[BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE] Chapter 1: Home, Part 1

Alex Mercer was a mess.

But of course, considering that a nuke had exploded near him and he'd only had the protection, if you could even call it that (no, the answer was no) of the helicopter he'd been flying, it was a wonder he could even think.

He could feel what was left of his body. He ought to look like roadkill right now. He had saved the city, but he never had plans to sacrifice himself for it. He needed to live.

So he dragged the mess he had been reduced to through the sudden cloud of dust. He had devoured humans aplenty in his fight against Blackwatch, not all of them guilty, not even most of them. He wouldn't mind repeating it, but he didn't need such a large meal. One animal would suffice. A small bird, even.

Damn it, he couldn't die in a place like this. He had barely scratched the truth after countless days of constant fighting. He knew the truth about his past, about what had happened to the city. But the most important thing remained a mystery to him. He had not yet had a chance to know himself, to do more than react to his circumstances or be what others wanted him to be. He couldn't die before he really lived!

He emerged from the dust cloud, crawling like a worm.

This was not Manhattan. Comprehension penetrated even the haze of pain and the desperate need to feed. It couldn't be Manhattan, too green. It wasn't a jungle of glass and concrete, he was in the middle of nature. He didn't understand how it was possible and he didn't understand what those kids were doing there, so many kids wearing a uniform, but he didn't care.

They spoke in a language he didn't know and that was strange too (he had devoured people from all kinds of countries, absorbing everything they were and their abilities), but he didn't care either.

The only thing that mattered to him was that many of them had a pet. Too many strange animals, but...

A small bird, huh?

Yes. With what little strength he had left, he threw himself over the shoulder of one of those children, devouring the bird that had been perched there in the air. There was nothing left of it even before he touched the ground. The child in question, with tears in his eyes, screamed more incomprehensible shit. Other screams joined him, forming a chorus of frightened children. Not a single one of them was past puberty, and the boys' voices were even higher-pitched than the girls'. What a nuisance, God.

Good thing he already had enough to rebuild his body and get out of here, fast. He reconstructed his body from the bird's biomass. The usual clothes too, of course. He'd gotten used to them.

Or rather Alex Mercer's body, he thought, grimacing.

He could think of that sort of thing elsewhere. As irritating as they were, he didn't want these kids to get hurt. Besides, looking around, he had bigger problems. There were too many strange animals. Hypotheses danced through his head, the voices of thousands of dead men screaming inside, as eager in their own way to know the truth as he was—even if they were only 'fingerprints' inside him of the people they once were. The minds of thousands working on it. But it was still too early to decide anything.

He did some stretches, as if to make sure his body was in perfect condition, he craned his neck.

Alex looked back and arched an eyebrow at the sight of a girl with pink hair. Not dyed pink, with pink hair. It wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever seen in this place, but you could say it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

What was going on here? After putting an end to the viral outbreak he himself had started... You could say that he was Alex Mercer and not just because he had become used to it, but because he had been the first person he consumed and therefore the one who gave him life; the same argument, of course, could be used to say that Alex Mercer was his father. Then he would be so in more ways than one.

Well, what he was getting at, right after finishing that mess had he gone into another place with strange and dangerous experiments?

Alex shook his head.

He'd had enough of playing the hero. He wasn't going to investigate this. Whatever was going on here, he highly doubted it had anything to do with the Blacklight virus; with him.

For some reason, the girl began to move closer to him despite what she had seen him do and that was perhaps the strangest thing of all. Not her hair or the company she kept.

Alex Mercer turned his back to her and took a great leap, propelling himself over the stunned kids and over the castle walls as well.

To the spectators it must have seemed like he was flying, but that wasn't true, of course. Not that it was beyond his capabilities, though. In reality, with his arms and legs outstretched, he was just gliding, propelling himself by manipulating the biomass his body was made of. It gave the impression that blood was flying from his wrists as he did so.

Even without flying, this way he could cover a great distance without touching the ground. Not as far as in Manhattan, with so many buildings to run on and jump off again, but enough to leave that castle with the strange animals and even stranger people behind.

After that, well...

He would find out one step at a time.

That was what freedom meant.

—

Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, third daughter of the Vallière family, could do nothing but stare open-mouthed as her Familiar (the one who should be her Familiar) jumped and practically flew who knows where, but away from her, away from the Academy.

Professor Colbert made an attempt to catch it and return it to where it should be, accepting the contract with her (why had it gone through the portal and now it was leaving?), but even a Professor from Tristain's academy wasn't fast enough.

Whatever it was, her Familiar was amazing.

The thing that should have been her Familiar. Now there would be no one who could catch it anymore. The opportunity has slipped through my fingers, hasn't it? It's over. It's all over.

Her legs trembled uncontrollably. That was why she hadn't even tried to intercept it herself, even if it was with one of her infamous explosions. It might have worked. At best, she would have knocked it out of the air and been able to complete the contract. At worst, the explosion would have killed it, and at least she could have tried again, if Professor Colbert would let her (and why not, it wouldn't have been her fault, unlike the previous failures).

But it was too late, of course. Now that thing wasn't even a speck on the horizon.

That opportunity had vanished, too. Completely. Just like her...

(future)

Louise was overcome with dizziness. She fell forward and only by a miracle managed to stop the fall, regaining her balance. Not that it mattered. It wouldn't have mattered if she had fallen head first into the grass, eating dust like some Commoner.

In any case, she couldn't fall any lower.

Author's Note:

I'm not dead.

Well, I never was. You can check my current main project on RoyalRoad, under the same name as this account.