Athena, didn't give any response, just let Alice say her, piece, even as she grabbed her and pulled her in close, practically screaming at her.  When she was done... what happened next was a blur: first her arms are pulled and tear the tank top straps apart, exposing her breasts with the dog-tags nestled between them in the process, but also putting Alice off balance.  A powerful shot to the knees - not nearly as strong as her arms - and she was swung around onto the bed by her own collar, and in a split second - if that - Alice found herself staring down the barrel of the Ares Predator IV that Athena carried on her hip at all times.  And during it all, the older woman's expression hadn't changed a bit, cold and ever calculating...<br/><br/>"It started after she fended off a mugging.  Pain and nausea and paling of the skin. " she said, her tone as calm and cold as her expression "Doctor's visit, the Harz-Grenbaum blood panel was done, showed signs of Ghilani Wichtivirdae, a precursor to Krieger's Syndrome... otherwise known as HMHVV-III; Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus, the subtype responsible for producing<em>ghouls</em>.  But that was fine; I<em>love</em>my wife, even if she has to quit being a professional fighter, even if we can never have sex again without a condom, if she can only eat bloody red raw meat... I was there when her skin started scabbing over, when her hair started falling out, her teeth turned into fangs, her eyes whited over with cataracts, when the sun started to make her<em>itch</em>something fierce, when she couldn't wear the silver necklace I bought her, my first ever gift to her, because it literally<em>burned her skin</em>.  But it was fine, I loved her, I<em>comforted</em>her, but one day she started acting odd, and the next she bought a box of silver bullets and a gun.  She started getting angrier, sounds and smells would set her off, she wouldn't sleep next to me because she was<em>afraid</em>of what she'd do to me in my sleep, or to our daughter who had recently goblinized into an Ork.  She was turning<em>feral</em>, and she bought that gun for me to carry at all times, 'just in case,' always 'on the off chance'... my little elven Thai princess was losing her goddamn mind and there was<em>nothing</em>I could do, until one day she finally just<em>snapped</em>..."<br/><br/>The gun in  her hand had the clip drop out of it, and the gun cycled to eject the bullet in the chamber, leaving it empty...<br/><br/>"She tried to rip my throat out, her eyes<em>hungry</em>, her teeth bared and salivating, and it scared the living<em>shit</em>out of me, because my Thai princess was trying to<em>eat me alive</em>!" the emotion was coming back now, and it was anger, as well as a distinct, overwhelming sadness "I tore off her grip, grabbed her, threw her onto the bed, and with that gun loaded with silver bullets I pointed it at her face and I fired..."<br/><br/>She pulled the trigger, the hammer fell, but the gun didn't shoot, it wasn't loaded...<br/><br/>"And I fired, and I fired, until every last of the sixteen bullets was buried int he floor." she said, and she pulled the trigger every one of those times "What was left was a bloody heaping mess on the bed where we conceived our daughter, and where my once gorgeous wife's face with her long, raven hair used to be.  Nobody even bothered to take a statement when Lone Star showed up; she was just another<em>ghoul</em>..."<br/><br/>She threw her gun away then, so hard in fact that the butt of the pistol stuck into the wall, holding it there, as Athena gripped Alice's shirt again.<br/><br/>"Two weeks later was the Matrix Crash of '66.  My daughter, a 12-year-old Ork, my baby girl, was in VR playing a game when it happened.  The Crash happened, and her heart just<em>stopped</em>..." she continued, her tone turning calm again, along with her expression, but the sadness in her eyes... well, it only seemed to grow "Dead, gone, just ashes in urns and memories now.  But not even two years later, who do I find hanging out in my homes CHN but a sapient AI, going by Minerva, whose AR form of choice was that of an almost fourteen-year-old half-Thai half-African-American Ork who looked<em>exactly</em>like my daughter... not an AI, but an e-ghost, my<em>daughter's</em>electronic ghost of her mind trapped in the Matrix, her memories demolished, doesn't even know who she is no matter how hard I tried to convince her, doesn't even know that I'm one of her mothers... and yet every day, every<em>goddamn day</em>, she's here, my baby girl, and she doesn't even know who the<em>fuck</em>I am..."<br/><br/>Then she growled again, and her grip tightened on her shirt...<br/><br/>"And then<em>you</em>show up, and you start reminding me of my<em>wife</em>!" she growls, the anger coming back once more "You unholy<em>cunt</em>!  Why do you have to remind me of her so much?!?!"