Of Lightning, Flesh, and Blades Chapter 1

The Awakening

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The clear night sky was a silent black mass littered with stars. Some said that this night would have been calm if it were not for two objects that flew through said sky. Two shooting stars swam through the seamless mass of darkness and stars. One star was a mass of blue and few said that they swore that they could hear a whisper of hope in these troubled times. The other falling object was a mass of dark red and some spoke of its dark tidings for the future. What no one realized was that these two objects eventually landed right next to each other and left fairly large craters.

The blue mass of light lost its glow to reveal a man in a white and light grey shirt with track pants. The blue light flowed from him as he started to get up, groaning as he felt the pain coursing through his body.

"Agghh, damn what the hell did I drink."

His memories had left him, everything was unclear and painful. Suddenly a shock of electricity reminded Cole of what had transpired before.

'Wait, aren't I supposed to be dead?'

He looked around and took in his environment. He was in a crater that reminded him of the ray sphere blast he was in, only this crater was much smaller. There were trees he could clearly see and wildlife that he could barely hear. This definitely wasn't heaven . . .was it?

"Where the hell am I?" He grumbled.

The aches were starting to leave him as he walked out of the crater. He sent out a Radar pulse and was surprised to only feel one source of electricity and was shocked to find it in another crater next to him. This crater glowed dark red and, as he stared at it, Cole could feel the presence start to stir. The glow slowly dissipated as he soon found himself staring at a man who was on his knees.

As the man stood up, Cole noticed that the man wore a buttoned-up white shirt partially buttoned, a plain gray hoodie, and a black leather jacket with a red tribal design on his back. On his lower body, the man wore plain blue jeans and black shoes.

Alex looked towards the living presence that he sensed earlier in his awakening. As Alex looked at Cole, Alex found himself staring at the conduit with different vision types. As he observed the man, Alex could only feel surprised as he found himself staring at something he had never seen

Cole was looking back at him with the exact same idea. Cole had still retained his ability to observe a person's body's innards. The beast had given it to him so that he could find those that were infected by the plague that racked New Marias.

"Who the hell are you?" Alex growled.

"I could say the same for you," Cole retorted.

The two men stared down each other for almost a minute before Cole spoke.

"Where the hell are your organs?"

Alex was slightly taken aback by this, "What?"

"I can see through your body a bit. Not totally, but I can tell that you definitely don't have organs." Cole clarified.

Alex looked at him with a questioning look. "I don't have organs because I'm not human."

Alex jumped out of the crater and Cole soon found him face to face with the hooded virus.

"Your turn. How can you see through my body?"

Cole stood firm where he was unyielding. "I'm a conduit, or in other words a guy that has super powers,"

Alex stood still but smirked after a couple of seconds and crossed his arms together, "Really, then show me."

Cole put his arms up in front of him and Alex soon found lines of electricity flowing from one hand to the next. His arms lite up blue from the electrical light show and Alex could help but be impressed.

"Wow and I thought I was weird" Alex joked

"What about you," Cole responded. "Show me what you got, 'hoody'."

Soon after Cole finished his question, Alex's body soon had tendrils warping around his body. It quickly shifted to his arms as they disappeared and transformed into claws. He quickly dashed to a tree and cut it down with a quick horizontal slash. The cut wasn't clean, however, and Alex found himself making the tree into splinters rather than clean cuts.

Cole had seen the entire affair and was snickering. "That's it? Barely cutting a tree is all you got?"

"You go something to say you buzz-cut freak?" Alex yelled.

"Oh, now you made me mad."

Cole pulled out his amp and started to charge it. His feet shifted as he soon readied himself to attack. Alex shifted body as well as he made his right arm morph into a large blade. The weight of the blade pulled Alex's feet down into the dirt.

The two combatants stared at one another, waiting to make a first move. Eye movements, shuffling limbs, and small openings were all that were traded. For a second, the two looked as though they wouldn't fight, until they started running towards each other.

They rushed at each other, both combatants moving ever closer to each other until their weapons clashed in a great clang. Both superhumans stared into each other's eyes with harsh glares.

But then they felt movement along the trees. Cole instinctively used a radar pulse while Alex glanced around with his heat vision. The two men put themselves back to back as they got into a defensive stance.

Alex spoke out first.

"Get your ass out here now."

The leaves shifted as the voice travelled through the air.

"Don't bother hiding. We know you GUYS, are there," Cole shouted as the annunciated one of his words.

Soon the bushes and trees shifted to reveal strange humanoid nude monsters. While not as disgusting as the infected or mutated as the corrupted, the monsters' faces made the virus and the conduit cringe in disgust.

"No wonder you guys hid in the trees. You're ugly as hell." Cole remarked

"Oh, don't insult them. They've probably been insulted enough by their own mothers," Alex said laughing.

The creatures snarled and one of them, to the surprise of the two individuals, spoke up.

"Shut up humans. We've got you surrounded. You can't possibly hope to fight even one of us let alone eight."

Cole still smiled, "Hey what do you know, it can count."

All eight creatures rushed towards them as the two combatants moved up to face their opponents. Cole found himself dodging extending fingers as he reached his first monster to bash. The amp swung down and hit the creature square in the head, sending it face first to the ground. Before it could hit the ground, the creature's head found itself in contact with the amp again. The amp lopped its head off easily as Cole found himself in surprise.

"Damn, did I do that?"

He turned and saw that Alex had quickly dispatched with one of the creatures as well, but in a much bloodier fashion. The claws were obviously built to cut flesh and it certainly redeemed itself as Alex ripped through the creature's body like butter. Cole was a bit grossed out but didn't continue his thoughts on the matter, mostly because he was being attacked by the other three on him.

Cole quickly spun to dodge all 30 fingers and dashed towards his next victim. This one had seen the previous attack's effects and so he quickly dodged the blow only to find himself being blasted in the air by a shockwave that hit another one of his fellow monsters. They started to float down slowly when they found themselves both being stuck with glowing orbs. The orbs exploded and blew up the creatures in a shower of guts and gore, which sickened and shocked Cole.

"Holy damn, when the hell did my grenades get that powerful?"

Alex was getting frustrated with his three as these creatures started to learn to avoid the extremely sharp claws. However, they weren't as fast as he was. As the one of the turned to dodge his attack, the claw changed into a blade and soon Alex shifted his momentum to slice the body in half. The other two were stunned for a bit and attacked him, hoping to hit his back. All twenty fingers found their mark and they shouted with glee.

"Ha, ha, that's right human. You're all so pitiful to think that you can stop—"

It never got to finish that sentence as it found itself with a face full of a hammerfist as well as body full and stomach full of said fist. The creature was smashed into a bloody pool of flesh and guts with only its extended fingers remaining. The last one turned to run hoping to get away from the monstrosity that totally butchered his companions, but found himself being tugged by Alex's whipfist.

"Well then, let's see what you got."

Alex smashed the creature into the ground as he started to punch it brutally to death. The creature screeched in pain only to be consumed by Alex and replaced with Alex's own shout of pain. He fell to his knees as memories travelled through his brain.

Cole heard Alex and shouted back to him. "Hey, what wrong. You ok?"

"Heh heh, you need to focus on your opponent stupid human rather than your dead friend."

The creature stabbed its hand into the ground as Cole turned around. He felt the presence of the fingers rushing towards him but it was too late. The five fingers pierced his heart, guts, and stomach. He cringed a bit for the initial pain and then he gave a confused look.

There was no pain and he didn't even bleed.

"What the—"

The creature was as shocked as he was both figuratively and literally as it felt electricity flow through his fingers and shock him completely. The creature screamed as the electric energy fried him inside out and soon it was no more. The body disintegrated into ash and Cole looked at his wounds. The five holes that were on him seemed to be sparking with electricity. Slowly but surely they closed up and he found himself stuttering.

"Huh, I guess you and I are both alike"

Cole found himself staring at the viral biomass. "What?"

"Let me explain," Alex responded, "I am a virus that is made up of a large biomass of flesh. I don't have organs because all I am is a large mound of flesh that can change shape as well as regenerate. You, on the other hand, are like me made of electricity."

"How am I like a large mound of flesh that changes into weird crap?"

"You're not flesh, but you are electricity."

Cole shifted his gaze to his hands. His hands sparked and, as he looked closely, the sparks seemed to be coming from his own essence. "Whoa . . . how could you tell."

"I was looking at you and saw that your body was a mass of electrical energy."

"How am I even alive?"

Alex shrugged, "Well, from what I can tell, human impulse is just a bunch of electricity anyways. You must somehow be grounded in a physical form that can shift into an electrical form." Alex stared closer at him as he continued. "I also think that you might be constantly generating electricity, have any idea why."

Cole crossed his arms as he looked towards the crater. Suddenly, he felt that his mind had a revelation. "WAIT, the RFI!"

"What?"

"Don't worry about it. It was just something I used before I got transported here. I had to charge it by putting a bunch of energy into it from me. It must have gotten fused inside me."

"Yea, you must have some sort of energetic reaction that'll fuel you forever."

"So, I'm invincible now. Heh, that's awesome."

"No not invincible." Cole looked back at Alex confused as Alex continued. "If your physical form gets disrupted or gets unstable, you might just scatter in a billion directions as electrical energy."

Cole shrugged, "Ahh well, it's not like anyone's going to be able to do that much to me. . . Say, how do you know all this."

"I guessed it."

"You guessed it?"

"Yea, it does help to have a couple hundred scientists in your head."

"Come again," Cole remarked. "I think I just heard you say you have voices in your head."

"When I consume something," Alex annunciated with tendrils shifting over his body, "I take their biological mass as well as their memories."

"Oh, cool I guess. How do you have a bunch of scientists in your head?" Cole queried.

"I was a virus that took the form of a human that released me. I ate people to find out why I had amnesia and in turn I gained some skills along the way. What's your story."

"Oh, my future self came back to the past to help me discover my powers to fight a large super human that destroyed stuff. I learned to use my powers and used something called an RFI that helped me kill the guy."

They both paused for a moment to take in the information that they had just discussed. "Wow, normal people would probably think we're crazy."

"You said it. I'm a virus and you're a super hero with help from the future."

Another pause came across the two. The stared into each other's eyes smiling.

". . . Name's Cole Macgrath, Demon of Empire City" Cole said sticking his hand out for a handshake.

"Alex Mercer, 'Terrorist' and bioweapon" Alex responded accepting the hand.

They looked to each other and smirked confidently

This would certainly be an interesting change of pace.


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This is not a Yaoi Fic please remember