Prototype: New World, Still Hunting

When Alex woke up he felt a large pain in his head, the pain that comes from gaining new memories from his prey. Pushing the pain aside, opting to look through the memories later, he noticed two voices around him.

"So do we know exactly what this is?" A voice to his right asked.

"Well, its ability to change its shape suggests that it is a distant relative of the changelings, but changelings change shape magically." A voice to his left answered.

What the hell are changelings?

"They changed shape physically, perfectly mimicking the pony it is posing as, even on the inside. Making it invisible to detection spells." The voice continued.

And since when does magic exist?

"You know, this looks sort of like a human, like from that show." The voice on his right noted.

"You really watch that show? What’s so great about it?" The voice to his left asked.

"We can talk about all that after the dissection." The voice to his right stated.

They talk like they’renot human, time to find out why.

Alex sat up quickly from the table and opened his eyes, the sight that greeted him was not what he was expecting. The two voices where horses in Hazmat suits. They also had horns pointing from their heads which the suits also protected.

What? Did the nuke give me hallucinations?

Either I was unconscious a lot longer than I thought, or his is some blackwatch attempt to confuse me.

Deciding that he has no reason to continue wondering, Alex reached out with his hand and grabbed the horse to his left while the one to his right ran.

As he observed the horse struggling in his hand, he noticed something was trying to pry his hand off the horse. He saw a blue like glow surrounding his hand and the same glow surrounding the horn of the unicorn.

That explains the 'magic' they were talking about, but that still does not explain why these horses are sapient.

He looked to his right and noticed the other one ran off, and an alarm had sounded.

Alex got off the table, nearly collapsing as soon as he met the ground. He was weak, he needed to consume biomass. Alex looked at the horse in his hand who was still struggling in his grip.

Good thing I grabbed you.

He diverted biomass from his clothes to a tendril coming out of his side, which then imbedded itself in the chest of the horse. Alex then gripped his head in pain as new memories came into his mind while the horse he was once holding screamed in pain.

______________________________________________________________________________

“Doctor, what are we looking at.” Princess Celestia said from behind me.

“The future.” I said to her.

“As amazing as it sounds, the creature that has been rampaging through the world is capable of manipulating the cells in his body to be anything he wants it to be. So if it was not in a rampage, it would be able to blend in with our populations, make weapons with it’s hooves, and even take the form of others.” I explained.

“Biological tissue manipulated and transformed, on the fly.” I said with wonder.

“I need it on a slab I need to know what makes it tick.” I said.

“If I figure that out, we could cure diseases and disorders in ways we never thought possible, we could change what it means to be a pony.” I said.

“Before you can study it doctor, we want to capture it and see if we can bring out it's consciousness. If all else fails, we are going to kill it.” Celestia said from behind me.

“Of course, Princess.” I said.

______________________________________________________________________________

As the memory ended, Alex thought about what he saw.

I assume this ‘Princess Celestia’ knows about how I got here or how long it has been.

Suddenly Alex was struck from behind, he could feel the pain of bullets passing through him as the horse returned with security.

Ponies. He reminded himself. They are ponies.

He used his thermal vision to scan the room. And he noticed 13 ponies standing in the room watching the table he was hiding behind. Alex went back to regular vision and regenerated from the bullet wounds.

I need to be careful. A few more shots like that and I’ll be finished.

He then heard one of the ponies walking up to the table behind him. He got a hand ready to pull the pony to Alex's side of the table. As the head and gun of the equine poked into his field of vision, his hand shot up and grabbed the neck of the pony and pulled him down as he let go of his gun.

Alex then quickly consumed him as a tendril imbedded itself in the pony while blood gushing out of the wound. Alex pushed aside the new memories as the ponies once again opened fire on the table he was hiding behind.

Alex grabbed the gun of the pony he consumed and fired back at them. The sound of bullets hitting flesh and screams of agony sounded as his bullets hit their targets.

As the gun clicked empty, Alex turned on his thermal vision to see who was left.

There were three left, two soldiers and the scientist looking on the ground for something, probably for one of the guns.

Alex then shot up from the table shooting the two soldiers in the head before throwing the gun at the scientist, knocking him over. Alex ran to the downed doctor and raised his foot as small tendrils formed underneath it.

Alex brought his foot down on the scientist's head, crushing it as he was consumed. Alex shoved off the new memories as he figured out his objectives.

Priority 1: Get out of the facility

Priority 2: Regain strength in Everfree Forest

Priority 3: Asses the situation of Humanity and if needed, get a pony disguise.

The memories of the scientist told him that the Everfree Forest was not natural for pony standards, so he could hide there. There were also a lot of animals there so he could feed and gain strength. He knew some limitations the ponies had, but did not want to test himself in the condition he was in.

Alex started making his way up the facility killing and consuming security along the way, Alex thought that the entire building was underground so he went kept going up until he could not go up any further. This led him to the roof.

The building, twenty stories high, had a large military guarded wall around it with a gate. And pony military forces here pouring in from it. They had everything, tanks, APC's, attack helicopters and transport helicopters dropping in reinforcements.

Even with the increased biomass, Alex could not face a force that size, not now.

Alex thought about what he could use to take down that force with minimal risk, because he was not getting out until it was gone.

Alex then thought about the knowledge he had gained when he consumed Greene. He learned everything, how to create and spread a hive, how to control and take care of the hive mind and it's many hunters, and most importantly, how to adapt without consuming.

Basically, if he knew how certain biology could work, such as the magic the unicorns wield, without ever consuming one, he could make it his own without ever eating them.

Looking at the center of the small army, he had an idea. If he could unleash a weakened version of his devastator, that could destroy most of the force. He decided that instead of impale them; he could use the tendrils to bring everything closer to the center in a black hole effect.

Willing his arm to transform into a tendril, he pitched his arm back as if he was throwing a baseball, he then threw his continuously extending tendril at the center of the group. When it hit the center, the tendril penetrated the armor of the tank that was hit. The tendril stabbed the ponies inside and then more tendrils came out of their bodies, shredding the tank's armor and attaching itself to every other nearby object, pulling them in.

For them, it was chaos. Tanks crushing each other as they try to get closer, helicopters pulled from the sky’s, soldiers being pulled by something on their body as their screams died and everything exploded when fuel tanks were ruptured.

Alex smiled, the force was destroyed and there were no military bases in the area apart from the one he just destroyed, so he had free reign over the area to regain his strength. He jumped off the building towards the confused survivors.

Alex landed, forming a crater, he then took off towards the Everfree Forest before they had a chance to fire.

Time to let the forest know that I am the new apex predator.