Prototype : A New Start

Hearts and Minds

REVISED.

For him, Mercer is a ball of everchanging mood.

He was genuinely glad that Zeus would not only accept his presence, but actually let him to try to do what he wanted. A chance to find a meaning or something to do in his own mundane viral life.

Unlike Mercer, who had a clear goal in mind, he didn't. Since Manhattan, he followed and obeyed him like a good servant (in a non-kinky way), not because he was afraid of being killed or because of the respect to the apex predator; It was boredom, and the lack of purpose to do anything else.

The thought of betraying the man responsible for both outbreaks rarely crossed his mind. Then again, that doesn't means that he didn't. Still, if Mercer had really died or disappeared to the unknown, he'd have no one to follow, nothing to do.

At least he's alive, and tolerated his existence. This was more than enough.

Whenever he thought of what would have happened if he didn't followed Alex, he would cease that line of thoughts, and moved on to something else. Because he has no clue over what he would do, or where he would be, and that actually terrifies him.

What's there to be more afraid of, than being in a world full of strangers?

Maybe he'd somewhere in the Himalayans for a soul-seeking trip if that really happened.

He doesn't even remember who were the friends or the family of the teen whose face he had stolen... or borrowed. amidst the stir of memories, mixed with all those people he had consumed.... How did Mercer coped with this? How did his fellow evolved did? Most of them always looked so damn serious on the job and everything.

Amongst the things they would do in their free time, he liked playing abandoned instruments in the decaying theaters across the northern part of the abandoned Manhattan... Yes, you know that place as the Red Zone.

It was more to pass the time, really. But who could have thought that it would be a  good hobby for some homicidal skinwalker?

Damian really admires Mercer's lack of fear. How is he so calm about everything? It's only normal for the young blonde if he was quite distressed with the prospect of reintegrating himself with everyone, amongst all these aging, mortal men that are so vulnerable like a herd of unprotected cattle.

Oh, how oblivious they were, of the gaze of the pair of apex predators that has laid down their domain in their already broken city. Socializing, bonding, such words are foreign to the younger evolved who was only a couple months old. Evolved do interact with each other every now and then but they hardly bonded or get to know each other really well. It's all serving overlord Mercer instead. The glorious, supreme leader.

Socializing was something that cannot be solved with bloodshed, and unfortunately other evolved weren't really chatty, except for Mercer, and he's not exactly the best person to talk with anyway.

Some problems just can't be solved easily, with or without violence, even if you are an evolved.

Knowing is one thing, but experiencing it is an entirely different thing. Mercer is completely against having people in the mansion because he is discomforted with talking and trusting others. If you think about it, Mercer had so many people that wanted him dead. The people he knew somehow always ends up betraying him in the end, there's barely anyone to think of that completely had faith in him before he turned megalomaniac. That doctor guy, Ragland? And his sister, Dana? Who else? Maybe that Cross guy... Or not, supreme hunter, yadda-yadda. He died still trying to assist Mercer to save New York, so it's not a betrayal. Kudos to him.