Author's Note – Right, my faults are beginning to show.
The only 'magical' aspects are the Plasmids: Incinerate, Telekinesis, etc. Harry doesn't have magic (no Deus Ex Machina for you, buddy!)
Warnings and Disclaimer same as before. Except this warning that's more of a 'well duh': Character deaths.
I bet you are wondering why I have Riddle Jr. as a character. Well...
Onto Liberation!
4/4/13 About what Guest said – I didn't know there was a book, so I didn't know Andrew Ryan was Russian and/or German. To save face, though, I'll try to come up with an excuse...
(He's an immigrant who came here and rose from poverty – I got it!) He didn't have an accent in the game (kinda sounded like he did when he was really angry), so Black would assume he's an American (like I did). There, dodged a bullet.
4/16/13 About Prongs and update – *adjusts collar* Whoops...(Damn my non existing editing skills). Expect the next chapter maybe before next Tuesday (one scene is making the chapter just Not Work!)
* ~ "If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?" – Chuck Palahniuk ~ *
"...popped...Adam..."
"I...my..."
"...son...rules...Damn!"
"How do...that...sons of...Wake...already!...my day...stay...you hear..."
"...Bubbles...glowing...wait...don't...angel soon...on Mr. B..."
"...lucky...Jeez...Time to...up!...Harry...you...up, you son of a Bitch!"
Harry felt his heart jerk in his chest as he shot up, "what!...what happened?"
"The plasmids knocked you out, that's all. Now make your way to the Medical wing, I think I found your friends."
"...friends?"
"You said – don't tell me it didn't – "
Black's words were driven from his mind as he remembered his friend's faces, "Ron, Hermione!"
"Quiet you dolt!"
Harry ignored him as he stood up, feeling his left hand twitch. Everything around him was blurred and cracked, like he was underwater in a submarine.
"You are underwater, buck. It's those glasses. Take them off and you'll see better."
Harry hesitated before taking them off slowly, consciously aware of the odd buzzing sounds near his ear. He could see everything clearly, from the burning staircase to his right to the flying, sputtering thing next to him.
"That's my bot," Black said, "sent him when you passed out. Good thing I did, too. Not even two hours down here and you already survived an encounter with three splicers. Not to mention the Big Daddy. Which reminds me, would you kindly deactivate Moony so he could gain his health back?"
Harry looked up at the bot and noticed the apple crate attached to it, a paw print drawn on it. He started to reach his hand up and the bot lowered itself. "How do I deactivate it?"
"See the red button I labeled 'Deactivate'?"
Harry frowned at his sarcastic tone, looking for the button. He found and pushed it, watching the bot float down to the floor. "Now, would you kindly tell me what this place is?"
"Don't we have an attitude? Fine, I'll tell you. It was a Utopia for a man called..."
"Called?"
"Hold your damn horses, I'm checking to make sure my jammer was working. We do Not need that man on our asses...
Alright, an American by the name of Andrew Ryan wanted to make a place where people could enjoy the fruits of their labor. Competition would be widely accepted and no man would be held down by the weak. Nice concept, grabbed me and my friends' attention, that's for damn sure.
Then, as the competitions rose and we started expanding more and more, people started getting more and more greedy. Riots started to break out and people started following a man named Frank Fontaine. Bastard's son of a whore...
Then Ryan had to shut down all the bathyspheres and leave us normal folk to defend ourselves against the splicers, even though some of us never joined Fontaine in the first place. We weren't stupid. Well, Prongs could be a little stupid..."
Harry didn't miss the fact that Black almost spat out the men's names, and how the last name was spoken with light affection. "Prongs?"
"Yeah, can't remember his real name it's been so long. Had to practically stuff him in the damn submarine, bugger wouldn't let me, Art, and Molls distract the splicers..."
Harry waited while Black drifted off, looking around as he felt his left hand flex open.
The fire seemed to grow a bit, but was thankfully staying on the other staircase. He heard electricity crackling and turned. A switch or something was broken, no doubt leaving the door shut for eternity.
"Moony should be healed by now," Black suddenly said.
Harry waited for him to say something else, but he went back to being silent. He bent down to the bot and pushed the other button, jumping when a hatch opened.
"Oh, that's what I forgot...Okay, put your finger inside the opened tube and hold still."
Harry looked at the hole before putting his finger inside. He felt a prick on his finger, then the bot gave a whirled sound and turned on.
He pulled his finger out and noticed the red dot, "it took my blood."
"He now recognizes you. He won't self destruct when you try to activate or try to pick him up."
"Why didn't he destruct before? Not that I'm complaining..."
"Because I put him on temporary rescue. Now, enough talking and get to medical before your friends leave the area."
"Which way is medical?"
"Through that door."
Harry looked at the sparking pad, "I don't think that door works anymore."
"Just hit it with your lightning."
"Lightning?"
"Did you even see your left hand, Buck?"
Harry felt his hand tingle as he brought it up. Large blue veins were like branches on his arm and hand, electricity sparking from his fingers.
"We wasted too much time with story telling, just use the instinct you now have and shock it."
His fingers seemed to twitch at the word 'shock'.
'Instincts,' he thought as he raised his hand to the pad. He felt the air crackle near his face as he curled his fingers before spreading them. The blue lightning hit the pad and the door clicked.
Harry went through the door and into the clear tube.
He noticed the fishes swim as he walked down the walkway, hearing moaning sounds coming from somewhere. He started to look around, trying to find the whale that was making that noise.
"That's not a whale, buck. That's a Big Daddy. See him over there with the Little Sister in the other tunnel over there?"
Harry looked at the other tube, seeing a girl skip as a large man in a diving suit followed behind her, his footsteps loud and vibrating the walls of his tube.
Harry felt a shiver of fear as he saw the Big Daddy, hearing his wailing moans rumbled in his head.
"Don't let him spook you, he'll only attack you if you threaten the Little Sister. But if we can get your friends now and get to a bathysphere, we won't have a need for the Adam."
Harry watched the two disappear further down the tube, but he still heard the Big Daddy. He turned and continued down the tube.
He read the sign and walked into the medical center.
"God – Fuck Me!"
Harry looked around for anything that could have heard that, "what's going on, Black?"
"Your friends went into an area that I don't have blocked. You'll be alone while I create a distraction."
"Distraction? For Ryan?"
The radio clicked off. The mad mutterings of splicers seem to intensify in the silence.
Harry gripped his wrench tight as he walked further inside.
The bot seemed to be following orders as it flew through what had to be the funeral wing. Harry followed the bot cautiously, hearing the splicers up ahead.
"Come on, dear, just a little."
"No, it's mine!"
"Damn it, woman! Open the Fucking Door!"
Harry glanced down the blood smeared hall, then slipped past as his hand gave an involuntary twitched.
The bot led him to a room that had a trail of spilt oil on the ground. Harry watched the bot duck under a hole and into an office room. He glanced at the fighting splicers before quickly sneaking into the room.
He stayed crouched as he saw another jar in a busted Gatherer's Garden and picked it up, somehow knowing it was Incinerate.
He opened the top and drank it without thinking. He put the empty bottle on the ground as he felt the power of fire inside his body. He closed his eyes and mentally reached for the flame.
Harry tried not to make a sound as his hand lit on fire, his fingertips burning like coals.
"Damn," he heard Black suddenly say, "it wasn't Telekinesis. Still good though..."
Harry tried really hard not to jump at his voice, "where are my friends now?"
"They look to be making their way to Fontaine's Fishery in Neptune. Your girl really can rig the bathysphere, can't she? Anyway, I'll try to contact them again, see if I can't get them to stay in one place."
The radio clicked off and Harry calmed his racing heart. He listened to the splicers talk in the next room.
"Jesus loves me, yes he – "
"There's someone new in town..."
"My poor Mary, so cold..."
Harry glanced out the office window, 'they sound like real people. Only more insane and bloodthirsty.'
He stood up slightly from his crouching position and turned to light the oil on fire.
He tried not to move as he saw the knelt splicer. He was about a foot away from him, slightly shaded eyes staring straight into his own.
Harry squeezed his wrench lightly, the intelligence in the splicer's eyes stopping him from attacking.
The splicer tilted his head at him, the mask causing him to appear hollow.
He held his left hand up as the splicer suddenly jumped and hanged on the ceiling before crawling into a large air vent.
Harry kept his hand up for a long while before he lowered it.
He turned and went through the hole, wincing as he heard a splicer spot him. He quickly went back into the room and set the oil on fire with his hand, wincing at the sounds of their screams and the bullets from the bot.
Once it was quiet, he went through the hole and out of the funeral wing.
He waited to see if the bot would move as he waited for Black to check back in once they were out.
After a while, he started to get the urge to explore the area, not helped when his eyes wandered to the unnamed wing.
His fingers flexed and he walked into the wing, hearing the bot follow close behind.
It was as damaged as the other wing, the blood he kept trying to avoid looking at smeared on the walls in an arch pattern. He tried not to think of the reason why as he ventured further into the wing.
He went into each room he could, finding bottles of alcohol and cigaret packs lying around.
In one room, he found a syringe of blue liquid and felt something telling him it was for injections. He put it in his jacket and continued scavenging.
He found a few more Accu–Vox and remembered the first one he got. He pushed play and listened while he searched, wincing at the sound of a New Years party going wrong.
The next few wasn't much better. A scientist's telling her story about the new 'project' she was trying to do, before she had to relinquish it to a man called Steinman.
Harry could hear the slow decent into madness in the scientist's voice and how he talked to the 'project', calling him 'ordinary looking' and 'disgusting to look upon'. He shivered when he heard the scientist say his final words before the box cut off.
"I'll mold him to be perfect. The Adonis Aphrodite will yearn and be pleased with."
Harry took the box and put it in a crate, shivering again.
He reached the end of the corridor and noticed the number lock next to the last door. He bent to examine it and saw the hack button. He pushed it and a plate slid up next to it. He glanced at the options and decided to manually hack.
He opened the tiles and created a path to the bottom with the tubes. He pushed the button and watched the liquid flow to the bottom. It gave a loud 'ding' and the plate slid down. He went inside the opened door slowly, wrench ready.
His eyes were immediately drawn to the large glass in front of him, a white sign on the top of the glass.
'Don't bother the specimen,' he read.
Harry walked up and looked through the foggy glass, placing his hands to block the single bright light. He saw a neatly made bed and equipment in the dark.
He saw something move inside, walking towards the glass. Harry backed up as it walked closer, ready to attack if it broke through the glass.
"...Holy..." he heard himself say as he stared.
"What is it?"
Harry ignored Black's voice as he leaned closer, "can you hear me?"
"Of course I...Who you talking to, buck?"
The young boy inside tilted his head slightly, before nodding his head once.
"Buck!"
The boy looked down as his radio, his eyes narrowing a bit in confusion. "It's a little kid."
"A splicer?"
"No," Harry told him. "I don't think he is."
"You don't think?"
He took the radio from his belt and showed it to the boy. He leaned forward and put his hands over his eyes as he studied it through the glass.
"He seems calm."
The boy leaned back and stared at him, then looked to the side. He brought up a hand and pushed his finger on the glass, pulled back, and pushed again.
Harry looked behind him.
A large computer was against the side wall, a large keyboard and a few monitors connected to it.
"It's either one of Tenenbum's experiments or Steinman's," he heard Black say. "Leave it alone and go find your friends."
Harry looked back to the boy behind the glass. He stared into his eyes, "hold on, I'll get you out."
"Harry," Black warned as he went to the computer, "you don't know what it is. It could kill you as soon as you let it out."
Harry ignored him looked at all the buttons, feeling his brain took over.
He typed on the keyboard and pushed a few of the buttons. He heard a hissing sound and the door sliding open. Harry turned to watch the little boy walk out.
He had to be about four, with a thin build and a cherub face. Dark, serious eyes studied him for a moment before they locked onto his.
Harry bent a bit and held out his right hand, "hi. My name's Harry."
The boy looked at his outstretched hand before grasping it with his cold hands. He gave it a short shake before putting his hand back to his side.
"...Do you have a name?"
"No."
Harry stared at his quick answer, "...alright." He stood straight, looking at the door he came in. "Stay close to me, okay."
The boy didn't seem to like that, "I'll be fine on my own."
"Not against the splicers, and whatever else is down here."
The boy stared at him for a long time, his face shrouded.
He finally gave a short nod before his face silently told him to start walking.
* ~ "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing." – Theodore Roosevelt ~ *
Please forgive me for any mistakes, I've got a slight fever going on (stupid weather, going from hot to finger numbing cold in a snap).
Fun Fact – While trying to have a suspenseful mood in the room (bad move, since I progressively get more fightened and paranoid the more the sun goes down), I couldn't get the Saints Row the Third DLC song out of my head.
So while typing Harry and the Splicer, this song was in my head: 'Bounce like my checks did, back in the day.'
I tried to make the scene creepy, but damn that amazing song made it difficult.