@lobiita (fuck u btw)
death isn't always simple. not always a single bullet, lucky knife to the chest, or even a clean hit to the head. sometimes it was ugly, and oh how this one was. she'd been left for him to find, body most likely cold by time he arrived. a warning some might call it. a suicide request to others. to go after the virus's ' lover ' ( a title some truly couldn't understand because how could something not even human find love ) was a sure fire way to meet death in a matter of days- if they were lucky to last that long.
she's left in a pool of blood. body was... in poor state- most bones visibly broken, crushed and protruding from body. face was bruised, the blood dried, yet in a way that appeared to be tear like in the way it had fallen down her cheeks. the jacket she'd normally have worn- the one alex had given her- was no where to be found. usually that would have protected her. why? because alex was always keeping her safe even when he wasn't there. such a shame she'd chosen today of all days not to wear it; that or she'd forgotten it in her rush to leave home that day.
in hand was a crumpled picture, one she'd forced him to take years back. around the time things finally became real for them. after the uphill struggle their entire relationship had been during the first year or two. image was of her thrown over his shoulders, arms wrapped tightly 'round. a large smile, sparkling eyes- bliss to say the least, written across face. he, of course being alex, looked bored. however, body language spoke enough for her to know he'd been content with the picture and pose. no longer was it pristine, the only blemish a ripped edge after getting caught one day. now, it was coated in blood, dirt, and perhaps dried tears.
loni was dead, truly. left to rot and for alex to find.
for the first time in weeks, alex stood entirely still.
it wasn’t that he needed rest; he had trekked mountains, cleared floor after bloody floor of skyscrapers, jumped into canyons because it was fun, but this? a crowded scene, police sirens & yellow tape, detectives hunched over & collecting samples; an overturned bike, blacks & smooth silvers scratched & splintered throughout the street, dented license plates flashing familiar digits, chillingly familiar. if the model & color weren’t to arise dread, the license would, & even the densest moron on the planet couldn’t deny the strands of hair & blood scattered throughout the sidewalk.
this was an abduction.
the sight chilled him to his core, internal mass writhing & coiling into itself, his arms bulging with the need to explode out & hit something; he wanted to yell at someone, but wearing the skin of captain leland matthews had granted him unrestricted access to the scene, & he couldn’t afford to let anyone know he was in town or risk loni’s abductors pulling something rash. captain leland would not snap under pressure, captain leland would not turn around & pulverize the mass of onlookers whispering & talking & flooding his head with nonsense while he needed to think, to act!
he just needed to think. panic would do him no good, & the viral abomination had appearances to keep. for now, he had to force his arms to steady, to embrace the cold brewing inside & to keep up appearances while he still had them. he needed to study the scene, & turn his claws on whoever was responsible. in time.
there was no fight, no bodies, no pools of foreign blood littering the scene. she hadn’t a chance to fight back, hadn’t dropped legions of her enemies before being dragged away, kicking & screaming. whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing, & hit her hard & fast. she didn’t have many rivals with that sort of firepower, much less the restraint to avoid putting on a show. mob bosses & supernatural criminals were an egotistical sort, they liked to send flashy messages. even loni didn’t have half a mind to restrain herself when she had a point to prove: the bigger she rose, the bigger the ego, try as she may to hide it.
she must’ve sent the wrong message to the wrong crew. they had to have hired someone strong or persistent, someone clean; scene aside, it couldn’t be traced conventionally. it looked like she’d been hit by a bus, yet the only trail present in the mess was vague, microscopic. blood droplets & sweat which could only be picked up by his extra senses, & a scent which was quickly being masked by the spread of onlookers clouding the area with their aromas. his eyes glanced upwards, hoping there was a cctv camera around: nothing, all destroyed by... something. something small, something odd, something which had residue on the rooftops.
interesting.
captain matthews had to excuse himself; slipping away through the crowd, pushing through the cameras & questions with more force than necessary, ignoring the cries of offense & pain all the while he made for the alleys, following that very trail to the top of the nearby buildings. what he found at the top was chilling: two craters, spaced evenly apart, as though something heavy & large landed there. either loni were abducted by a multi-ton rottingtaur, or something interesting was in manhattan.
dropping his disguise, he leapt between the rooftops until he could find a matching set, & lept around again until he found another. it took about ten minutes to find the trail: craters marking northeast, distanced several blocks each. it would’ve been difficult for anything he were aware of to make those jumps without wings, which would have mitigated the damage to the rooftops if present. anything barring himself, of course.
yet... no, that was impossible. alarming. thoughts he couldn’t help but consider. blackwatch was gone, the virus only existed in himself, any traces of it were destroyed. he’d know if redlight or blacklight produced something in his city, the hive mind would alert him to it! something else had to be happening, some demon or bullshit ritual: something in this stupid supernatural world had to be behind this, & he was going to rip it to pieces when he found it!
so he ran, he lept, he slammed into buildings & shook their foundations with each dash, rocketing through the air like a living cannonball spurred with the intent of an arrow. the air cracked & shifted as he passed through it, the city becoming a nondescript haze beside him as he soared, his hawk-like gaze fixated on the next building, the next piece in this fucked up puzzle until, nothing.
the trail reached a dead end. a warehouse�� in the lower east side. a thermal scan showed nothing, no heat, no machines, no guards. not even a live captive, but... something was wrong. he could see something in the window, right in the center of the warehouse; everything cleared save for that speck in the darkness. eyes narrowed at it, a familiar splotch of color as a ray of moonlight bounced off a billboard. it looked like a body. this had to be a trap, but alex couldn’t waste any more time.
leaping in through the skylights, showering glass all over the concrete floor, alex made his entrance; claws ready & eyes sharp. yet there was nothing here, just himself, a bloody floor & a crumpled mess of a corpse: a woman, nearly flattened, with bones splintering out of her limbs, chest dented into itself, laying in a crater filled with drying blood.
alex took a step forward, mouth agape.
her eyes, those usually warm, oaken eyes were glassed over & empty, only the light of the moon present in them. she could usually brighten the room with those eyes, warm even the densest viral monstrosity to his core with a glance, though he rarely showed it. why had he never showed her?
alex took another step forward, trembling.
her hair, usually long & flowing, looked like it was ripped off her scalp & left in shreds: what little remained on her head was thrown around her body in a rage. he noticed some of it was spread around the room, & her scent flooded his senses as a result. he could smell only her, & blood; her blood, splattered around the room in a gory mess. it intoxicated him in the worst ways, filling the monster with a rage which shook him to his very core.
alex took no more steps. the room moved for him.
trembling, creaking as tendrils from his legs seeped into the foundation & took root: twisted vines of flesh splitting & emerging haphazardly in the concrete around him, his body unable to keep itself contained as a pressure built within itself. his cool eyes disappeared alongside his features as his body became more of a human-shaped coil of tendrils, licking & hissing at the air around him. they spread everywhere, from the steel beams to the catwalks, strangling this warehouse at the foundations: alex’s hate-filled mass going everywhere.
a sound escaped him, hollow & reverberating unnaturally in the air: more grief & pain than anything remotely human. his tendrils thrashed, splintering the concrete & twisting the beams, the building itself groaning & coming apart by the rivet, his agony growing by the moment, moans turning to screams which cracked the glass. the skywalks caved in, light fixtures & glass falling around him. not a shard, not a rock dared touch her body, for his tendrils formed a shell around her, his angel, his hard-headed, stupid angel. not even as the building crashed & collapsed beneath the strain did she take another scratch.
oh, loni.
amid the rubble he stood, body pristine, not a fleck of dust touched it after he reformed himself. his eyes were emptier than usual as they stared at what used to be loni valadian, the image of her fate forever burning itself into his mind, which even now raged with the specters of his sin: judging his failure to protect her, cursing their fates, screaming to just die. even as he grieved his greatest love, he received no respite. for what did a monster deserve, if not agony unending?
mercer ground his fists together, clenching his teeth. it didn’t make any sense, how did this happen? who did this? they were supposed to have time, centuries! how could he let this happen? why didn’t he protect her? he could feel the legion of devoured blackwatch operatives laughing at his plight, the closest thing to a break they’d get in their hells. but his hell had just begun anew.
as did the hell he intended to bring upon whoever did this.
kneeling before her, he tried to scoop loni’s flattened body from the concrete, tendrils digging into the ground to peel her body from it. so much of her was gone, there was practically nothing solid left in her. all these years, all their fighting, their growth, reduced to this: a ruined building & a body hardly resembling a full human. what had she done to deserve this? a life of nightmares ended with a bludgeoning.
as he finally peeled what remained of her from the floor, alex’s eyes caught something. not a note or clue, but something which had suspiciously survived this wreck. eyes narrowed at the paper still clutched in her pulped hand before softening as he caught the photo. he’d nearly dropped her when he saw it.
of course, she’d kept it.
of course.
he’d have to tell ivan about this, & the others. fuck.
glancing at her face one last time, something else caught his attention. a sensation he’d hadn’t felt in years. a nagging buzz in the back of his mind, something which had been silent for years. the hive was active, a buzz in the night, but it was masked, intelligently so. this wasn’t blackwatch, this wasn’t a straggling infected which had been buried in the cement, this was intelligent. not too unlike himself, but too different to call out to. it felt his mind, & panicked, floating away. but it was there. he remembered it.
the parasite.
the supreme hunter.
it was alive, it did this. it killed loni.
tendrils writhed along his back. a growl rising in his throat.
he didn’t know how it had survived, or how it avoided detection for so long, but it was going to regret being made. it was going to regret coming back to life. but first thing’s first, he had a burial to plan.
fuck.
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