[Changeling the Prototype]
Chapter 1: Infection
"Breaking news!" A male anchor on Jump City News appeared, not seeing the surprised looks on the faces of the Teen Titans watching in the comfort of their OPS room. It was definitely strange, especially since they hadn't received a crime alert, and Starfire hadn't blown up anything recently. "STAR Labs was recently bought out by Gentek, an organization that is shrouded in mystery. We will say more as the story progresses, but for now, things should remain the same."
"Cy? You okay dude?" Beast Boy, a short, green, elf-like shapeshifter asked his cybernetic friend Cyborg. He knew that the technical expert was saved by STAR labs, and the fact that the place was bought out may affect him.
"Its cool B, though I would like to know more about this Gentek…" The tech Titan activated the console's "Computer mode", which he used to search for Gentek. He didn't find much, though he did discover that they were part of what happened in Manhattan a few months ago. No one knew for certain what happened, all they were aware of was that Gentek had something to do with it.
"I have a bad feeling about this…" Robin, the leader of the Titans who often dressed as a traffic light, commented, just as the alarm went off. "Titans, Go!" With that, the heroic teenagers ran off in order to figure out what had happened and how to stop it.
The alarm had just gone off, so there shouldn't have been nearly as much damage as there was. It was as if a bomb had gone in the middle of downtown Jump City. There were fires everywhere, including on buildings, which looked gouged out by what seemed to be large claws. There were huge craters in the ground, which looked like Starfire had punched the earth multiple times.
"Dude… What happened?" The changeling wondered aloud, beginning to look around for survivors. What he didn't see was a mass of black and red tendrils shift into a tall young adult with gleaming red eyes hidden behind a hood.
The Titans had all spread out in the area to make sure that they could help as many people as possible, so no one noticed when Beast Boy was grabbed and pulled away from them by an unknown force. After a short struggle, the shapeshifter faced his captor. The man was wearing slacks and a white button up shirt beneath a black hooded jacket, his red eyes gleaming in curiosity, making Beast Boy shiver a bit under the gaze, feeling like a lab experiment under a knife.
"I didn't know humans came in green… a disease of some sort?" He asked, more to himself than the changeling.
"Who're you? Are you behind this chaos?" Beast Boy asked, his stance tensing when he heard this stranger refer to Sakutia, not that the new person seemed aware of the exact details.
"Chaos?" The man laughed crazily. "This isn't chaos, this is the next beautiful step in human evolution! Superior strength and adaptability! We are the new norm! Those who resist will be… assimilated." What he said was immensely disconcerting, especially considering the way he said it, emotion and pride in himself notwithstanding, was almost exactly what the Androids had said in Galaxy Quest. Fearing that everything he knew was in danger, his body moved on its own, lunging at the man with a clenched fist. To his surprise, his punch was caught easily, and he could feel the sheer strength in this man's body. He could crush the lith changeling with ease if he weren't toying with him. "Tut tut green one. We haven't even been introduced. My name is Alex Mercer. And yours?"
"I'm Beast Boy!" With that, he shifted into a sasquatch and used the superior strength and leverage to launch Mercer into a building. The young adult's blood-red eyes were wide as he jumped out of the crater he had formed in the wall.
"Interesting. A shapeshifter, but not like me… No, definitely not Blacklight…" Now he smirked in an arrogant manner. "You're an interesting specimen Beast Boy. Would you join me? With your powers together and mine, we could rule the world as gods." Several of the creatures in Beast Boy liked the sound of ruling as an all-powerful alpha, but they all knew Mercer couldn't be trusted.
"Not gonna happen. Now, once the rest of my team gets here, we're gonna take you down and lock you up for what you've done!" Beast Boy growled, and he could feel himself becoming more feral, his fangs elongating and his eyes flashing between green and blank white to counter Mercer's cold red gaze. He had to be careful, or the Beast may take control, something about this guy made him either want to run away for miles, or fight to the death. And right now, he was leaning towards the latter.
"Sorry, but I have no intention of being put behind bars." Suddenly, red and black tendrils enveloped Mercer's arms, leaving a set of wicked claws and a strange black substance in replacement of the limbs.
"What… what are you?" Beast Boy had never seen anything like it. It was like his power, but it was obviously different somehow.
"I am a God, and I will not allow you to stand in my way!" With that, Alex lunged at Beast Boy, who shifted into an Ankylosaurus and swung his wrecking-ball like tail at the pouncing 'God'. Unfortunately, Alex seemed to shift again, now wearing what seemed to be a suit of black armor. The tail knocked him back still, but not nearly as far. Alex shifted so that only his claws were still transformed, spitting out a bloody tooth.
"I hate using Armor… slows me down." One claw shifted back to a hand, but the other turned into a zweihander sword, making Beast Boy's green eyes widen. "But this… I'll dice you into pieces!" Alex charged, swinging the blade wildly.
It took all of Beast Boy's strength, but he leaped out of the way. He needed to put an end to this, or at least survive until the other Titan's arrived. But he had underestimated the speed of Mercer, who now grabbed him by the throat, forming a small needle out of the black and red tendrils.
"You have courage. This will be an interesting experiment…" Alex then jabbed the needle into the changeling's neck, and everything went dark.
When emerald eyes opened once more, they were met with a pounding headache and fluorescent lights.
"Ugh, dude… What happened?" He tried moving his hand, and noticed it felt weird trying to move. Like he was detached from his body in some way, but also connected… deeper. Closing his eyes once more, he tried reaching out with his senses to find just where he was and if there was any sign of the other Titans, but he was met by something completely different.
He felt a pulse of some kind emit from him, showing him a vague view of what was around him before it bounced back, showing that there were people above him and around all sides. He tried lifting an arm once more, but this time he realized he was restrained.
"Let me go!" Despite his body feeling weird, he tried to shift so he could forcefully escape the… wherever he was, but he found even that beyond him as a rotting smell forced its way into his nostrils. As he gagged he felt himself rising up, his body now perpendicular to the ground as it hung by the arms off of a medicinal table, and as he saw the humans (and he used the term very loosely) shambling towards him, he almost vomited.
Bloated, bloody, pus ridden, with sickening growths and rot, they stumbled towards him as the restraints released. He fell to the floor with a thud and he tried to get up and ignore the pain in his head, managing it just in time to smack a groping hand away as the walking corpses closed in.
He tried to shift, to contort his body into something that could help him fight off these people who stunk of death and disease, but still found it beyond him, so he did something he hadn't done since his last encounter with Slade: he threw a punch. To his shock the creature (Gross! It squished when he hit it!) was sent flying, crashing into a strong steel wall with a pitiful and disturbing squelch, leaving a red stain and dent.
"Dude… I've never been this strong…" He avoided another blow, kicking the offending thing in the chest. To his disgust yet again, there was a loud crunch and his foot caved in the being's chest cavity, but he couldn't worry about that now.
He would puke his guts out later.
"Shit, the specimen is too powerful! Purge the chamber!" A voice cursed from above, attracting said specimen's attention to a barrier dividing him and these creatures from a group of scientists.
But he would worry about that later, since pillars of flame began to erupt from the floor and walls as more and more shambling corpses seeked to end him, now on fire. He felt himself burning, but it was happening slower than he had expected, as if his body was fighting against it.
"Beast Boy! You need to consume ze infected to survive!" A German or French accented doctor shouted behind the barrier, making Beast Boy look at him in confusion. "Grab zem and follow your instincts!"
He decided to trust the heavily accented doctor, since he didn't have any other options if he didn't want to become deep fried. He grabbed the nearest 'infected' and felt his body trying to reach out and envelop it. Closing his eyes, he let it.
Opening them again, he saw dark green and black tendrils with points on the end plunge into the Infected's chest, draining it of life and biomass and restoring his rapidly deteriorating health, healing the burns as they formed and even ridding him of his headache. He fell to the floor along with the new corpse once the tendrils had receded into his body, feeling incredibly confused and also disgusted with how he had torn the life from that being, even if it had tried to kill him.
Climbing back to his feet, he furiously punched and kicked at every Infected left in the burning room, the smell of burning and rotting flesh currently overloading every other sense as he fought. Grabbing the final one, he reared back and threw it as hard as he could at the barrier, creating a hole that he might be able to fit through if he could get up there. Deciding it was now or never, he leaped, clearing the yards of air as if they were nothing as he curled up and rolled once he hit the ground, away from the burning Infected.
"Sonuvabitch! Get BlackWatch in here!" One of the scientists shouted, which led to several men in black uniforms with guns and gas masks to charge in, aiming their weapons at the elflike human. If he was even that anymore.
"Open fire!" The commander shouted, and automatic weapons fire began sending bullets into him. Unlike the fire though, these felt barely like pin pricks. He was growing stronger…
Feeling his body trying to move on it's own again, he let it, raising a foot up and slamming it against the ground. To his shock an earthquake began with him as the epicenter, knocking over the scientists and BlackWatch soldiers.
With his foes currently incapacitated, Beast Boy took the opportunity to sprint out the door, amazed at how fast he was moving. He was no Kid Flash or Mas Y Menos, but he was a close third when it came to sheer speed. Taking a running leap, he vaulted over the barbed wire fence that surrounded the facility he had been in, landing on top of a small building. Hopping from building to building until he found higher ground took a while, but he gaped when he saw everything that was going on.
Fires. Red and black tendrils. Buildings with strange pink growths. Shambling hordes flooding streets. Smoke clogged the skies, which were tinted the same pink as the growths all around. Across the bay, Titans Tower was alight with the glow of Cyborg's sonic blasts, Starfire's starbolts, Raven's magic, and Robin's explosive birdarangs.
Jump City was under siege.