[[OOC App]]
PLAYER
Name/Handle: Jabberwocky Ai
Contact: jabberwock_ai@yahoo.com | AIM: jabberssekrit
Personal LJ: jabberart
CHARACTER
Name: Alex J. Mercer
Series: Prototype
Canon: OU
Age: He appears around 29 though he's technically only 18 days old.
Timeline: Post Nuke-to-the-Face
History:
The creators of Prototype say there are no fluffy bunnies in Alex's future. Well, there aren't any in his past either. Alex is very deficient in the essential vitamins of FB, and thus suffers from the side effects prolonged brooding and manly rage. Alex Mercer, the original, didn't have a particularly nice early life. For starters, until he was ten he was in foster care for longer than he can remember because his mother was in prison for some unspecified crime.
Alex Mercer grew up to be your average narcissistic paranoid sociopath who was unhappy at his job at Generic Evil Science Coorperation ##105,655,007. AKA Gentek. (The job offer for Aperture fell by the wayside what with the Take Your Daughter to Work Day going terribly wrong, and since he looked too much like a test subject at Abstergo Industries he was refused on account of them being worried they'd mistake their employee for an escaping prisoner. Umbrella Corp was just too much of a move for Mercer, though he might have taken them up on it if they'd offered better dental.) So when Alex found out that his research into the Blacklight Virus was going to be shut down (by him and his research team getting bullets through the head) he decided to get the hell out. He took a vial of he virus with him for insurance.
However, he was cornered by Blackwatch at Penn Station where Alex pulled the biggest dick move ever. In a fit of desperation, and spite (mostly spite) he broke the vial, unleashing the virus on the unsuspecting denizens of New York. Then Blackwatch shot him and he fell on the vial, and became infected.
Well... kind of. This is where the story of the original Alex Mercer ends.
The new Alex Mercer woke up in the morgue with a bad case of amnesia and two scientists standing over him about to do the Y incision. Reasonably freaked the hell out that a guy with 50-odd bullet wounds in his chest just sat up, the morticians took off (and get shot by Blackwatch for their trouble). Alex also decided that getting the fuck away was a good idea and booked it out of there top speed (40 mph) and cleared a twenty foot barbwire fence in a single bound. Not exactly the best start to the day right?
Alex also learned that he has a few other neat skills, like running up walls, gliding, and upon landing leaving massive craters that are only marginally bigger than the average pothole in New York. Oh yes, and that he could eat people, and read their tasty brainmeats for memories and assume their form. With this, he found out he had a sister, that she was in danger and that he needed to go protect her. (So essentially in the first five minutes of his reanimation, after killing and consuming two men and causing several thousand dollars worth of property damage, Alex the Virus is already a better person than the original.)
After he found down his sister and got her somewhere safe, Alex decided to find out the truth behind who was responsible for his amnesia and strange powers, and the outbreak of a terrible virus in Manhattan, track them down and set out on his roaring rampage of revenge. Incidently, Alex winds up causing a great deal of trouble, unleashing a second strain of the virus when he set out to free Elizabeth Greene (at the time he thought he was rescuing a teenage girl). Alex spent a lot of time being tricked and lied to in Blackwatch's attempt to capture him while he tried to find the head of Gentek, McMullen to find out what happened to him.
And, fortunately enough, McMullen is all too happy to tell him the awful truth. The original Alex Mercer was dead. The man he thought he was was just an imposter. And not just an imposter, but the actual virus. Which made the whole revenge thing a little complicated. In that regard, Alex need only look in the mirror. McMullen then killed himself to avoid having Alex find out one other thing: Blackwatch was going to nuke Manhattan.
Luckily for Manhattan though, Alex found out from Robert Cross about Blackwatch's plans and promptly put a stop to that nonsense. ...By hijacking the nuke, flying it off the island out to sea and then letting it explode in his face.
...And he survived.
Personality:
Alex Mercer, by default, is usually angry about something. If not outright angry, he may be broodingly annoyed. One might just write this off as having a bad case of the Mondays, but that isn't really accurate. Rather, he is a bad case of the Mondays, if you replace 'Mondays' with 'Sentient Super Virus'. You see, the original Alex Mercer doesn't have much of a personality what with the whole 'being dead' thing and when he was alive he was a spiteful, paranoid asshole anyway. Not that his shape-shifting viral doppelganger is much better, considering the original's shortcomings of being a sociopath, but it never really had a choice in the matter.
However, upon consuming people who's personalities were not the sort who'd release a deadly virus on the world out of spite, the virus began developing a personality of its own. Alex is extremely pragmatic, one of the major traits carried on from the original. He isn't given to being sentimental, though unlike the original he didn't just view other people as a means to an end. He grew protective of Dana Mercer (the original Alex's younger sister) and cared about her well-being. It was also dumbly trusting of Alex's ex-girlfriend and co-worker Karen Parker (which did not go well), and developed something akin to friendship with Robert Cross (again, not with the going well).
Alex is also extremely distant. He's not much of a talker, and when he does, it's all business. It would be cliche and untrue to say that under that hard exterior is a soft, squishy filling. There isn't. Alex is jaded and untrusting and for good reason.Alex is also pretty dense. Not just physically (more on that in abilities) but emotionally. While he is intelligent, he has no sense of social norms. He doesn't like being touched, and blunders through with no sense of tact, inadvertently hurting others. He's straightforward, blunt, and is awkward with showing or receiving any kind of affection. He is, however, not beyond compassion. In the comic he risked his life to save two complete strangers, and in the game he was relentless in his effort to retrieve his sister from Elizabeth Greene.
In a way, he's kind of a pathetic creature, caring for few and trusting fewer. Alex, or should I say the Blacklight Virus, is a loner by nature. Not only because the original preferred solitude, but also because he's deadly. Not in terms of being contagious (though he can spread the virus. How is unclear, but it's not airborne and not through physical contact.) but with his impossible strength and predatory nature, simple tasks are exercises in not causing large amounts of destruction.
He isn't exactly a kind person and he has very little regard for life, though this has changed somewhat. However, Blacklight, for all his angry and volatile nature, gradually began to move further away from the amoral monster Alex was. Very, very gradually, but it's clear that the virus is developing something akin to a conscience. He shows evident disgust at the actions of the original, he is obviously effected by the fact he can recall the memories (right up to their gruesome deaths) of his victims, as well as performing what was outright a near heroic sacrifice in regards to the nuclear missile Blackwatch was about to drop on Manhattan (I say 'near' only in that even that didn't manage to kill him but he didn't know that at the time). However, it's difficult to say if coming to terms with the fact that he is not human at all and never was will push Alex to become a better person, or something much more sinister.
Abilities:
The Blacklight Virus is and apex predator comprised entirely of uniform, superdense biomass. No bone structure, no organs. However, the biomass is extremely malleable and can reconstruct itself on a cellular level to mimic most anything. Clothes, skin, hair... you get the point. Alex is a shape-shifter, hence why he's thought for so long he was human. Because for all intents and purposes, he looked like one. His shape-shifting abilities extend to making his entire body a weapon- claws, blades, clubs, naughty tentacles, you name it, he'll kill you with it. This has the unfortunate side effect of making him rather tricky to kill as well. He can shrug off bullets and even missiles to the face don't cause him much trouble. Hell, he survived an atomic blast which would put his resiliency somewhere in the realm of cockroaches.
Much of his ability to shape-shift comes from his ability to consume. The virus literally eats people and takes their forms, as well as their memories as well as their quirks and mannerisms to help him gain information and infiltrate government agencies. He also uses their tasty meats to replenish any depletion in his own biomass.
He has a knack for getting around as well, running up sheer wall, jumping vast distances and ejecting biomass to glide through the air. He also has a tendency to leave giant potholes in the middle of the road upon landing considering he weighs somewhere around a quarter of a ton. He can use thermal and infected vision for scouting out prey (Admission: I never actually used this in game :\) and seeing in the dark.
Alex does have one major weakness: water. It doesn't seem to hurt him for what brief two seconds he'll spend in it if you decide to make a plunge because he leaps out like a cat from a bath. Whether it's because prolonged exposure would hurt him, the fact that he's so dense that he can't swim, or if he just plain doesn't like it is never really expanded upon in game.
Third-Person Sample:
There was burning white behind his eyes for long time like a thousand suns had suddenly exploded within him. Alex jolted upright, hundreds of spines suddenly pushing out from his body. As the virus came to his senses, the spines retracted and he appeared normal again. Pale and corpse-like, but that was normal for him. The virus's usual frown became a scowl as he drew his hood over his head. He didn't normally sleep. He could, but he had never needed to. And it wasn't even proper sleep- just a sort of dormant phase when he needed to recuperate. He never dreamed, that was for certain. He watched the spines on his arms as the retracted, reforming neatly into death-pale skin and the black leather of his jacket.
So what had that blinding light been?
Whatever it was, he'd reacted to it subconsciously, lashing out. This was probably a good thing if he could react to danger when dormant, but it also meant he couldn't be in such a state anywhere near Dana. He could accidentally impale her, and that would be regrettable.
The virus got quickly to his feet with predatory grace and scoured his surroundings. Had this been the warehouse he'd collapsed in after reaching the shore? It seemed more run down than he recalled. He felt weak as well. One crow had been enough to regenerate him, but not completely replenish. He'd need to eat something soon. First order of business, find some stray infected and consume them and try to keep out of the public eye. He didn't need people finding out that any rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated. Oh yes... he should go see Dana. Last he'd heard, she was stable but that felt like ages ago. Ragland had better not have abandoned her.
With that in mind, the virus shot up the side of a wall and through a gaping hole in the roof. He continued up a good fourty feet into the air before arcing backwards and landing on the roof with a crash. Rubble clattered down into the hazy gloom below and Alex took off to the next building just as the roof finally gave and collapsed down.
It didn't take the virus long to realize that this wasn't New York. The devastation was old, not the fresh, still-smouldering warzone Manhattan had been before. There was no sign of life- no people, soldiers or even infected. He'd run up the side of a decrepit apartment highrise to scope out the area, and his eyes narrowed.
Just where the hell had he wound up?
First-Person Sample Journal Post:
[As he scoured the city, confused, lost and getting increasingly angry, Alex found the PDA in his jacket's breast pocket. He glares at it like that's going to make it stop beeping. He spends a lot of time investigating the thing, stalking inhabitants entries like a creeper (because he is), his expression becoming increasingly sour. At last he decides to make an entry.]
Where am I, what's going on, and who do I ...hold responsible?
[He decides that 'holds responsible' sounds a bit better than 'brutally maim'. But he isn't exactly at home with words so he could be wrong.]
Name/Handle: Jabberwocky Ai
Contact: jabberwock_ai@yahoo.com | AIM: jabberssekrit
Personal LJ: jabberart
CHARACTER
Name: Alex J. Mercer
Series: Prototype
Canon: OU
Age: He appears around 29 though he's technically only 18 days old.
Timeline: Post Nuke-to-the-Face
History:
The creators of Prototype say there are no fluffy bunnies in Alex's future. Well, there aren't any in his past either. Alex is very deficient in the essential vitamins of FB, and thus suffers from the side effects prolonged brooding and manly rage. Alex Mercer, the original, didn't have a particularly nice early life. For starters, until he was ten he was in foster care for longer than he can remember because his mother was in prison for some unspecified crime.
Alex Mercer grew up to be your average narcissistic paranoid sociopath who was unhappy at his job at Generic Evil Science Coorperation ##105,655,007. AKA Gentek. (The job offer for Aperture fell by the wayside what with the Take Your Daughter to Work Day going terribly wrong, and since he looked too much like a test subject at Abstergo Industries he was refused on account of them being worried they'd mistake their employee for an escaping prisoner. Umbrella Corp was just too much of a move for Mercer, though he might have taken them up on it if they'd offered better dental.) So when Alex found out that his research into the Blacklight Virus was going to be shut down (by him and his research team getting bullets through the head) he decided to get the hell out. He took a vial of he virus with him for insurance.
However, he was cornered by Blackwatch at Penn Station where Alex pulled the biggest dick move ever. In a fit of desperation, and spite (mostly spite) he broke the vial, unleashing the virus on the unsuspecting denizens of New York. Then Blackwatch shot him and he fell on the vial, and became infected.
Well... kind of. This is where the story of the original Alex Mercer ends.
The new Alex Mercer woke up in the morgue with a bad case of amnesia and two scientists standing over him about to do the Y incision. Reasonably freaked the hell out that a guy with 50-odd bullet wounds in his chest just sat up, the morticians took off (and get shot by Blackwatch for their trouble). Alex also decided that getting the fuck away was a good idea and booked it out of there top speed (40 mph) and cleared a twenty foot barbwire fence in a single bound. Not exactly the best start to the day right?
Alex also learned that he has a few other neat skills, like running up walls, gliding, and upon landing leaving massive craters that are only marginally bigger than the average pothole in New York. Oh yes, and that he could eat people, and read their tasty brainmeats for memories and assume their form. With this, he found out he had a sister, that she was in danger and that he needed to go protect her. (So essentially in the first five minutes of his reanimation, after killing and consuming two men and causing several thousand dollars worth of property damage, Alex the Virus is already a better person than the original.)
After he found down his sister and got her somewhere safe, Alex decided to find out the truth behind who was responsible for his amnesia and strange powers, and the outbreak of a terrible virus in Manhattan, track them down and set out on his roaring rampage of revenge. Incidently, Alex winds up causing a great deal of trouble, unleashing a second strain of the virus when he set out to free Elizabeth Greene (at the time he thought he was rescuing a teenage girl). Alex spent a lot of time being tricked and lied to in Blackwatch's attempt to capture him while he tried to find the head of Gentek, McMullen to find out what happened to him.
And, fortunately enough, McMullen is all too happy to tell him the awful truth. The original Alex Mercer was dead. The man he thought he was was just an imposter. And not just an imposter, but the actual virus. Which made the whole revenge thing a little complicated. In that regard, Alex need only look in the mirror. McMullen then killed himself to avoid having Alex find out one other thing: Blackwatch was going to nuke Manhattan.
Luckily for Manhattan though, Alex found out from Robert Cross about Blackwatch's plans and promptly put a stop to that nonsense. ...By hijacking the nuke, flying it off the island out to sea and then letting it explode in his face.
...And he survived.
Personality:
Alex Mercer, by default, is usually angry about something. If not outright angry, he may be broodingly annoyed. One might just write this off as having a bad case of the Mondays, but that isn't really accurate. Rather, he is a bad case of the Mondays, if you replace 'Mondays' with 'Sentient Super Virus'. You see, the original Alex Mercer doesn't have much of a personality what with the whole 'being dead' thing and when he was alive he was a spiteful, paranoid asshole anyway. Not that his shape-shifting viral doppelganger is much better, considering the original's shortcomings of being a sociopath, but it never really had a choice in the matter.
However, upon consuming people who's personalities were not the sort who'd release a deadly virus on the world out of spite, the virus began developing a personality of its own. Alex is extremely pragmatic, one of the major traits carried on from the original. He isn't given to being sentimental, though unlike the original he didn't just view other people as a means to an end. He grew protective of Dana Mercer (the original Alex's younger sister) and cared about her well-being. It was also dumbly trusting of Alex's ex-girlfriend and co-worker Karen Parker (which did not go well), and developed something akin to friendship with Robert Cross (again, not with the going well).
Alex is also extremely distant. He's not much of a talker, and when he does, it's all business. It would be cliche and untrue to say that under that hard exterior is a soft, squishy filling. There isn't. Alex is jaded and untrusting and for good reason.Alex is also pretty dense. Not just physically (more on that in abilities) but emotionally. While he is intelligent, he has no sense of social norms. He doesn't like being touched, and blunders through with no sense of tact, inadvertently hurting others. He's straightforward, blunt, and is awkward with showing or receiving any kind of affection. He is, however, not beyond compassion. In the comic he risked his life to save two complete strangers, and in the game he was relentless in his effort to retrieve his sister from Elizabeth Greene.
In a way, he's kind of a pathetic creature, caring for few and trusting fewer. Alex, or should I say the Blacklight Virus, is a loner by nature. Not only because the original preferred solitude, but also because he's deadly. Not in terms of being contagious (though he can spread the virus. How is unclear, but it's not airborne and not through physical contact.) but with his impossible strength and predatory nature, simple tasks are exercises in not causing large amounts of destruction.
He isn't exactly a kind person and he has very little regard for life, though this has changed somewhat. However, Blacklight, for all his angry and volatile nature, gradually began to move further away from the amoral monster Alex was. Very, very gradually, but it's clear that the virus is developing something akin to a conscience. He shows evident disgust at the actions of the original, he is obviously effected by the fact he can recall the memories (right up to their gruesome deaths) of his victims, as well as performing what was outright a near heroic sacrifice in regards to the nuclear missile Blackwatch was about to drop on Manhattan (I say 'near' only in that even that didn't manage to kill him but he didn't know that at the time). However, it's difficult to say if coming to terms with the fact that he is not human at all and never was will push Alex to become a better person, or something much more sinister.
Abilities:
The Blacklight Virus is and apex predator comprised entirely of uniform, superdense biomass. No bone structure, no organs. However, the biomass is extremely malleable and can reconstruct itself on a cellular level to mimic most anything. Clothes, skin, hair... you get the point. Alex is a shape-shifter, hence why he's thought for so long he was human. Because for all intents and purposes, he looked like one. His shape-shifting abilities extend to making his entire body a weapon- claws, blades, clubs, naughty tentacles, you name it, he'll kill you with it. This has the unfortunate side effect of making him rather tricky to kill as well. He can shrug off bullets and even missiles to the face don't cause him much trouble. Hell, he survived an atomic blast which would put his resiliency somewhere in the realm of cockroaches.
Much of his ability to shape-shift comes from his ability to consume. The virus literally eats people and takes their forms, as well as their memories as well as their quirks and mannerisms to help him gain information and infiltrate government agencies. He also uses their tasty meats to replenish any depletion in his own biomass.
He has a knack for getting around as well, running up sheer wall, jumping vast distances and ejecting biomass to glide through the air. He also has a tendency to leave giant potholes in the middle of the road upon landing considering he weighs somewhere around a quarter of a ton. He can use thermal and infected vision for scouting out prey (Admission: I never actually used this in game :\) and seeing in the dark.
Alex does have one major weakness: water. It doesn't seem to hurt him for what brief two seconds he'll spend in it if you decide to make a plunge because he leaps out like a cat from a bath. Whether it's because prolonged exposure would hurt him, the fact that he's so dense that he can't swim, or if he just plain doesn't like it is never really expanded upon in game.
Third-Person Sample:
There was burning white behind his eyes for long time like a thousand suns had suddenly exploded within him. Alex jolted upright, hundreds of spines suddenly pushing out from his body. As the virus came to his senses, the spines retracted and he appeared normal again. Pale and corpse-like, but that was normal for him. The virus's usual frown became a scowl as he drew his hood over his head. He didn't normally sleep. He could, but he had never needed to. And it wasn't even proper sleep- just a sort of dormant phase when he needed to recuperate. He never dreamed, that was for certain. He watched the spines on his arms as the retracted, reforming neatly into death-pale skin and the black leather of his jacket.
So what had that blinding light been?
Whatever it was, he'd reacted to it subconsciously, lashing out. This was probably a good thing if he could react to danger when dormant, but it also meant he couldn't be in such a state anywhere near Dana. He could accidentally impale her, and that would be regrettable.
The virus got quickly to his feet with predatory grace and scoured his surroundings. Had this been the warehouse he'd collapsed in after reaching the shore? It seemed more run down than he recalled. He felt weak as well. One crow had been enough to regenerate him, but not completely replenish. He'd need to eat something soon. First order of business, find some stray infected and consume them and try to keep out of the public eye. He didn't need people finding out that any rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated. Oh yes... he should go see Dana. Last he'd heard, she was stable but that felt like ages ago. Ragland had better not have abandoned her.
With that in mind, the virus shot up the side of a wall and through a gaping hole in the roof. He continued up a good fourty feet into the air before arcing backwards and landing on the roof with a crash. Rubble clattered down into the hazy gloom below and Alex took off to the next building just as the roof finally gave and collapsed down.
It didn't take the virus long to realize that this wasn't New York. The devastation was old, not the fresh, still-smouldering warzone Manhattan had been before. There was no sign of life- no people, soldiers or even infected. He'd run up the side of a decrepit apartment highrise to scope out the area, and his eyes narrowed.
Just where the hell had he wound up?
First-Person Sample Journal Post:
[As he scoured the city, confused, lost and getting increasingly angry, Alex found the PDA in his jacket's breast pocket. He glares at it like that's going to make it stop beeping. He spends a lot of time investigating the thing, stalking inhabitants entries like a creeper (because he is), his expression becoming increasingly sour. At last he decides to make an entry.]
Where am I, what's going on, and who do I ...hold responsible?
[He decides that 'holds responsible' sounds a bit better than 'brutally maim'. But he isn't exactly at home with words so he could be wrong.]