A/N: All I can say was that I was meant to have this out months ago. Once again, I've broken the chapter up and shoved stuff into the next one. Enjoy!
And thanks, as always, to Tayta. This fic goes nowhere without him.

Heller hadn't actually spent much time in the Yellow Zone. After completing his tour and returning to the States, only to learn what had happened to his family…he'd gotten himself shuttled straight into the Red Zone. Then, he'd spent the last couple of months buried in Blackwatch's labs but he hadn't taken a step outside. He knew, vaguely, that things were bad in the Yellow Zone, though not beyond saving the way the Red Zone was. What wasn't clear was where exactly the Yellow Zone's problems were stemming from. Heller had heard all sorts of nasty rumours that Blackwatch had their dirty paws all over it.

If they did, then perhaps they were attempting to conceal it right now. They'd stuck Heller in the back of an armoured personnel carrier, in the windowless cabin of the APC to transport him over, preventing him from getting a glimpse of the outside world.

'Don't want to ruin the surprise, asshole,' had been Riley's tense explanation.

'Think I'm a little too old for birthday parties, lieutenant,' had been Heller's retort.

One thing Heller couldn't mistake was the scent of rot, blood and Infected. It probably wasn't as strong as it was in the Red Zone; nonetheless, his nose had undergone quite the upgrade since then. It seeped into the APC's cabin. It was like standing outside in the Red Zone again.

Something unpleasant inside him stirred.

Heller's eyes narrowed and he glared at the ceiling of the APC. That better not be Mercer. Or rather, well. He hoped it was the voice and that the voice didn't belong to Mercer. Or, even better, no mysterious voices at all, inside his head.

But, as things stood, he'd settle for answers. Any of them. Preferably on the not Mercer side of the equation.

"-hey!" Riley's gloved hand suddenly came into focus. The lieutenant had been waving it in front of Heller's face, trying to get his attention. Heller started as he came back to himself, he shot Riley a glare before calming himself and bringing his head back into the game. Riley calmly pulled his arm back, like he hadn't been risking a nasty evisceration if Heller had lashed out in surprise, and replaced his grip on his M4A1 rifle.

"Wake the fuck up subject. It's almost show time. Time to see if that ugly mug of yours will make the Infected piss themselves to death."

"But you said I looked pretty," Heller muttered under his breath, before his brain caught up with his mouth and he cursed himself. It was one thing to sling insults when it was just them...

Riley stiffened. One of the D-Codes sitting next to Heller snorted. The lieutenant zeroed in on him immediately. "What was that? You got something you'd like to share with the rest of the class, Michaels?"

It was, Heller reflected, pretty unfair that the D-Codes could hide behind those masks. Because none of the amusement that had to be hiding in the guy's face came out when he answered Riley with a neutral, "No, sir."

Then again, Heller wasn't certain he wanted the sort of treatment that created D-Codes. At least he still could pass for human.

…Shit, he was getting used to this.

He could pass for human, except for, you know, the tentacles and being Infected and stuff.

…just like fucking Mercer.

Okay, so maybe he'd rather have received the D-Code version of this super soldier bullshit. Not that it would have been an option open to him as a marine.

…anything's gotta be better than this though. Kinda funny how you think you've hit rock bottom and sign up for some inhumane experimentation, thinking that there's no way things can get any worse, only to find out, actually they can.

A man's always got more left to lose.

The APC drew to a halt. Riley reached over and unlatched the door then pushed it open. Seamlessly he and the D-Codes dismounted. Heller pushed himself up and followed. His feet hit the city's pavement for the first time in months. Riley wandered off to the side a little, speaking into a handset while the three D-Codes flanked Heller. Heller took a deep breath, taking a quick glance at the sky before scanning his environment with a trained eye. The neighbourhood was quiet, not a civilian in sight. Scared off by Blackwatch or driven away by the Infected that lurked around here?

Another APC had arrived before them and already discharged its passengers, regular Blackwatch soldiers. A third rolled up; bringing the number of troops up to fifteen, excluding Heller.

Fifteen troops to watch Heller run around and attempt to not get himself killed.

When Riley had remarked it was show time, he'd meant it in more ways than one. The team following Heller had helmet mounted cameras to catch his every action and record it for the scientists back at base to coo over. It was kinda weird to see the Blackwatch troops do last minute equipment checks and not have a rifle of his own to look over. Heller's hands itched at the emptiness before he reminded himself firmly that he didn't need a weapon.

He was one.

One of the D-Codes caught him looking. The other super soldier paused, then gave the Javelin missile launcher he was holding a loving pat and pointed two fingers at Heller. Charming. Heller didn't doubt the soldier was probably grinning nastily under the mask. Heller sneered back at the D-Code before looking away.

Wait, had that been Michaels? Heller glanced suspiciously back at the three D-Codes, then realised he couldn't actually tell the difference between them. Blackwatch assholes all looked the same.

Riley finished his conversation and re-joined the squad. The soldiers snapped to attention at his approach. "According to Red Crown, we should have a two and a half mile radius clear of any civilians." The lieutenant narrowed his eyes at Heller and it was clear who his next words were intended for. "If they wander over here, that's unfortunate but not our priority. Our target's an abandoned warehouse one block over. According to the latest reports, it's on its way to being turned into a Hive. No hunters have been spotted yet but be prepared for a worst case scenario. Subject, you get to take point. The rest of us will follow."

Heller glared back Riley but didn't protest about civilians. Fucking Blackwatch. Every marine knew where the organisation stood when it came to civilian causalities. No point in arguing in the here and now, he'd make his own decisions if that bridge needed to be crossed.

Maybe Riley picked up the hostility in Heller's thoughts or maybe it was just Riley being a dick. "You so much as twitch in a way I don't like out here and you're dead, subject," the Blackwatch soldier warned.

The lieutenant might not have a convenient supply of Bloodtox on him right now, but he did have plenty of lead and three D-Codes at his disposal. And Heller...Heller-

Still didn't have any fucking intel about this situation. Now wasn't the time to be starting something. And killing the Infected was the thing he could agree on.

Heller pursed his lips but obediently turned on his heel, heading north. He had an earpiece in his ear and it crackled once as the comm channels opened. None of the information Riley had just dispensed was new to him or the other soldiers, it had been covered in the pre-mission briefing. And while it may have been a while, he was still familiar enough with Brooklyn to navigate himself around. The streets here were narrow and difficult to manoeuvre, which is why they didn't have much in heavy support.

Yesterday, he wouldn't have thought much about having Blackwatch at his back. Now, all Heller could think of was that he had a great big target on his head and fifteen guns pointed straight at it (and maybe even an enemy inside himself). His shoulders began to hunch as he picked his way down the street across shattered pavement and abandoned cars. The footsteps on the troops behind him, the metallic clinks of their assault rifles as they adjusted their weapons, it felt like being up in front of a freaking firing squad.

Heller encountered his first Infected a mile down the street. It screeched at him before diving through an open window from the ground level shop to get at him. It -he, now that the man was close enough to see- made for an easy shot as he wobbled upright again but no Blackwatch troop attempted to kill the walker. Heller took a deep breath and let the Infected approach.

Come on, come on…

The voice was there, suddenly. Its presence was unmistakable - and stronger than it had been before.

Shit.

Heller didn't allow himself to get caught up with what was going on inside his own head. He'd had plenty of practice these last few months with the whispers intruding randomly into his mind at any moment. His right arm transformed into a deadly set of claws and he launched himself at the Infected.

You, he snapped as he tore an enormous bloody hole in the man's chest. But where there was one walker, inevitably there were more. Scores of them began to drop from the apartments above him and Heller quickly turned on them. His earpiece crackled as Riley began to bark orders to the other soldiers. Who the fuck are you?

Please, let the voice be a product of his own insanity…and man, was that a fucked up thing to be wishing for. Because he had no idea what he was going to do if the other thing was true...

The voice was quiet for a moment and Heller could almost feel it mulling the question over. He was struck once again by the ridiculousness of the situation. He was interrogating a voice inside his own damn head. Alex Mercer, it answered slowly, like it was having difficulty remembering. No. Mercer was his name. I just took it and made it my own.

GREAT. Like that fucking helped Heller decide whether he had two feet planted in crazyland or Alex fucking Mercer inside his brain. He had a voice in his head that was having an identity crisis. What sort of person wanted to have the name a mass murdering terrorist anyway? You'd have to be insane-

Oh.

What the fuck does that even mean? he snarled, frustrated by the lack of clear answers. Who are you working with? Are you with Blackwatch?

That got a strong response. Heller could almost taste the intense disgust and hate on his tongue. Actually, no wait, that might have been a bit of walker gore. Fuckers were everywhere.

Never. Blackwatch would have burnt everything. I...all I ever wanted was answers.

Answers, huh? Heller could sure do with some. Preferably in the near future. Starting now. How are you Mercer and not Mercer?

Maybe there had been someone who'd gone through the same experiments Heller had. Maybe Blackwatch and Gentek had done this before. Maybe Alex Mercer was a code-name that got passed on to the experimental subjects and the last one got out of hand and Heller was now the next Mercer in a long line of Mercers. Maybe they all had creepy voices that whispered weird shit in their head. God, he didn't know what the fuck was going on anymore.

It struck Heller, then and there, that he had no idea who Alex Mercer actually was. He knew the name, yes but nothing more. Just a sullen face on the news, a bogeyman that was spoken about hushed voices among the Marines. But there had been no videos where Alex Mercer declared his intentions to destroy the city, had sought to explain the motivation for his mad actions. Only that static, unsmiling image in the news at which Heller had devoted all of his hatred and rage at. For all that Mercer had done, the sheer volume of devastation he'd unleashed upon New York, the amount of information about the man as a person was scarce. There was almost nothing at all.

How could he tell whether he was dealing with the real thing or not?

I was-Alex Mercer worked for Gentek. The original Mercer. I'm not him. Thought I was, that that was my name. Yes. No. No, I'm not him.

-the original Mercer. Like there were fucking two of him, an evil twin perhaps or maybe even a series of experimental subjects or clones. Heller couldn't think of a more horrifying prospect. Or, well who the fuck knew what Blackwatch had its grubby paws in.

Mercer infiltrated Gentek to steal their super soldier formula, Heller snapped back, trying to remember what Blackwatch had told him, testing to see how far the inconsistencies lay with what the voice knew. If the voice was just from his head, then it could only know what he knew, right? He used it on himself then corrupted the rest of it into a bioweapon. There was only one man.

The presence had been wavering, uncertain. At Heller's declaration, it focused. What? No, the voice was adamant. No, that's not what happened. Mercer worked for Gentek. He did his job. A cure for cancer, they said. But it wasn't. It was…it was something else. A bioweapon? Yes, that's sounds right. There was nothing about …super soldiers.

Heller ducked an outstretched arm and punched the walker so hard, its chest exploded into a nasty shower of Infected gore. A month ago, he'd have flinched back and tried to avoid it. The former marine ignored the disgusting shower. He cared for only one thing in that statement.

Gentek was building bioweapons?! The virus-are you telling me it was their fault?

The outbreak…the outbreak started when… the voice trailed off distantly. It paused. I remember now - I woke up in a morgue. I didn't know anything except that the world wanted me dead. I didn't know why. I wore his face and everyone thought I was Mercer. And for a long time, so did I.

Heller had fallen silent. He grunted as he ducked a walker that had rushed at his back. One swipe of his claws and bye-bye zombie face. His momentum carried him forward a few steps and he eviscerated a couple more Infected before finding an unexpected pause in the battle. He'd cleared the Infected closest to him and more were gathering themselves up to attack but he'd got a little breathing room, if only for a moment. Occasionally, Heller heard a brief burst of gunfire as strays went for the Blackwatch troops trailing behind him. In his right ear was a stream of chatter that he was currently ignoring, figuring that Riley would bark his name if they needed him for something.

Heller took advantage of his momentary respite to glance behind him, checking to see if he'd lost any of his highly armed camera crew. They were all there and accounted for. It wasn't too far to go now, but Heller knew how Hives worked. It would only get more difficult as they got closer.

It was really fucking confusing trying to keep track of everything, both what was going on in the fight and the timeline of what the voice (Not Alex Mercer, apparently but someone who had taken his name? Someone who people had thought was Alex Mercer and who had also believed the same?) was telling him now in addition to what he'd been told last night. There was no super solider serum. Gentek had been building a bioweapon (and Gentek and Blackwatch were two different sides of the same coin, fuck where the hell did Heller stand now?). And Alex Mercer –who the fuck was the guy even. Him. Them. Whatever. How the hell did they fit into the whole thing?

The fuck was going on?

Look, I don't...I don't understand, Heller said, frustrated, throwing himself back into the fray and eviscerating two Infected. You're not Mercer. But you-you looked like him. People thought you were him. Is that what Blackwatch does? Try to turn people into him? Is that what is going to happen to me?

Sergeant James Heller. Number x out of n Alex Mercers. The fuck he'd gotten himself into.

None of this was making any sense and he wished he could be carrying out this line of questioning at literally any other time. He had bits and pieces of the puzzle but he couldn't line them up, couldn't think critically over the information he had, not when he was punching walkers in the face or ripping out their guts. Heller might have gotten used to the voices in his head intruding in the middle of a fight but that didn't mean he was able to unravel a conspiracy in the middle of it. And while walkers weren't that much of a challenge, they had the advantage of near infinite numbers; the battle still did require his attention.

No. Not Alex Mercer who went by Alex Mercer's name replied, sounding deeply puzzled. I don't...I don't think so...I don't know what they've done to you. To us.

Amen to that, mysterious voice inside Heller's brain. Neither did he.

In fact...who are you? the voice asked.

Heller punched his arm through a walker's head. How can you be inside my head and not know who I am? He frowned, shook his arm and flicked the gore from it. How does that even work? For that matter, how did you get inside my brain?

An explosion...I was caught in it. That's the last thing I remember before...all of this. I was trying to...I can't remember... Randal had something planned-

Images suddenly invaded Heller's vision for a moment, a man missing an arm- he was dressed in the uniform of a Blackwatch general- 'When you have a festering wound, you cauterize it-' and unbelievable heat swept over his skin as he-no, it was the voice- burned and burned until there was nothing left at all. It should have been the end; he'd thought it was the end until he'd woken up on that table. But he didn't know what was happening then, didn't understand and before he could figure it out, he slept.

General Randall had a plan; the voice finished slowly, a thick sense of confusion enveloping it. It threatened the entire city, I think. I had to stop it.

Heller staggered, not prepared for the distraction the visions caused, and the walker he was fighting seized upon the opportunity. Fingers that had been mutated into small, twisted claws raked at his face, swiping an ear then tearing into the skin of his forehead and across his nose, narrowly missing an eye. Heller's head snapped back at the blow and he was vaguely aware that the ear piece had been dislodged and fallen to the ground. He reeled at the unexpected pain, even though his flesh was already prickling away, healing itself. Heller ignored the blood trickling down his face and lashed out, beheading his attacker with a satisfying slash of his own claws.

The marine focused back on the fight, deciding that his questions and the mysteries that Not Alex Mercer presented could wait for another time. Heller ignored that the voice was continuing to speak. None of it mattered if he died out here because he was distracted.

The former marine eyed the crowd of walkers warily. Don't, Heller snapped at the voice. Don't ever do that again. What the fuck was that? No- shut up. Don't say anything. We'll continue this later.

Then-

A roar cut through the crowded street, it reverberated through the concrete and for a moment, it seemed to command the attention of both Infected and the soldiers that fought them. Heller took advantage of the momentary lull; he shoved the walker in front of him away and then leapt back, craning his head around to identify the source of the sound.

That better not be a fucking-

Hunter, the voice murmured, finishing Heller's thought. I can remember that much.

He ignored the voice, pushing it back again to a corner of his mind. Heller had plenty of practice from dealing with the whispers over the last few weeks. Red Crown's info had suggested their target site hadn't progressed to the point that these monsters would be about. But Riley hadn't been willing to rule it out and had been sure to cover the possibility during the mission briefing.

Well, looked like the lieutenant had called it-

Loud footsteps pounded against concrete and then glass shattered as the massive creature came barrelling out from the second floor of the building right across the street from Heller. It had smashed through a window and then hurtled through the air and hit the tarmac with a terrible crack, leaving a crater behind at the point of impact. Despite the ridiculous height it had fallen from, the beast was unscathed and had barely slowed its breakneck momentum. It swung its head around and surveyed the battlefield.

Fuck.

Heller had a few seconds to keenly regret all his life decisions that lead up to this precise moment. Because it had been one thing to push past all bit of common sense and fight the Infected Blackwatch set on him hand to hand but it hadn't really sunk in until this very moment that this would extend to ALL types of Infected. Heller had known, in a vague sort of way, that he'd be expected to fight hunters, hydras and whatever new variants were spawned out of the red zone but the reality of that expectation was only just hitting him now.

Shit.

He wasn't given long to stew in his recriminations. Without his earpiece, Heller had no idea what orders Riley had given in response to the new threat. But the sudden burst of gunfire at the hunter was a clue. The bullets pelted across the creature's thick skin and succeeded in attracting the beast's attention aaaand not much else.

It swung its head round.

Unfortunately, Heller was much further along the street than Riley's team and, consequently, was much closer to the hunter. So he fell into the beast's view much sooner than the other troops did.

Shiiiiit.

It bellowed again and then charged at Heller with frightful speed. God knows how many pounds of Infected flesh steamrolled over any of its brethren unfortunate enough to get in its path as it tried to get to him.

Heller was 950% not okay with this.

He threw himself to the side, shoving and elbowing several infected people out of his path to accomplish this. But they hampered his movements and his ability to recover, Heller couldn't track what the hunter was doing while he was preoccupied with five walkers clawing at him.

Heller heard another roar -too close, far too fucking close- and suddenly something had slammed into his side, knocking him off his feet and into the air. He hit the opposing wall with a sickening crack and then all Heller could focus on was the agony that had erupted all up the left side of his body as he gasped frantically for air.

Shitshitshit-

He couldn't stay down. Staying down was a death sentence. He couldn't remember closing his eyes but with the way his head was spinning now, Heller didn't even try to open them. Getting up was what was important. Gritting his teeth against the pain (only to realise -fuck!- that it only made the pain worse), he weakly peeled himself off the wall.

Once he was upright, Heller cracked open an eye. The crowd of Infected was thinner; it was the first thing that he noticed. Then he noticed that the gunfire had picked up, hitting that wall had shrunk down his awareness to only himself. Guess Riley had upped his game and bought Heller a few seconds. Blood trickled down the side of Heller's face even as his regen finally kicked in and his wounds began to heal. The sharp stabs of pain he'd been feeling tamped down to a dull ache.

The one bright side, Heller woozily assessed, was the hunter had thrown him a short distance away into a less crowded area. So when it came for him again, he was able to duck out of his way without any Infected jumping him, then he was able to swipe at the creature's back with his claws.

His attack hacked into the hunter's hide, penetrating its hide but not that deeply. Heller had a second to make this realisation -he'd known that hunter skin was not like normal Infected skin which meant that claw attacks that would normally rip apart regular Infected were not that effective but he had never put it to the test- then the beast swung round and swatted him with one massive paw.

Why- Not Mercer's voice, as Heller staggered back, drifting in and out, sounding less coherent than before, -only claws?

No, no, distractions. Heller shut out whatever else the voice had to say and shoved it back into a corner. He watched the hunter warily, waiting for its next move.

The distance between the two enemies was much shorter than it had been before. This time, when the hunter ploughed forward and Heller ducked out of its way again, the hunter hadn't built up as much momentum as before. Heller was quickly discovering that the hunter was a whole other level to fighting the walkers. Hunters moved, well, not like a human at all. He wasn't prepared for that, hadn't trained to deal with it. The beast surprised him by being able to adjust it course and follow Heller through, ramming into his side with its shoulder, slamming him into a wall and pinning him into place.

Heller heard a lot of things crack and it wasn't just the wall.

Fuckfuckfuck-

A fresh burst-no, explosion- of pain came over him. He couldn't help the cry that escaped him. This was accompanied by a wave of dizziness and nausea from the impossible pressure on his midriff.

His vision swam and Heller just really, really wanted to puke.

Puke on a hunter for his last actions. Heller let out a pained and shaky wheeze that was a sad attempt at a hysterical laugh.

He had no real leverage to push the hunter off. His weak attempts barely budged the beast. Instead, Heller got to endure being uncomfortably close and personal with the creature, wedged between it and the wall. The hunter's skin was feverishly hot and it stank like blood and rotten flesh and wow, that was so not helping the nausea. Puking on the damn hunter seemed like it was actually going to become reality.

Then, suddenly, that immense pressure pinning him against the wall vanished along with the hunter's bulk and Heller slumped forward gracelessly to the ground. His arms flew out to catch him from smacking straight onto the pavement, Heller peered warily up to see why the hunter had let him go-

Oh.

Oh, it hadn't.

The thing had reared its head back and opened its maw, revealing a fuckton of teeth. Squished against the wall, the hunter hadn't been able to chew Heller's head off like it wanted. But now with him on the ground-

The hunter's jaws lunged forward.

And somewhere, somehow, between reeling with the agony and just flat out exhaustion, Heller retained the presence of mind to drive his clawed fist into the hunter's mouth.

Unfortunately for the hunter, the inside of its maw were nowhere near as tough and impenetrable as its hide was. Heller's claws punctured the softer tissue and scraped roughly against bone. The creature seized once and went still as Heller gasped for air, frantically staring up at the dead beast at the end of his arm. Somehow, it hadn't toppled over; his arm shook with the effort of keeping up the hunter's bulk.

Holy fuck.

That actually worked.

He was still alive.

It took effort but Heller managed to stagger upright. His claws made horrible sticky, squelching sounds as he moved, jostling them about in the hunter's mouth. When he was upright, he finally pulled his claw free with one last horrible squelch and stepped back, allowing the hunter's body to thump to the space Heller had just been occupying on the ground.

Having just got vertical again, the former marine stumbled backwards then collapsed down to one knee when the effort to remain standing proved to be too much. Shit.

He lifted his head up and squinted down at the street. Where had all those soldiers appeared from? he wondered dizzily. Because he was certain that there were a lot more than when they had started out. Riley had to have called for reinforcements once the hunter had shown and now the Blackwatch troops had almost finished mopping up the crowd of walkers while Heller had been preoccupied with the hunter.

The soldiers were ignoring him for the moment, doing their job with that characteristic viciousness Blackwatch was known for. Riley had to have figured out that Heller was off the comm channels now and the former marine figured that if the lieutenant had new orders for him, someone would have trudged over to communicate them now that Heller was significantly hunter-free.

For now, Heller was content to be ignored while he caught his breath and let his body attempt to patch itself up.

That hunter had to have cracked -and broken?- some bones. Or whatever his body had now, fuck if Heller knew what it was doing these days with its constant mutations. But with his regenerative abilities and high pain threshold, it was difficult to tell what the full extent of the damage was. But what he did know was that there was a point where he would need to take a break; where the shapeshifting and healing came to a grinding halt. He wasn't quite there yet but from the sluggish rate that his healing was going at, Heller knew he was dangerously close.

It's too soon to relax or drop his guard even by a minuscule amount.

But Heller does it anyway, even though it was a fucking stupid thing to do in an active combat zone.

His attention wavered, his eyes closed on their own volition and for a moment, all he could hear was the sound of his breathing as he took in and processed the unbelievable fact that he was still alive. Battered, in pain, exhausted but alive. He was too wrapped up in marvelling over this simple fact that he missed the commotion when it first started, those precious seconds passing without his notice.

...Riley's men were yelling…

Heller blinked his eyes open, puzzled and not really comprehending what was going on initially.

Several metres away, a hunter -another fucking hunter, where the fuck had it and those walkers come from- ripped one of the Blackwatch soldiers in half.

No-

It took more energy than he was expecting but Heller climbed back to his feet. Where the hunter had come from wasn't important. What mattered was stopping the damn thing before it-

-killed another soldier like it had just done right now.

Damnit.

It hurt. Every movement caused throbbing pain and aches to flare up from a part of his body. The previous hunter had done such a number on him that there wasn't a part of Heller that wasn't making it known just how bad it was. And if he was really, really honest with himself, he didn't want to go for another round with a hunter.

Hell, the first one had almost killed him. A second one would definitely finish the job.

Indecision struck him then, as his long buried -and dead, he'd believed- will to live and self-preservation baulked at the idea of engaging the new beast. He was injured and on the verge of collapsing, surely no one could expect him to charge forth and engage the new hunter?

But people were dying.

What was the point of getting himself turned into a mutated freak if he was going to sit by and let people -even Blackwatch- die in front of him?

What else was he good for?

Heller was running for the hunter before he even registered it. On a good day, he probably would have had the hunter beat when it came down to speed. But as it was, Heller reached the beast just as it was bearing down on a third troop without a single moment to spare. Heller didn't have the wits or the time to be gentle; he shoved the man -pretty much bowled into him in fact- out of the way without checking his strength.

He heard the soldier cry out -alarm? pain? both?- but he couldn't check to see if the man was alright on account of being steamrolled by a hunter for the third time in less than five minutes.

...he really had to stop doing this.

This time, Heller wasn't thrown into a wall, the hunter knocked him backwards off his feet, and Heller went down, trampled under the fucking thing's weight.

Ohfuckfuckfuckfuuuuck…

The not fun and extremely painful combination of claws plus fucktons of pure heavy pressed down on him as the hunter ploughed on over him. Was that nausea he was feeling again? Yes, yes it was, along with every other possible form of pain he was experiencing. Black dots spread across his vision and he could feel himself getting fainter by the second.

It only lasted a few seconds but it felt much longer. Then the pressure was gone, the hunter's momentum carrying it forward and off him, the beast had been expecting to mow down a puny unaltered human, which Heller had replaced in the last possible moment. Heller groaned and rolled onto his front, but didn't -couldn't- get up further than on his knees.

Then, the vague crawling sensation, the prickling from his body sluggishly healing, vanished.

His claws disappeared along with it, right in front of his disbelieving eyes.

...shit.

There went his only weapon.

The hunter was already wheeling around and coming back for round two. Thoughts of defending himself or running perhaps drifted vaguely through Heller's head while he stared dumbly at his bare hands.

Well, this was it.

The approaching hunter bore down on him.

That was when he felt it.

That feeling. He hadn't forgotten it. The presence -Not Mercer?- moving inside him, manipulating his core. His right arm shimmered -wasn't he past the point of shapeshifting...?- and, right before his incredulous eyes, sprouted into that wicked looking blade.

What-

Hadn't he lost that-?

Heller's head snapped up. His perception of time seemed to have sped up. Or maybe the hunter and the rest of the world had slowed down. In a daze, like he wasn't quite in control of himself, he stood up and slashed forward his arm-blade- at the hunter's throat. Not once- thrice in the span of a heartbeat, before lining his arm -blade- up and letting the hunter's own charge carry its damaged neck onto the tip of his blade, skewering it right through the throat.

Heller's arm shuddered at the impact, it occurred to him a moment late that with his blade firmly punctured through the beast, there was no way to dodge-

The hunter's dead carcass slammed into Heller.

Everything went blissfully dark after that.