Opening Note: If you're not familiar with the Life Sucks! Fanfic, I highly recommend you read that first. I have provided a link to the story in the A/N at end of the chapter.
Viral Life Sucks Too!
I: A Chance Encounter
It was a rare day in the secluded mountain retreat. Galatea was far deeper in her meditation than usual, enough that her attendants actually took notice. Something unusual had happened.
For the first time since she'd started exploring the limits of her new ability, she found herself surprised.
She realized that her vision was not as pervasive as she had believed. The connections between people were more important than she had thought. She had blind spots. Isolated humans who had few or no emotional bonds to others could slip past her notice.
She'd made an error in judgment, thinking that being able to notice the ever-solitary Irene applied to humans equally well. Irene was a fellow warrior. Her yoki stood out, and there was actually a personal bond between Galatea herself and all her fellow yoma-touched, Irene included.
Thus, Galatea noticed Dr. Alexander Mercer for the first time only when the man had disrupted a large number of lives with the standoff at Penn Station. And she hadn't learned much about the man before he had been gunned down by Blackwatch soldiers. She'd tried to play conscience to the twisted, soulless man; prevent him from smashing the vial, but it hadn't worked. Mercer had done it anyway, out of nothing but petty spite.
But now, Galatea had something new to watch. Not human. Not Claymore. Not Awakened. Something completely new. And she kept watching with interest, deciding not to interfere for the moment.
Irene and Terry were out and about on Manhattan. It was getting rather late, in truth. As Teresa had wanted to show off her awesome girlfriend, she'd dragged Irene out clubbing tonight. But on their way back through the subway, they'd been forced to take a detour.
The social media, accessed through Terry's phone, was abuzz with activity about some terrorist being gunned down at Penn Station. At first, Irene had dismissed the news as unimportant. An opportunity to take a nice evening walk through the streets of Manhattan to get back to Terry's hotel.
Then, she'd heard it, at a distance. Gunfire, from automatic weapons. Irene quickly became more alert, regretting the fact that she'd allowed her yoma-touched body to get buzzed from the alcohol while clubbing earlier. She'd been roped into a drinking competition, and Terry had bet on her. Irene made sure she won, but she also had to keep it believable. But now, her inebriation was dulling her senses.
"Did you hear something, Irene?" Teresa asked her. So, she'd noticed too.
"No." Irene lied. Not very convincingly, though.
As Terry started glaring at her, there was an explosion. Irene sighed.
"Okay, I definitely heard that. Let's got to check it out." Teresa said enthusiastically.
"You hear gunshots and an explosion. And you want to go toward it?" Irene asked, raising a brow.
"Well, yeah. It'll be fine. Besides, I have you to protect me, my Claymore." Teresa teased the one-armed woman.
Irene looked around. There weren't many people around and nobody seemed to have taken notice. Irene bit her tongue and decided she wasn't going to lecture her dear Teresa in public.
So much like her... Irene thought with resignation as she and Terry half-walked, half-jogged toward the sounds.
They found the scattered corpses of six special forces soldiers laying around a pile of burning wreckage. A helicopter for certain, but Irene also noticed parts of a taxi cab mixed in the pile. She supposed the helicopter could have crashed in top of the cab. But even so, something seemed off.
That's when she noticed it. A blur of black running straight up a wall, about two hundred meters away. Her yoki senses were rusty, but as she actively focused, she sensed it. A faint trace of yoki, just before it went out of range. But strangely, very little of it. Nowhere near the level of a regular warrior, much less one of the awakened.
In fact, Irene was pretty sure the presence was even less than what ordinary yoma had. This awakened probably had a lot of practice at masking its' presence. Irene was not that out of shape and she wasn't that drunk. Was she?
Irene paused. What did it matter to her if an awakened was loose in the city? She was capable of protecting her Teresa and she didn't have a single care for any other human here. What did it matter if the awakened curbed human mediocrity a little bit? Then her eyes passed over the burning wreck. The awakened being was being hunted by government agencies, and apparently the creature wasn't being subtle about going into hiding.
This could be bad for her, too. And the other yoma-touched as well, Irene supposed. After a few seconds, she'd made up her mind.
"Teresa," Irene began.
"Teresa," Irene said. There was a serious tone that Terry hadn't heard before in her voice. She immediately looked her girlfriend in the eyes. She saw a dangerous edge she'd only glimpsed once before, when Irene had convinced the Colombian police to leave her alone.
"Let's go find you a cab." Irene put her arm around Teresa and started walking away from the wreck.
"Wait, what? Why?" Teresa inquired. She saw where this was going. "What's going on? What about you?"
Irene sighed, a bit of tension bleeding from her "It's... someone else like me. 'What's going on?' is the exactly what I want to know, too."
"So..." Terry continued, the gears in her mind turning "Why do I need to go back to the hotel? We could meet her together."
"No." Irene replied, completely unyielding. "We're not all... friends, exactly. Most of us aren't, actually."
Teresa pouted, then tried a different tactic. "Please?"
Irene deflated a bit. Terry could tell she had almost given in, but she didn't.
"I will explain once we're both back at the hotel. In detail." Irene promised "But it's too dangerous for you to come along."
With that, Irene hailed a cab and sent Terry off. Terry looked back, through the rear window, as the taxi started moving, but Irene was already gone. The woman could practically teleport, after all.
"Good luck, Irene.." Terry whispered.
Alex still didn't really know what hell was going on. He'd woken up in a morgue. Soldiers had shot him. He hadn't died. He'd casually leaped over a ten-foot fence. He'd thrown a car at a gunship.
Then, he'd started feeling woozy and tired, found a quiet alley to lie down in. A soldier had found him, resting, and emptied a clip into his chest. Then, two seconds ago, Alex had... absorbed him, or something.
Then, memories. Blackwatch. Last Line of Defense. Then, he'd been in the soldier's uniform. He saw a tall, white-haired woman staring at him at the mouth of the alley. Another blackwatch soldier, an officer, rounded the corner.
The man started yelling at him. Where was the Tango. Why the hell hadn't he taken care of the civilian gawker already. Where the fuck was his gun. This was not helping his headache. Alex decided he'd had enough of the dickhead, tackled him to the ground and started beating his face in. And on instinct, those black tendril things then consumed the officer, too.
He came out of the officer's memories (they were about his sister, Dana) just in time to be slammed, face-first, into the wall. Using just one arm, someone had pinned him against the wall.
"Who are you, Awakened?" a woman asked behind him. Someone was grilling him for answers? Alex felt annoyed. He was pissed enough about not knowing why Blackwatch was trying to kill him.
"Name's Alex." He grunted as he planted his arms against the wall. "And how about you fuck off!"
Alex pushed, hard. The woman stumbled back at his strength and released him. Before he turned around, Alex noticed he'd actually cracked the bricks that had been under his hands.
It was the same woman from earlier. She was in a combat stance, but unarmed. She also had only one arm. Before he could react, the woman charged him with blinding speed. The punch went right through where his heart ought to be, and actually came out his back. Alex could feel the arm inside him, uncomfortable, but not painful, like he'd expected. He could feel his 'tendrils' wrapping around the arm, trying to consume it, like they had the two soldiers.
The woman was staring in shock at Alex, trying to pull her arm out. Just as her eyes turn gold, Alex responded with two hard punches. Simultaneously to both the woman's temples. The woman was knocked out, her arm still stuck inside Alex.
But something was wrong. There was something in the woman's flesh and blood that was resisting the tendrils. Alex looked to the side. There were people walking on the street. They hadn't noticed yet. But it was only a matter of time until they would. And there would be more soldiers coming.
For now, Alex pulled the woman's arm out of his chest and carried her to a rooftop. If consuming her for some answers was going to be tricky, he'd best do it somewhere he wouldn't be interrupted.
Irene's eyes snapped open, her mouth gasping for air. She was sitting on the ground, propped up against some uneven wall. Even before her vision could clear, she lashed out wildly, without thinking. There was a brief moment of resistance and her hand was covered in something slimy that quickly oozed to the ground, without leaving a trace of moisture on her.
"Hey, watch it!" a man exclaimed in front of him.
Something was off. She wasn't feeling like herself. She closed her eyes and tried to feel her own body. Irene realized her face was in a forced grimace, her teeth sharp. She was at about thirty per cent yoki release. Enough to distort her face, not enough that her blood vessels were pulsing out of control.
It came back to her. The brief fight with the awakened. She looked up and saw the man standing above her. It was still surprising, to see another male awakened being. Behind the creature, she could see the sun rising.
"It's time for answers." the awakened said, voice low and gravelly. A growl more like speech. "Let's start with your name."
For a moment, Irene's eyes widened in surprise. Then she focused. "How about a deal. I'll answer your questions, you answer mine?"
The man gritted his teeth and growled faintly for a moment. The he glanced to the side, as if remembering something, before saying. "Fine. But I'm in a hurry. And my question stands."
"It's Irene."
Irene started trying to puzzle out the awakened being with her yoki sense. It wasn't her speciality, but Clare had explained the principles of the more advanced sensing techniques to her. She'd been interested, because in hindsight, it was obvious this had been one of Teresa's primary techniques. She'd spoken to Clare a lot in the few weeks before she'd left her newly-independent comrades behind and begun her aimless travels.
And now, she was putting it to use for the first time. She scanned the man standing above her. And she realized. His yoki really was practically nonexistent. Too small to be even the weakest yoma. But he had survived and regenerated from having his heart destroyed. Not to mention all the bullet wounds. An advanced regeneration technique, on par with an awakened being. He was something Irene had never seen before.
"Earlier, you called me an awakened. What does that mean?" the creature (Alex, Irene recalled) replied, apparently annoyed by having been pressured into a deal.
"Right. A full explanation would take too long. An awakened being is a claymore that's gone over their limits. And besides, it doesn't matter. I thought you were one, but you're not. I was wrong." Irene explains.
Alex looked confused, "What do cheesy anime girls have to do with anything?"
Irene sighs and says. "I think this will go easier if you tell me how much you know, first."
Alex looks like he's about to snap back an angry response, but then he pauses, long enough that Irene realizes he's considering the option. After fifteen seconds, Alex makes a decision.
He sits down next to Irene and starts talking. A gesture of trust from Alex, in addition to his answers. The atmosphere suddenly becomes a lot more casual. "Woke up in a morgue about five hours ago. Didn't even remember my own name until the doctor read it off his chart. I stood up. Doctors freaked out. When I got outside, I saw the docs gunned down by some black ops soldiers. Then the soldiers noticed me. Got shot a lot, didn't die. Ran off. Learned I could do stuff normal humans can't."
"Like absorbing those soldiers. And turning into them." Irene said "What was that, exactly?"
"Not sure yet." Alex replied "But I got more than just their looks. I got fragments of their memories. They're called Blackwatch. Some psychotic 'kill all witnesses' black ops organization. But now, it's your turn."
Irene hesitates. How much should he tell this 'Alex'? She decided to give him something, in return for his trust. "There's more to Claymores than just those anime characters. They were also a group of real soldiers. A genetic super-soldier project from a long time ago."
Sensing Alex' next question, she continues with a wave of her hand. "Not the medieval silver-eyed witches. But the project was inspired by them. The project is gone now. We wiped the bastards out. Those of us that are still alive have moved on to live among normal people. Though it seems like one side effect of our modifications is that we age a lot slower."
A lie, but it was a cover story Irene had rehearsed, just in case. And it looked like Alex was buying it.
"And what do you know about Blackwatch?" Alex asked.
"Nothing." Irene replied "Never knew about them until just now."
Alex sighed. "So, we don't have any useful information to share with each other."
Alex leaped up. "Right. This has been interesting, Irene, but I actually do have somewhere else to be."
With that, Alex sprinted to the edge of the roof and jumped to the next, leaving Irene behind. The former warrior noted that Alex was pretty fast, but still slower than a Claymore. As she kept watching, though, she realized that Alex could clearly keep up the speed for longer than a Claymore.
As Alex disappeared out of sight, she started making her own way back to Teresa's apartment.
A/N: So, the first chapter of this story. A crossover between Prototype and Claymore. More specifically, between Prototype and the Life Sucks! Claymore fanfic written by Useful Oxymoron. Since people are bound to ask, I not only have UO's permission, but UO was in fact the beta reader for this chapter.
Since this came up in our discussion, I'll clarify. The anime characters Alex referred to are not the actual claymore anime. He's referring to an in-universe bowdlerized version, "Power Claymores" with the giant robots and skimpy teenagers. A background detail in the first chapter of the original Life Sucks! fic that I decided to reuse.
Oh, and just in case, here's a link to Life Sucks: s/4111999/1/Life-sucks
You should totally read that, because it's awesome. And because there are a lot of references in this story that won't make sense if you're not familiar with the source material. Most notably, the presence of Terry. But also the intro with Galatea, to a lesser extent.