Roamer: Back again with another chapter for Prototype Versus Infection. I apologize greatly for the long delay, but stuff crops up. Not much to say at the current moment, except a thank you to all who have already reviewed/favourited/story alerted PVI, even with only the prologue. Please note that I have absolutely no idea of the system in American colleges regarding time schedules and such, so if I do make a mistake (especially to readers who are college students/staff, I apologize in advance, but it's for the flow of the story.
Unfortunately short, as I've been hit, repeatedly, by writer's block. It happens to us all.
Well, that and Plague decided to rope me into another shared project. Don't ask (seriously, DON'T. ASK.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Left 4 Dead (god company of FPS games that is known as Valve) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment).
2:15 PM
Alex was at the street café again, quietly sipping a new cup of coffee. Currently he had a temporary one hour break in the lectures he was conducting today, so he was taking a break at the cafe. For some reason, he just liked the coffee available here, very unlike the murky water that barely passed as coffee that was available in the teacher's lounge. Smirking to himself as he remembered the time a new teacher had tried it out just before he could warn her. She had immediately spit it out on the floor, bug-eyed, before rushing away towards the toilet with her mouth covered. He watched in mute silence as the other faculty stared incredulously at her disappearing form, before turning towards him. He only shrugged his shoulders, before saying, "Tried to warn her." They looked at him for a few more seconds, before turning back to their own business, as if nothing just happened. They knew well enough to stay away from the 'coffee' and even attempted to warn any new faculty, but it was still amusing whenever it did happen, even for the few seconds that lasted.
He quirked an eyebrow to himself; when WERE they actually going to get some actual coffee for the teacher's lounge? He shrugged to himself, before leaving his finished cup of coffee on the table, along with a small tip. He did not feel particularly hungry, even though it was around lunch time, but snagged an apple for the walk back. After paying the fruit-seller for it, he continued towards the university, biting deeply into the shiny apple in his possession.
Along the way, Alex's improved hearing subtly picked up pickets of conversation along the way, which normally was a thing he was used to by now, but what he heard today was...unsettling.
"...heard there's talk of a riot..."
"Some guy just JUMPED AT...poor lady..."
"...friend's coughing badly...hasn't been smoking recently though...acting strange, man..."
"...riot police? Here?..."
Alex inwardly frowned, chewing the mouthful of apple thoughtfully.
'This...doesn't sound good...No time to check though. And if anything does happen, it'd be best to be at the university.'
He quickly picked up the pace, all the while listening in, none of which comforted him in any way.
'Alright, something's definitely going on...'
Tossing the apple core into a nearby bin, he broke into a run, weaving through the crowd as he did in Manhattan,
At the same time...
Zoey sighed as she stared at the wall clock, silently begging for the day to be over so that she could return to her movies. The rest shared her sentiments, at least regarding the day to finish.
Professor Curien sweatdropped slightly as he turned away from the screen, finally realizing that the entire class was concentrating on the clock instead of the lecture notes displayed. Understandable, in context, as it was lunch break for most students in...four minutes, twenty ei-seven seconds and counti-
A scowl flashed on Curien's face for just a second.
'Blast, even I'm counting down the remaining time. My stomach must be emptier than I thought.'
He shrugged to himself; he had been considering whether to talk to one of the recent additions to the staff over lunch break, provided he managed to find the illusive hooded man.
He was suddenly aware of the sound of shuffling feet outside the door. Sighing, he stood up and approached the door, and
"Sorry, sir or madam, lecture's currently going on, so kindly-"
DODGE THE LUNGE Wait what lunge-
Speed belying his relaxed pose, Curien quickly barrel-rolled to the side, the shambling figure that was outside having just shot forward, barely missing the outstretched arms, a menacing snarl issuing forth from the figure's lips. Curien sidestepped another lunge, before grabbing his ebony wood cane. Ducking below a wild swing, he quickly got behind the aggressive man and landed a blow on the back of his knee, causing the man to collapse. Sighing and letting his guard down, Curien was thus surprised as the man somehow managed to leap up and smashed into him in a sudden turn. Knocked to the ground, Curien instinctively reached up to the man's chin, as for some inexplicable reason, the man was trying to bite him!
Seated above, Zoey froze in her seat while around her, the students all scrambled mostly in fright at the sudden threat in the room. The main line of thought running through her mind was simply a continuous repetition of a single word:
'Zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie zombie zombiezombiezombie-'
She shot up, nonchalantly walked over to the fire extinguisher at the back of the room and grasped it firmly.
Struggling with the man, who was still gnashing his teeth at him, Curien could feel his strength fading, but strained as hard as he could to stop the man.
"HEY UGLY! GET OFF MY TEACHER!"
The attacker whirled his head at the source, but got a fire extinguisher to his now crushed face for his effort.
The force behind the blow knocking the man off of him, Curien slowly got up, taking short wary glances at the unmoving body, as he faced one of his more...eccentric students as she panted slightly from the exertion. He cleared his throat, before simply putting forward what was on his mind at the moment.
"Really now, Miss Masters, a fire extinguisher?"
She just grinned with a hint of nervousness. Curien simply sighed, before walking towards the teacher's desk, while motioning for some of the boys to follow.
"C'mon, boys, give me a hand here in pushing this."
Ten minutes later
The zom-mutant slowly shuffled towards the ajar door, intent on finding something to feed. Just as he nudged the door open, he only had a second to dimly register the corpses of his fellows in a heap before he heard a single word.
"Fore."
That was just before the mutant's head got ripped off his shoulders, courtesy of a golf club.
Tom, the principal of the university, and jokingly titled 'The Old Man', sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was getting tired of this repetition of events, but he couldn't escape easily with his bad leg. Of course, there is the other thing...
"Hey Old Man."
Vein twitching on his forehead almost instantly, Tom slowly turned towards the window, where Alex Mercer was casually leaning against it. While he wasn't the other thing, Mercer was still a significant person of interest, especially since he himself was well aware that the 'man' before him wasn't Mercer.
He had an old...friend...who had worked with Mercer, or at least the original Mercer, and he immediately had figured out that the Mercer that approached him those weeks ago wasn't the same man. He had made it clear to the virus Mercer, but conveniently left out the identity of his...friend.
Tom sighed, before flopping down on his chair, hand massaging his forehead.
"Don't you have anything better to do, Alex? Like, say, getting rid of whatever these things are?"
Alex simply jerked a thumb out the window. Sighing, Tom got back onto his feet, and slowly shuffled over to look out...only to sweatdrop. Several of the mutants' corpses were all over the place, in...varying intact states. Several looked like they have been hit with a massive sledgehammer, or cleaved right through with a sword. Some were even impaled upon horrific serrated spikes that seem to 'grow' from the ground.
Noticing the glare from Tom, Alex simply shrugged his shoulders.
"I did cleanup. That's all."
"While I appreciate that, I'd also appreciate that my students don't suffer from 'sudden' stomach upheaval after witnessing this. I doubt that their states of mind would stay intact with that there."
Alex just shrugged, before straightening and walking slowly towards the door.
"Nothing to it, Old Man. I might as well start clearing the hallways 'fore more come into the scho-"
Small pressure at the back of his head-*BLAM* Pause. *BLAM BLAM*
Tom simply sighed, before rubbing the bridge of his nose. He had walked out of his hiding place, jammed the M1911 into the back of Mercer's head, and fired. Pausing a second as Mercer stumbled to re-aim, and blasted away, still aiming at Mercer's head.
*BLAM BLAM BLAM*
Tom shuffled back to his chair, clicked the hidden button on the underside of his desk, before reaching into his stash-
*BLAM BLAM BLAM*
-took out one of the Jack Daniel's 1954 bottles, along with shot glasses, and started pouring into-
*BLAM BLAM BLAM*
-two of the glasses. Grabbed one of them, and downed it in one shot.
He looked over and quirked an eyebrow, M1911 still pointed at the prone form.
"A fifty-five year old?"
Mercer twitched-*BLAM*
Tom shrugged.
"I'm saving the older ones for bigger headaches."
"This isn't-" *BLAM* "-big enough?"
"I saw it coming a long time ago. Doesn't count."
"Meh. True-" *BLAM* "-enough." *click!*
At the sound of the click, Tom filled his glass again, and leaned back on his chair as Mercer's arm shot up, grabbed his collar, brought his other arm, fingers transformed into wicked claws, up to bear-
-and paused.
"You."
"Yeah. Me. Nice to see your ugly mug again, Zeus."
Captain Robert Cross nonchalantly returned Alex Mercer's gaze, uncaring of the claws inches away from his face.
Roamer: I'm pretty sure that a lot of people saw that coming.
Expect Plague's Arcana Summoner to be updated soon, as well as the new shared project mentioned at the top author's note.
Displeased spoiler(reading optional): I've just heard of the details of The Passing DLC for Left for Dead 2. Valve's pissed me off. The old man's gonna live if I can help it.