NeoNazo356: Alright, first thing's first, we've got a review from StrayTitan asking- "Have you decided a definite timeline for when the infection ends or some of the main events (like the Whitelight announcements and distribution or the final battle)?" To answer that, first-chapter it was established that the events of Prototype in THIS universe instead took place in 2008, and the now-current timeline is 2009, one year before the events of Young Justice itself. The Second Outbreak happened in July on the 4th of July, 2009. I have a vague outline in mind, but saying anymore would be Spoiler. Next one is from Kaioo from Chapter 2 saying- "You missed a very good note on Flash. Admittedly it's main universe Flash not YJ Flash. If he could be bothered, the Flash could get rid of ALL CRIME in the world with ease, due to his documented speed."

Spaceman: Good Point, Kaioo. I'm reminded of the version from the Kingdom Come series who literally stopped Every crime in his city, living in the seconds. The only reason the Flash does not stop all crime in other series is because he has a life outside of his heroics and needs to slow down to interact with others. Still it does not help the people who suffer those crimes because Flash slows down to makes another lame joke. I do wonder, if Bats was less territorial and paranoid, maybe Flash could occasionally run by and keep Arkham from being a revolving door to all things crazy.

NeoNazo356: One final piece of business before this chapter starts. A total nark by the name of unknown eragon left an Anonymous Review for Chapter 2 saying- "unknown eragon:U have some NERVE to publish a new fic when u have others to finish d***!" My answer to this and other like Anonymous Reviews will be as follows. "Those who can't do, bitch." Kinda like "Those who can't do, teach." (no offense to any now-current or would-be teachers who are reading this), but in the case of Anonymous Reviewers, since they're incapable of writing their own material, all they can do is bitch about others to make up for their own ineptitude. Why else would they review anonymously like a little yellow bellied chickenshit?

Spaceman: We respond to intelligent questions and smile at simply praises, but flames aren't worth our time.

Manhattan
July 11, 09:32 EST

"You know, if there were still cops around, I would probably never do something like this," Virgil said to himself as he refilled his quiver with serrated-edged hunting arrows from boxes on the shelves, before walking out of what was left of the front doors. The arrows themselves were better for cuttng bone and rending flesh, quite good in opening up superfluous new assholes in whatever poor schmuck he William Tell'd.

Obviously enough in a near-post-apocalyptic city, it was ridiculously easy to utilize one's Five-Finger Discount completely unperturbed. Then again that applied to everyone if the aisles of empty shelves were anything to go by. Normally people wouldn't openly loot storefronts like a swarm of locusts devouring fields of wheat, but with the police otherwise preoccupied it was open season. The cops had disappeared days ago, as did the fire department and hospital staff, so there wasn't anyone Vergil could rely on but himself. If there was any good to be had, it was that Vergil only had to worry about the noise he made, the only mouth to feed was his, and he could go wherever he wanted at whatever speed he chose at a moment's notice without preamble.

After he had cleaned out Cascades High, so as to not worry about any of his former peers coming after him for revenge, he had gone to one of the sporting goods stores and procured the few remaining compound bows for his own use; for obvious reasons, a gun would be his last resort. All the crossbows and crossbow bolts had been taken, but that was because anyone with a pulse could use them, leaving the serious archery materials untouched. Most would think against an army of modern-day American-funded Nazis equipped with Kevlar vests and automatic weapons, that an ordinary teenager wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell armed only with a bow and arrows. Those people would be idiots, since Green Arrow took down things way more dangerous, and even though Vergil didn't have any "trick arrows" to work with, he compensated with the fact he was not aiming to take prisoners. It was Nazi Season.

"Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers."

He didn't go out of his way to hunt down Blackwatch patrols, and no way in hell was he going to storm their bases when they had automated turrets on the high ground. However, when they moved by whatever hole in the wall he was hiding in, he'd take the high ground and put an arrow through their heads. Most would aim for the chest since it was a larger target and thus easier to hit, but after that something in his head had "clicked", like the hammer of a revolver being drawn back, he found himself in possession of a clarity he didn't have before. It wasn't anything like a mutant or meta-human ability, the difference being you were born with the prior and the latter was induced artificially, but it was substantial enough that he could snipe trained soldiers with ease from a block away. His weapon was nearly-silent with the distance between him and them, and with enough practice he could put down small squads with ease before they even knew where he was. In the cases where they could get a bead on him, when they turned their guns in his direction he'd already moved to a new perch and finished what he started moments later. Suffice it to say, whenever one tried to radio for backup, he either put an arrow through their head, or when that wasn't an option dropped a stolen grenade in their laps. One time the guy tried to pick it up and throw it back at him, but because it'd been "cooked" for a couple seconds before throwing, it went off right in his face. And then sent it flying half a block, but that wasn't important.

Humorously enough, after one had managed to get away with only an arrow through the knee, which at the time was meant to be a joke, they had taken to calling the entity that was attacking them with such primitive weapons "Black Arrow". If Vergil had any kind of love for superheroes, or vigilantes, or whatever the government classified them as, he would've been flattered. He didn't really care what they called him, he just wanted to get his pound of flesh out of every Blackwatch he came across. And what better way to do that, then to put an arrow through the front of those goofy-looking masks of theirs?

He HAD promised he'd get back at the Blackwatch that killed his family, but feasibly that wouldn't be very possible since all of them looked the fucking same. Same uniform, same masks, same weapons, everything. The most he could do was hope that at least ONE of the squads he'd killed off contained members of Blackwatch from the group that had killed everyone in his building. It was the most he could hope for them, as was said.

Over 90% of the city's original population not counting Blackwatch had now become flesh-eating Infected, and even if he did snipe them from his perch, it wouldn't change the fact that it was a fruitless endeavor. There were simply too many for one person to handle, and more importantly it'd be a waste of his time, energy, and resources, none of which he could afford to expend frivolously. He could only re-use his arrows so many times before they got warped beyond use, and it wasn't like he was just going to find whole cases of arrows lying around once the sporting good stores were picked clean. What he could do something about was the Blackwatch squatters littering his town. They were supposed to be protecting people from the Infected, but instead they performed mass executions in the streets, sweeping entire apartment complexes clean with a shower of bullets, and by every definition of the word only exacerbating the problem at hand. He may not've been a trained soldier, but you didn't have to be one in order to harass enemy forces occupying your home. When his family died, adoptive or not, a part of himself he had just gotten back was unceremoniously ripped out of him once more, and all of his anger for the world around him that had been building up for years finally had an outlet.

Manhattan
July 12, 22:13 EST

'The first time I played inFAMOUS, I never thought I'd have to do something like this in real life,' Virgil thought to himself from the shadows as he stared at a large army green crate in the middle of the street. Attached to the top was a now-exhausted parachute sprawled out limply across the ground, the top busted open revealing what appeared to be standard military rations. While a far-cry from even the lowest-level restaurant in the city, it did not change the fact that the food in that container contained all the nutrients needed for an active person to remain healthy and fed, regardless of any lack of taste they may have. In the early days of the Second Outbreak, people literally killed one another for scraps of food and mouthfuls of water.

This had been going on for a couple weeks after the stores were picked clean. Planes would fly overhead and drop crates of food into the city via parachute, those down below would scramble to collect as much of it as they could, and if anyone got in their way they were more likely than not beaten to death and then left in the street. As the days passed, the mobs converging on each drop for food became smaller and smaller, and the fact that Blackwatch would turn those drop points into bloody kill zones didn't help things any. Eventually it got to the point that there were more Infected than humans, the disparity between the two growing by the hour until the majority of Manhattan resembled a ghost town in the day, and a horror flick once the sun set.

'Mother FUCKERS!' Virgil swore beneath his breath, grip tightening around his bow as the gears in his head began to mesh. Due to the total information blackout in and out of the Red Zone, it was easy to spin a yarn about how the populous was still alive but in desperate need of food. To keep up the public image of "protectors" Blackwatch was fooling the American people with, they were air-dropping food for the sake of appearances and nothing more. Before, during the First Outbreak, the Mercer virus had been contained in Manhattan before it could spread to any of the neighboring islands, so by extension the same could be said about Blackwatch. Now however, if the armed choppers flying through the air were any kind of indicator, they now maintained a presence on the neighboring islands as well, though at the time Virgil had nothing to confirm this. To sum things up, the Mercer Virus spread faster and hit harder than during the prequel, so the peoples' attention was doubly-set on New York, and if Blackwatch wanted to avoid fighting enemies inside and out, they'd have to play nice. At least where the sun shone.

'If I ever see a giant swastika and a shrine to Hitler in one of their bases, I wouldn't be surprised,' Virgil huffed to himself. With hungry eyes and ears all about, be it for flesh or for blood, it was hard to know when it was safe to talk aloud or not. Because of this, Virgil had not spoken audibly for days at a time, alone with only his thoughts. His eyes on the street for any signs of movement, he was about to deem it safe to move in and snatch some food and water before an all-black jeep carrying four Blackwatch turned the corner. They were still roaming outside the safety of their reinforced concrete bases, so either these were some hardasses who weren't scared off by the "Black Arrow" attacks, new recruits being given crap duty, or maybe a mixture of the two. Watching as they came to a stop, but leaving the engine on, Virgil tuned out all outside noise and instead focused on the words coming out of their mouths. After a few moments of the possibly greenhorn Blackwatch talking amongst themselves, the brunette picked up something very... illuminating, from their little dialogue.

'So... Their little scheme is even worse than that...' Virgil huffed as he digested this new information. The food drops into the Red Zone weren't just for the sake of appearances, Blackwatch was also profiting from them. While the American people paid taxpayer dollars to have food dropped for people that don't even exist anymore, Blackwatch comes up and pockets the food themselves, spending less of their own money on food to feed themselves, and instead spend the money they would've spent on food, on weapons or Hitler memorabilia instead. 'As if these dogs couldn't get any lower,' he growled to himself, feeling very tempted to William Tell every Blackwatch down there; not just because he wanted to kill anyone wearing their colors, but because the food down there looked very good right about then. It was meant to go to survivors in the Red Zone anyway, so why not collect?

The next moment, one of the Blackwatch's heads exploded right off their shoulders, and by the sound that came just a moment before it came from a silenced pistol. The fact that whoever it was even used a silencer showed they were trying to use the element of surprise, instead of face Blackwatch in a straight up fight, which for all intents and purposes was paramount to suicide. Blackwatch now on guard, the remaining three went back-to-back-to-back, assault rifles drifting to wherever someone could've gotten the jump on them from. One of them going for their radio, Virgil quickly notched an arrow before letting it loose, the black-colored shaft sailing through the air before making the Blackwatch look like he were wearing one of those gag props. As a consequence, the brunette's position was given away since it was only from the second floor, and automatic gunfire chewed into the wall he was hiding behind a second later. Throwing himself to the ground the moment their rifles swung around in his direction, dust from brick and drywall choked the air as automatic rounds tore through where he was a moment earlier. Army crawling as low to the ground as possible, bullets whizzing over his head just barely scraping his hood, the gunfire suddenly stopped.

All of this took place in the course of five seconds.

Edging slowly to the side, careful not to make even the slightest hint of noise, as soon as Virgil met the wall on the far side of the room he was in, he began to sidle back around towards the nearest window. Heart beating against his chest at the near-death experience he'd just gone through, shaking out the images of his life flashing before his eyes, the brunette pulled out a small pocket mirror before angling it ever so slightly in the light. Keeping himself hidden as best he could, the brunette panned the mirror around to see a woman standing over the two Blackwatch that had been shooting at him moments before, their faces blown out from behind. From her relatively-relaxed stance, it seemed like she wasn't going to try shooting him, possibly recognizing how he'd prevented reinforcements from swarming both their asses by sniping the guy going for his radio. The woman had a bit of a heart-shaped face, full lips, a small nose, blue eyes he guessed, and messy short-cut dark brown hair. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but past experience in foster care told him women could look good even without dolling themselves up. She was wearing practical running shoes, camoflage-colored cargo pants, a black shirt, and a green leather jacket, a gun holster at her side, and a sling bag over her shoulder.

"So... I'm guessing you're this Black Arrow that's got the Watch's panties in a twist," the woman called out to him, nudging a corpse with her foot that had an arrow through each temple. "For a moment there I thought a superhero had decided to show up." Those very words made Virgil's stomach churn. "But seeing how you understand the whole 'kill or be killed' thing going on, I'm guessing you're someone whose gone through their own crucible, huh?" she asked as she pried the lid off the busted case and began stuffing her bag with rations. "You'll probably find this suspicious, but I think the two of us can help one another out. What do you say?"

" . . . You know what'll happen if you try to double-cross me," Virgil eventually answered, making his way to the ground floor, but keeping his weapon well in hand. Unlike Blackwatch, he couldn't sense any killing intent from the woman who called out to him, but if she made even the slightest twitch otherwise, he could always rectify that with an arrow to the knee. Or wherever he decided to nail her.

"I have a pretty clear picture," the woman said looking down at the body once more, holstering her pistol as she rummaged for more supplies.

"This is Blackwatch Command to Broadway Patrol Three: How copy?" *krrk* "I repeat, this is Blackwatch Command to Broadway Patrol Three: How copy?"

"Shit," the woman swore. "Don't just stand there! Grab some supplies before the search party gets here!"

"Alright, fine!" Virgil huffed finally coming out of the shadows, scooping as many MREs and water canisters into his own bag. "Not that I don't appreciate a friendly face, but who the hell are you?"

Manhattan
July 28, 21:22 EST

Suffice it to say, I was very shocked when the woman whom I "stole" (read: reappropriated) food and water with turned out to be who she turned out to be. My first instinct was to shoot her; two in the chest and one in the head to be safe, and then maybe carve her head from her shoulders in case she had regeneration abilities. To her credit, she kept her cool, so in turn I gave her the chance to speak. Wouldn't do to raise a fracas and attract unwanted attention.

After I had gotten over the fact that Dana was the little sister of a super-terrorist, the two of us were able to make significant headway in securing a permanent base of operations for ourselves. If she truly WAS working with Mercer, he would've set things up so she was somewhere ELSE when the Mercer Virus got dropped, like Brooklyn or Staten Island. So I had a better grasp of the situation, Dana was kind enough to fill me in on what had been happening outside Manhattan once things started to spiral down the crapper.

Up to that point, the only area I knew of for certain that had been infected was Manhattan, the "Red Zone" if the bitching of new Blackwatch recruits was anything to go by. While I had been skulking around the lower half of the island, before things went to Hell, upper Manhattan was carpet-bombed in an attempt to neutralize the Mercer Virus before it could spread completely out of control; obviously it did not work. From Dana, I learned that somehow, despite its inability to commute across large bodies of water, the Mercer Virus had also gotten to Brooklyn, now re-christened the "Yellow Zone", and if her contact's information was anything to go by, the place was a massive Petri Dish for studying the Mercer Virus, though it was far better off than Manhattan. Aside from Manhattan and Brooklyn, Staten Island was the most-populated area, and by far the best off with almost no traces of the Mercer Virus present. The only island not being affected by all this was Roosevelt Island, headquarters of the enigmatic Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical, mainly because of its distance from the other islands and ease of which it could quarantine itself. Since there was no known Blackwatch presence there, what happened there wasn't any of my concern.

After that, we hashed out the details about the division of labor, since it'd be more efficient for the both of us to work together, than to try and survive individually. Our first mission, a bit of a trial run to see how much cohesion as a unit we possessed, was to bring a gas-powered generator up to the highest intact floor of an office building she had been squatting in after the people had disappeared. Since the elevators were all dead, this was something she couldn't do on her own until a second pair of hands became available. I still didn't completely trust her, but with a surname like Mercer, that was easy-enough to understand. Since we had managed to climb the seemingly-endless flights of stairs without attempting to murder one another, we decided to stick together, better our chances at surviving this.

While she coordinated the resistance effort in the Yellow Zone, she also informed me of when and where Blackwatch caravans would be cutting through the Red Zone to their bases. By that point it was simply more-efficient to steal from Blackwatch than it was to comb every decrepit building for supplies that may or may not be there. They had kill-on-sight orders on our heads anyway, so we might was well give them a more-tangible reason for killing than because we weren't flying Blackwatch colors.

Eventually, we developed a bit of a routine between us. She'd piggyback onto Blackwatch communications every couple of days, isolate the locations of supply drops, and then the two of us would conduct a raid right as Blackwatch arrived to pick it up. The reason we waited was because we had no actual idea of when they'd appear, and if they caught us out in the open and unawares, we'd be good as dead. Hence, why we'd waste them as soon as they came out into the open, then run off with the supplies and be gone well before reinforcements could show up. Dana may not've been a fighter like I was, but she could still shoot a gun, and she could carry supplies, meaning we could get by on only two raids a week. Because we conducted our raids on varying days, Blackwatch wasn't able to get a bead on our patterns, hence they were unable to set any traps for us. As I suspected, collecting the food drops was a "crap job" in Blackwatch, handed out to those who pissed off their commanding officers in one way or another.

With the smoke choking the air above the Red Zone, the sky had become an eerie shade of red nearly all the time, and the fires that somehow continued to burn gave off a few pockets of light in the darkness. To be honest, I was surprised how well our shelter in the office building was holding up. The cubicles were ample material for creating shelters from the elements, since using a heater was a non-option, and after throwing a few stolen military-grade tarps over the windows of our "Fortress of Solitude", we gained a small semblance of privacy from the prying eyes of Blackwatch. While we HAD been looting their supplies and killing their men for a few weeks now, Dana theorized that the losses to life and property were still small enough, that the results of our interference were considered "acceptable losses" and fell within acceptable quotas before retaliatory action need be taken.

"Why would they care for a drop in the bucket?"

As time passed, Dana and I got used to each others presence. Dana, being Mercer's younger sibling, began doting on me as though I were her younger sibling. Of course, it was a bit difficult for me to reciprocate, since even after all that time and close calls we had at the hands of Blackwatch or the Infected, the stigma of her being the younger sibling to a super-terrorist still hung over her head like a storm cloud. Still, I appreciated everything she did for me, and when I confided in her my ability to seemingly kill without hesitation, albeit still having to face the moral consequences after the fact, she was surprisingly understanding. This went a long way in re-evaluating my self-worth, because until I'd heard her say- "Its alright." -, the only thing I was able to see in the mirror every morning was a monster at worst, a stranger at best. I hadn't started hallucinating or anything, so that was a good sign.

On an unrelated note, I was very sexually frustrated after all this time. Coming face to face with my own mortality on so many occasions, and having my own V-Card rubbed in my face with each near-brush with death as my life flashed before my eyes, made me all the more aware that I could very well die a virgin out here. As any hot-blooded guy will tell you, dying in such a manner is a fate worse than death. While Dana was of the female persuasion and actually quite beautiful in a post-apocalyptic older-woman kinda way, the whole Mercer thing was like a coating of penis repellant. Even if I did ask, whether she said yes or no, in the aftermath it'd irreparably damage our cohesion as a tag-team, and right now that very same cohesion was the only thing keeping us alive. So, clenching my teeth and imagining a very cold shower whenever my damn adrenaline-fueled hormones would act up, I kept a lid on some of my more... personal, issues.

If I ever made it off this rock in one piece, first thing I was going to do was get laid, I don't care who its with.

But not with a dude because, you know, I'm desperate, but not that desperate.

Manhattan
August 9th, 18:32 EST

It'd been over a month since the start of the Second Outbreak, and by that point Vergil and Dana were quite sure they were the only uninfected, non-Blackwatch humans left on the entire island of Manhattan; there was no evidence saying otherwise. Things had eventually reached an equilibrium between Blackwatch and the Infected; Blackwatch and Infected would kill one another wherever they clashed, Blackwatch flying in more troops to replenish their numbers the next day, while ever more Infected seemed to crawl out from the shadows. The two survivors had long-since shed any form of body fat from their frames, given military-grade rations weren't the most indulgent of foods, and out of necessity they'd developed bodies that could get them into any spec ops group the world over. With little to no progress being made towards a supposed cure, or at the least, a neutralizing agent for the "Mercer Virus", all the two of them could do in their off-time was piggyback onto Blackwatch frequencies and listen to any form of chatter they could.

When they weren't listening to the radio, they'd use high-powered scopes to look out into the city beneath them, trying to get some grasp on whether things were improving, or if they were still going downhill. Kinda like birdwatching, only everything in your sights could potentially kill you and/or eat you. While chatter of a supposed "Goliath" variant of Infected had been floating around the airwaves in recent weeks, the existence of a forty foot-tall Infected monster was met with much skepticism by the two, regardless of the other things they had seen thus far. That's why it came to them as quite a shock to them, when Blackwatch's fears were validated. Standing several stories tall, vaguely humanoid in shape but lacking skin on most of its body, a goliath mass suspended upon two spindly legs, one arm ending in a hooked claw, while the other looked like it took up half its body mass, came lumbering within arm's reach of their hideout. The beast would've toppled their hideaway with them inside had it not found more-obvious quarry in the form of a very loud APC just down the street.

After almost locking eyes with that fucking thing, he was pretty sure nothing -SPB or otherwise- would ever scare him again.

On that very night, a Tuesday if the calendars were anything to go by, while Vergil was field-stripping a sidearm and silencer, a well-worn copy of Gun Safety & Cleaning For Dummies Kit at his side, Dana was once again huddled over the radio. Food and fresh water would run out the day after tomorrow, but if there was another food drop somewhere nearby, they could swing by to pick it up and be set for another few days. This had become so commonplace, that Vergil didn't even listen in anymore, he simply kept his stolen guns cleaned and ready to be used at any given moment. However, it was when Dana began furiously scratching details down with a pen on paper, that his attention was piqued. Whenever she jotted down the details for intercepting food drops, there was never that much... urgency, in her strokes. Now, with the way her eyes were widened, the end of her pen practically burning a trail across her notepad like the squealing tires of a racecar, it was almost as if she were jotting down the instructions for a "Magic Bullet" against Blackwatch and the Infected at the same time.

"...So Dana..." Virgil spoke up a few minutes later once she had finished writing down whatever it was she was putting down, a trickle of sweat running down her temple as she appeared to be trying to calm her breathing. "...What'd you find...?"

"Something... Something big," she answered.

"You're serious?"

"Entirely."

"You really think this... thing, Blackwatch is having flown in, can stand up to Mercer?" Virgil asked a couple minutes later after Dana's explanation. "Last I saw before the information blackout, there were videos of Mercer chucking soccer vans around like softballs on Youtube. And this thing can level the playing field, just like that?"

"They sounded very confident. Since Roosevelt Island is a complete information blindspot, it isn't implausible they've been developing something like that for the past couple of decades."

"Add in the recent influx of extraterrestrial technology, and I guess anything's possible," Virgil hummed. He'd spent some of his youth skimming over superhero forums, learning as much about them as he could, and while most of it was crap, he had learned that the green-skinned Martian Manhunter and the tight-wearing Supemran weren't the only aliens making Earth their home.

"Mercer must believe it too, 'cause there's been a spike of Blackwatch casualties in the past couple of days. Based on my estimates..." Dana said going over to a chart showing projected Blackwatch numbers. "When this thing comes in, guard detail inside their bases will be at the minimum."

"The fact they're wheeling it in regardless must mean they're both very confident, and very desperate," Virgil hummed. When resources were scarce, you didn't spend what little you had trying to get more, unless the effort was worth the risk. "This is a very big gamble they're taking. One I intend to take advantage of," he said going over to his combat gear, consisting of stolen weapons, grenades, knives, and dark-colored camouflage.

"I see..." Dana was silent for a few seconds before the inflection of his words suddenly hit her. "Wait, what?!"

"Blackwatch is getting desperate. So desperate they're rolling out an unfinished prototype that hasn't even been through basic testing," Vergil said as he walked into a cubicle, throwing his clothes atop the wall before changing into his stealth-oriented gear. "If I stop this shipment, destroy it even, I'll set them back by weeks, maybe months. They don't really intend to help people with this, not by a long shot, so why should I let them gain more power than they already have?"

"Virgil, this isn't like a hit-and-run on a food drop. They're transporting serious, military, hardware, with the most they can manage guarding it," Dana argued as he began synching a combat harness onto his frame. "You go in there on your own, and it'll be a one way trip." Seeing how he was adjusting a combat knife onto his boot, she grabbed him by the shoulder and made him look her in the eye. "Virgil, don't throw your life away like this!"

"WHAT LIFE?!" he shouted at her, slapping her hand from his shoulder. "My family is dead, my friends are dead, my graduating class is dead because I killed them all! What kind of life can I lead now!?"

" . . . " Dana Mercer had no answer to that.

"My entire life, I've always gotten the short end of the stick, as though I'm God's personal whipping boy! Seeing all this, I realize, haha, I don't fucking care anymore!" he said throwing his arms out. "The world's gone to shit, the Justice League is a no-show, again, and its every man for himself on borrowed time. But please, do tell me if there's any reason I should care what happens to me," he added sweetly, voice dripping with sarcasm as he pat his chest for emphasis. "Because I sure as hell don't have anyone left that'd care."

"I care. I don't want to see you throw away your life like this," Dana reaffirmed.

"Your big brother is the psycho-terrorist who damned us all to Hell. You don't count!"

"That... thing, is not my brother!" Dana shouted. "Not anymore," she said more to herself than anyone else.

" . . . You can't stop me from doing this," Virgil said turning away from her. "After my family died, all I could do was mimic the motions of life. Like a living corpse, not quite dead, but not quite alive either. Things as they are, it doesn't really matter if I come back or not," he said looking over his shoulder, a tired, tired eye boring into her own. With no real way of identifying which Blackwatch had killed his family, he'd simply killed as many as he was feasibly able and hope he'd get at least one of them on the end of an arrow. "Either I steal or destroy this weapon from Blackwatch before they can fuck us over even worse, or I get killed by them or the Infected walking the streets. Either way..." he said picking up his bag. "I won't have to suffer a life like this for too much longer."

"Virgil..." Dana called out weakly as he rounded the corner, gone from sight as the sound of his footsteps began to disappear.

NeoNazo356: For those of you that are familiar with Prototype 2, YES, I am aware that in-game Dana Mercer operated out of the YELLOW Zone, not the Red Zone, but this is fanfiction, so I'm free to take some creative liberties; if you don't like it, you can spend your free time doing something else instead of reading this. If you want an explanation for how that works out for the game's events in-story, basically she leads the Resistance in the Yellow Zone FROM the Red Zone, end-of-story.

Spaceman: The purpose of fan fiction is to explore different paths. How small additions can have greater effects on the development of characters and settings. Canon is the path the original creators took, but this is our creation walking a separate, but familiar path. We hope the creative liberties add new dimensions to the story being told.