Chapter 7 – The First Movement

He didn't know anything anymore.

James had thought that to himself many times by now, it was almost sickening. He, along with his sole companion, the also-infected Sophie Neller, were walking through the streets of the Yellow Zone, not really going anywhere. Where could they go? Their mental predictions had come true, Blackwatch had labelled them as criminals that were connected to the Virus Outbreak in the Red Zone, thus they needed to be put down.

And like rabid, blind hounds, the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines had sniffed their lies in like drugs.

Now they were some of the most wanted people in the entirety of NYZ. They hid away from their own former allies, Blackwatch, and the occasional batch of infected that somehow found them. Sophie had once commented how they were literally 'sniffing their tails' when they fought off a batch of Brawlers, but didn't get more than an annoyed grunt in response.

James had no clue on what to do next. For so long… for so long he had dreamed of the day that he would have killed Alex Mercer, the man that had hurt him in ways that he could never comprehend. You take something significant to a man's life from him, and you give him nothing left to lose. It makes them do some crazy, fucked up shit. And goddamnit, Heller could count every piece of shitty action he had taken in the last day. It never left him how stupid he had been acting, so homicidally fixated on a man who could tank a Nuke to the face, and still live on to keep kicking.

Really, what else did he expect to happen?

Part of him wondered why he had even tried to fight him in the first place. He knew the man's strengths, his abilities and everything else about him that warranted caution. He should have contemplated a better plan than the one he had went with in the end, the basic 'go at it alone and hope for the best' plan. Lot of good that did him, all it gave him was a confusing history lesson, and a lot of shit to think about.

The fact that Blackwatch were more connected to the Virus that took everything away from him was enough to send the man into a violent rage. And he would have, had he bee alone and in an isolated space. But no, he had a companion now, a companion who was loud-mouthed, annoying, and had a great temper, just like him. Blackwatch, they had more to do with this than he could ever have imagined, the memories of that soldier Mercer had him… consume (he shuddered at the thought still) still haunted his mind.

Just the thought of cannibalizing the species he was once a part of gave him the willies. He was a soldier, he'd killed a fucking lot of people in his years of service. He'd killed so many for his country and his fellow soldiers that he had started to grow numb to the thought of killing people. Sometimes, he would think about what he had been becoming in the military, and sometimes it scared him. Just who was he changing into? What had he become in that hellhole?

The only remnant of his humanity remaining had been his beloved family. The family he worked so hard for, dehumanized himself for, so that they could live a peaceful life together. He had been planning to retire from the military to open a business in Manhattan, live there with his family for the rest of his days. Even now, he could still see the image in his head, him and his family in front of their business, smiling happily and with carefree lights in their eyes.

Now though, that dream had been shredded to pieces… just like his family.

In hindsight though, James didn't realize it until now, but he had been beyond glad that he had a travelling companion right now. A source of comfort and contact that knew some of the struggles that he was going through because she was going through the same thing. He could recognize her attempts at keeping him from going too far off the deep end, to keep him anchored even though they were practically strangers.

"So, um, hey…" Said Companion began to speak, breaking Heller out of his thoughts as he regarded the woman beside him with one eye. The two were walking down a street right now, their casual outfits helping them blend into the populace. It honestly felt like they were wolves in sheep's clothing, to him. "You uh… You have any idea what we should fucking do? Cause I'm lost…"

He could tell she was nervous, and to be frank, James didn't blame her. He had spent so long pondering his own thoughts that he had forgotten that he had someone else to confide in. How long had it been since he had last had a normal conversation with someone? Goddamn, shit, he couldn't remember. Just what had he been doing since then? "Your guess is as good as mine, Corporal." He replied after a moment of silence. "Honestly, this whole shit storm just got real so fast that I can't keep track of it."

"Isn't there anyone who can help? Some refuge or something? C'mon Heller, don't tell me you don't know anyone else in this god forsaken nightmare."

Before James could respond, the two former Marines found themselves walking through a refugee area. It was chock full of men, women and children, each of them clad in large, baggy clothes for maximum heat. They each wore medical masks over their faces to help them combat excess fumes in the air.

While they walked through the area, noticing some Refugees resorting to being beggars for even the tiniest scrap of food, they noticed a small Blackwatch patrol, consisting of 2 men wearing black, baggy looking uniforms with matching armor over them. They wore hooded gas Masks to conceal their faces, which also had dark blue, almost glowing, single eye lenses.

Not something one would want to see in the middle of the night.

They were armed with standard M4 Carbine rifles, something that made the two mutated beings mentally scoff. Like those would do anything to them now.

As for the third member, his uniform and armor looked more… streamlined, for lack of a better word. There were yellow highlights to his uniform, while his Gas Mask was more like a helmet, with 2 large eye pieces and a breather over the nozzle where the mouth would be. He didn't look like he was armed, and the way he moved indicated that he was higher ranked than the black wearing men.

When he and his escort walked by, they noticed something that made the man in black and yellow curse under his breath." Ah, sonova-Viper, this is Two-Five." The man spoke. He had a hand over his ear as he and his escort moved towards 2 men next to some crates, armed with graffiti cans and were doodling on the crate's side. One of them had drawn a 'Fuck Blackwatch' in bubble writing while the other looked to have barely started his own. "We've got 'Artists' in Grid one-nine." He ended with a heavy tone of distaste.

For a moment, only static could be heard on the other end, before a voice came back. "Copy Two-Five, SOP, Over." The voice commanded, before the radio went back to static. This was apparently a regular thing, given the nigh-boredness in the tone he used.

While that was happening, the two escorts had walked up to them and began apprehending the two civilians. Said civilians tried to protest, but a barrel to the forehead quickly changed their minds as they began to do what they were told. "Roger that Viper." The high-ranking officer responded, cutting the radio signal as he lowered his hands. He then began clapping them as he spoke with a more formal tone to the civilians. "Alright assfucks, knees on the line, papers are mine! Come on!"

James and Sophie watched this from where they were standing, scowls on their faces. SOP, standard operation procedure. They had heard how Blackwatch ran things in the Yellow Zone. Because of the random pockets of infection here and there in the Zone, Blackwatch martial law was much stricter, much harsher, than in the Green Zone.

Refugee's were treated more like prisoners than actual people, with simple offences like graffiti being treated as worse case rimes that deserved no mercy. It was no wonder that would wind up making enemies.

Enemies that would either disappear or be used as firing lines for execution.

"Captain, this place reeks." One of the soldiers, who was pointing his Carbine at the back of a civilian's head, snarled in disgust. The dark echo made thanks to his gas mask only added to the intimidation that made the civilian's forehead become drenched in sweat. "Permission to disinfect."

"Yep, might come to that."

Surrounding civilians tried to pay this situation no mind, not wanting to be associated with two men who were about to be shot in cold blood. This was the way things were now, if they ever spoke out of turn with these Soldiers, then they would be shot. Sometimes their loved ones would be executed in front of them before they were to suffer the same fate. They would have gotten off lucky if they were handled by Marines or the Army, but with Blackwatch there was no such mercy.

It was either follow their orders, or die.

"We gotta help them!" Sophie whispered to her companion in a hushed manner. "We may not be Marines, but this is bullshit, we can't let this happen." She may be a hot tempered-dare she say it-bitch, but stuff like this was a big no-no in her books. She saw several females try to get to the men about to be executed only for other civilians to hold them back. Obviously, they were loved ones being held back for their own safety.

Thing was, maybe being with those men may be better than being alone. People never wanted to lose their loved ones after all.

In response, James whispered back in an equally hushed, but also agitated, manner. "Just how would getting them out like this help them? If anything, us exposing ourselves would put them in the line of fire. We should just leave, then we can figure out how to hunt Blackwatch down for real." He reasoned. It wasn't like he cared much for people anyways, most of his humanity had been gone when he was in the Military. Now as a Bioweapon, how was he supposed to care about others?

Sophie growled, preparing to unleash one hell of a verbal lashing onto the man, but before she could, one of the females, a young girl no older than 8, managed to get free and rush to one of the men's side. She barely looked her age though with how small and slim she was, a major sign of malnourishment and starvation.

Yet, the moment she saw one of them get restrained like that, she moved as if she were a professional runner with abundance of energy.

"Papa, papa!" she yelled, tears in her eyes as she held onto one of the men. Said man looked like he was torn between shock, joy and sadness to see his apparent daughter running to her death to see him.

"Nina, please, get back, they'll hurt you too!"

"No way, not without you, papa!"

At this point, the Officer growled, annoyance clear from his presence as he held his hand over his forehead. "SOP protocol is clear. Get the rest of those fuckers." He ordered, making a hand gesture.

"No, please, not-!" one of the men tried to protest, before he was bonked by the barrel of a Carbine rifle.

"Shut up, dipshit!"

2 more soldiers came to the refugee area, carrying Carbines as they went and forcefully grabbed the men's family members, forcing them onto the ground. They were quickly restrained despite protests, some of them even getting a THWACK to the face, shutting them up.

"Looks like we gotta do this the hard way." The commander mused, though he didn't seem to be bothered about killing civilians. If anyone were to pay close attention, they would have heard the slight glee in his tones about what was going to happen next. He then clicked his fingers as one of the men roughly pulled the girl away from her father, the man crying out as he tried to reach her only to get kicked in the face. "Kill the girl first."

"Paaapa! PAAAAAPA!"

"D-Don't worry baby girl, daddy'll be coming soon."

Hearing that caused James' blood to boil. He didn't mind when grown adults were killed, he'd killed plenty of them himself during his service in the Military, but when he saw that girl about to be killed like this, it triggered something in him. Hurting an innocent child like that, it was one of the few taboos he had left, he thought while restraining his rapidly growing temper. He could feel his instincts screaming for blood, begging to be sated.

The moment they first hit that girl, their fates were sealed.

"Change of plans…" he spoke through gnashed teeth. His eyes were beginning to gain a reddish orange glow to them, Tendrils rippling over his back. Nobody but Sophie saw this though, they were too busy on the upcoming execution to notice it. "We're icing those fuckers, no mercy."

Never had Sophie been more eager to follow an order. That was ever-evident in the shark like grin that slowly spread across her face, making her look more like a serial killer than a Marine. "That's all I needed to hear."

Both charged at the soldiers, foregoing their previous plans for finding help for their own situation as they rushed in. The woman went for one holding one of the men first, smacking him in the face with a punch, knocking him down. She kicked him into the air towards 2 of his comrades, knocking them down and freeing their captives.

At the same time, James jumped in and grabbed the one holding the girl down, twisting his neck till an audible SNAP was heard, which barely took a tug of effort. He then twisted a full 360, throwing him into the Officer's way. The Officer barely had any time to yell out 'Oh shit!' before he was dogpiled by the larger soldier.

The last one with a captive man quickly made to shoot him, and was about to pull the trigger when James grabbed him by the neck, hoisting him into the air. "You'll not be doing that… ever again." He snarled, just as Sophie did when she grabbed one of the Soldiers she attacked.

Thus, they commenced the consumption process. Tendrils, both orangish red and dark blue, erupted from their bodies and coiled around their prey as the two Blacklight wielders cringed together, holding their heads as memories were assimilated into their brains. All the while, their respective Tendrils pulled the Soldiers into their bodies, converting them into pure Biomass for their use.

Cries of "Oh shit!" and "It's the escaped Test Subjects!" rung throughout the area as civilians fled the scene in terror. They all, including the captives they rescued, instinctively reacted to the signs of incoming conflict, like frightened foxes running from their hunters.

The commotion however, served to attract more attention than the two would have liked. More soldiers, making the squad number to 20, ran into the area while the sounds of a Longbow Gunship's blades could be heard in the distance. Quickly, James and Sophie took off, running from the soldiers, their speed much higher than theirs thanks to the virus.


To throw them off, James and Sophie decided to split up. James went to the southern sector known as Linden Park, while Sophie fled to the north of the Yellow Zone, Oakhurst. The former Corporal looked behind her, and noticed that the Gunship was already on her ass, making her snort in irritation. "Ugh, come at the lady with big guns… geez, are these assholes fucking trying to compensate for something?" she muttered under her breath.

As if they heard her and took offense, the Gunship began peppering her with Machine Gun rounds, most of them hitting the space around her but a lot still managed to hit her skin. She grimaced each time, but to her surprise Blacklight endurance must be stronger than high velocity bullets, because they could barely get through the skin layer before falling into useless heaps on the ground.

Huh… that was something.

Then, to make her day even shittier, the Gunship launched 2 Missiles at her. Her eyes widened when she heard the sounds of their flames propelling them towards her, alongside the high-pitched whistling sound. "Oh shit, come on!" she cried out, jumping forwards just before the missiles could hit.

While she managed to dodge at the right time to avoid a direct hit, Sophie couldn't help but scream as she felt the force of the shockwave send her flying forwards. Instincts and Marine training kicked in, and she managed to twist herself a full 180 degrees, righting herself with a backflip before she landed in a crouch, sliding about 4 meters before she was halted.

Glancing upwards gave her just enough time to see that there was a destroyed vehicle carcass falling towards her. She would have just jumped back to dodge it, but then she had a flashback, one to where Mercer had tossed their ride aside over 20 stories high like it was barely heavier than a feather. 'Could I be able to do something similar? I mean, we are of the same… kind, now, so maybe…'

Her thoughts were soon proven to be correct when she thrusted her hands out, catching the falling remains of the car in them. Sophie whistled to herself, Mercer made this look easy, and she expected to have SOME difficult holding this thing up, but DAYUUUUM, she had no difficulty at all!

'Oh, Imma know what to do with this thing…'

Remembering what those assholes had almost did earlier, a dark, sadistic smirk formed on Sophie's lips as she reared her arms back. "Ya wanna catch something? Catch THIS!" she bellowed, laughing as she threw the car remains right at the Gunship. It couldn't move out of the way due to the street buildings blocking it, and the Pilot began panicking too much to consider elevation to a higher point, so…

BOOM!

Both the Gunship and the ruined vehicle exploded together, the two pieces falling to a heap onto the ground below. Sophie watched this with awe and shock, her eyes wide and her jaw slightly unhinged, before she returned to her senses and booked it.

No way was she going to let Blackwatch live that one down.


Later, she was walking down another street, one that Blackwatch wasn't around in, when she heard a ringing sound. She glanced down and pulled out from one of her pockets her Phone, a Samsung galaxy model that she pressed the receive button and pressed to her ear. "Y'ello?"

"Its me, James. Have Blackwatch stopped sniffing your tail?"

At hearing the familiar sound of James' gruff voice, which had hints of concern in it, made a wide grin spread across her features. "Oh hell yea, I'm good. Managed to throw a ruined car at the Gunship chasing me. I gotta say, this stuff rocks! Imagine how many wrestling matches I'll bench."

"Don't get too cocky you hear? Anyways, I discovered that we can shift our forms into what we've consumed. Try it when you get in a pinch."

"Huh? Seriously?" Sophie blinked like an owl, and a brief image of the last person she consumed entered her mind. All of a sudden, this strange sensation of being wet all over overcame her, and when she looked down, she saw how her entire body was covered in a layer of writing Tendrils.

When they faded away, she now looked exactly like the soldier that she had consumed back there, down to a T. She even checked, and low and behold, she had a… manhood. Her eyes widened behind the Mask as she did a double take. "Holy, mother of…. Take breaths girl, take deep breaths." She inhaled and exhaled deeply, repeating the process till her nerves had calmed down. When she was calm again, she pictured herself this time, and in a flurry of Tendrils she was back to her usual self. "Bit weird shifting into the opposite gender, but god DAMN this is going to come in handy."

"Just what I was thinking. Wait, I'm getting a transmission through Blackwatch Radio."

The woman stopped walking and slipped into an alleyway, lowering her phone and making a frown. 'Wait, how does James have access to Blackwatch's radio?' the woman wondered, before shrugging her shoulders. She'd ask him when she got the chance. She didn't know if she could hear it, but she hoped that James would do something about that.

Turned out her prayers were answered as the faint sound of a Blackwatch soldier began making its way through her phone. "Blackwatch commanders, we have two escaped test subjects in the area. Name's are James Heller and Sophie Neller. Specimen #1 is black, bald, mid to late thirties. Last seen in a Leather Jacket and is extremely dangerous. Specimen #2 is White, black hair, late twenties. Last seen in a biker jacket. Security risk is the same as Specimen #1. If you get a visual, you are cleared hot. Rattler out."

'Yeah, you try and find us, bitch…' Sophie thought with an angry click of the tongue.

She soon heard more static on her phone, and when it stopped James Heller's voice spoke through. "Looks like we'd better stay disguised while we're out here. Blackwatch will be gunning for us, and I don't know about you, but it'd be a real pain in the ass to have them constantly sniffing our tails."

On that, she could agree, while they did have their advantages over those idiots, it would still be an annoyance to constantly deal with them. Plus, they had bigger things to worry about than pathetic humans trying to kill them. The second after she thought that though, she stopped. Her eyes widened when she realized what she had been thinking. 'Oh my god, I'm already spouting that cliché villain bullshit that most villains in comic books spout out at the end game!'

"Anyways, you lay low for the time being, I'll go see where the hell we are, then we can take it from there."

Now THAT pushed her buttons, and instantly she was in the phone's face like it was a certain former Marine's. "Oh, hell to the no, SIR!" she snarled angrily. Using sir was counted as disrespectful in the Marines, but hey it'll get her point across. "I'm not going to sit idly by like some wallflower! I have something of interest in mind, so I'll do that instead."

She could hear grunts and groans of annoyance on the other end. James should know that she wasn't someone to sit idly by when things needed to get done. After a few moments, she heard him speak once more, and this time there was heavy annoyance and anger in his words. "Ugh, fine! But you better make sure to not get yourself in trouble, you hear? I'll not help you should you get yourself into some shit."

"Tch, I know that!"

The phone call disconnected, and the woman pocketed the device back inside her jeans. She'd discovered Blacklight clothes were far more useful than normal ones since they can protect whatever you put in them much better. It was like she was wearing clothes that act more like armor rather than normal clothes.

Still, she forced herself to pay attention as she put her hands in her biker jacket's pockets. Tendrils rippled over her, and in moments she exited onto the street as a Blackwatch soldier. She may have been a little hot-blooded back there, but he did have one truth there: She did have something interesting to look into, and that was the whereabouts of that kid, KRONOS.

Not only did he handle himself in a way that made her suspect that he had experience with these powers despite his age, but he also seemed to be aware of more things than they were. It would be real helpful if he could be found and persuaded to join their cause. Whatever cause that was anyways. She wouldn't lie and say she trusted Alex Mercer, a terrorist responsible for this bullshit. But she could say without a doubt that Blackwatch were a shady bunch.

For now, she had a kid to find… never thought she'd be playing babysitter, but hey, the world tends to throw surprises in your face when you least expect it.


Adam Johnson woke up with what one could call a viral hangover.

A groan escaped his lips as he blinked his eyes open. Pain and aches coursed through his body like millions of tiny ants crawling over him, and he didn't like it. Not one bit. Slowly though, he could feel Blacklight within dealing with them, the aches slowly disappearing as with the pain. The feeling of being trampled on gradually got fainter and fainter as a result, and when about 3 minutes passed, the male couldn't feel it anymore.

'Heh, regeneration was always helpful…'

The male then tried to get up, planting his hands down onto the surface below for support as he pushed, getting onto one leg, then the other, before finally standing upright. The teen wobbled about slightly, holding the side of his head with an audible hiss escaping his lips, a sense of deliriousness overtaking him momentarily. It faded away faster than it appeared though, allowing him to look at his surroundings.

He wasn't inside the house anymore, that was for sure. He looked to be in some form of back yard, a fairly spacious one at that. The yard had a tall metallic fence that hid it from prying eyes, reinforced by a hedge that expanded across it. At the very back, was a single wooden gate, and from that gate he looked down and saw that there was a cobblestone path leading directly through it. He shifted his gaze behind him, and saw the same house he had entered with Mercer before.

Why the hell was he out here? Not like he cared, since Blacklight regulated his body temperature to be the best for any situation, but still. He remembered falling unconscious due to pain when that Orb of Intrigue thing went inside of him, and then… nothing. His eyes narrowed as Tendrils swirled around him, his fingers twitching and looking like they were seconds away from shifting into his Claws.

"You woke up faster than I expected, kid."

The sound of a familiar voice broke him from his musings, making Adam stop his Tendrils from their activity and turn to the source. Alex Mercer sat atop the left side of the hedge, one leg hanging off it while the other was crossed sideways, the foot on the hanging leg's thigh. He had his hands intertwined with each other, and a contemplative look from what he could see of his face.

"Yeah, well I heal fast, it's been apparent ever since I became this way." Adam snorted, his eyes never leaving the older man as he clenched his fists. "Now, I have some questions, and you are going to answer them one way or the other."

The man's eyes also narrowed, his lips twisting into a scowl. "Do not anger me, boy. You wouldn't even be able to regret it if I was your enemy." He stated, Adam's body tensing in case of an attack.

"I'll take it into consideration." The male stated with a firm nod. "Now I gotta ask, what the hell did you do to me? I feel…" the male paused, looking down at his chest as his eyes widened. For the first time since becoming the way he was, Adam didn't feel… on edge, as he did before. Before he was always aware of how the virus would keep trying to resist him, to take control and reduce him to an insane mass of Biomass. Now though, it felt different, it felt… calm, controlled even. Like it was now a docile animal instead of the predator it should be.

Looking down at him, Mercer noticed the change in Adam's demeanor. "It's the Orb of Intrigue." He stated flatly, getting the teen's attention. "In it, I put the codes that were needed to give you full control over the virus. It must have been due to your means of infection, but the virus didn't have all the genetic codes it needed. The reason why you went insane trying to fight it was because of this, but when you lost it, the virus got closer and closer to getting those codes. Your resistance only slowed the process down."

As he heard the man's words, Adam glanced to the ground in contemplation. If what Mercer was saying was true, and the man had more experience with this virus than Adam did, for sure, then his powers were an incomplete version of the Virus. Whenever he drew upon its power, Adam had always felt a little of his control slipping from him, like a steady river flow. It made him only resort to using those abilities when he truly needed them, save for a select few that didn't need that control. Consumption, and disguising himself. Perhaps that was because those were core abilities the virus possessed, thus their control was so much easier than the rest of his powers.

But now…

Mercer watched the younger boy's face morph from contemplation, to wonder with a hidden undertone of excitement. It wasn't hard to guess what the kid was feeling inside. The older Bioweapon had basically solved a problem that had been bothering the kid for the entirety of the last few months. 'Though, if the kid had a few more weeks, I calculate that he would have gotten to this point anyways. The virus was already on the verge of discovering the last of the codes it needed anyways, all I did was finish the process myself.'

There was a lot that the kid knew based off his own theories and those consumptions of grunts in Blackwatch. Most of it he formed through educated guesses, but the kid still had a long way to go. The kid had potential in him, is virus powers allowed him to see that in him. There was much more evolutionary potential in his little finger than Mercer had when he first started out this way, and that kind of made him unsettled. Now that he was seeing the potential in the kid, Mercer began to wonder. 'Is this what Dana meant? Is this what she meant when she said that this would be worth my while?'

Shaking his head, Mercer cleared his mind of those thoughts for now. He couldn't see her right now, no matter how much he wanted to. No, things were too complicated, and his power could leave marks, marks that those hunters could use to track her down and end her life. That was not allowed, if Dana died, then… he'd fear what would happen next. Looking back to the kid, Mercer decided to speak up to end his pondering. Looked like the kid was ready for the first movement now. "Don't get all sentimental on me yet, kid. There's still much to be done."

"Huh? O-Oh, right." Adam responded, a little sheepish that he had gotten way into what he could potentially do to notice tat he still had company. Once he cleared his mind and regained his composure, Adam looked back up towards the man. "As much as I am grateful that you helped me and all…" he began, his lips firmly planting a frown upon them. "I can't help but wonder why you did it. Why did you help me? What's in it for you?"

'The Kid's got a good head on his shoulders. That'll make things easier.' Mercer thought as he hopped down to the ground, landing before the teenage Bioweapon known as KRONOS before casually walking towards him. Deceptively so, and it didn't look like the kid was fooled in the slightest. His instincts were working well, then. Good. "I want your help. The Outbreak may look like its bad, but the true threat is yet to come. Blackwatch, the Army, Marines, Navy, the Air Force, none of them are aware of what is really coming. While I wouldn't give a crap if they died, if they did then the enemy would have enough power to threaten even me, and I can't have that. So, for now, I need you to become my helper."

Adam raised a brow at the man's words. When he mentioned this enemy, there was a slight increase in his body's rigidness, almost as if he was nervous about this new enemy. But that couldn't be, since Mercer quite literally was the top dog around here. Blackwatch and those military powers may THINK they were on top, but they had NO idea who Mercer really was. The monster that lurked beneath the fleshy sack that was his human façade. To think that there was an enemy that could unsettle even him, well… it was quite a difficult thing to comprehend.

Yet, Adam could detect no lies in his voice. His body showed none of the signs that he was lying, either, which likely meant that he was telling the truth.

"… Alright, say I become your helper." Adam eventually began to speak, after a moment of silence. Honestly, he didn't care as much that Mercer had tried to kill him, something in his gut told him there was more to it than that. Right now, he was willing to go with his gut on this one. "What would I be helping you with?"

Mercer placed his hands in his pockets, which felt kind of weird since he was literally putting his hands in himself… ew. "Simple: blowing Blackwatch's plans up, destroying large populations of infected, all the while keeping the heat off me while I search for more information."

The man then pulled out what looked like a file from his right pants pocket, which had… stretched… open, to allow him to do so. Biomass manipulation at its finest, people. "For now, I'd have you go to the area in this File. It's a Blackwatch file, concerning an operation called 'Operation: Black Tulip'. Its one of their many attempts at capturing Infected creatures and using them for further Bioweapon Testing. I already dealt with half the project, but other matters need my attention. That's where you come in, I want you to head to the designated area on that File. There should be a Lair there, enter it and kill everything inside."

Lairs? A brief memory surfaced within Adam's mind, one of the soldiers he'd consumed:


SOLDIER: We heading to a Lair?

COMMANDER: Yea, shit for brains, you know what a Lair is? Filthy fucking hole in the ground full of things that wanna kill you, can't wait?

SOLDIER: Honestly… sounds fun.

COMMANDER… You're one of the more mentally fucked ones, aren't you?


The memory ended, and Adam lowered his hand from his temple. He had this habit of holding a hand there whenever he viewed memories that were not his own. He didn't know how or why he had this habit, but he did, and he didn't necessarily mind it. But that aside, he now knew the basics of what a Lair was.

Lairs were just as that Commander had said so aptly 'a hole in the ground with things that want to kill you'. Honestly, his reaction to that, well, it was similar to the soldier's. He actually wanted to see what these Lairs were like. Maybe that was his Blacklight Instincts talking, but hey, Ada sure wasn't going to complain.

"Alright then…. I'll head to this Lair of yours, Mercer. But make no mistake, I don't trust you completely yet. I'll do this only, so I can pay my debt back to you for helping me." Adam stated, turning and bending his legs. By the time he empowered them with Biomass, he was in the air and gliding through it towards the direction the Lair was at.