Author's note: This is a re-write of the original fict as of 7th March 2015. It was done in order to streamline the story and make it more sensible. I was an inexperienced writer when I started, and I shall continuously to try improving myself hence. Thank you for your support all this time.

Chapter 1: Prologue

It all begins with a simple wish and a great luck by a young man whom desiring a different life. It wasn't that the young man was in a hard life, nor that he was ungrateful of his current life. His name is Edwin J. Peterson, and he was born along-side with a fraternal twin on Valentine's Day, 14th February 1988.

His life was quite eventful ever since. Their family grew well with 2 parents and 8 kids; their grandparents eventually passed onto The Great Beyond happily. The family also managed to grew from middle-class to rich, bankrupted and became rich again within the first 12 years of his life on one good side, while one of his relatives went berserk and tried to eliminate them on another darker note. Yes, his life was quite eventful.

Truth is, he yearns for something more. The normal life as a college student was challenging and fun, but he desires something more 'fantasy' and 'steam punk' in his life. He became an avid cosplayer and casual RPG gamer to fill up his yearnings. He also drabble in the more esoteric practices of both western and eastern magic and faith.

But all that changed when he went vacationing in New York at the worst time possible. Depending on the perspective, he was the right or wrong man for the quite epic destiny he faces ahead.

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It began as his 21st birthday celebration, and having a trip to New York truly sounded fun for him at the time. The Big Apple, one of the famous cities of the USA was fun to be explored, even with its plague of traffic congestion and dirty streets. Being amongst the millions there, he felt how fun it is being human. Alone, they are small, weak and pathetic. In a group, humans are a force to reckon with, capable of creating the greatest good or the worst calamity on earth.

Suddenly, that incident happened. Whilst he was enjoying the New York Subway System, some commotion occurred; a hooded man was running and shoving people away when the gunshots happened. Our young man became a collateral damage barely moments later as that man fell in front of him, thus making him the target of some stray bullets sprayed too late.

As Edwin fell in shock, that downed hooded man before him mumbled loudly a curse or two before smashing something to the ground. If being shot pains our young man greatly, the next minute or so was worse, much worse. Imagine if your eyes was lit up in fire, your whole body is under constant electrical shocks, your lungs felt heavy and harden as if it was turning into stone, your skin hurts as if it was scraped and flayed alive. The pain of his last moments was too much, thus Edwin blacked out and should had been dead by then. Or not.

Edwin had woken up later in an operating room. A doctor was beside him, unaware that his examination subject had revived; the man busily writing and checking his clipboard and reports. Edwin currently felt no pain, just a blunt emptiness existing within him. Then, instinct took over. In a split second, the revived youngster grabbed the startled doctor; his tendrils shot out his body piercing the doctor, bring his victim into him, they coalescing into a blob for split second before falling to the floor. Quite the commotion it generated.

Security personnel rushing in moments, weapons hot and ready, and picked the doctor up off the floor. The doctor stammered a bit before assuring that he is fine, and ordering them to chase that 'creature' that allegedly ran out. They move as quickly out as they had came in; barking orders and reports loudly from down the corridor.

The 'doctor' was simply amazed that he could lie through his teeth under such duress. The 'doctor' was actually our young man Edwin under a strangely realistic disguise. With said disguise, it was easy for him to escape the building that houses the operating room. As he stepped into a dark alley, he relaxes and changed back into his original form. The transformation simply felt weird for Edwin; thus he tried again repeatedly transforming back and forth, and it occurs seamlessly as if it was second nature to him.

The revelation stunned Edwin with sadness, fear, and a lot more other emotions pouring in. He thought that he is now a monster, or an alien, or an alien-monster. It was unprecedented; he couldn't think. It was simply too much. After settling down a bit, he starts a little meditative exercise he had learn to help clears his mind, and that unlocked something else within his mind. It was the doctor, his memories and thought process. At a gist, it seems there is a great conspiracy was afoot.

Dr Alex Mercer, GenTech, Blacklight virus, government idiocy and cover-up, the doctor's sexy wife. 'Damn it all' he thought loudly; the memory fragments were a lot, and it made little sense at all to him. But, it wasn't all he found; it seems the reason he, Edwin J. Peterson, is no longer human. It was simply because of a virus, and it had some sentience. It is a hive-mind with a will of its own, and as its chosen host, he is now their leader.

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Being a college student requires a healthy imagination to envision and formulate solutions to any given problem. It had been a few days since then, and some incidents occurred. A few brush-in with the local law enforcers and also the military might that was sent in to handle the viral infestation occurred since, had taught Edwin a lot on how to defend himself and generating quite a cache of information.

Within days, Dr. Alex Mercer had re-emerge as another of the viral hive-mind leaders. He had caused a great amount of devastation to help curtail the threat from the released virus and also his accidental release of one Elizabeth Greene. Miss Greene is their predecessor, in which she was infected with the original virus which she alone survived. The Blacklight virus which both Edwin and Alex controlled, and that deforms the other infected was all derived from hers. Once broken out, she plans to spread the virus and control the infected as their queen. For now, she had achieved both on the island of Manhattan, New York.

Emulating both her and Mercer, Edwin had took a middle ground. Unlike the lone Mercer, he created a little team of his own by infecting two homeless persons and a stray civilian. Unlike Greene, their little group wasn't as mindless as hers, and they stick to the cover of darkness. As dark as it may sound, Edwin had, by a rather cruel mercy, actually saved them from the ravage of the infected in those buffer zones between the clear and infected regions. By injecting a piece of himself into them, he slowly turned them into his subordinates with some regeneration, offense and defense capability.

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The human mind is a great fertile ground where technological progress are born and generated in leaps and bound. Unfortunately, the conscious mind is quite limited in its capability to process information and multitasking. It is this untapped potential that lead Edwin to form his team, and it was further fuelled by their own survival instincts.

Since only Edwin could efficiently consume and bond them together, all of the infected and human enemies they fell were consumed by him before the collective biomass and information was distributed between them and processed in parallel.

This set-up had enables great advancement be made. As a team, they ended up with a lot of intelligence, and leading them to further interpolate and innovate a lot of their own proprietary bio-mechanical technology. After a while, they managed to create a lair in an abandoned warehouse, fully equipped with their own bio-mechanical sensors and guard animals. Morbidly, these sensors and animals were manufactured from stray pets aplenty, which were also easier to turn and control with the virus.

They even managed to create a rudimentary biological computer in order to store and compute the information they collected; it even had a bio-mechanical and psychic interface. The ensuring weapon and defense research and development gave them some bio-mechanical automatic weapons, extensive sensing capabilities and even physical, thermal and psychic cloaking.

But their greatest advancement was on discovering functional magic. Edwin once had a theory about the existence of mana and magic ever since he was younger. Growing up on comics and manga had fueled his drive for finding magic. He even signed up on an Eastern Occult Healing course, even reaching a mastery level and capable of being a teacher.

Later on, he met a distinguish lady to receive a mentor-ship in becoming a mage. She often insisted her arts isn't mere magic but Thaumaturgy, the art and science of miracle creation and production. She often tells Edwin how the flashy part shall never be achieved except by those very best after a long, consistent practice of decades and years.

In a way, she was right. However, Edwin had found a shortcut derived from his new inhuman form. The research as amplified by the shared-processing capability of his team and bio-mechanical computer had found links and connections enabling the magic he coveted to be much easier utilized.

Magic, as it turns out, was derived from certain resonance between the surrounding materials with the intents of sentient being such as humans, while mana, its power source, was derived from certain energetic vibrations generated by living creatures as they live and thrive. Plants are the most cost-efficient producers of mana as it derived much of its power directly from the sun, unlike most beings which generate their power from consumed materials.

Once the basics of generating actual functional magic was established, they moved to create more functional spells for their use. As much as they hope for bedazzling effects, most of their repertoire was succinct but efficient; such setback however was of little thought to them compared to the success of realizing magic itself. As exciting these progress brings them, Fate however have another plan for Edwin and his team.

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A week and half had then passed since the inception of this horrible plague. As the percentage of infected increase, so too did the hold of the military and their brutal method did also increased. The movements of Edwin and his team was restricted in response, as their battlefront became a four-sided war. Ex-Dr Mercer is as ruthless to Edwin as he is to Greene and her horde. The military also don't give a damn; to them, all of them are The Infected and are simply targets for extermination, end of case.

They had to once again became nomads once more, and reviving or replacing his team members fast becoming a chore that is easier said than done. He constantly hoped to be free from the accursed island that is Manhattan, and to find a better place to live and prosper with his new form. His wish came true that very night.

In the basement of an abandoned motel in the middle of the infected zone, Edwin and his team settled down. All of the unfortunate infected inside was slain and consumed, all of the windows and doors blocked, and hopefully nobody will came knocking. The team simply doesn't like be out there in the streets anymore than is necessary to eat, gather information or just find a place for survival.

As much as anyone wishes to reverse the plague, it is now too strong and survival takes precedence. As for returning to family and friends, even Edwin had gave up any hope since he or members of his team are already dead or assumed dead, and their relatively inhuman forms made it even harder to return lest bad things happen to said families.

As the sun sets, it then started. A growling, rumbling sound suddenly came; sparks beginning to fly around; suddenly, a small greenish glow appears in the middle of the room they had convened. Slowly, that glow grows from a dot into a large rippling oval while the greenish sparks intensify.

It was a portal.

The team knew a portal when they saw one. Years of reading various fictions and mage academic literature sort of describes what most portals usually looks like. Their senses were then piqued by the constant outflow of mana emitting from the portal. Almost as if it is just a hallucination, fresh scents of some forest seems to also seep from said portal.

It's a hunch, an instinct, a desire; all of it came crashing upon the team, prompting and enticing them to simply just go and run onto the other side of the portal. Although viruses aren't really animals, but primal urges had raged within Edwin and his team ever since the infection caught them. Such simple animalistic instincts that transcends human logic. Raw but focused.

Since their very soul desires, demanded it; and their city was no longer a welcoming place; they left their caution to the wind. With enhanced superhuman capabilities, they literally jump into the portal ahead. As if on cue, once the last of the quartet entered that gateway, it but sputters for mere seconds and imploded on itself, leaving proof of its existence but a hiss.