A Dream of Armageddon
Ragland had been nervous. More than nervous, actually, he had been high-strung ever since he had discovered the map. A map that shouldn't have been there.
Somebody had figured out where he was, and more importantly- where Alex spent time. His morgue wasn't as safe as he had thought. After Alex had left, he had locked everything down and taken the gun, had waited for three hours.
Nothing. Logically speaking, if Blackwatch had their eyes on him, then they would have stormed the moment Alex was gone.
But nobody turned up. Two more hours later and Ragland had to realize that whoever had put the map here just wanted Alex, but hadn't been interested in him. He still kept the gun, though, put it into a drawer at his desk, before going to check up on the girl.
Several hours had passed at this point, and he had been summoned upstairs a few times to help the actual doctors with the treatment of their patients. With the lack of personnel, he couldn't blame them nor deny their requests.
It was a good cover story, though- if he was actually witnessed helping around the hospital, then nobody was going to suspect he had a secret patient confined downstairs inside the morgue. Though it did mean he had to walk a lot of stairs to avoid getting stuck in the elevator. The things I do for these kids...
His neck crawled when he noticed the door was no longer locked, though asides from him, who had a key, he could only think of one other person who could unlock it to get inside. And his suspicion was proofed to be correct when he spied a hooded form through the glass window of his office.
"Hello Ragland", the newcomer spoke up when the coroner walked into his realm. Ragland sighed and headed to the small quarters, head inclined to the side.
"Good to see you back, Alex", he mentioned. "So- what was this about?"
"I'm not sure", was the reply, and the doctor was taken back by the lack of tone in his voice. Something had occurred, he noticed, something he had to think about first and/or was unwilling to share. He wasn't going to make him, if he wanted to tell him, then he was going to do so eventually.
Meanwhile, Alex's fingers moved over the IV drip next to Dana's head, tugging carefully at the tubes. "Hydration?" He asked.
"Yes", the doctor replied, leaning against the door frame. Somehow, he was glad not having to dwell on the unspoken questions. "She was dehydrated, and while the swallowing reflex is there, I didn't want to risk accidentally choking her."
"Thank you" The younger gently brushed his fingers through the woman's hair, before he turned to the coroner. "I shouldn't stick around", he pointed out in what seemed to be a defeated tone. "Blackwatch has tech that allows them to track me. And this map..." he trailed off, unwilling to continue. Ragland still picked up the meaning. Somebody had brought this map here, so they had known that Alex was around. Even though nothing had happened today, he couldn't be certain it would remain that way. It would be safer if he wouldn't stay here.
"What are you going to do?"
"Stop Greene. Stop the Infection. Stop Blackwatch", was the answer. He paused, shoulders slumping. "And after that? I don't know." He glanced back at his younger sister, silent for a bit. The coroner could see the conflict on his face. Remain here with the only one who actually meant something to him, or leave to protect her? A tough decision. "Tell me", he suddenly spoke up, "What have you done when you were still at Gentek?"
Ragland's eyebrows shot up as he considered the question. "I did a lot at Gentek- what do you mean?"
"Blacklight"
Ah. So that's the reason. The coroner huffed out, sitting down on his couch. "I told you I was trying to find a way to end diseases. Cancer, HIV...I wanted to make the world a better place."
"By using Redlight?"
"Its abilities were interesting. It was able to rewrite living tissue, active DNA within a very short amount of time. But it could not be brought into any desired form, too varied the mutations. So Gentek created Blacklight, an offshoot of Redlight and tried it again." He sighed. "The effects were...impressive. It could gain whatever genetic traces we wanted. For a time, we thought we could use it to eradicate plagues by simply rewriting the human genome to improve the immune system."
"And then you left."
"Yes. Because I found out what Raymond was doing. He had been working close with somebody, Blackwatch I know now. The project started to turn into the directions of developing weapons. Human weapons." He looked at the younger. "You see, if you were able to change the human genome, why just stop at making them resistant to diseases? Project Blacklight soon became something that would mutate living humans, bend them to the will of their handlers and make them weapons that could be employed against whatever they wanted. When I learnt of it, I instantly reached in my resignation. This was something I wanted to have no part in."
"But they continued. Even without you."
"Yes, I know", Ragland huffed out, "We tried to play God. And the city is paying the price."
"Eighty percent are infected now", Alex added. "2.4 million people. All dead."
"I should have tried to stop Raymond", Ragland replied tired. "But I guess all of us had been blind to the threat that was Redlight."
Alex made a sound and cocked his head. "Did you know of Elizabeth Greene?"
Ragland shook his head. "I didn't", he replied truthfully. "Hadn't known of her until you told me. If I had..." He furrowed his brows. "Wouldn't have made a difference, I think. Gentek and Blackwatch had thought this too important. If I had said anything, I guess I'd be dead already."
"Probably" Alex glanced at him for a moment as if thinking about saying anything more, but then decided against it and simply turned away. "Stay safe, Ragland."
Leaving his only ally and Dana behind had been a very hard decision. Originally, he had come back to make sure Blackwatch hadn't taken them- but once he had seen both of them unharmed, he had realized that the only threat to them around was him. Blackwatch was after him, not them. And as long he stayed near them, he was always going to drag them into his problems. Leaving them had been his only choice to ensure their safety, though it took away every last thing from him he still possessed. Dana's safehouse was gone, no longer secure after the Leader Hunter had attacked. He had only dared to return there once to gather supplies and take them to Ragland's morgue, which now no longer served as a place to stay either.
So he had found his way to the Central Park Zoo and was now sitting on a bench near the sea lion exhibits. It was empty, as was the entire zoo. The animals had long since gotten eaten by the Infected, so now they no longer held any interest in this place, making it the most secure place at the moment, allowing him some peace until he had found another place to stay.
Did he need a safehouse, however? He had no requirements for human necessities, didn't need food or water or even sleep. He could keep on going for days, hunt down the scientists and any affiliated parties of Blackwatch without slowing down or pausing.
He just wasn't sure whether he really wanted to, though. After the revelation that he wasn't human at all, he was just afraid that he might find more things that he would rather have not known. And while being more enlightened than he had been and having some of his abilities put into perspective, he couldn't deny that it made him feel betrayed. Betrayed out of what he had thought was a life, an identity.
He lifted his hand, tendrils squirming across it to twist it into his claw. His bones, his flesh, the entire structure shifted. Because there wasn't a person beneath, just the virus. Alex Mercer had never been more than another act the virus played in an attempt to be human. But he had learnt the truth, had found the secrets beneath. Had discovered that Alex Mercer was just as real now as James Goodwin, or Armand Helden. Nothing more than a disguise to hide his true nature.
Why was he still using Alex's face then? Why did he return to it every time he shifted, even by accident?
The answer was: Because it was easy. Everybody else he had consumed and could become were just acts. Complete pictures, personas he imitated. It was just as easy as breathing for him to do so, but he was always feeling...well, trapped inside that role. It wasn't him, and he had to constantly remind himself to keep acting it, no matter what he was thinking. But Alex Mercer was a blank canvas. There were some markers, some bits and pieces that gave a rough outline, but everything else was open to imagination. That was why he kept returning to this form.
It was him, not only Alex, but his own identity now too. Kind of funny, really. A virus dressing up as a human, attempting to appear as something it was not.
Though if he wasn't human, then hunting down Blackwatch wasn't exactly inhuman, wasn't it? Just karmic retribution. They had a hand in creating him, tried using him as a weapon, so a weapon he was going to be. Just weapons could be turned on their creators too. And hunting Blackwatch to make sure nothing like this ever happened again gave him something to do.
He also still needed information. Greene was out there, somewhere on the island, and he had not only manage to find her, but also find a way to stop her. He had to learn all he could about Bloodtox, about the Supersoldiers, about the plans Blackwatch was making.
Because Blackwatch kept an eye on the Infection. They would know where Greene was and how to lure her out.
How do you get the attention of the officer? You kill all of his men.
This was all he could do. Wipe out the Infection the old-fashioned way by killing its carriers. Unravel all of the secrets Blackwatch surrounded itself with. It gave him something to occupy his mind with. He wasn't human, he couldn't change anything about it anyways. He glanced at his hands, letting his claws shift into place as the memories of a hundred dead men picked up in intensity, half-formed fears and terrors at the sight of those talons that rendered so many of them to pieces. It always grew bad when he was fighting, but when he had nothing to do, the constant whispering was way worse.
He couldn't silence all those voices. But he could damn well drown them out with the riot of battle.
As the sunset dyed the sky in bright red colors, the Hive Mind was in uproar. Starting from the Central Park Zoo, Alex had assaulted every Hive along the Eastside he could find. He had devastated four large ones, several smaller Hives, countless infected water towers and killed thousands of Infected while at it. In between each Hive, he had looked for carriers, had swooped down into the street to kill them, or consume them if he hadn't gotten enough prey around the Hives to power his attacks. The Hive was screeching in agony at the loss of so many, and more than once he had heard Greene's wails echo through the Hive Mind.
It always brought a grim smirk to his face when he heard it. She had taken his family, so he was going to take hers in return. One by one.
An Apache overhead took his attention, and Alex instantly dove for a derelict couch somebody had dragged on this roof to have any type of weapon to throw at the chopper. But it pulled away without paying attention to him, and he relaxed a little. But he was in a dangerous area. There was a base not even three blocks away from his current location, and Marines were swarming the streets.
Something rang.
Alex jumped slightly, then instantly looked around. It wasn't the beep of an UAV that was betraying his position, but rather...a phone?
Nobody seemed to react, though that was when he realized that the normal humans were unable to hear it from the street, because the ringing was coming from the backside of a billboard. He approached it, frowning at the phone stuck there with duct tape. Who in the world would stick a phone here?
Sound familiar? It should. You are not human. You are the Blacklight virus.
With a deep growl, he ripped it off and mashed down the answer button with more force than necessary.
"The fuck was that?!" He snapped before the other could say anything.
"A warning", his contact replied without missing a beat.
"You sent me into a fucking trap!"
"You survived, didn't you? If you hadn't then I'd be sorely overestimating your abilities."
Alex ground his teeth together audibly. Joy, his inside contact was an asshole. But then again, so was he, so he probably deserved it. "Tell me", he snarled, "What was this about?"
"You've seen what Blackwatch will try to employ against you."
"D-Codes. Bloodtox."
"Yes" The tone was definitely disgusted, Alex noticed. "D-Codes. You know where these fucks come from? When Greene got out, Blackwatch decided to pump a bunch of guys full of highly infectious steroids, see what'll happens."
"Virus?"
"Your little brothers, if you want it that way. DX-1120, another charge originating from your strain. Seemed to work, but this stuff is only three weeks old. There's no saying what'll happen in the future."
Alex growled. "They couldn't stop me."
"They aren't supposed to stop you. They're supposed to slow you down for the heavy weapons and point out your position."
"And the Bloodtox?"
"Causes necrosis in infected tissues. You probably have already noticed it."
"Yeah."
"And this is what I want to talk to you about. Right now, Blackwatch's only motivation is fielding the weapon as far and wide as possible. They're already moving to blanket the island with it, and once they've got you boxed in, they'll move in for the kill." The voice was silent for a moment, before there was a snort. "But they underestimated your adaptation. Redlight will grow immune to it sooner or later, you way before that. We need it however to stop Greene."
"So I'll stop them from spreading the stuff everywhere?"
"Exactly. Break their grip on southern Manhattan before they can expand their coverage radius. Any questions?"
"Yes. Who are you?"
"Stop them before they ruin our only chance in killing this infection. And keep that damn phone with you, I'm not going to try to figure out where you're going to show your face next."
The guy cut the connection. Alex snorted and glared at the phone, then roughly shoved it into his pocket.
Southern Manhattan, huh?
Finding the Bloodtox pumps was easy. Coming from downwind, Alex had quickly noticed the itchy feeling again that came from the gas eating away at his surface. Getting on a roof was the easiest choice to avoid it, though there he was in danger of getting spotted by one of the circling helicopters.
He kept close to the walls and inside the shade because of it, steadily switching his attention between them and the pumps on the ground. Three containers were on either side of the construction, each designed to be easily switched out in case it ran empty. More of them had been stacked inside a truck, so they'd be able to spray this stuff for quite a time. The Hive nearby was already withering, the ground covered with dead or dying Infected.
Effective, he had to admit, but like all diseases, Redlight was going to grow immune. And if they were going to use it to lure Elizabeth Greene out of her hiding, then he couldn't allow the virus to build up tolerances.
I hope I'm doing the right thing...
He switched to the Musclemass, headed over to the nearest air conditioner and yanked it out to chuck it with full force at the Bloodtox pump down below.
The situation escalated immediately.
"Fuck!" Somebody shouted, "It's ZEUS!"
"It took out Pump number three!"
Pump three, huh? Alex lunged to the side, avoiding a Javelin missile that tore into the building he was on. Gotta find out how many of them there are.
The gas was thinning as it was not confined inside a building like the last time, though he didn't trust his Whipfist to not break from the necrotic effects. He switched to the thermal vision, seconds before he catapulted himself off his perch and right down into the thick of battle. His paws closed around the closest Blackwatch goon and he rocketed right off the ground, dragging the man with him. He had held his breath for this short moment, so his lungs weren't burning at the moment. His skin however was still crawling, though thankfully a lot less than it had so the day before. His contact with the Bloodtox hadn't been long enough to do any real damage, though it was still unpleasant.
At the very least, he had enough Biomass to spare and fresh one to consume.
He glanced at the guy he had captured, then simply crushed his throat to kill him. His tendrils surged out, grabbed the corpse and twisted every last cell into Blacklight matter to add to his own mass in a tangle of flesh and matter. Memories flashes in front of his eyes, another life, another personality to add to his ever-growing list of personas he could be.
The blow hit him completely unprepared.
Alex was sent careening across the roof to smash into the roof exit, hard enough to break the bricks. His body was still shifting from including the soldier's mass, so he was pretty sure his tendrils snatched up and swallowed up some of the stones as well.
He snarled and freed himself, swinging around to face whoever had dared to tackle him. Two D-Codes.
Alex ducked lower, one arm flattening to his Blade. These guys were like tanks, so he was going to treat them like tanks.
One of them came at him, fist shooting to the front with far more power than a human had any right to. Alex got his Blade in front of his body to absorb the blow, then kicked one leg out to shatter the guy's knee. The man dodged nimbly, seconds before his buddy chucked an air conditioner right at Alex's face. Well, now he knew how the other guys always felt for the split moment they were still alive before the weight crushed them. But he wasn't as fragile as them.
The damaged unit was blown apart when he freed himself, summoning his Armor in the same moment. Agility be damned if he kept losing his footing.
He lunged to the front, cracking the roof he was on as he shot towards the first of the D-Codes. The Supersoldier made a grab for him to stop him, though Alex veered off course the next moment and smashed into the second guy, who hung back. His weight and the speed he had been going at threw the brick house of Blackwatch goon off balance, long enough for Alex to whirl around and slammed his outstretched leg against the side of his throat. This sort of attack would normally take off a Walker's head, though this guy just crashed to the ground heavily. He would recover soon enough, though he was out for the moment.
More than enough to deal with the other guy. Alex already killed three of them. They were tougher than even Hunters, but not as tough as Leader Hunters, and they shared the same weak spots.
He went for the guy's neck again.
The D-Code ducked to the side, letting Alex overshoot his target, though it was just a matter of changing his trajectory with an air-dash. He slammed into the guy from behind, Blade burrowing deep through the man's chest. The giant choked, but to give him credit, he didn't reel over and died like anybody else would have. His massive hands grabbed Alex's shoulders and he basically flipped him over his head and crashed him into the ground, yanking the bloodied Blade free in the process. Alex twisted instantly, whipped around as soon the guy let go of him and lunged to the side to get his free hand under his chest, then pushed off to flip himself back to his feet. The maneuver was something his Armor hindered him from, though he was still quick enough to avoid the steel-toed boot coming down where his head had been just a moment ago.
Fine, they thought they knew all of his tricks? They had no clue what they were up against. Alex snorted and dug his Blade into the roof, channeling his Biomass all throughout the surface. He was starting to feel faint from stretching himself that far, but he needed to cover a lot of ground without resorting to a Devastator.
And anyways, giant black spikes were giant black spikes. When they tore from the ground, the two D-Codes were ripped to pieces. Alex pushed some more Biomass into his Groundspikes for a moment, watching for any sign of movement. When he saw none, he pulled himself back and went over to the two bodies. Eight Bloodtox Pumps were left and he should hurry, though he was more interested in the Supersoldier's physical structure at the moment.
The first thing he noticed was the metal. Metal sheets beneath their skins, reinforcing important areas around their bodies. A normal human wouldn't have survived this sort of invasive surgery. These guys did, because of the virus in their bloodstream.
A virus...that was an offshoot of his own strain? Blacklight was a DX-1118 variant, he knew. So were those D-Codes what Blacklight was supposed to become? He couldn't imagine why anyone would be wanting to exist in this form voluntarily. These men weren't human anymore; anybody with a bit of brain would be able to tell. And according to the men he consumed, there were more than one hundred and fifty of them. So many men, all of them having voluntarily turned into something that clearly did not belong into this world. He didn't have so much troubles since he could easily hide his nature, but they couldn't.
He ground his teeth together and glanced at the Blackwatch troops that were still congregating at the base of the building, staring up. They had taken everything from him, were twisting the rules of nature at their very whim.
They were going to pay.
He spun around and grabbed the bodies of the two D-Codes, then simply threw them down to the men's level before stepping up to show himself.
He could feel their terror mount as soon he came into sight in his shiny black carapace. Supersoldiers had been specially designed to fight him hand-to-hand; yet he had beaten them, no wonder these guys got thrown out of the loop.
The moment however was fleeting, and he quickly heard them yell for air support. He snorted and ducked away, pulled back his shell to leap across the street and get between one of the high towering buildings. By the time the strike team came knocking, he would be already halfway across Midtown.
He didn't stick around. He still had eight more Pumps to destroy, so he couldn't bother with Apaches. This was why Alex headed to the one Bloodtox team that was currently furthest away from his position. Diverse their attention all over the area and their coverage would become inadequate.
At least for the first few. After that, they would concentrate on the remaining teams, as Randall himself declared the pumps as top priority. It wasn't going to be easy, but Alex didn't want to leave even a single pump standing.
And if he could destroy some of those D-Codes while at it, then he was going to do so.
When the fifth pump had fallen victim to a crashing Apache, Blackwatch was thrown into turmoil. Their aggression had jumped up dramatically, but bullets couldn't stop Alex and he took care to never stay in their line of vision until he had found the pump, gotten his hands on any projectile big and heavy enough to damage the obstacle and lined up a shot.
Without his shell, he was easier to damage with explosive ammunition, but his increased speed and agility outweighed this disadvantage. Pump three had been installed on top of a fifty-story apartment building complex. Alex had grabbed a cab off the street and sprinted up the facade with such a speed he utterly took the two D-Codes and the half dozen Blackwatch goons by surprise. They hadn't even time to react when he shot straight skywards with his projectile still hefted over his head. He took out the pump and four of the men with the car, then proceeded with chopping one of the D-Codes in half with a brutal overhead swing delivered with his Blade. The other had gotten his act together faster than the two Blackwatch soldiers had, so Alex had been faced with the guy's wrath. He had ended getting pile-driven into the apartment below the roof, just like back when he fought that Leader Hunter, though unlike the beast, the Supersoldier remained nimble and agile even in the cramped quarters, much to his chagrin.
But, like the Leader, the D-Code also didn't manage to survive when Alex punched a hole through his upper torso, utterly eliminating his skull and neck with his small Devastator (which he called 'Critical Pain Devastator'), then consumed him simply out of spite. It maybe hadn't been his smartest choice, because of the other D-Code he already had consumed the day before, there was simply too much metal floating around inside his Biomass, constantly colliding with each other and seriously hampering his movement. And unlike the people and even most of their clothes, metal and plastic was not compatible with Blacklight.
On the positive side, he had figured out that Blacklight was quite skilled at rejecting unwanted substances to increase its own efficiency. But it still twisted something on his inside as he witnessed large parts of himself turn into a half-fluid mess that pushed out and discarded chewed metal plates, bullets and fragments, buttons, even fake teeth. Just another reminder that he wasn't who he thought he was.
It left a bad taste in his mouth, though at the same time he knew perfectly well that there was nothing he could do about it. Crying over it wouldn't help him in any ways, nor would it stop Greene and Blackwatch. He had to work with what he had, going step for step.
And the current objective was to take out the remaining Bloodtox Pumps. Alex had toyed with the idea of snatching one of the Apaches and rain hellfire down on them, though there were entirely too many soldiers with missile launchers around and in locations not easily picked up from the sky. He would probably lose his chopper before even getting close, which was why approaching the teams on foot was the better alternative.
He was currently standing on a tall roof and glanced down, focusing on the pump on the ground. The soldiers around hadn't noticed him. Yet.
Time to change this.
Alex ducked down and coiled the muscles in his legs, switching to the Musclemass in the same process. His body buffed up dramatically, and he could feel the mass inside his lower extremities start to curl together.
He waited until the pressure almost got too much, then let go.
He rocketed at least twenty stories straight upwards, adding nearly half the total height of the building he had been on within seconds. The acceleration alone would have killed a human, but Alex barely felt it. Instead, he turned his attention back downwards, where the dense Bloodtox cloud was almost swallowed by the sheer distance he had to it. He ground his teeth together and shifted his position slightly. At the apex of his jump, his Armor had crawled over his body and his upwards force finally petered out.
He gave off a powerful burst of air- and hurled his own body downwards. His tough carapace reduced the air draft extremely, so he shot downwards like a missile. The kinetic energy he build up was given off the very moment he hit the street- and the interesection simply stopped to exist. Alex himself was hurled all the way through the ground to the subway tube, where his body finally stopped. Despite the Armor, he was completely wrecked. His shell had shattered, leaving black and red tendrils crawling all around him frantically to fix his body. Every motion hurt, but only for a few moments until he pulled the chitinous carapace back and redistributed the mass to fix himself back together. His biology had the advantage that even such crippling injuries didn't really matter to him. It was just a matter of pushing everything back into place. He barely lost any mass too, not like with a Devastator.
Much like in humans, the pain he was experiencing was just a signal of his body that his current shape was damaged or that something was wrong. But unlike humans, Alex had no problem switching the pain off, as it wouldn't make any sense for a virus to actually feel pain.
Currently the Bloodtox was seeping down to him, being denser than air meant that it readily flooded into the hole he had torn. Alex snorted and shot back to the surface and out of the toxic cloud. In this area was nothing left alive anyways. His Bulletdive Drop had utterly devastated pretty much everything around, so there was no reason to stick around. One pump was left, and he could hear it all over the block that Blackwatch was starting to lose their nerves.
Orders were shouted to get reinforcements, choppers were frantically searching the rooftops and every remaining man was pulled back into the vicinity of the last pump. He'd better scout the area first, before he went to destroy it.
Alex shifted into a Blackwatch soldier, grabbed a forgotten rifle off the ground and headed towards the last Bloodtox area. The buildings around had been evacuated, and the military was using their roofs for survey, so they were where Alex moved to. He could already feel the diluted toxin gnawing at his surface, so he quickly left the street level to get to a higher position. The other guys didn't question his presence, especially when he managed to stealthily consume on of their own before stepping out of the exit.
From up there, he had a much better view of the area. The pump was two blocks down the street, spraying its lethal contents everywhere. Three tanks were flanking it, and he had seen at least two helicopters, though the sound echoing off the buildings around meant that there were at least three more in the closer vicinity. No tall buildings either, or better, not one tall enough to build up enough speed for another Drop. At least there were enough air conditioners around, so he decided to go for the direct assault once more. Rip one out, throw it at the pump to destroy it, then get the Hell out of dodge. He would need to keep his agility, so no Armor here. Not too difficult, he had done so before already.
The roof shook slightly when a D-Code landed roughly on it. The Blackwatch soldiers just gave him a cursory side-glance as the giant lumbered through their ranks, masked visage slowly moving along.
The huge body suddenly froze in place when his gaze stuck to Alex. Without warning, the man suddenly lunged to the front, fist smashing the floor where he had been just a second before. Only his quick reflex had rescued him, but at the same time, it completely blew his cover.
How did that guy recognize him?!
"ZEUS sighted!" Somebody yelled as bullets started whizzing. "It's attempting to infiltrate the area!"
Shit.
Alex instantly shifted back to himself, rolling over his shoulder to dodge another blow, then catapulted himself off this roof and to another. The D-Code was in hot pursuit, being able to move nearly as fast as he did, though Alex realized he was having other problems: Mainly the Apaches that swooped down to spray the area in an attempt to kill him. With the big guy on his ass, it was hard to concentrate on them, though.
Which one to kill first? The Apaches? Or the Supersoldier?
An Hellfire missile exploding next to Alex made the decision easier. The helicopters, it was. He switched back to his Musclemass and shot off the roof, slamming his shoulder hard into the first Apache's tail to snap it off. The chopper careened off to the side, crashing into another. The combined friction blew both up in a powerful ball of fire, though Alex didn't waste any more time. He slammed hard into the roof, darted over to the wreckages and yanked one up to instantly throw it at another chopper. The D-Code used that moment however to bodily tackle into Alex and wrap his massive arms around him from the back, immobilizing him completely and slamming him into the roof hard. Alex hissed and threw his head back, smacking the back of his skull against the guy's mask to shatter it.
The Supersoldier loosened his hold slightly with a pained shout, just enough for Alex to scramble free and get some needed distance. One of the remaining Apaches swung down in that moment, forcing him to dodge to the side with a powerful leap. He hit the facade of the building a bit down the street, nearly above the pump. And, more importantly, near the guards with Missile Launchers.
Alex immediately changed his trajectory and dove into the toxic cloud, switching to thermal vision to actually see something through the dense mist and holding his breath to avoid swallowing any of the stuff while he lunged at the closest soldier. He smashed into the guy, grabbed the weapon and instantly whirled around to fire it at the Apache.
The helicopter exploded, and the shockwave cleared some of the gas away. The D-Code came at him in that moment, and Alex quickly rolled to the side, ignoring the cloud gnawing at his flesh. He had dealth with the parasite, the Bloodtox was only a minor nuisance compared to it.
But he still preferred it gone, so he lunged at the Supersoldier the next moment, seized a firm hold on his collar and whirled him around to literally throw him into the pump, utterly shattering it.
Alex immediately turned tail and headed back upwards, sprinting up a building's facade to get out of the still lingering cloud. The last Apache tried to box him in, but he instantly changed trajectory and headed around the building, then leapt off and against the next one to shake his pursuer.
The pumps were finally done for, General Randall was going to blow a gasket and Redlight was not going to be further exposed to the stuff. He wondered what was going to happen next, and who his mysterious contact was.
Though for now, he could focus on getting away. Once he did, he was going to get back into the city, use the cover of darkness to find Blackwatch's scientists and stop them from taking samples of the virus to make sure they would never do anything like this again.
Author: Just having a bit of fun destroying pumps and killing D-Codes.