A/N: I had a little fun with references this time:

Star Wars. Yeah, I know, it's the most overused line in history other than "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Which is how I feel about anyone who doesn't like my use of the most overused line from the silver screen.

I think I'm gonna get in the habit of using song titles from my huge (80+ GB) library of music for chapter titles. Saves me a little work of trying to come up with a name. Anyone want to try to guess the genre of music I listen to? =P

[2]

The UAV buzzed again, and pointed its red eye at Nathan. He had the same tendrils as my own sprouting from his back, and his clawed hands flexed slightly as he looked at me with desperate-looking eyes. "What the fuck is happening to me?"

I wasn't sure what was happening. All I knew was that Nathan was infected and was able to manipulate the virus somehow. Adrenaline? How did Nathan trigger the virus's sudden change? I couldn't see the fine fog of viral material that represented an infectious host, so Nathan wasn't contagious, at least not for the time being. But how?

The poor, clueless soldier keeled over, writhing in pain as his body somehow morphed into his own version of my armor. I touched him, and tendrils came out of him as if to defend him. Nathan was infected with some variant of BLACKLIGHT, but how did he gain control? Did he have control? I didn't feel anything as I took off, Nathan's body in my arms, towards Ragland's morgue.

I burst in and greeted Ragland the same way I had before, when I had been injected with the "cure".

"RAGLAND!" My voice stilled the tendrils on Nathan's back, and I set him down on the hard metal slab. No guts, no glory. Nathan couldn't wait for Ragland to arrive. I quickly set my own tendrils into Nathan's shoulders, groping around for the critical nerves I had used so often to paralyze Hunters. I forced my own message through Nathan's mind, and waited for an answer.

I'm… still here. Shit, Mercer. What… the fuck happened… to me?

Another voice came into play. I had heard this voice before, whispers on the fringes of my consciousness that kept the other minds in me quiet when I needed it. I hadn't been able to figure out who it was… until now.

Become. Learn from me. I am BLACKLIGHT. I… am your father.

And just like that, I knew. BLACKLIGHT had gained sentience, whether through me or some other way I did not know. All I could feel now was a feeling of lightheadedness as Nathan's body changed again. His mind remained, but his body was… different. No longer was he entirely human, but changed into some kind of… weapon? I wasn't sure, but I picked his new form up. Nathan, whatever he was now, disappeared, biomass tendrils dragging the form in my hand into me.

I heard Nathan's mind buzzing over the rest of the consumed minds in me. He spoke.

Mercer. Looks like I'm… part of you now. Good luck…

… But Nathan's presence didn't disappear like the others that I consumed. He remained above the others, flitting in and out of the many voices that rose out of the deep abyss of my consciousness to torment me on a regular basis. I tried to recreate Nathan's form, and it… he reformed in my hand. I set him down on the table, and retracted my tendrils. He reformed into a human shape. His original form. I stuck my tendrils back in, and tried as best as I could to push Nathan's floating consciousness back. Nathan's body took a gasp, and… he came back to life.

I kept the tendrils in, and tried to speak with him. "Feeling okay?"

He just coughed, but nothing came out. I forced some of my own biomass through my tendrils into Nathan. I could hear Nathan's heartbeat, an irregular rhythm that matched my own. Was I really that stressed out?

"Dammit. Mercer, was that your doing?" I could only look down. I didn't know what to say. "So, I'm infected, huh? I heard a voice, saying it was BLACKLIGHT. Was that you?"

"No." Nathan closed his eyes, and lay down on the hard metal surface. "It was the virus. It gained sentience... either through me or something else. It turned you into some kind of weapon or something, and when I picked you up, the virus took over and took you inside me. I have no clue what's going on, but I bet Ragland can do some research into it."

We waited for what seemed like an hour before Ragland arrived. I kept my tendrils firmly attached, and when Ragland eyed them, I glared back at him. "What?"

"You had a problem, Alex? And why in the world do you have those… things attached to that poor soldier?" Ragland picked up a clipboard off the wall and began to take notes. "Does this have something to do with him?" Ragland gestured towards Nathan.

"Yes and no. He's infected, but somehow gained control over the virus. I consumed a Hunter that was about to kill him. He managed to morph his arms into claws similar to mine soon after. I remember that I gained my claws from consuming a Hunter, but I don't know how my consuming of a Hunter could give Nathan claws." I looked down at Nathan. He was breathing short, shallow breaths. I could feel a tinge of pain coming through the makeshift link.

"He's infected with BLACKLIGHT, I assume? I imagine it's possible, if it's just as possible to hear the hive mind from a distance, which is, from what I understand, what you do on a daily basis." Ragland poked Nathan's arm with a pen. A tendril of biomass reacted, knocking the pen out of Ragland's hand to the ground. Nathan was trembling when he saw his own body's reaction. He began to speak, but instead projected his thoughts through his mind.

This is Ragland? I heard about him when I eavesdropped on a conversation between my superiors. I'd imagined him to be younger and more needle-happy, not a cocky old man that pokes people with pens.

I just gave Nathan a glare and looked back towards Ragland. "I find it weird, though, that it would manifest now. I mean, I've already consumed how many scores of Hunters? and this guy obviously has never had his arms turn into claws before now, based on the myriad variations of 'What the fuck?' I heard while I was carting his body over here."

I turned my head and asked. "Nathan, have you lost any portion of your memories?"

He shook his head. "No." A hoarse croak, as if he hadn't spoken for years. "I've still got everything since preschool and that time when I threw up on the roller coaster when I was 8."

"Good. You don't have to go through the massive headaches I get when I suddenly remember something." I drew my lips into a faint smile, then scowled again when Ragland removed a small hammer from a drawer. That doctor didn't learn anything from earlier.

I tried to stop Ragland, but the tendril out of Nathan's knee was already ready. It swatted the hammer into the wall, leaving a hole that gushed out water. The sink below wouldn't hold the deluge of water for long, and I tried to leave… as the tendrils connecting me to Nathan yanked me back. I detached them and ran for the janitor's closet. A bit of water approached me as I ripped the door off its hinges and twisted the shut-off valve around and around until the water stopped.

The water still burned me a little as it spread across the floor. It dried quickly, and with the help of a mop and galoshes stolen from one of my victims, I cleaned up the puddles that remained. A flash of red glinted in a pool of water I hadn't yet cleaned up, and I thought for a moment Nathan was somehow manipulating his biomass again, but he was out of sight. He was around the corner; how could I see him without a mirror?

I collapsed, headache coming on again. This time, I wasn't sure whose memories I was seeing. The old Alex's? No, it would have been brief and head-splitting, as always. I heard a thump from around the corner, and I rushed back to Nathan, even with the dull throb and images flashing before my eyes. Ragland was running out of the room, yelling something about "unconscious, he's in pain".

I wasn't sure how I managed to reach Nathan, but his body had become a mass of writhing tendrils, not unlike immediately before one of my own devastators. One of the tendrils stabbed me directly in the chest, siphoning some biomass away, but not hurting me otherwise. I pushed closer to Nathan, and the tendrils began to wrap themselves around me. A couple attached to my back, a few more to each arm, and one more to each ankle. Biomass began to funnel back into me, and I realized whose memories I was seeing. Nathan's.

[/2]

A/N: Yes! Made a Star Wars joke! w00t. Don't sue me, George Lucas, I meant to poke a little fun at how Greene calls herself Alex's "mother". There should be a "father" somewhere, right? Now, I just need a way to integrate that "walking carpet". Mwahahahahaha… I guarantee I will, even if I have to create a Chapter x.5 to fit it in. Like this one.

[2.5]

Cross was suddenly awake. Another bad nightmare. He'd had nightmares for several nights in a row, and he wasn't sure if it was just his recovering body under stress or the virus's effect on him. He'd learned two days ago that he was fortunate; one of a handful of people who just so happened to be immune. The rest of the Wiseman team hadn't been quite as lucky.

Lucky? He didn't feel lucky. He didn't have his coffee.

Cross breathed an exasperated sigh as a supersoldier came in. Cross wanted to kick himself for letting ZEUS slip away, but he was sure he'd tear out an IV or two if he did so. He forced himself to settle down and focus on soothing the parts of himself that so craved caffeine. He wanted to speak, ask for a cup of the bitter black stuff, but that brought to mind the black and red tendrils that he had seen ZEUS use to consume his prey.

An involuntary shudder rocked his weak body, and he remembered that meeting with the large pink… thing. When it had stuck its tendrils into him, he saw ZEUS, through the monster's eyes. A quick little gnat that had so quickly stricken at the... Supreme Hunter. A little gnat that had sapped away the strength of the infected monster, then made the critical mistake of accidentally waking it up again. A story of David and Goliath, with a touch of machete-wielding kids blended in.

The monster had taken a large amount of blood and enough of his strength to leave him barely hanging on to life. It had gained his memories, but had, for some reason, left him alive. A plan of sorts? By leaving him alive, could it hide behind his own face and escape detection, possibly for centuries? Millenia? The thought of it made Cross shudder again, and the lack of coffee only made it worse.

He tried to raise his voice enough for the supersoldier to hear across the room. His throat was dry, and he felt the pinch of two IV's, one in each jugular, as he made his feeble attempt at speech. "Coff… Coffee."

The supersoldier wasn't in his uniform. It was, after all, break time. ZEUS had shown up at their doorstep, and he was happy. He had planted his boot firmly in ZEUS's ribcage, listening intently as he heard four ribs snap and smirked as ZEUS's seemingly lifeless body flew five feet into the air, landing with a "whump-hiss", blood and biomass trailing behind him in a rush to heal his wounds.

Cross watched as the supersoldier came over. "Captain. You said 'coffee'?" He shuddered again. Hot coffee came a short minute later, but he was still thinking the same thing.

Dammit. I asked for coffee, and I expected a nurse to come help me sit up and drink. I got a walking carpet pouring it all over my face. Is the side effect of the supersoldier mutation a hairy chest?

And then he realized it. The "hair" was a tangled mess of biomass tendrils. Cross suddenly imagined ZEUS consuming a Hunter. He groaned, then leaned over the edge of his bed and vomited.

[/2.5]

A/N: Yes, I'll probably have Cross show up later in the main fic. I'm gonna tell his side-story through a series of funny Chapter x.5's, at least until he joins up with the main fic. *grins* Oh yeah, and I made Cross get copied by the Supreme Hunter without getting killed. I don't remember if it's canon or not, but w/e. Does it really matter that much?

Hehe, the Internet has so much to offer. Need to do more research and stuff for this fic, and it'll be a good exercise for my other writing projects as well. At least I know a great source: Wikipedia. It's pretty accurate as long as you stay away from controversial or very recent topics. AKA stay away from "The meaning of life", "George W. Bush", "Lady Gaga", "Twilight (series)", and "Justin Bieber" and you'll be fine. Probably.