Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own any of these characters or any piece of this franchise. This is my story though.

Piers remembered everything. The roar of the Haos. The rush of water as the underwater station began collapsing around him. Firing off that one last shot of bioelectric energy to save his beloved Captain as the beast barreled toward Chris's escape pod.

The scalding rush of heat as everything around him exploded and the excruciating pains the the C-Virus began mutating his body faster and faster. Instantly his skin began to tighten as his form was incased in chrysalis.

Distantly he noticed movement in the waters around him as the damaged form of the Haos struggled to regain his bearings. This all came second to the agony he felt as his body transformed into something unrecognizable. If he'd been more conscious, he would have noticed the tentacles of his right arm extending, snapping up whatever biological matter it could and bringing it back to his chrysalized form. Corpses of people from the facility, pieces of miscellaneous infected creatures, and lastly the dying Haos itself. He would have noticed all this but by then his form had been completely encased in thewhite goo necessary to finish his C-Virus sponsored transformation.

What he didn't remember was the how long he'd been unconscious when he finally burst out of his mutant casing. At the bottom of the ocean, completely conscious, and fully aware. And naked.

After shaking off his initial wave of surprise and blinking in confusion - holy fuck I'm still alive and holy fuck I'm still me! -, he began a round of secondary observations. He was still a member of the BSAA in some way or another, so he couldn't freak out about the fact that he was now some kind of high functioning infected. He repeated that to himself as he quietly did not have a small panic attack.

The first thing observed after managing to pul himself together was that he could breathe.

Underwater.

Moving his hands -Hands! He had two hands! - to his throat, he noticed a set of gill-like structures lining the surface of his skin. Of course, this observation came secondary to the fact that it seemed his transformation had given him his right arm back - and a human one at that, not some amorphous tentacle like before. In fact, his entire body seemed to look mostly human. He had two arms, two legs, hands and feet, though admittedly those seemed to have web like structures connecting the digit, like those of a duck or the fins of a fish.

Mentally Piers swore. God help him if he'd been transformed into some kind of fish man.

At least he could see, which struck him as odd seeing as he was underwater at a depth where very little light seemed to penetrate from the surface. Further examining himself, he noticed his skin, now a dull gray, seemed to be emitting a low blue bioluminescent light. Probably reminiscent of his primary mutation's tentacled arm. Blinking hard, he noticed a sore of thickness over his eyes - a secondary set of eyelids - explaining the clarity with which he could see his surroundings.

Satisfied with his catalogue of mutations, Piers glanced upward, towards the surface. If it weren't for the fact that he was deep underwater, he would sigh at the prospect of his long swim upwards. But he was a soldier, and a damn good one at that. He could handle worse.

Thus began his trip upwards, to air, to land, and maybe, hopefully, to Chris.

CpCpCpCpCp

Chris had been despondent for weeks. The loss of his team again had hit him too hard. He hadn't left his room at command in weeks, barely ate, and no one could talk to him without him snapping and shutting them out.

For godssake Piers.

Chris couldn't sleep because of the nightmares he had about his second in command. His mutation, his sacrifice, his death, the images kept replaying in his head over and over.

But Piers. Piers wouldn't want him to continue sulking forever. He'd want him to get back out there and be the captain Chris didn't really think he was.

I did it for the BSAA.

His final words. Chris owed it to him at least to continue fighting against bioterrorism and the BOWs if only so he could complete the dream his second never could. To create a world without fear - at least of the mutant viral kind. That's what Chris would fight for, his fallen friend and partners dream.

Piers broke through to the surface.