Plague: Chapter nine is HERE!!! And thank you all for the reviews!
Roamer: I'm pretty sure they're dying to know how the hell Cross is still alive.
Plague: You betcha!
Roamer: Is that even a real word?
Plague: So you're defying me? *prepares to snap fingers*
Roamer: …Roamer is a good boy.
Plague: Okie dokie! Time to not delay anyway further!
Roamer: We know.
Plague: Did you say something? *prepares*
Roamer: Roamer is a good boy.
"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech
'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought
My name is Alex Mercer. Event
"My name is Alex Mercer." Web of Intrigue speech
'My name is Alex Mercer.' Web of Intrigue thought
(My name is Alex Mercer.) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)
"My name is Alex Mercer." Demon/Beast speech
'My name is Alex Mercer.' Demon/Beast thought
Plague: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's), Mega Man Battle Network (Capcom's), Warhammer 40k (Game Workshop's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.
Chapter 9: Revelations, Bones and a Surprise Hunt
Alex watched the man in front of him warily, especially since he thought he was dead. After all, the Supreme Hunter WAS in Cross' form when he attacked Alex on the ship. Cross was still wearing his Blackwatch uniform, while bandages covered up the stump of his left arm that still remained.
Granted, he was cautious about the whole situation, but Cross did help him in the end to stop the blasted military and that idiot Randall. Though, when he suddenly backstabbed him and shifted into the Supreme Hunter, it threw him into a loop, but he had reflected and realized that the creature must have consumed him on that day itself. His behavior the day before clashed directly with the distrustful one exhibited on the day they had attacked the USS Reagan.
"So care to explain how the hell you are still alive? And didn't the Supreme Hunter consume you?"
Cross chuckled to himself.
"It sure as hell looked like I died didn't I, since you are aware the Supreme Hunter took my form and assumed I got consumed. What you don't know is, from what some GENTEK scientists had gathered, it's possible to take someone's form by just consuming something containing the person's DNA."
At this, Alex's eyebrow twitched.
"So you're saying…after all the trouble I had gone through in New York during the incident…especially when I'm trying to infiltrate one of your bases…I could've easily just taken a hair or some blood and I could get the guy's identity and pass through your bloody security measures easily?!?!"
Cross nearly laughed to himself at how incredulous Alex had just sounded, before he gave his reply.
"Technically, yes, but since you aren't consuming their brains at the same time, you don't get their knowledge or their memories."
Alex looked thoughtful for a second, before he realized that what Cross had just said made sense. After all, memories are ingrained in your brain, not some random part of your body (Plague: Just so you know, the weird-as-hell explanation by that scientist guy in Assassin's Creed makes no sense, so don't bother trying to raise any form argument about that, it just makes no god damn sense).
"You still haven't explained how the Supreme Hunter got you and your arm."
Cross grimaced bitterly at that particular memory.
"That's true…alright; it was just about the time we were going to get to Randall on the USS Reagan…"
He started with the day they were going to attack the USS Reagan. He and a bunch of soldiers loyal to him had defected from Blackwatch a few days ago, due to disagreement as to how the Blacklight situation was to be solved. He had thought that General Randall was a fool to think that using a nuclear bomb would solve the infection easily. While that was true, it would be at the cost of millions of uninfected lives.
After the fallout between the two after the 'discussion' was over, Cross had secretly defected along with those loyal to him under the pretense of 'patrolling to combat infected'. Randall hadn't cared as long as he was ready by the time the nuclear bomb was activated. It didn't help either that Cross' respect for Randall had fallen earlier when the good General had the BRILLIANT idea of using the Super Soldier contingency plan. It was an abomination of a plan, but it was only meant as an emergency. He had the feeling that some weaker strain of the virus had infected the General's brain, leaving him a few screws loose.
They were about to head out to the USS Reagan when they were ambushed by the Supreme Hunter. Slightly more than half of the soldiers didn't survive the attack, while the rest had reluctantly escaped when Cross pulled rank and ordered them to flee. He had managed to scrape together vague details on the creature, even though it had only fought Alex and lost a quick while later, and had come to a conclusion that basically, Greene had simply made a cheap copy of Alex in an attempt to defeat him by using the Parasite that had previously been attached to him. After all, as some people in the past have said, your worst enemy…is yourself. Unfortunately, the same luck Alex had in defeating it didn't apply to Cross that easily.
Flashback
Cross gritted his teeth in pain as the Supreme Hunter had his left arm in a vice-like grip, holding him up with his legs dangling. He had kept the creature at a distance most of the time, relying on a quick strike with his electric stick before repositioning with his grappling hook while it was temporarily paralyzed. He hadn't expected a sudden explosion from a burning car to knock him off his feet however, and those few precious seconds were enough for the creature to get him.
The monstrosity spoke in a guttural tone, "I intended to simply consume you so that I may focus on my main prey, but since you were such a large nuisance, I intend to make you suffer…" With that, he made a swinging motion, as if to throw Cross. However, he kept his grip on his arm, and due to the two opposing forces, something had to give. And that something was Cross' arm.
"GrrrrAAAAAAHHH!!!"
Cross had landed roughly on his back on a car roof before landing on the pavement, but that was nothing compared to the immense pain that came from his arm tearing off due to the momentum of the swing and how strong the Supreme Hunter had gripped his arm. (Roamer: Just so you know, it is physically possible for this to happen [Plague: At least, we THINK it is], but it would take an incredible amount of strength to pull off. But this is the Supreme Hunter we're talking about here. That, and game physics always tend to defy the laws of real physics) Fighting through the pain only through pure military experience and training, he could dimly see two things. One: The Supreme Hunter had consumed his arm and was currently making his way towards him at a leisurely pace, as if mocking him. Two: There was a leftover Rocket Launcher right next to him, dropped by one of the Blackwatch soldiers who had stayed with him, but met an unfortunate end by the monster.
Seeing no other chance of survival, he shakily reached out for the Rocket Launcher. A looming shadow above him, however, told him he was too late. Not willing to die lying down, he shakily tried to get up despite the pain, but it was unnecessary, as a sudden spray of gunfire tore into the Supreme Hunter, diverting both their attention to the group of Blackwatch soldiers all firing away at the monster. Cross laughed to himself in his mind despite the pain, those men were too loyal to a fault, but he wasn't going to let this final chance of living slip through his fingers. Dive-rolling away from the monstrosity while grabbing the Rocket Launcher, he subconsciously knew that the recoil from firing with only one arm and resulting pain would be a bitch, as he shot the bastard at point-blank range, before losing consciousness while flying backwards, the shouts from his men dimly registered in his mind.
Flashback end
When he woke up, a week after the encounter, he found himself in a safe house that he and those loyal to him had set up on the possibility Blackwatch was compromised in any way. It didn't hurt to be paranoid, seeing as they were talking about a deadly virus that mutates anything it managed to clutch with its invisible tendrils as it spread. His men had done a good job in keeping him stable while he was unconscious, managing to patch him up while amputating a small part of the remaining stump of his arm to prevent infection spread and to stop further blood loss on arrival at the safe house when they recovered him from the Supreme Hunter.
After that, Cross formally dismissed the men, seeing as Blackwatch was now wiped out, good riddance, he thought, so they technically were 'free' as it were. Some stayed to help with the reconstruction process on New York, others left to enjoy the rest of their life. He had to personally kick one of them out who was too clingy to him. He knew they were too loyal to a fault…
He stayed in the safe house for a week after that, recovering slowly from the encounter while getting used to doing things one-handed. It was fortunate that the bastard didn't rip off his RIGHT arm, or else he would have had to gone through a lot of trouble to learn how to do things left-handed.
After this influx of information, Alex stood there contemplating what was going to happen now. Then he realized one vital detail was missing…
"Alright, I get how you survived and all that stuff. But how the HELL did you find me here, and how did you even GET here?'
Cross rolled his eyes, he had a feeling that question was going to come up next.
"Come on, did you really expect me, even if I HAD injected you with the Parasite to make you weaker, to let you just wander about New York unsupervised? A personal project of mine I did in the past is a special nano-bot that allows me to track a person after injecting it into him for six months. It was in the same syringe as the Parasite, by the way. As to how I get here, seeing as you're talking about whatever 'veil' it was, well, the nano-bot doesn't only transmit your location, just so you know. After that, simple matter of a final favor from one of the few competent Blackwatch helicopter pilots amongst those loyal to a god damn bloody fault to me, and here I am."
Alex sweat-dropped slightly, realizing that what Cross said was right about how leaving him unwatched was a VERY bad idea for Blackwatch. He had to hand it to the guy, he was really resourceful…Still, he steeled himself as he still watched Cross warily.
"So…what're you gonna do now, as you said so yourself, Blackwatch is done."
Cross shrugged.
"Who knows? I decided to come and check to see if you weren't doing anything crazy like spreading the virus, Mercer."
At this, Alex snorted.
"Well sorry to disappoint, but like hell that's actually going to happen. You should've known by now that I freaking didn't want to become this. And I think I'm actually gonna enjoy life as it is right now, thank you very much."
Out of all the responses he expected from Cross, the last thing he expected was for him to laugh. He just stood there, blinking in confusion, as Cross laughed for a few minutes, though for what reason, he wasn't fully sure…
Finally composing himself, Cross decided to continue.
"Well at any rate, I'm still gonna stick around for the time being. I sure as hell don't want another frigging incident to happen. AGAIN."
Alex slowly nodded his head; after all, if you were as paranoid (Plague: More like stupidly suspicious to a fault…) as most of Blackwatch, you'd want to keep a close watch on the guy who technically DID cause the damn incident.
"Just for the record, I didn't release the damn virus in the first place. The original Alex did."
"Ya think I'm stupid, Mercer? The original you had a stick up his ass most of the time the few times I met him while he was still working for GENTEK. You're too different to be that bloody jackass. On that note, I have no hostile intentions for you. Following orders and all that crap, especially considering the whole virus thing."
"Fine, but I'm keeping an eye on you…"
"Trust me, the person who's supposed to be doing the watching is me. And just so you know; if I see anything that might hint at you doing something that's crazy as hell OR would spread the virus intentionally…"
"You do realize that is a one-in-a-million chance of actually happening?"
"You never know…well at any rate, I'm going to need a place to sleep, so…"
"Urgh…at this rate, I might as well call my apartment a bloody hotel."
At Cross' inquiring look, he sighed before explaining, "Our apartment currently has me, Dana, three mutated 'pets', a dog, a wolf and an falcon just so you know, another roommate with special…shinobi abilities to say the least, and another who will be bunking in after recovering in hospital who is similar to our other roommate, and then you."
"I take it that there's a situation or condition of sorts for your two other roommates…"
"It's for their safety, and the leader of this village chose me to accommodate them for now since I did save them…"
"Keh, you're REALLY not the original you. You got too much of a bleeding heart."
Cross poked Alex on the chest, above his heart with the electric stick to as if to drive the statement further in, unaware that a certain weird-as-hell green spandex wearing Jounin had seen this.
"I noticed…fine c'mon, but you better not do anything…"
"Don't worry, I'll behave mys-"
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!!!"
"Huh?"
"WHAT THE-?!"
Alex thus bore witness to Cross getting his face kicked by a flying Gai. Cross was now lying flat on the ground, massaging the pain in his face with his only arm while sprouting multiple curses loudly, some in other languages, while Gai took to his nice guy pose, one foot on Cross.
Blink…blink…Alex Mercer, for the first time since he was revived by the Blacklight virus as a new man, cracked and laughed without restraint.
"AHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"
"GO AHEAD AND LAUGH IT UP, WHY DON'TCHA MERCER!!!"
"YOSH, Mercer-san! I have come to help you against this foe!!"
At this, both Cross and Alex, who had stopped his laughter for a moment, faced Gai, an incredulous look on their faces.
"Gai, where the HELL did you get the idea that he's an enemy?"
Gai moved away, unknowingly giving Cross the opportunity for revenge.
"Yosh, as I was passing by, I saw this man poke you with that stick of his, so I assumed that he was going to hurt you! Forgive me if I have misunderstood, Mercer-san!! For this unyouthful action, I will now run one hundred laps around Konoha on my hands!! And failing that, I will do one thousand one-handed push-ups!! And failing tha-BZZZZZZZZZZTT"
Alex dumbly blinked his eyes as he witnessed Cross, having gotten up with a murderous glare, smash his electric stick on Gai's head, which thus resulted in a hilarious show of electricity as Gai's body spasmed in multiple ways, some entertaining positions that would normally be consciously impossible. Miraculously, the electric stick stayed on Gai until Cross pulled it away, leaving Gai charred and burned. Letting out a puff of smoke from his mouth, he laughed feebly while slowly keeling over backwards before smashing onto the ground, unconsciousness already gripping him.
"Don't worry Mercer, I used the stun setting on him…Bastard had it coming for him…"
"…why didn't you use that on me when we fought, then?"
Cross stared at him in disbelief.
"Are you joking? YOU'RE THE STINKING VIRUS REMEMBER?!"
Alex face-palmed himself at how foolish he just made himself into with his earlier statement.
"Forget it, let's just go before Gai wakes up and rants about youthfulness and other crap…"
"…Lemme guess, he's the mandatory idiotic loony that's in a group to provide comic relief."
"You have no idea…though he is a powerful Taijutsu specialist."
"What the hell is that? Wait, never mind, on the way to your apartment, you're explaining everything you know about this whole shinobi business…"
"Fine…alright, let's start with their different specializations…"
At the same time, Land of Fire outskirts…
Fluffy was pleased. It had found many yummy animals and literally gorged itself on them. It was now gnawing away at a particularly large bone it got from a monster-sized bull (Roamer: Don't ask…just DON'T. We had absolutely no idea what to put for this part, ok?!), relishing the taste of it. Suddenly, it became aware of sounds that would not be out of place in a battle. Following the sounds, it cautiously poked its head out to witness a fight in a clearing with a river running along the side. On one side were three Kiri Jounin, all seemingly hell-bent on killing their opponent. This was the strange part, as it seemed to be a kid no more than eleven years old. The only distinct features that Fluffy could make out were the two red dots on his forehead and the white hair. Oh and that bone sword he just pulled out of his arm…wait what?
Fluffy watched curiously as the white-haired kid continued to fight the three Kiri Jounin with an assortment of bone weaponry that he pulled out of his own body. However, it looked as if the kid was going to lose, as he was tiring quickly.
Kimimaro Kaguya gritted his teeth as he parried another blow with a bone sword, but before he could counter, one of the other Jounin tried to take advantage, and he had to jump away from another sword strike. It was just his luck that his clan, being the warmongers they were, had made the brilliant plan of attacking the Mizukage, which brought them only defeat and their lives extinguished. As far as he knew, he was the last one left. Luckily he had escaped before his clan were obliterated, but was tailed by three Mist Jounin. When he attempted to stop and rest, they took their chance and attacked. He was fatigued enough as it was, and he may not survive, but he will be damned if he did not take them down with him.
Suddenly, one of the Jounin surprised him with a sudden punch, knocking him onto his back while his bone sword was dropped in the surprise. Quickly, the other two Jounin moved their swords to ensure his arms couldn't extract any bone weapons from his body while the first Jounin got ready to behead him. Then one of the Kiri Jounin spoke up,
"Now, we will kill you, you affront to nature!!"
Time paused for Fluffy as it dimly registered these words in its brain. Anger and rage soon bubbled within it as it growled. This human dared to call another of his kind an affront to nature, especially a pup?! Fluffy licked its sharp jaws, 'Time to feast on human today…'
Random Kiri Jounin #32 (Plague: What?! Did you expect a number 1 or something?! It's called RANDOM for a reason)paused in mid-stride to kill the Kaguya in front of him when he heard a large roar emanate from some nearby bushes. He and Random Kiri Jounin #81 and 12 turned and got ready to fight whatever wild animal that had foolishly decided to attack them. Of course, they didn't expect a monster that looked heavily necrotized to jump out. So caught up in their shock, the monster had already swiped one of its large claws, the resulting slash cleaved most of the flesh off #81's chest.
The screams of pain finally snapped #32 and 12 out of their stupor as they saw the creature stand over #81's screaming form, grinning menacingly at them. Quickly, #32 jumped back towards the river, flashing through hand seals while #12 dashed away from a wide claw swipe, coming close to decapitating him. Quickly, he took advantage of the small opening and slashed at the beast's arm, but surprise came in the form of the strange bony plates providing surprisingly great resistance against the slash, leaving only a small chip to give any indication of the slash he had just made.
Glancing over his shoulder to see #32 nearly finished, he quickly rolled to the side as the beast smashed the ground where he was standing a few seconds ago. The pure force behind it left a minor shockwave that was felt by the Jounin, leaving him with the thought that if it had made contact, he would have been crushed instantly (Plague: Think of when Leader Hunters try to hit you with an overhead attack. When you still manage to dodge, you still get stunned momentarily). Looking up, he saw the beast turn to face him, just as #32 finished the hand seals.
"Suiton: Water Dragon no jutsu!"
#32 called out as water from the river twisted and shifted before rising up as a long torrent, a vague dragon head with glowing yellow eyes taking form on the end, before it gushed downwards towards the necrotized creature (Plague: Side note, I apologize if I identified the Water Dragon's appearance wrong, but the current one is what I was informed of). At this, the beast roared before making a surprisingly big jump, belying its size, and thrust both of its large claws out, meeting the water dragon head on. There was an explosion of water from the resulting contact of the two great forces, before the creature rocketed back out of the watery explosion, impacting with the ground before it flipped itself upright, raking its claws against the ground to slow its momentum across the ground.
Just as it came to a stop, both Jounin took advantage of this and appeared beside it on opposite sides, and with a single coordinated move, stabbed their swords right between the skeletal plates into the soft flesh of the creature. Of course, they did not expect the spurting amounts of viscous fluid from the stab wounds, distracting them momentarily, the creature roaring more in fury than in pain. It quickly spun about, smashing its claws outwards, succeeding in bowling both Jounin over and away from it. Before the two could recover from the momentary daze from the impact and the pain, the monster had already faced one of them before spewing forth a torrent of sickly looking fluids.
#12 gaped in horror as the fluids made contact with the man, which made short work of him, dissolving his flesh and bones with a nauseating hissing sound, until all that was left of the man ten seconds later was a small pool of the virulent liquids that the monster had spewed out. Then, he was suddenly aware of the creature facing him, its sunken eyes glowing as if in malicious delight. Screaming in fear, he turned tail and tried to flee. 'Tried to' being the keywords, as behind the fleeing man's back, Fluffy had opened his jaws, and from the back of his massive maw, long sharp hook-tipped tendrils shot forwards, impaling the fleeing man in multiple places. Still screaming, the unfortunate man was pulled back, into the opened mouth of the beast…
Finishing its latest meal, Fluffy let out a loud belch, releasing a few sickening body fluids at the same time. It was about to move away before it was suddenly reminded of the child when he coughed violently, blots of red life fluid spilling out of his hand and onto the ground. Facing the white-haired kid, due to its mutation, it could detect a disease of some kind within in the child. At this, Fluffy felt some kind of strange feeling for the child, as he was suffering from a disease and itself wasn't affected by most of the afflictions that were carried within its body. 'Maybe creator has idea…'
Fluffy nudged the child, before seeming to gesture to its back. It took a while, but Kimimaro realized that the creature before him may be helping him. He thought for a moment that maybe the creature would eat him, but he eventually decided that this chance was best taken, before he slowly got on its back. Once securely gripping one of the many spikes on the creature's shoulder blades, he let out a yelp of surprise as it suddenly started moving at a fast pace, heading to an unknown location.
A few minutes later, Orochimaru passed the area, taking dull notice of the Kiri Jounin corpse and the strange pool of what looked like bile, before continuing on while thinking of revenge plans against Konoha, unaware that god-like intervention had just prevented him from adding a Kaguya to his future Oto ranks.
Twenty minutes later, Mercer residence kitchen
Dana hummed to herself as she prepared the food for lunch. Next to her, Fū was helping her, albeit being guided along the process occasionally. She had insisted on helping her, saying that she should, at the very least, help about the house since she was staying here. After some pleading, Dana had caved in, diverting some chores to her at times. It eventually worked out quite favorably, since it got things done faster with two pairs of hands instead of one.
A spike-tipped tail slowly made its way towards a delectable-looking steak, and just as it was about to stab it and make off with it, Dana, without turning her head, snapped her arm out and smacked the tail on its 'head'.
"Gregar, no touching. It isn't even cooked yet. Now please go and find Falzar, she hasn't returned yet."
The tail dipped its 'head', as if in apology, before it turned about and rushed off, Gregar's full form revealing as it rushed out of the kitchen, then out the apartment through the make shift 'pet entrance'. Her face displayed a smirk as she recalled the details behind what happened…
Flashback
"Gregar, Falzar, for the LAST time, stop fighting indoors." Alex sighed as he witnessed the wolf and the falcon in the middle of one of their violent 'quarrels' again. Luckily, they usually restricted their fights in the backroom, which became the pets' unofficial room. Unluckily, however, they still made quite a bit of noise in the meantime, and their nearest neighbors, in other words the two female Jounin that lived across the landing, sometimes came by to complain, but end up watching the interesting fights between the two animals. Alex shuddered for a second in memory of the look the purple-haired one wearing some revealing clothes-Anko, if memory served right-had given him at times.
Shaking his head, he raised his head only to duck immediately afterwards as a rogue boulder-now how did that get in here, Alex wondered-flew right through where his head originally was and smashed into the wall behind him. He got back up, about to berate the two, before a shuddering groan came from the wall. Spinning about, he watched as a section of the wall gave out, tilting outwards and surprisingly stayed in one piece, landing on the ground conveniently like a ramp (Plague: I know, this sounds really ridiculous, but I'm the author).
Dumb silence followed, before Dana walked in and observed the situation, before she added her own two cents.
"Well, this way we won't have any more trouble with getting the pets outside anymore. Now how do we explain this to the Hokage?"
Alex sighed while rubbing the bridge of his nose. He just KNEW having pets were a bad idea…
Flashback end
Sighing to herself, Dana moved to prepare the other dishes, as well as cook the steak for the Beast Duo. She smiled to herself at the thoughts of the 'quarrel' the two would get in over one steak as she got another one ready for after the 'quarrel' was over. She just found their fights just too amusing.
Suddenly, she heard the front door, with sounds of a conversation going on being heard. From what she could make out, Alex and another man were talking about something about shinobi life. It almost seemed as if the unknown man didn't know anything about them, which struck Dana as strange, seeing as they were living in a 'village'-more like a small city, she mused-filled with them. Maybe whoever it was came from the outside, like them, but how did he get here? Dana decided to find out, moving towards the kitchen entrance, Fū looking in the direction of the living room inquisitively, having heard the voices too.
"Alex, who's your-"
Dana spoke before stopping in mid sentence out of shock, her eyes taking in the two figures in the living room. One of them was her brother, Alex. He wasn't the reason of her shock, but the man next to him was. He looked to be in his late thirties, and his left arm only consisted of a stump below his shoulder, wrapped in blood-splotched bandages. He was also wearing what she recognized as a Blackwatch uniform. This registered in her mind for a while before she snapped out of it; a 'blank' look appeared on her face as she approached Alex.
"Ah crap…" Alex mumbled under his breath as he awkwardly tried to shift away. Cross looked at him questioningly, wondering why he was acting like that. He found out a few seconds later when Dana caught up with Alex's attempt to escape and pulled on his ear, bringing it close to her mouth as she proceeded to yell at him.
"ALEX JOSHUA MERCER, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING BRINGING ONE OF THE MILITARY INTO OUR HOUSE?!?! AND WHY AREN'T YOU BEATING THE HELL OUT OF HIM?!?!"
After that ear-splitting statement, she proceeded to rage into Alex's ear as Cross chuckled at his expense. After about five minutes, she finally stopped her rant, taking a deep breath at the same time, Alex sticking his finger in his ear to try and get rid of the temporary deafness. Now feeling calmer than earlier, she turned back to Alex before speaking her mind.
"Alex. Explanation. Now."
"*sigh* Alright…let's start all the way from the beginning."
Thus, Alex proceeded to use the next ten minutes to explain the whole thing to Dana, how Cross was the Contact that assisted him in his mission, how the Supreme Hunter had taken him and his squad by surprise, and ended with him arriving in Konoha. Dana took a few seconds to process this information, before glaring at Alex again.
"If that's so, then I suppose you would be so kind to explain how you're ABSOLUTELY sure he isn't lying!?"
"Because I'm pretty sure about that, and he DID help us in the end."
"Even then, what's stopping him from just backstabbing you literally with another parasite?!"
"Actually, nothing is, but I'll be damned if I fall for THAT again!"
Soon, they started another infamous sibling quarrel, pointedly ignoring the man next to them who was the main topic of their argument. Cross simply shook his head, realizing that this would take a while…Suddenly, a low sound akin to a scream reached his ears. Startled, he turned towards the windows where another scream, this time more distinct, was heard. Slowly, he made his way to look, while dimly noticing that the two Mercers were still arguing, and thus both did not seem to have heard the screams. When he finally saw what the cause of the screaming was through the windows, his face suddenly schooled itself into 'military alert mode'.
"Mercer, you're absolutely SURE that you didn't infect anything other than those pets of yours?"
Puzzled at the sudden question, Alex diverted his attention from his argument with Dana to face Cross, but seeing the expression on his face, he quickly made his way to him, while replying,
"I'm pretty sure about that, why do you-"
When he got to the window, he immediately understood the reason behind Cross' inquiry.
Outside, chaos reigned on the streets as large grotesque humanoid creatures wrecked the surroundings, civilians screaming here and there as they tried to escape, while shinobi of various ranks tried their best to stall the creatures' destructive path to varying degrees of success. In the distance, vague sounds indicated that this scene was being repeated through many parts of Konoha. As Alex took this all in, his eyebrow started twitching madly as he thought,
'Great…just GREAT. First Cross suddenly 'comes back from the dead'; now Hunters suddenly appear in Konoha and are wrecking the place!'
Quickly, he turned and faced Dana and Fū, who had left the kitchen to find out what the commotion was, while Cross was already rushing out the door with his electric stick already in hand and sparking, while readying to Tendril Shift out the window.
"Dana, contact Falzar and Gregar, and get them to assist in any way they can. And tell them that they use lethal force against these guys! Fū, I want you to stay here with Dana and keep her company."
Without looking for confirmation, he turned his attention back to the Hunters wrecking Konoha before Tendril Shifting, readying his Blade, while a final thought came before focusing on killing the Hunters,
'I never seem to get a damn break around here…'
Plague: YES I am finally done!! AHAHAHAHAH!!
Roamer: Plague's starting to take a liking to cliffhangers…
Plague: But they're so FUN!!
Roamer: …No comment…
Plague: ANYWAY review at your own leisure, and please try to make a constructive one so that I have an idea what to improve! Oh and for those who mentioned that Alex is getting a bit over-powered already, well, you haven't seen anything yet!!
Roamer: She's half-tempted to bring back the Supreme Hunter just for the heck of it, but we still haven't decided, so don't bother theorizing how it is coming back. Oh yes, and new trivia question:
What is the relation between Alex's first and second name (just so you know, the second name we put here is non-canon, but he does have a J. in his name)? Also state the game this relation came from.
Plague: Now then OMAKE!!
OMAKE
There were few things that truly irked Cross, and what he was currently experiencing was unfortunately one of them.
"For the LAST time, Mercer, STOP POKING ME!! I'M THE REAL BLOODY DEAL!!"
"I need to be sure you aren't the Supreme Hunter."
"And you need to poke me repeatedly?!"
"That; and it seems like Dana was right when she said it was fun to poke people repeatedly."
Eye twitching madly, he quickly swung his electric stick in Alex's direction. Unfortunately, he had foreseen this and had ducked, and instead of making contact with Alex as intended-
"Ohayo, Ale- BZZZZZZZZZZTT"
-it hit Kakashi who had just Body Flickered next to Alex's place, nose buried in his little orange book, which resulted in another humorous display of electricity as Kakashi unknowingly underwent the same process that his 'eternal rival' had just a few minutes ago. Once Cross finally took away his stick, Kakashi's uniform and visible skin were noticeably charred, while his book had somehow disintegrated due to the electricity. Of course, Kakashi could not react in the normal manner if someone destroyed his books, as he was sent off to la-la land after collapsing into a heap on the ground. Alex and Cross both looked at the twitching man on the ground, before facing each other.
"…Let's keep moving, you don't wanna be around when he wakes up and realizes his book is destroyed…"
"…I take it that the book is really important to him…"
"You have absolutely no idea…"