I continue to own nothing. And apparently I don't have any notes to place here right now, so read on.


Round Three

When we got to Miami I intended to buy a house up around Hallandale Beach, fortify it, and set Dana up there for however long it took me to deal with the local Gentek facilities. She talked me out of it, insisting she'd be safer closer to wherever I was.

Regardless of how things ultimately turned out, I shouldn't have listened.

So I got a place further south, on the corner of North West Twenty-Sixth Street and North West Twenty-First Avenue, not far from Juan Pablo Duarte Park. I helped Dana set up her computers and other equipment before working on the house itself.

Of course normally it would have taken a while to actually buy a house, but the right amount of money in the right place can speed things up when necessary.

Covertly gathering the biomass needed to convert the building into a small armored bunker was simple and took less than eight hours, actually converting the building without revealing it's new state as a pseudo-hive was considerably more difficult.

Hiding the chitin armor inside the walls and designing the entire framework so that, in an emergency, it could fully subsume the house and be all but invulnerable to conventional attack was not easy. I almost knocked the whole thing over more than once.

When I thought Dana was as safe as possible we got to work. Finding the publicly known building housing Gentek's local branch was easy, Dana's help finding all the blind spots and personnel files saved me a lot of leg work though.

Most of my actual scouting involved plotting out the patrols and guard posts of Blackwatch's teams. After Manhattan the higher ups of Blackwatch decided to put heavier security in place around Gentek facilities.

We were only in town two days before I found an acceptable disguise and infiltrated the building.

If the new addition to my choir had known that none of the DX-1118 C prototype samples were on site it may have saved me some trouble. Not that that would have changed what was coming.

It took me a couple hours of sneaking around the building, stealing two other faces to get everywhere I needed to to find out what I was after. Ultimately a disappointing waste of time and lives.

On my way to the exit I called Dana, keeping quiet of course.

"No good. None of the samples from Manhattan are here. They're in the city but not this building. I'm going to scout one of the hidden facilities and the-" I was cut off then by an explosion. I never really found out but at the time I guessed it was around five pounds of C4.

I didn't have time to even hang up or tell Dana not to worry before another explosion ripped through the building. I was still on the third floor and the first explosion was two floors down and originated outside. The second and third detonations were on the second floor.

"I'll call back," was all I managed before a wall came down at the other end of the hall. I hung up and slipped the phone away before turning my full attention to the cause of the destruction. Imagine my surprise when the body rising from a crouch turned Alexander Mercer's eyes towards me.

Since I'm being honest here, I have to admit I felt him long before he revealed himself. I just didn't realize that his presence was something external. I mistook the whisper of his thoughts and emotions for background noise from all the other voices in my head.

At the time instinct took over and I charged him, he did the same. We abandoned our respective disguises and met blade to shield and claw to claw. The first few seconds of the fight were an uncoordinated brawl, not worth recounting in detail, then we managed to smash through an outer wall and fall to the ground thirty feet below.

I maneuvered him under me and dove down, driving him into the ground like a meteor before leaping away. He was on his feet again and stepping out of his impact crater before I even landed.

Still almost fifteen feet tall, smiling sadistically at me, if you could call any expression on that face a smile. The Supreme Hunter.

"Forgot about me didn't you? Thought I was dead?" It asked, voice like gravel in a wood chipper.

"I don't forget, but yeah, I guess I thought I wouldn't be seeing you again."

"Do you know how much that hurts, Alex?" It snarled out as it leapt forward. It shifted more mass to it's right arm, expanding it's blade and bringing it down. I blocked it easy enough, I always could change faster than him and my blade was more durable.

"That's three times now father! Three times you've killed me! You said you thought about how I felt before the first time. How about now? How do you think I feel!" It roared, lifting it's blade and smashing it back down twice, punctuating the last two sentences.

"Angry, obviously. But I don't see why I should care." I answered hollowly. Not my most compassionate response, I know. I twisted, brushing it's blade aside and slashing back through it's chest before dashing away again to avoid it's counter.

"I'm not the same as I was before. When you separated me from yourself? I wasn't even really aware. When you killed me in the Core Hive? I was a child lashing out. On the Reagan? I just wanted to survive, and consuming you, rejoining you was the only way I could see. But that's not me anymore-"

Talking while fighting isn't safe for humans, remember that. Things like myself and the Supreme Hunter can chat all we want while performing complicated acrobatics and swinging steel cleaving blades around though. I was evading and counter-attacking through much of the exchange.

"You're a lot more talkative than I remember, I'll give you that." Talkative and melodramatic.

"I'm a different being now, Alex. I don't just survive, I'm reborn. I'm a new life with all the memories of my last. Before all I wanted was to survive, before that I didn't, couldn't, want anything and before that-"

"You were a brainless parasite, a cancer eating me to sustain yourself. What's your point?" I shouted that just before kicking off the wall of Gentek's building and driving a hammerfist into his face with enough force to scrap an M1.

He fell, rolling away from me and getting back to his feet.

"My point is that I'm better than that now, Alex. Smarter. What I want now is the same thing everyone else wants; control, authority."

"Not everyone wants that." Yeah, turns out his third 'rebirth' as he called it was just a delusional megalomaniac.

"You know as well as I do that that's exactly what humans want. All of them without fail fantasize about being on top, being-" I cut him off, smashing a car into his face and bringing both hammerfists down after it.

He tried to keep talking, but around a mouth full of engine block that wasn't easy. He brought his own hammerfist down toward me but I was gone long before it hit. He made short work of tearing the remains of the vehicle apart after that.

I was point blank in his face the moment he got the rest of the car off his head, I hadn't developed it to the same level as Elizabeth but I still had her shockwave trick. The first blast of force knocked him flat, the second kept him there and kept me airborne. Then Blackwatch intervened.

A Javelin tagged me while I was preparing another wave and knocked me out of the air. Manhattan gave me a lot of practice with that sort of thing though, recovering from the blast was simple enough.

I hadn't expected Blackwatch's security units to respond so quickly if things went wrong, but C4 charges blasting chunks out of a major asset tends to get people moving in a hurry.

The Supreme Hunter was on his feet and rushing me, ignoring the incoming missiles and bullets. Three more Javelins were headed for us, two aimed at me I think. He lunged with his blade, I dodged over it and handsprung off his right shoulder.

Timing is easy when the world moves slower in your perception, so I swatted one missile off course and dodged another. The one I dodged was headed for him anyway, he didn't bother to block it or avoid it. I twisted in midair, avoiding a collision with the last missile and reached out, latching several tendrils onto it and spinning around while the Hunter leapt after me.

I released the missile on the third rotation, sending it right into the Supreme Hunter's face followed by an unfocused crimson wave. He landed on his feet, I landed a Bulletdive on his face. The impact drove him into the ground again and I dashed clear before another salvo of missiles from the Blackwatch security squad detonated on the spot.

That wouldn't have stopped me, so I didn't think for a second it would stop him. It did give me about four uninterrupted seconds though, with him down and the Javelin toting soldiers reloading. When he got up I blasted him full force with a shockwave.

Sent him tumbling into the street towards the Blackwatch soldiers, putting him between us and making him the more opportune target for the next salvo.

He rose up from the smoking crater and roared. I saw it coming, practically felt it coming, tendrils writhing over his body and mass redistributing itself throughout his form. Dozens of tendrils, each covered in barbed spines, erupted from him in all directions.

I jumped to the left, avoiding one tendril and dashing through the air to avoid another. Two more midair changes of direction, weaving between the thrashing bands of flesh, and I landed safely in an open area. The Blackwatch team wasn't lucky enough or quick enough to avoid the Devastator.

Weird as it may have seemed had anyone seen it, I smiled at his little display of destructive power. His powers were my powers, I know them inside and out, and what he did then isn't something I would do so casually for one very good reason. Generating the biomass for the attack strains cellular replication, slowing regeneration and taking a bite out of reserve mass.

Basically, he shot himself in the leg.

I knew he wouldn't be able to fight much longer. And I knew that he could survive most anything I could throw at him, even if I reduced him to sludge as I'd done in our first fight he'd regenerate eventually, and I never should have expected decapitation to work in the first place.

At the time, with my limited use of both Greene's unique powers, I wasn't sure I could kill him for good. I figured though that hitting the Supreme Hunter with all the force and energy I could project at once while he was weakened would be my best bet.

While he was recovering from his Devastator I started focusing my own. Didn't have time to finish though.

We'd both heard the gunships approach long before they were in effective combat range, we'd ignored them, I under the assumption that the fight would end before they arrived, he most likely figuring the same. We were wrong. Four AH-64s dropped to just above one-hundred fifty feet and opened fire.

Thirty-two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles rained down towards us. A disproportionate number seemed to be aimed at me specifically thinking back on it. I abandoned my barely prepared attack and pushed two shock waves out between myself and the missiles.

Two missiles detonated on contact with the first wave of kinetic force, their explosions lit up the early morning sky and triggered three more detonations from other missiles. The second wave intercepted four missiles directly, taking out two more as a result.

I shifted to armor and braced for the impact from the remaining missiles, forming a shield and digging my feet into the concrete.

Out of the corner of my eye, figuratively speaking, I saw the Supreme Hunter roar, tearing up a segment of the sidewalk and hurling it towards the gunships. The chunk of pavement was blown apart by the hail of missiles, and the rest found their target. We were both still standing when the smoke started to clear.

The Strike Team pulled back after that and I took the chance to hit the Supreme Hunter again. He was doubled over, between the missiles and the temporary weakness from using the Devastator it didn't surprise me. I took advantage of that, bulking up my right arm and rushing him at near top speed.

He was just straightening up when I drove the augmented Hammerfist into his chest, jumping hard behind it to make sure I hit him hard enough. He shot twenty feet into the air, I stopped at ten, before I twisted to lash a whipfist around one of his legs.

I swung him in an arc to my left, smashing him to the ground at the same moment I landed. Reversing the twist, slamming him into the street to my right, I reeled the whipfist back in and morphed both hands to Hammerfist.

A short jump and I brought both chitin wrecking balls down on the back of his head. I thought that would be the end of it, a quick hop back away from him before preparing a shock wave and energy flare. I didn't get even two seconds free before a volley of rockets screamed down around me.

I stumbled from a few direct hits and snapped my attention to the gunships, that was a mistake. The Supreme Hunter took my lapse in attention as a chance and I barely had a moment to brace before he backhanded me away. I recovered in midair, landing on my feet and sliding a short way down the street.

I caught sight of him moving away from me, giving up the fight and retreating. He smashed through the front of a building and out of sight. I moved to follow him, but of course Blackwatch couldn't just think their actions through for once. Another volley of rockets interrupted me before I made it two steps.

Considering they were Blackwatch and that I was trying to kill a threat to the general well being of the world I didn't really hesitate to strike at them. I remember what a number of pilots felt and thought when they saw me jumping towards them, not fond memories.

I kicked the closest gunship, forcing it to turn left, and caught it by the tail as it rotated around. I repeated the rotation and threw it at one of the others, missed, no surprise given how erratically it flew between the force of the throw and pilot's attempts to regain control. It crashed anyway, and the one I was aiming for over compensated and nearly hit one of the others.

That kept them distracted long enough for me to slip away. In a city with no Infected it wasn't hard to spot the Supreme Hunter trying to blend in with the people hurrying away from the scene. Really it was harder pushing past all the people who were ignoring basic self-preservation instincts and trying to get a closer look at the site of the battle.

I jumped, dashing through the air after him and he bolted. He turned a corner and sped up, I swung around the side of the building and continued pursuit. I had to twist around in midair again and drop to the ground, catching a woman he'd thrown at me. She looked shaken but I didn't really bother to do more than set her down before jumping again.

"You know how this ends! You can't run forever!" I shouted after him, gliding around the next corner he turned and dashing closer.

He didn't shout back, just picked up a car and threw it at me.

I caught it easy enough, could have thrown it back but I'm not really fond of random murder. I crushed the front end of another car landing on it and set the car I'd caught down on it's side. I was getting annoyed at that point and leapt after him again.

He couldn't outrun me, not normally, and it was clear he knew that. I expected him to keep throwing things, waiting for the Strike Team to catch up again to distract me. He grabbed a man by the throat and I prepared to catch him in flight or avoid the corpse, depending on how he threw the human.

Instead of throwing his captive like I expected, the Hunter stabbed him, dropping him seconds later and smiling at me before dashing away again. It's not really a visible spectrum, but that's how I perceive the infection. So I 'saw' it as the virus spread from the gash in the man's stomach.

The infection spread fast, faster than Redlight, even if it was still slower than my own conversion rate. People were crowding around, some taking pictures, some offering assistance and others just watching. I heard people calling the police, hospitals and friends.

"Move! Get away from him!" I shouted, roared really. Almost as if reacting to my voice the man lurched to his feet, snarling and foaming at the mouth.

He was mutating visibly in seconds. Muscle tore through flesh, shafts of bone split their way out of his body. Blood flowed from open wounds as the man's face twisted, his lower jaw disconnecting from the rest of his skull and splitting in two while his teeth elongated and sharpened. Half his skull split the skin, horn-like growths jutting in random directions.

His left arm swelled up, a crude imitation of one of my own weapons with deformed fingers and bone shards sprouting from it in no particular order.

People started running and screaming the moment the transformation began. I barreled through the crowd and tackled the Aberration to the ground. It was short sighted, actually, to let myself be distracted like that. I should have left it alone and followed the Supreme Hunter, finished it off for good as soon as possible, it would have saved a lot of trouble later.


NOTES!

Yep. Supreme Hunter lives and is back yet again. And he's a bit of a pretentious dick now.

In case anyone was wondering, if the fight had happened in game, the Hunter would have been at about half health when it decided to retreat. I'll try to explain that and other things in-story as I go.

Powers: When Alex gains or notably improves or alters a power I will note it at the end of the chapter.

Power Subset Unlocked!

Ranged

Crimson Shockwave: Weapon Form: None. Effect: Projects pulses of kinetic force. Devastator: Full Charge (Technically Not Named). Mechanics: Kinetic energy stored over time up to a certain limit. Use of power drains stored energy. Energy is replenished through impacts and movement, recharging it gradually. Use of Hammerfists rapidly replenishes stored kinetic energy.

(Functionally Identical to the Push and Repulse powers in Force Unleashed. Visible effect is, of course, dark red instead of light blue though.)

Bio-Energy Projection: Weapon Form: None Yet. Effect: Focuses and projects bio-energy at range. Devastator: N/A. Mechanics: Bio-energy is produced and stored overtime at a set rate up to a certain limit. Recharge rate is affected by Alex consuming things in the same manner as his regeneration is. Current use is identical to Elizabeth's homing attacks.