Chapter 2

"Your an idiot" Chris stated matter of factly.

"What why?" Those words effected Piers more than it should have, he struggles to pull himself up from the floor of the pod, the adrenaline leaving his system and all his energy with it. Chris who had been stood the whole time the vessel rose to the surface, leaning against the door of the pod looking through the small circular, port hole like window watching as the facility erupts with explosions and shrapnel flying off in all directions only to sink to the sea floor.

"You tried to sacrifice yourself again. Haven't you given enough? You don't need to throw your life away... Least of all for me." Chris' head never looking away from the window, the tone he uses Piers cannot identify at first, he soon realises it to be a mix of concern and disappointment.

Piers lays his head against the control panel and closes his eyes. "I choose what I do with my life Captain, besides I didn't do it for you I..." Chris waves a hand to silence his lieutenant.

"You did it for the BSAA you said already. Saving me was not for the BSAA..." Chris sighs. The young man whose eyes shoot open and find his superior but only stares face flushed with red. This time he is glad his captain is not looking at him.

Your the Captain of alpha team, you trust this man more than any other. Tell him how you feel. What's the worst that can happen? Say no? You have dealt with B. for years grow some balls.

"I want to talk to you about something its personal" Chris finally turning to look at his second in command. The pod having broken the water, allows the sun to shine through the window causing a spotlight to cast upon Piers.

"Captain?" Piers looks with curiosity his captain has always taken it as a personal duty to learn about his subordinates, but not like this the look in his eyes Piers had never seen before from his captain.

"In all the time you have been my partner, you have never mentioned family or lovers... Do you have any one waiting for you?" Chris rubs the back of his neck nervously his large muscles tensing due to his lack of subtlety.

"No..." His eyes dart away for fear of eyeing his captain to long.

"What no family or no lover?" His own face beginning to take on its own redness.

"Neither Captain... Not that it matters any more..." A sudden jolt from his infected arm and the sentence did not need to be finnished.

The older man moves to crouch next to his partner he puts a hand on the exposed demon like shoulder of his right arm, his brown eyes held by the youthful hazel ones. Piers can't help but squirm and try to wriggle free, the fact which causes the arm to start building up a charge, the crackling sound filling the pod a not so small shock travelling through piers' arm to Chris knocking him back into the pod door.

Piers manages to force himself stay awake, his concern for chris peaking after realising that the more this arm charges the more likely he will kill both himself and Chris.

I just want my old arm back. Why am I here I should have stayed there and died along with the rest of the B.O.W. scum, that's all I am now a B.O.W... A weopon.

"Captain you need to keep away. I'm not safe... I'm a monster, I just want to be normal have myself back to how I was" not a moment after his body convulsed and shook, black took over his vision.

Chris rushes to piers and begins to try and bring piers out of the spasms his soldier is enduring, again too late he has passed out again. Then he notices Piers' face begins to melt like wax and turningnto a golden bronze color. He is mutating.

"Fuck. Shit. Fuck." Chris backs away, how can this happen its been hours since the injection, why now? The chrysalis begins to solidify. Now he has no choice. Its over, he draws his pistol and aims for where Piers' head would be. 5...4...3...2...1. Nothing, he remains like this for nearly 20 minutes.

after 50 more minutes pass Chris has relaxed with his back against the pod door frame which he had opened letting his leg hand out just above the water. He can feel the cold air from the sea, it's refreshing but he can't help but be reminded that his partner is now a threat.

The sun now almost at its highest is beaming down on him, the pod now becoming insufferable he opts to remove his shirt and put his gear back on over his shirtless body, a wiser choice than going for a swim with his condition he wouldn't be able to get himself back out of the water.

Chris hears a slight crack to which he bolts up and draws his pistol on the bronzed cocoon, he must be hearing things there are no marks whatsoever on the chrysalid.

Where is my evac? I don't think I can be the one to kill whatever comes out of that. Why am I left alone? I promise piers this will not be like Edonia I will not forget you.

A thud from behind the chrysalid pulls him from his thoughts, he takes a step around it gun raised looking down the sights of his pistol when he nearly drops it, what he sees make his heart stop, a naked man... a naked Pier, he lays in the fetal position facing away from Chris his eyes looking curiously at Piers, noting all his nomal features then he sees it... The very part he had only seen at a glimpse in the shower or wheneve Chris would tell him to take point... He can't take his eyes away from his lieutenant's bum.

Chris turns around so fast he nearly falls his face now the color of a beetroot.

Oh my god...

Just as quick he grabs his discarded shirt and wraps Piers' naked body in it, which compared to Chris was a lot smaller his shirt was huge over his small but well muscled body.

Wait his arm.. His face.. No virus. What is going on?

Chris holds Piers in his arms his head resting on the older man's lap, his face looks so peaceful. He has never seen his uptight, all work no play lieutenant so relaxed.

Chris moves Piers' head to the floor and grabs the husk of the chrysalid and dumps the whole thing in the sea. He will not let them know about Piers being past the final stage of mutation. He knows he should but the experiments are to horrible, when he saw what Jill had been through after her infection... No not again... No one else.

He can hear the helicopter approaching for evac.

"We are done, we can go home now." Instant regret, Piers doesn't have a home