A/N: When I say "digital veins" I'm referring to the lines and markings on Tony Stark's neck in Iron Man 2.

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He couldn't move. His body refused to do what he told it to. He couldn't even close his eyes. Even though the water he was in was bubbling like it was boiling, he didn't feel hot at all, but he didn't feel cold either. He just felt wet. A strange, indescribable sensation could be felt on every inch of his body. It didn't hurt, but it also didn't feel good at all either. It felt tingly, like a very small jolt of electricity was coursing through his entire being at the same time.

He didn't know how long he had been submerged in the green pool, but after some time the water stopped rumbling and became stagnant, and he regained control of his body. Since he was facing down, he put his arms below him so that it looked like he was about to do a pushup, which he sort of did by forcefully straightening his limbs and thrusting himself up into a standing position. He was facing the wall and turned around to see Rā's. The Demon's Head was now about ten feet away from his source of life and had his hands intertwined behind his back. He was looking at Mercer with a calm face.

Mercer bared his teeth in an expression that clearly said that he was blind with rage. He wanted to grab the Assassin Leader by his neck and hold his head under the water that made him able to be immortal until he drowned. Quite an ironic death.

"You... you motherfucking..." Mercer had a rage that was so great that he couldn't form a coherent insult or threat. He formed his claws on both his arms and held up his left one and pointed at Rā's, who didn't show any fear, or any reaction at all. He just kept his straight face and didn't move a single muscle. Mercer stepped out of the pool and took one more large step towards Rā's, cutting the gap between them almost in half. "I'm gonna dig my claw into your back, grab your fucking spine, and..." The rest of his threat died in his throat when his peripheral vision caught his claw, and he noticed that it had changed. He brought his weaponized hand up to his face so that it was about a foot in front of him, and fanned out his silver metallic-looking talons. The bottom side of them now had jagged teeth like an army knife. He began to wonder, and looked at his armored forearm and bicep. His limb now sported a noticeable amount of more spikes, and all of them looked way sharper than they had before. His pitch-black arm now had red lines that looked like digital veins going up and down it, from his shoulder to his wrist; they reminded him of a maze. He looked at his other arm, and saw that it had the exact same changes. Curiosity began to replace his fury, and he formed his lethal blade on his right arm and saw that it too had the maze-like like embedded on it except while the claws had red ones, the blade had a nightmarish black labyrinth running on it from end to end.

He made his claw reappear on his right arm and looking at Rā's with a thousand yard stare. With most of his anger now converted into confusion, he then noticed that he felt something inside of him. He felt... queasy. That was then replaced with a full-on sickness. He dropped to his hands and knees and hurled onto the floor right below his face and mouth. He coughed roughly a few times after the last of the black vomit exited him.

Two things happened next and one of them surprised him beyond belief: the small pool of puke seemed to slide over to his right hand and melted into him. That didn't surprise him. What caught him off edge was that he felt a fiery pain in his upper stomach. He had been attacked with a myriad of bullets and that didn't even tickle, so why was a mere sick bodily reaction causing him such... discomfort?

He brought himself back up to a standing position, made hos arms return to normal, and lightly gripped his head with his right hand trying to think why and how this was happening. Then he got a wild and outrageous thought. But he let it go after half a second of it being on his mind. He saw it as impossible. Whatever that... stuff was, it may have Made Rā's young again, but it couldn't possibly have done to him what he momentarily thought it did.

"Tell me Mercer," Rā's said seeing the lost look in his eyes. "What is the Lazarus Pit showing you?"

Mercer deduced that the Lazarus Pit had to be the green pool both of them had bathed in. He was confused by what he had meant by the 'showing you' part, but his confusion died away and startlment took its place. He looked all around and saw that he and the Head of the Demon were now longer in the dim chamber, but in Manhattan. Deep down he knew it was only a hallucination since they were standing in the middle of a battle between Blacklight soldiers and tanks and several Infected and Evolved that were pouring out of a Hive, but everything about it seemed so real. The noises and screeches coming from the Infected, the orders the soldiers were shouting to one another, the way both sides were assaulting each other. It even smelled like the first Outbreak did in areas where the Infected had control. The sight of the small war that killed millions and was blamed on him brought back horrid memories.

"Never forget Mercer..." Alex instantly recognized the voice but wasn't sure if it was one of the many unbearable memories that were flooding into him or part of the hallucination that he slowly began to think was real. He turned to where the voice had come from and saw Captain Cross looking intently at him. The now dead soldier spoke his next words very slowly so that they would sink into Mercer and stay there. "Penn Station."

The elite trooper then turned into sand and was blown away by a sudden gust of wind. Then out of nowhere several normal civilians approached him, all of them looking either miserable or angry. Some of them called out to him.

"You're a monster!"

"My son is dead, and you're to blame!"

"I had to bury my brother!"

"Because of you, my children will never see their mother ever again."

Like Cross before them, they all turned into sand and wind made them disappear. With them all gone, Mercer began to feel something he hadn't even thought about in a very long time. He began to feel remorse.

At that moment half of him was convinced that this was reality, but the other said that it was just a bad dream. The latter gained a dominance, and Mercer formed his now jagged claws and tried to wake himself up. He buried his silver talons into his left thigh.

That act of self-harm brought him back to reality. He was back in the circular chamber with Rā's looking at him with the same face he had had since Mercer pulled himself out of the Lazarus Pit. Mercer looked down at the claw that was still embedded in his leg, and received another shock. He was feeling pain where his talons pierced him. Due to their new jagged teeth, pulling it out of him caused more pain. He brought up the weaponized hand up to his eyes and was met with yet another surprise. His silver claws were coated with a dark red liquid. As some of it dripped of his talons, he looked down to the part of him where he had harmed himself to return from his waking nightmare to find that there was no wound. He held up his right arm which was still normal, and scraped across his forearm with one of his talons. Again, pain coursed through the spot where he had put his claws into. There was a cut on him for a brief second before Blacklight seeped out of its edges, covered it, and then seemed to make it heal instantaneously. Even though the wound was gone, the pain that came with it lingered for a moment before going away as well. He looked at his claw which was still coated with the deep crimson liquid, and he realized what it was. It was blood.

He then knew that the Lazarus Pit had done to him what he thought was impossible. He had felt remorse for the outbreak. He could bleed. He could feel the stinging sensation of pain. That Pit was nothing short of a miracle worker since it had both made him more dangerous, and had made him partially human. The first thought that wasn't traumatizing to him was a small idea that told him he now had the actual right to call himself Alexander J. Mercer.

He looked at the Demon's Head, who was still standing there in silence waiting for his answer. With everything that had happened to him in just five minutes, Mercer failed to give him an answer because his newfound humanity made him fall over and faint due to the traumatizing experience he had just gone through.

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When he came to, he let out a groan and rubbed his hooded head with his normal hand. He looked around and saw that he was alone on the same rooftop his guide from earlier had shown herself to him and made him pursue her. He didn't know how he got there, and he didn't really care at the moment. He leapt off into the sky in the direction of the Iceberg Lounge. He saw that even though he was what could be very loosely called human, he still had his powers, strength, and speed, and none of them were lessened in any way.

The entire way back to his home, he couldn't help but wonder how Ivy would react to this.

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A/N: The reason I made him like this is to add intensity. Now he can be distracted by the pain he will surely go through when fighting and his opponent has a chance to... I wouldn't say win, but get away before becoming his dinner. Plus it added the chance to see him struggle to not be omnipotent/invincible any longer.