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.

22. Chapter 22: Shadows of the past

Ch. 22: Shadows of the past

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A.N.:

Hey everyone!

Ugh…this chapter has been driving me mad!

I've rewritten this thing every weekend since the last week of December! Every time I would finish it, I would read through it and start over the next weekend because I could not get it the way I wanted it. Even this version is not that good in my opinion but I figured that I have put off updating the story just because I am OCD about getting my chapters to be exactly what I want them to be.

Please bear with this chapter despite it not being very good in my opinion. I will try to redeem it in the next chapter.

As I said, this is not a literal adaptation of the storyline found in BioShock 2. The general sequence of events will be the same but I am altering things both for plot reasons and because I do not want to bore the readers who have probably, like me, played the second game so many times that you wore out the original game disc that you bought the day it was first released and had to buy the Ultimate Rapture Edition so that you could play it again. Okay...maybe not like me but you get the idea xDDD

Anyway,

In this chapter, I hint at some upcoming dilemmas and trips down memory lane in future chapters.

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful holiday!

Read and review if you want.

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Looking back down from where the twisted creature that Simon had become had scurried away, I examined my surroundings. I was standing between two buildings with the entrance to the next area of Siren Alley just beyond the security door to my right and the Gatherer's Garden Vending Machine along the wall beneath the overhang of the building's second floor to my left. Overhead, connecting the second floor of the two structures, was the remains of a crosswalk. A rusted metal barrel was in the street to my left and Splicers had ignited an inferno inside of it using what appeared to be panels of the ornate skin of the structures surrounding me as fuel. Patches of rubble also dotted the street in both purposeful stacks by the residents of the decaying area and also where they had fallen from the surrounding infrastructure.

If I was recalling correctly, the path that continued around the side of the building on my left led to the dead end across from the apartment complex that the majority of the residents called home before the war. I had no intention of waltzing into the wolf's den unless it was necessary. Turning my attention back to the security door to my right, I began to make my way towards it.

Moments later, as the watertight door opened, I saw the short path that led to the auxiliary station for the main pump that was further into Siren Alley. To my right, on the black and white checkerboard tile that made up the floor of the short path into the station, was a small red wagon with several clear glass jars that contained fireflies inside of its cargo bay. Nestled between the jars was a glowing red Plasmid Vial.

Remaining wary of the Splicers in the room just past the wagon, I inched close enough to the vial to make out the worn label on the side of the ornate container. The raised lettering on the side of the vial was nearly worn down to the point of being illegible but I was able to read enough of it to identify the Plasmid as being Security Command.

I paused for a moment. Security Command? The Plasmid was often overlooked due to the fact that it did not harm its victim directly but instead used genetic insects that had a substance in their bodies that tricked Rapture's Security System into targeting the individual for a brief period of time. The insects were contained in a kind of ball that sprouted out of the wielder's hand. The wielder had to throw the ball and hit his or her assailant. At which time, the insects would be released and they land on the nearby Splicer.

As I stood before the Plasmid vial, Eleanor commented through our physiological bond to prevent alerting the Splicers, 'Interesting…it appears that I have not given her enough credit. Her will is stronger than I had anticipated.'

Intrigued, I inquired, 'Who?'

The young goddess explained, 'Cindy Meltzer. She is one of the little girls that Mother kidnapped from the surface to make the new generation of Little Sisters. However, this one was not a random kidnapping. Her father was investigating the kidnappings and, as a warning, Mother had Cindy kidnapped. Though Cindy was turned into a gatherer, she still found a way to send messages to her father. Now that he is here, she appears to be sending him items to aid him. I had not anticipated this…it could mean trouble.'

While using my Telekinesis Plasmid to levitate the vial into the air and then towards my brother, I assured her, 'I doubt it will be, kid. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

I heard her let out a sarcastic huff before she said, 'For a man that does everything he can to stay out of the spotlight and be the voice of reason, you have an uncanny ability to exploit and manipulate people. Perhaps, you are not so different from people such as Andrew Ryan and Mother.'

Her comment, though sarcastic, filled me with a sense of worry for a moment. Past the façade of the confident young woman, Eleanor still viewed me in the same way that she had when she was a child. Just as any parent would, I did want Eleanor to be like me in some ways but I also did not want her to be like me in other ways.

I remarked, 'It is nothing to be proud of, kid.'

She asked in a confused tone, 'What nonsense are you speaking, Johnny?'

I sighed before I explained, 'Being able to hurt people without feeling guilty.'

I sensed Eleanor smirk as her cold, authoritative blue eyes surfaced before she said, 'Come now, Father. You know as well as I do that this world is not black and white.'

Despite the chill that her authoritarian side gave me, I still reprimanded her, 'Just because your old man does something a certain way, that does not mean that you have to, kid.'

By then, Alpha had spliced Security Command and we continued forward. Before us was the interior room of the auxiliary pumping station. It was two-stories with a winding metal staircase in the center to allow access to the upper floor. Intertwined in the staircase was a collection of large metal pipes that formed a structure resembling a column. The pipes were leaking and, thus, an ankle deep pool of ocean water had formed at the base of the structure that extended out until it reached the raised surface of the surrounding first floor.

It was in this pool of water that I saw three Splicers and a dormant Security Bot. The denizens, two men and one woman, were clad in clothing that had once been respectable for upper middle class residents of Rapture but had degraded to now being little more than rags that were barely clinging on to the horribly twisted frames of the individuals. If it were not for the haphazard and crude stitching and repair work, I was certain that the patches of fabric would be on the wet disgusting floor.

The men were armed with makeshift bludgeoning weapons. I noticed that one of the men, a rather haggard-looking individual in his late forties or early fifties, had a rusting monkey wrench that had, welded into its jaws, a kind of spiked ball that had thick metal spikes as thick as a built man's pinkie finger protruding out at seemingly random angles. The other man, this one much younger and with an air of a laborer about him, was wielding a crescent wrench that had had its open end broken in half and then the entire head bent so that it now resembled a cargo hook.

Meanwhile, the woman, a middle-aged individual that had clearly fallen hard from grace judging by the visible, straight line scars on her wrists and also by the incredible level of ADAM degradation that had been inflicted upon her body, was armed with a once ornate pump-action shotgun that had been modified to be fully automatic. In addition, she had a snub-nose revolver in a holster that was strapped to her sore-covered right thigh.

As I neared the Splicers, I saw the sweeping red light of a Security Camera as it slowly turned in its housing with its aging mechanisms protesting loudly. The older Thuggish Splicer had just become aware of my presence, indicated by a confused grunting noise, before I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from the ported fingertips of my gloved left hand into the pool of water. Almost instantly, the denizens cried out in agony as their frames were surrounded by bright blue electrical arcs. As the twisted addicts screamed in pain, the Security Bot let out a loud electrical hiss as the high-energy genetic bolts severely damaged its CPU before, seconds later, the automaton exploded in a shower of shrapnel and fire.

To my surprise, the female Leadhead Splicer, who were notorious for avoiding physical trauma, was able to weather the electrical assault while the two male Thuggish Splicers, who were notorious for their suicidal combat strategies, collapsed into heaps in the pool of water. However, as she tried to orient herself, suddenly, a bright blue ball hit her frame. The ball exploded upon contract and genetic insects could be seen crawling upon her wet frame. Moments later, the bewildered denizen was lit up by the Security Camera's bright white light as the shrill alarm of Rapture's Security System sounded through Siren Alley.

Sensing the danger that she was in, the woman sprinted towards a Circus of Values Vending Machine that I could now see where it was against the far left wall of the first floor. The Splicer's single-minded drive to reach the vending machine was interrupted by a hail of .45 caliber submachine gun fire from the two Security Bots that had arrived to deal with the security threat. She cried out as the rounds pierced her frame and caused blood to spray out of her body. With the years of ADAM built up in her body keeping her alive, the Splicer fired her modified shotgun at the pair of flying submachine guns.

The experienced combatant succeeded in destroying the two Security Bots and then turned her attention back to the vending machine. Inches from her destination, the woman was again assaulted by a hail of submachine gun fire as two more bots arrived. Out of either bad luck or the cold, heartless nature of survival, when the Splicer turned to fire her shotgun, the bots' gunfire hit her modified firearm multiple times in rapid succession, effectively rendering it useless. The denizen was far from giving into the inevitable as she threw her destroyed weapon aside and then drew her revolver. As her frame was being shot to pieces, the woman fired her sidearm and succeeded in destroying one of the bots.

The shrill alarm continued to blare as the Leadhead Splicer quickly unhinged the revolver's cylinder, ejected the spent pistol cartridges, and then reloaded the weapon. However, as she snapped the cylinder back into place, a final hail of submachine gun fire struck her ravaged frame. In one final act of defiance, the Splicer fired a single round from her revolver as she collapsed back onto the front of the vending machine. The round destroyed the bot but it was too late for its master's operator. Leaving a blood trail along the length of the Circus of Values Vending Machine as she slid down its exterior, the woman collapsed on the dirty, black and white checkerboard tiled floor at the base of the machine, the revolver still held tightly in her right hand.

The vending machine's barely functional speakers powered to life and the almost unintelligible voice of the clown said, "Come back when you get some money, buddy." The final insult came moments later when the clown laughed in a cruel manner before the speakers gave off an electrical crackle. Then, the room, save for the sounds of water flowing through the pipes and the protesting joints of the Security Camera, fell silent.

As I moved forward into the auxiliary pumping station, I remarked through our bond, 'That's why you shouldn't feel the need to follow in your old man's footsteps, kid. I didn't have the luxury of a choice because of the war but you do. With your potential, you can be whatever you want to be. Don't be like me. Life has a way of making people pay for what they have done no matter how far they run or try to fight back.'

My beloved daughter replied, 'Johnny, you can be an irritatingly stubborn old man at times and you certainly are not a saint but you have a good heart, are unafraid to stand up for what you believe in, and are willing to do anything for those that you care about. I told you before, Father…that suit does not define who you are. I love and admire you, Johnny.'

By then, I had entered the station and had hit the Security Camera with a blast of Electro Bolt to temporarily disable it for a long enough period of time for Alpha to hit it with a Hack Rivet. Upon investigating the first floor, I realized that there was a second flight of stairs behind the left wall that led up to the second floor. While Jennifer investigated the second flight of stairs, I ascended the main flight in the center of the station to reach the second floor. As I neared the top of the staircase, I found a Sentry Turret waiting for me near the far right wall of the second floor next to an additional hallway that was blocked by a closed security gate.

My entombed right hand gripped the throttle of my industrial-grade drill and, as it roared to life, the turret's .30 caliber machine gun rounds were deflected away by the electromagnetic dynamo that I had mounted to its worn steel alloy hide. Meanwhile, I willed another blast of genetic electricity from the ported digits of my left hand. With the turret disabled, I powered down my drill and moved aside to allow my brother to ascend the stairs and fire a Hack Rivet into the sentry. With the turret pacified, we ascended the last few steps to the second floor.

The second floor had significantly less floor space than the first floor as it formed the shape of an "L" along the back right wall of the pumping station before it met the second flight of stairs on the far left side. With access to the additional area of the second floor blocked by the security gate, I focused my attention on the watertight security door that was slightly off-center along the back wall. To the left of the door mounted to the wall was a Gene Bank and, on the floor, was a Pneumo Mail Tube and a seemingly abandoned steamer trunk.

As I walked towards the door, I grunted to my little companion, "I love you too, Eleanor. At the same time, you can't blame me for wanting the best for you."

The Eleanor-controlled Little Sister chirped brightly, "You are what's best for me, Papa."

I let out an amused grunt in response. Having reached the door, I found that it was locked. A combination lock was visible to the left of the sealed obstacle. Irritated, I scrutinized the objects surrounding the door. I saw several lit white candles both around and on the worn brown leather trunk, the telltale trails of dried wax around the bases of the candles indicating that they had only been there for a few days at most. However, despite my investigation, I failed to see any clues as to ascertain the identities of the four numbers of the combination lock.

Alpha commented with his Alpha Series voice, "This was not locked before."

After turning to face him, I asked, "When was the last time you were here?"

My brother's mischievous side surfaced as he explained, "When I was gathering ADAM for Tenenbaum. She told me that Eleanor had informed her that Wales was visiting her mother in Persephone and that it was a perfect opportunity to send a message to Lamb. So, I gathered in the lower level of the 'church' and performed some remodeling when the Splicers tried to retrieve the Little Sister. Judging by this lock, it seems that I made my point a little too well. Sorry, sir."

Giving off a reassuring grunt, I began to think through my opinions. Trying to "hack" the internal mechanisms of the lock could backfire and destroy the security device, thus leaving the door inaccessible except though the use of heavy demolition charges that we did not have. If I tried to force my way through the security bulkhead, there was a chance that it would trigger a response from the Security System and possibly trigger a failsafe lockout of the main pumping station. With four slots and ten numbers per slot, that meant that it was either approximately one million possible combinations or approximately ten thousand possible combinations for the lock.

Just as it seemed as if we had hit a dead end, the porcelain doll-like left hand of the Little Sister appeared in my field of view. Though my segmented eye, I followed her extended index finger down to the side of the steamer trunk while she chirped with her robotic tone, "I spy with my little eyes, something that does not belong, Daddy."

Moments later, I saw what she was pointing at. There, leaning against the wall and trunk, was a seemingly abandoned Accu-Vox. Intrigued and with no other potential leads, I slowly lowered my massive armored frame down until I was able to carefully grip the small, rectangular device with my much larger left hand. After standing back upright, I inspected the diary while I held it a few inches away from my glowing golden yellow eye.

The device had certainly seen better days. The glass cover for the audiotape slot was largely missing save for a few jagged remnants along the perimeter of the cover's housing and the object's metal and wood panel casing had cracked in multiple locations to reveal the internal wiring and mechanisms. I had my doubts that the diary was still functional but, with nothing to lose, I raised it up towards the young princess who was hunched over the top of my armored head to get a better look at the device.

Giggling, the small child pressed the play button on the diary. The sound of electrical buzzing filled the air as the badly damaged Accu-Vox played the audio recording. Despite the partially functioning speakers, I was able to make out parts of the message that was recorded by "Father Wales" seemingly intended for someone in particular.

"…Rapture's…together. Do…remember? Ryan…astray…brother. Turned…almighty. Doctor Lamb…Daniel. I left…gift…Pink Pearl."

Though there was more left on the recording, the damaged device could not play it. Dropping the Accu-Vox onto the ground, I began to decipher the parts of the recording that the device had managed to play.

Jennifer commented with her voice being slightly distorted by her helmet, "Daniel? He must mean his brother. He runs a brothel in the ruins of the Pink Pearl. I have overheard Sofia and Whales talking about his brother a few times. He seems to be very distraught about his brother's current 'occupation' and rejection of The Family. Lamb has been urging him to keep attempting to reach out to Daniel to 'save him damnation'. If Whales left a gift for his brother in the Pink Pearl, chances are high that it is a clue to the combination."

I grunted in response, "Well, it is our only lead right now and unless one of you wants to try to guess the code, it is probably going to be our best bet to get past this lock." Jennifer gave the slightest of nods while Alpha replied with an agreeing grunt. I started to turn around to go back to the area of Siren Alley that we had been in moments prior. However, as I did, I paused and then smiled slightly beneath my monstrous façade with whatever horribly twisted physical features that remained of my lips as I heard a loud gurgling from behind me.

With a gentle tone, I asked my temporary charge, "Are you hungry? There is no need to be bashful…just say so."

The embarrassed tone in her siren-like voice would have easily been able to make anyone fall under her spell when the Little Sister replied, "Ju…just a little…Da...Daddy."

I had to force myself to contain the amused grunt that manifested inside me in response to Eleanor's awkward attempt to put on a brave face. Making my way back to the first floor of the pumping station, I assured her, "You are not a burden, Eleanor. You have never been."

I was nearing the exit when she remarked with an uncharacteristic, bitter tone that struck a chord within me and caused me to pause, "Stupid…stupid...you stupid old man…agh…damn this thing inside of me…damn that lying bitch and her obsession with that man…damn this city…"

A wave of will-shattering sorrow and chocking fury rushed into my mind through our physiological bond as Eleanor continued, "How can you think that you stupid man? After everything that I have done to you because of my selfishness…are you a masochist or just incredibly stupid?"

Slightly taken aback, I started to reply, "El…"

However, she interrupted me as she asked with a much softer tone, "I am the reason that you are like this now…why do you not resent me?"

Moving through the security door once the aged mechanisms opened it, I replied, "It is only natural for people in a close relationship to look out for each other. I do not regret what has happened."

We had exited the auxiliary pumping station and were standing just beyond the security door with the Gatherer's Garden Vending Machine that was flush up against the two story building approximately twenty yards directly in front of us. Directly above us was the bridge that connected the building before us with the path that was above us and partially snaked around the perimeter of this section of Siren Alley. Clouds of smoke from the multiple lit burn barrels around the decaying district lingered in the air in a way that resembled fog. Meanwhile, the distant incoherent ramblings and cries of the resident Splicers and the approaching mournful whale call-like moans of a Mass Production Model echoed through the gloomy war-torn streets of the district.

From where she was on my back, Eleanor remarked in almost a whisper, "If you had not come to my rescue at Dionysus Park…"

I interrupted her to reassure her, "Ryan would have come for me sooner or later after Sofia was imprisoned. Besides, as I recall, the entire park was flooded not too long afterwards. Everyone was killed. Do you really think that I would have fared any better if I had not come to your aid? Like I said, it is only natural for people in a close relationship to look out for each other."

The little girl was silent for a moment before she informed me with her normal robotic tone, "We found one!" I leaned forward to look down at my feet. There, in the middle of the road curled up on its right side, was the rotting corpse of what had once been a woman.

I felt a sense of disgust as I noted that the human scavengers had picked over her body and removed most of the articles of clothing and any other items that had been on her person that would allow them to survive just one more minute in the decaying metropolis. Without clothing, Splicers could only be, at best, described as humanoid and this woman was no exception. The genetic damage caused by ADAM and the subsequent years of starvation had left her with the distinctive sexual features of a prepubescent girl. Thus, the bare, sore-covered body before us resembled a kind of macabre adult-sized child.

The unfortunate woman's demise was not clearly discernible. I could not see any signs of external trauma to her body. At the same time, the corpse did not have any indications of environmental trauma such as hypothermia. While it was possible that she had succumbed to some kind of ailment that did not manifest external symptoms, I had a sickening suspicion that what a woman would have to do on a daily basis to just survive in post-Civil War Rapture had inflicted far more psychological trauma than she could handle. Psychological trauma was just as lethal as any physical trauma.

I slowly lowered myself down onto my left knee and then waited for my charge to disembark. When she had, I stood back upright while mentally preparing myself for what was about to happen once again. As the small child stood above the corpse and looked at me with an enthusiastic expression, my body reacted to the different pheromones that her body began to emit. Her statements were lost to me as the golden yellow light of my eye and auxiliary lights changed to a hellfire red while the molten rage of my Protector Instincts stormed into my mind. A feeling of power consumed my body as the monster Subject Delta was let out of his cage.

Seconds later, with the pathetic old man's interference suppressed, I let out an ear-shattering guttural roar that rocked Siren Alley to its foundation. Having been listening to my master and the old man's conversation, I could not help but audibly remark to both of them with my deep rumbling tone, "You're both pathetic. What is done, is done. No amount of bitching and moaning about it is going to change what has happened. So both of you shut the fuck up and have your melodramatic hugging sessions about how life is unfair after you get out of this shit hole."

Before either of them could react to my comment, a hail of small arms fire began to impact my heavily armored frame. Turning my entire frame so that I was looking up to the left side of the second floor walkway of the building directly in front of me, I saw three Splicers, two women and one man, armed with modified Welbey .38 caliber revolvers. The low velocity projectiles, the ones that managed to hit the lightly armored sections of my suit, were but a mere minor threat to me thanks to my recent genetic modifications. The angle that the Splicers were firing from rendered them at a major disadvantage as well as the majority of their rounds simply impacted and then ricocheted off my copper diving helmet, causing me mild discomfort as they each caused a deep, vibrating echo inside the helmet.

Letting out an irritated growl, I willed a blast of genetic flame from the ported digits of my gauntlet-encased left hand. The Splicers were almost immediately engulfed by flames. The man, who was clad in what had once been a business suit, yelled with an anguished cry, "Oh shit…" as he jumped over the railing in front of him and then landed on top of his head on the harsh unforgiving street below. The younger of the two women, who was clad in what had once been a working class mechanic's attire, screamed in agony as she fired a final shot before collapsing forward onto the floor. The last Splicer simply collapsed against the wall behind her without so much as a sound.

"Come little children, I'll take thee away…into a land of enchantment. Come little children, the time's come to play…here in my garden of shadows."

The angelic voice of my beautiful master began to echo through the entire district as she indulged in her usual habit while she was gathering.

The sick sound of suction drew my attention to my right where I found an enraged Jennifer draining the ADAM out of a male Thuggish Splicer with her massive needle-like weapon as she held him skewered in the air above her. The armored goddess-like young woman let out a cruel laugh seconds later before she violently threw the depleted corpse into the wall of the nearby closed grocery store that was directly to our right across the street. The high pitched report of Subject Alpha's Prototype Rivet Gun filled the air and I looked to my left just in time to see the heavily armored Alpha Series Big Daddy finishing off a small group of Thuggish Splicers that he had tricked with his Decoy Plasmid.

"Follow sweet children, I'll show thee the way…"

Moments later, attempting to catch us off guard, three Thuggish Splicers, all of them men dressed in working class attire, jumped down from the bridge above us and landed directly before me. Revving up my highly modified drill, I charged forward as fast as my massive frame would allow. The three denizens did not have enough time to react before I slammed into the middle of them. The sounds of cracking bones and soft bodies being hit by a heavy mass filled the smoky air as the humanoids were propelled several feet through the air.

I quickly moved to finish off the three individuals before they could get to their feet. I stopped when I was standing before the recovering men. After revving up my drill once again, I sent its razor sharp whirling tip into the skull of the middle individual. The would-be child murderer screamed briefly over the sound of his skull being penetrated and simultaneously ripped apart in a cloud of red-green blood before his body began to spasm as the tip of my tool's bit made contact with the wet concrete surface of the street.

Suddenly, an intense stab of pain shot through my body originating from my right knee. Letting out an enraged guttural roar, I twisted my torso to find that the Splicer to my right had raised himself up to be propped up by his left knee and had swung his section of pipe into the back of my right knee where it was not protected by the copper armor knee pad in an attempt to use my body's own heavily armored and spliced frame against me by crippling one of my knees. Though he had succeeded in shattering the critical joint, he had underestimated the effects of the staggering amount of ADAM in my body. Combined with the artificial rage of my Protector Instincts and the effects of the Alpha Series Big Daddy Gene Tonics that had been forced into my genetic code, the cursed substance allowed my frame to perform well beyond the range of any run-of-the-mill human or Splicer.

"…through all the pain…"

Ignoring the agony of my shattered knee being repaired by my suit's built-in First Aid System, I ripped my drill out of the corpse that was at my feet as I swung my right arm in an arc to my right. The grooves of my drill struck the side of the man's head with a sickening thud and the Splicer was sent onto his side as a result of the brutal impact. Before he could recover, I pivoted on my right foot to bring the sole of my weighted diving boot entombed left foot down on top of the denizen's already cracked skull.

No sooner had I crushed the man's skull beneath my foot before I heard something strike the back left corner of my helmet. Rotating my entire frame so that I was facing the direction of the impact, I found the third Thuggish Splicer completely back on his feet with a rusty monkey wrench held at the ready in his disfigured right hand. With his face twisted in an expression of homicidal desperation, the man jumped back slightly before propelling himself forward to strike me with his crude bludgeoning weapon. However, reaching out with my left hand, I grabbed the addict by his throat and then crushed the underlying vertebrae.

"…and the sorrow."

After dropping the twitching body onto the ground, I turned to my right to see Jennifer throwing balls of genetic flame at four male Thompson Submachine Gun-wielding Leadhead Splicers that had approached our position from down the street that led to The Pink Pearl. The sound of Alpha's Rivet Gun drew my attention back to my left where I found him firing several Trap Rivets into the exterior of a chunk of concrete that he was levitating with his Telekinesis Plasmid. Genuinely intrigued by my brother's actions, I observed the Protector as he placed no less than a dozen Trap Rivets into the debris before then sending the object flying towards an approaching group of six Thuggish Splicers. The lead denizen was knocked off her feet as the chunk of concrete smashed into her and the crowd behind her was torn to shreds when the Trap Rivets discharged their secondary projectiles.

"Weep not poor children…"

The sound of cackling laughter and metal hooks being ripped out of wooden planks drew my attention back up to the second floor of the building before me. There, I saw the unmistakable sight of a Spider Splicer. The horribly twisted man laughed for a moment as he stared down at me with bloodshot eyes from where he was perched on the side of the wall. Then, the deranged individual launched himself towards me.

Revving up my industrial-grade drill, I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from my left hand into the incoming humanoid. The man sputtered as his body was enveloped by electrical arcs. Then, as the defenseless Spider Splicer neared my position, I thrust the whirling drill's razor sharp point up to meet him. Unable to move due to the high-powered electrical attack, the potential threat to my master was powerless to prevent my drill's bit from penetrating into the center of his chest to effectively impale him.

My body was showered by the Splicer's blood as my drill continued to spin while I held him up in the air above me. Yelling in pain and murderous fury, the humanoid thrust both of his molten hot cargo hooks into my frame. A flood of agony erupted inside my body as my assailant's left hook penetrated deep into my right shoulder to lodge itself into my shoulder blade and his right hook penetrated the left side of my upper torso to lodge itself partially through a gap between two of my ribs. Meanwhile, his clawed feet began to slash at the front of my upper thighs though they were unable to penetrate the thick canvas and leather.

"…for life is this way…"

Reaching down to my diving knife where it was screwed into its sheath strapped to the outer side of my left leg near my waist with my left hand, I continued to glare at the disgusting abomination of Rapture's madness that was impaled by my drill from beneath my segmented glass eye. The Spider Splicer desperately tried to remove his hooks from my massive frame but he was unable to do so before, having unscrewed my magnetic diving knife from its sheath, I spun my utility tool in the palm of my gloved left hand so that its blade was pointing up and then thrust it straight up into my assailant.

The deranged humanoid most likely never felt the tip of my knife as it penetrated through the thin flesh at the back of his lower jaw and continued up to sever his spinal cord from the base of his skull. The Splicer's body immediately ceased all movement and I removed my knife before then swinging my right arm down to my right to remove the corpse from my powered down drill. As I screwed my diving knife back into its sheath, I look to my left to see Subject Alpha being swarmed by a group of Thuggish Splicers. I smirked beneath my copper façade as I almost felt sorry for them.

A business suit-clad man wielding a monkey wrench lunged forward towards the Alpha Series Big Daddy in a full body swing while a woman wearing a badly damaged bunny mask followed close behind her comrade with her section of pipe raised above her head. The veteran Protector swiftly pivoted on his left foot, causing the man to miss by inches. The confused Splicer staggered forward past my brother as he tried to regain his footing. However, he had only taken a few steps before Alpha raised the muzzle of his Prototype Rivet Gun up to the back of his head and discharged a single rivet into the base of his skull. As the lifeless body of the male Splicer fell forward onto the street, Alpha pivoted on his left foot once again, this time to turn one hundred and eighty degrees. His swift movement caught the woman by surprise and she too was eliminated by a single rivet to the base of her skull as she staggered past the seasoned combatant.

"…murdering beauty…"

Alpha turned to face the three remaining Splicers just as they, running towards him in a line, were less than five yards away. Raising his Rivet Gun, my brother eliminated the middle individual with a headshot. The two remaining assailants closed the remaining distance before he could fire a second round. However, as they swung their crude weapons, the left Splicer's being a section of pipe and the right Splicer's being a homemade tomahawk crafted out of a broken broom handle and a meat cleaver, the Big Daddy swung the side of his left fist into the side of left individual's skull while simultaneously blocking the right individual's strike by raising his Rivet Gun up at an angle.

A revolver-wielding Leadhead Splicer jumped down from the bridge above me and then hunched over my master with ravenous hunger clearly evident in her body language. Meanwhile, in my peripheral vision, I saw Jennifer pinned to the ground beneath the ape-like frame of a Brute Splicer, who had seemingly forgotten about the nearby Little Sister judging by the disgusting, hungry expression on his disfigured face as he examined the beautiful goddess-like young woman beneath him.

"…and passions."

Revving up my blood-covered drill, I advanced up behind the woman in front of me.

"Hush now…"

Before the Splicer on the right could react, Alpha grabbed the crafted tomahawk and then tore it from the man's grasp with his gauntlet-encased left hand.

"…dear children…"

Jennifer let out an amused mechanical-sounding laugh as she noticed the lustful expression on the abomination's lumpy face. Then, to the shock of the Brute Splicer, the Elite Big Sister vanished in a cloud of blue particles.

"…it must be this way."

I let out a guttural roar as I thrust my drill's razor sharp tip into the female Leadhead Splicer's back.

Alpha swung his left arm back to his left and buried the cleaver's blade inside the other Splicer's skull, the force of the impact alone being enough to send the woman onto the ground in a heap. The remaining disarmed man had a look of numb shock on his bandaged face as the Alpha Series Big Daddy turned back and then aimed his Prototype Rivet Gun at the denizen head. With the muzzle of his tool nearly placed against the narrow path of skin between the Splicer's eyes, Alpha fired his weapon.

As the confused ape-like Splicer glanced around in search of the armored young woman, Jennifer materialized out of a blue cloud on the second floor of the building behind him. The elite predator lowered herself down to the ground to resemble a cat that was about to pounce on its unsuspecting prey and then leaped forward. The Brute Splicer had just enough time to turn to face the incoming assassin before she impacted his frame.

"To weary of life…"

Just as I cast the corpse of the woman aside, I saw two more Spider Splicers lunging at me from the second floor of the building in front of us. I did not have enough time to react and seconds later, I found myself with the two irritating pests attached to my frame as if I was an elephant being attacking by a pack of hyena. I let out an enraged guttural roar as I felt their cargo hooks ripping into my body. I began to violently twist and turn my besieged frame in an attempt to dislodge the cackling Splicers but my efforts failed to yield any results and they continued their assault. For now, my autonomous First Aid System was preventing any serious damage and the two addicts were too far gone mentally to be able to figure out to attack the tanks and IV Lines on my back or the two hoses of my Rebreather System.

"…and deceptions…"

Having grown tired of the disgusting parasites and not willing to risk the appearance of another threat to my beloved master while I was unable to properly defend her, I steeled myself to prepare for the agony that I was about to endure. Then, with both Eleanor's and the Little Sister's safety the only thing on my mind, I pressed the palm of my gloved left hand against my chest. My agonized roar rocked the district as I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from the ported digits of my left hand into my own frame.

Electrical arcs appeared on the exterior of my segmented eye as my heavily armored body was paralyzed by the incredible power of my own Plasmid. I felt several of my bones crack as a result of the attack though, thanks to the fact that my suit was designed to allow the effective use of Plasmids in combat, my First Aid System was unaffected by the high-powered electrical attack. The taste of cold peanut butter briefly manifested inside whatever was left of my human predecessor's mouth only to be replaced moments later by the revolting taste of warm iron, indicating that I had involuntarily bitten down on what remained of my tongue.

However, my tactic succeeded in dislodging the two Spider Splicers, who had fallen to the ground as their bodies violently shock as a result of the genetic electrical attack. My Big Daddy physique allowed me to recover before the abominations. Pivoting on my left foot, I brought the sole of my right diving boot down on top of the skull of the paralyzed individual on my left. I forced myself to ignore the sight of blood and brain matter on the copper surface of my right boot as I pivoted once again to face the remaining Splicer.

The male humanoid had managed to stand just in time for me to clamp down on his right shoulder with my left hand and then thrust my upper body down to smash my copper diving helmet, which easily weighed more than one hundred pounds due to the reinforcements and modifications done to it, into his forehead in a brutal headbutt. The savage blow split open the man's forehead and likely all but rendered him unconscious.

"Rest now, my children…"

I took a step back before delivering the fatal blow by thrusting the tip of my drill into the left side of the denizen's weakened skull. I felt a small sense of satisfaction upon seeing the Splicer collapse in heap on the wet concrete street. Letting out a victorious guttural roar, I returned to my post to guard my master.

"…for soon we'll away…"

In my peripheral vision, I saw Jennifer calmly standing on top of the corpse of the Brute Splicer. The ape-like man was on his back and his body had been savagely beaten and repeatedly stabbed by the Elite Big Sister's needle-like weapon. Understandably, the powerful young woman had made her would-be defiler's demise as miserable as possible. Noticing my gaze, she jumped down from the corpse and then commented with a flat tone in a final insult to the deceased brute, "Unsatisfying and boring. Typical...they always take pride in size but put no effort into their endurance or even learning creative techniques to keep me interested. I'm now left feeling frustrated and cheated."

Drawing a blank as to how to properly respond to her comment, I grunted in mutual agreement about how frustrating an unsatisfying opponent was when they had shown promise. However, there was something about her choice of words that seemed too deliberate and left me feeling uneasy. A heavily-built male Thuggish Splicer rushed at the downtrodden young woman with a worn sledgehammer held in both of his hands. However, without even looking away from me, the Elite Big Sister dispatched the otherwise intimidating-looking individual with comical ease using her Telekinesis Plasmid and her custom, arm-mounted weapon to impale him.

As she drained the ADAM from the Splicer's body, Jennifer let out a sigh and then accused me, "It is your fault, Papa Delta." She looked at the struggling individual in the air above her for a moment before she looked back at me and continued, "Before, I was satisfied by the performance of opponents such as this pathetic weakling. Now, I find myself wishing that they would forget how to breathe. The way that you handled me…that creative way you penetrated my body with your pole...then chasing me down to physically force me into submission...leaving me unable to stand or even really move…you have set my standards too high. I demand that you take responsibility for how you have spoiled me and find the time to satisfy me again."

Confused by what the female Protector was doing, I became irritated. Fighting and killing came naturally to me but the moment that the fighting ended, I found myself unable to understand the actions of those around me. Topside was a foolish old man but he certainly understood people far better than I did. Lately, I had given up on trying to understand anything other than my job as the monster Subject Delta as even my master had started to babble utter nonsense such as those feelings of guilt for what happened in the past.

"…into the calm and quiet. Tada!"

Looking back at my master, I found her standing before me just in time to see her thrust the needle of her Gathering Tool into my left thigh. As my body eagerly accepted the flood of fresh ADAM, I was never so grateful for returning back to my slumber to await when I would be called upon again to fulfill the only role that a monster such as myself could perform.

As the monster went back into his cage and my rational thoughts returned, I heard him state with what I could have sworn was an embarrassed tone, 'You deal with this shit, old man. Nonsense…all of it. I'm done trying to understand what you all babble on about.'

Looking at the mischievous Big Sister, whose portholes were now giving off a golden yellow light, I started to grunt with my Alpha Series voice, "Jennifer…"

However, the young woman interrupted me by laughing for a moment before saying with an apologetic tone, "I'm sorry…I know Papa Delta belongs to Sister Eleanor…but…you cannot blame a hormonal young predator for her desires, can you?"

I replied, "I understand but please try to restrain yourself in the future."

Jennifer promised, "I will, Papa Delta."

From where she was standing beside me, Eleanor chirped with a disturbingly happy tone, "Please do, Sister Jennifer. I would hate for your papa's sacrifice to have been in vain because I had to kill you for being a stupid bitch who did not know her place and tried to get between Papa Delta and I."

Waving her gloved right hand in front of her, the Elite Big Sister remarked with a bored tone, "Yes, yes…"

By that time, Subject Alpha had joined us. Moving towards the building in front of her, Jennifer informed the three of us, "I will scout ahead. Rendezvous with me in front of The Pink Pearl when you have resupplied and prepared yourselves. The building is a known death trap for Protectors so I would advise you to be thoroughly prepared before waltzing in there to get into Daniel's office." Before we could stop her, the stubborn young woman jumped up to the second floor of the building in front of us and then disappeared from view as she moved towards The Pink Pearl.

Once the Eleanor-controlled Little Sister was situated on her throne on my back, I began to make my way to the Gatherer's Garden Vending Machine to upgrade my body using the ADAM that Eleanor had just injected into me. As I did, Alpha grunted while walking next to me, "I am concerned about Jennifer, sir."

I replied in agreement, "So am I. There is no telling what kind of demons she has accumulated. However, she is strong-willed and we aren't exactly socially well-adjusted ourselves. Let's just keep an eye on her for now. Hopefully it is just her inexperience with having long-term companions because of Sofia forcing her to be an assassin for The Family. Like I said, we aren't exactly socially well-adjusted ourselves so let's just give her some time."

My brother said in response, "Yes, sir."

By then, we had reached the Gatherer's Garden. There was no telling what awaited us inside The Pink Pearl. We would need to be as prepared as possible to survive the death trap and return to the locked security door with the code from Daniel's office. Reaching out with my left hand, I inserted my left arm into the slot in the vending machine to allow it to verify that I had enough ADAM to purchase new genetic modifications.