Jeeez... sorry for the wait, guys, but ToyHammer's been taking up a lot of my time. Oh, as well as a few other things (like re-playing both Bioshocks to re-adjust myself to their canons and get all the Audio Diaries). Anyway, here's the next chapter of Brother Bubbles. Enjoy, and review (please!).

Gunfire filled the room.

It drowned out all noise, took away his senses with flashes of light and the roar of a dozen machine guns firing from all directions.

In the lag between his body's adrenaline surge and the moment where he realized he needed it, Virgil was coldly aware of what happened. They had been waiting for him. Of the random mutants that he had passed by and killed, none were terribly organized. He had thought that this was true for all of these heretical Splicers.

But he was wrong.

He had overstepped his confidence, underestimated the enemy. He had allowed himself to become relaxed in this world of primitive weapons and weak enemies. He had failed in his vow of constant vigilance.

Now they had executed the perfect ambush. Sure, their firepower and weapons would take literal weeks of constant shooting to even have a chance of penetrating his armor, but that wasn't the matter. He had been caught unaware, while vulnerable, and was now paying the price for it.

Centuries of refined reflexes saved him again as he knelt down and covered his more vulnerable joints.

These solid, armor-piercing slugs were much unlike the laser weaponry that had been brought to bear against him over centuries of purging heretics. Each slug, while harmless, threatened to chip away a slight layer of his armor, unlike the easier to disperse las blasts. Additionally, the longer he remained like this, all turtle up and crouched down, the more weapons could be gathered and brought to bear.

They could do one of many hundreds of things to him, all of which he could be endangered. Explosives could be used to drop the floor out from underneath him, and the fall could be more than dangerous.

Not only that, Anna was still out there, still under the guard of the Splicers.

Rage filling his veins, Virgil picked a direction, and charged.

They had been arrayed in a roughly semi-circular arc, mostly to prevent themselves firing at each other in the deadly crossfire.

A few had already fallen, clutching their wounds where a ricochet had struck them. Two were satisfyingly still as the pool of blood spread out underneath their bodies.

His armor held through, and Virgil shrugged off most of the last desperate counter-attacks, bisecting the arc, his massive arms tossing two Splicers aside as he swung about wildly. His right arm shot out and caught one in mid-air, then smashed the mutant into others, using the shattered body as a club as he swung back and forth, sending more flying as panic spread through the ranks. Three, four, five splicers were sent tumbling to the ground as their former comrade was turned against them, and the other half of the formation fell back as the armored giant shrugged off the AP rounds.

Turning towards that half, Virgil charged again, his power fist crackling to life as he spotted a splicer's hand freeze into a frostbitten hedgehog of ice.

One, two, three blasts of heat-sucking vapor splashed across his limbs, quickly forming into stone-hard ice. The temperature readings on his suit's monitors skydived, and the outer layers of artificial muscles in his armor slowed to a standstill at the sudden change in temperature.

Virgil flexed the other set of muscles, and shattered the layer of ice before it could completely encase him.

"Shit! Shoot him! SHOOT HIM!"

More gunfire sparked off ceramite armor, taking off microscopic chips of the ancient shoulder-plate

with them as they bounced off his chest.

"Doesn't anyone have a 'Hypnotize Big Daddy' plasmid?"

Virgil punched the head off someone's shoulders.

"Yeah, but he just lost his head!"

"Fuckit, shoot the bastard!"

The ice-wielder exploded as a powerfist's finger was punched through his chest, and then hurled him through the air. Flames washed over him now, and he lashed out with his boot this time, propelling the twisted parody of a human being through the air and into the broken pipes above.

"Shit, why the hell is this bastard not going down! ?"

"I don't know! I don't know!"

The Terminator's backhand chop took a man's head off his shoulders, and an open-palmed strike crushed the ribcage of another. There were still many more to come. With him in amongst them, their panicked weapons fire was harming their allies more than their nemesis. Then again, it hadn't been hurting him more than the occasional scrape against the shoulders of his battle-brothers while they were riding into battle.

A man ran up to him, leaping forwards and leveling a shotgun.

With a booming explosion, the small pellets of the 00 buck slammed into his face, bounced off, and peppered the man with the slugs. He went down screaming, cut short as the terminator turned him over and stomped his spine flat enough to be pneumo'd.

More lightning struck him, seeping in through the atmospheric filters. When locked down into hazardous-environment mode, his armor would have been impregnable, sealing its human operator inside so tightly that it was almost enough to walk on the surface of a sun.

But… with the Imperium of Man as it was, the Adeptus Mechanicus especially, their knowledge of technology fading, with aged and inferior parts being used in place of their originals. Terminator suits may have had interchangeable parts, but no longer were they the seamless fits of older times.

Virgil's jaw clamped shut when the pain lanced through his body, and again his suit's ancient operating system went into overload.

He dropped to one knee, and sagged so that his chest touched his knees. His systems were overloaded, and Virgil gritted his teeth, trying to calm himself so as to think. From now on, he couldn't just brute force his way through. Well, it would be easier and far less risky to take this more slowly.

System overload.

Cursing and snarling, Virgil forced his suit into action, hurling himself at one of the splicers.

Rebooting.

Spoke a buzzing mechanical voice inside of his suit.

A voice called out. "Did we get him? Daniels, check it out."

Five.

Someone kicked him in the face, only to be sent off hopping on one foot, the broken toe clutched in his

hands.

Four.

"Yeah, he ain't movin' no more."

More scuffling, and a shout as Colin was brought out.

Three.

"Hey, ain'tcha McRae? Supposed ta be out by ol' Suchong's place?"

"Y-yeah… but the big guy grabbed me an'… killed off the others… an' well, here I am."

"Alright, then. The bastard got McArlen, Uzzie, Tollens and Pedersen… anyone else?"

Two.

There was a brief chorus of other names, the names of people who had been killed by the lone Terminator.

One.

"Fuck. We don't usually lose more than a few against a Big Daddy, but… jeezus, what have they been doing to them? This ain't just a Big Daddy."

"Th-thanks."

System rebooted. THE EMPEROR PROTECTS.

Virgil heard, from the inside of his helmet, a scream.

Anna. Again.

Their leader was the first to die as the re-awakened Terminator stood and punched an armored fist through his chest, reaching through the grizzled man to clamp his fingers around the messenger's throat and then tear it right out of his neck.

Panic.

Everyone but the silent berserker was running, scrambling to get away from the resurrected Big Daddy, now more than just a helpless prisoner to his rage. It was an avenging angel of death, a terrible nemesis.

Fear incarnate. He stomped on the ground, shaking the floor and sending people staggering, off balance. Slow.

Dead.

His power fist, still but a hunk of metal as the power field was switched off as the power unit spooled up, caught a man – Colin – and then threw him behind a row of benches. Hopefully he would be smart enough to stay down until the. A few bullets spattered off his chest, and the gunman was quickly cut down by the thrown body of their hollowed-out leader.

Only a few of the dozen and a half splicers now remained, and they all fled from him. Let the word spread, Virgil thought. He would see their leader soiling himself soon enough.

"Tenenbaum?" He asked, thumbing the radio. No answer came. Checking the primitive vox-set, he was disappointed to see that it had been shot through several times. It was now – at best – a box of scraps.

"Machine Spirit, messenger of humanity, you have served well. May you rest in peace." He whispered awkwardly to the spirit of the radio, before laying it down in a quiet corner of the room.

"Hey… uh… hello?"

Colin's voice peeped up from the benches.

"You aren't going to hurt me, are you?"

A head poked up, and the armored gauntlet wrapped around his neck. Colin was thrown out of his hiding place, before a weapon – a primitive autogun – was thrust into his hands.

Virgil spoke to him for the first time, a single command that would not be disobeyed. "Lead."

Maxine Inglesia.

That was her name. Of course, the second part had been adopted, when she had shed her surface identity and become a citizen of Rapture. It was meant to be utopia, a place where the streets were paved with gold. Or something like that, anyway. A grand place where everyone wanted for nothing.

That would have been heaven on (or under) earth, right? But, when you looked at Rapture and what was happening now, it was quite the hellhole. She sat on her bed, immobile. Her trembling fingers clutched at the hypodermic needle that had been left on the bed.

It had been left there for her. While ADAM was the king of drugs around here, there were others that cropped up as the 'entertainment' business that had derived from such flexible drugs became rapidly more and more popular.

The man in the corner of the room – a customer – smiled and bid her to go on. Hiding the disgusted lurch of her stomach, Maxine sighed. She straightened out her arm, and pushed the thin tip of the needle into her pale flesh.

A gasp, and then a sensation of falling.

Now, she was high on some kind of drug that she didn't even know about. EDEN, they called it. It would send you to paradise, for a short while and for the right price.

Looking around her room now, the drug lived up to its name. The bedding she was on was – rather than the dirty grey that it was – seemingly the purest of white, and as soft as ermine fur. Ragged and torn curtains, some parts splattered by blood, had been replaced with red velvet, fixed to the wall with etched gold fixtures.

Then, there was the man. He was sitting in front of her, taking the place of the ugly mutant that had been there a few seconds ago. Dressed in a dark suit with a white shirt and gloves, he was the spitting image of perfection. A broad smile cracked his face, and he looked around with her, following her eyes.

"So, what do you think?"

"Oh my… it's so beautiful."

"Mhmm… that's right, doll."

But… something nagged at the back of her mind. Things were out of place. She could see what they were, what they should have been, but… a blink sent her back to reality, back into the grimy, mouldy room that had become her workplace. She shut her eyes, shut herself away from the hell that was reality, and pushed the plunger further down. Her muscles relaxed as her eyes dilated, the bright room around her again became a paradise.

Like the Garden of Eden.

Eyelids heavy, Maxine managed a soft whimper as the man pushed the plunger down the rest of the way, and removed the needle from her arm. His hands scrabbled at her clothes, breathing quick as he reached for the ties to her corset.

Clank, clank… a suit of armor walked in through a door that hadn't been there the last time she checked. It glowed, the polished armor casting a golden light about the room as he strode in. His left hand was simply enormous, and crackled with lightning as he stepped forward. Maxine was just aware of the knight's squire, who was at his master's side, before there was a sudden bout of laughter.

The man that had been at the bedside, hunched over the young woman, stood up. Raising his arm at the two men with a rusty pistol held loosely in his hand, his mouth moving slightly out of synch with his laughter, he didn't stand a chance as bright sparks skipped off the armor of the armored knight.

The squire raised his hands, and blood red petals bloomed on the other man's chest as the world exploded into a twenty-one gun salute.

The last of the brass casings rolled around on the ground.

"Did I get him?"

The man was on the floor, spread eagle and bleeding from the half dozen bullet holes that had been torn into his chest, ruining the frayed waistcoat and shirt. Weakly, he began to rise again.

Virgil walked over, and stomped his head flat.

There was screaming, and the two intruders turned to see the woman on the bed as she fell off, tumbling to the ground.

"Aw damn." The splicer swore, picking up an empty syringe, reading the label printed on the side. She continued to panic, her breath coming fast and shallow. "Poor girl's hopped up on EDEN. It's probably recoiling, seeing as how she's screaming and not… err… enjoying herself."

Virgil cocked an eyebrow at this. Colin was actually intelligent? He looked at the girl, and shuddered. The past came rushing back to him. That girl… She scrambled away from him, fleeing to a corner of the room and whimpering in fear. She pressed herself into the small space, trying to distance herself from the fearsome warrior of the Emperor. The Terminator Marine – to her eyes, a knight of majestic gold and fear made metal (technically ceramic) – stepped back, and turned away. His suit's monitor beeped incessantly, warning him of jumping heart rates in both organs. The pads of his gauntleted fists were clammy and sweaty, and his throat had dried up.

"Attend to her." He rumbled, thankful that the voxcaster masked the quaver of uncertainty in his voice. "I shall locate a radio."

The Splicer stared, his jaw slack.

Virgil cocked his head to one side, the bear-like helmet behind his head shifting to match his movement.

"Was I unclear?"

Colin shook his head, rather more quickly than was necessary.

"Since when did you talk so much?" He asked, the more obvious signs of panic and fear crossing his face and chasing each other around in circles.

Virgil's massive armored shoulders shrugged as he turned around, trying to find something to distract himself. Anything but listen to the whimpering of the young woman behind him.

"Since I had something worth saying."

Colin nodded, and crouched down beside the young woman.

He frowned as she sobbed, clutching her knees with long, lanky limbs. "Hey… uh… miss? Miss? You alright? Jeezus, I'm not very good at this… hey? You hurt?"

Little Anna was afraid. She was afraid of the Strangers. Back in the Big House, the Helpers would always tell her about Stranger Danger and how it was bad for her to talk to Strangers. Angels needed Kissing, but Strangers Were Dangerous. She was a Good Little Sister. Or maybe she was a Bad Girl, now that she had been caught. Bad Things Happened To Bad Girls. Anna whimpered as she was taken from her cell, and then dragged atop a table.

It was like Papa Suchong's Big Table, but different. It was dirty and smelly.

Carelessly, a hand didn't hold her leg down tightly enough, and Anna broke away. She crawled into a corner, stumbling over the waters that pooled on the floor. A Stranger laughed. It was a scary laugh.

"Aww, is de widdle girlie scared, then? WELL TOO BAD!"

She flinched away from the voice. The voice of the evil man.

They picked her up again, slammed her down onto the table. Her wrists and legs rendered immobile as she was tied down. She may have been tough, perhaps almost impossible to kill, but that didn't mean that she was any stronger than the next eight year old girl. A Stranger held her down, her resilient body too light and too weak to put up any resistance. Still, she kicked and screamed. Mr. Bubbles would come back. He always did. He would X their eyes if he had to, but he would always Be There for her, right?

A bright light flashed as the scalpel swung around. There was pain. It hurt! Like the picture of the Stranger, it hurt whenever she was close.

Screaming, Anna struggled as the Stranger drew a hot line across her arm. Blood dribbled to the floor as the cut across her forearm sealed itself. Hands grabbed her, pulling her out into the bright room. The big lamp was bright. Too bright. Her eyes were hurting. Hurting so much…

"See? She's got a regeneration factor. That's how you see if they've got ADAM in them. So we just open her up, right? She's got all that healing shit with her, so she'll patch herself up just fine after we take all the good stuff."

There was another bright flash of pain as the man in the white coat tore into her stomach, bright red fluid leaking from the wound.

Shouting and screaming was useless for her. Nobody would care even if they did hear the little girls' screaming.

Anna knew nothing else.

Virgil looked around, and his finger stabbed into the soft iron of the safe. Brass melted and was rent apart as the power field ripped through atoms and disintegrated the copper and zinc that made up the brass lock.

Eighty pounds of iron and steel fell to the floor as the door was ripped out.

Behind him, there was a scream. He ignored it, riffling through sheets of paper and small squares of gold as he searched for the radio.

"Er… um…"

Colin now had a very scared, not to mention attractive young woman wrapped around his neck. He had managed to get her name, at least, and convince her that he was there to help. Maxine was crying, her tears soaking the stained shoulder of his shirt, clinging tightly to him as the armored Daddy walked around, rummaging through drawers, safes (many of which now had a rather large finger-sized hole where the lock should have been) and cupboards to find another radio.

"Uh… hey, Buddy? Helloo?"

Virgil continued on, unheeding the two as he relentlessly tore apart wood and metal to find the elusive prize. He knew that there should have been one somewhere.

"Hey… uh… hey! Big Guy!"

The Terminator spun around with a speed that should have been impossible for something of his bulk, and his cold, glowing red eyes bored into the other man's.

There was no need for words.

"Uh… er… huh… never mind."

Colin retreated back as his throat failed him – possibly because of the girl's arms were clenched tightly around his neck. His face was getting worryingly pale…

Ah. Here it was.

The radio crackled to life as the nimble fingers of the terminator's right fist flicked the switches on the side of the primitive device.

He thumbed – carefully – the SEND button.

Hissing and buzzing, the wireless tuned into the frequency that Tenenbaum had given him.

"Tenenbaum?"

"Ah! Virgil, do you enjoy making others worry? What happened? Have you found the little one?"

"Ambush."

"I see. Are you hurt?"

"No."

"And what about Anna?"

The Terminator's silence was unsettling.

"Virgil… please. Find her."

That's all for now, guys. I've become slightly uncomfortable with the idea of messing with canon, so I might time skip or reboot 'Brother Bubbles' until after the end of Bioshock 2. Or do a whole new fic relating to how Eleanor does on the surface world.

Or, if you guys are enjoying what you see so far, I can have Brother Bubbles simply stomp on canon.