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>LAUGH
You giggle a little bit.
The ZPCI leader grunts. "So. I must amuse you, eh?" His hand twitches.
The laughter comes before the joke. THIS is what your tax dollars are paying for? A private security company that can't even defend itself against the City it was meant to secure and protect?
Haha! 'Tis nothing more than a corporate vulture engorging itself on the urban blight. No, a maggot. A human maggot in shining white power armor.
You laugh out loud at the thought. It really is quite funny!
[HEARTLESS] He could kill you right now but that fact just makes him all the more <span class="mu-i">pathetic.</span> Look at him, this fool playing the hero. A drunk in power armor! Drunk on the job! A miserable man, worthy of nothing but scorn!
Your own face twists and you don't know why your right hand is put to your mouth, as if to stop it, to hide it. The laughter keeps pouring out like a waterfall. Hideous mirth fills the room.
"Hey, Seis." Uno puts his hand on your shoulder, but you violently wrench away as another paroxysm of laughter wracks your body. Everyone just stares at you.
"Completely hysterical," Tres assesses under his breath.
You wheeze out a final laugh as your energy diminishes. The ZPC member is still standing there, awkwardly, certainly more conscious of himself and his place in the world.
Yet, the object of your study has not moved or or put a hand upon you.
>STARE AT HIM. KEEP STARING AT HIM. STARE AT HIM EVEN MORE. STUDY HIM.
There's only one conclusion to all this.
[HEARTLESS] He's looking down upon you. Just as you consider him entertainment, so he looks down at you, entertained.
[HEARTLESS] As if he's not in a difficult position himself, under the mantleweight of the world. What is this then? This cowardly pride, this haughty shame?
[HEARTLESS] You hate it. You hate him, so, so much. Hate. Hate. Hate. You feel a sudden viciousness. Roiling, seething contempt.
You'd like to lash out at him, for lashing out at you in this terrible way. But you can't act on this seething. Not in a way that wouldn't leave you with a bullet in your head. In the end, you can only...
>LAUGH.
"Ha HA ha hahA HAHA-" You're laughing again. It hurts and hurts and hurts and you laugh even harder because of it. None of this is even remotely funny. But you laugh all the same.
"Hahaha?" Through tears, you can hardly make out Tres smirking, in spite of himself. Uno looks completely mortified and you feel betrayed for no fucking reason at all.
"Ah." Your laughter hitches-
>20
>CRY
And the tears begin to flow in earnest. An overwhelming deluge surges into the inner chambers of the heart. The empty cavity threatens to burst.
[HEARTLESS] You don't understand. You can't understand.
[MADNESS] But a sudden clarity fills your mind.