Alex braced himself, armour flowing across his skin and hardening. This would be a hard fight for him. He didn't want it, but if it would make Dana come to her senses, then it was necessary.

"I don't want to hurt you, Dana, but I will if I have to!" he shouted, morphing his arm into a blade. Dana shook her head.

"You've already hurt me, Alex," she said quietly. "More than you can imagine..." Dana sprinted up to Alex and tried to tear into him with her talons. Alex's superhuman speed was the only thing that saved him from a crippling injury. As he leapt away, he became conscious of a large hunk of flesh missing from his gut. Biomass crept over the injury, knitting his skin back together. Wasting no time, Alex held his blade high above his head, before swinging it in a deadly arc towards Dana. Missing her by barely an inch, the shockwave nonetheless sent her flying into the wall. After a few seconds, she stood up, coughing.

"I'm the good guy here, Alex!" she shouted at him. "You and your new friends can go fuck yourselves!" Dana decided to try something new. Shifting biomass into one of her arms, the thing that resulted was like Alex's blade, except longer, thinner, and sharper. Well, she thought to herself, they always say katanas are just better. Darting up to Alex, she quickly unleashed a flurry of attacks into his torso. Any normal person would have been dead very quickly, however, Alex was far from normal. Still, neither was Dana, and Alex found himself forced to his knees.

Curling her fingers into a fist, additionally augmented by the rocklike armour, Dana let fly with a high-powered right cross that tore a significant portion of Alex's faceplate from its backing. Dana didn't even flinch when she saw the disgusting, writhing mass of flesh and tendrils underneath. Pulling her arms back, Dana focussed most of her biomass around them. Alex saw what was going to happen a few seconds before it did, and let off a small whimper of fear. Dana's armour morphed back to normal, and she smiled coldly at Alex.

"Sorry it had to play out like this," she said, half-sincerely. "Goodbye, Alex." With that, she unleashed a full-powered Critical Pain devastator, directly into Alex's chest. She was somewhat glad that the sound of the writhing tentacles helped drown out her brother's howls of pain.

When she eventually stopped, Alex's body lay on the floor, with one arm and most of his torso torn from his body. Alex would have been bleeding profusely, but he no longer had a heart to make the blood flow. Dana turned and began to walk away. There was no triumph in her heart, no sense of accomplishment-in fact, all she felt was the sensation of a void inside her. She had just snuffed out the last remnant of her brother, and the only real family she had left. Or at least, that's what she thought, until a large blade slipped in between her ribs and out of her chest. Alex leaned close to her, most of his body beginning to knit itself back together. Putting his head on her shoulder, he whispered in her ear.

"I think that'll be enough, Dana." Unceremoniously, Alex morphed his arm back to normal, letting her drop. Unable to contain his rage any longer, Alex began to yell at her.

"You think this is easy? Huh? I see my sister working hand in hand with a blight I helped create?" Alex began to reach levels of blind fury not seen since he chased Ian Taggart halfway across Manhattan.

"THE ONLY REASON I JOINED THESE FUCKING PSYCHOS WAS TO FIND YOU!" Alex screamed, releasing every bit of rage he had bottled up. "YOU ARE THE ONLY FUCKING THING THAT HAS EVER MEANT ANYTHING TO ME! AND HOW DO YOU REPAY ME?" Alex pointed his blade in her face, looking quite deranged. "YOU TRY TO KILL ME!" Dana, in spite of herself, looked both terrified and close to tears. Alex breathed deeply for a few seconds, before continuing on quietly.

"And the only reason I infected you was because you were about to die. I just...I couldn't handle it." Dana looked Alex in the face, finding it difficult to comprehend what he was saying. Tears began to fall from Alex's eyes, and he made no attempt to hide them.

"Everything I've ever done, I've done for you. Even the bad stuff." With that, Alex turned toward the exit of the core hive and began to walk away. However, when he was halfway there, he was hit by another blast of controlled pain. This one didn't stop; however, it just kept going. Falling to the ground, Alex began to spasm and convulse, in a futile attempt to lessen the pain. Dana tried to drag herself over, to do anything that could help him, but the impalement had left her too weak. Eventually, Alex just let his head drop and his world went black.

Emerging from the doorway, a group of Blackwatch troopers marched into the room, their leader holding down a small button. Surrounding Alex's corpse, one of them nudged him with his boot. The leader pulled out his rifle, replacing its clip with a red-coloured one.

"Switch to Bloodtox rounds," he stated flatly. His men followed suit, then pointed their guns at Alex's head and chest. The commander gave a small signal, and the men began pumping bullets into Alex's body. Dana tried to drag herself forward again, but that only drew attention to her. As the men crowded around her, the commander simply said, "Her too." Dana raised her arm in a futile effort to defend herself, but before they could fire, they heard a loud roar.

An army of Hunters burst through the door and began to tear them apart, ensuring no harm could come to Dana. Once they were all dead, Dana beckoned a Hunter over to her and consumed it, allowing her to stand up. As she moved closer to Alex, a group of Infected began to swarm around him. Dana waved them away, and picked up the commander's button, flicking a small switch on the side. The killswitch powered down and disengaged itself from Alex. She began to shake him.

"Alex! Wake up! C'mon, man..." After a few minutes of hopelessness, Dana was struck with an idea. Carefully, she allowed one of her tendrils to snake down her arm and impale Alex. Through it, she began to inject him with biomass, but before she could finish, a Leader tackled her into the wall.

"Big sister bad."
"She help big brother."
"Needs to die."

Dana screamed in pain as the Leader sank its teeth into her neck, preparing to consume her. However, before she could finish, the monstrosity screamed in pain. Dana wondered why, until she saw a fist come over the top and plunge into the second mouth on top of its head. The creature fell, revealing Alex standing behind it. His next words, spoken telepathically and used before, showed her a series of events from Alex's perspective.

"No matter what you do," She saw herself siccing the Infected on Alex.
"No matter what you become," She saw herself in full armour and bio-katana, impossible to describe as human.
"You're still my sister." She saw Ragland modifying the virus with her DNA and realised he was right. They were now linked as well as any other brother and sister.
"And I'm always gonna protect you," She saw Alex's futile attempt to stop the Wisemen from hurting her.
"To forgive you," These words brought her back to reality, and she saw Alex extending his hand to her. She took it and got back up, finishing his sentence for him.
"...Because that's exactly what you did for me. Thanks, Alex." This time, it was Alex who pulled her into the hug. Neither of them hesitated. After what seemed like an age, in which Alex's back-tendrils lashed out at anything near them, they let go. Alex turned around.

"Two of us versus millions of them," he said, with a straight face. "Ready?" Dana nodded, smiling.

"Let's kick ass!"


Shameless Cash-in By The Directors Of The Author's Note: Yeah, I got some minor writer's block, and it was hard to strike a balance between talky-talky and fighty-fighty. Reviewing this has no side-effects, so what can happen?