A/N: All of the Author's Notes for today's release of 4 chapters were all written a few weeks ago. As such, they don't reflect my current state of mind.

And now... the Christmas release! Chapters 21-24, here we come.

A/N: Still trying. Yeah, writer's block is being a little more persistent this time for some reason.

[21]

The moment I got close to him, the Director moved out of the way. I tried and tried, but it was clear something had overcome him. Fear of death? Or was it Greene's control, again?

"Hey, PARIAH, I thought you wanted to be free of your mother!"

"I do!"

"Then what the fuck are you doing?"

"She's controlling me again!"

"... Get over here!" I switched my right arm into a Whipfist and threw it out to latch onto the Director. It never connected. The Director was a lot faster than I could hope to be, and all I had left was the truck.

An old, rickety truck plus two crazy superhuman freaks plus off-road conditions meant something was bound to go wrong.

Did I drive the truck? No. Did I throw the truck? Not entirely. What I did do, though, was rip the tailgate off and bend it into a very sharp blade. And then I bulked up my arms and threw it as hard as I could.

It stuck, point down, into the ground after passing through the Director's torso. I started running and readying my blade-arm.

I watched as the Director ripped the tailgate-turned-javelin out of his stomach and threw it at me. Instinctively I formed my shield and felt it bounce off, but when I drew my shield away from my body, the Director was gone.

And then I felt blood flowing down my side. The Director was next to me, slashing away at my unprotected right side with a large amount of vicious tendrils.

I jabbed my elbow blade into his face, and then flung the Director into the air, where I would keep him until I could consume him.

It was a bit harder than I thought it would be at first. I could tell the Director was trying to resist Greene's control, but at least for now, he could not control himself.

And then came the surprising turn of events. The Director ripped the gas tank out from the truck and doused himself in diesel.

"Light me on fire, Doctor!"

I didn't have any matches, and I didn't have time to rip out the starter motor and battery from the truck.

Think, Alex. What would Cross do?

I would throw a rock at you, Mercer.

Okay, fine. What would Nathan do?

I would crack a joke about "import matches".

No, no Python jokes. What would the Hunter do?

I would say "Fuck you, honey" to get Greene's attention.

Good idea.

"Hunter says, 'Fuck you, honey!'"

The Director stopped, but only after he had gracefully faceplanted into the hard Nevada desert. I took the chance to draw my blade-arm and launch myself into the air. While the Director was getting up, I brought my arm down over his back, slamming him back into the ground. I set my tendrils to work immediately.

I jammed my tendrils into the Director, sucking biomass away to make him weak so Greene could not use the Director's strength against me any further.

"Just finish me off, Doctor. Greene will try to save herself and let me go right before you kill me."

"And what happens if she doesn't?"

"You'll have enough power to command Blackwatch on your own."

"That's your job."

"No. Once you kill me, it's yours. Greene won't be able to control you, and she only controls the soldiers through me. You can bring Blackwatch's power against her."

I thought about it for a moment. If I killed the Director, I could actually use Blackwatch to catch Greene and take her down?

Believe the Director this time, Mercer. I definitely felt Greene's power slightly diluted by something when I was being controlled, and I've got a sneaking feeling it was the Director.

Great. I'm going to have one more person in my head talking back to me.

...Wait a minute. I can't reveal my face to Blackwatch. How do I justify all of this?

"I can't show my face to Blackwatch, Director. How would I command Blackwatch?"

"The same way I've commanded Blackwatch for 34 years."

"Which is...?"

"Do everything in writing. Or e-mail."

"That easy?"

"Yes, Doctor. Now kill me and get it over with. I want to see Greene dead, and you standing over me and not killing me isn't speeding things up."

I dug my tendrils in a bit further. "Promise to help me out once I've consumed you?"

"Promise."

And then I ended his life and consumed the still-warm corpse.

Ya there, Director?

Here, Doctor.

Hey there, son.

Dad?

Leave the teary reunion for another time, you two.

Agreed. Mercer's right, we should get going on Greene's trail.

Director, you know where she is?

She's in Canada, if I'm not mistaken.

...Great. Where in Canada? It's the second largest country in the world.

She's probably on the run. Luckily she can't kill people and get away with it like I can.

Oh, almost forgot... You know what your ability is, Director?

Ability?

Cross can mind control people, the Hunter can modify people's memories, Nathan has a knack for systems... What can you do?

...Uh, I remember I brought this person back to life once. But he was infected after I resurrected him.

So you can bring people back to life?

Once I've consumed them.

That means I can bring you guys back to life.

Wait, what? Alex, are you kidding?

From the looks of it, it's probably possible to do it. But where is Greene?

She was last in the Yukon Territory, Doctor.

Are you comfortable, Director?

I will be, once we're all out of this mess. And I'd rather you call me PARIAH. Makes me feel less formal.

And when tomorrow rolls around...there'll be plenty of soldiers with hangovers to deal with. Or can I just leave them be?

I wouldn't trust them on their own, Doctor... but if that's what needs to be done, that's what needs to be done. I don't think you should take a transport, so do you have anything else to get around on?

There's the motorcycle that I took with me from Hope.

Eh... Alex, you left it in Phoenix. In storage. And you put the key somewhere. I don't think I was paying attention when you put it away.

Well, then... that means it's probably in the office with the other twenty million keys. Please tell me you can look into my memories and figure out which one it is, Hunter...

I'll look through your memories when you're not driving. Don't want to risk crashing now, do we?

Right. Now, let's get started, shall we?

It was a few days before things quieted down again at Area 51 enough for me to leave.

If I wanted to use PARIAH's ability to bring Nathan and Cross and the Hunter back into real life, I would need a lot of biomass. New York City was probably the easiest place for me to get biomass from, so I started the trek to Phoenix to pick up the motorcycle.

It took a day to reach Phoenix, even at a full sprint. I decided not to take the highways, as I have an unfortunate tendency to leave potholes where I step. Crossing the canyon systems of the Colorado was an interesting challenge, but not too difficult.

There was an unexpected obstacle when I reached Phoenix. Apparently the storage place I had rented out a space at was part of a police investigation, so I couldn't get what I needed. Yet at the same time, I wasn't comfortable with killing a police officer so I could get the motorcycle out.

I was faced with a few choices: take out the military ID I still had with me and force my way in, wait out the investigation and risk too much time, or continue on without the bike and the useful anti-Blacklight bullets the rifle inside carried.
I decided to wait. I could return to Area 51 and have more anti-Blacklight rounds made, but I expected the police investigation to move out of the way soon enough.

The police investigation stayed there for a month. An entire month. I forced myself to resist the urge to consume civilians left and right and decided against asking Cross to use his mind control to help me retrieve the motorcycle.

I decided to return to Area 51 after another week and signed off a transport for myself. I gave myself the job of moving the machine I had shipped out to Blackwatch's secondary base in Maryland back to Area 51.

The machine was fixed by the time I arrived, and a few soldiers helped me lift the machine into the back of the transport. Some of the soldiers crowded into the back and hooked themselves up to the machine with the needles on the outside.

One, after a while, disconnected it and asked where the blood supplier was.

PARIAH, what is this guy talking about?

Usually I'm the one who shows up and transfers some blood to these guys, but if you want to do it, go ahead.

What does this do?

It's used to strengthen my link with each individual soldier. Like a brain and all of its limbs.

So it gives you better control over the soldiers?

Yeah. But it's all yours now.

Okay, great. That means I get to donate a massive amount of blood.

"I'm the blood supplier."

The soldiers was a bit surprised, but then motioned to me to follow him into the back of the transport. He waved me into the inside of the machine.

PARIAH took over for me and hooked me up to the machine. As the machine started to draw blood, I leaned back and felt another prick on the back of my neck.

There was no needle there. The feeling came from the soldier who had asked me earlier when he jabbed his needle into the back of his neck.

So this just links every Blackwatch soldier to you?

Ordinarily, yes. You felt that slight prick, right?

Just then, I suddenly saw through the eyes of each soldier connected to the machine.

This is going to be fun, I can tell already.

I'll try and keep it from overwhelming you, Doctor, but you'll need to do this with every single soldier in Blackwatch. Once you've done that, they'll do anything you want them to do. Just don't abuse it, please. It took me years to establish it as a convenient way of handling Blackwatch, and it wouldn't do well to break it now.

I decided to explain to the soldiers connected to the machine the whole story. It conveniently took time up until the blood transfusion was finished.

As the soldiers disconnected from the machine, a few looked inside at me. I reverted to my familiar form and looked back at them.

Eventually, one soldier spoke up.

"So you really are Alex Mercer?"

I let out a noncommittal grunt.

"MOTHER's been alive this whole time? You didn't klll her in Times Square?"

"I killed a decoy. PARIAH's been under her control up till about a month ago, so technically Blackwatch has been under her control this entire time. She forced me to kill three of my allies and PARIAH."

"And now you want to kill her for real. Not a decoy this time."

"I need Blackwatch's help, though."

"You have me whenever you need me, Director."

"I'd prefer not to think of myself that way."

"ZEUS?"

"Just Alex is fine."

"Alex. Do you need anything?"

"A solution to this mess."

[/21]

A/N: This is seriously turning into a circus of random quotes that's getting way out of hand. Someone, please give me a bonk over the head or something. Or leave a review insulting my inability to write something coherent and structured. That should get me working again.

Post-release A/N: Yes, disposable voiced soldier. No, he's temporary. Yes, it gets better. No, Alex doesn't run things from Nevada.