A Toast to Death

by Our Darkest Times

Since the disappearance of Alex Mercer, the world has been rebuilding itself. The second outbreak begins where no one suspected, in the metropolitan of Los Angeles, CA. Relive the story of Annalisa Snow as she recounts the devastation of the most dangerous virus in the history of mankind. Disregards [Prototype 2]. Rated M for violence, blood and gore and suggestive themes.

13. From the Shadows

Subject Details:

Name: Ronald I. Peterson

Gender: M

Height: 5'9"

Status: Under surveillance

Living Relatives: None

Affiliations: Unknown

Threat Level: Guarded

General Description: Subject is usually seen wearing a white robe, sometimes decorated with golden ornaments. Subject is a part of Mercer's super-humans, however, does not show loyalty to Mercer or Mercer's viral creations. Currently under the watch of Major Gallegos.

Last Seen: New York, NY

ooo

I hated them, Tom, Mercer, all of them, for landing me in this diplomatic mess. Why couldn't have I not grabbed Mercer's attention and enjoy my vacation in that cell? It wasn't as though I was unhappy, or sad, or even trapped, for that matter. But as I stood in front of my stolen car, a modern gas station ahead, I couldn't feel just a bit amused. Such a stereotypical place for a secret meeting.

The door of the store chimed as I pushed my way through and gladly shed the umbrella. The downpour outside showed no signs of stopping, so I was reluctant to walk or even run across the city to my destination, stealing a car instead. The umbrella I took from an unaware pedestrian. He ran away with his life after I threatened to bisect him. It was quite nice, too, with ocean patterns, and very effective in keeping out the rain. I reluctantly left it by the door as I entered the store.

The cashier, a young man in his twenties, watched me discreetly with curiosity as he pretended to be reading a magazine. He looked normal. I detected nothing that suggested otherwise, from both his aura and actions.

Then, while I stared at a shelf of chips, he tapped a button on his desk. He thought I didn't see. I would give him the benefit of doubt, that the button was not to call the police to my current location.

"Anna," someone called, only a few seconds later, from the back of the store. I peered around the shelf, and found Tom, dressed in an old, grandpa suit. It oddly fit him. He walked to me and tugged me one way with my shoulder before I could decide to run away. "Come in! We have been waiting for you."

Once he thought I wasn't looking, he winked at the cashier, who nodded back.

The interior, after we had gone down a flight of stairs, was dark, and musty. It was déjà vu all over again, though I did not voice my opinions. The metal door we passed was easily an inch thick, attached a heavy lock that weighed no less than twenty pounds. The lighting was poor, the air dense and heavy. It felt more of a graveyard than a basement. Spider webs created cities within themselves, bugs scurrying blindly across the floor.

"Here we are."

We reached another metal door. Tom opened it graciously, despite the loud creaks, revealing a old light, rusted away and dirty, somewhere around fifty years old. It hung above a wooden table, a colony of mold. Two chairs were set up, though no one sat within them. All stood around, in a circle, arms crossed, leaning against the walls, as though to get away from this tiny room. I felt a bit crowded myself as the door shut behind me.

"Annalisa Snow," Tom proudly pronounced, an arm waving to introduce me. Out of the four people, there was only a slight stir, as though my name was a chilly wind that blew through them.

The man with the black top hat was a well-built man, with a healthy stance, a suit wrapped tightly around him. The man who was smoking a cigarette was disturbingly thin, his bones poking out in odd places, jagged and deformed. The woman in the thin dress picked at her fingernails, a slight frown in her face, facing slightly away from the top hat man as though in disaffection. The last man had no face, only a steel mask, which glared at the ground, seeing nothing.

"Hello," I said, my voice tiny, swallowed by the gravity of the room itself. It was as if we all stood on the edge of the world, ahead a deathly drop into the end, and none dared to move, all said was pulled down to be lost eternally.

I waited. They were terrible players, each shifting just in the slightest. But Tom was the first to give in, clearing his throat loudly. The top hat man responded first.

"Anthony Carson," he said, in a voice of clarity and wisdom. I remember his name in particular because he was the head of the other three, the main leader of the Loyalists. And he was a smart man, by no means stupid, or naïve. For every action of the Order, he managed to stay just one step ahead, always countering every move, always in anticipation of the next.

The other three had less impression on me. The woman was Baker. The masked man was Durant. The thin man was Will. They all regarded me with disinterest. The only two people who showed emotion was Tom, who looked so agitated every now and then, and Carson, who stared at me with downright distrust.

"So you're the newest star."

"So I am, but not your star."

And later, "What does Mercer see in you?"

"Beats me, but you can sure as hell ask him."

It wasn't completely his fault.

Durant was quiet, saying not one word. In fact, Baker introduced him, with him gone in spirit. Baker, on the other hand, was a lively person, despite her clear dissatisfaction with Carson. Will was too mostly quiet, though whenever he spoke, he was a snake, each word biting deep into the fear of humanity, each exclamation punctuated by a hiss. I found the three of them interesting.

However, the most interesting turned out to be Carson. With the white bow on the top hat, along a crimson rose pinned to his suit, he made quite the first impression. His face was locked in a permanent scowl, his eyes sharp when he looked at me, his lips thin. Every word he spoke was strained, forced. Every gesture was made as though he was chained to the earth, with effort and power. His dislike was not mutual.

It was later that when Tom explained to me the history of the three that I saw them with a new eye. Will was a patient who misjudged and was forcefully placed in a mental asylum. In a decade, his ordinary mind was as deranged and twisted as his environment. After Mercer decimated the entire asylum, he found Will, and recruited him as a soldier. Baker was a government agent who had found just a little too much about Blackwatch's own history, and was subsequently silenced. Luckily, she was soon found, with a bullet in her chest. After her resurrection, she vowed revenge upon those who tried to throw her away. I couldn't help but see her through a mirror. Durant was perhaps the most tragic of all. He was one of the survivors of the first outbreak, back in Manhattan. His face was chew off by a walker before he received medical attention. On the verge of death and becoming a walker, he was hanging onto his last shred of sanity when Carson came across his broken body. With powerful viral manipulations, Carson managed to turn the would-be walker into an evolved. Durant now followed Carson everywhere, like a dog to its savior.

Again, the most interesting was Carson. His story was completely unknown. However, I decided that from his speech he might have been a scientist or a doctor, but his subliminal fiddles suggested more of a hunter. His past greatly fascinated me, and I made no attempt to hide the curiosity. It is, unfortunately, a mystery lost in time.

"I'll be going," I said, curtly, refusing Tom's offer of corporation. I could tell it disappointed him, and I hated to disappoint such friendly people, but there was nothing else he could have expected. I made my point clear on multiple occasions, to him, to Mercer, to Carson, to the rest of the damned world.

Although, despite the strangeness and the oddity of the meeting, the most outstanding would be the final word. "Farewell." It came from Carson's tight lips, a ghost from the hidden shadows.

ooo

No one followed me as I made my way back into the store. The cashier gave me another curious look, and I gave him back a steady glare. He took the hint and hid behind his magazine. When I pulled open the door of the store, I discovered with frustration that someone had taken my umbrella. It was fortunate that the rain had stopped, or else I might have strangled the cashier to find the person who had taken it.

The gloomy day welcomed me as I strode outside. I left the car, as it would only cause more inconveniences than speed me along in the downtown area. So I opted to walk, until I reached the first building with more than five floors. Easily I scaled the building, scaring a cat sitting on the window ledge. From there I was able to leap, building to building, and a little gliding in between, slowly to my destination, where I had left the body of the Blackwatch man. Perhaps I should have moved him somewhere else, but I could find nowhere else to put a body.

A scuffle, the breaking of a leaf, the tumbling stones that fell far below. I never missed them, only chose to not notice them. I had even gone as far to slow down, so that they would not lose me. They were good, agile. They were not deterred by the occasional leap that carried me hundreds of feet into the air, or the intensive flight I was forced to make to not touch the ground.

When I neared my hidden place, I dropped to the streets. I was not ready to let anyone discover the corpse I fought hard to make, especially not from one of the three most thickheaded groups in the entire nation. The pursuer stayed above.

Now the prey was the hunter, the predator the hunted. As he leaped to another roof to better observe me, I ducked through a crowd of people and quickly lost myself. I saw his confused searched through the people, for a girl in a black hoodie, while I stood in plain sight as a leathered motorcyclist. Slowly I stalked the watcher while he ran in frantic circles. While he prepared for another jump, I was below him, ready to spring into the air and catch him unexpectedly. However, just then a man walked past me. He looked very familiar.

A flash. A man in black robes, a cross in his hands. Ghosts around, unremembered, lost. An angel, wingless, protector, giver, dead eyes. A warm smile on the face of the priest, a pyramid of glass and steel behind him. The Order of Evolution.

The city dampened, until surrounded by shadows were two of us.

I attacked first, but he had a quicker reaction, deflecting the axe with a shield and darting away. I tore away the earth and threw at him a chunk of the asphalt, which he dodged, barely, and unleashed a whip at me. I caught the whip, its edges digging into my hand, and furiously shook it. The shockwave made him stagger. The sharp end of the whip exploded into a flower, impaling me and then retracting. I stood there, gaping holes in my chest, him, with blooded marks on his face.

"You are brave to come here, Father Douglas. Foolishly brave. You will have your demise," I stated in an expressionless manner.

People around had stopped, either in fear, or curiosity, others long gone, their stumbling away. The watcher too had heard the commotion, now crouching on the roof, attentively. The world seemed to freeze, with only me and him, his hard breathing, my blades digging into the ground.

"They have taken away your innocence," he replied, dodging my accusing glare. "I could have helped you. I still can. I can save your future, for the–"

"There's nothing to save now." I waved dismissively away his words, unable to endure his dead lecture. "I will have your flesh and your holy soul."

He sensed the attack coming, and jumped away from the impact I made against the ground, shaking the earth. More people ran away, screaming. He looked at me, the snakes of bloodied teeth entrenching my form, then the streets, the horrified people around.

He ran.

I was stilled for a second, surprised. Then, with a snarl, I leaped into the air, wings of dragons, chased him, knocking stone loose from their foundations. I saw the shadow of the watcher running away.

He led me through the suburban area, while he raced on the ground, knocking up cars from their spots, while I glided, uprooting trees along the way, and sending light poles like javelins at his back. Far away I heard sirens, but I ignored them. As he sprinted, he launched cars and people at me. The cars I violently smashed aside, the people I simply let them hit me and be eaten.

At one point we reached an overpass. He leaped high into the air and landed with power onto the back of an 18-wheeler, causing it the flip backwards. I was forced to shed the wings in favor of claws to leap onto the trailer and then forwards again, carrying me onto the overpass. He continued running, faster than speeding cars, while I gave chase, half on the ground, half in air.

Through the city of Las Vegas we raced, followed by an entire legion of tanks, helicopters, explosives, machine guns. They could not to fire, as there were too many civilians around. However, after McGiffin took a sharp turn that obscured us from any aerial vision, the military soon lost us.

We arrived at a construction site, abandoned. There he stopped, and turned to face me. I did not dare to engaged him immediately, fearing some kind of trap. Instead I circled him as he stood in the middle of the mounts of concrete blocks and steel cylinders. It was eerily silent.

"You must see truth! I am doing everything for your benefit!" His voice echoed.

"Is that why three of your party attacked me without provocation a while ago?"

"They were not following orders. The archbishop has declared all adversaries of the Order are to be negotiated with."

"What's the negotiation? Glorious future if you join us, death otherwise?"

"No!" he yelled, angry now. I could tell he believed what he said, as far as he could believe himself. However, wrong devotion didn't make him innocent by any means. "You think us all monsters, but we're not. All we are trying to do is make the world a better place! So that there shall be peace on this planet! We will wipe away the Horsemen, and save humanity!"

"By brainwashing every single person on this planet, so that your 'archbishop' can sit at the thrones?"

He narrowed his eyes. "You are hopeless, aren't you? Well, if you must reject our teachings, then we have nothing else to say to you."

He took a step towards me, and I readied into a defensive stance. However, he didn't attack, only gesture. Then I felt myself on fire.

My middle blasted open as something detonated within it, from a grenade that hit my skin only a blink before. Bloodtox was abound, leaking from my abdomen, dripping onto the floor, corroding my skin. Behind me, another man held a launcher of some sort, its barrel still smoking. He readied the weapon again, but did not shoot, at a second gesture from McGiffin.

More of them emerged from around, vicious smiles on their lips, death within their eyes.

"Now you see why it's futile to resist us. This is your last chance. Join us, or die!"

My mouth was not working quite right. I felt the bloodtox, so much of it, so concentrated all within one hit. "I–, you can–"

I was saved from forming the rest of my sentence, when a bullet ripped clean into the wielder of the bloodtox weapon. His head exploded, and his body swayed. "What–?" McGiffin turned, as did all his men. A helicopter was in the air, guns trained onto the group of us on the ground. I vaguely made out the helmet of a pilot behind the windshield.

"You have ten seconds to drop your weapons and surrender," announced a mechanized voice, causing a flurry of scuffles in place.

McGiffin cursed to himself. "Kill them all!" he yelled, waving at the bunch of them.

The world exploded into action. An evolved leaped at the helicopter, and was shot down by a hail of bullets. Someone threw a large rock at it, chipping its side, making it retreat from the projectile-heavy storm. A tank roared through a pile of bricks, scattering them. Its cannon blew a hole out of the ground, which many dodged away from. Soldiers poured in behind the tank, guns alight, bullets a blizzard of fury. The evolved responded in kind. Soldiers fell to blades and flying metal and bricks. A second tank that rolled in skirted back one whole foot after a prototype rammed it with force.

Meanwhile McGiffin walked calmly over to me.

"Do you see what you have brought upon yourself? This massacre," he gestured to the fighting around, "is on your head! You are destroying the world!" He thought me helpless, but he didn't see the extra appendages slipping out of my wrists. "You are a hazard to this world," he said, sadly, as though he cared, "and I cannot allow that." His hand was in a large blade, raised over me. I tensed, ready for action, yet stilled.

Bang!

Something slammed into his head one way and burst out the other. He healed immediately, turned towards its source, and was shot again, this time half his face hanging by a threat. He growled. I shifted my head. Captain Vinson was dressed in all black, armored plating, a handgun in both hands, steadily advancing. McGiffin took a step, and another shot that opened his neck made him retreat a step. He growled. Vinson coolly took another shot.

At only five yards away, Vinson's gun clicked. McGiffin took the chance and swooped in. Vinson was not fazed, throwing his gun away and drawing a sword. At first I thought he lost his mind, but when the sword cut cleanly through a reaching tentacle, and left the flesh burning, I silently applauded the military's ingenuity. McGiffin looked like he swallowed a toad.

The victory in surprise was short-lived. McGiffin feinted, causing Vinson to block, then rushed in with speed. Vinson was quick enough to bring the weapon up and pierce the prototype's right leg, but the damage simply wasn't enough, not as the bloodtox burned away at the flesh. Now he was being held by the throat, feet off the ground.

"Useless human! You are nothing but a bug I will squish beneath my boot!" Vinson struggled, his feet dangling in the air uselessly. His face turned purple, his hands scratching at McGiffin futilely. "You will be sorry you–!"

A shot blasted apart his shoulder. He dropped Vinson, who scrambled away, clutching at his throat. Before he could turn around, another shot blew away the side of his face, while the third burned a hole into his chest. The bloodtox dripped like blood from the wounds, which hissed as the chemical burned the biomass.

I dropped the pistol and advanced upon the agony man, who had unleashed half a dozen blades and swiped the air between us. Before he could recover, I jumped in and drove a fist to his gut. He half flew up, then my blade cleaved into his shoulder. His own hand punched out blindly, piercing my gut to the other side. I snarled into his face while he grimaced in effort. So close to each other, it was hard to tell where one of us began, and where the other ended.

I used the opportunity of proximity to erupt into a pillar of spikes. He was caught by surprise, his body completely shredded before he could react. When he tried to pull away, I casted a row of harpoons into him holding us close. A blade was thrust through my neck, then expanding on the other side, holding me in a prison. I returned the favor by exploding the harpoons into little balls of shrapnel, which dug harshly into his insides. He yelled in pain, while I could not yell at all.

In one ditch effort, he punched at me with his other hand, which I caught and subsequently squished into a ball. Howling, he released my neck, and I retracted the harpoons, dancing away from his vicious strikes. He threw a whip, its razor edge lightning fast. However, he misjudged my abilities at a distance. I let the whip hit me and trapped it, then erupted. Snakes burst from my skin and crawled up the whip. He tried to tug it free, while I slowly tugged it in and melted it down. The pain of a losing tug of war turned his eyes red.

Before the snakes could reach him, he raised the sword and cut off his own hand. Surprised, the whip was instantly rushed into me, quickly absorbed, pushed me back a step. He swiped a mount and half a ton of bricks flew at me, which I dodged, and sent his own whip back his way. He could not react quick enough to evade it. It dug into his shoulders, then the spikes expanded, and I pulled with all my strength. He was lifted off his feet.

While on the ground, I diced my blade through the length of his back, opening it up like a loaf of bread. When he tried to roll over, I cut widthwise, putting large, angry marks in a lattice on him. He tried to form a shield, which I shattered with a heavy bash. He tried to stab back at me, only for me to sever his hand again. He tried to get up, but my hand formed a long pike, which pinning him to the ground. He squirmed like a bug, wiggling. When he saw me standing over him, he stopped the struggles, deathlike trace.

"It was always my destiny to fall in battle, but I had not realized it was a battle against the grey horse itself." He was breathing unevenly, while I watched with no words, letting his floodgates run. "If only I could see myself now when I was young." He sighed, as though content. He noticed me staring with curiosity. "What, does Death not understand death?" He laughed, a crazed, humorless laugh. "You may have ended me, but you have only began more chaos into this world. Or is that your goal all along, to destroy all that we know? But it matters not now. I cannot let you take me."

I prepared for more struggles, but he only shifted his skin, like an ocean wave. After a moment, blood, a red tide, emerged to his skin. Horrified, I realized what he had done. In desperation, I stabbed a sword into his head, where I hoped the destruction was the least. From there I took everything he knew, everything I could find and use. It was not much, only a few scrapes, undated and blurry. I stared at the pool of bloodtox and a empty shell for a second.

There was only anger, anger that I had been tricked. I grounded my teeth, shaking with fury. Away, I heard Vinson get up, slowly, carefully, watching. I ignored him, only stared at the dissolving corpse with hate. Oh, how foolish I was. I threw the remains away, shedding it from my lance, not even noticing that there was no more fight around. There was only me, me and this dead corpse.

ooo

"I didn't realize you were in Las Vegas."

"Oh? We were actually heading to D.C., but when a video of an electrocuting angel went viral, we decided to head here to check it out."

I remember the burn of the shock, and the spear that had pierced me. I remember the fire that scorched the earth, and the lightning that blew away all.

"I guess it didn't take too much guesswork to figure it out, then."

"Oh, you have no idea. Major Gallegos almost jumped and hit her head on the ceiling when we were told two infected were chasing each other across the city."

"Right." I hadn't been thinking too hard about collateral damage there, only concerned to catch the fleeing man before me. But in hindsight, it was his plan all along for me to catch him.

We were in silence for a while, just sitting, and watching the sunset far in the distance. To the east, the dust storm was gone, the only remnant a large dot in the sand. It was a beautiful scene, the flaming skies, the glowing light. On the streets, people rushed as ever, unaware of their possible death, lingering just around the corner, ready to leap from the shadows and consume all order.

"So what now?"

"Well, let's see. I've managed to convince the major that you are in fact not a threat to public safety. So basically you're not sitting beside our buddy Alex Mercer on the terrorist list anymore."

"That's good."

"Wait until you hear the better part. We have located the headquarters of this 'Order of Evolution.' Our forces will travel to New York within a day or two, with a stop in Washington, to end this war once and for all. Once they're gone, I imagine the rest of the infected will be a piece of cake."

I nodded absently to his plan, "Yeah, yeah." It wasn't as though it was thoughtless, rather that it wasn't guaranteed to work. Defeating Archbishop Peterson meant nothing to defeating Alex Mercer, or the Creator, as he had became to be known.

"So, what will you do now?"

The question took me by surprise. I had been expecting it, yet somehow when asked, I found nothing to say. Of course I already had the plan, to plan to break the Order's control in the States, then to cut off the head, subdue the snake.

"I have some cleanup I need to do here on the west coast. But, once I destroy the Order here, I will join you in New York."

He grinned. "It's a date then." I couldn't keep the smile off my face. He glanced down at his watch, then had a double take. "It seems like I am late for my report. Well, Madam Snow, it has been a pleasure being your company, but I am afraid I must go."

"Then farewell, Sir Vinson, for we shall meet again, sooner than we might expect."

He saluted, and I followed him.

The sun was brighter than ever, the shining orb, an omen, hanging with power in the sky. The clouds were a fortress of safety, shielding the heavens from our war. The build we sat on loomed tall in the sky. Giant golden letters at our feet spelled out "Palazzo Hotel." The fountains below sprayed water high into the air. The breeze that passed by occasionally was cool and fresh.

Vinson winked, then dropped down. I only watched him until his parachute sprang open, then I stayed a while longer. Life was a mess.

A/N

We are getting very close to the big showdown. If you have something you would like to see in it, now's the time. After I submit the next chapter, there will be no more room to fit in whatever else you suggest.