Anomaly
Episode 35- Severance
Corvin always found it funny how pain numbed over time. Even as a kid it was something he noticed, though it seemed like emotional pain numbed way faster than physical. At least, from his experience. Some memories he had from other people said that they had similar experiences, so he supposed it was natural. It still didn't mean he liked it, though.
Every time one of his friends died was like sticking a hot knife into him. It always hurt the same amount, but each time it lasted longer. And even after Washi died, there was still lingering pain ever after the initial emotional wound healed.
But then something different happened when Jay died. That knife he kept feeling stab into him over in over didn't feel hot anymore, just cold. And any pain he normally would have felt was exchanged with a constant dull feeling through his body. He couldn't really describe it other than a dull feeling that made him tired.
Tired. He was tired of all of this. He just wanted all of it to stop. And he was going to make it stop. Find Amaya Heller and hand her to Alex. Simple goal. Everything would stop if he just did that.
So with that said, it was time to simplify the plan. He only needed one single man to tell him where the girl was, and as it happened he was the colonel in charge of the entire Blackwatch regiment that was stationed in New York- or what was left of it, anyways. And seeing as every single one of their plans thus far had failed thanks to the efforts of every individual infected with Blacklight that could utter syllables, along with the fact that their overall manpower was cut down to about ten percent, that girl was likely the only good thing left they could make off with. So it'd make sense that the man in charge of everybody would know where she is. And look at that- he had memories that told Corvin his name, what he looked like, and even what he sounded like. And as it so happened, that was enough for the viral sonar to pinpoint his location.
As it happened, the location of Colonel Rooks was pointing towards the headquarters of Gentek, which was one of the tallest and most distinct buildings in the entirety of Manhattan. It was made even more noticeable when Corvin saw the bright explosions near it while flying up in the night sky. And when he flew closer, he saw that those explosions were being made from the millions of dollars worth of military vehicles being destroyed by a single being.
It was a sight to see, too. The man looked absolutely possessed by the way he was cutting through Blackwatch's number like they were nothing. Infantry, tanks, helicopters, even a few Orion soldiers- all getting cut down in an instant by that man as he made his way towards the front doors of the building. Unfortunately for Heller, those doors were heavily locked by large, titanium barriers that were almost as large as the concrete walls surrounding the building. And to Corvin's surprise, Heller couldn't make a dent in the barrier no matter how hard he tried.
Corvin frowned. The viral sonar said that Rooks was in that building. Heller was desperately trying to get into that building. That alone was enough to pique Corvin's curiosity over what was so important in that building, and seeing as he already had cause for getting inside of there, he saw no reason to leave. But since he was a smarter than the average Heller, he'd be taking a route that wouldn't require him to break through a nearly unbreakable door, i.e. anywhere else on the building.
So that's what Corvin did. He flew around to the back of the building where Rooks was nearest and flew right through the wall.
After forcing himself through layers of concrete and metal rebar, Corvin found himself standing in a hallway rife with Blackwatch soldiers who just stared at him with their expressionless helmets. There was one who didn't have one of those things on, though, and that's the only one Corvin cared about at the moment. And as it happened, that man was standing right in front of Corvin, gawking right at him. And by the time he found the sense to reach for his sidearm, Corvin's hands had already reached out, grabbed his head, and crushed his skull.
The rest of the soldiers around Corvin started to fire at him, but by then it was too late. Corvin was already sifting through Rooks's memories before his entire body was even absorbed into him.
"Rooks. All I care about is getting Maya back. Just stay out of my way. Please."
Those were the only words that James Heller said to him right before he leapt off of the rooftop they were on, which, all things considered, was very surprising. He'd tried to burn the thing in a lab, after all. Hard to believe it had gone from that to Heller impersonating his direct subordinate. He'd been right next to him, too. Talking to him. Breathing on him. The entire idea made Rooks sick. He knew he'd seen his face in the reflection of that phone, claws at the ready, just to turn around and see Riley. He knew, but his act had just been so convincing that he waved it off as stress.
Was that why he had spared him? Because he had overheard him on the phone with his wife talking about their daughter? It must have been, because he couldn't think of any other reason. He had information Heller needed, and he had been centimeters away from him. There couldn't have been anything Rooks could have done to stop him. He could have taken him like that- but he didn't. Just because he happened to be a father too, and so Heller sympathized with him.
Rooks scoffed. They'd been trying since to beginning to kill that thing, and with no results. And he understood the lengths a man would go just for his daughter, more than anybody else. He wouldn't stop, and there was nothing they could do about it. There was something he could do, though. If Heller wanted his daughter so bad, he'd just give her to him. Anything to stop his carnage at this point. He'd written enough casualty reports already.
All he had to do was send him an invitation to the building they were holding Amaya in, and this nightmare would finally be over.
Corvin fell to his knees, hands cupping the sides of his head as disbelief started to take him over. The soldiers around him had already stopped firing, seeing the futility in the act from the bullets sparking and bouncing off of him. But he didn't care about that. The only thing on his mind were the memories he had just witnessed. The entire life of a middle-aged man flashing through Corvin's mind, but what he really cared about was his last few hours.
"You... you spared him..." Corvin mumbled. "Heller, you... you actually..."
After everything Blackwatch had done, while standing in front of the man in charge of all this madness, Heller had chosen to spare the man out of sympathy? Corvin couldn't understand it. There was nothing to gain at all. It was counterproductive sparing that man, but he...!
Corvin's hands fell. This was the same man that had killed Jay. He'd killed him, but spared the man responsible for kidnapping his daughter. There was no logic to that whatsoever. That was absolute madness.
His shoulders started shaking, and unintelligible sounds started to escape Corvin's mouth as he slowly started to rise to his feet. Those garbled mumblings soon turned into high-pitched chuckles, which caused the soldiers around him to begin backing up away from him. And soon enough he threw his head back as he went into full-blown cackling. The sound of his loud laughter was enough to make the soldiers raise their rifles again, even though they knew it would be for naught. They had just felt so unnerved by the disturbing laughter coming from Corvin that they had no choice but to raise their weapons just to comfort themselves.
Tendrils started racing up and down Corvin's right arm, though the laughter didn't cease. A rounded, flat blade edged with sharpened, moving teeth soon replaced his arm, though the teeth were soon impossible to see as the organic chainsaw was revved up to a ludicrous speed. Corvin turned his head to stare right into the soldiers, his face twisted into a manic grin as he tapped the edge of the chainsaw to the floor, causing sparks to fly up.
And then he rushed forwards at the soldiers, laughing loudly once more. He was laughing so hard that it was drowning out the sound of the saw, the gunfire, and the screaming.
Heller burst through the front doors, panting heavily. Who the hell even made doors that strong anyways? He managed to rip entire tanks apart with these hands, but apparently a damn door was all it took to get the best of him. Then some giant monster popped up that were, while slow and lumbering, just strong enough to actually scratch the door. So they'd been the ones to break it down.
Who knew Juggernauts could actually be useful?
Now all he had to do was find Rooks, find his daughter, and get out of here. He sprinted past the room he'd stumbled in and into the hallways, bounding up in around them while searching every floor. Surprisingly, he didn't find anybody around. In fact, he didn't even here anybody, nor even an alarm. Which was odd, considering this place was supposed to have been heavily fortified; just look how much effort they put into defending the outside. Blackwatch was a lot of things, but they didn't half-ass security. So why was everything so silent?
He got his answer once he arrived on one of the upper floors, and that answer was in the form of a blood-soaked hallway and Blackwatch corpses cut to pieces. And along with that were deep gashes cut into the otherwise immaculate walls near almost every piece of human scattered around.
James found himself gulping. "Maya."
He took off in a dead sprint. His daughter was somewhere in this building. He didn't know what was doing this, but if it got to Maya... no, he wasn't thinking about that. He was going to find her no matter what. He wasn't going to let her get cut up or turned into Mercer's messed-up science experiment.
"I'm coming, baby. Just hold on."
"Hee hee hee..." Those memories he'd pulled from Rooks said that Heller's daughter was somewhere on this floor. So were enough soldiers to fill up every single hall he walked into, but those were gone, now. Not Maya, though. She was somewhere here. He just needed to find her.
He walked into a new corridor, chainsaw sliding against the ground. He heard sounds of struggling to his left, and snapped his head towards the source of the noise. He felt a grin stretch across his entire face when he saw who it was making those noises.
One of them was Galloway, standing right in the middle of the corridor. Of course she of all people would have been able to make it in here without difficulty, Gentek mole that she was. And the place was owned by Gentek. But she didn't matter all that much. No, what mattered was the little girl she was struggling to drag with her. A pre-teen who almost had the exact same dark shade of skin that Heller did. Same eyes, too. And the memories told him that her face belonged to Amaya Heller.
Found her.
He stepped right behind Galloway, grinning down at her. Amaya, who was facing towards Corvin, stopped and stared right up at him with her face going white. Galloway turned around to see what she was staring at, then yelped and stepped back when she saw Corvin inches away from her bearing right down at the back of her head.
"Heh heh. Hey there, Galloway," Corvin greeted. "Wow. Seems like everybody who's after this girl is here right now. How convenient, huh? Heh heh."
"U-uh, yeah..." Galloway gaze a shaky nod, her eyes flicking from Corvin to the girl. As far as she was concerned, Corvin was under Alex the same way she was. She didn't have much reason to suspect him of any ill-will, save for the bloodied weapon replacing his arm. "I got the girl, so you can get on out of here."
"Mmm, I don't think so." Corvin's eyes trailed down to Maya, though his head was still facing Galloway. "I'll take the girl. Don't worry about it."
"What the- why?" Galloway asked. "It doesn't matter which one of us gives her to Alex, does it? And I found her first. Bug off."
Corvin felt himself growing annoyed, though he still felt the grin plastered on his face. "I know. I'm taking her, though. So step away."
"I'm not letting you-"
Her words were cut off when Corvin thrust the saw right through her chest. She gasped, and then gagged blood as her head slowly dipped down to the saw sticking inside of her. Her shaking hands slowly moved towards the blade in order to try to dislodge it, but could not do it before Corvin revved the saw and pulled it upwards through her body. The entire upper half was cut up the middle, and the body fell to the side as the life left Galloway. Evolved never were too good at regeneration.
With that done, he looked down at the girl. She was staring right up at him, eyes wide like a deer with her hands crossed protectively over her chest. She looked positively frightened, and Corvin didn't blame her. He did just kill a woman right in front of her, after all, and who knew what she had been experiencing the past few days? Girl was probably traumatized, given the circumstances.
But she was also Heller's daughter. So that was unfortunate for her.
"Hey there," Corvin said, crouching down to the girl's height. He saw a speck of blood on her cheek and attempted to move his normal arm towards it to wipe it off with his thumb, but she recoiled back when he made the motion. "Oh. Why are you frightened? I'm just trying to help," he said.
She vigorously shook her head. "You're scary. Everybody around me is scary," she muttered. "I just want to see my daddy."
"Yeah. I bet." Corvin held his hand out to her. "I know where he is, you know. I can take you to him. He's in this building, actually, looking for you! We wouldn't have to go too far."
Once again she shook her head, and then began to back up. Her eyes lingered noticeably on the chainsaw replacing Corvin's arm. "Y-y-you're one of the monsters," she said. "You're not safe. And if daddy's here, I'll just wait for him. So please leave me alone."
"Amaya." Corvin felt the grin on his face widen even more, and the teeth on the chainsaw briefly revved a couple of times. The girl flinched back at every rev. "Get back here."
"N-no..." Her backpedaling increased in speed. When Corvin rose to his full height and took a step towards her, she turned around and began running down the corridor. "No, get away from me! Get away!"
"Heh heh heh..." And there she was, running the exact opposite way he wanted her to go. Which was a problem. An easy problem to solve, but a problem nonetheless. He wasn't letting her get away. Not after everything here mere existence had caused. Not after what her father did.
So he ran after after, laughing maniacally while dragging the saw across the wall. It didn't even take him a full second to catch up to her, and once he did, he slashed his saw at her ankle. Her calf was cut open, and she let out a shrill cry of pain as she fell to the ground.
"Here's the thing. I want your daddy to find us, Amaya." Corvin crouched down and grabbed a tuft of her hair, and then roughly pulled her up so they were face-level. At this point she had so many tears running down her face that he could barely make out her expression, though the frantic screaming did enough to inform him. "Keep making those sounds. It's the only way he's going to find us quickly, after all. As for where he'll find us..."
He spotted a door at the end of the hall, dragged Amaya to it, and opened the door. There was a small room on the other side split down the middle by a large, sturdy-looking glass pane, with another door leading to the other side. So Corvin walked through the second door, a heavy metal thing with heavy seals, closed it behind him, and then twisted the locking mechanism until it broke. He barely able to make it to the middle of the room with the girl in hand before he heard thumps from the other side of the glass wall.
He turned towards the sound, and his grin widened into a full-fledged smile when he saw James Heller on the other side bashing on the glass with what was probably the most furious expression a human face could ever hope to produce, though his eyes weren't focused on him. It was on the girl in his hands, and try as he might, he couldn't break his way through the glass. Must have been pretty sturdy glass.
"James! There you are." The chainsaw replacing Corvin's arm turned to a normal arm, which he then used to grab Amaya's face and twist it towards him. "See, I told you we'd find your dad. And you went and ran away on me... really, did you not teach her manners?"
"Let her go," Heller growled. The the glass separating them began to crack from the clenched fists pressing against them. "I swear if you don't let her go right this second I'm going to tear you apart. Let. Her. Go."
"No," Corvin said. "Heller, if there was any other candidate for what Alex wanted, we'd go for them, really! Fact is, she's the only one we can work with. Maybe even the only one on the continent. And seeing as she's your daughter of all people, well..." he dryly chuckled, "I'm not feeling too hesitant about all of this."
"Jay wouldn't want you to do this." Corvin froze up when he heard Heller say the name of his dead friend, and his smile fell. The friend he had killed, though he still kept his eyes locked on Heller's. "I know what you were like before all this started, Corvin. You were a normal kid that the world messed up, I get that. You didn't deserve what happened to you. And this isn't something you want to do, is it? That's what you always told me." Heller's expression softened. "Look. You don't have to do this. We've all lost enough. Just let her go, and I'll leave you alone. You can find that little girl of yours, and you both can get out of this city. Nobody else has to die, Corvin."
"... You consumed him, didn't you?" Corvin mumbled. His head fell forwards enough that his dark hair obscured his eyes, though his mouth was still visible to Heller. "You stole all of Jay's memories, all the moments we ever shared together, and now you're trying to use them to persuade me?" The corners of his mouth began to turn upwards he he began to softly laugh, and beads of red liquid began to stream down his cheeks. "You kill one of my best friends, James Heller, and then you expect me to forgive not only that, but for you having the audacity to take his memories and use them against me? You expect me to forgive the utter hypocrisy of you killing my friend, who was only trying to protect me, when you later spared the person in charge of the entire Blackwatch deployment here just because he had a daughter like you!?"
That made him truly angry, but he found himself laughing regardless. He didn't know why he was laughing. He just felt so terrible right now that it seemed like laughing was the only thing he could do.
"Corvin. Please. I'm begging you here."
"You're begging!?" Corvin screamed, his face turning fully upwards to face James once again. "Hahahah! T-to think that when Jay was sacrificing himself for me, that I was actually thinking about begging you to spare him! But even if I had time to do that, you wouldn't have, would you!? Why would you have!? You wouldn't have had any reason to, right!?" He balled one his his fists up and bunched the wall behind him and Amaya hard enough that it shattered the entire thing, leading to a hole to the outside being created. "And you now think that I'm going to spare this important girl I don't even know to somebody like you?"
Maybe that was why he was laughing. This logic was so twisted that he couldn't even understand it. There was no sense to it at all. It was all ludicrous. Madness. He was the only person made sense.
"I'll tell you what, though," Corvin laughed. "Since you want your daughter so bad-" His arm reached down and gripped Amaya's right arm- "I'll let you keep a piece of her. We don't need her entire body, after all. And if Alex throws a fit, I'll just fix it."
He started twisting the arm in an unnatural direction, and Maya started to scream. Heller started to roar furiously and pound on the reinforced glass separating them. The arm finally tore clean off, with Corvin laughing as he tossed it on the ground as wings sprouted from his back. He leaped backwards through the hole he made, his wings carrying upwards along with the screaming girl held in his arms.
Heller finally broke through the glass, and proceeded to shift his arm and throw a bladed tendril towards Corvin. It sunk into his chest, halting Corvin midair as Heller reeled himself towards him and Maya. Just when he was within arm's reach of them, however, Corvin stopped his ascent by slamming the bottom of his shoe into Heller's face.
"Too slow!" Corvin cackled. His free arm turned into a claw, which he used to cut the tentacle anchoring him to Heller. "Goodbye, Heller!" Then he kicked his leg downwards, causing Heller's body to shoot back towards the building they had just exited.
He flew off into the night sky, his laughter the only thing that reached Corvin's ears. It was just loud enough to drown out Amaya Heller's pained and terrified sobs and James Heller's enraged screaming.
"Hrn. What a drag, huh, Maya?" Silence answered Corvin. "Jay would have appreciated that joke. You know, the friend of mine your father killed. You probably overheard us back there talking about him." More silence. "What, you pass out already? Figures."
He was a bit surprised in himself that he forgot blood loss was a bad thing for humans. Regeneration had a way of making one lose sight of this. So when he had been flying with Maya and realized she hadn't been crying in terror any more and that her head was drooping, he figured she was just beginning to faint due to fright. Then she started getting pale, and he knew that there was an issue. So he landed in the streets, saw the blood flowing from her stumped shoulder, and used organic threading to sew the wound up. He decided to drag her by her legs afterwards for fear that flying at high speeds combined with everything else that had happened to the girl would result in her dying of shock.
The safest bet would have just heal the wounds, but he didn't want to unless Alex told him to once he saw her. It's not like she needed that arm, anyways. He lived for a year just fine without one. And that look of hurt and rage that had been in Heller's eyes was a worthwhile sight to see. He felt he was owed something like that after everything that man had done.
"You're not dead, are you?" Corvin stopped walking and looked down at the girl sprawled along the broken street. Her hair was a mess, blood was caking her clothing, and she looked incredibly nauseous even in unconsciousness. Still breathing, though. So that was a good sign. The fact it was slow, labored breathing, however, was not a good sign.
"Hm... maybe I should just heal you," he muttered. "Don't want to risk you dying. Though... if you did die this instant, I could probably bring you back. Couldn't guarantee your memories would come back, but your body would be fine. And really, that's all we need." He grinned. "Maybe we should test that out. I'd love to see Heller's expression if he saw I turned his daughter into a vegetable right before Alex turns you into his... vessel for all humankind or whatever." He thought for a second, then shook his head. "Nah. Not worth the risk."
He tilted his head at her body. Now that he thought of it, he never did take any of her DNA. She was so special, after all. And it wasn't like losing a few drops of blood was very comparable to what she had already lost.
He pressed his foot against her and burrowed into her sides with tendrils, extracting a small amount of blood. The new genetic information surged through him, and already he could feel the ability gained from it.
"Oh. Well, that's-"
Bang!
A gunshot whizzed past his head and hit a nearby bent light pole. Said light pole then fell to the ground. Corvin blinked in response, and then looked up towards the source of the gunfire. Standing not ten feet away from him was none other than Captain Starr, who was aiming a smoking, high-powered rifle at him.
"Can I ask you something? What is it with you military types and shaved heads?" Corvin asked. "I mean, you have one, Rooks had one, Heller has one, and most of every soldier I've killed had one. I get it's a regulation haircut and everything, but seriously, it just seems so-"
"Drop the girl," Starr demanded. "Now."
Shrugging, Corvin dropped then one leg he had been holding. "Done."
"Now step away from her," he ordered. "Do it right now."
Corvin looked down at Maya, then back at Starr. "I don't think you realize how hard I've worked towards acquiring this person. And I'd rather not disappoint Alex by coming back empty handed, so, uh, hm, yeah. No."
"Last warning." Starr cocked back the receiver on the rifle he held. "Step away."
Corvin squinted at the rifle. "What is that, a twenty millimeter?" he asked. "I applaud you on choosing a rifle that actually has a chance of piercing me, Starr, but even if you blew my head away with that again, it'd do nothing but mildly annoy me. And believe me when I say that killing the girl is the last thing you want to do- unless you actually want the man that's been tearing through your forces to lose the last thing he has left to fight for. I guarantee that's not something you want to see. And let's not even try to think about how angry Alex would get." His eyes glinted. "Or me, for that matter."
"So you're not going to move?"
"Oh, I'm going to move. Move right to you." Corvin's fingers started to flex, and black tendrils began to swirl around them. "A lot of my friends are dead because of you. Now I get to kill you."
Starr sighed. "Alright. Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you."
Corvin expected a high-caliber bullet to come sailing his way right after he said that. What he didn't expect was for Starr to sling the rifle over his shoulder, reach down to his waist, and hold up a small, rectangular device up to Corvin. It looked like a radio with a digital screen on it, though he couldn't entirely make out what it was.
"... I-I don't get it- what's that supposed to-"
Starr pressed his thumb against the button on the side of the device. electronic crackling noises started coming out of it, meaning it was receiving a signal.
"Corvin..."
Corvin closed his mouth and widened his eyes in shock. No. That wasn't right. He didn't hear it. He did not just hear Robin's voice coming out of that thing.
"C-Corvin, please, help... it hurts... it really, really hurts..." The audio feed cut off when Starr, who was staring directly at Corvin, released the button.
"..." The implication was easy enough to realize to Corvin, and he felt himself start to shake in rage. "You're a dead man, Starr," he seethed, the tendrils swirling around his hand moving more violently.
"I have my entire squad watching me from the buildings around us at various locations," Starr calmly explained. "Your friend is being held in a warehouse we've rigged with explosives. You make a move towards me or one of them, and somebody hits a remote detonator and blows her to kingdom come." He shook the device in his hand. "This device has her location. You take it and leave. Girl for girl. It's a fair trade."
The tendrils receded back into Corvin's body. "I don't have any guarantee for her safety after I leave," he said. "This deal is anything but fair."
"This deal is as good as you'll get," Starr said. "You wanna try calling our bluff? Come swinging at me and my squad? Go ahead, try it. You'll risk losing another friend in an explosion, though." That particular jab caused Corvin to visibly bristle, though he kept enough composure as to not appear hostile. Starr then tossed Corvin the device, which he caught with one hand. "You got ten seconds to make a choice."
"... If you kill her, you'll lose all leverage against me," Corvin muttered, turning the device in his hands. "You don't look too inclined to die."
"And you've already given enough tells that show me how much you care about the girl," Starr countered. "You're not gonna let her die. Seven seconds."
"I'll come back after you once I rescue her."
"We have a helicopter ready to evac us and Heller's girl the second you leave. We'll be long gone. Five seconds."
"It could be a false location on this thing."
"Maybe, maybe not. Three more seconds, kid. What's it gonna be?"
How did this happen? How did somebody like that- a mere human- get the best of him? He knew Starr made a career out of killing runners, but Corvin had no idea this was the extent of his experience. How did he even manage to get his hands on Robin in the first place? It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting her back.
He flew past the hollowed buildings in a blur, racing directly towards the marker the device given to him was pointing towards. Robin had sounded hurt when he heard her voice on it. He didn't know what they did to her, either. Not the slightest bit. That didn't matter, either. He'd fix whatever they did to her if she couldn't do it herself.
He saw what he was looking for fast approaching. A small warehouse nestled between a cluster of tall buildings. He dropped from the air and skid right towards the entrance of the warehouse, where he proceeded to bash the doors open with his shoulders.
"Robin!" He shouted, frantically looking around. The warehouse was completely dark, save for one beam of light shining down at the other end of the warehouse. Under it was a chair, where a figure was sitting. She may have been missing her legs again, but he knew that form anywhere. "ROBIN!"
He sprinted towards her. He wasn't going to let his friend, his very last friend in this world, die on him. Not after he made his last promise to Jay to look after. He just wasn't going to let it happen.
He finally made it to her, and began looking over her body. Her head was hung and her face obscured by her hair, her legs were indeed missing, and she wasn't moving. Corvin was very alarmed by this. "H-hey, Robin, I'm here. You can get up now." He crouched down and started shaking her shoulder. "Robin, if you can't move, just say so. I'll carry you out of here, j-just say something."
She wasn't moving a bit no matter how much he shook her. His movements became more jerky as he tried to rouse her awake.
"Robin, come on. Everything's going to be fine. Just get get up." She still wasn't moving not matter how much he shook her. "Robin, please. Just say something."
In his frantic shaking, Corvin managed to dislodge off of Robin that he hadn't seen until it plinked off the floor and rolled right to his feet. It was a small syringe that had been stabbed into Robin's neck, and it was empty of whatever contents it used to hold. With shaking, quivering arms, Corvin slowly cupped Robin's head in his hands and lifted it up. It lolled limply to the side, and lifeless, bloodshot eyes stared right back into his.
"Robin?"
Ding!
Red lights started to blink on one after another in the darkness surrounding Corvin, followed by accompanying beeps, until he was completely surrounded by the red lights. Then the lights started to blink, and slowly the blinking grew more and more rapid.
And then, in an instant, he felt a wall of heat wash over him.
"Well then. I guess that worked, huh, Starr?"
The captain didn't bother answering Dan immediately, instead wishing to watch the warehouse melt down in a fiery inferno. "Yeah," he finally said, dropping the detonator that had been in his hand. "It did. Mission accomplished."
"For Rose, too," Dan reminded.
"... Yeah. For Rose."
The warehouse was completely collapsed into a molten pit of slag at this point. They'd placed enough explosives in there to level a small building, after all, so a little warehouse like that was nothing. He doubted the girls body or that freak survived something like that, either.
"Think we should have used something other than napalm bombs?" Charles asked, flanked by Gary. "I mean, I figure thermobarics would have been more safe, y'know?"
"They all got destroyed, remember? Entire depot's gone." Starr turned to his three teammates. "Besides, there's no way it survived. So let's just get the girl back to base, okay? I've had enough of this damn assignment."
The other three were not hesitant in the slightest to immediately nod and turn with Starr to the jeep they had arrived in. The same jeep they had Heller's brat tied up in. The fact that psychopath ripped her arm off wouldn't do them any favors with the upper brass, but at least she was alive.
He could have scoffed at that. It's not like he cared, anyways. He killed runners. That's what Blackwatch had him do, not babysit science experiments. The only reason he was in this mess was because of him being assigned to kill these in the first place. And now the person that had done that was dead, his squadmate was dead, and the entire Blackwatch regiment stationed here was in pieces. It made it hard to call this a successful mission, even if he managed to kill his targets.
He was seriously going to have to consider picking his missions from now on. This one definitely wasn't worth the losses.
"Guh!" Starr stopped dead in his tracks and whirled around to Dan, who was looking down at his chest. A shiny, silver blade was poking right out of his chest, and behind him was a long, black tentacle that lead directly into the flames surrounding the molten warehouse.
"No way..." Charles mumbled. "No fuckin- Aah!" A second blade tendril shot from the flames and impaled Charles, and a third one shot through Gary. The three tentacles twisted together, mashing the three soldiers' bodies together and melding them as tendrils broke their bodies down until they were a singular, writhing mass of human limbs.
Horrified, Starr looked into the flames of the warehouse. There was a singular figure standing there, with the three tentacles protruding right from its arm socket, though the rest of it was naught but a charred skeleton barely standing on its own legs. The eyes were still in their sockets, though. Dark-blue eyes that somehow stared cruelly at Starr despite the fact there were no lids to make an ocular expression.
"Nng... damn monster!" Starr un-slung the rifle from his back and started firing at the skeleton, though all the bullets did was shatter a few bones. The mass of his former comrades was pulled towards him, and everything started to meld together into a mass of black and blue.
And then it came screeching right towards Starr.
He rolled to the right, just in time to avoid getting impaled by a blade aimed right at him. He rolled to his feet just in time to see the monster fully regenerated, his mouth pulled back into a vicious snarl with his furious eyes boring right into Starr's. He ripped his blade out of the ground and swung at Starr, who rolled right under it.
"Dammit. Plan B, then." Starr slid onto his back right between the monster's legs, popped up behind him, and pulled something out from his pocket. "Let's see how you like this."
There was still a couple charred places on the monster that were still regenerating, and one spot was conveniently located on its neck. So, holding up the object he had pulled from his pocket- a syringe filled with a red fluid-, he forced the needle right into the tender flesh and pushed down on the plunger.
It whirled around, batting the syringe out of Starr's hand. Then it jerked to a stop, eyes widening as blood started to seep out of its mouth. It went into a coughing fit as it fell to its knees, then completely collapsed onto its side as it continued to cough blood out of its mouth.
"Yeah? How do you like that, huh!?" Starr shouted, kicking at the monster that had eaten his squadmates. "You're name is Corvin, right? Right!? It's the name that girl was shouting over and over again when we were recording that message for you right after we injected her with that shit!"
"What... did you do to me...?" Corvin gasped. Blood stared to seep out of his eyes, ears, and nose, and his movements were growing weaker. "My body... it's..."
"It's Bloodtox, you moron!" Starr shouted, kicking Corvin once more. "It's a counter-agent to the Blacklight virus developed during the First Outbreak. Meant to be dispersed in an aerosol form to get rid of the infestation. The concentrated dose I gave you right now was enough to cover a whole quarter of Manhattan!"
Bloodtox wasn't a joke to Blacklight. Rumor had it that the stuff even managed to keep Alex Mercer at bay, right before his body developed an immunity to the stuff. But something like that had required exposure after exposure to the stuff to build up that immunity- something these ones had never had the luxury of making. The girl had died about five minutes of being injected with the same dose he had given Corvin. With how he was right now, he probably had less time.
That was just fine with Starr. He was completely content with watching the monster that had killed his entire team suffer a painful death right at his feet. And he was going to keep kicking him right up until he died.
Corvin started screaming. Loudly. Loudly enough that Starr had to cover his ears right before his body was lifted off of Corvin and tossed back from the sheer force of the sound. Its screaming grew louder in pitch, and soon enough any windows left in the buildings around them began to shatter from the screaming.
Starr started to wonder why it was screaming so loudly when he noticed the dark shapes in the sky. Infected birds were circling them, an entire cloud of black, infected birds, and they were only growing bigger in number the more Corvin screamed. And soon they started diving, not at Starr, but at Corvin. A stream of infected crows was diving right into Corvin, and his body started convulsing until it was completely hidden by the mass of infected feathers.
Realizing all too quickly what this meant, Starr scrambled to his feet and ran to the jeep parked right behind them. He forced himself into the driver seat and started it, and then floored down on the gas pedal. He felt himself get pressed into the seat as the vehicle lurched forwards and drove away from Corvin.
"He's using those infected birds for something," Starr frantically thought as he weaved the jeep around the streets. "Using their biomass to buffer himself until he gets that Bloodtox out of his system. Or maybe he's just transferring it into them. Either way, I failed." He glanced up at the rear-view mirror, which reflected the little girl resting in the back seat of the jeep. "Doesn't matter. There's still a functioning base near here. I just need to get her there and then we can both get out of-"
He saw something out of the corner of his eyes, and then yanked on the steering wheel to narrowly avoid the large chunk of debris falling towards the jeep. He looked down at the side mirror, then balked at the thing that was following him.
A cloud. That was the first thing that came to mind when he saw the thing floating in the air and chasing them. A vaguely spherical mass of infected crows circling around a singular point that was closely following the jeep. An appendage made from the crows began to extend from the main mass of birds, and soon reshaped itself to form a shape that vaguely resembled a hand. It tore into a building they were passing and scooped up a handful of debris, which it then tossed at Starr's jeep. He was barely able to dodge that one as well.
He rounded a corner, heart pumping as Corvin and its mass of birds continued to pursue him. The base he was heading towards was right ahead, and fortunately enough the doors were open. Gunfire and tank shells coming from troops withing the base started to open fire at the cloud of Flyers behind Starr. The cloud was pushed back, allowing Starr to enter the jeep into the base. Then he felt the jeep uncontrollably veer into a spin right into the nearest wall when something collided with the side. He managed to turn his head just in time to see Corvin pressing its feet against the side of the Jeep before leaping off of it into the middle of the base once they came to a stop.
"Shit..." Starr groaned, pressing a hand to his side. That had hurt. And what's worse, Corvin was here. He doubted even if he managed to drag himself and Amaya to the nearest helicopter here, they'd manage to get away. Thing had wings, after all. That left one option.
"Alright," he groaned. "Alright, fine. We're settling this here, Corvin. Whether we want to or not."
When was the last time he had been this enraged? Enraged to the point he couldn't even think straight? His friends dying off one after another hadn't even made him this upset. Angry, sure, but not on this level. This was something making it feel like he was boiling alive on the inside- and the lingering effects of that toxin he'd expelled wasn't helping things.
His very last friend in this world, a little girl only a few years older than his old sister. And she had that dead look in her eyes. He remembered nearly the same look when he'd seen his sister's corpse on that cold, metal table that night. Her dead eyes had stared into his the same way Robin's had. And she had sounded so pained on that radio, too. She was depending on him to save her, and he failed. He failed to save her. Failed to keep Jay's promise. He'd failed all his friends in this world.
No matter where he went, he always failed. Maybe that was why he was so enraged.
So why did it feel so dull, then?
"Aaaah!" He held his hands to his head as wings exploded out from his back. "You killed them! You killed all of them!" He jumped far into the air and flipped to the direction of the ground, and then had his wings push him directly onto one of the tanks aiming at him. It crumpled under his body, and the resulting force pushed any nearby soldiers back. "I'll kill you! I'll kill everyone!"
That dull feeling wasn't going away. It was there, under all of that rage. Not gnawing at him, but just something noticeable. Like a large weight in one's stomach after having eaten something. He would have figured that's where his grief would have been. But he was too wrapped up in the moment to actually try to piece his feelings together.
He tore through everything in his way with metallic claws like an animal. Soldiers and tanks sliced to pieces in his frenzied flurries. There were even a couple of Orion soldiers trying to intervene, though they didn't last long against Corvin. They, too, were cut down by Corvin. He was barely even able to register their presence before they were pieces at his feet.
He panted heavily, looking around at the destruction around him. Everything dead but the one thing he wanted dead the most at the moment. Starr. No sign of his mutilated body whatsoever among the carnage he had created. That needed fixing.
"Starr... Starr!" He sent out a viral pule. It returned nearly the same moment, and pointed towards the inside of the small, concrete building in the middle of the base. "STARR!" Corvin screamed, sprinting right to the front door of the building and using his claws to rip the door away.
An explosion hit him the moment the door was torn away, causing his body to be flung back to the middle of the compound. Captain Starr slowly walked out of the building, tossing aside the spent rocket launcher he had just used on Corvin.
"I'll kill you," Corvin snarled as he rose to his feet. "I'll destroy you. Rip you apart. I'm not letting you live after everything you've done!"
"You can try," Starr responded. He reached down and unclasped a small, metal rod from his thigh, which then expanded to twice its length before emitting bursts of blue sparks. "You'll find yourself to be hard-pressed into doing so, though."
A feeling of disbelief briefly exploded inside of Corvin before it was smother by his waning rage. "You think a baton will save you? You're only human, Starr! You can't beat me! You can't even run away from me!"
"Wasn't planning on running. Wasn't planning on losing, either." Starr's feet shuffled into a stance as he held his baton out defensively. "My orders are to deliver the girl. But technically, I still have another job to do."
Corvin's claws curled in on themselves, then violently scraped across each other as they opened in a shower of sparks. "You insolent... just die already!"
He charged forwards, swinging his claws blindly. Starr deftly dodged around the claws and rammed the electric baton right into Corvin's side. He felt his body lock up as the electric current ran through him, and was powerless to stop Starr from sticking a live grenade right to him. Starr rolled out of the way just as the device exploded, knocking back Corvin's body.
He climbed to his feet, softly growling as the chunk in his side rapidly closed up. He snapped his head back to the area where Starr had been, only to see him slide past a soldier's corpse and scoop up a fallen grenade launcher. He expertly maneuvered back onto his feet and started firing grenades at Corvin, who dodged them with ease as he sprinted towards Starr with outstretched claws.
It really annoyed Corvin how long he was lasting. A mere human with no special abilities or special enhancements. Even humans with magic back in the other world hadn't lasted this long against him. So how was he living this long? From experience with other viral beings? Quick thinking? Or maybe Corvin was too angry to attack efficiently. It was most likely a combination of all of that.
Just as Corvin neared Starr, he threw a small, cylindrical device. It exploded in a bright flash of light, momentarily blinding Corvin long enough for Starr to close in and stun him once again with the baton. He then bashed Corvin across the face, flooring him and giving enough room for Starr to back up.
"You killed my entire team. My only friends," Starr muttered, panting heavily as he grabbed a handful of grenades from his belt. "You're going to pay for that."
"You're one to talk," Corvin growled as he wiped away at his eyes. Starr rolled the grenades at Corvin, who jumped into the air to avoid the explosion. His momentum then stopped when a launched grenade hit him mid-air, causing his body to drop back to the ground. He landed on his claws and flipped back to his feet just in time for the baton to be shoved into his face, stunning him once more. Starr managed to wriggle the weapon into Corvin's mouth and stuck in into his teeth, then backed up.
Corvin's body started smoking from the amount of electricity running through him, but there was nothing he could do. Then he felt his muscles relax and go limp as the baton stopped running a current through him. His claw reached up and snatched the baton from his mouth, and then tossed it to the side.
Starr scoffed. "Cheap Blackwatch tech..." he muttered. He wiped a hand over his sweating face and tossed the grenade launcher away, only to reach to his side and pull a combat knife out. "Well, come on. I still got some fight left in me."
Corvin doubted that. The man looked so exhausted that he was practically shaking, and his only remaining weapon was a knife. He didn't care, though. He only cared about killing the man. So he rushed forwards, stabbing madly at the man. And to his credit, he did rather well for what he was up against. He was actually able to dodge Corvin's attacks and managed to hit him with the knife multiple times, though it just scraped along his skin.
But even Starr had limits. Whether it be from exhaustion, a misstep, or even a desire to confront the inevitable, he made a slight mistake in his movement. That mistake gave Corvin enough time to dig his claws into Starr's chest and slam him into the ground.
He stared to savagely claw at the man, who offered little resistance as his claws cleaved through the man's body until he was naught but an unrecognizable pile of flesh that was soon absorbed into his body. Corvin still kept slicing at the ground where Starr had been, though. He kept cutting clean through the concrete until all the rage that had been built up had left him. And as soon as it was gone, he found himself frozen on his knees, staring at the bloody, destroyed section of concrete he had been tearing at. And then his head moved up and inspected the carnage around him; the bloodied bodies and destroyed tanks. There wasn't anything left alive in the base.
There wasn't any of his friends left alive, either.
He figured that this would be the opportunity for the grief to take over. For that sickly feeling to wash over him and cause him to collapse into despair once more, like what had happened when Washi and Jay died. It didn't happened, though. The most he felt out of everything was that dull feeling. Sadness for sure, but not nearly as much as there should have been. All the emotions he was accustomed to and expected, but just diluted. Overpowered by this feeling of absolute dullness. Almost like Robin's death meant nothing to him.
That thought was the one to cause him to collapse.
"They're all gone," he mumbled to himself, slowly shaking his head. "Every single one of them... gone..."
A/N- Here's a neat little thing I'm safe to show now that we're at this point.
Hawke King- Arms amputated to avoid infection- lost mind and later killed due to substances introduced through arm.
Washi Kurusu- Lost family and eyesight in explosion- died in explosion.
Jay Morrow- Suffered damage due to sister inadvertently shielding him from gunfire- died protecting Corvin.
Robin King- Legs amputated to avoid infection- legs blown off in order to be captured, died due to infection to Bloodtox.