Disclaimer: I own the rights to neither Elfen Lied nor Prototype. This is a work of fiction for entertainment only.
What he wanted was simple in concept, and it always sounded plain and easy to get when he ran it over in his mind on a regular basis. Find something to believe in, find something worthwhile that can be held onto for as long as he lived for however long that was. The world is a huge place, full of all sorts of biomes, all sorts of countries, and all sorts of people. Finding that one elusive thing couldn't be that difficult, could it? Statistics were on his side and everything! There was something worth living for, worth fighting for, something besides just defending himself every day. There was something more to life on this ridiculous little blue planet besides doing what everyone else thought he would do.
He didn't even dare to entertain such a notion after the day's events. It kept trying to slip into the very forefront of his mind whether he liked it or not, and his current house guest wasn't helping at all.
The United States wasn't exactly as homey-feeling as he had hoped while in Africa and Russia. It seemed like everywhere he went in the good ol' U.S. of A., his point kept being proven. He hated that point despite how eye-searingly obvious it was becoming that it was true no matter where he went. Humans were just selfish by nature. Born that way, nurtured that way, dying that way, yet living with the airs that they did care about others more than themselves. It was all just a farce. The gentlefolk of that sleepy Pennsylvanian town proved that point very well.
What drew him to a small town was the idea that big cities equal corruption. Too many people crammed together, becoming indifferent to anything but themselves, detached from their community. A small town wouldn't be like that, or so he assumed. Everyone in a small town knew everyone else. They clung together because there were fewer of them to know about. Hell, it was what those sappy TV dramas seemed to spout: get away from the city and raise your kids somewhere nice, safe, and quiet while surrounded by neighbors that care about you. It all seemed pretty and perfect on paper. Pretty, perfect, and so sugary sweet it could make you puke if you weren't prepared for it. The town seemed very much like that on the surface, even reassuringly so. Being proven wrong wasn't exactly his favorite thing in the world, but hey, this could be the exception. He could have stood to be wrong if it meant he was wrong about everything being dim and dark and hateful.
Unfortunately, he was proven right. As welcoming and wholesome as the town seemed to be, it too had a pitch black and ugly side. It wasn't turned his way for once, and that was perhaps the most shocking part of it all. For once, it wasn't his secrets being thrown out into the open and making him a target; someone else was in his shoes this time. A girl, too. A pretty one somewhere around Dana's age, probably a couple years younger. At first glance, she seemed like the sort of kid who'd be out clubbing or hanging out with idiot friends while pretending to know everything about the arts. Something like that. Though that wasn't a fair assumption to make based solely on her having bright pink hair. It was odd, sure, but not that odd. She could fit in fairly well even if she did get stares at her clearly rebellious choice in hairstyle. Alex only saw her once before it happened, in a bookstore. At the time, he only paid her any attention due to the fact that she stuck out even in her fairly plain, and a bit dirty, clothes. She bought a couple books in cash, didn't reply to the clerk when he asked her casual things about herself like where she came from and how long she'd stay, then left without a word.
He didn't know what happened after she left the store, but whatever it was had been enough to throw the whole town into an uproar just a few days later. He hadn't wanted to fight her, not after seeing her lay waste to people without even touching them, but there hadn't been any choice. Staying there too long was a bad idea of epic proportions, for both him and her, so he stole away with her unconscious self before anyone else knew what even happened. There was a house in the next town he knew they could stay in, at least for a while. Best part? It was near the edge of the town too, so any dialogue they had wouldn't be interrupted by people concerned about the sounds of fighting going on. Well, he hoped she wouldn't try killing him again. Having a hole punched out of your chest tends to hurt, and even if you can't die from such a thing, it's annoying all by itself.
As he sat in the armchair of the borrowed living room, watching the girl laid out on the couch, a thought ran through his mind just as it had for the past hour or so. This was all a mistake; the girl would wake up, prove herself to be a nuisance, they would start fighting again, he would have to kill her, and so on. Getting rid of her right off the bat had been an attractive concept, and even as he sat there, waiting impatiently for her to wake up, he had to keep swatting away the idea like a persistent fly. Shame he couldn't backhand it away so hard it was crushed against the wall like an actual fly...or the occasional human.
Alex actually didn't know what to do when she woke up, and the lack of such knowledge left him just staring back at the wild-eyed girl as she sat up and hastily looked about her environs. The moment she opened her mouth to speak, he knew it was going to be a long, difficult endeavor to actually ask her anything. Of the many languages he could speak rather well thanks to devouring certain sorts of people, Japanese was one of those few for which he only knew a handful of words. He could understand it fairly well if she spoke slowly, but at the moment? Well, like many young ladies would do if they woke up to find themselves in a strange house in a strange man's company, the pink-haired woman was livid and speaking quickly to try and make herself seem less weak than she thought he assumed she was. Unlike other young ladies, though, she was tearing parts of the room apart in an attempt to scare him, and he inwardly chuckled at how her tantrum would definitely scare a human man out of doing something to her. Her telekinesis reached all over the room, it seemed, and light bulbs, picture frames, and even the TV cracked and broke into fine, tiny pieces. He would have remarked on the shame of losing the TV, but given the barrier between them, he was sure she wouldn't have found it very funny.
"Don't do that." he said, speaking slowly to make sure he got the syllables down right. "Won't work."
Him speaking her language, if horribly, did get her attention, and the girl leaned back a little to eye him more carefully. She didn't say anything else for an eerily long while and seemed content to just stare at him, studying him much like he'd done to her while she was asleep. Now that he had a better look at her face, he wondered how that clerk at the bookstore managed to conjure up the guts to talk to her at all. It was a miracle, definitely. He couldn't remember a moment in the store when her eyes lacked that overly harsh, piercing look they carried so well. It had been hard to tell from far away, but her eyes were red. Not the sort of red an albino might have, where the colorless irises simply reflected the blood vessels covering their retinas, but an actual red. The tiny, fibrous stroma weren't white, but instead were red themselves, and he could even swear there were shades of pink and magenta mixed in as well.
Pink hair that, upon closer inspection, was natural, red eyes with actual red-pigmented irises, and horns jutting out of her skull just above her ears; whatever this girl's genetics had done to her, it was enough to catch his interest. The horns were especially interesting, and had been one of the deciding factors in his decision to swipe her away before any tanks showed up. Packaged in with the powers she kept showing off so much, he wasn't sure he wanted to kill her anymore. It seemed like a shame, like a wasted chance to learn something new. After all, how often was it possible to talk to a mutant without bloodshed ruining the chance?
Alex did his best not to look too intimidating as he sat up straighter and met her gaze. She wouldn't understand a single thing he said, and despite not knowing the fine details of her story, he could guess how it went. She wasn't a native of the country, possibly a runaway from Japan, taking her language into account. She came here after living a life he could only assume was unforgiving and cold, perhaps in search of a change, a new beginning. It was written all over her clothes, mixed in with the blood and dirt that caked the fabric. It was written on that tired face that still managed to look at him with a suspicious and maybe even hateful glare. He didn't blame her. He would be suspicious of a guy who took him to someone else's house after he could have sworn he punched his heart out.
"Trying to kill me again won't work," he sighed, lapsing back into English. She only looked befuddled by the words, leading him to just grin. He knew enough of her language to spit out an amused, "You have a cute face there, Kitten."
"Kit...ten?" she repeated, looking absolutely mystified. There was a nickname he was sure would stick. She probably wouldn't tell him her real name, especially not under the circumstances, but he still needed to call her something besides "you" or similar things. Even more encouraging was the faint hint of red he could see on her cheeks. Teasing her wouldn't strike many as a good idea, but what did he care?
Alex sat back in the chair, hood again covering his eyes as his head tipped downward, as he thought of what to say next. Cobbling the sentence together took concentration, and it was all the easier since she wasn't making a noise. Idly, he lifted one hand and held out the knitted cap he'd found on the ground near her. It was probably the only part of her attire that wasn't spattered with blood at the moment, having been dropped elsewhere. He looked up again and let his face soften a bit, just a little, as he leaned forward to hold the cap out to her.
"You...me...we want the same thing, right?"
She didn't even need to say anything for him to know he hit the mark; the look on her face was more than proof enough. Wide eyed, she was clearly taken aback and he could swear he could hear her brain chugging to catch up. Her eyes kept flicking between him and the cap as if unsure which was the safer place to focus on. The hint of red on her cheeks only deepened in color as well, mixing with her bewildered face brilliantly.
Carefully, like a child trying to pet a cat with a known history of biting everyone who touched it, she reached out to take the cap from his hand. He let it slide out of his grip easily, and, predictably, she hastily sat with her back against the couch to make sure he was well within her line of vision. So suspicious, still so confused . . . her expression worked well for him. It took far too much effort to say something meaningful and he didn't want to try again. Honestly, the sooner she learned English, the better. Asking her the specifics would go so much smoother when she could understand him, and when they weren't hiding out from a mass murder she caused in the next town over.
Letting her tag along would be a bad idea in the end and he knew it. Somehow it would definitely come back to bite him in the ass and he'd look back on the moment of decision with a groan and a shaky "oh well" sort of laugh. Until then . . . at the very least, he could stave off his boredom for a while. Maybe there would even be something worth finding once that barrier caved in.