It's in my genes
Final warning, Prototype story spoilers.
Alex struggled to survive, the waves ebbing back and forth, drifting his cells tantalizingly closer before ripping them apart once more as they struggled to reconnect with one another. A swarm of pieces, desperately trying to reform a devastating whole. And failing.
After all he had been through, he would fail here. Poetic justice, or something like that. After dooming New York, and almost the world, by releasing the blacklight virus, he soared around the city, putting together pieces of a puzzle, hunting, killing, consuming, trying to find answers, to remember the man he once was, or at least become a damn good replica.
Through his entire journey, Penn Station, Greene, trying to find a cure for the infection, battling Blackwatch, the supreme hunter, and stopping the nuclear warhead, he would repay the city he ruined by averting it's destruction. Was this the price he paid? Was he truly the hero or just a liability? What of Dana? Karen's betrayal....All this and more ran through the scattered remains of his consciousness, as his body finally submitted to the time it had spent apart, allowing the tide to pick him apart one last time.
Humanity's greatest achievement, and also it's biggest downfall, went out with a resounding bang.
And then he opened his eyes.
The sun beat his eyes into submission as he shut them again, his entire body felt comforting warmth, odd, considering the ocean he was just drifting in was neither warm nor comfortable. He opened his eyes once more, using his fore-arm to shield them, but immediately closed them again, he needed more time to adjust, head still pounding and body still numb from a near death experience....or perhaps it was more than near?...Perhaps this was a post death experience?...This didn't seem too bad, maybe he had done some good....That was increasingly difficult to wrap his head around, no matter which way he flipped it, he was no hero, a great weight on humanity, at best.
Mercer readied himself, placing a fore-arm over his eyes once more, slowly opening them t-......to a...completely white...arm...?...He flipped onto his stomach, staring at the ground, fear now inspiring him to ignore his migraine, what he saw only put more fear in his mind...bright green grass....He wasn't just out of the ocean, he was out of New York, or was he further than that? Nothing he had ever seen was this lush, the grass was impossibly vibrant, cartoonish, even.
Just what was happening, was the virus still intact enough to place him in a state of self imposed purgatory? Did Gentek find his remains and this was the result of their resurrection experiments? He planted his hands to pick himself up when he realized things were a little more off than usual.
Hooves.
He staggered backwards and fell over, the sun's light surging at his eyes being cancelled out completely by the adrenaline, he lay on his back, surveying his body.
"I'm a god damn horse!"
He was a god damn pony.
He was a black pony, to be precise, he reached up to pull down his hair....erm....mane...? Before being once again staggered by the fact he had just grabbed something with no digits to work with. Ignoring that, and the impending mental breakdown, barely, and making a quick note to possibly give himself some digits by utilizing the virus to avoid such awkwardness later on, he pulled his hair down.
Brown. The same as his hair. That, along with his black...coat....he seemed to be a pony mirror of his self. He processed this for a brief minute, going through all the scenarios in his head, none of them made sense, no use applying logic. He gathered himself fairly quickly, being somewhat used to odd occurrences now, given, this achieved the herculean feat of being weirder than gaining superhuman powers, but still, one develops an immunity.
He gave his body another look over, black, brown tail too, nothing he didn't already know...but there was something on his....leg...the back of his leg....his...flank...it was a marking of some kind. A red octagon, with an image inside, an image that resembled his blade, a weapon he often utilized in his...past life....
He gave some thought, looking at his arm, wondering i he could still utilize such an ability. Glancing around the immediate area, he found himself alone, in a clearing in what appeared to be a much larger, thriving, beautiful forest, expect for the animals surrounding him in the treeline. Nobody to see it, good...He concentrated, channeling the virus to his arm, as it twisted, being taken by the tentacles, reforming into the same sharp, deadly blade he had become accustomed to, that had become accustomed to taking lives as the surrounding wildlife wisely fled.
"What's wrong? Are you all okay?" A soft voice came from nearby as he shifted his blade back to it's "regular" form, weary of whom he allowed to observe his abilities. He felt winded, his arm throbbing with pain as he felt his body cry in agony, whatever was happening, the virus had been weakened, and the second he utilized it to such an extent, the virus let him know. Collapsing to the ground in a heap, he clutched his arm as the voice cried out to him.
"Oh my, are you okay?" It worriedly said, accompanied by the pitter patter of hooves hurrying over to him, he looked up, his mind once more nearly snapping at what he saw.
A yellow pony....with wings...and pink hair....Did those wings even serve a purpose? They could not carry the weight of the pony's body, could they?
The impossible pony bent down, reaching into it's bag to bandage up his arm, not knowing the pain was not exterior.
He tried to utter some words, coughing as he failed. "Now now, no talking until I'm done! Conserve your energy." The kind creature ordered him.
This was no good....he needed to know more, he couldn't lie helpless whilst some...thing...with unknown intentions bandaged up his arm, he needed to regain his power, he needed knowledge, he needed to obey a primal urge....he needed....
To consume.