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Because, that's pretty damn angry, holy shit. \n\nAnyway, the alternate title for this post was 'The Best Part of Waking Up is Murder in Your Cup' but that was too long. No sex yet. None what so ever. This is what I like to call 'story telling.' \n\nSo, uh... enjoy all the photons slamming into your retinas. \n\nCredit to: Me. Just me.\n\n I'm kidding. \n \n Cobalt gets credit for being Cobalt and having big osmium Coballs (because... cobalt is only reasonably dense... just a fun fact, I guess.) Rose-Chan for being my favorite little sister. Marty for being my favorite little brother and the most adorable thing ever. Ballantine for... for being Canadian? Or something.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Have you ever just been so mad that you beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker? Because, that's pretty damn angry, holy shit.

Anyway, the alternate title for this post was 'The Best Part of Waking Up is Murder in Your Cup' but that was too long. No sex yet. None what so ever. This is what I like to call 'story telling.'

So, uh... enjoy all the photons slamming into your retinas.

Credit to: Me. Just me.

               I'm kidding.
              
               Cobalt gets credit for being Cobalt and having big osmium Coballs (because... cobalt is only reasonably dense... just a fun fact, I guess.) Rose-Chan for being my favorite little sister. Marty for being my favorite little brother and the most adorable thing ever. Ballantine for... for being Canadian? Or something.", "writing": "\"The scene here today, as seen in these (WARNING: GRAPHIC) photograhs, is believed to be the work of the serial killer currently being called 'The Bloody Doctor' by the police (due to the dissection like quality each murder possesses, and the surgical accuracy of every incision.) It is believed he is responsible for more than seventy victims in the last year alone. Once again, the Bloody Doctor, currently believed to be male, has put his latest victim on display,\" Cobalt reads, staring at the hologram projected from his tech bracer. He taps the photo icon and a dozen high resolution color photographs are projected around the article. Lucky for him, he sprung for the highest end of the tech bracer models, one that cost him way more than he should have spent - but the high grade operating system, TruLife Color™, and the military grade durability are worth it.\n\nHe scrutinizes the images closely, interested. It's a well lit scene, body parts severed and placed carefully, all peeled and laid out, looking like an exploded diagram of a complex machine - except the machine is a corpse that was once a living person. The organs are all neatly laid out on the ground next to it. From the looks of things, it's set up in a public park, on a sort of stone pavilion. Above the head - missing its eyes and with a strangely burned and disfigured jaw - is a message painted in blood. Probably, the canine figures, blood from the corpse.\n\n[i]Progress has been made. Stage two of trials begin soon. Police, watch and wait. Prepare. The worst is yet to come.[/i]\n\nBelow the body, below the footpaws that is, another message.\n\n[i]I'm losing it... I'm losing my grip.[/i]\n\nChuckling, he closes the images out and shuts down the article viewer, disengages the projectors on the bracer. He takes a sip of his coffee, still smirking. The murders, so crisp and clean… and still remaining on the loose. It's impressive and it grips the Saber Coast in paranoia - and that amuses the hell out of him. He glances at the progress bar on the holoframe monitor in front of him and sighs, face falling.\n\nHis chair creaks when he leans back. The coffee he sips next is downright tepid. Dissatisfied, he sets it down and watches the bar sluggishly crawl across the screen. A middle aged man enters the security room and stands behind, watching him.\n\n\"What are you doing now? Anything?\" the man asks. \"I'm not paying your company to send a man to sit here and do nothing.\"\n\n\"I'm not doing nothing. I'm installing drivers and the management software for all the voice command modules right now. Then I need to install and set up all the field limitation software for the weapons check scanning grids. Cameras are already online. Auto turrets are tied to the weapons check grids. Electronic locks and infrared vein scanners come next and then I'm done,\" the canine replies with a measured tone. The middle aged man nods, and just stands there watching over his shoulder. He's a big guy, the man. Fat, to be frank - which he is.\n\nFrank, that is. \n\nFrank is his name.\n\nCobalt dislikes him, as a whole.\n\nFor starters he's abrasive, rude to the point of being purposeful about it. Further still, he's a rhino who just doesn't understand the value of this strange modern invention called 'deoderant.' Even further, he's got a cigar in his mouth and though it isn't lit, it's all cobalt can smell with his sensitive canine nose - and the tobacco is wet, the end charred, and it smells like it's been in his mouth and damp for weeks. He keeps his eyes on the screen, narrowed into a distinctly displeased glare. The black spots surrounding each eye give him a distinctly malevolent, bitter look - one he can never really manage to get away from. People always assume he's either angry or just painfully intense about something. Sighing as the program finishes installing, he runs his fingers through the short, startling red hair on his head and starts up the next installation cycle.\n\n\"How long until your incompetent ass gets our security systems completely online?\" the manager asks. \"I was watching the cameras. We've got dropped frames all over the place.\"\n\nCobalt resists letting out a low growl by taking a big mouthful of rapidly cooling, crap coffee.\n\n\"Probably not until around six in the afternoon. The dropped frames and missing time are normal because so much of the processing power is being eaten up by the configuration utilities and the installers and your intellicams are supposed to log every face and vocal pattern of every customer. You really, really, should have let the company wait until after business hours,\" Cobalt replies in a quiet, strained tone. It's taking a whole lot of effort not to stand up and stab the rhino in the neck with a pen until his mouth stops doing that 'talking' thing. He's sick of his job and his life. Bored. Dissatisfied. Watching the progress bar is equal parts mind numbing and infuriating with a twinge of it being a sad reminder that his life is [i]nothing but[/i] progress bars and shitty people he hates. He is indecisive.\n\nStuck.\n\nHe feels stuck, like he's in a rut. That's what it is.\n\nNo, no wait, it's not a rut. It's a fucking ravine with slick, steep sides he isn't sure he can climb up and the ground is broken glass and rusty nails digging into the pads of his footpaws.\n\n\"Don't you tell me how to run my business, boy. I have all of our security people working overtime here to manually check for weapons. I ain't staying late, I got a friggin' yacht party tonight. You need to learn to keep your mouth shut, mutt. You're talking to the ninth from the head of the Zalaka family,\" the fat rhino mutters. The coffee cup shakes with the trembling of the paw gripping it so hard it hurts. The canine downs his cup and stands up suddenly.\n\n\"Going to get more coffee.\"\n\nThe Rhino claps a leathery skinned hand down on the tall canine's shoulder.\n\n\"You need to stay right the fuck here and finish this install, boy.\"\n\nCobalt shoves the hand away immediately, struggling so hard to keep his cool that something pops in his jaw from the clenching of his teeth and it feels like the outer corner of his right eye is never going to stop twitching.\n\n\"It will be an hour in the very least before this module is done installing, scanning the building, and then constructing the grid work, alright? So what I'm going to do is, while it installs, I'm going to the break room and getting some more coffee before I straight up lose my mind.\"\n\nWithout waiting for a response he shoves through the door, blinking against the bright light of the hall. He all but stalks down, face set in a mask of rage making his naturally intimidating visage even more terrifying. He feels… angrier than he's ever felt, for sure. It worries him. Not necessarily because he's worried about perpetuating violence against someone but because he's not overly fond of the idea of bending over for Bubba in prison. So instead of punching the rhino until his face resembles a piece of meat put through a grinder, he just tugs at his uncomfortable polo shirt and clutches his coffee cup with a death grip strong enough that he actually feels a little bad for the material the cup is made of. It didn't sign up for this shit. The coffee cup wasn't created to be abused.\n\nJust like Cobalt wasn't born for this abuse.\n\nAs far as things go, it's a nice enough bank, he supposes. Busy at this time of the afternoon. He takes a moment to peer into the lobby before continuing into the break room, staring at normal people doing normal banking things. He wonders if they feel as much anger as he feels. Are they dissatisfied with their lives? Are they so bored they're almost literally in pain?\n\nGrowling his malcontent, he pivots and shoves through the door into the break room, ignores everyone inside. \nThey aren't his people, his co-workers. He works for an outside contractor who sets up security systems for a large variety of locations and companies - even some government contracts get tossed their way. The people inside, they ignore him too - because to them, he's nothing. He's unimportant. A member of the working poor who overlooked the idea of eating regularly to get some decent tech on him. He's just a dog in a security company outfit, a piece of scenery. It irritates him even further to be a ghost.\n\nThe struggle to hold down the rage becomes easier when the powerful scent of coffee reaches the dog's nose. He bounds across the room and grabs the pot, then takes a slow breath with his eyes closed, letting the scent calm him. He adds to the cup cream, and a few packets of sugar.\n\nDimly, he realizes he's numb.\n\nDulled to the ugliness the world has to offer. Unconcerned by the idea of blood spilled on the floor. Like many others he was a child in a time when it was easier to find true horror on the net than it was to say… breathe. It was everywhere, is everywhere. News outlets, message boards, search engines. Red splattering every single page.\nWhen he was seven, he saw a police officer beat a man to death for trying to cross the Saber Coast Class Wall to get to a doctor for his daughter, his asthma attack suffering daughter. He was so close he got the blood on his face.\n\nHis paws shake as he sips his coffee slowly.\n\nNothing interests him. Nothing fills the sleepless hours of insanity breeding boredom he has suffered through for years. His friends live on far away worlds and he hides from the grim reality that he is nothing more than a glorified tech support butt monkey in a dead end job with a moderately shit salary with nowhere near enough sex in his life - orgasms plenty, but his right paw makes a poor substitute for a love connection.\n\nHis salary is shit, because he's not able to climb above a certain point despite being amazing at his job - because only certain families are allowed to be upper class. He could theoretically get in trouble for having such a nice tech bracer.\n\nSo with this boredom, it became inevitable. He no longer waited to stumble onto the dark corners of cyberspace. He sought them out, crawled into the tarry black pits tucked away from prying eyes. He slogged through deepnet and layernet security fields and climbed inside of data nodes no one wanted to talk about in places people wanted to forget about.\n\nSimply put, it is his own doing that he's simply unphased and unsurprised when terrible, horrible, grotesque things happen. His ideas of justice have been formed on a world where there is no justice.\n\nBeing too smart for his own good doesn't help things.\n\nBut he has coffee now. Coffee and a moment to lean against the counter, take another sip, savor the taste and close his eyes. It's just a few more hours, he figures, then he can go home, stuff a net jack in the ports on the side of his head and drown himself in meaningless digital excitement. Combat sims, bloodsoaked. Sex, barely enjoyable. \n\nMaybe, he figures, blood soaked sex. \n\n[i]Oh boy, that's a fucked up thought,[/i] he thinks blandly.\n\n One of the women in the room is pretty attractive. He takes note of this as his red eyes fall on her. Now, this is not a dog who typically chases every tail waved in front of his face but he considers trying to get into her pants. Get a little real life sex maybe, perk himself up a little bit with an orgasm that isn't a hefty dose of right paw loneliness.\n\nA gunshot then sounds in the main area of the bank, followed by another and then another. His ears twitch and he glances to the door, counting the sounds. Everyone else immediately makes noise, moves. He just remains still, coffee cup raised to his lips.\n\n[i]Oh. Look at that. Same number of gunshots as there are guards out there.[/i]\n\n\"Everyone on the motherfucking floor!\" someone roars.\n\nThe others are looking at each other panicked. He's calmly staring at the door, curious. His eyes only flick to his temporary companions now and again. They appear to be trembling, the two women. His face slowly spreads into a smile of excitement, a toothy sort of expression - then the bank manager shoulders through the door huffing and puffing and looking just as afraid if not more so than the women.\n\n\"Something uh… going on?\" Cobalt asks, not even bothering to stand up from leaning on the counter. He takes another sip.\n\n\"Fucking… robbers! Shooting the god damn place up! They came right in somehow, and they… they have magnetic accelerator rifles and… the guards… they're all dead!\" he whispers urgently, looking terrified. \"We need to get all security back online! They've… they've jammed our communications!\"\n\n\"Ooooh, right. About that,\" the canine mutters, pausing to finish his next cup of coffee. \"I told you, and my bosses told you, that your security system would be offline for the entire time we were doing the install… which is why we recommended an after hours upgrade and a parallel system backup installation. It's also why my bosses recommended that our guards, from Basilica Missions Incorporated - hardened soldiers. But no, you have your yacht, and you have to save the expense you're so worried about, so on so forth.\"\n\nHis tone, the entire time, is level and downright bored sounding. After a moment of staring the fat manager waddles up, grabs his shirt, and pulls the canine close. In a smooth, lightning fast motion the Dalmation produces a cold metal box.\n\n\"You! Did you know about this robbery!?\" the rhino demands, irrationally. \"Are you in on th-\"\n\nHe is cut off by Cobalt angling the box and releasing a button he's been holding on the side for several seconds. A white, oblong pair of things flies from it, straight into the man's mouth.\n\n\"Novelty mint shooter, gift from an ex for our anniversary. Go on and have some, your breath smells like a porta-shitter in the heat of summer. Also, let go of me. I had no idea this would happen. Also, also, get the fuck out of the break room. Make the right choice. They'll be looking for you to open the vault or something. No need to fuck the rest of us over for your fat fucking ass.\"\n\nThe hand clenched onto Cobalt's shirt does not loosen its grip. His wide brown eyes flick about as if looking for something, some way to escape. His hands are shaking, his breathing fast and erratic. Disappointingly, said breath is not overwhelmingly improved by the mints. Not it just kind of smells like minty sewer stink.\n\n\"You want me to go… out there?\" the rhino hisses. \"Do you think I'm fucking crazy?\"\n\n\"Aaaaaand I'm literally too irate to put up with your shit anymore. I am just... [i]done[/i].\"\n\nAs he speaks he raises a strong arm and backhands the rhino hard enough to send him staggering. The canine remains resolute as the thick, well trimmed nails rip his cheap shirt. As soon as he's free, he grips the rhino's collar and drags him towards the door. He strangely doesn't seem to be hindered by the immense weight. He can feel it, but it's not enough to slow him down. Though there's a bit of a struggle at first, he can feel his anger rising. His heart is pounding so hard it hurts. The sound of everything happening outside hits him, the screams of the terrified, but they become more and more muted as his adrenaline rises. \n\nThen, right as he's about to open the door and throw the manager through, gunshots boom again. Even those sounds are difficult to hear over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, but they stop him in his tracks. He shoves the manager to the ground beside the door and peeks out to see every customer in the packed place lined up on their knees. Several corpses are on the floor. Civilian bodies, not guards. As he watches, he sees a civilian jerk and fall. A gunshot registers on his ears.\n\n\"They're executing civilians… they're not robbers… they're terrorists. They're fucking anti-rich terrorists,\" he murmurs.\n\nIt's a scenario he's not unfamiliar with. The planet Summerset, the Saber Coast… the universe knows it has a very clear line - literally, in the form of walls - between the wealthy and the upper class families and the poor and further, he knows not everyone on the planet are satisfied with that economic state. However, laws are made by the rich and have made it nearly impossible for the poor to lift themselves above the grime and decay of the unkempt urban jungles. The police aren't deserving of the title 'police' and the military is just an extension of the iron fist of rich above poor.\n\nIt's senseless violence on the wrong people, he decides. Violence perpetuated by idiots too stupid to realize all they have to do is bust down the walls and assault the floating fortress anchors, send the rich crashing into the sea or the ground. Kill them all in one go. Coordination, that's what they lack.\n\nA little organization, a few missiles and a lot of subterfuge plus a large scale rebellion would completely destabilize the upper class's control on… everyone.\n\nBut it's all irrelevant. They're going to execute him and the rest of the poor fucks who decided it was a good time to make a deposit. Rich, poor, everyone else. He finds himself apathetic about the civilian deaths. It's not his concern. If anything, they should have fought back. But what he isn't satisfied with is the idea of himself dying. He feels, for the first time in a long time, honest and actual terror so strong it's nearly paralyzing.\n\nBut the terror burns off almost immediately in the uncontrollable and rapidly growing rage. He had no idea it was possible to ever feel so much anger. It's all there is in him, it is all powerful. All consuming. Controlling. Devouring. There's nothing but the sensations, the hyper strong sensations screaming 'murder, murder, murder!' in his head. He clutches his coffee cup and moving as if he has no control over his body he steps out, walks into the lobby of the bank.\n\nHe doesn't stop when they notice him, nor when they raise their rifles. He doesn't care. He just lets out a terrible growl. Everything seems to be going so slow. Their motions are decelerated to the point it's comical. His perceptions even seem to make it so even his hyper accelerated heart rate seems sluggish. It's like reality is bending around him - which, point of fact, it is. Raising their guns should take seconds but at this rate his speeding mind estimates minutes of perceived time. \n\nBaring his teeth, he does what any logical person would do.\n\nHe cocks his arm back, cups a paw around the side, and straight up throws his coffee cup right at one of their balaclava covered faces.\n\nIt moves fast, even to his perceptions. There's a sluggish, slowed boom as it shatters the sound barrier. On impact it explodes into tiny shards and dust. The man's neck snaps back and slowly, he is lifted off his feet. The canine is unconcerned by this development, uninterested even. All he can feel is the need to kill the rest of them. He can almost taste the blood soaking the carpet, the scent is so strong. That very iron stink fuels his blood rage, though not because of the nature of who that blood came from. He just wants to add to the blood scent any way possible.\n\nWhat little of him is conscious figures he can at least do a public service while doing so.\n\nLike nothing more than an animal in a torn shirt he stalks, head bent down and eyes narrowed in a predatory glower. He strafes on instinct, circling away from his rifle, and then he grips his throat from the side. The man is a genomod of some kind, someone who started as an otter but has clearly undergone black market gene therapy to blur him into some kind of halfbreed with some species of canine. A twist, and then a jerk, and then man's vertebra pop and snap, his spine breaking. \n\n[i]…beat a motherfucker… with another motherfucker…[/i]\n\nHe pucks the man's body up off the ground, squeezing that neck until his claws dig in and blood weeps out around them, then drags the knife from his belt, below a tactical armor vest. \n\nA roar sounds then, a roar as he slashes the throat of the man who stood next to the victim he holds and then he hauls back and slams the corpse into the now exsanguinating terrorist. There's a terrible crunch as the bodies collide and then the dalmation pivots, fur dampened by the red spray in the air.\n\nThat terrible roar, it's still going, coming right from Cobalt's throat. \n\nThe knife in paw sails through the air and slams into the forehead of the last man standing.\n\nEverything starts to move faster. The world accelerates back up to normal speed. The ground around Cobalt shatters and sinks inward, the crack shocking and loud. The beast that was a man turns his eyes to the bodies as the acceleration happens. The first man splatters on the wall, hitting head first along with bits of coffee cup. Blood and brain and bits of skull are left in a trail as his corpse falls limply to the ground. A mere moment later the last is knocked back fast by the knife. It nails him to the wall next to the splatter of the first to die and stakes him there.\n\nThe man he beat with another man and the man he used to do the beating lay still, red weeping out to puddle around them.\n\nA deep and resounding silence falls.\n\nHe turns in a circle, looking at the crater beneath him and the blood seeping into the cracks. \n\nCobalt finds himself smiling. His fur, his muzzle, is wet with blood. \n\nWhen he starts to laugh, it's slow and quiet and then it grows in volume, louder and louder until it's a barking cackle. It is the noise of insanity. His head is pounding with a migraine. Every breath sets his chest on fire. His heart literally aches as it pumps erratically.\n\nBut the pain… the pain is irrelevant.\n\nSomething just broke inside of him. A wall. Some kind of incredible wall that was holding back something truly special. His adrenaline and endorphine levels are numbing the pain some though, he realizes.\n \nThe pain slowly grows worse and worse while he takes in what he did until he's breathless with agony.\n\nHis sanity is trying to creep back into his mind, but it doesn't have a grip yet. He turns to face the civilians, and with that action he stands then before those kneeling. They stare at him in terror and then an avian female stammers.\n\n\"T-Thank y-\"\n\nShe is cut off by another roar, a roar that breaks the glass doors of the bank and a number of glass plates on watches, and lenses in glasses. They all stagger back onto their asses, turning their faces away. Some scream. Others sob.\n\nThen he stops. The roar cuts off.\n\nHis sanity has returned. The primary program has reasserted control. The reality of what he just did is crashing down on him, splattering across his brain in flashes of memory. He has a clear image now of both the aftermath and what happened during.\n\nBlood rage. Anger. Rage beyond rage. The feeling of lust and power and strength. Desperation. Fear of death. Coffee cup. Neck snap. Throat slash. Knife throw. Beating a motherfucker with another motherfucker.\n\n\"I straight up... fuckin' killed them...\" he whispers.\n\nThe adrenaline and other chemicals in his blood stream burn quickly out of his system as minutes pass with him standing there in silence, unsure what to do. There are sirens in the distance. Through his shock, he realizes he's exhausted to the point he can't take it and his knees buckle, dropping him to the floor. Even worse pain lances through his body and he retches, the agony in every muscle, every tendon, every inch of skin… it's so horrible. He's sure his FUR is even hurting. The burn feels like he's on fire, roasting alive. His body temperature is through the roof.\n\nEven his eyes hurt. They're dry and almost feel scorched, like a hot wind sucked every ounce of moisture off their surface. He drops then down to his paws and knees, gagging and vomiting bile, stomach acid and coffee. His vision tunnels. \n\nGoggles, some voice in his head says.\n\nWear some damn goggles next time.\n\nThe exhaustion and pain both only get worse and worse, washing him in dizziness and nausea. He coughs again, but this time, drops of blood speckle the puddle of sick below. His blood.\n\nSeconds later, he slumps sideways and blacks out - at least avoiding landing muzzle down in the vomit.\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": ""The scene here today, as seen in these (WARNING: GRAPHIC) photograhs, is believed to be the work of the serial killer currently being called 'The Bloody Doctor' by the police (due to the dissection like quality each murder possesses, and the surgical accuracy of every incision.) It is believed he is responsible for more than seventy victims in the last year alone. Once again, the Bloody Doctor, currently believed to be male, has put his latest victim on display," Cobalt reads, staring at the hologram projected from his tech bracer. He taps the photo icon and a dozen high resolution color photographs are projected around the article. Lucky for him, he sprung for the highest end of the tech bracer models, one that cost him way more than he should have spent - but the high grade operating system, TruLife Color™, and the military grade durability are worth it.

He scrutinizes the images closely, interested. It's a well lit scene, body parts severed and placed carefully, all peeled and laid out, looking like an exploded diagram of a complex machine - except the machine is a corpse that was once a living person. The organs are all neatly laid out on the ground next to it. From the looks of things, it's set up in a public park, on a sort of stone pavilion. Above the head - missing its eyes and with a strangely burned and disfigured jaw - is a message painted in blood. Probably, the canine figures, blood from the corpse.

Progress has been made. Stage two of trials begin soon. Police, watch and wait. Prepare. The worst is yet to come.

Below the body, below the footpaws that is, another message.

I'm losing it... I'm losing my grip.

Chuckling, he closes the images out and shuts down the article viewer, disengages the projectors on the bracer. He takes a sip of his coffee, still smirking. The murders, so crisp and clean… and still remaining on the loose. It's impressive and it grips the Saber Coast in paranoia - and that amuses the hell out of him. He glances at the progress bar on the holoframe monitor in front of him and sighs, face falling.

His chair creaks when he leans back. The coffee he sips next is downright tepid. Dissatisfied, he sets it down and watches the bar sluggishly crawl across the screen. A middle aged man enters the security room and stands behind, watching him.

"What are you doing now? Anything?" the man asks. "I'm not paying your company to send a man to sit here and do nothing."

"I'm not doing nothing. I'm installing drivers and the management software for all the voice command modules right now. Then I need to install and set up all the field limitation software for the weapons check scanning grids. Cameras are already online. Auto turrets are tied to the weapons check grids. Electronic locks and infrared vein scanners come next and then I'm done," the canine replies with a measured tone. The middle aged man nods, and just stands there watching over his shoulder. He's a big guy, the man. Fat, to be frank - which he is.

Frank, that is.

Frank is his name.

Cobalt dislikes him, as a whole.

For starters he's abrasive, rude to the point of being purposeful about it. Further still, he's a rhino who just doesn't understand the value of this strange modern invention called 'deoderant.' Even further, he's got a cigar in his mouth and though it isn't lit, it's all cobalt can smell with his sensitive canine nose - and the tobacco is wet, the end charred, and it smells like it's been in his mouth and damp for weeks. He keeps his eyes on the screen, narrowed into a distinctly displeased glare. The black spots surrounding each eye give him a distinctly malevolent, bitter look - one he can never really manage to get away from. People always assume he's either angry or just painfully intense about something. Sighing as the program finishes installing, he runs his fingers through the short, startling red hair on his head and starts up the next installation cycle.

"How long until your incompetent ass gets our security systems completely online?" the manager asks. "I was watching the cameras. We've got dropped frames all over the place."

Cobalt resists letting out a low growl by taking a big mouthful of rapidly cooling, crap coffee.

"Probably not until around six in the afternoon. The dropped frames and missing time are normal because so much of the processing power is being eaten up by the configuration utilities and the installers and your intellicams are supposed to log every face and vocal pattern of every customer. You really, really, should have let the company wait until after business hours," Cobalt replies in a quiet, strained tone. It's taking a whole lot of effort not to stand up and stab the rhino in the neck with a pen until his mouth stops doing that 'talking' thing. He's sick of his job and his life. Bored. Dissatisfied. Watching the progress bar is equal parts mind numbing and infuriating with a twinge of it being a sad reminder that his life is nothing but progress bars and shitty people he hates. He is indecisive.

Stuck.

He feels stuck, like he's in a rut. That's what it is.

No, no wait, it's not a rut. It's a fucking ravine with slick, steep sides he isn't sure he can climb up and the ground is broken glass and rusty nails digging into the pads of his footpaws.

"Don't you tell me how to run my business, boy. I have all of our security people working overtime here to manually check for weapons. I ain't staying late, I got a friggin' yacht party tonight. You need to learn to keep your mouth shut, mutt. You're talking to the ninth from the head of the Zalaka family," the fat rhino mutters. The coffee cup shakes with the trembling of the paw gripping it so hard it hurts. The canine downs his cup and stands up suddenly.

"Going to get more coffee."

The Rhino claps a leathery skinned hand down on the tall canine's shoulder.

"You need to stay right the fuck here and finish this install, boy."

Cobalt shoves the hand away immediately, struggling so hard to keep his cool that something pops in his jaw from the clenching of his teeth and it feels like the outer corner of his right eye is never going to stop twitching.

"It will be an hour in the very least before this module is done installing, scanning the building, and then constructing the grid work, alright? So what I'm going to do is, while it installs, I'm going to the break room and getting some more coffee before I straight up lose my mind."

Without waiting for a response he shoves through the door, blinking against the bright light of the hall. He all but stalks down, face set in a mask of rage making his naturally intimidating visage even more terrifying. He feels… angrier than he's ever felt, for sure. It worries him. Not necessarily because he's worried about perpetuating violence against someone but because he's not overly fond of the idea of bending over for Bubba in prison. So instead of punching the rhino until his face resembles a piece of meat put through a grinder, he just tugs at his uncomfortable polo shirt and clutches his coffee cup with a death grip strong enough that he actually feels a little bad for the material the cup is made of. It didn't sign up for this shit. The coffee cup wasn't created to be abused.

Just like Cobalt wasn't born for this abuse.

As far as things go, it's a nice enough bank, he supposes. Busy at this time of the afternoon. He takes a moment to peer into the lobby before continuing into the break room, staring at normal people doing normal banking things. He wonders if they feel as much anger as he feels. Are they dissatisfied with their lives? Are they so bored they're almost literally in pain?

Growling his malcontent, he pivots and shoves through the door into the break room, ignores everyone inside.
They aren't his people, his co-workers. He works for an outside contractor who sets up security systems for a large variety of locations and companies - even some government contracts get tossed their way. The people inside, they ignore him too - because to them, he's nothing. He's unimportant. A member of the working poor who overlooked the idea of eating regularly to get some decent tech on him. He's just a dog in a security company outfit, a piece of scenery. It irritates him even further to be a ghost.

The struggle to hold down the rage becomes easier when the powerful scent of coffee reaches the dog's nose. He bounds across the room and grabs the pot, then takes a slow breath with his eyes closed, letting the scent calm him. He adds to the cup cream, and a few packets of sugar.

Dimly, he realizes he's numb.

Dulled to the ugliness the world has to offer. Unconcerned by the idea of blood spilled on the floor. Like many others he was a child in a time when it was easier to find true horror on the net than it was to say… breathe. It was everywhere, is everywhere. News outlets, message boards, search engines. Red splattering every single page.
When he was seven, he saw a police officer beat a man to death for trying to cross the Saber Coast Class Wall to get to a doctor for his daughter, his asthma attack suffering daughter. He was so close he got the blood on his face.

His paws shake as he sips his coffee slowly.

Nothing interests him. Nothing fills the sleepless hours of insanity breeding boredom he has suffered through for years. His friends live on far away worlds and he hides from the grim reality that he is nothing more than a glorified tech support butt monkey in a dead end job with a moderately shit salary with nowhere near enough sex in his life - orgasms plenty, but his right paw makes a poor substitute for a love connection.

His salary is shit, because he's not able to climb above a certain point despite being amazing at his job - because only certain families are allowed to be upper class. He could theoretically get in trouble for having such a nice tech bracer.

So with this boredom, it became inevitable. He no longer waited to stumble onto the dark corners of cyberspace. He sought them out, crawled into the tarry black pits tucked away from prying eyes. He slogged through deepnet and layernet security fields and climbed inside of data nodes no one wanted to talk about in places people wanted to forget about.

Simply put, it is his own doing that he's simply unphased and unsurprised when terrible, horrible, grotesque things happen. His ideas of justice have been formed on a world where there is no justice.

Being too smart for his own good doesn't help things.

But he has coffee now. Coffee and a moment to lean against the counter, take another sip, savor the taste and close his eyes. It's just a few more hours, he figures, then he can go home, stuff a net jack in the ports on the side of his head and drown himself in meaningless digital excitement. Combat sims, bloodsoaked. Sex, barely enjoyable.

Maybe, he figures, blood soaked sex.

Oh boy, that's a fucked up thought, he thinks blandly.

 One of the women in the room is pretty attractive. He takes note of this as his red eyes fall on her. Now, this is not a dog who typically chases every tail waved in front of his face but he considers trying to get into her pants. Get a little real life sex maybe, perk himself up a little bit with an orgasm that isn't a hefty dose of right paw loneliness.

A gunshot then sounds in the main area of the bank, followed by another and then another. His ears twitch and he glances to the door, counting the sounds. Everyone else immediately makes noise, moves. He just remains still, coffee cup raised to his lips.

Oh. Look at that. Same number of gunshots as there are guards out there.

"Everyone on the motherfucking floor!" someone roars.

The others are looking at each other panicked. He's calmly staring at the door, curious. His eyes only flick to his temporary companions now and again. They appear to be trembling, the two women. His face slowly spreads into a smile of excitement, a toothy sort of expression - then the bank manager shoulders through the door huffing and puffing and looking just as afraid if not more so than the women.

"Something uh… going on?" Cobalt asks, not even bothering to stand up from leaning on the counter. He takes another sip.

"Fucking… robbers! Shooting the god damn place up! They came right in somehow, and they… they have magnetic accelerator rifles and… the guards… they're all dead!" he whispers urgently, looking terrified. "We need to get all security back online! They've… they've jammed our communications!"

"Ooooh, right. About that," the canine mutters, pausing to finish his next cup of coffee. "I told you, and my bosses told you, that your security system would be offline for the entire time we were doing the install… which is why we recommended an after hours upgrade and a parallel system backup installation. It's also why my bosses recommended that our guards, from Basilica Missions Incorporated - hardened soldiers. But no, you have your yacht, and you have to save the expense you're so worried about, so on so forth."

His tone, the entire time, is level and downright bored sounding. After a moment of staring the fat manager waddles up, grabs his shirt, and pulls the canine close. In a smooth, lightning fast motion the Dalmation produces a cold metal box.

"You! Did you know about this robbery!?" the rhino demands, irrationally. "Are you in on th-"

He is cut off by Cobalt angling the box and releasing a button he's been holding on the side for several seconds. A white, oblong pair of things flies from it, straight into the man's mouth.

"Novelty mint shooter, gift from an ex for our anniversary. Go on and have some, your breath smells like a porta-shitter in the heat of summer. Also, let go of me. I had no idea this would happen. Also, also, get the fuck out of the break room. Make the right choice. They'll be looking for you to open the vault or something. No need to fuck the rest of us over for your fat fucking ass."

The hand clenched onto Cobalt's shirt does not loosen its grip. His wide brown eyes flick about as if looking for something, some way to escape. His hands are shaking, his breathing fast and erratic. Disappointingly,  said breath is not overwhelmingly improved by the mints. Not it just kind of smells like minty sewer stink.

"You want me to go… out there?" the rhino hisses. "Do you think I'm fucking crazy?"

"Aaaaaand I'm literally too irate to put up with your shit anymore. I am just... done."

As he speaks he raises a strong arm and backhands the rhino hard enough to send him staggering. The canine remains resolute as the thick, well trimmed nails rip his cheap shirt. As soon as he's free, he grips the rhino's collar and drags him towards the door. He strangely doesn't seem to be hindered by the immense weight. He can feel it, but it's not enough to slow him down. Though there's a bit of a struggle at first, he can feel his anger rising. His heart is pounding so hard it hurts. The sound of everything happening outside hits him, the screams of the terrified, but they become more and more muted as his adrenaline rises.

Then, right as he's about to open the door and throw the manager through, gunshots boom again. Even those sounds are difficult to hear over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, but they stop him in his tracks. He shoves the manager to the ground beside the door and peeks out to see every customer in the packed place lined up on their knees. Several corpses are on the floor. Civilian bodies, not guards. As he watches, he sees a civilian jerk and fall. A gunshot registers on his ears.

"They're executing civilians… they're not robbers… they're terrorists. They're fucking anti-rich terrorists," he murmurs.

It's a scenario he's not unfamiliar with. The planet Summerset, the Saber Coast… the universe knows it has a very clear line - literally, in the form of walls - between the wealthy and the upper class families and the poor and further, he knows not everyone on the planet are satisfied with that economic state. However, laws are made by the rich and have made it nearly impossible for the poor to lift themselves above the grime and decay of the unkempt urban jungles. The police aren't deserving of the title 'police' and the military is just an extension of the iron fist of rich above poor.

It's senseless violence on the wrong people, he decides. Violence perpetuated by idiots too stupid to realize all they have to do is bust down the walls and assault the floating fortress anchors, send the rich crashing into the sea or the ground. Kill them all in one go. Coordination, that's what they lack.

A little organization, a few missiles and a lot of subterfuge plus a large scale rebellion would completely destabilize the upper class's control on… everyone.

But it's all irrelevant. They're going to execute him and the rest of the poor fucks who decided it was a good time to make a deposit. Rich, poor, everyone else. He finds himself apathetic about the civilian deaths. It's not his concern. If anything, they should have fought back. But what he isn't satisfied with is the idea of himself dying. He feels, for the first time in a long time, honest and actual terror so strong it's nearly paralyzing.

But the terror burns off almost immediately in the uncontrollable and rapidly growing rage. He had no idea it was possible to ever feel so much anger. It's all there is in him, it is all powerful. All consuming. Controlling. Devouring. There's nothing but the sensations, the hyper strong sensations screaming 'murder, murder, murder!' in his head. He clutches his coffee cup and moving as if he has no control over his body he steps out, walks into the lobby of the bank.

He doesn't stop when they notice him, nor when they raise their rifles. He doesn't care. He just lets out a terrible growl. Everything seems to be going so slow. Their motions are decelerated to the point it's comical. His perceptions even seem to make it so even his hyper accelerated heart rate seems sluggish. It's like reality is bending around him - which, point of fact, it is. Raising their guns should take seconds but at this rate his speeding mind estimates minutes of perceived time.

Baring his teeth, he does what any logical person would do.

He cocks his arm back, cups a paw around the side, and straight up throws his coffee cup right at one of their balaclava covered faces.

It moves fast, even to his perceptions. There's a sluggish, slowed boom as it shatters the sound barrier. On impact it explodes into tiny shards and dust. The man's neck snaps back and slowly, he is lifted off his feet. The canine is unconcerned by this development, uninterested even. All he can feel is the need to kill the rest of them. He can almost taste the blood soaking the carpet, the scent is so strong. That very iron stink fuels his blood rage, though not because of the nature of who that blood came from. He just wants to add to the blood scent any way possible.

What little of him is conscious figures he can at least do a public service while doing so.

Like nothing more than an animal in a torn shirt he stalks, head bent down and eyes narrowed in a predatory glower. He strafes on instinct, circling away from his rifle, and then he grips his throat from the side. The man is a genomod of some kind, someone who started as an otter but has clearly undergone black market gene therapy to blur him into some kind of halfbreed with some species of canine. A twist, and then a jerk, and then man's vertebra pop and snap, his spine breaking.

…beat a motherfucker… with another motherfucker…

He pucks the man's body up off the ground, squeezing that neck until his claws dig in and blood weeps out around them, then drags the knife from his belt, below a tactical armor vest.

A roar sounds then, a roar as he slashes the throat of the man who stood next to the victim he holds and then he hauls back and slams the corpse into the now exsanguinating terrorist. There's a terrible crunch as the bodies collide and then the dalmation pivots, fur dampened by the red spray in the air.

That terrible roar, it's still going, coming right from Cobalt's throat.

The knife in paw sails through the air and slams into the forehead of the last man standing.

Everything starts to move faster. The world accelerates back up to normal speed. The ground around Cobalt shatters and sinks inward, the crack shocking and loud. The beast that was a man turns his eyes to the bodies as the acceleration happens. The first man splatters on the wall, hitting head first along with bits of coffee cup. Blood and brain and bits of skull are left in a trail as his corpse falls limply to the ground. A mere moment later the last is knocked back fast by the knife. It nails him to the wall next to the splatter of the first to die and stakes him there.

The man he beat with another man and the man he used to do the beating lay still, red weeping out to puddle around them.

A deep and resounding silence falls.

He turns in a circle, looking at the crater beneath him and the blood seeping into the cracks.

Cobalt finds himself smiling. His fur, his muzzle, is wet with blood.

When he starts to laugh, it's slow and quiet and then it grows in volume, louder and louder until it's a barking cackle. It is the noise of insanity. His head is pounding with a migraine. Every breath sets his chest on fire. His heart literally aches as it pumps erratically.

But the pain… the pain is irrelevant.

Something just broke inside of him. A wall. Some kind of incredible wall that was holding back something truly special. His adrenaline and endorphine levels are numbing the pain some though, he realizes.
 
The pain slowly grows worse and worse while he takes in what he did until he's breathless with agony.

His sanity is trying to creep back into his mind, but it doesn't have a grip yet. He turns to face the civilians, and with that action he stands then before those kneeling. They stare at him in terror and then an avian female stammers.

"T-Thank y-"

She is cut off by another roar, a roar that breaks the glass doors of the bank and a number of glass plates on watches, and lenses in glasses. They all stagger back onto their asses, turning their faces away. Some scream. Others sob.

Then he stops. The roar cuts off.

His sanity has returned. The primary program has reasserted control. The reality of what he just did is crashing down on him, splattering across his brain in flashes of memory. He has a clear image now of both the aftermath and what happened during.

Blood rage. Anger. Rage beyond rage. The feeling of lust and power  and strength. Desperation. Fear of death. Coffee cup. Neck snap. Throat slash. Knife throw. Beating a motherfucker with another motherfucker.

"I straight up... fuckin' killed them..." he whispers.

The adrenaline and other chemicals in his blood stream burn quickly out of his system as minutes pass with him standing there in silence, unsure what to do. There are sirens in the distance. Through his shock, he realizes he's exhausted to the point he can't take it and his knees buckle, dropping him to the floor. Even worse pain lances through his body and he retches, the agony in every muscle, every tendon, every inch of skin… it's so horrible. He's sure his FUR is even hurting. The burn feels like he's on fire, roasting alive. His body temperature is through the roof.

Even his eyes hurt. They're dry and almost feel scorched, like a hot wind sucked every ounce of moisture off their surface. He drops then down to his paws and knees, gagging and vomiting bile, stomach acid and coffee. His vision tunnels.

Goggles, some voice in his head says.

Wear some damn goggles next time.

The exhaustion and pain both only get worse and worse, washing him in dizziness and nausea. He coughs again, but this time, drops of blood speckle the puddle of sick below. His blood.

Seconds later, he slumps sideways and blacks out - at least avoiding landing muzzle down in the vomit.
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