Rating: T

Summary: Cross vs. Alex.

I'm dead. Oh so very dead.

How was Karen supposed to know that Alex's younger sister had been an Assassin? He hadn't told her, that was for sure. Dana Mercer could have been a giant three headed snapping turtle, for all she knew.

"Alex, I can explain," she tried.

His expression was blank, and his eyes were shadowed. "Just answer me. Was Dana right?" His voice sent a shiver down her spine, and she hoped desperately that she would survive the next few minutes. She had her entire life in front of her, goddammit. She didn't want to die here, in a grungy makeshift safehouse, at the hands of an angry virus creature wearing her ex-boyfriend's face.

"Yes, she was," Karen admitted, mentally cursing Alex's mysterious little sister. If only she had waited a day later before telling Alex her findings... But if she had her way, Alex would already be out of commission by tomorrow. Any longer, and she might be doing more than calling the Frankenstein's monster by its creator's name. "Look, Alex, I really don't have anything to do them anymore. I'm not stupid enough to keep working for the people who tried to kill me!"

The last part was a slight exaggeration. She knew the Blackwatch had no intention to kill her - at most, use her as bait for Alex. But then, if they did, she would be lying through her teeth. The man - or man shaped creature, at the least - remained quiet, and she took it as an invitation to keep talking.

"I was only ever connected to them through one person," Karen said. He gave her a questioning look. "I'm talking about you, Alex. You told me about the Templars on our anniversary, said it was some new world organization that only recruited the best and the brightest. You joined a few years ago, and that you had begged them to consider me for their ranks."

She laughed, a tad bitterly. But that was to be expected under the circumstances. "You said it was a easy ticket to success, and you were right - for a while, at least. And look at us now."

Yes, look at them now. Alex, just another of the screaming conglomerate inside the mind of his creation, his body broken down into its basic components by the virus he had obsessed over for months. Karen, her, a dead woman walking, tiptoeing the fine line between two violent deaths.

The ultimate goal for the Templars was peace. It was just unfortunate that they stood in the way of that goal.

"For what it's worth," Alex said, "I never wanted to bring you into this." He paused. "I don't think so, anyways."

Though she knew it shouldn't help much, considering what that was coming from, it actually did, in some peculiar way. She relaxed slightly. Maybe she would survive the hour. "You were always a genius, but I don't think even you saw this coming."

"If I saw it coming, I wouldn't have ended up like this," he replied.

A long silence prevailed, broken by the rustling sound of Karen shuffling papers. "I'm almost finished with the cure," she said, heart racing. "All I need are a few more samples, some strands from this-" She pointed down onto the map in her hand. "-hive. I think this will be the key to truly synthesizing a cure."

All of which was a lie, of course. The 'cure' had already been created. All that was left was for the Templars to use it.

Alex seemed to buy her story. He scrutinized the map, and then nodded slowly. "...Got it." He headed for the door, and Karen hesitated.

"Alex," she called out. He turned around, vaguely confused. Karen knew this was dangerous, that he wouldn't understand, that doing so wasn't logical under any circumstances, but it just felt wrong to have it end on such a note.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to play out like this," she told him.

It wasn't a lie. Even now, Karen wondered how things could have turned out if she had told Alex the truth back then, or told McMullen to fuck off and joined Alex and the Assassins, or even if the real Alex had made a different decision, back then. She knew now what was happening to the scientists, what was going to happen to Alex, and she found that she wasn't surprised that he tried what he had.

He gave her an odd look. "No, don't be sorry," Alex said, oblivious, "Just cure this thing."

She watched him leave, keenly aware that she would never see him again. Say what you will about the Templars, but when they had their goals set, they reached them - be it the recruitment of a rising star, or the destruction of a viral monster, or world peace.

As soon as she knew he was gone, she called McMullen. "He's on the way," she reported.

The reply was blunt. "We've sent someone in. Pack your bags."

Alex trusted his gut feelings.

They proved incredibly useful to him, especially when he was in the middle of the battlefield Manhattan had become, facing down various Infected, Hunters, and Blackwatch. Probably saved him from ending up as a smear on the concrete, more than a few times. His gut feelings also happened to consist of the memories of dozens, if not hundreds of constantly screaming men and women, trapped forever in death as they were in life.

That probably explained why it was so intuitive.

His gut feelings were now telling him that something was wrong, that Karen's strange behavior was hiding something darker. But this was his only chance, and so he made his way to the hive suspicious and cautious, keeping an eye out for anything that was different, anything not right. And so far, he had seen nothing, nothing out of the ordinary.

This particular hive used to be a fairly large building, built to be sleek and futuristic. The effect was somewhat ruined by the large red sores that covered all sides of the rectangular building. It floated on a sea of red, too bright to be blood. Biomass, then. It pooled around the bottom of the structure. The air was filled with the almost tangible reek of rotten flesh.

The inside of the building was pulsating, walls covered with organic substances that squirmed and wiggled and moved. Engorged bubbles of viral fluid throbbed like a thing alive. The whole place was sticky, the air included. Alex was suddenly very glad of the fact that he didn't need to breathe. Soggy pieces of paper lay in the rank liquid, hinting at the building's previous purpose. It was strangely quiet, much more so than all the previous Infected hives have been.

No Hunters, no Infected. There was definitely something wrong here.

Alex looked up into the gap in the ceiling from which he entered. There was a dark shape huddled near the top, which leaped down, a line trailing from him as he went. He was human, dressed in a variant of the Blackwatch uniform he had never seen before, though without the mask that was the trademark of his organization.

"Mercer!" The man shouted down at him, his voice a hoarse baritone. Alex eyed him, slightly confused. Never before had Blackwatch sent a single soldier against him, and the fact that his face was visible was surprising. "You're a hard man to find."

He shifted slightly, getting into a combat ready position, eyeing the soldier with careful eyes. The man was distinctive, to say the least. Bright white streaked the front of his dark grey hair, and his features were grizzled and lined. He narrowed his eyes. The man looked way more confident than he had any right to be.

And it seemed like he had a reason to, as electricity crackled in the soldier's hand. A stun baton, his memories told him, a weapon that uses electrical currents to disrupt muscle control. A non-lethal weapon, used most by policemen. A career criminal noted that it stung like a motherfucker. Alex made a mental note to stay far, far away from the unlikely weapon.

"I've been looking forward to this," the soldier told him, a smirk on his face.

Alex gritted his teeth. "Who are you?" He shouted back, his brows furrowed. "Who sent you?"

The man gave him a shrug. "You should pick your friends more carefully, Mercer," was all he said, but that was enough. Alex scowled, then bared his teeth. Karen, of course. He knew he shouldn't be surprised, that what she had done shouldn't make his guts twist like that.

"So," he drawled back, his face calm. "Parker sold me out, huh?" Parker, not Karen, not ever. It hurt more than any physical pain he had experienced, and Alex felt the wild desire to hurt back, to make her feel the pain he did. He had trusted her, had believed the lies she had fed him, and she had sent him into a trap.

He wanted to grab Karen - Parker, and demand to know why. But first... "Fine," Alex spat, voice cold. "I'll deal with her." Biomass rippled down his arms, changing them into something decidedly not, something decidedly more lethal. Within seconds, flesh and blood were sharply jagged claws. "But first you'll pay."

Alex wasted no time in lunging at the man with a roar, his claws outstretched and ready to tear. But the soldier reacted quickly, dodging out of the way with surprising ease and snatching the small firearm at his hip. His impact with the ground had created a crater, and so he took a precious few seconds longer to recover from the miss than he would normally.

His enemy rolled away, brought the handgun to aim, and fired a few rapid shots. The Bloodtox infused bullets struck home into his shoulder and he howled in pain as they burned their way into his flesh. They didn't do as much damage as they could have, and so Alex took the opportunity to jump up, higher than any normal human could, and lashed at the soldier with his whipfist, partially blinded with pain and rage.

But the man's stun baton, moving almost blindingly fast, met his fast moving appendage with a crackle and a sizzle of burning flesh. Alex had never come into close physical contact with electricity before, and he made a mental note to never do so again. It fucking hurt. He snarled and withdrew the writhing biomass, then glared at the Blackwatch soldier.

"Is that all you can do, Mercer?" The other taunted, eyes bright. "I'm surprised you managed to get so far. Maybe I overestimated your abilities."

"Shut the fuck up," he growled back, his teeth bared. Alex knew better than to attack mindlessly, especially against an opponent like this. He had underestimated the man, had thought he was another easily beaten Blackwatch operative who knew nothing more than to shoot at him wildly. He was wrong, he could see that now.

But this was by no means the limit of his capabilities. Alex straightened his back, an eager smirk on his face. He had to be honest. The stun baton had hurt, and so had the Bloodtox bullets - but this had been more fun than he had in days. Tearing apart Blackwatch and Infected who stood no chance against him was one thing, a formidable opponent, human or not, was not.

He had to keep his distance. The bullets had done as much damage as they did because he had been at point blank range, and he had no desire to get closer to the electrified baton than he had to. Close combat was his specialty, but Alex Mercer was nothing but adaptable.

Whipfist was out of the question, now that the soldier had the baton in hand. He had to destroy the weapon. Alex moved farther away, his eyes still fixated upon his foe.

But the man was perceptive. He shrugged, put his baton away, and pulled out -

Alex's eyes widened. Holy fuck, was that a missile launcher?

...Maybe he shouldn't have been so excited, especially considering that the missile launcher in question was aimed at him, but it was a fucking missile launcher. His grin widened. This was definitely going to be fun, especially after he pried said weapon away from the man's cold, dead hands.

A beam of yellow light shot from the end of the weapon into Alex's face, and he dove away reflexively. Several missile projectiles slammed into the ground he had been standing just moments before, exploding into flame and blowing a small crater into the ground. He jumped at the soldier, kneeling with the launcher in hand, and just barely avoided the whistling missiles that flew at him with an Airdash.

His foot slammed into the soldier's chest with a satisfying crunch of breaking bones, sending the man crashing into a toppled bookshelf behind him. The piece broke at the pure force of the impact and he was skidded through the splinters at great speeds, before finally stopping at the wall of the hive. Alex was disappointed. He had thought the man would have lasted longer.

And then he wasn't, because the other was already up, crouched on the spongy ground. Alex raised an eyebrow. He had been sure that the man was dead, or at least, severely injured - he doubted the man could fight with a couple of broken ribs and, perhaps, back. The bullets fired at him proved that wrong, and he felt a sudden curiosity as to just how.

But then one of the wildly fired bullets hit him in the face, leaving half of his head a gaping wound, showing the writhing black tendrils of biomass that made up his body. He reformed his head with a mere thought, teeth still gritted with pain.

"Is that good enough for you?" He shot back.

The man gave him a look. "You're going to have to try harder than that, Mercer." He reloaded his handgun, looking at him almost dismissively.

Alex grinned, teeth bared in an expression just a tad too wide to be human. "I'm looking forward to it."

He coiled his biomass, charging up his Whipfist. He ran and leaped across the room as the soldier shot at him and, when Alex had gotten close enough to strike, he did - the long, bladed appendage shooting out at the man at high speeds. He dodged the first, but the Whipfish coiled back and smacked him in the ground, the blade cutting deep into his armored suit.

In a split second, the baton was out and sparking and stabbed into Alex's outreached appendage, sizzling and melting the flesh and he, on instinct, withdrew the tendril from the man, reintegrating the biomass into his body and blown back at the same time.

The soldier staggered to his feet, then looked Alex straight in the eyes. "I'm impressed. But you're running out of time, Mercer." He looked behind him, and Alex spun around to see the bulging sacs of Infected fluid pulsating violently, about to open. "Your little friends want to come out to play." As the first mottled, dark red arm punched through with a spray of green liquid, the soldier was already halfway to the hole in the ceiling.

Alex cursed profusely, then turned to face the army of Infected that had emerged from the swollen sacs of Infection. His blade formed in a brief movement of black biomass tendrils and he lunged at the enemies before him. A single slash bisected an Infected and sent the pieces slamming back into the ones behind it, sending the creatures falling to the ground. He used the opportunity to take those down as well, decapitating them neatly in one swift movement.

Really, this was nothing more than a distraction. There were a lot of them, but they were mindless, ravenous beasts - completely unlike the Blackwatch soldier of before.

But the fight before had lose him some biomass he needed to replenish, and so he set his gaze upon a large, hulking Infected in the distance. It was unusually fat, at least in comparison with the smaller, more wiry Infected that were mobbing him to no avail. A single leap brought him crashing down onto the monster, which roared and clawed at him ineffectually. He was faster and more nimble, dodging those huge fists with speed.

The blade that tore through the Infected's large neck was what stopped it, but it was the feeder tentacles that traveled down from his blade and from his chest that truly ended what twisted life the creature still had. Its flesh warped and liquefied under his ravenous attack, and Alex felt again that strange satisfaction that he got only from killing, from consuming. Its memories were nonexistent, nothing more than a few incoherent flashes of times long gone. He preferred that over the vivid snapshots he got from the Blackwatch and Marines and whatever unfortunate citizen that managed to get in his way.

The rest was child's play. A spin with blade held out cut the mindless beasts surrounding him to pieces, the warm shapeless flesh falling to the gore coated ground. A Whipfist brought a distant enemy toward him, where he consumed the impaled Infected with relish.

And then a yellow light flashed across his eyes, and this time, feeling slightly heavy with his recent meal, he didn't react fast enough to dodge, at least not completely. The missiles burned through the biomass of his legs and though they reformed almost as quickly as they were destroyed, Alex could feel the loss of biomass that came with the injury.

The soldier was back, missile launcher in hand, and Alex shouted at him, "Once wasn't enough?"

"Don't get too ahead of yourself, Mercer." A flash of yellow, and then fire and pain erupted around him, making him hiss and growl.

He leaped at the man, eyes fixed upon his target, and then, at the last second, sped through the air. But his attack was blocked by an upraised arm, distributing most of the pressure, but the arm was broken nonetheless. He slashed at him with the blade, which nicked the front of the man's torso, then moved in to deliver a kick.

Which is when, almost impossibly, the man grabbed his foot with one hand. The stun baton slammed into his chest and he howled in agony, his clothing and skin underneath rippling under the electricity. Blind with pain, he struck out with a Whipfist, which slammed into the soldier's torso with a sickening crack.

When Alex opened his eyes, the man was bent against a wall, radio communicator in hand, clutching his chest with the other. "Get a squad down here, pronto!" He roared into the communicator, teeth gritted with pain.

Reinforcements, then. Alex staggered up and lunged at one of the surrounding Infected, just as the black armored figures rappelled into view. These looked to be typical Blackwatch, though armed with some very nice toys.

He considered the grenade launchers, and wondered how hard it would be to slaughter them without damaging those beautiful, beautiful weapons.

The first one to go down looked to be a rookie. The Blackwatch had seemed unsure of how to attack him, an easy target. He went down in a gush of blood and pulverized body matter, what was left of his body skidding on the ground under Alex's feet. No grenade launcher, which was a pity.

When he looked up, the remaining Blackwatch were backing away from him and though their faces were covered by those every obscuring black masks, he knew they were looking at him with disgust and horror. Funny, seeing how they did similar things to completely innocent people. He shrugged and ran toward them, ignoring the bullets that whistled past his ear, even ignoring the few that managed to bury themselves in his body. It was easier and easier to do that.

They scattered like a flock of terrified birds from a raptor as he came, eyes almost glowing with glee and sharp teeth bared in a disturbing grin. One didn't get away fast enough, and so he was slammed into a wall, his head caving in slightly from the force. He did it again and heard the snap of what had to be his neck.

Alex looked down, and his grin faded. "Fuck," he cursed. The man's grenade launcher was on the ground, or at least, what was left of it. It was so much scrap metal, the end twisted and warped from where he had accidentally destroyed it with his landing. His gaze fell upon some distant Blackwatch, holding some very intact grenade launchers.

They were human in shape, but Alex knew all too well that they were monsters in truth. He had seen how mercilessly they had cut down the civilians, pleading for mercy. How they had put a bullet through the heads of those who came to them, seeking salvation and instead receiving a violent death. How anyone who protested, anyone who showed the slightest chance of infection, were slaughtered like animals. Maybe that was why Alex found it so easy to put them down.

One of them fell to his feeder tendrils, partially for the biomass, partially for the information. He didn't learn much, other than the identity of the man he had been fighting all this while.

For a moment, he disregarded his other moments. "Specialist Cross," he called out to the man. No wonder the man was so difficult to fight, if he had that much experience with the viruses. "That's who you are?"

His only reply was a grunt, and "So the intelligence was right about what you can do," drawled by Cross, which belied the furious look in his eyes. The slaughter of the men had made the fight personal.

After that, the fight had been simple. Cross had been tired out from their previous clashes and though he showed off his speed for the final round, Alex was by far the better. Trained to his physical peak or not, the man had been just that - a man - and he was something quite a bit different.

It all ended with Cross staggering to his feet after a particular direct Whipfist strike. For a moment, he met Alex's eyes, and there was some strange emotion in his look that was not completely anger and hatred, almost like... pity? He rappelled upwards in a vain attempt at escape, and Alex growled.

He wasn't getting away that easily. With a single bound, Alex found himself clutching onto the rope, being dragged up with the other man.

Cross was defiant to the last.

"You think you've won, Mercer?" He spat, though he lacked the strength to fight, or even stand. He rolled himself over and glared at Alex with hatred.

He looked back. "Yeah, actually," Alex drawled, "I think I have."

The other laughed darkly. "You don't even know what fucking game you're playing." One hand drew a large syringe from his back pocket. "Well, I can tell you all you need to know about Penn Station."

And that was all Alex knew before the pain, the burning, tearing migraines that felt like they were going to split his head open - the headaches that accompanied the return of his memories. He clutched his head with his pale hands, eyes clenched shut. He wasn't sure just when he had changed from standing to crouching position, but he certainly hadn't done so on purpose.

The images rushed through his mind, a torrent of color, of screaming, of the stark sound of breaking glass and gunshots. He knew, though distantly, that Cross had moved from his prone position and was now behind him, but Alex couldn't bring himself to care, not over those fucking images.

A man in a suit, holding up a hand, the universal signal to stop. A hoodied figure he vaguely recognized as himself, holding up something so blurred he could barely distinguish it from his background.

Distantly and distorted, as though the sound had traveled to his ears through a few feet of water, he heard Cross. "In a way," the man said, "I feel sorry for you." The faint rustle of movement.

Pain. It erupted in his shoulder and he did not know how it was possible, but it hurt more than anything had ever hurt before, not even the migraines not the gunshot wounds not the Bloodtox and it burned and burned and burned and he could hear someone screaming, not a human scream but the agonized howl of a dying animal

and was that him? it was it was and he did not care because he was burning and though his eyes were open - he felt them they were open - there was only blackness and nothing and maybe his eyes weren't open he did not know because he felt nothing else but the burning

too much too much far too much and it was too hard to stay this way no, too complex and he was going to burst because too much

and he did and it was calm and good and yes, no others no color and light no sound just movement and the cool concrete under it and it was so much better like so

no thought no fear no worry no pain

no dana what is dana no no no

just the urge the urge the urge to consume to spread to infect yes yes yes

but too weak now, too small, only one

soon soon soon

Captain Robert Cross spoke into his communicator and paced, keenly aware of each step he took.

"ZEUS is down. I repeat, ZEUS is down. Mission was a success." He looked down. The Templars weren't to be underestimated, he had learned over the years. This was another example of how.

He had underestimated them, had thought they were as easy to fool as most other people he knew. The man had been enraged at the idea of his work being restricted in any way, knowing nothing about the ones that had already existed and had for months.

The majority of the precautions have not yet been used, but there were some. Specific compounds, specific strains that Blacklight was weak to, and that combined with the material collected had lead to...

Well, it might have been a little too successful. "Call the clean-up," he spoke into the communicator, "and tell them to be careful where they step."

While Dana had never been as paranoid as her older brother, she still had her own streak.

Maybe that was why she had fitted the so-called two way communicators to be a little more than that. She knew too well that Alex wouldn't call her when he was out on his patrols without a gun against his head, and even then, it was still unlikely. She knew what kind of shit he got into and no, she didn't want to listen to the sound of fighting and ripping flesh anymore than she had to - that first day Alex had took the communicator out, she had been morbidly curious.

Not so. She knew he did stuff like that, but she didn't want to hear it. And no, she definitely didn't want to know what those slurping sounds were from. Dana wanted to keep her appetite, thank you very much.

But the sound of human voices well, talking to Alex was a bit out of the norm, and so she had listened on. It was a pretty big breach of privacy, part of the reason why she didn't use it as much as she could, but this sounded important.

She was right, and by the time the communicator had gone silent, she was shaking, eyes wide and face pale. Dana breathed in and out, trying to keep herself from hyperventilating, and it worked, at least for the moment. She needed to be calm for this. She needed to be calm for Alex.

"Rebecca," she said into the speaker, voice steady. "I need your help. Alex is in trouble. I'm coming over."