Note: This is the Alex from my main crossover, "Consuming Direct Control." Reading that one is not necessary, but that's the timeline this is set in.

Alex rarely encountered places as dismal and oppressive as Omega. Mercenary bands roved the area, extorting the merchants and civilians. People are found dead in the streets without so much as an alarm being raised in their name. Every man woman and child would smile to your face and stab you in the back if it would get them notoriety or a sliver of security.

He loved every minute of it.

For once he was free to be himself without attracting attention. Bartenders knew to look the other way if their customers seem suspicious, merchants didn't ask where the credits came from and customers didn't tell, law enforcement was almost nonexistent unless you broke Omega's single rule, and anyone with half a brain could see that Alex Mercer was not someone you wanted to piss off. He was one of the only humans on the asteroid that didn't wear armor, and the only one who didn't need it. People of all species moved aside when he walked by, conversation would slow to a trickle when he was within hearing range and even when he wasn't…

And the best part was no one knew a damn thing about him, and he intended to keep it that way.

But it was boring, and slow, and it took no effort at all to establish the proper level of Touch Me and Die required to go about his business unimpeded. He craved movement, action, blood, violence, war. And while there was an abundance of all five of those on Omega, Alex was finding it difficult to sate the rather ravenous hunger for destruction these past few inactive years had bred inside him.

So he did the most logical thing a walking bioweapon could do when faced with this situation.

He stole the skin of one of the drifters in the apartment slums and joined a mercenary group. He could have easily consumed a member of any of the numerous groups present on Omega and simply assumed his place, but Alex wanted to earn something for a change. He wanted the challenge. He wanted people to talk down to him without fear, without knowing who and what he was; he wanted to have to try.

With a flick of thought he'd cleaned his new form and made it presentable, eyeing his reflection in a grimy mirror. Unassuming green eyes glared back at him from beneath shaggy blond hair. He was forgettable, utterly unremarkable, if not for the death written across his face and the ever-present lust for carnage in his now-human eyes. He couldn't do much to hide those particular aspects of his personality, and he didn't really care to. They were common enough traits in mercenaries, he supposed, and he'd most likely be wearing a helmet anyway.

He had easily enough credits to have gone to the black markets and purchased the most high-quality arms and armor available, but he didn't. Instead, he wore no armor and retrieved a single heavy pistol his new body had kept in a locker beneath his bed. It would be all he needed to prove himself.

It was strange traveling through the streets of Omega without the customary respect everyone generally afforded him. People didn't step aside—he was expected to do so—and no one so much as glanced in his direction when he slipped through the throng like a ghost.

The Blue Suns' recruiting station was generally packed with young men and women, hopeful humans and the occasional batarian that saw the "private security organization" as free room and board. Alex saw only the potential for violence, and leapt on it.

He kept to the back of the throng of recruits, sticking to the shadows where he knew the recruiters could see him but the recruits could not, head down but green eyes missing nothing, hand light on the grip of the pistol at his hip. He wasn't the only one here not wearing armor, but the very stance he stood in told anyone who knew what to look for that he didn't need it in the first place.

A young man who was also sticking near the back stood out to Alex. He looked fidgety, nervous, as if being in a room full of potential mercs was the most daring thing he had ever done. Alex suspected he would be dead in a week if he was accepted. He couldn't find it in him to mourn the man.

When the crowd had thinned to the more battle-ready recruits, the turian behind the counter finally motioned to Alex, and he slid up through the crowd to stand before him.

"You look mildly competent," the turian stated as if he really couldn't care less, "You here for the guts or the glory?"

"My reasons are my own," Alex informed the merc recruiter in a voice that could have cracked glass. He was aware that all eyes had turned to him, and he silently cursed himself for forgetting that most humans didn't sound like they wanted nothing more than to rip into the nearest living being and consume them. The body he wore didn't have the same deep, low voice that he was used to, but the message had gotten through loud and clear regardless.

I am not human, his voice said. And I will not hesitate to slaughter everyone in the room. Please provoke me. I dare you.

The turian looked at him closer, leaning a little over the desk. "What's your name, human?"

"Zeus," Alex replied promptly. The body he wore was named Bruce DeMoss, but he wasn't about to start his mercenary career with a name like Bruce. And there was no way in hell he was using his real name; not when he'd already earned a reputation in the underground as Alex Mercer, Grade A Psychopath. A few nearby humans snickered, he assumed they were educated and knew about the Greek pantheon of gods, and he pinned the nearest snickerer with his glare. "You find something amusing about that, kid?"

The kid in question looked about the same age as Bruce had been, but Alex probably out-aged everyone in the room since there were no krogan or asari present.

"Yeah. I do," the kid replied, sneering, stepping into his personal space. Alex bristled reflexively, but he held his biomass in check. He'd promised to himself not to use his powers if he could help it, if only to add to the challenge. "You don't look like a Zeus. You look more like a… a Stacy, to me."

Alex felt his lip twitch into a smirk. Stacy? Really? "Oh? And what's your name supposed to be? Cassidy?"

The kid sneered again, looking entirely too self-confident for his own good. "Why don't you ask your sister? She was screaming it pretty loud last night," he smirked, getting some under-handed high fives from his snickering buddies.

Everyone in the room jumped when there was the report of a single round being fired, and the kid's head snapped back before he crumpled lifeless to the floor. All eyes turned to Alex, and the heavy pistol still held evenly in a steady grip. No one had seen him pull the weapon, not even the kid he'd shot. Everyone backed up a step, and a few even made noises of protest or disgust and complained about the murder.

Alex lowered the gun and pointed it at the corpse on the ground. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" he asked the body casually. "It sounded like you'd insulted my sister." He flicked green eyes to the nearest crowd. "Anyone else have a smart comment?"

Not surprisingly, no one stepped forward to challenge him. Alex frowned at the corpse splayed out before him, sinking blood into the floor. He'd been willing to let the kid live; after all, he was far from the first person to have the misfortune of being born an idiot, and Alex had come here in disguise to encourage this kind of behavior.

But then he'd insulted Dana, and then he'd been dead. Alex sighed. Really, it was amazing humanity had lived this long if this was the kind of ingrate they were breeding nowadays.

The turian recruiter clicked his talon on the table and pointed at the five or so that had protested the violence. "You, you, you, and you. Get out. This is a mercenary company, not C-Sec. If you can't handle a little blood, you're not worth our time." Then he turned curious blue eyes on Alex. "Zeus, was it? Nice shot. No hesitation." The turian stamped something on a datapad and handed it across the table to Alex, who took it. "Welcome to the Blue Suns."

A/N: I'll probably end up making more chapters for this particular 'Web of Intrigue' entry, just because mercenary Alex sounds like way too much fun to write.