He doesn't want the apology. He doesn't want to hear that raw distortion wreck the user's voice, or see the body on the ground flinch inwards. Rinzler wants a fight. An enemy.
Rinzler wants someone else to blame.
Shepard told him about the virus. Rinzler hadn't trusted the user, but he hadn't disbelieved her story either. It just wasn't enough. Viruses corrupted, viruses destroyed, and if he'd been so stupid as to turn his back on one, it's no surprise that it would take advantage. That he'd be killed. Derezzed if he were lucky, and infected if he weren't.
...he had trusted Nihlus with his code.
Brittle metal scrapes along the floor, a helpless, hopeless writhing. This close, it's impossible to miss the empty gap where the user's arm should be, and phantom aches prickle through the program's shell. He remembers the careful pressure on his shoulder as Nihlus patched the damage Clu had done. He remembers waking to the agony of burned out circuits and ragged, empty stumps that should have been his legs.
("Shhh. It's all right.")
Nihlus hadn't killed him. Hadn't turned him to his side. He'd crippled his function and stolen his disks. He'd closed the loophole Rinzler had taken for a voice and caged him up to choke on his own errors. Back into his nightmares, with no escape but to crawl and beg for Clu to take him back.
Clu had. Rinzler is here, soaked in the blood of one defeated threat, weapons fused to each hand as he looks down at another. Rinzler is standing on strong legs, and there's no reason at all why they should be trembling beneath him. Power flares through his circuit lights, hums through his disks. Air cycles in suffocated gasps behind his helmet. He has to move. To fight. He's burning with the need.
Tension snaps and crackles past its peak, a disk slamming into the vent assembly to rip it aside like so much paper. Nihlus is curled underneath, and shoulders twitch, seething and unbalanced as the program snarls down. Speech is too far out of reach.
and Rapture's true missed business opportunity~
Rinzler wants someone else to blame.
Shepard told him about the virus. Rinzler hadn't trusted the user, but he hadn't disbelieved her story either. It just wasn't enough. Viruses corrupted, viruses destroyed, and if he'd been so stupid as to turn his back on one, it's no surprise that it would take advantage. That he'd be killed. Derezzed if he were lucky, and infected if he weren't.
...he had trusted Nihlus with his code.
Brittle metal scrapes along the floor, a helpless, hopeless writhing. This close, it's impossible to miss the empty gap where the user's arm should be, and phantom aches prickle through the program's shell. He remembers the careful pressure on his shoulder as Nihlus patched the damage Clu had done. He remembers waking to the agony of burned out circuits and ragged, empty stumps that should have been his legs.
("Shhh. It's all right.")
Nihlus hadn't killed him. Hadn't turned him to his side. He'd crippled his function and stolen his disks. He'd closed the loophole Rinzler had taken for a voice and caged him up to choke on his own errors. Back into his nightmares, with no escape but to crawl and beg for Clu to take him back.
Clu had. Rinzler is here, soaked in the blood of one defeated threat, weapons fused to each hand as he looks down at another. Rinzler is standing on strong legs, and there's no reason at all why they should be trembling beneath him. Power flares through his circuit lights, hums through his disks. Air cycles in suffocated gasps behind his helmet. He has to move. To fight. He's burning with the need.
Tension snaps and crackles past its peak, a disk slamming into the vent assembly to rip it aside like so much paper. Nihlus is curled underneath, and shoulders twitch, seething and unbalanced as the program snarls down. Speech is too far out of reach.
Why that?