AN: it's been a couple of weeks since the last update. A lot of things happened in the meantime. Right now, I'm working from my home, but that might change in the coming days. For now, I'd just like to thank everybody for the overwhelming response. More than two-hundred followers in two chapters' time, that's amazing.

Anyway, as with my other stories, I'll be slowly picking up the word count from here on out. I try to average out at 10,000 words per chapter, but we'll see how it goes.

~0~

Episode 1: Incubation III

One benefit to being able to sprint up a skyscraper in seconds was the view that that accompanied it. Watching the sun rise over the devastation wreaked in Manhattan was soothing, in a strange way. Insane viral outbreak or not, the world continued. That thought had given him hope, especially during the first few days of the outbreak.

But that was before he discovered the truth. Now…now, Alex looked at the rising sun and wondered where all the logic had gone. Because it sure was hell wasn't here.

He had seen a woman shapeshift her machinegun into a taser and back again. He had seen a man scale a skyscraper with a halberd. Fuck, he had seen a man teleport, leaving behind a corporeal body that had to be killed before it exploded into ash.

And people acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. Fucking heroes and villains fighting each other with goddamn superpowers!.

Alex felt the urge to grab something and tear it limb from limb. All the other sources he found said the same thing. He was in Brockton Bay, April 2011.

Apparently, Brockton Bay had an entire different calendar than the rest of the world. Go figure.

The whirling memories within his mind kept whispering at him, kept telling at him that there was an explanation, but Alex didn't listen. He refused to listen, because if he did…

Alex climbed to his feet. It was no use overthinking this. Racing back to Manhattan, while tempting, wasn't an option right now. Place would be sealed up tight, no way getting in on foot. That left hijacking a military vehicle that just so happened to coincidentally head into the dangerous quarantine zone, or swimming.

He involuntarily tensed up at that thought. Water…

No, Manhattan was off the tables. He needed some information first, get some context to the swirling mass of thoughts and memories. He needed to find a place where even the government couldn't control the information flow. A place where the world's deepest, darkest secrets were dissected and laid bare for all to see.

Alex hoped that the internet would be good enough.

It took some searching and a lot of effort, but eventually Alex shapeshifted into the form of a plain-looking young woman he had once consumed. She'd been grabbed by infected, who began tearing her apart with their bare hands. Back then, he had figured he was doing her a favour.

Using that form, he strolled around the more normal part of the city, away from the Docks. Once there, Alex felt the urge to form a couple of extra eyes, just to keep track of everything that was going on around him. If superheroes and supervillains were part of everyone's daily lives in this city, it'd make sense that they also influenced Brockton Bay's culture in some way. Merchandise or public campaigns or something along those lines. Alex expected to hear at least something that verified what he had witnessed.

Which he did. Sort of.

His enhanced hearing picked up one conversation in particular that used a phrase his memory-box couldn't quite place.

Wards.

Alex stopped, listening intently to the little talk the two older guys were having. Something about a Wards program and how it needed more funding.

Funding…because they were effective for their age?

Not wanting to attract any suspicion, Alex kept walking. Wards…the age thing kinda suggested these Wards would be very old, or very young. He seriously doubted the former, but the latter somehow seemed…weird. Irresponsible, even to someone like him.

Why send kids to fight assholes like Lee? The guy could fucking teleport. Shit, he even left a clone behind as he did. If he stuffed a grenade in his vest he could effectively function as a multi-suicide bomber.

Which, again, begged the question why this shit wasn't in the news.

That was just another question he needed answered.

With the cash he took off those ABB thugs, Alex walked into the nearest internet café and paid the bored woman sitting behind the counter. She barely looked up from her phone as she took his cash, then pointed at the row of tables in the back of the room.

Alex picked the one in the far corner and booted it up. First order of business: find out if anyone reported on the nuke going off near Manhattan. Even if Blackwatch managed to play it off as a weapon test, there'd be some sort of public statement, wouldn't it?

Wrong. The internet had nothing – nothing – about the nuke going off. Neither did it say anything about an infection, or even a quarantine zone.

And that didn't make sense. Detonating a nuclear weapon on US soil, so close to Manhattan of all places, would result in an unprecedented PR nightmare. Any attempts to cover that up would result in incredible friction against the government, not to mention how the US's allies would respond to the detonation of said nuclear weapon.

And the date was still fucking wrong.

That unpleasant voice in the back of his mind was back. Not one of the voices he had taken for himself, but a vague thought that kept whispering the same thing over and over again.

Alex was desperate to ignore that one and kept browsing. Superhero this, supervillain that…the other states had them, too. Christ, even other continents had their own superheroes. Europe, Asia, Australia…

The time difference could be explained away with busted regeneration, but Alex just couldn't justify the sudden appearance of superpowers.

His search brought him to a website called Parahumans Online. Some sort of forum where people discussed heroes and villains. It also had a wiki page, with all the available information neatly archived.

That included individual superpowers.

Now that got his interest alright. What he needed was someone powerful, someone who knew everything that happened around these parts. It couldn't be someone in the PRT, as he didn't really feel like assaulting and consuming a hero. Especially not now that he saw the villains outnumbered the heroes. Apparently choosing crime was too lucrative.

The fucked up part? Alex wasn't even surprised. He had learned enough about human nature during the infection. Hell, he had been there himself.

But at least he tried. It would be so easy to prey on the common people for what you needed. With the right set of superpowers, you could rape, pillage and murder your way across a city, with nobody to stop you.

Alex pushed those thoughts from his mind and continued searching. He read about the different superhero classes, which explained why Miss Militia called him a Brute. With this context, the memories of the ABB gangsters made more sense now.

On a hunch, he typed in "Lee" and "ABB", and clicked on the first page that appeared.

There the fucker was. Oni Lee, an asshole with a demonic mask with a nasty grin and a black bodysuit complete with murder tools. His power was a mix between duplication and teleportation. Apparently, the body he left behind remained a pain in the ass for up to ten seconds.

Shit, he did use his powers for suicide bombing. With grenades, no less.

Fucked up minds think alike, right?

Alex gritted his teeth. Shut up.

The guy had even been labelled a sociopath by the PRT, just like the original Alex Mercer. Except this guy had a warning saying that he was exceptionally violent and shouldn't be approached. As far as he was aware, Alex Mercer was never actually violent.

Just a cruel and vindictive man who condemned the world out of sheer spite.

Moving on.

Lee was one of two lieutenants serving the ABB's founder. The other was a woman named "Bakuda". A tinker – people who could make strange stuff – and her specialty was bombs.

Alex took an instant disliking to her, too.

That left Lung. A big guy. Something about fire and transforming. Nothing too important there.

Alex guessed that a petty gang like the ABB wouldn't have the people he needed, so he continued.

Empire Eighty-eight. White supremacists with a lot of influence and power. The current leader was a guy named Kaiser. The picture at the top of the page showed a grainy still from a security camera. An elaborate suit of metal, complete with a crown of blades. He could create metal objects from surfaces around him.

How the fuck did that work?

The scientists in Alex' mind cried out in anguish. Alex himself merely sighed. If these people could break the laws of physics that easily, chances are one of these capes could very well kill him for real. He needed to be more careful.

The Empire was powerful, yes, but nothing suggested that they knew things others shouldn't know.

Alex felt the urge to smash the computer. He couldn't make sense of all of this! None of these villains looked like they had the position to help him. What was the point -

He paused. Maybe he was looking at this the wrong way? He had been looking for free information. But if he approached this in another way, tried a little investment…

The PRT had the information he needed, he was sure of that. With what he now knew of the ABB, he could eliminate the entire organization. Bakuda was just a couple of terrorists stuck in the body of an Asian woman, while Oni Lee required a single well-placed bullet to neutralize. That left just Lung.

Easy pickings. Certainly the PRT would the interested in that knowledge, wouldn't they?

It was certainly worth a shot.

The knowledge he got from the ABB guys told him that the PRT had their headquarters in the city. It could be reached by public transport. According to the maps, there was a bus stop nearby.

Alex counted the money he had left. Four-hundred and sixty bucks, give or take. Not nearly enough to buy the information he needed if this thing went south. It was, however, enough to see him through for the next few days. If his visit to the PRT turned out to be a bust, he'd simply change shapes and lay low for a while, thinking of plan B.

Plan B would likely involve some violence.

The bus took him through the city's centre. It would take more than half an hour to get him there, so Alex sat down in the back, next to a window, letting his thoughts wander.

The realization just now hit him. It was 2011. He had been gone for three years.

If his regeneration really had taken three years, the whole mess in Manhattan had already been dealt with. Dana would have moved on with her life…or Blackwatch had already murdered her and covered it up. A home invasion gone wrong, or…some sort of accident, tragic but totally mundane.

His biomass lurched at the mere thought. He had put her through hell, and he hadn't even thanked her for standing by him all that time.

Was there even a point in heading back? Dana probably thought he was dead. She would have mourned him, but she would have moved on. Moved on without him.

Christ, the way she looked at him when she found out…

The bus stopped directly in front of the Parahuman Response Team East North East headquarters. Once Alex got off, he realized why. The entrance to the building was swarming with civilians. Tourists. Some entered the building, others left, but most just milled around taking pictures.

The exterior of the building was all windows, fitted with bars. Good exit strategies. They were probably bulletproof, but that wouldn't stop him.

Still wearing his civilian disguise, Alex entered the building. He shot a quick glance around, the military commanders within his consciousness interpreting the information within half a second.

Six guards spread through a fairly large atrium. White armour, the same guys he saw in the ABB territory. They had the same muzzled weapons, which meant they weren't actually flamethrowers at all.

Containment foam, the ABB thugs whispered at him.

One receptionist at the desk, probably two emergency buttons within her reach. Locked doors all around, containing more reinforcements. The upper tiers could conceal snipers.

Alex approached the receptionist. As a harmless-looking young woman, he probably didn't appear as a threat to the receptionist. She still stared at him as he approached her however. He didn't know a lot about human facial expressions, but hers didn't exactly look at ease.

Was it something he wore?

Ah. He forgot to emote at her.

Alex struggled for a bit, then managed to flash the woman a little smile.

The woman remained ill at ease.

Well, that was his whole bag of tricks. Fuck it.

"How can I help you?" The receptionist asked.

Her left hand did hover over what Alex presumed to be an alarm button.

"I represent someone who is willing to offer the PRT their services," Alex began, sifting through the memories in hopes of encountering something business related. "Starting with the distribution of valuable information. If you could…" Some of the more morally questionable scientists he consumed began whispering obscure terms and hints at him, but he had a hard time making any sense of them. "Refer me to either the Director or someone else capable of making that call?"

Alex presumed that this didn't usually happen to the receptionist; she frowned, then tapped something into her console.

"Your name?" She asked.

What name did he trust the PRT with? He couldn't rule out their connections to Blackwatch, so any pseudonyms they were familiar with were right out. Thing was, he didn't feel right with offering some random name he'd forget before the end of the day, either.

"No names. Not until my client knows the PRT is willing to meet arrange a meeting," he replied.

The receptionist muttered into her headset about a stranger wanting to meet someone to establish an alliance.

And the guards, meanwhile, were keeping a close on them. Maybe it was usual for outsiders to work with the PRT if they were already dropping words like "alliance", but they weren't stupid enough to believe him on his word.

Huh. Maybe the PRT was actually competent at their job.

"I can schedule an appointment next Thursday. The Director is a busy woman, after all."

Alex did his best to smile again. He still wasn't sure why it was supposed to put people at ease; all he did was bare his teeth at the woman. " Ah, I'm afraid that won't work out. My…client does not have much time, but they are capable of fielding a lot of power in the time they do have. And since they have chosen the PRT to offer their services for the moment, I would appreciate it if the PRT could…expedite the process."

The woman blinked. The penny dropped. "Of course, I understand."

Alex waited as patiently as he could while the woman typed in a different string of commands, then spoke into her headset again.

"Please take the third lift, to the left over there," she told him. "Someone will meet you."

Finally, some progress.

Alex didn't bother to continue the social charade. He turned around and marched towards the elevator, He didn't know which floor he had to go, but he had the feeling that either of the two soldiers following him did.

The elevator seemed to be made from some sort of bulletproof glass. Almost completely see-through. Alex saw it descend to the ground floor, before soundlessly sliding open. The technicians within his consciousness couldn't make sense of what he was seeing.

Funny. They drew the same blank with Armsmaster's tech. The guards remained silent as they escorted him up. Only a couple of seconds went by as the elevator ascended, but the thing went so fast that he had no idea which floor he ended up at. No inertia, no sudden braking, nothing. He guessed he ended up on the fourth, maybe the fifth floor.

The guards got off, meeting up with the other two guards who waited for them as soon as the doors opened.

And they didn't look friendly.

"Ma'am, do you have any weapons on you?" One of them asked.

Alex fought the urge to smirk. You've got no idea…

"No, I do not," he replied.

"Could you take all your items out of your pockets?" He continued.

Person search, a Marine in his thoughts murmured. Looking for anything dangerous.

"You are free to search, but I don't have anything on me," Alex retorted. He didn't have the time for this, damnit…

They searched him nonetheless. Alex struggled to contain his biomass and keep the tendrils from instinctively lashing out at the sudden contact. Killing the PRT's guys wasn't exactly the best way to earn their trust. He also couldn't exactly blame them for being this thorough, given that some of their enemies could fucking teleport.

As he underwent their security measures, he heard someone else approaching them. Alex glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see that it was Armsmaster himself, being surprisingly stealthy despite his armoured boots. There was not a hint of stiffness in his stride.

Tough son of a bitch.

"I'll handle it from here," he growled. The soldiers casually backed off, as if this was a usual thing for them.

Armsmaster looked more closely at the virus-in-disguise and "I procured a room. Follow me."

That halberd of his was clamped to his back, somehow. Retracted to six feet long, then segmented in two parts to fit.

The man stopped in the middle of the hallway in front of a steel door. It flung open the moment he stopped. He turned around and gestured for Alex to enter, which he did.

Once he passed through the door, Alex was instantly reminded of the morgue he woke up in. The room was more of an interrogation cell than anything else. No windows, steel walls and a large, bulky table in the middle of the room.

"Sit down," Armsmaster ordered.

Alex couldn't help but notice that the man himself remained standing. He glanced down at the metal chair. It looked like it could hold his weight. He didn't weigh more than a couple of people right now. Four…maybe five?

He sat down very carefully, ready to spring up if the chair couldn't handle it. A young woman shattering a steel chair by merely sitting down would raise a lot of questions, after all.

The thing creaked, but thankfully it held.

"You proposed an alliance between the PRT and the people you represent," Armsmaster said, the second Alex was seated. "Talk."

Alex cocked an eyebrow at that. And people gave him shit about bad social cues. "My employer has valuable information about the Azn Bad Boys gang, as well as the resources to act in it." He paused for a second, wondering how far he could go with this act.

Fuck it. "Given how unsuccessful the local PRT has been in combating them, my employer is even willing to eliminate the ABB leadership outright."

"Who is this employer?" Armsmaster asked.

"They would prefer to remain anonymous. At least, until an agreement has been reached."

The hero could have been chiselled out of stone, the way he responded. "You said your employer is willing to take care of the ABB leadership themselves. I'll assume that means they have powers on their own. The PRT does not condone capes killing capes unless a kill order has been given."

Shit. Miss Militia had been adamant about that as well. Why did that matter? Why bother keeping your enemies alive, especially if they were so dangerous?

No matter. Crippling a couple of fuckers instead of killing them was nothing compared to finding out what the hell happened in the three years he had been out.

"Non-lethal takedowns are an option," Alex slowly replied, carefully mulling over each word he spoke. He had the collective knowledge of dozens of relatively normal, relatively social people at his beck and call. Why the hell was this still so difficult? "With the information my employer has, the complete collapse of the ABB can be guaranteed in two, perhaps three days."

That got a reaction of the man. It was subtle, but Alex presumed that human lips weren't supposed to tighten like that. "Two days? The complete ABB gang?" Armsmaster replied, incredulous. "And what does thus…employer…require of the PRT?"

Alex forced himself to remain calm, to stifle the excitement and anxiety that welled up within his abdomen. "Live footage from Manhattan, New York. Live footage that is not censored, not doctored in any way."

Armsmaster crossed his arms. "Why?"

That's not fucking important!

But Alex checked his temper. Patience. He was so close. "That is for my employer to know. Just understand that something happened in Manhattan three years ago, something that should have left its mark on the world."

He eagerly observed Armsmaster's response to that one. Surely he would understand what that meant? A nuke. A big, fuckoff nuke going off around the coast of Manhattan. Even if the civilians could be blocked off via the information blackout, surely the PRT, with their fancy tech, would know something?

"Your employer is willing to remove the ABB gang, nonlethally, for live, unedited footage of Manhattan?" Armsmaster said, sounding too sceptical for Alex' liking. "You understand that this sounds too good to be true."

Either the man knew and pretended otherwise, or he genuinely had no clue what was going on. "Armsmaster, this is the deal as my employer wants it. He will take care of the ABB leadership, and even the rest of the gang, if you allow him access to the aforementioned footage."

The man in armour was silent for several long moments, his face impassive behind his visor. "I am not in a position to approve such an alliance myself. I will have to speak to the Director about this. Won't take more than a couple of hours. Do you have a number we can reach you on?"

A phone. He hadn't needed one the past weeks. Probably wouldn't need one the next few days; he'd wipe out the ABB, finally figure out what the fuck happened the past few years and then…

Alex had no idea what then. He'd figure that out on the fly. "Phones can be traced. I'll be back, tomorrow around the same time."

"I can't guarantee anything," Armsmaster replied as Alex stood up from the chair. "The PRT is not in the habit of hiring rogues to take care of its problems."

Alex sighed. Fuck me…"We don't care whether the heroes or the villains get the intel, Armsmaster. We can sweeten the deal by going after the Merchants or Empire Eighty-Eight for you, or we can call the deal off and find someone who is willing to work with us."

Armsmaster just stared at him, not at all fazed by the unspoken threat. "Understood. If that is all?"

"It is."

Without mincing words, Armsmaster marched up towards the door. Again, it opened as if someone had been waiting for his approach.

The two of them remained silent all the way back to the elevator, whereupon two of those white-clad soldiers took over for him. After a short, silent trip on the glass elevator, Alex found himself stepping out into the lobby again.

Well, that could have gone worse.

This was different from sneaking into military bases. It was a lot of effort for a relatively minor thing, but he couldn't jeopardize Dana. She was all he had left, not just as his last link to humanity. Maybe that Blackwatch officer- the first human he ever consumed – used to have a little sister himself. Maybe that was he cared so much about Dana Mercer, whereas Alex Mercer had been perfectly fine with letting her die when he released the virus.

If she was still alive, she probably wouldn't need him in her life anymore. Would she?

He just…he needed to be certain. That inevitable conclusion simmering in the back of his mind became harder to ignore every hour he remained in Brockton Bay. Sooner or later he'd have to confront it.

But for now, that'd be later. He had twenty-four hours to kill.

As Alex wandered the streets, taking in the less-than-impressive sights, he wondered how he was going to handle this. His best-case scenario would be getting the information without ever revealing himself to the PRT. They took that no-killing thing very seriously, even though the gangs here gave less than a shit about that.

After some digging, he learned that teleportation wasn't the only bullshit ability some of those guys had. There was this guy, Hookwolf, who could so something with his body. Turn it into a whirring mass of blades and fishhooks.

Alex had done his fair share of slicing and dicing himself, but that was always to kill. The nature of his…powers…made those kills a bit brutal, yes, but it was never his intention to cause unnecessary suffering. Guys like Hookwolf used their powers to straight up hurt people. Mutilate them, scar them forever without finishing them off.

But no, killing a couple of shithead sex traffickers was bad. The mind boggled.

That meant making a deal without showing his true face, while taking out one, maybe two superpowered gangs without killing anyone, and somehow making sure the footage they showed him was real.

Alex had to keep reminding himself that simply dropping by Dana's apartment in New York was not an option, as much as this whole city screamed at him to get out.

The hoodlums in his mind told him exactly how the layout of the city and its territories worked. He had some cash left, but the only thing that'd be good for was to buy a place to sleep overnight.

What did people usually do to spend the time? Eat, drink, read? He didn't need any form of sustenance and reading…

Well, the Alex Mercer persona used to be a scientist. He enjoyed reading books for fun, which meant that he would enjoy reading too, wouldn't he?

He gave the idea some thought, but decided against it. What was the joy of reading when you already had the cumulative knowledge of hundreds of books swimming around his head? That would be like watching a movie you already saw the night before.

Instead, Alex decided on scouting out more of Brockton Bay. He might be spending more than just a couple of days here, and he wanted to be familiar with the city's layouts when it came to a prolonged battle.

Constantly moving, constantly looking over his shoulders. He had been forced to adapt those habits from the moment he woke up in that morgue, the moment he had been "born". His life was a constant struggle for existence. Maybe it was because of that permanent state of enforced paranoia that his senses had evolved to be as sharp as they were now. Perched atop one of the taller buildings in the Boardwalk, Alex caught the distant thump of an explosion in the distance.

Knowing that explosions were relatively uncommon outside of Manhattan, Alex decided that he might as well take a look, see what was going on.

The problem with things like explosions and gunshots – one that few people outside the military actually knew of– was that sound had an annoying tendency to echo away in strange directions. Running away from the sound of gunshots could very well lead to directly towards the gunshots because of the way the airwaves travelled. That made zeroing in on a location based on one sound a bitch.

Fortunately – and Alex used that term very loosely – the explosion was almost immediately followed by screams and other loud noises. Maybe a mile or two away.

Though his body was still fucked up from his close call with that nuke, he still retained his ability to glide. He leapt from the rooftop, his biomass already shifting and changing for the most aerodynamic shape. Like that, Alex made it towards the source of the disturbance in relatively short time, but by that point, the PRT had their people on site as well.

Alex landed on a building at the side of a wide, busy street. The PRT put up a makeshift roadblock and had people in place to wave the civilians away, but from the looks of it, there were still people trapped on their side. As Alex crept closer for a better look, two large vans raced by the white-cad troopers there from a side-street, heading towards the conflict. They were no doubt filled to the brim with reinforcements.

Seconds later, the staccato rattle of gunfire went off. It couldn't be much farther than a block away.

More ABB assholes? A Merchant deal gone wrong?

Alex pulled up his hood and covered his face with flat tendrils of biomass. He didn't want people recognizing him on the fly. He was willing to work together with other people, yes, but not to a public degree.

He leapt from rooftop to rooftop, following the speeding vans as they raced towards the conflict. There were more people on the street there, too. Most of them were civilians, but some carried things like clubs, knives and pistols. Their attention was focused on something Alex couldn't see yet.

The vans approached a t-intersection. They were just about to head left when all of a sudden something large and blurry intercepted them from that direction.

The lead van couldn't stop in time and slammed into the thing, which looked like some sort of blob made out of hooks, needles and serrated blades. Those blades moved like the teeth of a chainsaw, sliding and grinding over and past each other, like a metal hedgehog in a blender.

Whatever the thing was, it must have been heavy. The van came to a total stop while the walking chainsaw merely skidded backwards several feet.

Two other people followed the chainsaw-man out of the alleyway, carrying large bags with them as they gave the crashed vehicle a wide berth. One of them was a tall, pale man who spent way too much time in the gym. His forearms and calves were wrapped in iron chains and he wore a white-blue tiger mask to hide his face.

The other one was a young-looking girl with a lean body and a metal cage covering her face. She leapt out of the way just in time for a figure in a skintight uniform leapt down from a nearby rooftop, landing in their midst. She moved fast, way too fast to be a normal newcomer kicked the heavy-built man in the chest, sending him flying into a wall.

Another parahuman, then.

Great. He wound up in the middle of a Cape fight.

The real problem was the PRT guys caught in this mess. The chainsaw-man was on the crashed van in a heartbeat, ripping one of the doors out of its hinges and darting inside.

What followed was awfully similar to Alex breaching a tank. Screams, blood except for the laughter.

Now he recognized the blender on legs. This was fucking Hookwolf.

These two were Empire guys .Nazis, wolves among sheep in Brockton Bay.

The hero fighting them didn't exactly fare well. Her surprise attack saw her kicking the shit out of that bulky man, but the woman with the cage for a face had the reflexes of a D-Code. She evaded blows that Alex didn't even see coming and dealt out hits just as well.

Then, tiger-face guy turned around, scanned the rooftops and straight up met Alex's gaze.

How did he-?

Ah. Fucking superpowers.

Alex leapt from the roof and landed a couple of meters behind the other van. By that point, the PRT troopers inside had managed to vacate their own vehicle, but that only got Hookwolf's attention. He casually strode out of the wrecked van, now in a more human form.

He was a big, well-muscled man, as tall and wide as Alex' armoured form had been. He was covered in blood and tattoos and his hair was long and thinning. His face was covered with a metal mask. He rushed the PRT troopers, moving faster than a man had any right to. As he moved, metal seemed to grow out of his skin, forming a macabre maze of spikes, hooks and blades. He brought one arm back – his hand now dissolved into a mass of hooks and serrated teeth – and uttered a low, throaty bellow.

That was when Alex stepped in the way and caught Hookwolf in the neck with a clothesline. The villain slammed into the ground with enough force to crack the pavement.

"Back off," Alex told the PRT men, who seemed just as likely to shoot him as the villains.

All of a sudden, the woman with the skintight uniform stood next to him. Alex noticed how the circuit-like lines on her uniform now glowed a bright, electric blue.

"Hey! You got powers?" She shouted.

Alex guessed she was one of the good guys. "I'll handle him," he growled back.

Before the woman could respond, the other guy leapt atop the wrecked van. What happened next could best be described as some sort of explosion, one that knocked the costumed woman on her ass.

The asshole atop the van formed some sort of shimmering claw around his raised hand and turned to look at Alex. "Thought I smelled something weird."

With a snarl, Hookwolf leapt back to his feet. Rage contoured his visage as he ran his eyes across Alex' body. "You just made your last mistake, motherfucker!"

"Watch out!" The hero yelled as that other girl got into close quarters again. "Hookwolf means business!"

What the hell? She could barely hold her own against these superpowered flunkies and she still thought it necessary to warn him?

Hookwolf snarled and lashed out at Alex, whipping his oversized claw around in a clear attempt to slice him in half diagonally.

A trick, ironically enough, Alex had used himself many times before. He quickly sidestepped the blow, then flinched when a spear erupted from Hookwolf's flank to spear him in his gut. He quickly twisted around and caught the spear between his elbow and his knee, shattering it into pieces.

Now, he was faced with a bit of a dilemma. Even in a world with superpowers, his specific set of "abilities" made him one of a kind. Blackwatch would zero in his description in a matter of minutes. Until he knew what happened in New York the past three years, he didn't want to risk that.

No shapeshifting, then.

Before Hookwolf could Swiss-army-knife any further, Alex landed a solid jab on his face. Not enough to pulp his brain, but definitely enough to put an armoured soldier into a coma.

Hookwolf staggered backwards, his hands reaching up for his face. He growled, even as more blades and hooks erupted from his forearms.

"The fuck-?" Alex muttered. More violence, then. He didn't allow the villain to recover. He sprinted at Hookwolf, slamming into his sternum and tackling him into a building. They crashed through the wall and slammed into the ground together, with Hookwolf punching and slashing at him with his forearms.

Alex, unable to fully encase himself in armour, opted to simply strengthen his biomass instead. Dense enough to block bullets and protect against the blades of the Walkers. He blocked a wild hook, grabbed the offending limb with one hand and took a handful of Hookwolf's tattered shirt with the other. Then, he began redecorating. He slammed Hookwolf through the window, dragging him through the broken frame and into the side of the wall. Then through the wall. The martial artists and military close quarters experts in his mind told him exactly where to lay down the pain without killing him.

The man's shirt and sin hung in tatters from his body, but beneath the skin, there was no blood or muscle structure. There were only bands of metal and coiled up blades. Knives and hooks in the general shape of biological tissues.

Alex made a mental note to put Hookwolf into Hunter-level durability. As the man's body unhinged further, revealing more blades and hooks than before, Alex flung him to the ground. He straddled the man, delivering a series of one-two punches with increasing cadence, holding back just short of obliterating his skull.

After the first two combos, Hookwolf went limp.

Alex made a mental note to remove Hookwolf from Hunter-level durability.

Looking outside, he saw that the woman had reinforcements. It was a man with red body armour and a visor covering the upper half of his face. The man flung himself backwards, bouncing off of the fallen PRT van with a speed that simply belied physics. He slammed into the tiger-masked man and sent him crashing into the ground a good six or so meters away.

Alex scoffed, then turned back to scoop up Hookwolf's unconscious body. Before tiger-mask could climb back to his feet, his boss' metal body slammed into him from down the street,

Neither of them got up again.

"Holy crap, you just beat an asshole with another asshole," the red-clad man said upon seeing Alex approach. "That was cool. Haven't seen anyone take down Hookwolf like that before. Are you a Brute? Striker?"

"Assault, calm down," the woman replied, joining "Assault". "You barely know the man." Then, she turned towards Alex. "Thanks for your assistance. This could have gone ugly without your help. What's your name?"

Her voice had a pleasant tone to it. A genuine curiosity that Alex wasn't sure how to respond to. He couldn't remember the last time anyone talked normally to him. Except for Ragland or Dana. The former was dead, while the latter…

Fuck, he had no idea how to handle this.

"Uh, yeah, I was just passing by," Alex mumbled. He couldn't help but notice that the third one, the girl, wasn't here. "Where's the last one? Girl with the scars?"

"Cricket?" Assault asked. "I think she ran away while we dealt with Stormtiger. Until you dealt with Stormtiger, of course."

"Don't worry," the woman chimed in. "We'll get her too."

Assault. Cricket. Stormtiger. All these…these second identities began to make sense. If you had helped put some Nazi fuck behind bars, you didn't want all their little Nazi friends to pay your family a visit. Was that why the heroes didn't kill the villains? To prevent lethal retribution?

Next, Assault approached Alex, holding out his hand. "Striker or Brute, doesn't matter. You kicked Hookwolf's ass and that puts you on my good side. Name's Assault. What's yours? Are you a Rogue or something?"

Alex stared at the extended hand, not sure what to do. These guys seemed alright, but he couldn't trust anyone here without first knowing the rules – without knowing what happened in Manhattan.

But he couldn't go around without at least identifying himself to the good guys, at least. He needed a name as well. Something that would keep the heroes off his back while also letting the villains know not to fuck with him.

After the shit that went down in Manhattan, he had something in mind.

"Call me Apex," he told the two heroes. "And I'm not stopping at Hookwolf."

With that, he leapt towards the nearest building and disappeared.

~0~

AN: That was all for chapter three. Don't forget to drop a review or a PM if you liked this chapter. Stay safe out there and be good people!