Author MikeX713

Disclaimer I do not own Saint's Row or Prototype.

Feedback is encouraged and enjoyed as it helps a lot, however if you are going to troll then keep it to yourself.

Alex looked back at the New York skyline as he kept a firm grip on the helicopter's controls. For the first time since waking up in that morgue he felt actual terror, true, unavoidable, undiluted fear. Right below him was a nuclear warhead that was going to detonate any moment. Alex's eyes turned back to the wide open ocean, the only colors he could see were the blue and black of the water and the night sky. The view would have been perfect if the moon wasn't behind him. He knew what he was doing was the right thing, saving the city from the utter and complete destruction of nuclear fire by flying it over the ocean. But in his gut he felt empty. What people said was true, your life does flash before you when you're facing death, and all Alex could feel as he saw it was disappointment. He had spent so much of his life in pursuit of so little, so much work and not much of anything else. Alex looked down at the metal floor, his gaze locked on where the warhead was, all he could feel was contempt for the way he lived. In that very moment he jumped out of the helicopter. The aircraft began to dip down just before the warhead exploded. The blast sent shock waves through the air, launching Alex forward while the following fire scorched and liquified his body.

Alex dropped to the New York city sidewalk in the form of a bloated infected bird. An infected horde quickly appeared at Alex's subconscious call to the hive mind. A single tendril quickly shot from the bird to one of the infected and began consuming it. More tendrils followed, wrapping around the rest of the infected. Only once all their biomass had been consumed was Alex able to reform into his normal state.

"Holy fucking god!" Alex screamed as he stumbled over to a nearby brick wall. "No way am I doing that again!" Alex slid down the wall until he sat on the pavement trying to catch his breath, his hand placed over his where his heart was covered by his white collared shirt. He looked up at the cloudless night sky and thanked whatever higher power was out there that he could see it again.

I need to leave. Blackwatch is going to keep at it until I'm dead or on a lab table. I need to make what just happened into an opportunity, I doubt that Blackwatch will think I survived a god damned nuke. Just so long as they don't see me. Okay, there's a plan. Lay low and find Dana, then eat... a lot... Food would be nice... and beer... anddddddd everything else. I've lived too damn long without enjoying life, and I'm never going to find myself staring down death and not feel that I have experienced everything I could have. But I can't do that here. New York is going to be combed top to bottom for anything infected. I need to leave now.

Alex pushed himself back up, and after cracking various joints began moving again. Alex walked around the corner of the nearby brick apartment building and found a man smoking and talking on his phone. Alex waited in the shadows until he finished his conversation.

"I know I said I'd pay you thirty but you're getting twenty five and you better be damn happy that you're getting that!" The man yelled into the phone before hanging up. He took one last drag from his smoke before Alex tapped on his shoulder. "What the hell you want..." The man didn't get to answer as he was quickly consumed. Alex shifted into the man's form and smirked.

"Twenty five... for that piece of junk, I would have passed all together." Alex thought as the man's final memories came flowing into his mind. Alex looked to the skyline of New York and as much as he wanted to glide through the towering buildings he knew that would drew too much attention. Opting to not to be noticed he walked instead of flying to Dana's safehouse. "Dana!" Alex shouted as he walked through the door before he was quickly embraced by his sister who was in fact crying, something he hadn't seen her do in a long time. He had known her since the day their father brought her home, they both were adopted, him was when he first born, Dana when she was four. He only had seen her like this three times before, and every time it had disturbed him greatly.

"You stupid moron! You could have fucking died!" Dana yelled at him after pulling back from her hug. "Did you even think about what would happen if you died?!" Dana said this punching Alex's face sending him to the floor.

"Damn it!" Alex said holding his face. "I still feel pain you know!"

"Shut up..." Dana said calming down. "You just had me worried is all."

"If I didn't do what I did then you and everyone on this island would be nuked and dead."

"I know… it's just I don't know what I would have done if you had died."

"Oh I'm sure dad would have come and saved you." Alex said as he walked past Dana. "Like he always did." Alex grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down on the apartment's couch.

"Shut up, he didn't always save me."

"Yeah because of those times when I did." Alex cut the top of the bottle cleanly off with one of the talons on his claws. "Remember the time that guy Jeff was getting a little too close." Alex said with a raised eyebrow before taking a sip.

"I remember you beating the shit out of him."

"Imagine what I could do now." Alex said quietly to himself.

"Enough memories, where are we going now?"

"Blackwatch must think I'm dust, and I almost was. So we need to take this as an opportunity to run and hide until they completely give up. As I was walking over here, I was thinking that we need to hide out on another island, last place Blackwatch would look. But more importantly… the place needs to be shitty, and I mean shitty." Alex took another sip. He honestly didn't like the idea of living the way he was describing, but it couldn't be helped, Blackwatch was paranoid, and extremely thorough. He needed to lay low for years, and even then he needed to be careful.

"Why? With what you can do we can live in penthouses and mansions… oh, that's what they would look for."

"Right, as for the doctor… we'll get him out of New York and if he wants to come then he's welcome, but after we get off this island he's free to do as he pleases."

"Well first we need a way off the island."

"Oh I'm already working on that." Alex said as he shook the empty bottle in Dana's face as if to say get me another.

"You can't even get drunk, why the hell are you still drinking?" Dana was more or less saying this because at the rate Alex was going there wouldn't be any left for her.

"I can still taste, and almost dying gives you a new love of all the little things in life." Alex said as he shook the bottle again. Dana groaned as she got him another beer for Alex.

"So what's this plan you have?"

"It's not so much a plan but a last ditch attempt at freedom. I'm now in complete control of the Infected hive mind, I've been ordering the zombies to go underground in the subway system and wait for my command to pour out and stampede toward the only bridge out of here. At the same time the Hunters will attack all the bases on the island and while all the shit hits the fan we'll hijack a helicopter to get the fuck out of here. They'll so busy with everything that they won't noticed us."

"This sounds like a really big gamble, they could just detect a single helicopter and then the secret would be out, they would know you're alive."

"Nope, all that equipment would be on this island, and we're heading in the direction of the mainland Blackwatch base. The two of you will jump out while I crash the helicopter so they think that it was one of theirs that just crashed."

"That could work… how soon until everything will be ready?"

"A few hours, I would like to do this as soon as possible, the longer I keep the hordes back the more it gives Blackwatch time to figure out that something is wrong."

"Right I'll pack up everything we'll need for sure." Dana had a long list of things she would need, but an even longer one for the things she would need to do to keep Blackwatch off her tracks. Her entire apartment needed to be torched and her presence on the net scrubbed. These would be the first of many.

"Remember that you can't use your own name anymore. IDs and credit cards are a big fuck no."

"I'm not stupid Alex, so where are we going to go after we reach the mainland?"

"First off we'll head north, Canada then back down through the west coast. But as to where we'll hide out for the next few years… Los Angeles could work actually, the massive population would work in our favor. But do you know anywhere better?"

"Well you said that an island would be best, but it's not on the west coast."

"You have an idea?"

"Yeah, I have a… well he's not a friend, more of a connection, but during a spring break I met him and we stayed in touch because he got me some of the best weed ever."

"You can count me and my newfound love of life interested."

"Okay… the weed wasn't the point I was going to be making. He lives on an island city in Michigan… it's called Stilwater."

"Stilwater… I think I heard of that place…" Alex ran through the memories of all the people he had consumed, some had been to Stilwater and what he saw of their memories he liked. Not only was Stilwater the shittiest of the shitty that he could wish for, but it was also full of everything he would need to experience the life he wanted to live now. "I agree, Stilwater would make a perfect place to hide out."

"I don't know if Ragland would like idea of living in a place like Stilwater."

"I never said he had to, he seems interested in researching the virus that makes up my body. He might fellow us to learn more about Blacklight, but whatever he decides I'm good with." Alex finished off his beer and threw it out the open window. He smiled at the sound of someone yelling out in anger at being hit through the window. Things are getting exciting, and once we get off this rock I can do whatever the fuck I want.

Ragland looked through his microscope at one of few slides of Alex's blood. It was like a living work of art, each and every cell of the Blacklight virus was masterpiece. Ragland could only marvel at what he saw through his eyepiece. So much of his attention was towards the slide of Alex's blood that he didn't notice the man himself come into the room.

"Hey doc… you doing okay?" Alex said he walked over to Ragland. The moment Alex touched Ragland's shoulder Ragland came back from his marveling.

"Oh… Alex? When did you arrive?"

"Just now, we have a plan to get the hell off of this island."

"Is that so? That certainly is good news, how is it going to happen?" Ragland was surprised at this. Not because Alex had a plan but more or less that it came so soon. Alex had just saved the island from a nuke and now he was getting ready to take on the incredible task of escaping a Blackwatch quarantine.

"Going to flood the bridge and bases then hijack a helicopter and once we're over land we'll crash the copter with two corpses inside so they think whoever took it died on impact."

"Very thorough, I would expect nothing less." Ragland said, a bit more worried than excited at the prospect of leaving the island. "And after we reach the mainland?"

"Me and Dana are heading north to Stilwater, it's perfect, so shitty that Blackwatch wouldn't ever think to look there. Not only that, but's another island so I really doubt Blackwatch would think that I would willingly live there. But hopefully all this will be unnecessary if Blackwatch thinks I died in that nuke blast."

"They don't know you survived?"

"No, there's no reason to, and so far I haven't given them any more." Alex sat down in one of the hospital chairs and kicked his feet back onto one of the desks.

"What about me? What do I do once we get the mainland?"

"You're welcome to come with us, you just can't be you. That means you'll most likely end up being a back alley doctor unless you're willing to make a career change." Alex carefully watched the doctor's reaction. He'd come to know the man quite well, he didn't fully consider him a true friend but a great ally nonetheless.

"No… I wouldn't be able to remain in the public any more than you would, I'm sure Blackwatch already knows about me and has standing orders to kill-on-sight. Going underground with you is the safest course of action." This is what he told Alex but in truth he couldn't let something as beautiful as what was happening in the man's body leave his own sight. He was rather disgusted with the prospect of becoming a doctor to the criminal underworld, but he knew it was something he would have to get used to. "How long until you will enact your plan?"

"In about… under an hour." Ragland responded with a look of complete horror. He couldn't get ready in that time, he had samples to collect, equipment to ready, he had lived in New York for all his life! He needed a little more time for closure.

"Not… not even an hour? I can't prepare in that time!"

"Nothing to prepare." Alex stood back up and threw a duffle bag towards the doctor. "That's the only bag you get, any more would draw too much attention." Alex turned back to the door. "Meet Dana and I by the northwest base." Alex changed shape then walked out of the hideout. Ragland was without words; he couldn't begin to find any that could describe the sheer amount of fear building up in his mind. When he first heard Alex's plan he thought it would need some time before he would have the numbers to such a thing. But to perform a assault of the magnitude he implied would take massive amounts of infected to so. He knew there wasn't a shortage of infected among the hordes outside, but to be able to control them all? Ragland looked back at the few slides of Alex's blood and a wave of reassurance came over him, realizing that so long as he had access to Blacklight he would never stop seeing such wonderful sights. His would always be the greatest trump card in the history of humanity.

Alex stood atop one of the apartment buildings near the only way off the island by foot. This bridge had been turned into an impenetrable fortress by Blackwatch and Alex knew without a doubt that Blackwatch would have preferred to have blown the thing up like the others but there were still people on the island and they needed a lifeline to the outside world if they were to remain calm.

These fucking sadists would rather nuke a whole population just to kill me, I bet it took a bunch of yelling and threats to make them keep even this connection to the outside. I can only imagine what they would do if this happened on the mainland, they most likely just nuke the place out of the gate, hard to quarantine infected when not trapped by water.

Alex smiled as he watched the beginnings of Blackwatch leaving the island, he knew they would never truly leave for years to come but now that they thought he was dead there was less of a need to be here. Now they just had to clean up the last few remaining Hives and hordes of infected… but lucky for them Alex was going to help them with that. Ever since the idea came into his head he had been ordering the infected to move down into the subway system, what was left of it, and claw their way to the nearest opening to the bridge. He also had all the Hunters he could control move near the military base. He was now going over the final check through, Dana and Ragland were now waiting just outside the northwest base, the only base he planned on leaving alone just in case one of the Hunters went out of control and attacked Dana and Ragland. This went into his plan perfectly anyways, resources from the northwest base would be taken to the others. Blackwatch wasn't smart enough to see through it all. Alex sent a quick and simple message through the hive mind and watched the infected pour out of the subway in the thousands. The sight of a wall of infected flesh caught the Blackwatch guards completely off guard. They could never in a million years think that the infected could do something this remotely coordinated. The infected simply climbed over the Blackwatch encampments, tearing and ripping flesh and armor as they went. Alex smiled as he watched his horde, knowing that if he ever wanted to he could make another, albeit that would bring back the dogs of the government. Alex turned as the infected began climbing a Blackwatch tank, from the hive mind he could tell that the base attacks were going equally well. The only way for this to go bad is if Blackwatch somehow found out that he was alive.

Alex watched the horde move across the first line of Blackwatch encampments, pouring over it in a human wave style attack. But they were stopped at the second line, the gun turrets and incoming tanks caused the horde to fall back a bit. Alex frowned at this, and the infected could feel the radiating bloodlust coming from Alex. They all were mindless monsters incapable of feeling anything but what the Hive Mind willed. But they all could feel the their Alpha, their leader through the Hive Mind. And they all instinctively knew never to turn back when they were being watched by their Alpha. The infected horde all roared and screeched and once again began their second advance on the Blackwatch defenses. Alex once again grinned at the sight and felt that he could leave it to the horde, knowing he could control the situation from afar.

Alex climbed down the building and began walking to the meeting spot that he and Dana had agreed on. As he walked he felt a bit disappointed in how he was leaving New York, but then he passed by a used electronics shop which was playing old Godzilla movies in the front window. Alex stopped and watched the old movies as a new plan formed in his head.

Dana watched Ragland pace in front of her, they were sitting on a bench nearby the northwest base waiting for Alex. They had watched the soldiers from the base leave a few moments ago to reinforce the other bases and most importantly the only way off the island by foot.

"He should be here by now." Ragland said as he paced in front of Dana.

"He has to be careful, he can't be flying through the city."

"I know that… it just makes me worry."

"Alex is walking death; he is now the one of the few people in this world that you can never worry about."

"I know all that!" Ragland took a breath after receiving a glare from Dana. "Just that the loss of him means death for us." Ragland looked back at the duffle bag that held the few items that he needed, most important among them the slides of Alex's blood. Dana just sat waiting, if there was two things she could be sure of one was that her dad would never stop using massive amounts of profanity and the other was that Alex would always take time to try to scare Dana. Dana could feel it, Alex was nearby and waiting for the best time to jump out and try and unnerve her. At that, the ground began to shake. Dana looked behind her and saw a massive infected monster walking into sight from behind the cover of a skyscraper. It walked on three bloated legs that had several smaller appendages of various kinds, its body holding itself together with tight muscle and sporting a few misplaced eyes here and there. Its five arms all helped it move forward, its three fisted arms helped give it balance and its two clawed arms held firm on to nearby buildings. its sunken head roared as it moved forward in a fairly awkward way. The monster began lumbering towards the nearby base while Alex walked casually towards the two.

"Look at what I made!" Alex said completely proud over his creation.

"Alex! What the hell did you do?!" Dana said grabbing her bag, anticipating a soon to be mad dash to the helicopter.

"I had a bunch of infected and hunters consume each other and that's what came out of the mess… I named it George." Alex said only half joking.

"Well George might destroy our way out of here." Dana said not happy with new development.

"Oh don't worry about that, it's really dependent on the hive mind more than others. So I can control it like a robot almost."

"In any case, we now have a much better chance of escaping now that their attention is focused on the creature." Ragland said trying to get the two back on track.

"Yeah, now let's get going." The two followed Alex as he changed into a Blackwatch officer he had consumed on the way over. The three easily made their way into the base, all of them with some form of disguise to keep the cameras from catching their faces. Alex had already procured three dead bodies before he arrived and had placed them near enough to be gotten easily. Soon, the bodies were placed in a helicopter and the three quickly piloted the vehicle off the base. Blackwatch was so focused on the situation at hand that no noticed the helicopter flying away, all the guards were looking at the three -story-sized infected and the men in the control room of the base were focused on coordinating a counterattack on the infected horde as a whole. Alex celebrated to himself as he piloted the helicopter towards the mainland while Dana just watched for any sign of Blackwatch noticing them and Ragland just waited enclosed in his thoughts. Alex quickly moved the helicopter as close to the surface of the water as he could to avoid setting off any radar, and after a while they had reached the mainland and soon after Dana and Ragland made their jump down to the ground before Alex crashed the aircraft without any concern for his own safety. The Viral reached out of the wreckage and climbed out with very little effort, and after dusting himself off he made his way back to his sister and the doctor. "Well that went perfectly."

"They might not have noticed us leaving but they will notice the crash." Ragland said, knowing they still weren't safe.

"Oh don't you worry your pretty little bald head; the hard part is over." Alex said as he pulled out a map of Stilwater. "Where should we make our base? I think we should settle in the northern area, looks suburban, could be nice?"

"No Alex, the point is to hide, people there would ask too many questions and you're the only one who could take over someone. I think we should go to the city, get an apartment, it would be easy to come up with a story and procure money."

"No the city is too populated and there are cameras."

"What about here?" Ragland pointed to the area marked as Saint's Row. "A poorer area and filled with people who won't ask too many questions."

"Huh… I guess that could work." Alex said not completely sure.

Author's Notes

Update, okay... I did some work and now it's a bit longer. I'm 99% sure that I got all the grammar.