Nova Peak what’s yours is mine.

dead she was dead dead

Riley struggled to hold back the welling wave of delirium. His hip sagged to the right as he tried to make sense of the assortment of faces around him; friend or foe foe foe foe —

A blurry shape bolted past his legs. Then another, and then a third standing by his legs with a cheery “get out!”.

His brow furrowed, trying to make sense of the pieces of his vision which kept pulling apart and then whirling close.

His children.

Do you want them to be buried too?

No! Riley slumped against the dugout’s external wall. Two new figures swam into view, the face of one so familiar that for a moment Riley gasped. Masque!

No no no no no she was dead she was dead dead dead; this wasn’t her this was someone else wearing her face and now she was coming towards him and —

He stepped back with a strangled cry as Redd and Mulherin flanked him. don’t — don’t touch them! He snarled hysterically, standing over Riot in protective fear. Now she was advancing and her teeth found his flesh.

A madman’s scream tore from Riley’s lips. The last of his mental acuity was slipping. He was confused, he was terrified, he was losing control and he knew there was something so profoundly important he needed to do but — what was it?

He bucked under Redd’s teeth, panic fueling a stifled instinct in him. Much like Masque in her final moments, a basal part of Riley knew if he was subdued now he would never walk again. He turned to his assailant with the puncture-and-pull maneuver of his kind, the force behind his blows fueled by sheer desperation.

At some point during his panic, the face of his mate slipped away. Riley’s frenzied muscles stiffened, gradually coming to grips with the realization.

R-Redd? He bleated, the fight seemingly extinguished from his bones. He was so disoriented, so betrayed by the feebleness of his waning consciousness. Again came that nagging sensation of something important he was forgetting.

In that moment he saw the blur of Dirtwater Fox lunge. He was too feverish to track the man’s trajectory, but between the crowding of strangers and the fresh blood welting his hide, coupled with the alarming disorientation of his uncooperating brain, Riley snapped.

No!! No!! He shrieked, wrestling to free himself from Redd’s hold. They were all enemies. It was them; they were doing this to him - they had made him sick and now they wanted to steal his —

Riley’s golden eyes widened. His desperate brain had sent one last electrical impulse as reminder  — the vision of Masque’s long tail curled around his three beautiful children.  This memory lit some distant corner in Riley’s disintegrating brain before blackness extinguished it forever. Survival instincts took over and in that moment Riley was lost — replaced by a rampaging beast whose only imperative was to survive at all costs.

His first target was the cinerous woman whose only crime was standing too close to the last memory Riley would ever hold.