Welcome to a new story. Not a crossover this time. Hope you people like it. Enjoy.

The very beginning.

"I've never considered myself to be some kind of special individual." He was born twenty years ago.

"In fact, if I had to describe myself, I'd say that I am just as normal as any other person on this godforsaken rock." Until he turned eighteen, he lived with his two adoptive parents in the state of North Carolina.

"Like any other man or woman, I have my own strengths and achievements." He was a straight A student in High School. He participated in extracurricular activities such as volunteering and internships.

"I did my fair share of chores around the house, and at nine years old I won my school's spelling bee." After completing his K-12 education he was accepted into university where he took up studying to become a surgeon specializing in the field of oncology.

"And, of course, like any other man or woman, I have my own weaknesses and flaws." He had dark, slightly spiky, brown hair and black eyes. He had sharp features and a confident gait. He was always surrounded by an air of purpose.

My attitude towards my peers was always cold and distant, and I could often hear my adoptive mother cry at night because I always called her "Ms. Anderson" rather than "Mom." He never managed to develop a social life.

"I always concentrated on the goal in front of me, ignoring everything else in order to reach it. If someone interfered I would get violently angry, my heart would flare up in indignation at anyone who stood in my way." In the eighth grade he pushed a boy down the school stairs and ended up breaking his arm. The boy had said that his constant studying was "retarded."

"I guess you could call it pride."

"In the ninth grade my school counselor diagnosed me with Intermittent Explosive Disorder. She recommended that I find myself a hobby to vent my frustrations. I found it ironic how quickly she jumped to identify my recklessness. How bold it was of her to assume she knew me better than myself. How arrogant." He would always try to finish whatever he started to the very end, be it good or bad. He hated leaving things unfinished. Perhaps that's why he wanted to become a doctor.

"My adoptive father, Mr. Anderson, took the woman's advice. He hoped that by finding a mutual hobby we would be able to bond." He would spend his free time at the local gun range, trying out anything from pistols to high caliber rifles.

"I don't think that my hobby helped me much, but Mr. Anderson was happy, and the school counselor said that I became calmer. Once again I laughed at the irony. A school counselor being happy at a student learning the art of firearms. How bold of her to believe that she knew perfectly of my mental state. How arrogant." Eventually he became just as good with the trigger of a gun as he was with the blade of a scalpel.

"Like any other man or woman, I possessed a fairly normal, if slightly stunted emotional spectrum." He cried tears of laughter when his older sister, another child that the Andersons adopted a year before him, and who was four years older, play-wrestled with him after he consistently beat her at any video game they would play.

"It's just that I don't particularly like exposing my emotions. It feels unsanitary. But I definitely do feel joy, love, sadness, and…hatred like any other person." He shed bitter tears of misery when his adoptive older sister, an auburn haired, cheerful, slightly wacky girl that was obsessed with trading cards and Broadway musicals, was slowly lowered into the cold earth. He definitely felt hatred for drunk street racers.

"Of course sometimes they do spill out. When that happens, I usually do something stupid and then end up feeling disgusted with myself." Two days after the funeral, Antoni Russelli, the most infamous street racer of the town, suddenly resigned after finding a message written on the door of his prized Nissan GT-R. The message read "you killed my sister." It was written in some sort of thick, viscous, dark red liquid.

"Once I even got in trouble for "losing" all the blood samples from my biology class. I got suspended." The Andersons were disappointed in him. He was grounded for two months. During that time he had nothing to do and it impacted his psyche. He sank into a deep depression. He would constantly ask about where his sister went, and then detachedly remark about how empty the house felt.

"Despite all of that, I don't want anyone to think of me as one of those overly angst filled, drama queen, emo teenagers. After all, I really am just a normal person." After moving on to college, his attitude had improved. He befriended some of his fellow med students, decreased his emotional outbursts, and even got another hobby. Watching anime.

"And, I mean, every normal person has their own issues right?" He also befriended one of the campus librarians. The man had recommended he read some fiction instead of just anatomy textbooks. The boy, a young man now, had accepted and the librarian dropped Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" in front of him.

"I may have gone through some problems, but then again, it could've been worse. I have a scholarship, two...parental figures, and a few things that I enjoy and am pretty good at." In the end, he really, truly, completely, totally, without a doubt, was who he was. And that...well, wasn't such a bad thing now was it?

"I am twenty years old, and currently I am attending medical university in the state of North Carolina. I am single, which is kinda sad, and don't get much sleep in between my part time job at the bio laboratory, my classes, and my internship at the local hospital. That is also pretty sad. I like to drink diet soda and my favorite food is Chorizo sausage, although to be honest, I just like food in general. I love practicing at the gun range, and before anyone makes a joke, no I'm not one of those weirdos who sit quietly at the back of the class. I like to watch anime, especially sci-fi, and my favorite video game is "Pokémon Diamond". I don't have many friends, but I have a fair amount of buddies. I am a democrat. My favorite movie is James Cameron's Avatar. My relationship with my family is kinda strained, but not antagonistic."

"My name is Fomalhaut Anderson and...I guess the truth of the matter is that I am pretty happy with myself."

"I guess you could call it pride."

Re: Zero: The Prideful Plague

Chapter 1: Prologue

Jonathan Bennet entered the lecture hall, looked around, and immediately let out a long suffering sigh. Putting his last night's essay on the teacher's podium before walking toward one of the seats, he glared half heartedly at the only other occupant in the room.

Said occupant didn't notice, or pretended to not notice, the pretend anger of his classmate. Like usual, he had his face buried in a book. It was Herman Melville's work. A familiar site to Jonathan. His classmate, an avid reader that enjoyed a wide variety of genres and authors, would, for some reason, without failure, re-read the story of captain Ahab at least once every month.

"How the hell do you get here before me every time?" The question was prudent. Jonathan had woken up at six in the morning and had made sure to walk into the classroom a solid thirty minutes before the lecture was due to start, and yet it appeared that once again, just like every other day, Fomalhaut Anderson had beat him to the proverbial punch.

The young man closed "Moby Dick" before leveling an even gaze at him. "I never left. Last night Professor Russel decided that it would be a great idea to move all of his breakable lab materials to another room."

Jonathan winced. It was no secret on campus that Professor Russel, despite being an accomplished biologist and excellent teacher, had an unfortunate case of Tardive Dyskinesia or, as the man himself preferred to call it, the shakes. Jonathan imagined their teacher, with his horrible hand tremors trying to move a stack of glass beakers. Suddenly it made sense why Fomalhaut never left the building.

"So what, you just fell asleep at your desk after you were done? You couldn't make it to the dorm? Lazy ass boi." His playful jab was ignored. Fomalhaut simply continued to stare at him with his usual blank expression. Well, it wasn't really blank, Jonathan corrected himself. It was a mixture of disinterest, disappointment, and the faintest sprinkle of amusement. A mixture that coagulated to form one of the most relaxed yet intensely judgmental deadpans that Jonathan had ever experienced in his life. The infamous "Southern Fish Gaze", a weird title spawned from his friend's unusual first name.

"No I couldn't. I was way too exhausted to leave. It was one in the morning by the time I was finished, so I figured I'd just sleep at my desk. Plus I saved myself the time of going back to and from the dorm." Finishing his statement, he let his tired eyes, now appearing even blacker than usual from the exhaustion, turn back towards his book, as he seemingly lost interest in sustaining any sort of further conversation with his fellow student.

Now it was Jonathan's turn to deadpan. "Allow me to reiterate. Lazy ass boi." He plopped down at his own desk and took out his laptop, a universal tool that everyone in the class used to jot down notes, complete homework assignments, write essays, and everything else related to "BIO-305: Human Genes and Disease".

After logging in to the class webpage Jonathan once more turned to his friend and opened his mouth in order to ask him something else. "So, Mal, you planning to participate in that competitive target practice festival they're having down at the range tonight?"

His friends eyes brightened slightly at the mention of the "Akimbo Ablaze" tournament that was happening down at the "One-Shot Gun Range" for the next week. Jonathan wasn't surprised at Fomalhaut's sudden excitement. To be fair it was hard to not get excited about something of that scale. After all, this tournament was the first time that a gun range would be given access to truly heavy and exotic weaponry. Of course, this was only temporary and the equipment would be carted off by the military as soon as the tournament was done, but still.

The rumor mill had exploded. People were chattering about insane things like rocket launchers, .50 cal machine guns and flamethrowers. Even campus students would often talk excitedly during break hours about how "this shit would be lit as hell." Inwardly Jonathan suspected that these rumors were nothing more than just that, a rumor, and yet even he couldn't help but feel little shivers of anticipation at the upcoming tournament.

And if he was excited, then Mal, an absolute nut when it came to anything gun related, probably could barely think about anything else. It was a testament to his utter will that he wasn't vibrating in his seat and still managed a calm and, seemingly unperturbed, expression.

It is unknown where their conversation would've gone from that point onward, or indeed if it would've continued at all, for at that precise moment the doors of the lecture hall opened and Professor Russel, in all of his five foot three glory, entered the room, a gaggle of students trailing behind him.

The lesson began, and both concentrated on the mutations of the CFTR gene, their conversation receding to the back of Jonathan's mind.

The owner of "One-Shot Gun Range" frowned.

"Watcha doin' 'ere Mal?" His gruff voice, complete with a thick southern accent, sounded out with a slight echo through the building's main hall.

Atticus Berkeley, his mother had named him after her favorite "To Kill a Mockingbird" character, was a 45 year old balding man with a large mustache. He wore classic "cowboy clothes", the type you'd see in movies, and was never seen without a fat cigar in his mouth. Because of said cigar, his throat was always parched and his voice would come out a little harsh.

Despite all that the man had a heart of gold. He knew nearly everything about firearms which was why he and Fomalhaut got along so well. The two could spend hours discussing things like firing rates, sniper angles, and historical usage of any weapon they would choose.

It also helped that Fomalhaut visited nearly every day, and on the weekends would spend literally hours at the place, doing work for his classes, while also keeping Atticus some much needed company.

He'd seen Fomalhaut come in today, and wasn't surprised. He knew that the boy couldn't wait to test out the cutting edge stuff that had come in a few hours ago, but exactly because of his excitement he had to have known that he wasn't allowed to test out anything before the event officially begun.

"Seriously Mal, ya know that its too early for ya to be 'ere. Don't ya 'ave some schoolwork to complete or sumthin?"

"I can do it here if I really need to. I brought all of my stuff in my backpack," answered the young man before setting down said backpack with a heavy oomph onto the floor.

Upon being put down the backpack made the sort of sound that only an object filled with a lot of heavy things could possibly make. It was the type of noise that would turn heads, and make people either nod in appreciation or cringe and walk away faster.

Atticus was the first type.

"Sweet baby Jesus, Fomalhaut. What in the name of the holy virgin do ya 'ave in 'ere," he yelped, eyeing the backpack.

"Pretty much everything. Clothes, books, my computer, snacks. Pretty much all I need to spend the rest of the day here. You know I like to have my things on me most of the time, Attic-brain, why are you even asking?"

Atticus rolled his eyes at hearing the nickname. "Well Mal, if ya must know, it's because you are early as all hell. Ya know I ain't allowed ta let ya try anythin' before the tournament begins. So you're gonna be bored unless you want to try out the basic guns for the millionth time."

Fomalhaut smiled wryly and sat down on one of the chairs. "Alright you got me old man, I wanted to see the new stuff." His eyes turned a bit crafty. "Hey old man, you can still show me the stuff right?"

Atticus took a long drag of his cigar before exhaling. "Mal ya know that's supposed to be kept a secret. The supervisor of this damn military circus is going to have my ass if I do anything."

Fomalhaut sighed. "Yeah. I get you."

He took out a textbook and laptop from his bag and started doing…whatever it was that the boy did at his fancy pants med school.

"For a long while the room descended into a comfortable, yet very bland, silence, broken only by cigar puffs and the clacking of a keyboard.

Eventually Atticus's cigar ran out of tobacco. He snuffed it out in a large ashtray and threw the remains into the trashcan. It made a lonely noise as it hit the empty basket.

"Argh, fine" he grumbled out, pulling out a set of fancy keys from a drawer behind the counter. "But ya can only look Kid. No touching."

Fomalhaut's eyes brightened. "Old man you sound like a bouncer at a strip club, but come on let's go." Weirdly, he put everything back into his backpack and hoisted it on his shoulders.

Atticus didn't give it any significance, though he did raise an eyebrow. Then again, Mal did say that he liked to keep his stuff on him.

The brown haired college student and gun range owner walked into the adjacent room, much smaller than the first and dimly lit. It's only feature was a large metal door. It led to the weapon storage, a place that both Atticus and Fomalhaut were very familiar with.

"So wait, you just keep the good stuff along with everything else? You serious old man, doesn't that seem a bit disrespectful?"

Atticus shot him a half hearted glare. "What's disrespectful is 'ow you address me ya little shit." Both chuckled for a bit before Atticus inserted the key into the lock and the door creaked open, showcasing the storage.

It had a fairly spacious interior, being mostly empty, except for the walls which were covered with various weapons like pistols, uzis, assault rifles, shot guns, a few sub machine guns and even a sniper rifle. They both knew every gun on the walls personally, having used each of them in their own personal one-on-one sharp shooting competitions.

Today, however, the room was different. The center had a large metal table that was covered in a dark green cloth. Underneath the cloth there were outlines of the new armaments that were to be used in "Akimbo Ablaze."

Fomalhaut took a step forward instinctually, reaching to take the cloth off and expose what was underneath, but Atticus grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping him.

"Look Mal, I trust ya, I really do, but this 'ere is some high tech weaponry. So only I am going to be touching it. You stay back."

With those words he carefully lifted the cover, exposing what was underneath.

He heard Fomalhaut let out a whistle of appreciation, as the young man walked over to look at the beauties revealed to be lying on the metal surface. He walked around the table, inspecting the weapons from each side, murmuring in slight awe at their sleek, aerodynamic form, and their jet black coat of paint.

"I can't believe it," he muttered finally. "These are actual wrist mounted flamethrowers." He turned toward Atticus, his eyes wide, "Is this for real?"

Atticus nodded, and Fomalhaut continued his study. "They're beautiful. I wonder how much power these things have…"

Atticus smirked. "Guess you'll find out in a few days, eh?"

"Yeah…" the other man trailed off, simply staring in wonder. Eventually he shook his head, as if realizing something.

"Hey Atticus, what the heck powers these things anyways, I don't see a fuel cell on them anywhere?" he asked curiously.

Atticus smacked his lips thoughtfully, before pulling out another cigar from his pocket. "That'll arrive tomorrow, or so I 'eard. It's apparently a new form o' chemical compound that 'as just finished the testing phase." He took a drag and exhaled happily as he felt the sweet scent of nicotine rush through him.

"So these things aren't dangerous…" Fomalhaut muttered under his breath, before looking up to Atticus, who had his hands in his pockets. The kid took a deep breath and suddenly asked.

"Can I try them on?"

Atticus stared at him hard. "Are you stupid? These things are crazy expensive. I ain't about to take no risk in letting you 'old somethin' like that."

Fomalhaut raised his hands placatingly, his black eyes staring at him calmly. "Look, I just want to try them on now so I don't make a dumbass mistake later when the fuel is actually in there. I work with science, I know how dangerous chemicals are."

Atticus shook his head firmly. "No. Doesn't matter. They're still extremely valuable. I don't want to see ya go to jail because ya liked a shiny new toy too much."

Fomalhaut sighed in annoyance. "I never treat any gun like a toy, things like that lead to shootings. I live in the U.S.A. I'm not re-" he paused before changing his wording "ahem, I'm not stupid."

Atticus looked at him sceptically.

"Oh come on, they're just empty metal boxes right now."

Atticus paused, debating in his mind. He did want to see how these things would look on a person, and if there was anyone he'd trust with this, it would be Fomalhaut Anderson. The kid was way too serious and responsible to joke around about this sort of thing.

"Ugh. You'll drive me to an early grave, ya know that?" Nodding toward the flamethrowers, he watched as Fomalhaut hurriedly put them on, the sleek weapons attaching themselves to his arms.

The young man flexed his muscles, adjusting to the new weight. "Surprisingly light," he muttered, as he took some steps before extending his hand, aiming at a painted target on one of the empty spaces of the wall.

Nothing happened, but Fomalhaut seemed satisfied. Walking over to another wall he picked up a 9mm semi-automatic, and loaded a single cartridge into it before aiming it and the flamethrower at the same time. He tried it on one knee, then lying down, then aiming both.

Atticus had to admit, the boy's form was flawless. He was clearly still getting used to aiming a wrist mounted weapon, but his years of practice were instinctively guiding him, and damn if he didn't look cool.

After a few minutes he was apparently satisfied, and turned back toward Atticus. He opened his mouth to say something, a rare grin on his face, and suddenly he…wasn't there anymore.

One moment he stood there, and the next he just…was gone.

Atticus blinked, then called out his friend's name. Then he did it again. Then he turned around. He rubbed his eyes. Slowly he formed a cross over his chest with his hands.

Then Atticus Berkeley took a deep breath, and ran out the door, screaming for help.

"I never considered myself some kind of special individual." He found himself in a bright green field. The sun shone from above, it shone from a clear blue sky.

"Not once in my life did I believe that I was better or worse than anybody else on that godforsaken rock." He had been sure that he was inside. He had been…goofing off with Atticus.

"Even now I can't help but think that what happened back then had been an accident." It was…noisy here. There were sounds of people all around him. They were…screaming.

"I remember I found myself stumbling backwards in shock. I tripped over something and fell down, causing my gaze to look up into the sky." Yet the noise of human agony wasn't the only one. There was also a distinctly non-human noise there. A sort of beastly howling.

"I looked up, and there in the sky, I saw a whale." He had scrambled back in horror, trying to get away from the massive white leviathan in the sky. "Natural terror…unexampled intelligent malignity."

"The next thing I remember was…her. Her head suddenly came into my vision, it obscured the thing in the sky." The person looked at him and shouted out something, but he didn't hear it. It took him a moment to realize who he was looking at. She had red hair. Red hair and blue eyes…

"Sister?" His voice was a croaking plea. Like a man on the verge of bursting into sobbing hysterics.

"Sister? I don't know who you're referring to, but my name is Theresia Van Astrea. Listen, it's dangerous here, you need to get out of here!" She yelled at him, there was concern in her blue eyes. Those painfully familiar blue eyes.

"There is a whale in the sky…" his voice was oddly calm now. The trembling from before was gone. He spoke almost wistfully.

"Yes. The White Whale is upon us. Listen to me, you need to run now. Evacuate quickly. Or fight if you have a weapon. You can't stay here!" She ran off, her red hair fluttering behind her. She charged towards the whale with a war cry. He didn't see her blue eyes anymore.

"A weapon…" his gaze dropped to the tiny pistol in his hand. Then it was raised to the roaring beast in the sky.

"I remember knowing with certainty that I had nowhere to go. Where was I supposed to run?" He looked at his si-at Theresia Van Astrea. She was shouting orders to soldiers in the distance as they took aim and fired arrows upon the monster. Slowly he stood up.

"I remember admiring her courage." There was blood everywhere. People dead on the ground, people still alive but dying. Mutilated corpses. Screams, shrieks and battle cries. Above all of it, the roaring howls of the whale.

"And so I…" His face set in a grim expression. His fingers clenched around the 9mm in his hand. He took a step forward.

"…Followed her."

Chapter One: End.

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