Chapter 8

"I think I handled that rather well," Alex mused out loud before turning to his charge, "What do you think?"

"AAAAAAAAAAH!" Elizabeth screamed at the top of her lungs as the bioweapon's tremendous leap lifted them higher and higher. He figured that he must have put too much power in that jump.

He also must have overestimated the distance to the entrance because that one jump was enough to take him almost halfway to his goal. The sentient virus looked down and saw what he expected.

Comstock's men were dropping in from airships along the front steps of the building. Since Alex avoided the two ambushes in the exhibits, Slate's forces still held a considerable amount of men and were able to hold their own but the enemy sorely outnumbered them and would overwhelm them in time. Seeing no point to join in on the action, Mercer decided to stay out of that conflict.

Both sides had yet to notice the duo above them since Alex and Elizabeth were at a higher altitude than the incoming airships and neither had bothered to look up.

"Exactly," he smirked as he adjusted himself in midair so that Elizabeth was on his back and that his arms were free to spread open. Once they were in a proper position, he allowed himself to glide over the battlefield.

Neither Comstock's soldiers or Slate's soldiers saw the two drifting over them. Once Alex reached his destination, he altered his position again and let himself land softly in front of the gondola that would lead them back to the amusement park.

"I should be really annoyed with you right now," Elizabeth said evenly with her hair in a windswept mess, "But I doubt you'd care anyway."

"Aw, isn't that cute? You're learning," Alex smirked, ruffling her already messy hair before stepping inside the gondola.

The young woman looked to be on the verge of snapping but she managed to calm herself down by repeatedly chanting a phrase in her head, "You need him to bring you to Paris. You need him to bring you to Paris. You need him to bring you to Paris."

She continued chanting this as she stepped into the gondola with her protector.

"Took you long enough," Mercer mumbled as he pulled the lever. The transport then began taking them back to the end of the skyway.

Seeing that there was some time left before they made it to the port, the bioweapon brought out the Shock Jockey and handed it to the girl.

"Drink. Now," he ordered her.

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Elizabeth warily stared at the bottle as if it was about to explode, "Are you positively sure that you can't drink it instead?"

"If I could drink this shit, I would be shooting lightning bolts from my hands right about now and I wouldn't have to ask you to drink this."

"Fine," she snatched the bottle from his hand. She removed the lid and brought the bottle to her lips. But she stopped herself when she noticed her companion had transformed his arm into a massive shield-like construct, creating a barrier between them, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Nothing," Alex said in a nonchalant tone that failed to convince her.

"Just being cautious," he told her, peeking his head a bit from behind his shield.

"You're not really doing yourself any favors in persuading me to drink this, you know?"

"Hey, the last time I tried those out, I blew up."

"That's certainly not such a big deal, oh Mister 'I can regrow my head'!"

"Have you ever been blown up before? No! But let me tell you that it's not a very nice experience even though I can regenerate from it. Now stop being a damn baby and drink the fucking Vigor!"

"Alright, alright!" she exclaimed, bringing the bottle back up to lips again but not before muttering, "Jerk."

"I heard that!" he barked.

She wasn't surprised that he could hear her, considering the many things he was capable of. Besides, really good hearing didn't sound so farfetched compared to shapeshifting and regenerating one's head.

"I don't care, you jerk!" she snapped back, before downing the Vigor.

It wasn't in Elizabeth's nature to use words like jerk since it was rude and not ladylike at all but Alex Mercer had pushed her past the point of caring for propriety and quite frankly, he deserved to be called that.

She would've used some of the swear words that she heard the bioweapon say but she wasn't willing to go that far just yet.

Her thoughts of the many derogatory statement that could be used to describe Alex Mercer were abruptly cut short as the Vigor flowed down her throat. The bottle slipped out of her hands as the veins in her arms began to glow purple.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" she screamed in pain as she felt like the intense current of electricity was melting down her insides. Holding her hands out, she saw several crystals emerge from them as an electrical current ran through the crystals. Not being able to contain the power in her hands, a small electrical shockwave exploded from her hands right in front of her face, causing her to black out.

00000

Web of Intrigue – Alex J. Mercer

Elizabeth didn't know where she was or how she had arrived from the Columbia to wherever here was. All she did know was that she was now looking down at Alex Mercer from above.

Mr. Mercer stood at the top of a building in the middle of a ruined street. Bodies were scattered below and all appeared to be quiet aside from a group of soldiers walking down the street with weapons ready.

And then she heard a voice.

"My name is Alex Mercer and I'm the reason for all of this," his voice was calm and yet somber and almost full of regret. This tone was something that she never even believed was possible for someone like him.

"They call me a monster, a murderer, a terrorist…I am all of these things."

The soldiers rounded the street at the next corner as Alex watched them carefully. Once they were out of sight, he took a step forward as if he was going down the stairs and not about to plummet to his death.

She wasn't worried in the least for him. If something like getting your head blown up wasn't enough to kill him, then falling from great heights won't do any lasting damage to him. Her assumption was then proven correct.

The asphalt smashed into pieces beneath his feet as he landed gracefully from a six-story drop. He then staredt stalking after the soldiers, obviously having a target.

"Three weeks ago, someone released a lethal virus in Penn Station. I woke up in a morgue. Now, I hunt. I kill. I consume. I become."

Whatever was going on, it gave Elizabeth an insight to her companion's background. She was quite familiar with the hunting and the killing part of him but she had no idea by what he meant with "I consume, I become". It did give her a sense of foreboding though.

"I'm gonna find out who did this to me and I'm gonna make them pay."

Web of Intrigue – End

00000

Elsewhere

Unbeknownst to the bioweapon and the girl, a certain pair of twins was discussing important matters that could have severe repercussions to this world and several others.

"It appears that our concerns were not entirely unfounded."

"I told you there would be consequences for adding an unpredictable variable such as Alex Mercer to the equation."

"Yes but it's quite interesting to watch events play out once a wild card had been drawn."

"Wild card is an understatement. But it is the most apt term to refer to him as."

"A more accurate description would be that he is a wild card yet is not."

"Although, that could be also used to describe the others we sent from other universes, considering the outcomes that they cause."

"Yes but none of them had the ability to assimilate other life forms into them."

"By consuming the denizens of this world, Zeus effectively becomes a resident himself and yet the universe will still see him as an outside anomaly."

"And we both know how much the universe hates having peas mixed with its porridge."

"Which was why Mr. Mercer was not the first choice. If it weren't for the fact that I wasn't so curious myself, we would've never allowed his participation much less a huge role such as this."

"It would most likely be a better outcome than his other counterparts."

00000

The gondola had stopped at the port and yet the girl had remained cataleptic. The bioweapon figured she must have been exhausted from the day's events and the addition to the Vigor was probably enough to knock her out.

He stepped off the gondola and spotted a small group of soldiers. They were most likely meant to be backup in case the soldiers attacking the museum needed it.

Now they could be of some use to the bioweapon.

It would be a simple matter to kill them all but he would have to do it cleanly. By cleanly, he meant killing them without his usual methods. As effective as dismemberment was, his modus operandi left too much of a noticeable trail.

Alex Mercer wasn't called the Apex Predator just because he could overpower any opposition. He was the Apex Predator because he was also a very deadly and efficient hunter.

And a hunter knew how to conceal their presence from their prey.

One soldier had the misfortune of experiencing Mercer's hunting techniques firsthand. The Prototype snuck behind him, placed a hand over his mouth to prevent him from making a sound, and then stabbed the man's side with his free hand. The soldier didn't have enough time to comprehend his own demise before the bioweapon quickly consumed him and assumed his form.

Through the consumed soldier, the bioweapon was able to identify and find the commanding officer of this unit but it seemed that these soldiers learned from their predecessor's mistakes. The commanding officer had a handful of soldiers watching over him just in case the Prototype tried to consume him.

Not like it would do much to stop Alex but it would go against his goal of sneaking past them undetected to slaughter the lot of them. As he was adjusting his strategy, another recent memory popped up.

It showed a plain looking woman in a soldier uniform that was in the same squad as the man that he just consumed. Through Mercer's very keen eyes, the woman was approximately the same size as the kid. The face that Alex was currently wearing smirked.

That would do nicely.

It was a simple task for him to isolate the woman from the rest of the squad under the pretense of patrolling the empty buildings. Once there was no one around to witness them, he chopped the back of her neck with carefully measured strength to break her spine. Luckily for him, he was able to kill her quite cleanly instead of outright decapitating her. He then began to strip the woman's dead body of her uniform since she no longer needed it. After he removed every article of clothing including the water jug and ration supplies that identified the corpse as a soldier, he consumed the female soldier for good measure.

After acquiring suitable disguises for both him and his charge, he took the uniform and supplies back to the gondola.

It obviously wasn't him that needed these supplies since he required no sustenance except when replacing damaged or lost biomass. In fact, they were for his human companion who very much still needed to eat and drink or else she would starve and/or become dehydrated.

And that was something he did not want.

He set a tray of rations and a jug of water by the door and next to the sleeping young woman propped against the wall in a sitting position.

"Hey kid, wake up already," Alex said as he was about to lightly slap the girl's cheek to rouse her from unconsciousness. That turned out to be a mistake because the Shock Jockey was still active when his hand touched her skin. The result was akin to touching a metal doorknob full of static electricity except it involved getting hit by enough volts equivalent to a lightning bolt instead of just a mild shock.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" the bioweapon cried out in pain as electricity traveled up his arm with such intensity that it charred his fingertips.

Under normal circumstances, that shock would have caused more damage but there was another advantage of consuming Vigor-users besides learning their strengths and weaknesses. It gave him a resistance to Vigor powers.

Every time he consumed a Vigor-user or drank a sample of Vigor, their Vigor will take effect within his body. Like for instance, his body will start to burn if he takes Devil's Kiss, electrocution for Shock Jockey, anti-gravity for Bucking Bronco, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, his body will remember the damages caused by Vigors and will promptly adapt to it like how he had gain a resistance to bloodtox. So the effects of Vigors will diminish every time they're used against him or he consumed a Vigor-user and he would eventually become immune to them.

Naturally, he had a powerful endurance to gravity manipulation and fire because of his heavy weight and already having survived far hotter flames. The only things that could truly hurt him were tremendous brute force from superpowered beings and getting electrocuted.

But his body had already begun to modify itself to the Shock Jockey from having been hit by it too many times.

It was only a matter of time before he could wield the power of Vigor itself.

But getting shock by almost a thousand volts still stung like a bitch so he will try to avoid that for the time being.

His thoughts of further increasing his ever-growing abilities were interrupted as he noticed the girl beginning to stir.

"Whu-where am I?" Elizabeth groaned, raising a hand to massage her forehead.

Alex reached out a hand to help her stand but he stopped himself before doing so.

It was not like him to give gestures of consideration such as helping someone stand up. He found such acts of humanity to be the exact opposite. These acts were merely being implemented to appear decent to others in hopes of being treated the same.

So why did he almost commit the simple action of helping a person up? And of all people, why her?

Or maybe he just didn't want to get electrocuted again.

00000

Elizabeth just had the strangest dream.

She had dreamt that a monstrous being in a hood kidnapped her from her tower and forced her to watch as it did unspeakable acts of murder. It was a good thing that nightmare was over so she could spend another day of leisure in her tow-

"Welcome back to the land of the living, kid," a familiar voice snapped her out of her train thought.

"Oh," she groaned as she slowly opened her eyes. Her blue orbs gazed upon the visage of said monstrous being in a hood, proving to her that her earlier dream wasn't a dream at all.

"I was just about to jam this son of bitch in you to wake you up," Alex Mercer told her as he pulled out a rather large syringe, "I'm not sure what's in this thing but it's strong enough to bring the dead back to life. Trust me. I checked to make sure."

"That cannot be safe."

"Then it's a good thing I didn't have to inject you with whatever the hell is in this," he shrugged as he carelessly tossed the hypodermic over his shoulder. Judging from the loud tokk, the needle must have stabbed pretty deep into whatever it landed on.

"So did the Vigor work?"

"I think so," Elizabeth replied as she began to concentrate on manifesting the Shock Jockey. Several purple crystals emerged from her hands as an electrical current ran through them.

"Hey, I did it!"

Excited, she turned to her companion with the intent to show off her new ability only to see him hiding behind that shield of his again.

"Seriously?" she cracked a small grin, amused by someone who could shrug off having his head exploded being so nervous around electricity.

Before she could tease her companion over his apparent fear of electricity, a loud gurgling began to be emitted from her abdomen. The bioweapon quirked an eyebrow as Elizabeth blushed a bit.

"I got you some food and water," Alex sighed, pointing at a metal container and jug, "It's just military rations but it's better than nothing."

"That's…awfully thoughtful of you," Elizabeth stared at said nourishments in a mild state of disbelief.

"What?" Mercer noticed her expression and he was not amused, "I can be a pretty thoughtful guy at times."

"Really?" she deadpanned, not fully believing his claim.

"I just choose not to be."

"Riiiight."

"Shut up and eat your damn food."

"Fine," she grumbled as she began to dig in.

She nearly choked at how dry and tasteless the first bite was. It was nothing compared to the food that Songbird brought for her back in the tower. It made her almost miss being locked in that glorified cage but she continued to eat the bland meal anyway. Like what Mr. Mercer said: it's better than nothing.

It was funny how this was starting to become a common thing between the two. It's like they've known each other for a while now but it only had been almost a day so far.

"What were those things anyway back at the storage room?" she asked, thinking back to those creature that Alex killed earlier.

"…They're called Hunters," the bioweapon said after a moment of silence.

"They were humans that were heavily mutated by the same formula used to create the Guardians," he further elaborated from his recently acquired knowledge.

"You mean they were…"

"Yes, those things used to be human," the bioweapon answered.

But Mercer knew they were much more than that but he didn't bother telling the girl that. Those Hunters were the very reason why a number of Guardians defected to Slate's militia.

Those Hunters used to be Guardians.

He was able to discern this conclusion by properly analyzing and comparing the DNA of the two Blacklight mutants and also from the memories of Slate's men that he consumed. He wasn't sure if they were failed attempts in creating a super soldier or they simply mutated over time. He also couldn't use the D-code soldiers back in his universe as a control variable since he wasn't able to consume one of them to make a comparison.

But there was one thing that he was absolutely sure of: when there are Hunters lurking about, Infected Lairs are not too far behind. It looked like he had to deal with flying structures full of infected walkers and Hunters after all.

Well, fuck.

"Hurry up and finish your food already, kid," Alex reminded the girl, "We don't have all day."

"R-right," she started, having almost forgotten about the meal that her protector provided for her.

It took awhile but she managed to swallow it all down, which she then followed it up with a long chug of lukewarm water from the jug.

"Catch," the Prototype tossed the pilfered uniform at the girl once he saw that she was done eating. She barely caught the warning in time to reach out for the clothes but she overextended her reach so the bundle smacked lightly against her face.

For some strange reason, Alex thought that her failing to catch something thrown to her was rather ironic. He also almost swore that he heard laughing in the background but he dismissed these feelings immediately since real life doesn't have a laugh track and if it did, it wouldn't be appropriate for something like him unless it had a very morbid humor.

"What the hell is this for?" Elizabeth asked as she held out the uniform before her.

"It's your disguise," the bioweapon explained, "Since you can't change appearances like me, this will be the next best thing."

The girl took a moment to ponder over what Mercer said and agreed that he had a point but there was still one thing that she couldn't figure out yet.

"But why would I need this for?"

"Because Comstock's going to be looking for a young girl with a man wearing a hood and leather coat," he explained again except more slowly as if he was talking to a small child, "So we're going to pose as cannon fodder to avoid suspicion."

"Hm, that certainly makes sense," the girl nodded in understanding, "But why the sudden need for subtlety? It's not like you actually mind leaving a bloody mess wherever you."

"Because killing common soldiers can get kind of tedious at times and I figured that sneaking around mixes it up a little," he shrugged, "Now hurry up and change."

Elizabeth shook her head at her companion's reasoning. She should be unnerved that he treated the lives of others so callously but it's apparently the norm for them now. Don't get her wrong, it still frightens her a bit on how Mercer leaves trails of bodies wherever he goes but she was finding it easier to just ignore and forget about it. It was almost like she was starting to have the same disregard for human lives as Mercer. That was definitely not a good thing.

She was halfway at unbuttoning her blouse before she noticed that her protector had yet to leave the room. He was leaning on the wall and was staring out the window to keep an eye out for any soldiers. She felt blood rush up her face as she realized that she almost undressed in front of a man, who she was not married to.

"Why the hell are still here!?" she shrieked indignantly as she quickly covered her chest with the soldier coat. She was not in the right state of mind to properly button her blouse again so she settled for the next best thing.

"Keeping watch," Alex simply said. He wasn't fazed in the least that a very attractive young woman was about to undress in front of him. The Prototype had seen and had assumed a number of female forms so a half naked woman wasn't such a big deal for him. Even if Elizabeth did know of this, she was not assured at all.

"Don't you know it's only proper for a man to leave the room if a woman is about to undress!?" she pointed accusingly at him. She may have no experience in social interaction but she still learned plenty of that from the books that she read.

The bioweapon quirked an eyebrow that went unseen from under his hood at the young girl. Instead of making a move to exit the room, tendrils writhed over his frame and shifted it to something slender and noticeably more curvaceous. 'His' wavy brown locks extended past 'his' shoulders and 'his' face became slimmer while the slight stubble on 'his' chin disappeared. 'His' trademark clothes were replaced by a conservative summer dress that still manage complement 'his' new curves.

If you're still confused on what Alex was doing, he basically transformed himself into a 'she'.

"There, now we're both women," his normally gruff voice was now considerably more feminine.

Contrary to popular belief, Alex Mercer (it's a gender neutral name anyway) was quite capable of shapeshifting into another person without having to consume them. He-now-she only needed to consume them so she could attain information and to perfectly impersonate them. That and it's also kind of awkward when he accidently bumps into the very person that he's impersonating.

With that said, he was also capable of changing himself into a completely new person by combining various traits from the many people that he consumed. His current appearance was an example of that since it was more of a female version of him than someone that he consumed in the past.

Alex was actually fond of this form just as much as her male form due to the resemblance it had to Dana. She even lived in this form for a few months just to feel what it's like to live as a woman.

It took a while for Elizabeth's mind to reboot (even though she had no idea what 'reboot' means, it just felt right for some reason) and proceeded to pick up her jaw from the floor.

"That doesn't count!"

"These puppies beg to disagree," the now female bioweapon retorted as she cupped her modestly sized breasts, earning an indignant splutter from the young female human.

AN:

Sorry that this chapter took a while and it was more of a filler. It's still not guaranteed that I will update regularly but this will have to do for now.