USS Ronald Reagan

4:55 P.M.

Three men. Three men, leaders of Blackwatch, stood on the deck of the ironclad carrier. These three men were all tasked with making sure the REDLIGHT infection didn’t spread off of Manhattan island and possibly save as many civilians as possible, as long as it didn’t waste too much time. They were also under strict orders to kill anything that moved if it was in an infected zone. Pretty much anything went as long as the job was done.

But the job wasn’t done. No, Colonel Ian Taggart, had failed in his duty. Once the head of the infection was killed, victory was within Blackwatch’s grasp. At that exact moment, the men were ready to kill everything within the area before they could realize what happened, but the colonel called a retreat, and pulled the men out of the area, against the orders of his superiors. His failure led to Blackwatch losing the control they had in the city and the collapse of a primary base on the island, which kept the infection from getting through it since some time after the outbreak started. The colonel stole a thermobaric tank from inside and was chased by Tango Primary, the creature he was assigned to kill by whatever means and sacrifices necessary.

Currently the captain, shackled by handcuffs, stood ready for his trial. He, a forty five year old man with a beard, no hair on his head, and a hateful scowl on his face, looked over at his general. He tried to reach for a small pair of clips in his pocket to break free of the cuffs, but they were hidden in the many layers of his black ops uniform.

To his right, wearing a similar uniform with some tweaks, Captain Cross stood ready for the general, a stoic expression on his ancient face. His worn face had an unsurprisingly evil glint in them, but that was nothing new. He had mostly greying black hair with two completely white streaks on both sides of it. The hair looked like something from Taggart’s daughter’s anime shows.

General Randall, an old man with the standard green camouflage army uniform walked over and gave a salute with his only arm, the other having been cut off years ago. Once the salute ended, Randall  spoke. “Report.” he said. in truth, he didn’t have to, but he was always a man of protocol above all else.

“Taggart’s order lead directly to the collapse of the central Blue Zone.” Cross said, as if he recited it. Ian sent the man a death glare as the general pulled out a handgun and shot him straight through the head.

“Welcome home, Operation: Redlight is over.” Randall patted Cross on the shoulder, and the two walked inside, leaving the body of Taggart to walk. They walked through the carrier in silence, passing the troops ready to evacuate on order. A large pair of double doors came into view, and Randall opened it to reveal a mostly empty room, save for keyboards all over the place, and a nuclear bomb in the center.

Upon laying eyes on the nuke, Cross almost jumped. “Sir, what about our men?” Randall glanced over to the captain. “The ones on the ground in Manhattan.” he clarified.

Randall stared into space for a moment, pulled a gun on Cross, and looked at him with an odd look on his face. “You didn’t think I was that naive, did you? When you have a festering wound, you cauterize it. We will be saving millions of american lives.” He prepared to pull the trigger on the unflinching captain, when he felt something behind him. The old man turned around to barely see the undead body of Taggart, the bullet hole still in his face. The body shifted in a mass of tendrils, into the form of a twenty seven year old pale man with two layers of jackets and a shirt. Most of his chest wear had popped collars. The outermost jacket was black leather with two white strips on the side, followed by a grey hoodie that was unzipped past the neck, followed by a dress shirt with popped collars that was unbuttoned as well. The man, Tango Primary, Alex Mercer, Zeus, lifted the general by the neck. “Zeus!” He tried to rasp, but all he could utter was choking noises as Zeus tightened his grip.

“I wont let you erase New York like you erased hope.” He spat at the general, who chuckled.

“Let?” He tried to laugh some more, a plan already in his head. “We’re six minutes out, and only I know the code.” He tried to bargain his life with Zeus, and when he was dropped to the ground, he thought he was home free. That was until Zeus started to walk towards him with intent to kill.

“You were at Hope Idaho. You took something from Elizabeth Greene. I know what Blackwatch has done.” he said. The general was confused. He knew none of his men would ever give that information, Blackwatch or scientist. “Because everyone I’ve killed -- they’re in me. They are me.”

Something clicked in Randall’s head. The footage. It was all in the footage. That’s why men would disappear without a trace. The tendrils, when he ripped his men apart. He wasn’t simply eating them, he was somehow getting their thoughts. Their memories. The suspicions turned out to be correct, after all. He was more intelligent than what they thought. “That’s how you-” He never got to finish, as Zeus slammed his fist through the General’s head, and consumed his body with the red and black tendrils as he had so many times before.

Zeus clutched his head in pain, allowing the memories of the general’s life to flash before his subconscious. As the memories made it to Hope, Idaho, he saw exactly what he needed. Shifting the memories so they show only what was necessary, flashes appeared giving a detailed view on what happened. Flashes of the old Blackwatch, Elizabeth Greene, the Hope families, some children, a pregnant Greene, the mysterious child of hers, and a few numbers. The code for the nuke. Zeus has everything he wanted to know about Hope, and all the people who know about it are swimming around in his head as of now. “You bastard,” he said. “You could have stopped all of this, instead you let this happen.”

Captain Cross, now directly behind Zeus, reached over to grab him. Zeus felt his presence and turned around, then was lifted in the air. Although he didn’t really need any oxygen at that point, he still reflexively grabbed the Captain’s arm in an attempt to pry him off. “When the weapon detonates,” he gestured to it with his head. “And they think the infection is cleansed, they won't be looking for me. And when I consume you,” Zeus’s eyes opened in shock and confusion, both from being lifted by Cross and him saying he could consume Zeus. “I’ll be able to withstand… Even this.” Cross threw Zeus onto a lift, walked on, and his skin melted off. He began to grow, and in a moment he was three times larger than Zeus, raw, and made entirely out of muscle. The creature he turned into had two large arms, one a huge black claw and the other a thin blade. It’s head was similar to a skull, and one half was covered in cancerous tumors. It stood on two, strong legs that looked incredibly thin. Zeus knew it as The Supreme Hunter.

By the time his transformation was complete, the lift was already on the top deck, and several marines saw the two and opened fire, which went unnoticed to the two. The Supreme Hunter lurched forwards, and seven tendrils exploded from his back, grabbed a few marines unfortunate to be close to him, and reeled them into himself. The behemoth looked over to Zeus and moved to grab him in his massive claw. Zeus front flipped over the hunter, curved his body at the apex of his jump, and tried to elbow slam onto the tumors on it’s neck. The monster simply backhanded Zeus across the carrier, into a group of marines. One of them shot him point blank in the face with a javelin launcher, killing himself and his group.

After the explosion stopped, the hunter was on Zeus again. It charged straight at him, but this time Zeus was ready. Red and black Tendrils engulfed both his arms, making them black and bulky. His hands both turned into two giant blocky clubs with metal protrusions popping out at certain points. As the hunter began to slam down onto him, Zeus released a strong uppercut towards the hunter, and it flew back a few feet, skidded upon landing, and crashed into a stack of missiles, which exploded.

While it was still on the ground, Zeus ran in it’s direction, leaving one of his fists dragging through the ground, while he was pushing as much of his weight as he could into it. Then he threw his fist over his head, soared through the air towards his target, and slammed down onto it’s chest, flattening it. A loud boom, the squishing of flesh, and the denting of metal was heard. The air around the two was pushed back, and everything lighter than the force was either pushed away or torn apart. The hunter roared in pain, and once again launched Zeus to the side.

Before he slammed to the ground, Zeus flipped so he could land on his hands. A group of Marines to his side ignored him and only shot at the hunter that began to tear into their ranks. A few got into helicopters and jets to try and kill the hulking abomination. The hunter, after tearing into the marines, saw Zeus, raised his giant claw, and slammed it into the metal. Zeus could see the ground parting and something under tunneling towards him. Zeus jumped twenty feet into the air and completely avoided the huge spikes that pushed from the ground.

The Supreme hunter charged towards Zeus, and Zeus morphed his right arm into a six foot blade, while his arm turned black, adjourned by random spikes that were more decoration than anything else. Zeus grabbed his blade with both hands, flipped forwards in the air towards the Supreme Hunter, and came down on the beast in a fashion that would put a guillotine to shame. Again, the beast backhanded Zeus across the carrier.

Zeus switched his right arm into yet another weapon; a barbed, black tentacle made of more elastic materials. It was tipped with a cross between a glaive and a claw, and it shined in the sun. Zeus reached his newly formed arm back while tendrils rippled along its edges. After a moment, he shot the appendage towards the hunter, embedding it into the beast’s chest. Zeus reeled himself in at speeds that the human eye can’t even track, but the hunter grabbed him by the face despite that. The hunter slammed Zeus into the ground of the ship thirteen times, making a crater that got larger with each slam. The hunter moved a tendril to consume the dazed Zeus, but he forgot that Zeus was immune to blunt force trauma.

Zeus rolled his body within the grip of the monster, lashed out with his tentacle, and cut a hole in the Hunter’s claw. The hunter roared in pain and tried to crush Zeus, but Zeus rolled to the side, grabbed a machine gun, and emptied the clip into the Supreme Hunter. His skill with the gun has improved so greatly over these two weeks, that every bullet made it’s mark on the beast’s face. Temporarily blinded, the beast used the tendril attack from earlier, and a lucky tentacle speared itself through Zeus’s torso. It barely made it into Zeus, so it went in and out of his chest in a second, then Zeus recovered from his stupor, and dive rolled rolled away from it.

The hunter pulled the tendrils back into his body, and hunched over, paralyzed. Zeus took the opportune moment to climb aboard the hunter’s back and smash his fist into the back of it’s head repeatedly. After a minute, the hunter regained it’s bearings, scooped Zeus up with it’s claw, and threw him into the air in front of it. Instead of hitting the ground, Zeus floated in the air for a split second, and nearly successfully delivered a flying karate kick to the hunter’s chest.

Zeus and the Supreme Hunter stared each other down for a moment, then smelt fuel being burned. They both looked over the deck of the ship, and saw the jets from earlier finally ready for attack. A radio inside Zeus’s jacket, unaffected by the conflict, buzzed to life and relayed a message. “You are cleared to end his fucking life. Do it.” Red Crown Spoke.

“Roger that.” one of the pilots spoke. “Eagle Eye 11 locked and loaded.” The barrels and missiles were aimed on Zeus and The Supreme Hunter. Zeus was used to this sort of thing by now, and immediately jumped as far away as he could. The Supreme Hunter wasn’t as fast. Before it even realized that there was a strike on him, the jets emptied everything the had on him, and the heat, force, and size of the explosion that fired almost melted the surrounding area. It might have have killed the hunter right there, had it not been so dense.

It’s wounds were cauterized close, it’s body was on fire, and it’s face was almost twice as ugly. The thing lurched forwards and tried to heal itself, but it fell over on one knee. It tried to send a tendril towards Zeus, but it didn’t even go halfway there. It was losing this fight. It then got up, slowly, and tried to run- to force his way over to Zeus-, but he ended up tripping over itself. It then laid down on the ground and tried to regenerate.

Zeus, the marines, and Blackwatch would have none of it. They released everything they had on the monster. Grenades, rockets, bullets, hell everything they had was send off at the hunter. The barrage of metal, fire, and force nearly drove it to the edge of the carrier, then Zeus yanked it towards him with the whipfist. The thing was significantly lighter than earlier due to the attacks sent to him. The hunter was pulled half way to Zeus, then a heat seeking missile hit him mid air. After he exploded, two more jets sent missiles at him then flew straight up into the air.

Zeus was already in the air at that point, coming down prepared to launch a graveyard ground spike devastator right on top of the hunter. The hunter moved out of the way just fast enough to avoid having the biomass pumped straight through his body. He was still impaled on a spike. As an effect of the devastator, the spikes went around the carrier at random positions, and some marines got impaled on the spikes. Some of them were violently ripped in half, while others were dissolved by the spikes.

The supreme hunter was severely weakened by now. The thing was surprisingly only missing the arm with the claw on it. There was a huge, gaping, bloody hole in it’s torso. It pushed itself up, tried to stand on two legs, and make a face as ferocious as it could when it stared down at Zeus. The hole in it’s chest began to close and Zeus brought out his blade again. The Supreme Hunter’s arm started to form, so Zeus went for the only place he suspected would kill this monster.

The head.

Zeus used his giant blade and uppercut the Supreme Hunter in the head, which decapitated it. The body fell limp, and the head rolled to Zeus’s feet. The jets weren't done with it. They didn’t see much of what happened, so they continued to pelt the Supreme Hunter’s corpse with missiles and such. The rockets hit him square in the chest, and some of them were filled with napalm. Once the fires faded, there was a burnt body and no blood.

Zeus walked over to the burnt body. He then plunged his tendrils into the body, and consumed as much as he could. All that was left was a chunk of arm which went into the water as well. Now, all that was left was the nuke. Zeus walked over to the lift but was met with several Blackwatch guns pointed at him. He knew he didn’t have any time for this. The timer was ticking and Dana was in immediate danger. One of them stepped forwards and called out. “Stand down.” the Blackwatch commander, as evidenced by the white on his uniform, commanded. The guns were then lowered, although hesitantly. “You going to the nuke?” the commander asked.

“I need to get it as far away from the city as I can.” Zeus began to walk towards the lift. “If you want to live, get me a chopper.” Zeus continued walking, brushing against the commander slightly, and his men parted ways for Zeus.

“Commander Rooks-” a grunt tried to ask, but was silenced by the commanders orders. “I need a bird right now. Some chains if he’s about to do if I think he’s going to do.” the commander said. Once he saw his men still there, he yelled at them. “OR DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF!” the men scrambled to get the chopper and the chains.

By the time Zeus came up with the nuke over his back, the helicopter and the chains were all ready. Some locks were also thrown into the mix. Zeus placed the nuke down and grabbed some chains. “Attach the end of these chains to the helicopter after I lock it to the nuke.” he said. He then began to slink the chains through the supports of the nuclear bomb.

After a minute, the nuke was successfully chained to the helicopter, attached to a discardable piece on the bottom. Without a word, Zeus climbed into the helicopter, and took his package far into the atlantic ocean. As he left, anyone still alive on the ship was tasked with cleanup and scanning the decks for infection.

A couple of minutes later, Zeus made it fifty miles away from the shore. Knowing it was just far enough to keep the city from burning with radiation, Zeus dropped it into the ocean and turned around, secretly thanking whoever attached the chains to a discardable latch. He then turned the chopper around, and tried to see if he can escape the imminent explosion.

About two miles later, the bomb exploded. His helicopter was caught in the fireball, and it was torn apart, melted, and blown up all at once. For Zeus, all that was left was the pain and blackness.