The Obsolete Protector

by M10m gas mask soldier

Upon being revived 10 years after being murdered by Sofia, Subject Delta has to fight his way back to his beloved master Eleanor. However, he is not alone. Upon being reunited, the two Alpha Series Big Daddies must get to their captured daughters before it is too late. Meanwhile, Eleanor wishes for Delta to be more than her father. Burial at Sea connections. AU BioShock 2.

28. Chapter 28: Symbol of Defiance

Ch.28: Symbol of Defiance

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A.N.:

Hey everyone!

Sorry, I meant to have this up earlier but I kept getting ideas to add to the chapter that I was having trouble deciding if I should or should not include.

I do not know why but the inside of the pumping station was one of the hardest to try to describe so far. Who knew? Of all the places in the game, it is the place where you fight Simon that has been one of the hardest to write about because of all the tiny little details.

Also, the description for the Inner Sanctuary is incomplete in this chapter because of how Delta enters it. The rest of the room will be described in the next chapter. Oh and, in the game itself, the door on the third floor does not exist but I needed a realistic explanation for how the Brute appearing during the fight.

So, several of you have been asking for the Infinite characters to play a larger role in the story. Do not worry, I have had plans for them all along ;)

Anyway,

There is still one more chapter (of the three that I have been trying to get finished since January) that I need to proof and that one has Emily in it.

I will try to have it up by the end of summer along with these two.

As I have said before, I am still pretty rusty so please forgive any errors that might have slipped past me. I tried my best but this chapter is not as good as I wanted it to be. As I said in the last one, I just want to get the show on the road.

Regardless, I hope it was worth the wait!

Read and review if you want :)

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The security door opened as I neared it, much to my relief as I had been worried about whether or not Simon would have thought to just simply lock it to prevent us from having easy access into his makeshift house of worship. The room beyond was the main generator room and no less than eight of the large round devices dominated the majority of the rectangular space. The floor was comprised of multiple metal bars that were not even vaguely similar and appeared to recycled scrap metal. The spaces between the metal pieces allowed me to see the deep pool of seawater just below the floor. At the far end of the room mounted in the left wall was the other entrance to the pumping station that had seized and, thus, forced us to make our way all the way around to this one. To the right of the malfunctioning door, mounted into the wall opposite of us, was a locked security door that was defiantly holding back the seawater in the completely flooded area beyond it that was visible through the large glass windows surrounding the bulkhead.

The open bulkhead to the next room was mounted into the right wall approximately twenty yards from where we had entered. Directly to my right was a path that snaked between the interior side of the pumping station's outer wall and the first pair of generators that were mounted over two large metal pipes with one running below the floor and the other running along the ceiling above me. In front of me, the floor gave way to a flight of stairs that descended down to the depression in the room that served as the main path between the two first pairs of generators to the bulkhead in the right wall. Beyond that was another flight of stairs that ascended back up to the main level of the room and the seized security door at the far end of the path.

Moving towards the stairs before me, I grunted, "Alpha, right…Jen, left."

Without giving any acknowledgment, my brother entered the room behind me and then began to take the path just to the right of the entrance while the Elite Big Sister manifested in a cloud of purple particles at the far end of the room by the other security door and then began to make her way towards the bulkhead along the far path. Meanwhile, I methodically moved towards the opening to the next section of the pumping station along the middle path at the bottom of the flight of stairs. As we made our way through the room, the sounds of our armored bodies putting immense strain on the deteriorating floor as we swiveled around and the frames of our repurposed tools turned weapons flexing and contracting as we raised and lowered them up into the air as we carefully scanned both the ceiling and the contours of the area around us filled the air of the almost unnerving quiet space. Fortunately, the three of us made it to the opening without incident.

I just vaguely noted the Vita-Chamber that was installed in a slot in the wall that was further down towards the rear of the room to the left of the open bulkhead as I made my way through the opening. The room beyond the opening was small, less than twenty yards long with the majority of its space being dominated by two generators that were along the left and right wall. A metal staircase with handrails was immediately beyond the entrance and it ascended up to a raised platform that was between the two generators to allow access to the devices by station employees.

Beyond the platform was a second flight of stairs which descended down to the main level of the floor. The security door to the next section of the station was at the back of the room. Several pipes of various colors and sizes were mounted into the right wall beyond the generator. Meanwhile, four large chains hung from the ceiling near the back of the room and the ceiling-mounted lamp that illuminated the room cast shadows thanks to the spinning blades of the ventilation fan directly below it.

As I entered the room, the pumping station's announcement system audibly struggled as it powered to life before, moments later, Simon's voice echoed through the makeshift temple as he ranted to his surviving followers, "Each of you know the child of the Lamb. Through ADAM, our souls shall pass into her holy blood and we will be reborn as a single immaculate body."

With the ease of a razor sharp scalpel, the bitterness in her British-accented voice cut through the very air around us as Eleanor remarked, "You must be very proud of what you have done to these people, Mother."

I moved through the small room and then started to approach the security door. However, as I did, I began to hear voices coming from the other side of the watertight barrier. In addition, I could also hear the soft sound of music that was being played by a nearly worn out record player. I had just gotten close enough to hear the music when the fuzzy male voice sang the words, "…pass the ammunition. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." A slight chill ran down my spine as I could not help but note how eerily appropriate the song was given the context of the situation.

Motioning with my gloved left hand to signal the two armored veterans behind me about what was beyond the door, I prepared myself to charge straight into the nest of fanatically devoted followers of The Family. There was only one way in or out for both us and the inhabitants beyond the door. However, aside from Simon, I decided to let any of the other Splicers that ran for the exit go because I knew that, as with any radical group, there might have been members among their ranks that had been press ganged into joining them in addition to the ones that had joined simply out of fear of reprisal should they have refused. I informed my comrades of my decision, which they agreed upon as well, and then, letting out an Alpha Series Big Daddy guttural roar, I charged through the door with my Drill held at the ready.

Despite the nearly completely inadequate light provided by the condensation and grime-covered light fixtures mounted along the walls and ceiling, I could see that the room beyond the security door was considerably larger than the previous one as the majority of it was dominated by a rectangular area that was about fifty yards long and thirty yards wide. With the entrance to the room being close to the right corner, most of the room was to my left save for the straight path down to the next security door and the five or so yards from the doorway to the right wall. A pile of concrete chunks was to the immediate right of the entrance and the section of the concrete floor directly in front of the right wall was missing, which revealed the underlying parallel-running pipes and pool of seawater. On the black and white checkerboard patterned tile surface of the section of the right wall just beyond the entrance, brushed onto its surface with white interior house paint, was the phrase, "We Are Never Alone".

Directly beyond the entrance was a thirty yard run to the set of descending concrete steps that went down to the area around the far security door. In the air to the left of the entrance were two massive metal drainage pipes that were supported from below at multiple points along their path from the middle of the wall shared by the entrance through the center of the open section of the room and finally to the far wall above the next security door by two pairs of concrete columns that were mirror-image of each other. The two pipes were also mirror-image of each other and they eventually came together near the section that ran into the far wall.

The floor of the open area of the room was tiered downwards every fifteen or so yards and there was a metal handrail mounted into the concrete slab of the floor along the boundary edge of the first and second section. In front of the metal handrail was another shrine to Eleanor and the contents of its protective glass cover was a Gathering Tool. To the immediate left of the entrance was a Little Sister Vent that was surprisingly devoid of the cult's graffiti and "offerings" considering the ones that we had seen in Pauper's Drop.

A passage had been cut into the left wall to allow access to the metal staircase that led to the second floor walkway. To the right of the rectangular frame of the entrance to the passage was a Circus of Values Vending Machine. The former station manager's office, which was located near the end of the left side of the second floor walkway, was likely now Simon's private quarters judging by the fact that a folding metal frame security gate had been placed in the entrance to it and it was currently locked in place. The record player was inside the secured room judging by the direction of the music.

As I entered the room, I saw a man and a woman that were both armed with crudely modified and horribly maintained Thompson Submachine Guns arguing with each other directly across from the entrance near the top of the flight of stairs that descended down in the direction of the security door. To my left, I saw a middle aged woman in the tattered remains of a formal evening dress that had her face concealed beneath a cracked bunny mask as she nervously paced in a circle between the sets of support columns while holding her Thompson over her right shoulder. Finally, up on the second floor walkway, I saw a large and fairly built man in a dark green maintenance worker uniform that was leaning against the wall just to the right of the locked entrance to Simon's quarters as he read a worn copy of Sofia's book.

Focusing on the two Splicers by the stairs, I rushed forward to give them as little opportunity to recover from the shock of my sudden appearance as possible. The two individuals had only just realized what was happening when my heavily spliced frame slammed into their much smaller ones with enough force to send them flying through the air for a short distance before they then landed on the concrete floor. The lighter woman continued on to unceremoniously roll down the flight of stairs while her heavier counterpart came to a stop on the top step with his head and neck sticking over the edge of it.

I moved forward towards the fallen man before me as he was trying to get to his feet while I continued to keep his partner at the bottom of the stairs in my field of view. The Splicer cried out briefly in confusion before his cries were abruptly silenced as I crushed his skull beneath the immense weight of my diving boot-clad right foot. Meanwhile, the woman had gotten to her feet and was standing in front of a strange candle shrine type setup that was against the wall to the right of the security gate. The floor around the security door was constructed out of numerous long, thin parallel strips of wood that were uniformly spaced with gaps between them, which allowed me to see the pool of seawater beneath them.

The Thompson-wielding member of the Rapture Family opened fire on me as I descended the steps towards her. However, revving up my industrial-grade Drill, I began to repel her own .50 BMG rounds back at her. She cried out in a combination of shock and agony as some of the repelled bullets struck her thin frame, which caused her to stop firing her submachine gun. The round's infamously devastating power was on display as the profusely bleeding addict now had the majority of her left hand, save for the thumb and index finger, and a chunk of the upper right crown of her skull blown off of her body.

As I continued to close the distance between us, the Splicer, having still been facing me despite the barrage of repelled bullets, turned to her right and began to try to make a break for the watertight security door in an attempt to retreat deeper into the church. The severely injured woman had only been able to take a single step before I willed a high-powered bolt of genetic electricity from the ported digits of my gauntlet-encased left hand. As her body involuntarily locked up because of the bright blue electrical arcs dancing along her frame, the denizen was powerless to do anything other than scream unintelligibly as I thrust the spinning conical bit of my Drill into her neck.

My frame was once again sprayed by green-tinted blood as my industrial-grade mining tool easily tore open the woman's neck. As the now nearly decapitated Splicer began to stumble back towards the strange shrine with multiple lit white candles, I released my grip in my Drill's throttle before then thrusting its razor sharp tip into her head. The mangled corpse collapsed into a heap against the wall in the middle of the burning candles that were placed inside a makeshift rack that was nailed to the wall. The remaining ADAM-infused blood began to drain out of the body to eventually drip down into the pool of seawater below the floor while the deceased denizen's torn, dirty clothing soon began to burn as it was ignited by the candles that it had fallen against.

I was about to turn around to go assist my two armored companions but I stopped dead in my tracks as I finally examined the two paintings on the wall above the now damaged shrine of the makeshift candle rack and two improvised stands made out of steamer trunks to the left and right of the rack. I was confused by what I was seeing because they struck me as being completely out of place in this temple, which was dedicated to the set of beliefs that had been used to sell the desperate population of Splicers on the idea of sacrificing themselves to Eleanor in exchange for salvation.

The paintings did not contain any of the butterfly symbolism or even any depictions of my pair bonded Little Sister. Instead, the left painting was of the somewhat shadow shrouded interior side of a very athletic young man's left arm from his open hand down to about three quarters of the forearm. Meanwhile, the right painting was of the somewhat shadow shrouded needle of an EVE Hypo as it was being held in the man's right hand. Both of them had clearly been painted to give the combined almost photo realistic image of the two limbs while they were in the positions that they would be right before the individual drove the enormous needle into his left arm to inject the glowing blue substance into his veins to regain the use of his Plasmids.

However the detail that caught my attention was the black chain tattoo that was on both of his arms just below his hands. The two tattoos were perfectly mirrored to give the look of a continuous set of links making up a short length of chain. Having been a sailor, I knew how meaningful tattoos could be thanks to the many stories by fellow servicemen about their tattoos and why they had got them. As such, I was able to deduce that, in addition to the obvious symbolism of the chain link, their location was likely just as significant. They would almost always be in the man's field of view whenever he did anything that required the use of his hands.

Alpha and Jennifer had joined us by that time as they had easily cut down the remaining Splicers inside the room. Despite the ever increasing urgency of the situation, I found myself raising my left hand up so that it was directly in the center of my field of view before then rotating it so that the top of it was facing me. The glossy white but also now blood-stained shape that was the Greek symbol for "Delta" was clearly visible where it had been literally stamped onto the exterior of the square section of thick copper plate in the center of the top of my glove to designate which test candidate I was in the Alpha Series Big Daddy Program nearly a decade prior. That day inside the hidden, real laboratory at Fontaine Futuristics, I had ceased to be a human being with a name and became a mere product with an assigned number.

While I held my hand so that both my stamped Delta symbol and the man's chain tattoos were in my field of view, I smiled briefly beneath my diving helmet. As an Alpha Series Big Daddy, my mind was shattered and the majority of my humanity was long gone. They had done their best to break me. They had tried to turn me into a dog that could not even bark without permission. However, even after everything that my captors had done to me, they had ultimately failed. My mark was not a symbol of my enslavement but instead of my defiance.

Eleanor's playful nature surfaced as she teased me, "Who's a good doggy?"

I let out as best of a dog bark as I could in response.

Delighted by my reaction, the young brunette giggled happily while briefly clapping her hands together. I began to let out a series of grunt-like laughs but stopped short when the precious little girl's stomach let out a soft growl of hunger. I heard the Little Sister climb over the top of my helmet until she finally managed to lean over and look into my porthole. As she entered my field of view, I saw that her pale grey cheeks held just the barest traces of light pink along their smooth contours.

She was also closing her eyes tightly as she addressed both Eleanor and I with an embarrassed tone in her edged voice, "It...it is not what you think Papa Delta and Big Sister Eleanor."

I let out a concerned grunt in response. The precious little angel opened her glowing eyes and declared with a determined tone that was genuinely inspiring considering how young she was, "My tummy is just being rebellious…we have to save Mister Sinclair! I am a good girl! The angels can wait!"

Then, leaning back up and thrusting the needle of her Gathering Tool out in front of us as if it was her sword, the brave, determined Little Sister finished, "Forward ho, Daddy!"

Subject Alpha remarked, "Amazing Little One, sir."

Jennifer stepped forward and began to what I had to assume because of the vision restrictions of my suit was rub the child's head while she let out a proud older sister hum in agreement with my brother's statement. While it could have been a result of Eleanor's presence inside the girl's mind, I could not deny that my current charge's resolve and strength were inspiring to say the least. As she situated herself on her throne between the tanks of my suit's rebreather system on my back, I assured the bold Little Sister, "Thank you, sweetie. It should only be a little while longer. After we save Mister Sinclair, we will go find the angels."

As I began to make my way to the nearby security door, I heard Jennifer comment, "There should be one more Little Sister assigned to Siren Alley."

I replied with my Alpha Series Big Daddy voice, "We should have plenty of time for that once we deal with Simon and activate the pumps. The Splicers should also be much less of an issue once they do not have the 'Father' pulling their strings."

Upon reaching the metal, watertight Securis door, its stylized exterior gear in the center of its frame began to move as it raised it up into its housing to grant me access to the next section of the pumping station.

Before I could pass through the open passageway, my built-in shortwave radio audibly powered to life. Moments later, the cold, stoic tone of Sofia Lamb filled the interior of my helmet as she addressed me with her Southern British accent, "I know how you must think of me, Delta. Simon came to me a broken man with nothing to live for. As Father Wales, he was able to regain purpose…he became a voice for the weary residents of the city and gave them hope while he set rules and guidelines for his followers to abide by."

There was a brief pause before she continued with the faintest air of superiority and victory in her otherwise near emotionless tone, "You did the same thing when you became Subject Delta. You lifted your struggling, demoralized brethren onto your shoulders when they needed it the most. The entire program would have been nothing but a footnote had it not been for you. You created the code by which your kind unquestioningly lived and died by…even after your death."

Fighting the urge to disable my radio by smashing my head against the closest hard surface that I could find, I continued to listen to the psychiatrist's latest lecture as she finished, "Do you really believe that your new phantom life is more important than the very future of humanity? You…a war veteran who has seen the path of ruin that the surface is on…you cannot deny that they will be unable to survive for more than a few decades without Eleanor. You fulfilled your job as her guardian and you have my upmost personal gratitude…humanity itself owes you its survival. However, your job has been over for almost ten years. It is time to do the right thing and relinquish your sword. Let go…your day is done."

As my radio finally fell silent, Eleanor remarked with confident and proud tone, "Oh Mother…there is no Lot 192 against an Alpha Series Big Daddy."

Confused by what she had just said, I let out a questioning grunt as I suddenly felt like I had while Eleanor and Elizabeth had been going back and forth about that individual's cat that was somehow connected to quantum physics. My mischievous partner seemed to be amused by my confusion as she asked me while faking a working class Dublin accent that had an unmistakable charismatic air to it, "Would you kindly tell Eleanor that you love her again...boyo?"

I let out a low, sigh-like grunt as I was at least able to get the reference to Fontaine's "Atlas" persona. For a city filled with the best and brightest, the population of Rapture was incredibly easy for the con man to manipulate. As Fontaine, he was a thug that was a menace to everyone and had to be killed even if it meant going against most of the core principles and philosophies of Rapture itself. As Atlas, he was the leader of a revolution against the elitist, tyrannical Andrew Ryan that had seemingly materialized out of thin air just when the city needed a working class hero.

Of course, never mind that while Rapture was busy waxing philosophy and talking about how "the weak" were ruining the city or about how it was elitism that was ruining everything, it was exploited little girls such as Sally, Leta, and Masha that were actually the ones that were paying for the selfishness of the city. Born into a cold, wet world that was surrounded by perpetual darkness at the bottom of the ocean, the children of Rapture had grown up in a society where people would ignore orphaned little girls that were on death's door from starvation even if they were literally having to step over the girls to be able to continue walking down the street.

I really had tried to not let it get to me. Revenge could only ever cause more hardship and suffering and it was almost always the innocent that paid the price. That was why the Alpha Series followed our code. We were Protectors above all else. However, as Elizabeth had learned the hard way, Subject Delta was far less forgiving than I was and, once the monster was let out of his cage, there was no going back once one hurt a Little Sister in his presence.

As I reflected on the events of the night of my death, it dawned on me that, at least for me, it was actually only a few hours since said events took place because, minus what Tenenbaum had done to my genetic code to try to assist me as best she could, the Vita-Chamber had restored my body to how it had been just before my demise.

Upon the realization of my pseudo-time traveling, another thought occurred to me and I asked Eleanor, "Hey, what time is it?"

My daughter replied, "Please…time has not meant anything in this damn place for years."

There was a pause before she asked, "Why?"

I explained, "I want to try to time it just right so that the first thing that you see is either a sunrise or sunset when we get topside. Your eyes aren't going to be accustomed to the Sun and I would rather your first memory of the surface not be a painful one because of how bright the Sun is."

Before my bonded Little Sister could reply, I began making my deeper into the Pumping Station. The area directly beyond the security door was just barely large enough to allow my more than seven foot tall frame to comfortably move through its tight, nearly perfectly square contours. The floor was metal with uniform holes cut into its surface. The right wall and ceiling of the short path had multiple large, yellow metal water pipes running along their length. The left wall was largely devoid of any pipes and instead was covered with white square tiles that were laid out in a grid pattern. The tiles themselves were all badly deteriorated and discolored with some of them even missing large chunks out of their baseball-sized surface. Only a mere ten or so yards beyond the door, the path briefly narrowed even more as it reached an open bulkhead. Beyond the empty security door housing, the path opened up as it began to descend down to what was likely the last section of the station.

I had only taken a single step before Simon's voice once again began to echo through the entire station, although now it was much louder which indicated that we were nearly upon the innermost section of the building. The man's voice never wavered as he addressed what I had to presume was his remaining followers, "But The Beast is upon us, children. It wears a hide of iron and its hands are Death and Change. It would seize the Child from us, and with her, Paradise itself! Be ye soldier on the ground or angel in the sky, ye must stand fast…and send it howling back to hell!"

By then, I had reached the open bulkhead beyond the security door. Beyond the opening was the final section of the outer pumping station. The rectangular-shaped space had a flight of about twenty metal stairs leading down to its main floor, which was formed by long parallel metal strips that were uniformly spaced approximately five inches apart as they traveled from the front of the room to the far bulkhead while reinforcing strips spanned the width of the room below them. As with most of the other rooms in the station, there was a large pool of seawater visible beneath the gaps in the floor.

Being the critical link between the two parts of the station, the room's ceiling was easily more than two stories tall so that there was enough room for the more than twelve individual pipes that were running parallel along the walls to where they continued on through the far wall. The ceiling itself was dominated by two large oval-shaped portholes that allowed for a view of the ocean directly above the city. Due to the narrow width of the ceiling, the two were placed with the second one in line directly after the first. Their exterior had an ornate metal cover and, despite the very clean surface of the glass, the decay of the city around them was still visible thanks to the kelp that had since grown up to be taller than the station itself.

The staggering pressure of the water that was being pushed through the neglected structure was on display as one of the lengths of the deteriorated pipes was ejecting a cloud of water vapor almost straight up into the air above the staircase approximately ten steps down from the top. I had to hand it to the builders of the station for the simple yet brilliant use of said water pressure to run the turbine generators that were at the front of the station. It was a kind of built-in fail safe to ensure that there would always be power going to the massive water pump strategically located downstream of the generators. Even in worst case scenarios, water always traveled along the path of least resistance and towards the lowest geographical point, hence why the pump was at the bottom of the station and the generators were at the top. Whatever extra energy it took to pump the water back up the artificial slope of the station's pipe network was more than made up for by the constant source of electricity.

About halfway between the end of the stairs and the security door in the middle of the far wall was an open doorway that was cut into the left wall to allow access to a small side room. The partially shadow-shrouded security door at the far end of the room had an air of finality to it as it was framed in a near exact replica of the ornate station badges that were found around the station's two exterior entrances with the large, red metal circle with silver detailing that proudly displayed the official number of the building much like the larger fire stations on the surface. The badge itself had been mounted above the door into the reinforced emergency bulkhead that had been placed inside the station as a last resort measure if the exterior bulkheads were compromised.

Structurally, the bulkhead was the boundary between what was essentially a watertight compartment inside of another watertight compartment and, originally, it was the station's last line of defense around its vital pumping unit against the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the event that the outer shell was somehow compromised. There was little doubt that it was as thick as the ones found in Hephaestus. Now, however, it was merely the witness to the fall of The Family's strongest and most important safe house outside of Persephone.

Upon reaching the entrance of the small room beyond the bottom of the stairs, I just vaguely noted the Gene Bank that was mounted in the middle of the wall to the right of the open door frame before I entered the small space beyond it. I was surprised to find that it was actually the remains of what appeared to have once been something akin to a doctor's office that consisted of two rectangular rooms with the second attached to the first through the left wall.

Aside from the visible sections of the reinforced concrete walls and the large yellow pipes running along the ceiling, the two rooms were completely out of place from the rest of the station with their hardwood floors, decorative potted plants, and floral pattern wallpaper-covered walls. Against the wall opposite the entrance was a long and thin oval-shaped porthole that allowed a view to the seafloor beyond Siren Alley but, by now, the once regularly maintained kelp had grown up to dominate the majority of what was visible through the thick glass. However, the now green slime and muck-covered exterior network of drainage pipes that were anchored deep into the bedrock of the ocean floor about a hundred yards from the pumping station were still visible through the overgrowth. In the center of the floor before me was an ornate rug that was covered with what looked like more than a dozen hardback books that might have fallen from the top of the hardwood desk that was to the left of the entrance.

As I began to take note of the other various pieces of furniture, Eleanor informed me with a noticeable trace of disgust in her voice, "Oh, this place…I forgot that Mother had a spare session room set up in here. She brought me with her a few times and I had to sit in the other room."

I turned my frame to be able to see into the back room and saw that the majority of the space in the back had indeed been turned into a little play area. The crayons were still where she had left them and even the rather obvious drawings of a little girl, a teddy bear, and what I had to guess was a pair of fish on the back wall had been left alone. Even the open music box that had been left open on the floor near the back wall had been left exactly where the young brunette had left it years prior.

As I was about to turn around and leave, I saw that there was a safe mounted into the exterior-facing wall of the second room. I made my way into the eerily shrine-like time capsule that was the back room and then stopped in front of the old, weathered safe. Just like the rest of the office, the safe looked as if it had been years since anyone had interacted with it as a layer of dust had accumulated on its surface. The contents inside of it were most likely only patient files that Sofia had left behind but I still calmly reached up with my gauntlet-encased left hand to firmly grip the metal bars of the wheel. Then, with hardly any difficulty, I ripped the thick metal door right off its hinges before I then casually dropped it onto the ground off to my left.

Sure enough, I was met by the incredibly disappointing sight of faded files and various labeled folders. In a moment of irritation, I balled my left hand into a fist and then slammed it into the side of the wall to the left of the useless safe. Karma saw fit to rear its head as the impact caused enough vibration to make more than a quarter of the contents to fall out onto the floor around me. I let out a frustrated grunt before I then used my Telekinesis Plasmid to will the folders and pieces of paper up into the air. After reorganizing the items in mid-air, I willed them back into the safe as best as I could.

Seemingly amused by my actions, Eleanor asked, "Why bother putting everything back?"

I replied, "Always clean up your messes."

My bonded partner informed me without even flinching, "You can leave me as messy as you want...unless, of course, you just want to clean me..."

Interrupting her, I grunted, "Eleanor!"

Eleanor giggled briefly in response as she enjoyed teasing me once again. With the room being a near complete bust, I turned and then began to make my way towards the exit. As I exited the office, Subject Alpha addressed me from where he had been leaning against the wall just to the left of the door frame, "Sir, Emily has informed me that Sofia has reactivated the remaining Elite Models left over from the war."

I replied to my brother, "Almost feel sorry for them…"

Alpha laughed with a series of grunts before he remarked in agreement, "Yes, sir."

Upon turning to face the security door that led to the cult's inner sanctuary, I remarked, "Well, they are expecting 'The Beast', so let's not disappoint 'em."

Reloading his highly modified Prototype Rivet Gun with what was likely it's more powerful Heavy Rivets, my loyal comrade remarked in agreement, "Terminate with extreme prejudice, sir."

With my gauntlet-encased left hand at the ready with several thin, blue arcs of genetic electricity traveling between the conductive metal ports of its digits and palm, and my industrial-grade Drill at the ready, I made my way over to the security door. The barrier opened without hesitation and, letting out a guttural roar, I charged into the inner sanctuary of the church.

Despite the darkness of the room, I could see that it consisted of two floors with the second floor around the entrance merely being a small walkway around the edges of the main, lower floor below it. The left and right sections of the second floor walkway were somewhat obscured behind a matching symmetrical set of three large pipes that were nearly as big around as I was as they descended from the ceiling, traveled past the walkway, and then curved into the wall about halfway down to the ground. Meanwhile, two metal frame platforms were being held in position near the ceiling by chains with one being on the left side of the room closer to the back wall and one being on the opposite side of the room to the right of the entrance.

Hanging against the wall about hallway down the left section of the walkway was a large rectangular painting of a Mass Production Model Little Sister in a pseudo-religious pose with rays of light shooting out from a source behind her head as she seemed to float above a woman that was clad in a white dress and was lying on her back. Interestingly, the Little One's dress had a reversed color design from the standard blue top and white collar, torso, and knee-length skirt as it was depicted with a white top and blue collar, torso, and skirt. In addition, as with most of the cult's shrines, the painting was surrounded by lit white candles.

The bottom floor was arranged in a way that somewhat reminded me of the layout of the nave of the church in my small Southern town with three columns of bench seats that were separated by a path down the middle of the room between the second and third column that led up to a central alter at the back of the room. Of course, since this was Rapture, the "rows" were far from aligned with the two seats of the left most group being extremely far apart with one all the way across the room near the altar and the second one almost being completely out of view near the back. Meanwhile, the second column consisted of three benches while the third, which was strangely placed right on top of a very short raised platform against the right wall, consisted of four benches. The benches themselves were clearly salvaged from elsewhere in Rapture as some of them were broken and practically unusable while all of them were in various states of general deterioration. Lit candles were placed around the congregation area with the majority of them being placed on the wall-length strip of concrete that ran along both walls beneath the sets of large pipes.

Meanwhile, the bottom floor itself consisted of three main sections that had a flight of stairs down to the next section every five yards or so as the aforementioned path between the second and third column of seats descended down to where said altar was located at the lowest part of the entire pumping station. In regards to the layout of Siren Alley, the area where the altar was located was the lowest point in the entire district. Even the "secret" ADAM laboratory in the basement of the nearby grocery store did not travel down beneath the streets nearly this far. It was not an exaggeration that beneath the floor in this room was the foundation that had been anchored into the bedrock decades prior.

Upon examination, I saw that the pulpit in the back consisted of a raised rectangular platform that had a long table at the edge of the front of it covered in a white sheet and a long makeshift wooden altar at the back of the platform that was covered with more than twenty lit white candles. Beneath the table in the front was an ornate red rug that had long since seen better days. In the front left corner of the pulpit was a lectern, though, from this distance, I could not see if there were any texts placed on the handy platform for easy access during sermons. Finally, in the back right corner of the platform there was a circular table that was covered with a white sheet and had candles on top of it.

To the left and right of the altar were two massive pipes that were symmetrical as they descended down from the ceiling and curved out to the side to avoid the platform as they continued on to where they traveled into the floor right beside the pulpit. Growing along of the base of the bottom of the right pipe and out over the top of the platform far enough to reach the circular table was a thick mass of dark green vines.

Towering above the altar against the back wall was a large painting of a woman clad in a flowing white dress with had a blue butterfly in place of her head. Several individuals were reaching up to the angelic figure as multiple rays of light were traveling out from the Sun-like object behind her. The theme of salvation was further shown in how the woman was depicted with her arms opened out to either side of her as if she was embracing the masses at her feet. Despite the circumstances, I could not help but briefly wonder how some deranged, physically deformed Splicer had managed to create anything even remotely close to this easily two story tall original piece of well-done artwork.

In front of the platform below the table was another shrine to Eleanor. In this case, it appeared to be the incredibly expensive white dress that I had bought for her the same day that Elizabeth had approached us with her offer. Just like the other objects that Simon had stolen from my daughter and put on display for all to see, the madman had placed my bonded partner's dress inside of a glass case. As Eleanor's Big Daddy, I would certainly have to show the former architect the consequences of stealing from my Little Sister.

As I entered the room, I saw Simon Wales standing in the middle of the pulpit. However, before I had even taken another step, the incredibly tall and thin black suit-clad preacher had raised his arms into the air to call his followers into the fight and then sprinted out of sight to the right of the platform. The furious screams of multiple individuals were just barely audibly over the thunderous impacts of my weighted diving boots as I charged across the walkway towards the gap in the metal railing, which was mounted along the exterior of the second floor, that was in the middle of the section beyond the entrance.

Without hesitation, I jumped through the opening and then plummeted down to the ground floor below. The entire station rocked as if it had been hit by an earthquake as my more than seven foot tall heavily built frame landed at the rear of the main isle with enough force to leave a shallow crater in the concrete block tiled surface of the floor in addition to the cloud of debris that was thrown up in the air around me. The Eleanor-controlled Little Sister's cries of exhilaration were almost completely drowned out by the thunderous sound of Subject Alpha's slightly less forceful impact on the floor just to my right less than a second later as my brother followed me right into the jaws of The Family.

Having recovered almost immediately from the landing, I let out a rumbling growl as I spotted a Spider Splicer getting to his feet from where he had been sitting in the middle of the bench of the front left row. The horribly deformed denizen in what could barely even qualify as little more than rags had only just managed to turn to face us before the high-pitched report of Alpha's Prototype Rivet Gun ripped through the air as the veteran Protector fired a Heavy Rivet into the Splicer's mutated, crested forehead. A bloody mixture of bone and brain fragments erupted out in all directions around the lanky frame of the addict as the majority of the upper section of the cultist's skull was removed as the much more powerful projectile delivered a catastrophic blow to its victim that was almost instantly fatal.

The corpse of the fallen denizen had not even collapsed onto the floor before I had started to advance towards the pulpit. However, I had only taken two steps before the manic cries of another Spider Splicer filled the air as the disturbingly thin individual dropped down from where he had been hiding in the shadows of the ceiling above me with his molten hot left cargo hook at the ready. However, just before he could reach me, I heard Eleanor call out, "Smile!"

The Splicer was caught off guard by the bright beam of my helmet-mounted lamp as my daughter forced the device to power on by placing her tiny left hand over the photoresistor to trick the hardwired circuit into activating the light. Disorientated and effectively blinded by the sensory assault, the denizen now fell towards me while he held his claw-like hands up to try to protect his eyes. I was able to side step to the left just in time and the twisted addict landed flat on the hard unforgiving floor with a wet thud.

Before the Splicer could recover, I walked over to his shaking frame as I began to rev up my Industrial-grade Drill. The lanky individual tried to crawl away at the last second but his attempt to flee was cut short when I thrust the whirling tip of my weaponized mining tool into the back of his deformed head. The sound of snapping vertebrae filled the air as the Splicer's body tried to resist the inevitable for a brief moment before finally relenting when my tool's bit reached the surface of the floor beneath.

There was hardly any time to celebrate, however, as the sound of multiple voices came from my left in the direction of the pulpit. After ripping my weapon out of the lifeless body at my feet, I began to turn towards the Splicers. Unfortunately for the two middle aged men clad in dirty, worn double breasted business suits that were taking cover on opposite sides of the isle behind the benches of the second row with their haphazardly modified Thompson Submachine Guns held firmly in their deformed hands, the Leadhead Splicers had greatly underestimated how quickly Alpha Series Big Daddies could move despite our immense size. Before they could take advantage of me being out position, I had turned to face them and, thus, had brought my Drill's Repulsion Field upgrade into play once again.

However, the two men were soon joined by five Thuggish Splicers, three of which were rather large men that were clearly members of one of the security companies from before the Civil War because they were dressed in dark brown waterproof hooded coats, thick boots, and gloves, and another Leadhead Splicer that was armed with a large rifle that I had never seen before as they charged out into view from where they had been out of sight to the left and right of the pulpit. As the two Thompson-armed denizens began to open fire upon us from where they were taking cover behind the benches, the cultist with the double barrel rifle began to take up a shooting position behind the table at the front of the pulpit. Meanwhile, the crudely armed Thuggish Splicers began to charge towards me.

Jennifer manifested out of a cloud of purple particles in the air above the Leadhead Splicer on the left and then pounced on her prey and, thus, I focused my attention on the five individuals that were just about to reach me. The three men were running out in front in a kind of wedge formation and the two women, who were both clad in green mechanics jumpsuits that were tattered and filthy with old oil and grease stains, were hanging back about four or five steps behind them. I felt a sense of nostalgia as I recognized the old tactic that the Thuggish Splicers were employing. The idea was that the Protector would take a defensive stance and concentrate on the individuals up front, which resulted in allowing the trailing members of the group to slip around the sides of the armored giant and then attack him from behind.

One of the former thugs of Ryan Security taunted me with a smug, confident tone, "Come on, Tin Man! You think you can take us all?"

I smirked beneath my diving helmet before I charged forward towards the group of denizens. Thanks to Sofia convincing her followers to not hunt the Little Sisters anymore, these five had not gone after a Big Daddy in far too long. The key to the tactic was for the Splicers to engage the Protector in area that was open enough that he lost track of the trailing members of the group. The flanking maneuver was successful if it was utilized correctly because it exploited the peripheral vision issue that all Protectors were affected by due to our diving suit-based armor.

It was, however, less effective against the Bouncer Models because the infamously brutal and highly aggressive combat style that earned them their name meant that it was still almost certain suicide for the Splicers to challenge the heavily armored titans in close quarters. In addition, the drill-wielding Protectors were capable of using their raw, physical strength to quite literally smash their way out of any group of denizens that tried to box them in. Moreover, the Bouncers were experts at causing chaos to disorient their attackers and, thus, coordination often time broke down early into the fight.

Sadly for these Splicers, this was not the right place and I was not a Mass Production Model. They did not even have time to react before I revved up my modified Drill and then charged straight at them while letting out a deafening guttural roar. Before there was even enough time to blink, I had smashed through the center of their formation in a thunderous collision of flesh and metal. The sounds of snapping bones filled the air of the makeshift church as I first knocked the former guard in the center of the wedge down onto his posterior and then literally flattened his coat-clad body beneath the immense weight of my Alpha Series Big Daddy frame as I continued forward until I was between the fallen denizen's two closest comrades.

When the two male Thuggish Splicers were both on either side of me and were both too close to escape the reach of the blast, I forced my body to a halt and then placed the ported digits of my gauntlet-encased left hand against the center of my armored chest as I thrust the hardened metal tip of my Industrial-grade Drill into the surface of the floor in a spot that was as close to where I was standing as my diving suit-clad frame could allow. The entire Inner Sanctuary shook as my inhumanly powerful muscular strength allowed me to almost effortlessly send the more than five hundred pound internal combustion engine tool through the concrete tile.

The two other male denizens had just enough time to try to guess what was happening before I willed a fully charged blast of Electro Bolt from my hand and into my chest, which then traveled along the exterior of my immune body as it followed the path of less resistance from the metal surface of my Drill to the floor that the weaponized mining tool had penetrated moments prior. Of course, concrete itself was not very conductive but Rapture had long since decayed beyond the point of any given surface not having a layer of water coating it and I had modified my Drill with a lubrication system that was currently using seawater in place of mineral oil.

The two former security guards screamed in agony as they were caught in what resembled an electric shock wave of bright blue arcs of genetic electricity that traveled out in all directions before dissipating shortly afterwards. With the two Splicers paralyzed by the effects of my blast of Electro Bolt, I pulled my highly modified Drill back out of the floor and then struck the nightstick-wielding denizen to my right in the side of his head with the side of my tool's conical shaped bit with enough force to partially crush in the side of his head while it also sent him staggering off to the right for a few steps until he fell into one of the benches.

Meanwhile, having recovered from being electrocuted, the remaining male Thuggish Splicer cried out in rage as he began to swing his length of pipe towards me, "Serpent! Beast!"

Before he could land the blow, I backhanded the denizen with the copper plate that was on the top of my gloved left hand with enough force to split open the center of his noticeably wrinkled forehead in addition to sending him backwards a few steps until he finally fell onto the floor between two benches. However, rather than trying to get back to his feet, the hooded Splicer seemed to see something that was apparently further towards the left wall but it was not visible in my field of view. Whatever it was, the bleeding addict must have believed that it was his best chance to survive because the desperate Splicer began to crawl towards it. However, by then, the two women had reached me so I had to divert my attention away from him for the time being.

As the two former working class women approached me, I could not help but casually wonder how they could even see me with the massive tumorous growths that gave their faces an almost reptilian appearance. In a small way, I had to admit that I was grateful that the ravages of ADAM had long since destroyed their humanity because, having been a member of the population of maintenance crews that worked in the city for nearly a year after my unorthodox arrival, it had always been those familiar faces that had hurt me the most back in 1958. It was not the actual killing them part that had bothered me but rather the sight of the once strong, hardworking man or woman trying to fight me in such a pitiful state that she or he sometimes could only just barely stand upright.

I mentally sighed as I noticed that the female Splicer on the right was visibly struggling to keep her grip on her section of pipe. Meanwhile, the one on the left was fading in and out in terms of her grip on the world around her as she would periodically begin to mumble under her breath and then suddenly look around as she forgot where she was and what was happening.

As the broken denizen on the right swung her section of pipe towards me, I calmly reached out and grabbed her right shoulder with my gloved left hand. Unable to fight back due to her ADAM withdrawal, the woman was powerless as I turned her around to face away from me and then moved my hand to firmly grip her chin. It was probably just my imagination but I could have sworn that I felt her body relax as the Splicer realized that her nightmare was finally over mere moments before I snapped her neck in one clean, swift movement.

As I released my grip to allow the lifeless body to fall to the floor, I turned my attention to the nearly fully recovered male Thuggish Splicer to my right. The waterproof coat-clad individual was bleeding profusely from the crushed section of his skull and, thus, he had to keep his right eye closed as he glared at me with pure, utter hatred while he stood in front of the bench that he had been knocked into by my earlier strike. The high-pitched report of Alpha's Prototype Rivet Gun filled the air as my brother seemed to be engaging Splicers on the walkway above us as the Thuggish Splicer and I simply looked at each other for a brief moment.

Then, the wounded denizen suddenly rushed towards with his pipe poised to strike me as he screamed, "You are too weak to be worthy of the Lamb!"

I growled as I caught the length of pipe in mid-swing with my gloved left hand and then drove the bit of my industrial-grade Drill through the center of the Splicer's chest without even having to rev up its combustion engine. The shocked, impaled man began to cough up blood as I glared at him from behind my glowing segmented eye. From where she was riding on my back, Eleanor corrected the cultist with a proud tone in the edged voice of the Little Sister, "No one is tougher than my Daddy!"

Before the man could reply, I ripped my Drill back out of his chest and released my grip on his crude weapon. As the denizen began to collapse onto the floor before me, I thrust the razor sharp tip of my mining tool into the center of his head. Blood and bone fragments flew through the air as the blow gouged out nearly the entire front of the Splicer's skull and the former security guard was sent back to land against the side of the bench behind him. As he fell, the pipe fell from his gloved hands to make a distinct hollow metal ringing noise as it hit the concrete tiled floor.

However, just as the guard had hit the floor, alarm bells went off in my mind and I was able to turn around just in time to see the remaining female Thuggish Splicer moving towards me with her rusted section of metal pipe held in her right hand above her head. In my limited peripheral vision, I saw Alpha slightly off to the left as the heavily armored veteran had his right foot on top of a thin woman in her thirties that was likely one of the red light district's working girls judging by the remnants of the indecently tight red dress that she was wearing and the telltale bruises on her face as he towered above the struggling denizen with the business end of the muzzle of his Prototype Rivet Gun mere inches away from the center of her face. Meanwhile, the last remaining former security guard was down on his left knee between the benches that were directly behind the female Thuggish Splicer charging towards me. From the very brief amount of time I had before I had to deal with the woman, it seemed as if the frantic, bleeding denizen was attempting to open a locked unpolished metal container that resembled a lunch box.

Once again opting to go on the offensive, I lowered my left shoulder and then charged towards the Splicer. The ground shook beneath me as my tree trunk-like legs were easily able to propel my immensely heavy frame much faster than the addict had apparently been expecting. Reaching out with my gauntlet-encased left hand, I grabbed the shocked Splicer's right shoulder and held it with a vise-like grip as I then pulled her forward to meet the brutal head butt that I sent into her forehead. The sound of cracking bone filled the air around us while a brief metallic hum echoed inside my helmet as the malnourished and ADAM-ravaged skull of the woman was no match for the thick copper hide of the rounded section between the top of my glowing porthole and the waterproof, built-in camera that was mounted on top of my reinforced helmet.

An anguished cry escaped the Thuggish Splicer as the force of the impact collapsed in the top of her head a few inches. In a daze, the denizen wobbled back a few steps before finally falling down onto the floor on her left side. I had to give my fellow former blue collar worker some credit as she was able to recover in time to roll along the floor to the right, which incidentally was also the direction towards the altar, just in time to avoid nearly losing her head as I thrust the tip of my highly-modified Drill down towards her. With my tool temporarily stuck in the floor, the Splicer got to her feet about twelve inches away and then swung her pipe towards me though now her aim was far worse due to both her disorientation as well as the as green-tinted blood that was pouring out of the crater in her forehead and down over her eyes.

My instinctive reaction was to reach back behind me with my left arm and guide the precious Little Sister out of harm's way in the event that the woman's compromised aim sent her pipe towards my charge while I was unable to turn my frame to face the enemy attack from the front. An irritated guttural roar escaped me as a thunderous metallic bang filled the inside of my head as her section of pipe slammed into the right side of my helmet about six inches down from the middle of my camera. Just from how loud the impact had been, I knew that it was more than likely that it had been enough to have put a shallow dent in the increasingly weathered surface of my Alpha Series Big Daddy diving helmet.

Fortunately, I was able to pull my Drill out of the floor in time to only allow the former mechanic to land one more hit, which only resulted in a glancing blow as it struck the middle of the the pair of riveted seams that ran down along the middle of the front of my diving helmet just as I was in the process of turning to face towards her. As soon as I was once again fighting the Splicer from the front and my temporarily bonded Little One was safe, I was able to bring my Plasmids back into play as I positioned my left arm out before me with my gloved left hand at the ready.

The bloodied denizen tried to backpedal away but was unable to take any more than a single step before I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from the ported digits of my left hand into her disfigured frame. As the Splicer's body shook violently while the bright blue, high powered arcs of electricity danced across the surface of her body, I quickly moved towards her while I revved up my Drill. The former mechanic's recovery speed surprised me one last time as her badly deteriorated body was able to shake off the powerful Plasmid assault just before I was able to get close enough to use my weaponized mining tool. However, it was her ADAM-ruined mind that ultimately failed her in the end as she was unable to return to reality in time to avoid the razor sharp tip of my Dill before it plunged into her already damaged skull.

The emotionless copper and glass face of the monster that I had been turned into was once again liberally coated with blood as the savage tool of my trade made short work of its victim as it ensured the death of the inhumanly resilient creature. As the nearly headless corpse collapsed on the concrete floor at my feet, I heard the last Thuggish Splicer cry out in celebration off to my left. Powering down my Drill, I turned in time to see the former security guard holding an EVE Hypo that was apparently the cause for the drama over the lunch box.

I simply raised what remained of my right eyebrow slightly as the denizen began to laugh at me while he dramatically shoved the barbarically oversized needle into his tumor-covered left arm. However, my entire body froze when, injecting the fluid into his system, the Splicer taunted me, "You want some, big guy?"

The memory of my beautiful daughter being heartlessly thrown off to the side as the mostly heavily built thug asked me the same question while he injected the contents inside the reservoir of Eleanor's Gathering Tool into his unworthy body played in my mind's eye as the events of that night were being repeated in front of me. Wanting to savor the moment, I calmly waited as the Splicer's uncovered left hand began to produce arcs of genetic electricity as the EVE took a little longer to refuel the man's Plasmids than usual because of long it had likely been since he could use them.

Seemingly oblivious to how unafraid I was of his parlor trick, the denizen let out a loud cry of exhilaration as he somehow managed to scrape together enough willpower in his broken mind to send a blast of, likely outdated, Electro Bolt into my frame. However, this time, I was not the one that was inferior. I flashed a cruel smirk while the arcs of electricity harmlessly danced along the canvas, leather, and copper skin of my body as my spliced natural affinity with the powerful force of nature left me completely immune to any of its negative properties. Blood was still rolling down the round contours of my diving helmet as I began to move towards the man completely unabated by the rapidly dispersing electrical arcs.

In a final desperate measure, the Splicer willed a bright green polyp to grow inside his left palm and then threw it at me. Reaching out, I caught the polyp and then made him watch as I crushed it completely flat in the palm of my hand. The fluid inside of it seeped out onto the exterior of my glove but my body was completely unaffected by it. I dropped the useless object down to the floor below as I continued to silently glare at the twisted addict.

Eleanor taunted the panicking individual as she informed him, "Doctor Tenenbaum has asked me to inform you that she takes full responsibility for any inconvenience that her alterations to Subject Delta's genetic code may cause the citizens of Rapture."

The male Splicer starred at us blankly for a moment before he suddenly screamed in absolute rage as he ran at me completely unarmed. I simply grabbed the man by the front of his head with the palm of my massive gloved left hand. Then, after lifting the denizen up into the air, I began to violently shake his body. The waterproof coat-clad individual started to uselessly claw blindly at the surface of my left arm in a vain effort to get me to release my grip on his head. After about three seconds, I let out a loud guttural roar and then threw him into the bench just to my right.

My throw was strong enough to send the Splicer smashing straight through the water damaged piece of furniture in a cloud of dust and wooden shrapnel. The former guard ended up on his left side in the middle of the pile of wooden debris. I walked over to the downed addict until I stopped directly in front of him. As I towered over him, the injured member of The Family desperately attempted to rally his broken body but his final bid for survival would soon be proven to be completely in vain.

As I began to lift my weighted diving boot-entombed right foot to stomp down on his skull, Eleanor said slowly with a dark tone, "Nobody…cross…the Big Daddy."

After crushing the Splicer's head beneath the sole of my boot, I returned to the middle of the main path through the benches. Glancing at the corpses of the fallen members of The Family as I moved, I confirmed that none of them were Simon. I then redirected my attention to the figures that were still sitting in the pews around me exactly where they had been when we had first entered the Inner Sanctuary. Upon examination of the unusually silent and motionless individuals, I came to the genuinely unsettling realization that they were actually corpses that had been positioned to look like they were casually attending a sermon.

I felt the barest flicker of pity as I noticed that the deceased individuals had become the human equivalent of a dried out kitchen sponge because of the unique environment of Rapture, which had frozen their faces and left them with expressions of unimaginable terror or rage. In addition, they all had large puncture wounds in nearly the exact same locations on their now mummified heads. Despite being covered in long dried blood and flesh, I could see the the heads of rivets at the bottom of the wound tracks. Because of the wounds, I came to the conclusion that these were the Splicers that Alpha had cut down during his last "visit". Simon must have been unable to accept the reality of their deaths and arranged them as if they were still alive as a result of his ADAM-fueled madness and denial.

I reached the middle of the bottom floor and then stopped to look in the direction of the space that was to the right of the pulpit. The security door to the pump control room was closed and, fortunately, it did visually appear to still be functional now that I had gotten close enough to get a good look at it. However, when more Splicers failed to crawl out of the proverbial woodwork, I began to worry that the zealot had managed to slip by us while his flock threw themselves on their swords for him.

Despite not being able to see him, I could hear Subject Alpha reload his box clip-fed Prototype Rivet Gun as he moved to stand right beside me on my left from where he had been right behind me protecting my back during the fight with the The Family. When he stopped, my brother commented on the macabre sight around us as he remarked somewhat cryptically, "Poor bastards…Fort Frolic all over again, sir."

He then started, "Now, where…"

However, he was interrupted by a sudden, loud explosion that shook the entire building and even caused me to stumble forward for two steps until I could recover. I turned quickly to look back and, when I did, I saw the landing of the third floor that was about in the middle of the wall above the second floor walkway. There, standing on top of the railing that ran along the outer edge of the landing with her back to us, was the heavily armored lithe form of Jennifer. The source of what had sounded like an explosion was revealed when I saw that the Elite Big Sister had ripped the security door right out its mounting and now had the pieces of it swirling around in the air above her with her incredibly powerful Telekinesis just like her counterpart had done against me in Ryan Amusements.

There was a brief pause before, thrusting her arms forward, the former Alpha Series Model Little Sister willed the pieces of debris forward towards an assailant that was just out of view. The deep male voice that cried out in agony following the bone-shattering impact of the debris about a second later revealed the denizen to be a Brute Splicer. Enjoying the gorilla-like individual's torment, Jennifer cackled with a demonic, mechanical tone as she continued to stand with inhumanly perfect balance on top of the rather thin metal railing. Then, just as the abomination came into view and began to swing his right fist at the armored predator, she dissolved into a cloud of purple particles right before his eyes.

The Brute looked around as he yelled with an understandably frustrated tone. In another time and place, I would have actually found the sight of the heavily built Splicer frantically turning in circles to try to locate the young woman to be rather amusing as it reminded me of something that I would have seen in a comedy sketch in one of those old black and white silent movies on the surface. Seconds later, Jennifer materialized in front of us down on the bottom floor. After the armored lithe woman landed, I just barely had enough time to notice the Circus of Values Vending Machine in the corner off to my left, the two secondary control consoles along the wall before me, the ornate metal pumping station badge mounted in the center of the same wall, and what I had to guess was a pair of square-shaped water drains that had been cut right into the concrete floor across from each other at the edge of the first tier of the bottom floor and were both surrounded by metal railing before two things occurred almost simultaneously.

The first thing that happened was that the Brute Splicer finally saw the four of us and decided to take the express route to our location by jumping over the side of the landing. Meanwhile, from somewhere behind us, I heard the unmistakable chirping of a Security Bot that had detected a hostile target. Wheeling back around to face the pulpit, I saw Father Wales spiriting towards us from the far right corner of the room with a noticeably upgraded Bot that had more armor along its re-purposed, small outboard motor frame and a more dangerous payload of two M1919 Browning Medium Machine Guns that were dual mounted on either side of the flying mechanical killing machine in place of the standard belt-fed Thompson Submachine Gun.

As Simon closed in on us while his flying bodyguard began to open fire, the ground shook beneath our feet as the Brute landed behind us only inches away from where we were standing. Our assailants were also soon joined by three male Leadhead Splicers that had apparently been too scared to fight until Wales had returned as they jumped down from their hiding places on the second floor walkway and then opened fire with their haphazardly modified Thompsons. However, before I could take action, my rational thoughts ceased to exist as my entire being was consumed by the molten hot rage of my Protector Instincts as Eleanor screamed, "Unzip 'em Daddy!"

The denizens all recoiled in shock as the area in front of me was suddenly bathed in a faint red glow while I let out a deafening, enraged Alpha Series Big Daddy guttural roar as the monster was let out of his cage. Then, with my segmented porthole and auxiliary lights emitting a deep, hellfire red glow and with the pathetic old man now out of my way, I stomped my boot-encased right foot onto the ground beneath me with enough force to create multiple cracks that traveled out in branching paths along the concrete tiled floor. The room shook violently and sections of the ceiling above me began to rain down all while I repeatedly smashed the side of my Drill against my armored chest.

It felt as though my body was being mercilessly torn asunder by the impossibly strong rage that burned inside me with exponentially growing molten hot intensity with every passing microsecond that my beautiful master's defilers continued to have the audacity to draw breath while they knowingly perpetuated the misery that had driven the goddess mad. As the intensity of my physically painful murderous anger roared past the threshold that no living creature should have been capable of experiencing, I began to charge towards the disgusting rats in front of me with my industrial grade Drill at the ready although I was more than prepared to simply use my raw physical strength to brutally extinguish the lives of the disgusting abominations. The human concept of "religion" was beyond the understanding of a monster like me. However, as a Big Daddy, I did understand the unwavering devotion to a superior, perfect being. As her loyal, worthless servant, I would carry out my master's will even at the cost of the complete and total destruction of my being.

Subject Alpha began to cut down the fools in my way and I turned my attention to the chirping annoyance that was pelting my heavily armored frame with its dual .30 caliber machine guns. A grunt of exertion escaped me as I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from the ported digits of my gauntlet-encased left hand and into the frame of the annoying little pest of a Security Bot. The raw power of the genetic electricity was more than enough to short circuit the device and it crashed onto the ground almost directly in the middle of the main path to the pulpit approximately five yards or so in front of me. Meanwhile, the black suit-wearing rat had for some foolish reason decided to challenge me in a battle of physical power and was actually meeting my charge as it rushed towards me. When I got close enough to the disabled Bot, I kicked it as hard as I could with my diving boot-encased right foot.

The stunned rat was unable to recover from the shock of the unexpected tactic in time to dodge the Security Bot as it flew towards it. The device that likely weighed more than a hundred pounds smashed into the pied piper's head with enough force to break into several pieces. Cries of agony escaped the abomination as it stumbled backwards towards the profane pulpit at the very back of the room. One of the Thompson-armed rats tried to impede my advance by running up and swinging the worn out firearm towards me. Without even thinking, I thrust my left fist into its gut to stun it. As it fell to its knees, I reached up and then gripped its face by its eye sockets and mouth with my index and ring fingers along with my thumb. The loss of its eye sight was perhaps the last thing that registered inside its mind before I ripped the front off its skull. The only remainder of its face was the bottom jaw and I casually noted the wriggling tongue and now visible opening to its throat behind said muscle before igniting the exposed brain with genetic flames. I then moved on towards the pulpit as the immolated rat spent its final moments by blindly sprinting around the room.

Upon reaching the leader of the abominations moments later, I revved up my Drill as I also reached out and grabbed it by its neck. Before it could try to stop me, I then lifted it up into the air and thrust the whirling tip of my highly modified mining tool into its lower back. The sounds of crunching bone mixed with the agonized screams of the disgusting creature filled the air while my frame was sprayed by green-tinted blood as my Drill powered through the spinal cord in a matter of seconds. The rat's legs continued to wildly kicking at my heavily built Big Daddy frame until my tool's bit severed the critical link to the brain and rendered the lower body of my victim paralyzed.

With its wings clipped, I forcibly ripped my Drill free from the abomination and then threw the pied piper towards the large painting that was against the wall above the altar. The rat smashed against the center of the artwork with enough force to punch a hole through whatever material it had been painted onto and leave a shallow crater in the wall beyond it before falling to the ground in the middle of the pulpit. I quickly made my way up the short flight of steps that were off to the right of where my master's stolen dress was being displayed as if it was some kind of holy artifact at the base of the platform. Meanwhile, the lack of any telltale sounds of combat coming from behind me indicated that the remaining rats must have had already been neutralized by my heavily armored companions.

After I reached the top, I began to move around to the back of the white sheet-covered table that was placed at the edge of the platform above the precious remnant of my beautiful master's childhood. When I did, I found the bloodied rodent on top of the ornate rug that was red with white flowering plant designs and was placed under the table so that it extended out almost to the wall to the right. The piper was desperately attempting to crawl towards the large double barreled rifle that was on the ground near the body of its former wielder that had been taking cover behind the table at the beginning of the first part of the fight in the Inner Sanctuary.

Now that I was able to get a better look at the weapon, I was able to identify it as an Elephant Gun. The incredibly beautiful craftsmanship that was still visible despite nearly a full decade of neglect in a place like Rapture left very little doubt that it was likely a custom-ordered and built piece. Given the quality of the weapon, it was not completely out the realm of possibility that it was even made by a company such as Holland and Holland of London. Despite both the name and size of the rounds, that could be as large as .800 caliber, the Elephant Gun would actually not be very practical or useful weapon against a Big Daddy. To say that we were biological machines was not an overly dramatic description. Simply put, it was all but impossible to drop a Protector with only one or two shots fired from anything in the small arms category of weapons no matter how large the rounds were or where they hit because of how our bodies had been both mechanically augmented and genetically rewired to survive fatal or otherwise incapacitating injuries for long enough to save our Little Sister charge by any means necessary before we inevitably died.

Revving my Drill once again, I stepped forward and then thrust it towards the rat. The pied piper tried to buy more time by rolling over to properly look at me and, having discarded the two cargo hooks, raised its left hand up just in time to intercept the whirling tip of my weapon. I continued to hold down the throttle of my mining tool as I powered through the palm of the abomination's inhumanly proportioned hand while the self-proclaimed preacher reached blindly towards the rifle that was agonizingly just out of reach. At the last possible moment, it was somehow able to slip its unnaturally elongated trigger finger through the black metal trigger guard and then, in a move that warranted the tiniest trace of respect for the strength of will power that it possessed, it managed to properly grip the rifle as it lifted the hunting equivalent of a cannon up towards me.

As I looked down the two barrels of the weapon that was purposely made to take down full grown charging African bull elephants, I calmly noted that the rifle had a strange, homemade scope crafted out of a C-clamp and a gutted microphone that had glass lenses inside it. More interesting was the fact that the scope had been badly damaged by what was most likely a Heavy Rivet that Subject Alpha had sent straight down the middle of it and into the right eye of the rat that had been aiming it at us. Knowing my brother, the inhumanly proficient marksman had done so because such a legendary shot that was infamous among the world's most proficient sharp shooters was child's play for him to the point of it merely being a source of amusement for him.

The cracking of bone filled the air as the abomination's hand remained in place as long as it could against the significantly more powerful hardened metal mining tool even as the tip of my Drill appeared on the other side of it. As I had predicted, the rifle was simply too heavy for the rat to hold properly with one arm and the shot that was fired just before my Drill finished the fight whistled harmlessly over my left shoulder.

Sofia's lieutenant had no sooner been neutralized before the maddening rage of my Protector Instincts had subsided and my rational thoughts had returned as the monster was put back in his cage. The hellish red glow that had been bathing the area before me was replaced by the typical faint golden yellow glow as my segmented porthole and two auxiliary lights returned to normal. After pulling my Drill free from the skull of the deceased former architect, I glared down at the bloody, broken body at my feet. I felt confusion roll through my mind as I questioned how I should feel about Simon. A part of me truly wanted to have it in me to hate the deranged individual that he had turned into as he was corrupted by the nightmare that the city transformed into after having once given all of its residents so much like it was some kind of man made wonderland. However, after a moment, I let out a sigh as I knew that I could not do anything other than feel the sorrow that was the result of how things could have just as easily not had to have been like they were now. I then began to lower myself down onto my right knee to allow Eleanor to safely disembark so she could search the body for the key to the pump controls.

As the precious Little One began to look through Simon's pockets, my suit's built-in radio audibly powered to life. The severity of our stranded ally's situation in the flooded area of Dionysus Park was clearly evident when Sinclair struggled to address me with his Southern-accented voice, "Pump control oughta…be in the back. One thing though…once you transfer suction to Dionysus Park…we got a tiny window of opportunity to get you inside. I don't have much air left, but I'll hang in there. Make sure you're ready before you throw that switch."

I grimaced as the revelation of how little oxygen Sinclair had inside the damaged train car hit home. We had likely only just barely made it in time and now we certainly did not have enough time to gather ADAM with the current Little Sister, exorcise her, and then redo the process after locating the last one in this area that Jennifer had mentioned. Worse, without the pumps being used to hold back the water, Siren Alley would flood in place of Dionysus Park.

The Little Sister Vent network was extensive and, having just been exorcised, there was a real chance that the cured little girls would be disorientated and, thus, be unable to make it out of the sections connect to Siren Alley in time before the floodwater overtook them. The vents were designed with safeguards in place that would automatically seal off sections that became flooded to prevent the water from spreading. However, I would be damned before I let the lives of the two innocent children rest solely on the assumptions that they could find their way out in time and that the badly deteriorated infrastructure of Rapture would still be able to activate the watertight seals inside the network.

In addition, if we simply let the two girls go on their way, there was no guarantee that the Little Sister would be encountered by our allies elsewhere in the city. Given how quickly the few remaining non-flooded areas were succumbing to the combination of our fight against The Family and the general decay of the past few years, anyone left behind after today would likely not have long before Rapture finally met its inevitable and well deserved fate. The thought of even a single Little Sister being left behind was completely unacceptable.

As such, we were left with just one option and that was to take the two Little Ones with us to Dionysus Park. Once we had made it to the former residence of Sofia Lamb, we could safely exorcise them in addition to any others that wandered into the new hunting grounds. Due to their unique condition, the Little Sisters could survive underwater even at pressures such as those found around Rapture. I myself did not understand how it was possible other than that it had something to do with how the sea slugs were naturally adapted to life out there on the ocean floor and that this was somehow being shared with the little girls that were their hosts.

I was not a scientist by any stretch and I knew jack about anything other than how human beings could survive for a short period of time in the ocean but it did make sense that the parasitic slug would do everything in its power to keep its host alive for as long as possible. After all, ADAM was simply part of its gestation cycle. To ensure the survival of its species, the slug had to keep the girl alive so that she would eventually regurgitate the ADAM being pumped into her body and, thus, the cycle would begin anew.

However, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, even Big Daddies had to be cautious of the predators that prowled the abyss. One time while we were out looking for a certain fish that Eleanor had read about in a book that I had purchased for she at the museum at Point Prometheus literally only days before it was seized and turned into a combat training area for new Protectors, I had to protect Eleanor from a giant angler fish when my curious partner went to investigate what turned out to be the ambush predator's lure. In the end, we did manage to find the fish that the young brunette had wanted to try to find so we had considered the day to be a success.

As Alpha approached where the Eleanor-controlled Little Sister and I were standing on the platform, my daughter, sensing my thoughts through our Pair Bond, whispered, "Just as well, Father. Emily and I have a surprise for Papa Alpha with the other sister. She is so excited...it is first time that I have seen her happy in so long."

I let out a curious grunt but, by then, the armored veteran had reached the bottom of the flight of stairs that led up to the top of the raised platform so the mischievous brunette merely winked at me and then giggled softly in response. She resumed rummaging through the fallen denizen's pockets and, moments later, she stood back up and proudly presented the genetic key to the pump controls towards me. I was still on my right knee so I simply extended my open, gloved left hand towards the Little Sister with my palm facing up to let the beautiful, smiling young girl gently place the uniquely encoded key in the center of it.

As I closed my fist around the object, my temporary charge moved to return to her throne on my back. I patiently waited as the little angel climbed up into position and, while I did, I noted that I had been wrong earlier about the pedestal in the left corner of the platform. It was so dark in the room that I had actually mistaken a potted fern that was perched on a concrete stand for a pedestal. In addition, I was finally able to see that the square-shaped space that had been cut out of the wall to the left of the pulpit had four instrument and gauge consoles placed against its walls.

When the Little Sister tapped the top of my diving helmet to signal that she was situated, I stood back up and then turned to my left to face my companions. Subject Alpha was standing at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the platform and Jennifer had her back to me where she was hunched over and examining a control console that was behind the Alpha Series Big Daddy at the base of the short platform that the third column of benches had been placed on. I paused for a moment as I took in the view of the room from behind the table. Despite the trash covering the floors and the structural decay that had occurred over the years, I had to admit that there was a weird sense of peace in the room with the gentle sound of water filling the air, the soft dancing glow of the candles, and the numerous vines growing along various sources of water such as leaking pipes.

After a few seconds of silence, Alpha asked me with repeated grunts, "Are you okay, sir?"

Snapping out of my daze, I replied, "Yeah…I'm fine."

Then, after a brief pause, I informed the two armored individuals, "Change of plans...we are taking the last two Little Ones with us to Dionysus Park. We are out of time here and it will be much safer to cure them over there. Jennifer, please go retrieve the last Little Sister and try to meet up with us at the entrance to the auxiliary pumping station."

Jennifer cocked her head to the right in confusion until Alpha remarked, "Agreed, sir. Lamb is not going to take Simon's death lying down. We should get out of here before she can try to box us in again."

While the lithe young woman did not seem to completely understand the need to exit Siren Alley as soon as possible, she still nodded slowly and then dissolved into a cloud of purple particles as she teleported out of the station. As soon as the Elite Big Sister went to collect the last Little Sister in the area, I turned and began to make my way over to the security door that allowed access to the pump control room.

I just vaguely noted the three consoles along the walls of the space to the right of the pulpit where the door was located as I moved to stand before the watertight entrance to the control room. The illuminated sign of "Pumping Station 5" was mounted against the wall above the security door and the light fixture mounted into the bulkhead frame above the door itself was emitting a pale yellow light. The door opened as I approached it and I quickly entered the small room beyond it.

As I entered the room, I saw a Little Sister Vent mounted into the bare concrete back wall approximately fifteen yards directly across from the entrance. Several bibles were pinned to the back wall just to the left of the Vent by cargo hooks. Meanwhile, against the wall to the right of the entrance were two consoles with one near the door and the other at the far end near the Vent. In addition, between the two consoles was a collection of faded yellow pipes that descended from the ceiling and ended up in a pool of water through a square opening in the concrete block tiled floor below.

Turning to my left, I saw a much larger collection of pipes in the middle of the room. The collection of pipes were a mixture of various sizes and were divided up into two sets. The first set descended down from the ceiling and ended up in a rectangular hole in the floor that extended from the side of the stairs directly to the left of the entrance and nearly all the way to the rear of the room. The second set was across the room as they also descended from the ceiling into an equally sized rectangular slot cut into the floor. The slots themselves were filled with water and they had a metal safety railing around their perimeter.

As I began to ascend the stairs towards what was clearly the main pump control console for the pumping station, Eleanor asked with a disappointed tone in her edged Little Sister voice, "Is this really it? How boring…"

I laughed with repeated grunts in response to my bonded partner's reaction to the appearance of the room that we had fought so hard to reach. Upon making it to the top of the stairs, I found a central, main console against the left wall with three large levers that activated the pumps for their own designated locations that was flanked on both sides by two smaller consoles. Mounted into the wall above the two smaller consoles were a pair of functioning television monitors that were currently only displaying a screen of white and light blue static.

Further towards the far wall beyond the consoles were two crates that were placed on the square metal grate floor in front of what had once been a bulkhead to another room that had completely collapsed. In addition, to the right of the consoles was a path that ran between the two sets of pipes, down another flight of stairs, and then finally to a little area with a desk. There, the path ended and turned right to allow someone to walk behind the set of pipes that was the closest to the entrance to the room and to where the Little Sister Vent was located at the back of the control room.

The room itself was the nosiest around the control consoles as steam hissed out of a horribly rusted pipe that ran directly overhead against the ceiling and down onto us as we stood before the controls. Examining the main console in the center, I saw that the middle lever had the label of "Dionysus Park" above it. The light around the name of the former residence of Sofia Lamb was dark red and the thin little black needle inside the lever's power gauge was rapidly swinging from one extreme to the other. I inserted the genetic key into the open slot next to the lever to unlock it and then paused after gripping the worn wooden handle with my gauntlet-encased left hand.

I was about to do far more than just activate the pumps to drain the long flooded area of Dionysus Park. With this one act, I was about to signal the entire city just how weakened The Family had become as well as how far we had progressed through the city. If Rapture had not yet fallen into chaos, it was certainly about to be. I did not know how Sofia would react to the situation but I did know that, despite her stoic and calm persona, she would certainly start making the fight between us very personal. I mentally sighed as I resolved myself to what was about to unfold and then pulled the level down.

As the lever handle reached its opposite side, I quickly withdrew from the console as sparks briefly flew out from its base while the entire room began to shake as the massive pump roared to life. However, the pump had only just started to drain Dionysus when the built-in shortwave radio inside my copper diving helmet audibly powered to life.

Sure enough, Sofia had a disturbingly calm tone in her Southeastern British accented voice as she addressed me, "Do you think me a Tyrant, Delta, vying for control of a dead man's dream? The city is nothing. Rapture must die, so that Eleanor may rise from its body."

She paused for a moment and then finished, "Allow me to demonstrate…"

My radio had no sooner powered off before the large pipe immediately to my left let out an ear-piercing metallic screech as jets of water began to spray out of the riveted joint that held the two pieces of it together. I realized what the leader of The Family was doing and began to move as fast I could towards the exit of the control room. As I did, my radio once again powered to life.

Sinclair informed me with a noticeable amount of panic in his voice, "Lamb's overloadin' the pumps!"

Sure enough, I had not even reached the stairs when the room suddenly began to fill with frigid seawater as the already deteriorated pipes rapidly succumbed to the overpowering force of the surge of water. The normal yellow light being emitted from the light above the security door was replaced by a blinking red light and the siren for the flood warning began to fill the air. Meanwhile, the section of the floor at the bottom of the stairs was already covered in ankle-deep water that was desperately trying to force its way past the watertight security door. The console next to the exit had a waterfall of seawater raining down on it from an ever widening crack in the ceiling above it.

As I descended the stairs, the former owner of Persephone instructed me with a frantic tone, "The place is comin' down! Get to Dionysus Park!"

I let out a soft grunt of irritation as I entered the frigid water at the bottom of the stairs but I forced myself forward through the security door and back out into the inner sanctuary of the church with my gloved left hand and my Drill both at the ready.