[Pain was an old companion, had been so in varying degrees all his life. The impacts sent flickering violet shockwaves across his body, snapped the Hexclaw's arm in a metallic cry of pain and burst of rune-shaped sparks, leaving the iron taste in his mouth of blood he no longer had to shed.]

[This was the weight of guilt, shame, hopelessness--all of which he knew well. Too well, enough to know this was an insurmountable enemy, a tremendous shadow that would drown them both in misery and death that was perhaps deserved.]

[Hands that were too rigid to be organic and too warm to be machine gripped Vakama's shoulders, the swirling anomaly in Viktor's eyes burning a deep red-orange.]

Wake up-! Do you want to atone for your failings? Do you think yourself better served dying and proving yourself a hypocrite in denying me the sane? Do you want to live, Vakama?!