Welcome to Gaia! ::

He thought very seriously about leaving Ripley's unconscious body laying on the ground, and may have even hoped that the death Hunter would get stomped on a few times by the giant horse in the process. Maybe that would be what it took to get his Ripley back. A good old fashioned near death experience.

But no, as much as he may have been tempted to leave the man behind, to have somebody else clean up that particular mess that he felt more and more like washing his hands of, he just couldn't do it. As much as he wished his feelings could fade away, until they disappeared forever, or just be cut out of him completely as Ripley's had been, they hadn't. The way he felt about Ripley still lingered, still clung, and it was enough to make him stoop down to grab the other man under the arms, and begin to drag him away through the fog.

His own head throbbed painfully, and he felt dizzy and faint himself, and still he continued to tug the death hunter further and further away from the fray, muttering curses under his breath until, suddenly, he stopped, releasing his hold on the body so that he could stand up straight, hands raised to his face, palms pressing against eye and eyepatch alike, as if the pressure could push his headache away.

"Fuuuuuuuuck!" He finally growled, hands falling to his sides, his gaze sliding down to Ripley, his face twisted into an angry expression, in a rare moment where Finn Connor actually let his emotions show. "********! ********. ******** you, you stupid, hopeless piece of s**t! I ******** hate you!"

Was yelling at the unconscious form of his loveless no longer boyfriend helping?

Maybe a little.

Kicking him in the leg also "helped".

The moment Ripley jolted awake with his pained cry, Finn's face fell back into it's usual cold stoicism, the anger and frustration still there, but hidden away. He remained silent as the other man had his moment of disorientation, but before he could open his mouth to give some kind of smart a** comment, it became clear from the look on Ripley's face, the pause in his words, and the summoning of his weapon that it might be prudent instead to turn around and look behind him.

"Ah, s**t." He hissed, summoning his own weapon and looking between the two creatures, one a shadow that looked disturbingly like himself, and one a lumbering infected.

His hands clenched his weapon tight, and he ground his teeth together when Ripley yelled at him accusingly. "You know what? ******** you, you ungrateful little jack a**! I could have left you back there with the giant doom and bloom pony from hell after you ******** passed out. Would have been about what you deserve, at this point."

With his anger fueling him, he went after the shadow Finn, though it was really such a shame to attack such outstanding perfection.


HP: 55
Damage: 18
Infected Mob HP: 20
Shadow Mob HP: 42

Finn's voice was incredulous as he went on the attack again, trading blows with his shadow self.

"Jesus ******** Christ, have you always been this daft? Have I just been blinded to it all this time?" He actually laughed, then, a bitter sound, and shook his head while retreating a little bit.

"So you lost time. can't remember a thing that has happened, and woke up to me kicking you, which you ******** deserved, by the way, and instead of coming to the obvious conclusion that you were under mind control again, which, by the way, I'm starting to think is because your mind is so ******** weak, you have decided instead that it's all my fault, which of course makes perfect sense since, you know, I've tried so many times in the past to kill you, right?"

He laughed again. "I can't believe that I ever...." His voice trailed off as he decided not to finish that sentence, and he glanced behind himself at Ripley to see how he was fairing with the infected, which, of course, wasn't very well so far.

"Come on, ********, get your head in the game! You can't be useless all of the god damn time."


HP: 50
Damage: 6
Mob HP: 36

The more Ripley spoke, the angrier Finn got, and the angrier he got, the less inclined he felt to keep things bottled up inside of him anymore. Weeks had passed, months, even, since he woke up one morning to Ripley just not being Ripley, to being changed.

"No, you know what's ******** rich? You talking about convenience." He growled. "Because wasn't it just really ******** convenient that the day after I told you I loved you, after you ******** confessed the same, that you just woke up and suddenly, it was all a ******** lie? Wasn't it just so ******** convenient that you no longer seemed able to recall certain events and just what about them was important to you? Because it sure seems ******** convenient to me. It sure seems like maybe, you traded what we had for whatever the ******** Creation offered you instead."

This was all a guess, all speculation based on what he knew, what Jack knew, what the two of them had discussed, and what Finn had either managed to piece together or dream up. He didn't know anything for sure.

"So ya." His chest felt too tight. "You're probably right." His head throbbed, the back of his eye burned, and the words coming out of his throat felt too thick, too heavy. "Except I didn't dodge a bullet. No. It ******** blew a hole through my chest at point blank range, and you...you just got to walk away,and feel nothing you selfish ******** p***k!"

HP: 45
Damage: 3
Mob HP: 33

"Of course you're not going to explain it to me. When have you ever just told me, straight up, what's been going on?" Never. Not without Finn asking, prodding, interrogating, not even before, when things between them were normal. "Because if you had ever bothered, I might have been able to help you. But now? Now you might just be beyond help, and I still can't ******** accept that."

He went on the attack again, slashing while he continued. "So yes, I ******** follow you, and I watch you, and not just because I still ******** care about you, but because I'm worried about what it is you're going to do. ********, mind-controlling entities don't just visit in you in your dreams and change you for no ******** reason. It's using you for something." He wasn't stupid, this much was just obvious.

He noted when Ripley's voice changed, when the other man switched his anger off, or at least tried to, in favor of cool calm.

"Oh don't pull that bullshit on me, Ripples. You're not ******** okay, so why don't you just accept that, and let me ********> try to help you? Or should I just give up on you, accept that you're a lost cause, and turn you in to Caelius? Maybe he won't even kill you. I hear quarantine is quite nice, just ask Chel."

HP: 40
Damage: 9
Mob HP: 24

Finn, of course, hadn't stopped until he was good and ready to stop, which, of course, was a pretty terrible decision, but not for the usual reason of him taking things too far, or saying something that he was going to regret.

"Why?!" He finally snapped, all while going full scale assault on his shadow self, before putting distance between himself and it, giving himself enough time to turn towards Ripley to see just what the problem was.

".........Oh for ******** sake!" He growled, eye flicking down towards the watch. "I take it that's not just for telling the ******** time?"

His own anger was beginning to ebb away, but mostly because he'd managed to say, or rather, yell everything that he had wanted to yell for several weeks now. Shaking his head, he breathed out long sigh through his nose.

"No."


HP: 35
Damage: 14
Mob HP: 10

"Break it?" He suggested, though if it had a microphone and had been broadcasting everything that they had been talking about up until that point, it was already too late. The fact that Mark hadn't been able to get through to them on the radio at all, however, did give Finn some hope. No matter how angry he was over this entire situation, he didn't want to lose what little chance he thought there might be of pulling Ripley back, and he really didn't want to lose the chance of them, together, as they used to be, as little as he thought that might be possible, at this point.

He should have been paying more attention to the immediate threat of the Shadow Finn, but the nervous smile Ripley offered him was distracting. It made him feel guilty, and tamped down on his anger.

He let his guard down too long, the shadow darted forward and barreled into Finn, knocking him off of his feet.


HP: 30
Damage: 0
Mob HP: 10