of the cage ceiling, actually denting it and causing a section of the cage to balloon outwards. Viral put his bladed arms up above his head and began to flip in midair, gathering more momentum for his attack. "NOW, TASTE THIS! SPREADER BLADE COMBINED WITH MY NEW ATTACK, INFERNAL DIVIDER!"

Viral's arms glowed bright purple before firing a massive spray of almost 30 glowing energy blades, 15 for each arm. The blades whipped out in a large cone, with about three quarters of them heading right for the Minotaur, Lilith counted down before giving Viral the order. "NOW!" "Alright, BLADES CONVERGE!" The blades glowed even brighter before suddenly veering towards the Minotaur. Viral cackled as he continued to spin, adding as much momentum as he could to the swing.

[Saber]

The minotaur tried keeping up with Viral as he speedily ran around it, and jumped over it. But when the blades came hurtling towards it, it covered its face as the blades all came in one fell swoop. When the attack was done, the Minotaur's armor had some minor scratches and some deep scars, but was still intact. The minotaur was roaring angrily, loud, monstrous bellows escaping the beast as it charged towards Viral, aiming to impale him with his horns as Viral fell from his high altitude.

Bit was watching the simulation from her monitor, now more out of intrigue than purely for data collecting "...Interesting...I wonder how we can even the odds a little bit..." Tweaking the program, the cage around Viral, Lilith, and the minotaur virus began to shift to that of a large, enclosed cave, the only light shining in the room a few points scattered in the cave, surrounded by pitch black all around them. Baretta, once again concerned for the civilian still in this simulation, looked at Bit nervously "...Bit..." "Yes, yes, I know...Chakram, enter the simulation, but stay concealed and only intervene if it looks like the virus is preparing to make a finishing blow."

[Mani4c]

Chakram was watching the fight with a great deal of interest, he'd never seen Viral fight before, and seeing his..."Unusual" way of fighting was rather informative. When Bit asked him to act as backup if things got hairy, he activated his armor and cloaked himself without a word. Heading into The Pit and concealing himself on top of a rock formation.

When The Pit began to rearrange himself, Viral snapped his head up to where the observation area would be. Viral began to mutter to himself, "Bit...when this is over I'm gonna rip your goddamn..." "WATCH THE HORNS!" Viral twisted his body to avoid being completely skewered, but still ended up being gored in the side, "ARGH!" Viral landed and dashed away from the beast, clutching his side. "Are you okay?" Viral's eyes started to glow purple, Lilith could feel his annoyance via their fusion. "I'm fine, THAT THING'S GOING TO DIE THOUGH!" Viral transformed his arms into spiked clubs and focused all of his strength into his hands. "Lilith, keep that damn speed boost on, but if we miss immediately kill the boost." "I'll try, but I'll also keep the Cannon Driver loaded up until you need it." Viral nodded and began to charge the Minotaur. Roaring in a rage, "I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU INTO A BLOODY PASTE ASSHOLE! NOBODY DRAWS BLOOD FROM ME! NOBODY!" Viral leaped into the air and cocked his fists back, "NOW BE A GOOD SIDE OF BEEF AND DIE!!!"

[Saber]

The minotaur started charging forward, occasionally passing through the patches of light that shone in the darkened room. Instinct driven, it aimed to ram Viral with its horns again, looking to skewer the tiny avatar and crash him into the wall of the pit.

Baretta was getting a little nervous while watching Viral go head to head with the virus, starting to fear that Bit might be taking the limits of her research a bit far with this round. Her concerns were also increased due to Bit's silent staring at the screen, unflinching even.

[Mani4c]

Viral smirked, "Gotcha! Lilith, Activate the cannon driver and cut the speed boost!" Viral felt his processes slow down as his armor became thicker once more. "Alright, now pull yourself away from my midsection!" A portion of the black liquid retracted around Viral's stomach, reducing the armor in that area. Just as the portion of Lilith's mass had finished retracting, the Minotaur's Horn impaled Viral through the midsection. "Hurk! Fuck, I forgot how much getting shanked hurts!"

Lilith was petrified, "VIRAL!" She could sense the pain shooting through Viral's torso and immediately started to separate, hoping to stab at the beast and get it to pull out the horn. "Lilith, STOP! I'm fine, I'd be healed up by now if the fucking horn wasn't in the way, it's all part of the plan!" Viral had grabbed onto the Minotaur's Horn, keeping the beast from throwing him off. "Heahahaha! Stupid piece of meat! You've just screwed yourself!" Viral's mouth began to glow, becoming brighter over time. 'If I can hold on for just a few more seconds, I can blow this bastard away at point blank range.'

[Saber]

The minotaur impaled Viral with one of its horns, and immediately started flailing its head around to try and whip Viral off. When flailing its head didn't work, it decided to use its once forgotten axes to way and cleave the extra weight off of its horn, swiping the blade at different angles at Viral if not to carve him up, than to at least bat him away so it could try and curb stomp him with its big hooves.

[Mani4c]

Lilith activated her wings and almost immediately began to use her shape shifting on them, creating a pair of thick armored arms that caught the Minotaur's Axes. Lilith partially separated from Viral's shoulder, forming an arm and her head. "Sorry Heffer, you ain't chopping his pretty little ass up if I can help it!" She completed her taunt with an extremely rude gesture, specifically one involving her middle finger. Viral noticed that she didn't seem to just be flipping off the Minotaur, her eyes seemed glued to a specific part of the cave. "Oh...my...god! SHOTS FIRED! As for your pretty little ass remark, thanks." Lilith smirked, "I only speak the truth." The vampire avatar retreated back into Viral's armor, he just grinned like a schoolboy who just asked out his favorite crush. "She likes me, she likes me...Oh right, you want to kill me don't you? Whelp, hate to break it to ya, but it ain't happening." Viral opened his mouth and leaned as close to the Minotaur's head as he could, the glow in his mouth was blinding. "Let's see you block this! Main Cannon Ready...FIRE!!!" a large bolt of energy shot out of Viral's mouth, headed right for the Minotaur's head.

[Saber]

The minotaur didn't have any way to dodge, so the only thing it could do was take the beam full force. But by the time Viral's attack petered out, all that was left was a bare, slightly scorched scalp atop a still fur-covered bull head. With both axes pinned down by Lilith, the minotaur released the weapons and grabbed Viral by the waist, ripping him off of the horn and grabbing both his torso, and his legs, and starting to try and rip Viral in half by using only its arm strength.

"Didn't see that one coming...I guess I gave the beast thicker armor than I should have.." Baretta saw Viral in a very lethal situation, and began to panic, especially for Lilith's sake. She turned to Bit, glaring at her despite the researcher avatar staring at the screen and not even looking back at her commanding officer "Bit! End this, right now! This is taking things too far!" Bit held up a hand to try and calm Baretta down "I've already got it covered, remember? If Viral can't handle this, he can get deleted without worry of not being restored. But if Lilith is smart, she'll disengage to protect herself, and we have someone who will make the finishing blow if need be."

[Mani4c]

Viral roared in pain, "Lilith, detach from me, NOW!" "But-" "No buts! I can regenerate, you can't!" Lilith hesitated for a moment, but finally relented, and not a moment too soon. The second that Lilith was clear, the Minotaur Bisected Viral at the waist, tossing his body parts at Lilith, who transformed her wings into a pair of tendrils to catch them. "Lilith...put my parts close together." Lilith put Viral's legs and torso on the cave floor, before he could start knitting himself together, Chakram uncloaked and leaped to the floor, brandishing his weapons. "How long will it take for you to heal?" Viral smirked. "Tch, please, I could repair this in my goddamn sleep, 45 seconds tops."

Chakram nodded. "I'll buy you the time you need then, Lilith, stay here in the event that I the beast get's to close." Chakram whipped his blades at the beast, managing to hit it in the eyes. The Minotaur roared in agony, clutching at it's mangled face. Chakram dashed forward and hurled seven kunai at the Minotaur, most of them bounced off of it's thick hide, but three managed to get stuck in it's muzzle. Chakram leaped onto the Minotaur, using it as a launch pad to leap even higher into the air and catch his chakrams. He landed in front of the Minotaur and began to spin his chakrams before rushing at it and hacking at it's legs. 'I need to buy them some time...'

Lilith summoned two pistols, one was mostly blood red with ebony highlights, with the other being the exact opposite. The slides were engraved with a mixture of Bats and roses, and had the words. "Blut und Eisen" etched near the ejection ports on the red and black guns respectively. "Blood and Iron eh? Heh, you just continue to find new ways to entrance me." Lilith twirled the guns and leveled them at the Minotaur who was currently swiping blindly at Chakram as the nimble avatar hacked at it's legs. "When this is over, I'm going to stick these pistols so far up Bit's ass that I could use her as a silencer." Viral just chuckled as his torso knit itself together. "Only after I choke the life outta her, I'll bet that she altered that damn thing because I messed with her toys. She's not as detached as she likes to act."

Viral got to his feet and deactivated his armor, most of his cosmetic data was cracked and falling off, revealing a silhouette that looked like it was made of smoke, with only two acid green eyes piercing the inky cloud that made up his true form. "Lilith...do you trust me?" Lilith was confused, where did that come from? "Viral, what are you-" "Do. You. Tust. Me?" Lilith nodded "Of course, why?" Viral looked at the Minotaur, "Because I'm going to let loose, both in terms of power and crazy, I want you to know that I will NOT lay a finger on you, Baretta or Chakram. So, do you trust me to do this?" Lilith's face hardened somewhat. "He tore you in half Viral, fuck. him. up. Just...don't get hurt anymore alright? I'll give you that gift once you're done." Viral nodded, "You got it...now then."

Viral began to release the limiters that he had placed on his viral code, making sure to cut Mani4c's code off by disabling their ability link before doing so. The amount of viral data in The Pit immediately spiked by 150%. Viral's cosmetic data split apart and fell to pieces, revealing his true form. Arks of bright green lightning shot out of Viral's body as his viral data output continued to skyrocket. All the while, Viral counted off how much of his power he was releasing, increasing the number with each limiter his deactivated. "Twenty Percent, Forty Percent, Seventy Percent, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!!!" Viral roared, firing off a shockwave of Viral data as his body surged with power. "YES! I'VE FORGOTTEN THIS FEELING, IT'S AMAZING!" Viral cackled wildy launching himself at the Minotaur Virus, tackling it into the cave wall while Chakram used the opportunity to retreat.

The Minotaur swung his huge fist at Viral who simply caught the limb and brutally twisted it, snapping the bones in it's arm. The Minotaur roared in pain, trying to pull away from Viral, who simply let the beast go. It then tried to stomp him, but Viral simply swung his arm out and crushed the bones in the Minotaur's leg, making it topple to the ground and release an agonized bellow. "Oh, you're not angry anymore are you? No, your in pain, I wonder if you can cry? You're pretty smart for a cow..." Viral leaped onto it's head and ripped a horn from it's skull before plunging it into the creature's abdomen. Viral hopped off of the Minotaur's head and looked in it's damaged eyes. Despite how damaged the orbs were, Vital could still read the beast's emotions it had a mixture of pain, anger and something else...fear. A primitive fear, the kind of fear that prey feels when confronted with a predator, but fear nonetheless. "Ohhh, that's it, that's what I want...the anguish, the pain. It so...delicious." Viral smiled before reaching his hand back and plunging his fist through the Minotaur's head, the beast thrashed and screamed in pain and terror, it sounded like a cry for help. "YES! KEEP SCREAMING, NO ONE CAN SAVE YOU NOW! GYAHAHAHAHAAA!" The same black smoke that made up Viral's body began to drape itself over the dying creature, it began to slowly, tortuously devour it.

It took five minutes, five minutes of cruel laughter and frenzied bellows before Viral had completely consumed the Minotaur, the silence in the cave was tense. "Now then..." Viral leaped onto the cave wall and clawed his way up, scrambling up the wall like some kind of spider. He reached the hidden divider that separated The Pit from the observation room, Viral smashed his fist through the divider and forced his way in cackling in a deranged manner. "Ohh Bit~...we need to talk. Heheha, GYAHAHAHAHA!" Lilith looked at Chakram and activated her wings, "Come on!" Chakram nodded and started jumping from wall to wall, leaping to the observation room while Lilith flew after him.

[Saber]

Bit watched Lilith and Chakram as they fended off the minotaur, then stared in intrigue as Viral started releasing all of the restrained viral data that lay compressed in his code, using it not only to overwhelm the virus, but t consume it as well. Then, he did something she did not expect, he forced his way out of the pit and into the observation room in R&D. Baretta whirled around when Viral forced his way into the room, while Bit was casually tapping on the console.

"...Viral...I know you're angry at Bit...But you need to get control of yourself right now...Don't make me have to do this by force. Stay where you are, and calm down, that's an order! "...It's quite alright captain...He can advance..." Bit stepped forward until she stood a little ways away from Baretta, arms folded behind her and looking at Viral from above her drooping glasses.

"Considering I modified that virus just because he asked for a challenge, he should be overjoyed that I gave him exactly what he wanted...And he's provided me with a great deal of valuable research data."

[Mani4c]

Viral glared at Bit for a moment before re-activating his limiters. "If you weren't a member of the NPD..." A voice finished his sentence for him. "He'd probably have brutally killed you by now, if his current mood is any indication." Viral turned around and saw Chakram perched on the computer console. "I take it that Bit sent you in to cover me?" Chakram nodded, "Though it was more to keep Baretta from worrying about Lilith than for your sake if I recall the conversation correctly." Viral just growled and started to leave, but was stopped by Lilith, who flew through the window and landed in front of him. "Are you under control again?" Viral smirked, but it was obvious from the tone of his voice that he was livid. "I was never out of control, I was fully aware of my desire to rip Bit's head off and drink what dribbled out of her severed head."

Lilith frowned at Viral's remark. "Look, I know that you want to kick her ass, the feeling's a bit mutual on my end. Just...keep calm alright?" Viral lost his temper at that, "KEEP CALM!? YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN KILLED OUT THERE! OUR ONLY BACKUP WAS AN AVATAR DESIGNED FOR SNEAKING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!" Viral's tone suddenly dropped a bit as he looked over at Chakram. "No offense." "None taken." Viral looked back at Lilith and continued his rant, jabbing his finger in Bit's direction.  "Even if she was going to killswitch the damn thing, I don't trust her to do it right away. Seeing as I bet I made her ticked off by messing with her toys, and her creepy fetish when it comes to testing, Christ GLaDOS is less obsessed than her!" Viral shoved his way past Lilith, "I'll be waiting in the atrium, cause if I have to spend one more second around her I'm gonna fucking kill her." Viral stormed out of the department, shoving past anyone in his path while cursing under his breath.

Lilith rubbed her temples, she was rather ticked as well, but she knew that her getting pissed at Bit wouldn't solve anything. "I swear to god, I will never fucking let the NPD run tests on me again...this is ridiculous. I checked the power output on that damn shot, it could have punched through half and inch of reinforced steel and still had enough punch to do some serious damage!" Chakram just sat and observed the scene, more than likely security was going to be on Viral's case because of him deactivating his limiters, and threatening Bit. 'And considering how short tempered he is right now, I have a feeling that Viral would just delete them and be done with it.'

[Saber]

Baretta watched Viral storm off and sighed, looking at Bit with a less than pleased glare "...What in the creator's name were you thinking?! That was an S class virus, borderline X class by the time you took your liberties with it! Were you TRYING to delete them? On second though-don't answer that, I don't want to know...I'm starting to severely question your research methods, pull a stunt like this again on any of our staff, and I will step in, end the test, and take disciplinary measures next time. Are we clear?" Bit moved one of her arms forward and pushed up her glasses, not very phased by Baretta's lecturing, but hearing her perfectly "...Perfectly, captain..." Baretta turned and approached Lilith, placing a hand on her shoulder "I'm sorry you had to endure that, Lilith...I should have taken action sooner and ended the program..."

One avatar that was unnecessarily shoved out of the way decided to turn back and glare at Viral "...Watch where you're going, fr-" "Hey, Mani4c, hold up for a sec." The avatar was instantly silenced by Rotor's somewhat booming voice calling out to the already fuming viral avatar, stopping just long enough to turn to the avatar and glare at him with a simple few words "Twenty four hour ban for almost insulting a fellow officer. Now log out before you make it any worse for yourself." Stunned, and furious, the avatar phased out, logging off of the server and returning to his operator, which let Rotor finally approach Viral "You seem far more annoyed than usual, what's on your CPU?"

[Mani4c]

Lilith just nodded, "It's fine, is Viral going to be in trouble for this?" Her voice held a great amount of concern. Chakram chose to cut in, hopping off of the smashed consoles and deactivating his armor. "If they try to suspend him I will speak in his defense. But I would recommend that you and Captain Baretta head him off before his temper results in an altercation with someone." Lilith nodded, "That's a good idea, come on Baretta!" Lilith ran after Viral without another word. 


Viral was about to activate his claws and gut the avatar who insulted him before Rotor stepped in, He retracted the claws and turned around to speak with him. Viral liked Rotor, he didn't take any shit, but he didn't stir any up either. He was one of the only NPD avatars that he could honestly say that he respected. "I just got out of The Pit, Lilith had come across some upgrades and wanted to test them out. During the session, I tinkered with Bit's little toy and added some music, because it helps me focus. Remember that time at the shooting range?"

Viral was referring to an incident that occurred about three days after he joined the NPD. He'd been calibrating his and Mani4c's weapons and had hacked the PA system to play some music that he had stored in his memory. Unfortunately he had cranked the volume too high and someone reported him for "Tampering with NPD software for personal use." Luckily once he explained his reasoning he didn't get suspended. "Well, instead of getting reported by some prick who lacks taste in good music, I had the misfortune of annoying our resident mad scientist. When I asked her to give me a challenge, she sicced an S rank on me, when I had both a civilian and one of the new Cyberblades with me. I ended up having to release my limiters on the damn thing, and I nearly ripped Bit to pieces back there out of pure rage."

Viral's scowl became more pronounced. "I could give less than a shit about my safety, I can regen if I need to, but Lilith...she could have died back there. She's one of the few people that I care about, and to have her put at risk because of that fucking psycho doctor...Gah!" Viral slammed his fist into a computer monitor, cracking it. "It drives me nuts, between those asshole SWAT officers, the ignorant rank and file and now the freaking R&D department...I just can't find one group of people that aren't members of Net-ops that don't make me angry, I want to be nice, but if they aren't afraid of me, they're jerks! And don't even get me started on how they talk about Lilith..."

[Saber]

Baretta was about to say something in response, both to Lilith, and to Chakram, but she received a silent message from Rotor just before intercepting Viral. Before she could relay the message to the others, they were already gone. Pulling up the security feed of the server, she took the necessary shortcuts to find her way to Viral and Rotor, without having to scramble to find them.

Rotor chuckled when Viral brought up the shooting range, twisting a finger in one of his ears as if trying to adjust his hearing from the memory "Heh, yeah, I remember alright. I remember you were having the time of your life. At least my video feed didn't take a hit for it." Then he explained the relevance behind the reference, and how Bit acted by sending out an S level virus on him, Lilith, and one of the wave 2 cyberblades, and that had Rotor folding his bulky arms in front of him, shaking his head.

"...That Bit...She represses a lot, all in the name of research." Rotor blinked his eyes, flinching slightly from the sudden outburst Viral made, and his complaints about the way other avatars act around him, and how they talk about Lilith. "Mani4c, you just leave those ass wipes to me. Haven't had an avatar that existed that I can't knock some sense into with some heavy training drills. And if I have to, I'll even schedule a skills assessment course that'll show them exactly what they SHOULD think of you." He patted Viral's shoulder, grinning "You're a good guy, Mani4c, you just have to work on smoothing out the rough edges of your new self. Can't really speak much for the SWAT avatars though, those guys are always uptight d-bags."

A bigger smirk grew on his face as he thought of something that might help Viral loosen up "How about we hit the range again? And this time, I'll even help you set up the speakers so they're at least enjoyable for everybody."

[Mani4c]

Viral was about to respond when he heard someone running up behind him, he turned and saw Lilith sprinting towards him. "Viral!" She slowed to a stop and bent over, clutching her knees for support. "Are...are you okay?" Viral just chuckled and helped Lilith stand up straight, "I'm fine, though if it wasn't for Rotor here I'd probably have ruined some asshole's day." Lilith nodded at Rotor, "Thank you Rotor, I was worried that he'd be fired if some idiot said the wrong thing to him."

Lilith then looked back at the Viral avatar and sighed, "Why is it whenever we're together things get crazy?" Viral smirked, "I guess I'm just bad luck." Lilith slapped him upside the head. "Don't joke about that, anyway...now that you're not running around threatening people, I can give you your gift." Lilith pulled out a playing card with a picture of Viral on it. "I had a friend of mine who's good with cosmetic programs make this for you." Viral took the card, which immediately began to glow, with Viral's body following soon after. As the glow faded, Viral's new appearance came into focus.

His usual clothing was replaced by a much more formal looking outfit, he wore a white dress shirt and tie paired a black vest and pants, as well as a long black overcoat that extended to the back of his knees. His pants were adorned with a pair of belts that and a silver chain that was attached to a gold pocket-watch that was stowed away in his pocket. completing the new ensemble was a black fedora and a pair of brown dress shoes with exposed steel toes.((Here's the full look.)) "Unfortunately that outfit has a side effect of limiting your weapons, you can use a pistol that's stowed in your jacket, a set of various butterfly knives and a sort of chain weapon that can be summoned at will. You also have access to your Viral strength."

Viral cracked his neck and looked at Rotor, his eyes appeared to be perpetually closed, but it didn't seem to effect his vision thankfully. "Well, how do I look?"

[Saber]

Rotor chuckled and watched as Viral and Lilith reunited, thanking him for keeping Viral from getting fired for making a bad decision "Well, we did agree to keep watch over him, at least until he can find a way to control his temper."

Then, Viral was given a new look, something a bit more formal, yet still holding a badass feel that Viral is well known for. When he asked how he looked, Baretta's voice was the one that was heard first, her heels tapping on the floor as she approached from the hallway "Still as eccentric as you two have always been, but it's an improvement. You look like an ordinary avatar now, if you ask me."