Proto-Element of Harmony
By: The Fanfic Stealer
Disclaimer: I own neither MLP nor Prototype.
A/N: This was an idea that just wouldn’t go away, born from skimming over some of the Prototype/MLP crossovers on this site. Expect long waits for updates, as “In a Strange Land” is still my main project.
-Break-
Prologue: Game Over
Pain.
All it could feel was pain. Agonizing pain. The pain of having a piece of the sun burn away a majority of its body.
It couldn’t remember its name, or even what it was. It couldn’t see, smell, taste, or hear. It could barely move. All it could feel was pain… and hunger? Yes, hunger. It needed sustenance. Only with sustenance will the pain go away.
But where to get what it needed? It couldn’t sense anything suitable for miles arou—wait.
There.
Body heat. Blood flow. Carbon-based life form. Approaching. Soon to be in striking distance.
It prepared to shape what was left of itself into tendrils for piercing. The prey closed the distance. Closer. Closer... prey was within range.
Strike.
-Break-
Fluttershy cautiously approached the scene of rampant destruction before her. It was late at night, and she’d been sound asleep when what sounded like a Sonic Rainboom, only several times louder than it had any right to be, had ripped through the quiet.
Her first reaction had been to hide under her bed-- whatever had made that sound had to have been something scary, and she didn’t like scary things! But she then remembered all of her animal friends, and realized whatever it was could have hurt them. That thought steeled her resolve-- she would never be able to live with herself if she found out some of them had died just because she was too scared to go out and help!-- giving her the courage to go out and investigate.
It had not been difficult by any stretch of the imagination to find the direction of the disturbance-- as soon as she was out the door, she could see a column of smoke off in the distance, somewhere in the Everfree Forest, as well as some changes in the tree line, meaning some trees had been knocked over by… whatever it had been. She steeled herself again-- don't back out now! Remember, someone might need help!-- and began the (hopefully) short trek into the woods.
Fifteen minutes later found her in her current location: near the epicenter, about to enter the new clearing the whatever-it-had-been had made. The trip had been uneventful, thankfully-- it seemed all the animals had sensed it coming, and had evacuated the area before the resulting damage could harm any of them-- and all that was left for her to check was the site itself, and, judging by her current progress, she wouldn’t have to do more than a cursorily investigation.
Stepping into the clearing had her re-evaluating her thoughts, though-- the destruction before her was incredible: the earth was blackened and churned up, the trees had been pulled up by their roots and thrown about, and small fires dotted the clearing. Strangely enough, there were also bits of metal scrap littered the clearing, though their nature was unidentifiable due to how twisted and melted they were.
As Fluttershy traveled further into the clearing, she found more and more scorched earth, and less and less... just about anything else, until she found herself walking only on a fine layer of ash, approaching a shallow crater filled with… black goo? It was black and looked fluid, at any rate, and seemed innocuous enough, but something about it set off every flight instinct she had. Since there didn't seem to be any animals around, she didn't feel the need to deny that particular instinct.
She was just about to turn run back to her cottage when the surface of the puddle shifted, revealing a flash of red. She froze; was something in there? Did one of the animals get stuck in… whatever it was? The instinct to get as far away from the clearing as possible suddenly warred against the only instinct that could possibly circumvent it, the instinct that made her venture into the forest in the first place: her need to help others, especially those in her care.
She fretted, trotting in place as her mind was plunged into turmoil: on the one hoof, something about that black puddle scared her more than anything she’d ever encountered, trumping even the fear induced by Nightmare Moon. On the other hoof, whatever was stuck in it needed her help!
It took her a moment to decide, but in the end the choice was an obvious one: her special talent was helping animals, so what kind of pony would she be if she turned away from her calling? Just because she was scared was no reason to deny them her aid. Besides, she recently faced Nightmare Moon! THE Nightmare Moon! A being that had been the stuff of nightmares for generations of ponies, and she’d helped defeat her! How could a bit of mysterious goo compare to THAT?!
Fluttershy slowly inched toward the puddle, keeping her eyes on it in case whatever had moved revealed itsel againf. The puddle didn’t so much as ripple until she was nearly completely over it, gazing into the smooth, glossy surface. There was something… inherently wrong with it, even beyond the feeling of near-indescribable fear it instilled in her, but she couldn’t quite put a hoof on it…
Then the surfaced writhed, and black and red tentacles tipped with razor-sharp spikes shot out at her faster than she could react. And it was in her last moments that Fluttershy realized the truth of the matter:
The goo hadn’t been moving because one of her animal friends had been stuck in it. It was moving because it was a creature in and of itself!
And, unfortunately for her, it was a predator.
The tentacles speared through her even as she drew breath to scream, and she only managed a sickly, bloody gurgle before she was messily torn apart. The peices of her body were then quickly dragged into the the inky, writhing blackness, leaving the clearing barren of all life once more...
-Break-
A/N: Yes, I just killed Fluttershy. U MAD?
Chapter 1: Glitch (Un-betaed)
Proto-Element of Harmony
By: The Fanfic Stealer
Disclaimer: I own neither MLP nor Prototype .
A/N: Figured I might as well update this before working on IASL Chapter 7. I’m sure some of you are curious as to how Mercer will handle his overall situation, and specifically his new body… his butter-yellow, pink-haired, absolutely adorable body.
-Break-
Chapter 1: Glitch
Alex Mercer-- or rather, the sentient virus that took on the identity of Alex Mercer-- groaned as he slowly regained his senses. What the fuck happened? The last thing he remembered was… er… light? Yeah, light. A great, burning light from… er… from… from the nuke! That he’d been trying to get away from Manhattan! Now he remembered! After taking down that Supreme Hunter onboard the Reagan, he’d chained the nuke to a copter and flown it out to the ocean, where he’d dropped it and immediately tried to get the hell out of Dodge. Judging by the fact that his last memory was that of being vaporized, he’d apparently not been fast enough.
But-- and he actually found himself surprised at how utterly true the thought was-- he was fine with it. Elizabeth Greene was dead, the Supreme Hunter was dead, that asshole Randall was dead, Manhattan was saved, and-- most important of all-- Dana would be safe now. Just that last thought was enough to put him at ease with his current situation.
Speaking of which… so this was the afterlife, huh? Funny, he’d expected more fire and brimstone, considering the things he had done, not this… warm darkness… void… place. Sure, he’d saved Manhattan and Dana, and he was fairly certain killing all those Blackwatch fucks was more likely to earn him brownie points than marks against him-- considering Blackwatch mostly recruited their grunts from death row inmates, lifers, and dishonorably discharged soldiers with violent histories, they were a sick bunch, no two ways about it-- but… well, he was Blacklight, a sentient virus that essentially ate sentient beings and stole their experiences. He was also Doc-- err, the legacy of Dr. Alexander Mercer, a psychopath that had willingly taken an entire city down with him in death. He was fairly certain just those last two would be enough to have him Hell-bound, and that wasn’t even including the thousands of innocents he had killed and/or consumed in his quest to… well, he’d had a lot of goals, so let’s just call what he did his “quest” and leave it at that.
Not that he was complaining, of course-- unexpected or not, he was quite glad he wasn’t burning in Hell, thank you very much! Seriously: warm, comfortable void? So much better than pain and agony for all of eternity. Sure, he’d probably grow bored of having nothing to do but float around and be comfortable before long, but he would cross that bridge when he got there.
…Huh. That’s… strange. Did he just feel a… tingle? Why was he feeling… tingly? And not the good kind of tingly, either-- this was that really annoying tingly one got from moving a limb that’d fallen asleep… something that was impossible for him, by the way, technically being an amorphous blob of biomatter and all. And physically impossible sensations aside, he was fairly certain he shouldn’t be feeling anything, since he was now merely a consciousness floating in the darkness… or was he?
Actually, now that he thought about it… this “darkness” seemed awfully familiar. In fact, he was receiving signals that pointed at a rather embarrassing fact: instead of being in limbo and having an epic monologue espousing on how he had no regrets dying a hero, as all tragic heroes were wont to do, he’d apparently just been mentally bitching and moaning in semi-unconsciousness.
Well… damn. Now he felt like an idiot.
In an attempt to forget his humiliation as quickly as possible, he decided to instead see where he was. He slowly opened his eyes, wary of being blinded by possible bright light. When his eyes didn’t immediately and involuntarily slam shut in burning, mind-numbing pain, he opened them the rest of the way and took in his surroundings.
At first glance, it seemed like maybe he really was in hell: the ground was covered in ash, there were several fires around him lighting up the surrounding darkness, and the air smelled of smoke and soot. But a another look revealed that, despite his immediate surroundings, he was merely in a forest clearing-- while the area for a short distance around him was desolate, beyond that stood trees that, even in the gloom of night, he could tell were very much alive, if not slightly charred. He breathed an internal sigh of relief for not being in a hostile environment, and finally attempted to stand up… only to fall on his back as soon as he was upright, discovering at the last minute that something was very, very wrong with his body’s center of gravity.
“…The fuck?” he muttered out loud, trying to figure out what the problem was… before realizing that the voice he’d just used was most definitely NOT his. It was too soft, too light, too… feminine. Was he in the form of a little girl, or something? He shouldn’t be, considering he was fairly certain he’d never consumed any children… at least, he had no memory of doing such, and he didn’t have any foreign memories from children.
He rolled over with the intention of trying to stand up again, only to be met with pain half-way through his roll. He still completed it, but it had hurt like a motherfucker—much like getting kicked in the nuts, if he had to find an analogy.
Back on his stomach, he once again tried to stand up, making sure to be careful this time around. He slowly got on his hands and knees, looked down to see if he could catch what was causing him to fall down… and promptly did a double take at the sight that greeted him: where there should have been hands were now yellow hooves, and where there should have been arms were furred forelegs of the same shade as those previously mentioned hooves.
“The FUCK?!” he cursed, twisting his head to study the rest of his body… which, instead of the gray and black and—most importantly-- humanoid shape he was familiar with, now resembled that of a pony—too small to be a horse, he absently noted—with a uniformly yellow coat, a pink tail, and… were those fucking WINGS?! Holy shit, those were wings! He was a fucking pegasus pony mutant thing! That could talk! How--? Wha--? Huh?!? He-it-how in the FUCK?!?
…Huh. So this is what having one’s brains dribble out of one’s ears feels like.
It was several moments before his brain stopped melting and somewhat recovered… and by “somewhat recovered” he meant “sacrificed a bit of his non-existent soul to the god of insanity, specifically the part that imitated Alex Mercer’s inner scientist.” He hadn’t figured out how he was a talking pegasus pony mare (and he was most definitely a female— if his new voice hadn’t given it away, his lack of certain body parts certainly did), but that could wait until later, when he wasn’t in a burned out clearing and his mind wasn’t threatening to collapse in on itself.
And so with that thought, Alex started making his way out of the clearing, no clear destination in mind other than “outside the forest” and “somewhere safe.”
-Break-
A short while later, Alex found himself standing before a homey-looking cottage situated on the outskirts of the forest. It was a two storied building with a roof that seemed to be thatched with green foliage, partially surrounding by a babbling brook that was crossed by a small bridge. It was rather idyllic, almost like it had been ripped straight out of a children’s storybook. And while it wasn’t quite Alex’s cup of tea, he had to admit that the serene nature of the cottage had a certain appeal.
Unfortunately, that had to take a backseat to something Alex noticed during his short walk: he had no new memories. What’s more, despite the lack of memories, he had the strangest feeling of familiarity as he approached it, as if he had known where he was going. The cottage itself, though quaint and serene, gave off a feeling of safety beyond that of an ideal living space, almost like he was looking upon a refuge, a…
“…Home…” he whispered before he knew it, realizing that this must have been where the pegasus (that was what he was going to call them until he either came up with a better name, or found out what the locals called themselves) had lived. With this epiphany came the realization that the memories were there, but, for some reason, he couldn’t access them. That worried him, as it raised several questions:
First: what was keeping him from his current form’s memories? To his knowledge, nothing was capable of doing that-- the bout of “amnesia” he had when he consumed the original Alex Mercer was the closest thing he could think of, and that was merely him assimilating his first set of memories. The memories of all those that came after had been easily accessible to him after the initial info dumps, from regular humans, to infected, to hunters, to D-codes. Even Elizabeth Greene’s memories were accessible, and if there was something that could interfere with a complete assimilation, it would have been Redlight!
But back on topic: something about the pegasus he’d consumed was actively blocking his access to her memories. Was it biological, a featured shared by all of her kind (assuming, of course, she hadn’t been unique, a laboratory experiment that had been given some leeway)? Genetic, something only she or someone related could achieve? Whatever it was, he needed to fix it soon, as the lack of memories led to…
Second: what was he going to do now? With no memories to rely upon his options had become severely limited:
His preferred option, going incognito, was no longer available, as he could neither integrate himself into whatever society was nearby by taking the pegasus’ place, or literally hide himself away, lest he raise the suspicion of those that had personally known the pegasus.
There was also no way in hell he could just explain his situation, as any explanation he could give would basically boil down to: “Hi, I’m a sentient virus that survives by consuming organic beings of all shapes and sizes, and I regret to inform you that your friend/lover/pet(?) was accidentally put on the menu last night. Can we still be friends?” Yeah, right. That’ll go over real well.
And, finally, he didn’t know enough about the local military for violence to be an answer-- if they had access to whatever was keeping him from fully assimilating the pegasus and modified it into a weapon to use against him, fucked wouldn’t even begin to describe his situation.
…Actually, now that he really looked at his situation, it seems he didn’t have ANY options.
He sighed as his situation sank in, then yawned, which surprised him—he hadn’t noticed between finding himself inexplicably alive after taking a nuke to the face, and stuck in the body of a xenobiologist’ wet dream, but he was mentally exhausted, the closest he could ever really get to feeling physical fatigue.
And with that thought, and with no answers forthcoming, Alex slowly made his way into the cottage, which looked as homey and warm inside as it did outside. Feeling his exhaustion weighing on him and just wanting to rest, he dismissed his observations of his surroundings and immediately began searching for the bed, which he quickly found on the second floor. Not thinking twice, he made to hop on to the mattress (a small part of his mind taking note of how similar it looked to the beds he was familiar with, if a little on the retro side, thus suggesting that the pegasus he now resembled might have had some previous exposure to humans) when the flash of reflected moonlight caught his eye. His head was already turning to look before it even consciously registered, and he was greeted with his new reflection:
The face that greeted him was, as expected, equine, though only just recognizable as such— the fur was the same shade of yellow as the rest of his coat, the eyes were binocular and blue and larger than any he’d ever seen on anything of similar size, the muzzle was smaller and shorter and seemed to be capable of emoting, if the tired, sad, and recognizable look his reflection was sporting was any indication, and his hair— or would that be mane?-- was pink and styled so that it curled in a lock over his face on one side, and flowed down his neck on the other side. Overall, the image presented was alien enough that it was adorable in the same way a puppy or a kitten was adorable, but anthropomorphic enough that it was also attractive, a contrast that Alex knew he should have found disturbing, but couldn’t quite bring up the willpower to care.
But that wasn’t what made Alex depressed, though. What sent a pang through his non-existent heart was that, even now, when the eyes staring out of that pretty face were those of a killer of thousands, there was still a measure of innocence there; whoever or whatever she had been before he’d gotten to her, she had been innocent in a way that was almost impossible in this day and age… and he’d killed and consumed her without a second thought. He’d known he was a monster, but here, looking in the mirror, at that innocent face with the killer’s eyes… it really drove that point home.
Alex sighed, and the image sighed along with him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the reflection, before turning away and finally hopping onto the mattress. He settled down and, when he was as comfortable as he could be sleeping on a dead girl’s bed, and got down to business. He needed to figure out why he couldn’t access this girl’s memories, and since he didn’t need to sleep, he figured he might as well put his extra time to good use.
He allowed his mind to relax into something akin to a meditative trance and, when his mind reached a certain point, turned—it was the closest term he could use to describe what his consciousness did. He took the familiar “route” to what he’d cheekily called his “Web of Intrigue,” the area of his mind where he kept all of his foreign memories.
It was both eternity and a mere moment before he reached his destination. When he emerged in the Web of Intrigue, he expected to see the familiar giant brain full of firing neurons that was its mental representation. And while the familiar “sight” was indeed what greeted him on his arrival, he was also greeted with something… else. Something that had him performing the metaphysical equivalent of gaping in shock.
…Well, at least he now had a hypothesis on what had happened to the pegasus’ memories…
A/N: …I’m sure everyone knows what happened. And yes, I realize Mercer hasn’t attempted to shapeshift back into his human body. He will attempt to, sometime in the next chapter or two—he’s still in shock at being in a body that has no right existing according to the rules of the universe as he knows them, so his priorities are a tad bit skewed at the moment. I’m also well aware that he’s a tad bit OOC. That will eventually be explained, though I’m sure, much like with that cliffhanger, many of you can figure out what happened.
Also, I'm looking for more beta readers. My current beta, Delta Shock, is awesome, but he's only one man, and I'm of the firm opinion that more criticism can only be helpful... as long as they're not useless flames, at any rate. So if you're interested, please leave either a private message or a note in the comments area below. Thanks!
