My bleeding foot launches off of the nearest Adoring Fan and boosts me up high enough to grab the emergency fire ladder on this building. I ascend quickly, and the horde below is using the same method by helping each other up to reach the ladder. Too much weight is put on the latch, breaking it and letting the ladder fall down to street level.
I feel like I'm being chased by a pack of ferals. Just looking down and seeing their uncanny smiling faces sends a gruesome image of my death right into my psyche. They'll pull me apart, pull my skin off, break my fingers off. What a horrible way to die.
I skip breaking into the window and just climb up to the roof. The clustered buildings allow me to jump from top to top, but the horde isn't far behind. They jump and perform dangerous acrobatics just to keep up with me. I watch one of them fall down and land with a bounce. He just gets up and starts climbing the ladder again with a broken arm.
Love Love is down below, but he's not confident enough to keep his cool walk. He's running, his body is still bleeding. There's no way he can slip away from me when I've got a bird's eye view. I jump on another roof, but he turns and crosses the street. I have to get down to follow! There's no quick way down. I'm going to have to carefully scale this building.
A strong hand grabs my wrist on my way down. A stranger's wide eyes stare back at me trying to pull me back up.
"You're so pretty up close! I'd like to sink a deep bite into that neck of yours!"
"Fuck!"
I tug back, using my body weight and leverage to force his balance to rock. He falls, but he doesn't let go. I have to use his body as a landing pad to make sure I don't break any bones hitting the sidewalk. I'm sorry, I hope you'll be okay after this is over. I dart for the turn Love Love made, but it's a dead end with a locked door.
The mob unfortunately used the first guy as a landing pad too, there's no way he survived. They chase me to the dead end, I keep shaking the door hoping somebody will let me in. They're almost here! The window! I can use the window to get in, but it's too high up. I don't have a choice but to slowly climb the loose bricks and hope I can make it.
The mob claws at the wall I'm holding onto. I slowly advance, shaking with every pull. My fingers grab onto the slim sill of the window with barely enough room for the tips. Somehow, a fan manages to grab my shoe. My body weight plus theirs is too much for my fingers to handle, but I hold on, I have to. I can't pull myself up. I feel them climbing up to my pant leg. If they get to my head or neck, I'm coming down with them.
I risk holding on with one arm, my other hand undoes my belt and pants button. I unzip them, and the pants are yanked off of me along with my last shoe. The stranger falls back into the mob, and they wrestle for the pants and shoe, even hurting the one who grabbed it in the first place.
My whole body launches up to get me in a good position to bust the window open with my elbow. Sure, shards get stuck in my arm, but that's better than the alternative. I climb in and head for the first floor. Love Love is cutting through and exiting through another. I would've followed if I didn't hear the front door breaking down and hundreds of footsteps stampeding in.
The stairs going up are my best bet. They take me to roof access again. Luckily, there's a gutter I use to slide down and reach street level with the mob still trapped inside. Once one of them spots me from a window, it's like the hive mind was notified, and they break down the door sprinting straight for me.
Love Love almost lost me, but there he is running down another alley. He's hoping to confuse me with all these weird routes, but I almost have him. He's so close! The mob claws at the air behind me, I don't have much of a lead on them. Even Clyde is still there somewhere, trapped in the middle of all that.
When he finally hits the main street, he runs all the way to a nearby mall. I have to admit, his cardio is pretty good, even with his outfit obviously not meant for marathons. I have to climb up to a second-floor cafe area just to evade the ever-closing mob.
I juke through the people and let myself out of the restaurant. I find a railing and look over to see Love Love on his way to an elevator. The mob rushes through the front, but they seem to have lost me.
I crawl around on the floor, the nanobots helped clot the big wounds to stop the bleeding. The violent stampeding stops, they're searching around for me right now. If I stay quiet and out of sight, maybe they won't find me ever again.
Staying low, I try to reach the same elevator Love Love is trying to use, but suddenly, I'm jumped on by a big body. Clyde, the only one who could follow me on a free-running route, forces me on my back and pins my wrists down.
"No!"
"I don't know who all those people are down there, but you're all mine. Forget them, babe, you have me. You've always had me, ever since Season 1."
"No! Season 1 Clyde was a stoic alcoholic, you never showed me any romantic interest until the end!"
"None of that matters now. You've got me so entranced, I only wish I'd seen you sooner. I promise we'll make up for lost time, you just have to give me a chance and stop fighting."
My poor, tired arms can't even dream of breaking free. I shake my head and kick my legs, but I can't get up. "Damn! We really need to have a serious chit-chat about all this one day. But for now, get off of me!"
He smiles, his eyes focus not on my face, but slightly lower. He doesn't say anything, but his tongue licks his teeth as he slowly bends down to meet my neck. I close my eyes hard, and I feel myself stop fighting. I know it's coming, and there's not a damn thing I can do to stop it.
His tongue licks the side of my throat. It's warm and inviting, my last repose before things end. His teeth gently nibble on the same spot, then it gets harder, heavier. A squishy sound and a lot of pain come next. He's severed my jugular, and I'm going to bleed out soon. The nanobots will clot the gash, but Clyde isn't letting me go. It's like he's found his new favorite chew toy, sinking and tearing into my neck with the same viciousness as a starving animal.
I open my eyes, I watch his head thrash around, and when he snaps from loss of grip, I see a piece of my throat trailing in his mouth. I can still breathe, I think I can still talk. What is there to say now? I was killed by my own partner, just like the unit before. Some part of me always knew it would be Clyde to kill me, but another refused to believe it would happen.
I don't know what my eyes look like, but when my vision gets all blurry like this, I imagine they look foggy and glossy. You know, the same way a dead body's eyes appear. I can still feel the droplets of blood coming from my own chunk of my throat hitting my cheeks as it dangles from Clyde's mouth. It's warm, but that's okay, I'm cold anyway.
My eyes close again, and the pain becomes a numbness. I almost drift off for a quick nap until the nanobots decide to shock me to life again. I shoot up, my back arching. Clyde's grip on my wrists was a mistake, as he felt the shock too. He contracts, and he can't let go until it's over. I'm given new energy, and Clyde is totally stunned.
He falls off of me, landing on the side and letting me get up. My throat is bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline lets me drag Clyde's body over to the railing and drop him through the bottom half. He hits the first floor, cracking the tile and scaring everybody that's down there.
I rush over to the elevator and slip in before the door closes. On my way down, I see Love Love looking behind him at the crowd surrounding Clyde. The doors open, and he steps in with his back facing toward me. He pushes the button to go up, and the doors close, sealing us both in.
My blood gushing from my missing throat is what makes him look down at his soaked boots. My arms wrap around his waist, and I pull him in to give a gentle, wet kiss on his neck.
"What the–!?"
When I let him go, his whole chest explodes, coating the elevator's windows in heavy blood. The spatter is in the shape of a cartoon heart, and right in the center of it, is his real heart.
"I… I can't believe it…" he says through gurgles.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Love Love."
"No…this was the ultimate…Crazy4U."
"Everyone always thinks they have the greatest power. It's win or lose, and we're four for four right now."
"You…Hearth…Afterburners…" He desperately tries to suck in air, but none of his organs are working anymore.
"I want you to die knowing that we'll hunt every last one of you down. There's nothing anyone can do to stop it."
"I'm…" he coughs violently, more blood staining his once white teeth, "The Character. It was going to be me…"
"The Character, even with all his infinite power, lost to me."
"Please…mercy…can't…"
He tries to slip down and rest, but I hike him up and throw him at the window. His back hits his heart, bursting it and forcing a new stream of blood to shoot up and down through the cartoon heart into the lovely shape of Cupid's arrow. He slides down, slack-jawed and foggy-eyed. He's dead.
My ear twitches at the feeling of comms coming in. It's Clyde!
"Agh…Troy. What happened? Where are you? I'm hurt…it's bad. I need aid! I'm by a bunch of people, a mall I think."
"You're okay, Clyde, I see you. I'm coming down now. Don't freak out when you see me though, I might be missing a few things."
"Troy, this thing in my back pocket. It looks like your tail…"
Relic Victim: Love Love
Curse: Crazy4U/Adoring Fans
Type: Mind Control
Status: Deceased