NeoNazo356: Given the Author's Commentary isn't long enough to cover an entire page, by now you may've noticed the little musical prompt at the very start. I don't intend to use music cues ALL the time. In fact it'll be a rare occurrence if anything. But whenever I think of a song or tune that fits with the then-present theme, I'll put it out there. Its mainly to set the mood, not mandatory. The intended music is meant to "end" at the first paragraph-breaker post-prompt. Speaking of which, since the traditional paragraph-breakers seem to glitch out occasionally, I'm just going to use Bold, Centered prompts that are the chapter's name with Asterisks on both ends.
Spaceman: Music has always been a good addition to story telling, setting the mood when the words can not fully set the tone. You can listen to the music and get a sense of NeoNazo's feelings when he was writing this story. Too much takes away from the story, so I hope we added enough for a good experience.
NeoNazo356: Now a quick bit of fanmail from Gelasmus. "I am curious to know if there are any planned pairings though," To answer that question, Spaceman and I have been planning this *nudge*nudge*wink* story for a little over a year. Character development has to be regulated, otherwise inconsistencies and contradictions are bound to crop up like weeds and undermine the character's structure. Ergo, the pairings ARE planned.
Spaceman: Each story has unique encounters and with each encounter, new relationships form. Each of our stories is mixture of different universes with it's own theme and flavor and so some of the pairings for each story universe would be unique to those universes. Some pairings will be familiar, some are new, and some have caused us to re-evaluate certain pairings and remove them for the sake of streamlining. Suggestions will at least be Screened, but that's no guarantee they'll make it into the main story, though there's a chance some MIGHT make it into the final cut if we've overlooked something and we like the idea. People are bound to suggest certain pairings, which may be used in one story, but not in others. If the pairing is not your favorite, then either give it a chance or perhaps another of our stories will have your preferred pairing.
*BIG GAME HUNT*
Crysis 2 Soundtrack: Epilogue "Main Theme" – Hans Zimmer
Manhattan
August 9th, 23:18 EST
'A month this stuff's been floating around, and already Manhattan looks like an alien planet,' Virgil thought to himself as he made his way across the city, observing the radically-changed landscape. Snaking across the ground and up the sides of buildings like perverse tree roots, massive columns of black virulent matter snaked its way across the cityscape. Sometimes they were only as thick as your arm and you could just-as-easily step right over them and be on your merry way. Others were thick as soccer vans and thus for conventional land vehicles were impassable. While effectively made of disease, they were actually quite rigid and possessing great tensile strength, almost like metal but with a rubbery texture in some places. Lord knows he wasn't dumb enough to try and taste it.
That'd be fucking retarded, even by their standards. Poor bastards were the first to go when shit hit the fan. Like the fat guys who couldn't do cardio in Zombieland to save his life. Literally.
No wait, it was the fat guys who were the first to go, then the retarded. After that was the crippled, the ones that people tripped to buy themselves more time, and then the "sympathizers" who basically thought the Infected were sick and not beyond saving, and thought a hug and some kind words would help them regain their humanity. To the Infected, those people would collectively be known as "Lunch".
'For whatever reason, Blackwatch received this prototype...' Virgil took a moment to pause as that particular word left a foul taste in his mouth for some reason, 'at the spot of land closest to Roosevelt Island's northern side at East 83rd Street. Why they decided to haul it through the middle of the city by ground instead of air, I've got no clue, but this works out well for me,' he thought adjusting his bow and quiver on his back, every last arrow he could scrounge up amassed for the singular purpose of giving Blackwatch a very bad evening before bedtime. Not only was he toting arrows out the wazu, but he'd grabbed a decent amount of hand grenades and ammo for his silenced pistol. If all else failed, he had a combat knife strapped to his boot, and he would feed it blood before he died. 'With everything this city has thrown at me, somehow I've remained alive through all of it. Am I suicidal? Do I want to join my family, adopted and not in the next world, so badly I'll throw myself into the lion's den?' he asked himself as he took a knee in the shadow of an office building at his side, the a warm summer's breeze brushing through his hair before he pulled his hood over his head. 'I guess we'll find out in a couple seconds,' he said to himself as the all-too-familiar sound of APC tires against concrete met his ears in a low rumbling.
Binoculars in hand, red eyes descended onto the biggest column of Blackwatch he'd ever seen outside one of their bases at any one time. Two at the forefront and one at the rear, M1 Abrams Tanks painted Blackwatch black, their turrets swiveling from side to side, crushed everything in their path under their treads be they glass, concrete, or fallen pedestrian. Behind it, a quartet of M2 Bradley Armored Personnel Carriers in a diamond formation, surrounding a single white van the size of a bank's armored transport. With it being the center point of their formation, dozens of soldiers clad in black marching in pace with the slowly-moving vehicles for immediate response, it was obvious that the prior-liberated prototype was held inside the small speck of white in a cloud of black. All visible Blackwatch were fully armed, and the possibility existed that this much security was being used as a means to boost morale upon the successful escort of this convoy. With the way the Red Zone and its inhabitants, Infected or not, were kicking their asses, they probably needed a lot of good morale to keep themselves going, or a lot of trips to one of the other Zones for a night with the hookers.
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Virgil growled to himself as he slowly slid an arrow out of his quiver, notching it onto his bow string as he decided upon a target. Drawing his arm back, he suddenly shifted his aim upwards before letting the arrow fly. A small *whip* reaching Blackwatch from the bowstring snapping back, one soldier looked to the nearby rooftops on his left, before a fleshy mass suddenly fell atop the rearward APC with a loud *WHUMP*. The convoy stopping, all eyes turned to see the form of a still-flailing Flyer, a form of Infected derived from a common pigeon, its form broken and battered from the fall. Flopping about pitifully with an arrow through its chest, faster than the swiftest-thinking Blackwatch could say- "Black Arrow" -, the Flyer let out an ear-piercing screech on its death throes, some covering their ears while others winched, as the loud shriek cut through the night air. A few seconds later the mutated bird's cry died in its beak and it fell back dead as a doornail.
And that's when all hell broke loose.
The moment footsteps were heard from the surrounding alleys, Blackwatch's attention deviated from the center of their formation and branched outward, automatic gunfire pelting Infected Walkers like a horizontal rain of lead. Those that got too close got a gun stock to the skull or a bayonet to the face, but slowly the ground troopers were being overwhelmed. APCs opened up, and large soldiers with heavy weapons filed out, the common Blackwatch parting for them as belt-fed machine guns began pushing back the Walkers coming at them like the zombie horde. Moments later massive shells were loosed through the air from the tanks, the hulking forms of Hunters lunging down the streets intercepted one by one in an attempt to stop fuel from being added to the fire. This did not help however, when they began climbing the walls and moved up out of firing range, before dropping down and mauling either man or machine in their midst. Blood both Infected and not quickly sprayed through the air, the middle of the street soon coated in shades of red and black as countless fell to the horde. Infected either devoured man or beat against machine until it gave, one Hunter dipping his head inside a tank and ripping an operator's head off at the neck, only to receive heavy weapons fire that dropped it in a heap a moment later.
On top of all this this, from a position of near-impunity Virgil was loosing arrows and the occasional grenade from his perch, preventing either side from gaining too great a numerical superiority above the other. To most archers, the targets would be impossible to hit amidst the chaos, but then again, Virgil wasn't most archers. To anyone else it'd look like he was shooting randomly based on opportunity, but by keeping their numbers even, he was stretching out the fighting for as long as possible, letting each side bleed one another dry, which would allow him to pick off any stragglers at battle's end.
"Huh..." Virgil thought to himself as he watched the carnage he had so-justly wrought, the fighting showing no signs of slowing down. "I figured dropping an Infected in their laps would start a feeding frenzy, but I didn't know it'd work that well," he hummed to himself, so enraptured in the bloodbath he didn't notice the figure scaling the opposite side of the building until it leaped up and landed with a *thud*.
Whirling around and notching an arrow, the brunette was greeted with the sight of a vaguely-hominid-like wall of muscle, teeth, and claw, its enlarged muscles colored bright pink, while traces of black viral matter glowing orange marked its arms and back. At a speed belying its girth, the creature lunged with speed comparable to a motor vehicle, an arrow biting into its shoulder mid-lunge. Reaching over his shoulder for another arrow, Virgil realized too late that he was fresh out, and he was shoulder-tackled over the side before he could think to dodge. The two sailing through the air and compound bow leaving his hand, the beast wrapped its clawed hands around Virgil's body and attempted to bite him, the brunette beating its lunge aside with an adrenaline-fueled right hook as the two tumbled through the air. Seconds later the two hit the ground, Virgil using the Infected Hunter as a landing pad, the beast flat on its back while Virgil tumbled into the side of a car with a loud *BANG* back-first. Recovering from the shock, his vision blurred and cleared repeatedly until he focused on the sight of the creature lunging at him once more, intent on taking a bite out of his shoulder. Going for the combat knife strapped to his boot, the brunette still fueled on adrenaline slashed the beast in the side of the face, barely missing its eye but deflecting its initial lunge. Trying again, the beast's head met metal as the brunette dodged to the side once more, its teeth scraping the cloth from his hooded jacket, a hair's breadth away from breaking the skin. His knife biting into its chest, Vigil then stabbed it twice under the jaw, before getting another strike into its eye at its next lunge. Roaring as blood gushed out of its open maw like a fountain, the beast soon fell over read pinning the brunette beneath its weight, sandwiching him between itself and a growing puddle of blood.
"RRRGH! Fuck... YOU!" he swore as he pushed the beast off him with the last traces of adrenaline in his system as the threat passed, covered head to toe in blood as he finally made his way into the open air once again. "Fucking BITCH!" he shouted as he kicked the beast once more in the head for good measure. Hand going to his gun holster and giving the Hunter a quick double-tap, as he caught his breath, he eyed the street around him, most of the remaining Blackwatch getting killed off on the way down, while the rest were dying during his final struggle. Ripping his knife from the beast's skull and shaking the fresh blood from its edge, the brunette cracked his neck from side to side as he got over the fact he survived falling from a four-story building. Mind you he had a nice fleshy landing pad, but it still stood he'd had more action in the past ten minutes than most people do until they're eighteen. And he wasn't even seventeen yet. "Bloody hell... I can't believe I'm still alive," he said as he fell to one knee, coming down from his adrenaline high as the colors became less bright, the sounds less loud, and the scents less pungent. Grabbing a rag from his pocket and wiping some of the blood off his face, careful to keep it out of his eyes and mouth, the brunette took stock of the current situation.
Somehow he'd convinced every Infected in the area that Blackwatch was looking for a fight, and watched from the spectator's stand as they dug into an all-they-could-eat buffet. Between manpower, spent bullets, destroyed equipment, and wrecked vehicles, he'd likely cost Blackwatch thousands if not millions in high-end military equipment. Taking a few moments to reminisce, he realized just how well he'd paid Blackwatch back for the deaths of his family. With interest. On the more proactive note was he'd gone toe-to-toe with the kind of thing that made US Marines look like kindergarteners fed to an angry pit bull, and won. Apparently his ability to kill without hesitation wasn't limited only to humans, but to anything that breathed and bled as well. Speaking of which.
"Man, what the fuck..." he swore as he shed his blood-soaked jacket and dropped it onto the ground with an unceremonious *plop*, followed by his shoes which were completely saturated and made *squish*squish*squish* noises as he walked. Spitting out a glob of his own blood, with the adrenaline having come down he could finally feel the aches and pains in his ribs and back. He was also pretty sure he'd gotten a concussion in that landing, but not anything he couldn't shrug off after laying low for a while after achieving his objective. "Before I tend to that..." he said looking around, eyes landing on a now-shattered compound bow from when it had hit the ground. "This prototype better be worth it. I liked that bow," he swore as he limped forward, favoring his right side. Compared to the rest of the formation which was either grease stains on the ground or piles of scrap metal, the white van in the middle was left relatively unscathed aside from a few stray bullets in its armored plating, blood spatters, or dings from Infected running face-first into it like something out of Jackass. Coming to a stop at the driver's side window, he was greeted with the sight of the driver who, in the panic, had accidentally shot himself while fumbling for his weapon. Turning away from the site, not caring if he stepped on any bodies as he made his way to the back, he was soon greeted with the sight of a lone survivor, bleeding out and leaning against the doors. The man, a head taller than he was, weakly turned his head to the side, eyes looking over the blood-soaked teen before he suddenly found the end of a pistol jabbed between the lenses of his gas mask. Unable to utter a cry of protest before his brains were blown out the back of his skull *blat* the brunette shamelessly kicked the warm corpse aside before turning to the blood-soaked door.
"Million dollar van." *BANG* "Five dollar lock," he spoke plainly as he blew the piece of hardware off with one more bullet. Yanking the pieces away before throwing the doors open, he realized the van looked a lot bigger from the back than it did the front, the interior easily large enough for him to stand at full height instead of crouching down. The interior of the van was dark, its shadows seeming to shun even the light from the smoldering tanks before them. Of course Virgil wasn't afraid of the dark. He may've been as a child, maybe even some points in his teenage years when he was under emotional duress. But now, with what he'd seen, what he'd faced? No... He'd be more afraid of what could actually hurt him, instead of what he only thinks could hurt him. That the things that could hurt him were sometimes lurking in the dark was a moot point.
His red eyes squinting as they adjusted to the lack of light, he fumbled in his pockets for anything that survived the fall a few moments ago. While the plastic flashlight in his pocket had broken clean in two, the Zippo lighter he'd plucked from a Blackwatch's breast pocket remained surprisingly intact. Flipping the lid open with a flick of the wrist and spinning the flint wheel with his thumb, the small propane-borne flame burst to life in his hand, a dim orange glow forming a halo of light around him as he looked around. To the right he could now more-clearly see a bank of computer monitors, and miraculously enough they were still in working order, though with all the code and nonsensical equations flickering across the screen he may as well have been trying to read Latin. To his left, a large silver canister of some sort, and by the low hissing it made it seemed like it had seen better days. There weren't any kind of markings to say what was inside it, he was able to see a log of sorts; a pair of hexagonal C-shapes facing one another with little lines jutting from the backs. Aside from that, there was nothing to indicate what it'd come from. Hargreave & Rasch Biomedical (abbreivated H.R.B.) was supposed to be a pharmaceuticals company and the leading research company into next-generation medicine, so what did they have that Blackwatch wanted?
His question was answered when a low *hssssss* from the darkness met his ears, a thin streak of light shining downward from the ceiling to the floor, before a giant canister of some sort opened, vaguely reminding the teen of the first armor-changing both out of Dead Space. The interior was bathed in neon blue light and a cold fog spilled out onto the floor, but before his eyes could adjust enough to see the contents, a loud *SKREEEEEEEEEE* like the boiling of a tea kettle filled his left ear. Whirling to the side, the light from the now-open canister in the back of the vehicle revealed a number of pressure gauges, the needle bouncing in the red as the tank began to buckle outwards, the screeching becoming louder and louder before the glass faces of the gauges suddenly cracked. A moment later, part of the canister burst open, its contents, glittering like flakes of silver in the neon-blue lighting, spilled out of a large jagged crack and knocked him against the opposing wall, the canister's contents having been compressed. The force with which he was pushed back was staggering, so powerful in fact that when the back of his head hit the wall he began to fade out of consciousness almost instantly.
His back scraping the wall as he slid down, butt hitting the floor in an undignified heap, his head pounded as he felt blood dribbling from his nostril. The flakes of glittering silver now surrounded him so thickly he could barely see the interior of the truck around him, the strange sound of tinkling bells in his ear lulling him further into unconsciousness. Though he knew if he fell asleep there, and Blackwatch found him, there was a very good chance he'd never wake up again. Then again, wasn't that what he wanted deep down? A way out of his suffering?
"I guess this is it... Huh..." Virgil thought to himself as his eyes began to close. He was pretty sure the hit to his head was causing him to hallucinate, because it almost looked like the glittering silver mist was seeping into his wounds, in tendrils like snakes. He didn't feel anything, so it was probably all in his head, which in all likelihood was bleeding internally right about now. As his eyes drooped further shut, head falling forward, he heard something almost slithering out of the canister, wrapping around his feet and working its way up his legs.
Integrating new DNA profile. Initializing...
*BIG GAME HUNT*
Manhattan
August 10, 00:13 EST
'Ghuh... Anyone get the number on the thing that hit me last night?' Virgil groaned to himself as he began to regain consciousness. BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED 'What the deuce?!' the brunette blinked as those three words appeared immediately before his line of sight. Leaning forward to get up from whatever it was he was laying on, his head swam causing him to fall back onto what it was he was laying on. 'The hell is going on?' Virgil asked as his head panned around, greeted by a white ceiling and bright florescent lighting. Blinking the light out of his eyes once again, opting to move only his eyes instead of his head, he was able to focus on a blue polarized screen of some sort right in front of his nose, vaguely resembling an insect's compound eye, whereas the entirety of his head was encased in some kind of tight-fitting helmet. 'Thank God I'm not claustrophobic.' Small panels on the compound eye-like screen in front of him flickering to translucent, the polarized screen in front of him seemingly disappeared, allowing him to get a better look at his surroundings. He appeared to be in an operating room of some sort, completely pristine which should've been impossible... unless...
'Fuck!' he swore as he tried to leap up, only to find his progress impeded by the large magnetic clamps synched to his wrists, ankles, and waist, pinning him to a large metal slab. His struggling seemed to set off some kind of alarm, because moments later a man covered head to toe in white surgical scrubs entered the room through a set of double doors across the room from him. The man's eyes widened, before running to the intercom and making a call. A minute into Virgil's struggling, a man who was wearing Blackwatch colors, but different from the grunts he'd killed strode into the room. The man, maybe 5'8", wearing a black form-fitting uniform with additional plating on his chest, yellow stripes running over his shoulders, around his biceps, and down the sides of his legs. The man had a gas mask with blue illuminated lenses covering his entire head, a communication's device strapped to his left forearm.
"So, our would-be thief is finally awake," the man said in a condescending tone, like that of a person who thought they had all the cards. The fact Virgil stole their suit proved he did not have all the cards. "I don't know how you managed to lead our men into an Infected ambush, but I promise you," he said pulling a shock baton from his side. "Your little crusade ends here... Black Arrow," he said with a chuckle before he drove the baton into Virgil's ribs. Arcs of electricity ran over the suit and through his body, his back arcing against his restraints, suppressing his pained cry into an angry growl before the man eased up and let him fall on his back. "We found your bow broken in half at the scene. Without it, you're nothing more than a shoplifter wearing stolen merchandise," the man said twirling his shock baton in his hand until he turned to the man in the surgical scrubs. "As for you, you said this guy would be sedated for three hours. Mind telling me what's wrong with this picture?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but the nanobots that bonded to his system, both before and after he put on the suit, have already filtered the anesthetic from his system," the man answered looking at his clipboard.
'Nanobots? Suit?' Virgil questioned as he looked down at himself, his body encased in some kind of black muscle-like suit with silver buckles where the bands of material connected. Before he could get a more-clear look at himself, he was jabbed in the side again by the Blackwatch officer's shock stick. He wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of hearing him scream, so he just clenched his teeth and held his ground.
"Fine then. Lets just pull this little shit out of the suit and take back what's ours. Command already has a test pilot lined up, and its my ass on the line if anything happens."
"I'm sorry, sir, but the suit has integrated a new DNA Profile. Until we can scrub the hardware, even if we did get the suit off of him, it wouldn't respond to anyone else until we cleared the operational data."
"Well now, who said he needs to be alive when we get the suit off him in order to scrub it?" the man questioned darkly, his eyes turning to the suit-wearing individual as he fought once more against his shackles. "Don't bother trying to break free, those restraints can hold even Superman. You aren't going anywhere."
'I call bullshit,' Virgil thought as he flexed his arms once more. The shackles weren't mounted to the table itself, but instead mounted to components mounted to the table. As one of the corners began to buckle, a weird feeling overcame him and he ceased his struggling.
System Override a synthetic voice, recognized as the same from the truck before he'd lost consciousness, said into Virgil's ear. Maximum Power increase the suit operator's strength through a mixture of performance-enhancing narcotics readily absorbed into the bloodstream, the suit's onboard AI, or whatever it was, explained as chemical formulas Virgil couldn't even begin to comprehend displayed sporadically in front of him in white angular font. Use of Maximum Power requires suit energy. At this, a white horizontal bar divided into twenty vertical appeared in the lower right corner of his vision, a percentile reading 100% set to its immediate left.
'I'm wondering why that voice now sounds like me, but only if I were a robot,' Virgil thought to himself as he processed the information presented to him. Under normal circumstances he would never use performance-enhancers, but given Blackwatch was going to try and skin him, he figured- 'Why the hell not?' Muscles flexing inside the suit, a tone of Power Mode rung in his ear, those very same muscles beginning to bulge as he pulled up with his wrists and ankles once again, the sound of groaning metal music to his ears, an ominous dirge to his captors. Focusing entirely on his right arm, while he was unable to break the shackle on his right wrist, what he was able to do was pull the shackle's mounting out of the table, freeing his arm at the expense of the weighty accessory now on his wrist.
"Don't let him escape!" the captain said as he lunged forward uncaring of the tray of surgical tools he knocked over, wrapping his body around Virgil's arm and pinning it down to the table once more, while the lab tech quickly filled a syringe with suspicious clear fluid. Running over and attempting to drive it between the fibrous composition of the suit, Virgil's new found strength allowed him to throw the captain sidelong across his chest and into the lab tech, driving them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. His right hand once more freed, he proceed to tear the left shackle's mounting out of the table, magnetic clamps dying when its wires were separated. The two getting up, they turned only to receive the formerly-confining metal shackles to their faces with hasty throws, noses breaking under the assault and blood spurting onto their shirts.
'Holy shit, is this the same stuff they dope Bane up on?!' Virgil questioned as he looked at the two unconscious Blackwatch on the floor, before glancing at the suit's energy reading. 87%. Turning his attention to the shackle around his waist, aiming to tear the two halves apart through sheer strength, the double doors to the room suddenly burst open, two Blackwatch with assault rifles storming in. The pair took appraisal of the situation before them, from the knocked over tray of surgical tools, the unconscious Blackwath on the floor, their eyes finally landing on the suit-clad figure who was two-fifths of the way free.
System Override the voice said once again, and for some reason time seemed to slow, the Blackwatch's attention shifting back to him as though they were moving through molasses. Maximum Armor alters the Nanosuit's outer surface to absorb damage and increase operator survivability in combat. Armor Mode requires suit energy. By the end of the explanation, the suit's energy reading was at 91%, reaching 92% before the two opened fire. Before their bullets bit into the suit, Virgil felt a ripple running down his head, across his chest, and then to his extremities, before the ensemble seemed to clench around his frame. Shielding his face with his hands out of instinct, what felt like golf ball-sized hail pelting his skin was met with the sounds of chaos all around, the deluge of metal ricocheting off the suit and into the surroundings, kicking up implements, shattering tiling, and destroying very expensive-looking medical equipment.
'At least I know what this thing's called now,' he thought to himself as he curled into a ball and weathering out the storm of lead.
Speaking of which, one very important system in particular must've gotten hit, because a few seconds into the shootout the shackles around his waist and ankles retracted back into the slab, gunfire cutting out moments later once they realized their bullets simply bounced off. A quick glance at his energy reading showed the suit had held up at the expense of being depleted to 12% under continued fire; an impressive technological feat since while wearing any other known material he would've been turned into Swiss cheese. Rolling forward to his feet and kicking off the slab, the brunette lunged with a chime of Power Mode in his ears right before his hands clasped onto the faces of the two. Bringing them both to the floor, from a kneeling position he lifted the two's heads to shoulder level before slamming them into the linoleum tiling with dual *THWACK*s, a myriad of cracks splintering outwards like spiderwebs from beneath their heads and they ceased to move, blood beginning to form small puddles beneath them from the obvious blunt trauma they'd been subjected to.
'Energy's down to six percent. I'll have to hold off on the instant superpowers and give it time to recharge,' he said as he grabbed one of the assault rifles left behind. As he ran down the hall, streams of code flickered across his visor, before another gauge appeared in the lower right corner of his vision, situated above the Energy gauge which was slowly refilling. First to appear above the right end of the bar was a horizontal bullet-shaped icon, and to the left of it was some kind of ammo counter reading 02/50, obviously meant to be an ammo counter. Above the bar was a silhouette vaguely shaped like the gun in his hands, while further above it was a vertical list of weapon data labeled things like ACCURACY, RATE OF FIRE, MOBILITY, DAMAGE, and RANGE, with horizontal bars divided into vertical segments appearing beside each one. Above this data, which was pretty concurrent with what he knew of assault rifles from Halo, was a label reading Superior Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR).
'Huh, makes me think of the hand-based weapon recognition thing Master Chief has in Halo,' he thought to himself as he got used to the new suite of data in his face. As he made his way through the halls, the bulk of Blackwatch probably just outside, yet more code began to flicker across his visor. This time it centered in the lower left and assuming a circular shape, the interior developing something akin to an overhead map of the area he was in, floors colored black, walls grey, and what he assumed were doors highlighted in white. Moments later a digital bearing indicator flickered into existence around it, though at the moment he was more concerned with the trio of of yellow dots making their way right around the corner. With only two bullets and this form of weapon still being foreign to him, he'd be hard-pressed if they were wearing body armor. Thinking quickly, he ducked into a recess into the wall to his left, ducking under a water fountain as he pressed himself as far to the left as he could.
System Override the suit spoke up once again at the moment the trio of yellow dots peeked around the corner, making their way towards him. The Stealth Meter indicates the level of enemy awareness. Eyes shifting to the overhead map on his left, a vertical bar blinked into existence on its left, the bottom quarter marked yellow and slowly filling. Blackwatch closing in at full sprint, he felt a strange tingle run across the entirety of his body before to his shock, it began turning translucent before his eyes, the field of invisibility extending to his weapon as well. As the three rushed past him, completely unaware of his presence, he saw that it wasn't so much he became invisible, as he was optically camouflaged, evident by the layer of small hexagonal panels covering his frame and creating a lensing effect of sorts. Cloak provides temporary invisibility to avoid detection and infiltrate enemy positions. Movement while cloaked rapidly drains suit energy.
'Rapidly is right,' Virgil thought to himself as he got out of his little nook and began sidling along the wall. 'My energy is almost gone,' he said as his eyes turned to the descending energy gauge. Opening the nearest door he'd reached, he entered swiftly before silently closing it behind him, killing the lights with a flick of a switch as he became visible a moment later. 'Hopefully I can stay hidden long enough for it to charge again,' he said as the Energy gauge blinked a red 0% in his face.
Looking around for a place to hide, a yellow dot heading his way on the overhead radar was the only warning he had of one of the three patrolling Blackwatch splitting off from the others and coming right at him. The man opening the door and panning his gun-mounted flashlight across the room, common sense to flick on the light switch eluded him as he slowly stepped forward, keeping his trigger finger ready in case something jumped out at him from one of the corners. Seeing something black in the corner, he jerked the iron sights to eye level, only to relax slightly when he found an abandoned assault rifle in sight and nothing else. He'd seen the mess made in the surgical lab, and he wasn't confident in his chances against something that could do that bare-handed.
Had he been more attentive, he would've noticed the slightly askew grate to the air vent behind the room's lone office chair, and the shadow slowly creeping into its depths.
*BIG GAME HUNT*
'Seriously? An air vent? I can't believe this is actually working,' Virgil thought to himself as he army crawled through an air vent about two feet by two feet, avoiding making any unnecessary noise to keep up the element of stealth. The fact that it was on ground level no less also surprised him, but he was simply thankful the Blackwatch didn't suspect anything and left as quickly as he did. In a space as confined as that, it'd be easy enough to line up a shot with almost no chance to dodge. The radar on his HUD must've worked through sound waves or something, because the moment he entered the ducts everything else on it became clear aside from the duct itself. The "Stealth Meter" had even whittled down to a couple white bars at the bottom, showing for a time he had avoided detection.
Just how this suit could tell how-aware his enemies were of his location, he had no idea. Clearly, with all the tech and innovations that had gone into this suit, the cost for R&D alone must've been staggering. He shuddered to imagine how many zeros were on the price tag for this thing, though he imagined it may've been something more than seven figures. While he knew the thing's name, "Nanosuit", what truly unsettled him was when the word "nanobots" had been brought up. Obviously he wasn't hearing things when that voice said something about a DNA profile, and again when the cloud of what he now-suspected to be those very same nanobots entering his body through his wounds. He could only suspect that the Nanosuit somehow, put itself onto his body, 'cause he sure as hell didn't remember putting the thing on.
'Alright first thing's first. I get to the highest point I can, map out just where they dragged me, and then hit the drink before making for the mainland,' the brunette thought to himself. After wandering through the vents for several minutes, occasionally hearing echoed whispers of the Blackwatch saying something about their asses being left to the firing squads if they didn't find him, he eventually made his way to the central column of the air conditioning shafts, and proceeded to make his way to the roof. Normally he'd be hard-pressed to navigate a space like that, but this suit apparently boosted his strength exponentially, even when not giving him performance-enhancing narcotics.
The sound of night air meeting his ears, or whatever allowed him to hear with that bucket over his head, he eventually saw the duct above him curve slightly. With the final stretch right in front of him he more-carefully made his way up. Hazarding a peak over the edge, he saw the lip of the vent right in front of him, thankful he didn't have to find his way through the AC unit itself. It was still dark out, but the giant lights around the Blackwatch base had most of the ground level illuminated from what he could tell. Scuttling forward a little more and bracing his feet against the back wall, he grasped two of the vertical bars in each hand, and the Nanosuit reading his body language pumped him with performance-enhancers, allowing him to push the grate out of its moorings. Carefully setting the thing down and crawling out, without even thinking about it he dismounted into a combat roll, keeping himself low to the ground as he quickly scanned the area.
Seeing a lone Blackwatch waiting for him, his heart almost stopped before he realized the man was facing away from him, and that he wasn't yet aware of his presence. His first compulsion was to find a ladder or something and make his way down, but remembering this was the probable-highest point of the base, if he left this guy alive it'd probably bite him in the ass later. Tiptoeing forward, he slowly formulated the plan of attack in his mind. If this played out even remotely like Stealth RPGs, making too much noise during the "Takedown" would not be in his best interests.
'Alright... If I remember correctly, it takes 1200 foot-pounds of torque to snap a human neck...' he thought to himself as he recalled an episode of 1000 Ways to Die. 'All I have to do is get right behind him, cover his mouth, and hope I can snap his neck before he raises the alarm.' Blinking his eyes in his helmet, he wondered when he began to think so casually about sneaking up on a guy before snapping his neck, before realizing... it didn't really matter. This, like every other major event in his life, was yet another crucible for him to overcome.
Rising to full height behind the man, the brunette's foot found the back of the guy's knee, forcing him down with his head at chest level. Wrapping his left arm under the man's armpit and grasping the right shoulder tightly, his free hand went to the side of the man's face before twisting his skull with a low *crack*. To his surprise, the Nanosuit-augmented strength had caused him to spin the man's head around a full 180 degrees. A moment of shock overcoming him at the sight, his grip on the man slackened before he fell flat on where his face would've been if his head were still facing forward. His head lolled listlessly to the side and he was sprawled out limp across the ground. Obviously, this was a headache that would not go away with a couple aspirin.
'Okay... Note to self: Be careful when giving people hugs,' the brunette thought to himself. If he could twist a man's head like a twist-top with one arm, he could only imagine how many bones he could break with something like a bear hug. 'Probably snap their spine is what would happen,' he thought to himself as he Cloaked, peeking his head over the edge of he roof and peering downwards.
System Override. Systems online. Multiple threats detected.
'Naw, ya think?' Virgil thought sarcastically, before an unfamiliar stinging sensation began burning the insides of his eyes. Shaking his head side to side as he squinted painfully, blinking the tears from his eyes as his sight began to clear, everything in front of him was suddenly given a boost of clarity, almost as if he were seeing real life in High-Def compared to... whatever came before High-Def. Blinking his eyes a couple more times as the stinging began to abate, as he focused on the small black figures dotting the base, small empty triangles began to appear above their heads, and after focusing on them for a few seconds, the small triangles were filled in.
The tactical visor provides increased battlefield awareness. Scan for hostile entities, weapons, and equipment. The visor's zoom function allows you to observe from a safe distance.
'So... what, I've got nanobots swimming in my eyeball fluid now?' the brunette thought to himself, wondering just how thoroughly he was being violated. Shoving that thought aside for now, he learned that by focusing on far-off targets he could "zoom in" on them as though looking through a scope, and that he could "zoom out" by widening the scope of his focus. 'I can worry about my health later. Right now I've to tag as many of these guys as I can, maybe blow some shit up, and make a break for the water,' he thought to himself as he looked around. 'There!' Off to this left there was a dock with a few boats tied down, and just beyond it was the open water. 'And all that's between here and there, are psychotic Neo-Nazis with automatic weapons,' he thought dryly. 'Sorry baby-killer, but I'll be taking this,' he thought as he unsynched the knife strapped to the guys' boot, as well as his grenades.
*BIG GAME HUNT*
Taking the next few minutes to get acquainted with the Tactical Visor before going groundside, he was thankful it didn't require Suit Energy to operate, meaning he could take his time without having to worry about it. When he "tagged" a person with it, they were surrounded by a faint outline as well as the distance between him and them in meters, even when they stepped behind an object. However, given this was a prototype, it could only "tag" about a dozen people before it began cycling out the oldest entries for the new ones. Whenever a tagged individual wasn't in his immediate line of sight, an arrow with a measure of meters displayed in his peripherals, ensuring he never lost track of them for too long. Vehicles and weapons on the other hand were a separate matter, as he was able to tag the four M1 Abrams and a number of weapon creates without detracting from the headcount. At the moment the four tanks were unmanned, the bulk of the Blackwatch presence there keeping their eyes on all the exits to ensure he didn't escape, and while he was tempted to take one and drive his way out, he had no idea how to drive a tank. The number of guards on the roof was minimal since the chances of him escaping from there were the lowest, and even if he did manage to hijack the singular AH-64D Apache Longbow -which the suit's scanners identified-, the anti-airguns on the ramparts would ensure he didn't get too far.
'Speaking of which...' Virgil thought as he yanked the cyclic control stick right out of the chopper's floor before tossing it in the back seat. 'Now I can make my way out of here without worrying about this thing.' Taking another quick look around, the gates locked up tight with heavy guard presence, he turned his view in the opposite direction from them and saw a makeshift dock with a number of boats moored down. While tempted to snag one and head for another island, not only would he have Blackwatch on his ass, but the US Navy as well keeping him from trying to leave without the right access codes. The only sensible option was to make for the water, swim up the coast, then make his way back to Dana and hopefully get some advice on what to do next.
Making his way to the edge of the roof, he saw a ladder leading to one of the lower levels, and using Cloak made his way down, sticking to the shadows until he finally got to ground level. Not every single spot could be illuminated, so he took advantage of the darkness to remain hidden as he snuck around patrols and hid in the shadows of trucks, his Tactical Visor saving him from being caught by surprise by a stray patrol in the darkness. His "Stealth Meter" still relatively low, meaning the Blackwatch were not yet aware of his presence, but were keeping an eye out for him, he cloaked and made his way over to one of the weapon crates, gathering a few blocks of C4 before ducking underneath one of the tanks to appraise his arsenal.
'One combat knife, three grenades, four blocks of C4, and one detonator,' he counted, the nanobots apparently in his eyes allowing him greater vision in the dark. Peeking out from underneath, being sure to use Cloak to keep himself hidden, he swore under his breath when he saw that one of the Blackwatch had noticed the missing C4 he'd just taken, and to reflect this, the Stealth Meter gained more yellow mass. 'Its too dangerous to try and snag more, so I'll just have to make due.'
Synchronizing the blocks of C4 to the detonator in his hand, he skulked his way around the tanks, sliding into each one and adhering a block of plastic explosive to the undersides of the controls. He wasn't sure if this would completely destroy them or not, but he figured if he blew up the controls, and the explosion remained contained, he'd do enough damage that they wouldn't be able to fire tank shells at him, let alone chase him. Repeating the process on the other two tanks, as he made his way to prime the explosives from inside the fourth, while out of cloak one of the Blackwatch happened to peer into the tank and got an eyeful of him with his hands in the cookie jar. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the guy by his collar and dragged him in before jamming the blade of his knife between the man's ribs and into his heart, hoping to remain hidden. With the last of his strength however, the man was able to draw his pistol, aiming it directly in Virgil's face. The teen batted the barrel to the side at the last moment, but at that moment the loud *BANG* of propellant detonating rung through the tank and out through the top hatch. The next moment alarms began blaring loudly, putting the entire base on alert, and if that wasn't bad enough, as the bullet bounced around the interior of the tank, it managed to catch him in the back. Apparently without Armor Mode, the suit was still vulnerable to firearms at close range.
'Dammit!' he swore as he climbed out of the tank, and after ducking for cover, chucked the last remaining block of C4 towards a cluster of Blackwatch heading his way, before pressing the detonator. With a quartet of loud *KABOOM*, three of the tanks went up in in columns of flame and smoke, while by the screams he'd managed to catch at least a few of them in the blast. A lance of dulled pain shooting up his side, Virgil didn't have time to watch as the suit sealed itself shut, knowing he'd have to find a new place to hide. Looking around, he saw an unmanned truck with a canopy he could take shelter in for a few seconds. Using Cloak to remain unseen for the half-second it took his frame to get to the top of the tank, he dropped a grenade into the vehicle's interior after removing the pin, and five seconds later when he'd dove into the back of the truck, the grenade exploded. While not as glorious as the C4 explosions, the grenade did its job of rendering the tank completely inoperable quite admirably.
'Alright... Stay calm... You can still get out of this. You just have to remain calm, ignore the bullet in your side, and find a way to hit the water,' Virgil told himself as he peeked up from the darkness of the truck's canopy, watching as Blackwatch scoured the area on high alert in an attempt to find him. 'Stealth Meter's completely red, so I'm pretty fucking sure they know I'm here.'
System Override. Maximum Speed stimulates heightened reflexes by supplying more oxygen to the brain and muscular tissue through the use of nano-bot-induced hyper-accelerated blood flow. Use of Maximum Speed requires suit energy.
'Super speed, huh? Well, no time like the present,' Vergil thought to himself as he pressed one foot to the back of the truck, assuming a starting position before he "willed" the system to activate. Speed Mode. Shooting out of the truck like a bullet, as soon as he met the open air, he noted that not only was he moving faster, but the world around him was moving slower, the gathered Blackwatch turning their heads toward him as though they were moving through maple syrup. Rolling as he hit the ground, kicking off again he left cracks in the ground, but paid them not mind as he made a beeline for the water. A number of Blackwatch ran at him like quarterback gunning for the enemy running back, but with how slow they were moving, it was child's play to take his knife in a reverse-handed grip and run the blade across their throats as they approached him. Even the bullets were coming at him in slow motion, but with his enhanced speed none of them even hit him, albeit they came pretty close; it wasn't so much he was dodging them, but rather they were being aimed where he was at, not where he was going to be. One final line of soldiers forming a wall in front of the dock, they began spraying hollow point rounds in his direction, only for him to dodge sidelong out of harm's way and behind another crate. Taking one of his remaining two grenades in hand and "cooking" it for three seconds, he chucked it through the air before taking off after it, the explosion knocking away the soldiers and allowing him to make for the water. Tossing his last grenade into the only boat there, he dove into the water as time seemed to resume its normal pace. With only 5% suit energy left of the full charge he started out with, he reinforced his body with Armor Mode right before the grenade went off, the grenade accompanied by the boat's fuel tanks making an even larger explosion.
*BIG GAME HUNT*
Elsewhere, a cold-eyed figure with ashy corpse-like skin had watched the... festivities, with some degree of interest as billowing columns of smoke rose from the Blackwatch base. Despite the cover of darkness, the skulking figure's sharper-than-normal eyes allowed him to keep track of the slight lensing effect their body made under pseudo-invisibility. While he had a form of infared vision in his arsenal, the suit itself actually seemed to diffuse heat signatures evenly into the ground, making him or her harder to track through that method.
Still, what did he care if that "secret weapon" he'd just picked up radio chatter about had been stolen before he could get to it? Whoever had gotten to it clearly didn't agree with Blackwatch's policies, otherwise they wouldn't have left a couple-million-dollar-mess in their wake for the taxpayers to clean up. The black-and-silver figure had disappeared almost entirely into the water instead of killing everything like he would have. But then again...
There was only one of him. For the time being anyway.
"Not like that cheap suit could've stopped me anyway," the monster known as Mercer chuckled as he turned away from the smoldering wreck, leaping with such force he left cracks in the roof he was standing on, his form sailing through the air like a bird of prey.
*BIG GAME HUNT*
NeoNazo356: Like with most Crysis-based fanfiction, there was the "tutorial" aspect of it when the OC first acquired the Nanosuit, though I tried to put a new spin on it. Then again, I don't comb the site for Crysis-centric fanfiction, so this could either be exactly the same as in other stories or completely different, I don't know. I used the Nanosuit 1 powers because the addition of Maximum Power and Maximum Speed on demand add another "dimension" to the suit's usage in-story, even though those functions are streamlined in Crysis 2 into the general movement mechanics.
Spaceman: The Nanosuit is composed of alien nano-materials, which allows it move in ways beyond normal armour. In Prophet's flashback it's clearly meant to come off in parts instead of being a one-piece. The many pieces form a singular powerful entity and it explains what Virgil experienced before he passed out. The implications that suit put itself on him will be explored in this story.
NeoNazo356: Also, the reason I didn't go very in-depth about the prototype Nanosuit's appearance when he first woke up, is because story-wise, Virgil had more pressing matters to attend to than staring at himself in a full-body mirror; that'll come next-chapter. Basically, if you woke up in a prison, and RIGHT then there was a mass escape attempt, would you rather take a few minutes to look yourself over, or run like hell? The premise is you've been wrongly imprisoned.