Natural Selection (Open To All/Mini-Plot)

[Raal]

This was it. The formulas had been completed!

Void Moon had current control of Tim's body, relishing in the fact that it had control for quite sometime now. Its host could not stall the completion of both elemental durability and radioactive resistance formulas for too long. The virus completed them using Hunter's brain and the knowledge that it had soaked up during its time in the laboratory. Such a wonderful tool... a sentient brain. It could store so much inside of it with just a few biological tweaks and DNA modifications. Best of all, it did not require immense energy to configure like a lesser creature did. This host was adaptable enough to survive the shifting and extra growths of brain cells, and benefit from them.

Hunter hated what Void Moon was currently doing to his body. It was removing body parts from itself and tossing them into the filthy, diseased sludge of the sewers. They grew back, but it was still unnerving to watch himself tear off his own arm and carelessly throw it into the muck. Where ever the infected body parts landed, the virus went to work immediately. Since it was so full of diseases, it grew faster than bamboo. Dark purple tendrils and tentacles sprouted upward, as well as patches of rising, pulsating flesh spreading where disease lurked.

The sewers were coming to life.

Void Moon tapped into the more primal parts of its DNA, creating for itself a living nest. The walls became completely covered in rippling flesh and liquid-filled pustules in the timespan of an hour. The sewer waters became as thick as blood. Now the mazes of the sewers became the veiny, purple, twitching corridors and halls of a Living Hive. The domain for epidemics.

Now to feed this Living Hive and make it grow beyond the sewers.

Hunter wandered to a manhole, and looked up at it. Yes, this would be perfect. Perfect place to make caretakers for this hive from the world above. He kept his sinister smile as the hive grew upward, only stopping at the lip of the manholes scattered about the sewer network. Viral flesh formed around the hole to create some kind of living gas pump with sacs around it. The sacs were filled with the aerial version of the virus... and upon command, the manhole lids suddenly exploded off, flying through the air from the sudden pressure with a blood red cloud of viral gas following it. The gas was being pumped out at steady streams, spreading to the people that were outside this day... which were many.

The attack was fierce, the attack was sudden, the attack was merciless. Humans who breathed in the virus, and were not strong enough to resist, were warped and mutated, becoming monsters with the insatible urge to mutate and consume. This was how he was going to feed his underground epidemic factory. The creatures eat, mutate, return to the hive, get eaten by the hive, and ultimately feed their "king". That was the plan. Now it was up to the twisted monsters above to cause the chaos.

Void Moon retreated into a part of the sewers that not many knew about (because it was down there for so long, it learned all there was to know about the sewer network) and stuck itself to the wall. The flesh around Hunter shifted, and coccooned its master for both protection and nourishment purposes.

The attack did not stop at street level. The sewers also contained exits for many of the household disposal units. Anything that exited into the sewers was an entrance for the virus, and the virus also appeared in the housings of Isafaro, spreading like wildfire. Void Moon had long waited for this day to arrive, and it was not going to allow anything to stand in its way.

Cruel, effecient, adaptive, smart, and contagious. Now for natural selection to take its toll! Ahahahaha!

[Mewtwo]

Ansem looked around the place as he entered Isafaro, the entire place reeks of death, there were corpses all over the place some that had been mutated into some horrible thing. He wondered briefly what happened here and what could have caused such a thing? The scientist in him was eager to learn about it, perhaps he could use whatever was used here into his Heartless and create a new breed, it would be an exhilarating experiment. Several Heartless were following behind him as a guard of sort, though really they were more or less cannon fodder in case something attacked him.

He had decided to go to Isafaro after leaving the desert because he heard that there was a civil war going on around here, it would be the perfect place to unleash his Heartless and see how they fared against the inhabitants of this world. Normal people and not people like that Shinigami Xemnas that he met in the desert or that wolf girl, which he needed to experiment on if she ever consented to it, or at the very least study those runes. However it seemed that Ansem had instead stepped into something that resembled something that even he couldn’t imagine, he just hoped that whatever happened here wouldn’t affect his Heartless or else he would have to retreat from this place, with some samples of course.

[Raal]

The red gas was still present, some of it settling down onto the ground like a low mist. It somewhat resembled a horror movie location as a result. Several mutants ran back and forth, eating all the organic material they could find. They did not look human anymore. Some had blades for hands, others were long limbed and skittered along the ground like some twisted, de-formed spider. Others lacked eyes, or even a face. It was just a huge mouth full of piranha-like teeth. Some were fast, others were sneaky, and several could scale walls. The variations were unmistakable, and if thought upon long enough, endless possibilities were there. These mutants were immune to the red curtain of virus still hanging in the air. but everyone else would be putting themselves in danger if they did not have protection of some kind.

They would still have the mutants and the growing thickness of the red fog to worry about.

[Mewtwo]

The sudden appearance of the mutants put Ansem off guard as two of his Heartless were tackled to the ground and shredded to pieces, but the other Heartless immediately responded by attacking them as they bit and clawed at the mutants. "Hmm...how interesting, how very interesting," Ansem said observing the mutants, they were more like monsters but they had some sort of pack mentality, it was clear that they used to be human as they had a human appearance.

Perhaps whatever was causing this created some sort of change in the biological structure of organisms, he would need a sample to research, as one of the mutants launched itself at him. He frowned as he sent a fist made of shadow of it as it smashed the face with a sickening crunch before the hand grabbed it and smashed it against the ground. The shadow then went to consume the dead mutant Ansem wondering if he can create a Heartless out of such a horror as his shadows began to aid his Heartless killing all the mutants with relative ease, they weren't that smart and they were driven by strength, so they were more or less animals who attacked continuously making it easy to kill and consume them.

[Raal]

Consuming the mutated was not a good idea.

The virus began adapting, taking over from within, searching the Heartless from the inside and learning in great droves. Every individual piece scoured and wandered, learning everything they could and passing the information back and forth to one another via bits of bioelectricity. The Heartless that consumed the mutants started mutating themselves. Their forms twisted, they grew razor-sharp teeth, mangled-looking limbs, flesh-rending claws, and overall a nightmarish sight to behold. Their movements were spastic, barely controlled between hyperactive spurts of muscle twitching.

Adaptable... well, to a point. The virus would evolve by itself while the adaptations were being made and make it easier on itself within the foreign hosts, but that would take far longer than the mutating adaptations themselves. Void Moon was intrigued with what mental information was sent back through a set of psychic spurts. These were VERY foreign, and rather unstable. Very primitive as well, answering to- well, this was interesting.

The Hive Mind took control of one of the newly created mutants, using this mutant's many eyes to see through it. The eyes were focused on Ansem. Ah, this new humanoid was an interesting looking one. The attire could use some work, but the underlying power that this odd man had was nothing to sneeze at. Now this one could prove useful. Hunter smiled inside of his flesh coccoon. Perhaps a little chat would help liven things up a bit, since this city was going to die anyway.

He spoke through one of the new mutants, "YOU. You intrigue us. What is your identification?"

The rest of the new mutants stood their ground, temporarily obeying their new king. The unstable nature of the new mutants made the psychic link shaky, since the virus was still learning. They could break off at anytime, resorting to a feral disposition. Such was the risk of learning a non-humanoid species. If this species ultimately proved incompatible, then it would just be cannon fodder, infantry, foot soldiers to do the dying.

[Khralse]

it passed through the walls, a sudden visage flashing and vanishing, black-blue metal. Another movement, this time splashing the stagnant and foul water as it moved, then passed through the walls and vanished again. It could see the patterns of overlapping sewer pipes, paths and tunnels. There was movement up ahead, he could see through the pipes and dirt and concrete, he could see the forms shuffling around in an alcove off to one side, and turned. Eyes shone like headlights, illuminating whatever gaps between the terrain he could find. Each movement through the pipes barely disturbing the walls and leaving no trace as he clipped through the world.

From below them, not entering the alcove, the form turned and observed, a strange messy den-thing, some weird shadowy things that reacted to... reacted to... something! There was a humanoid form, standing near the creepy hive thing as a bunch of other forms travelled quickly around. He waited patiently, watching, studying. That was what he needed to do: Study and learn, he hated a lot of things now but these dudes were not on the list.

Yet.

[Mewtwo]

Ansem was surprised that his Heartless were consumed by these monsters and in turn turned into monsters as well, he didn't think that something created from pure darkness would be able to turn into a monster, was this part of the monster's capability? He was now highly intrigued by the creator of these monsters and he would very much like to meet him.

"YOU. You intrigue us. What is your identification?"

As if in answer to his prayers the voice came as he looked at it with quizzing eyes, "Are you asking for my name? I think it is more polite for one to reveal one's name before asking for another's," Ansem said smoothly.

[Raal]

"We do not have need for identification, but the humans have called us Void Moon."

The controlled mutant twitched a claw, just barely stable enough to chat through. The toxic mist started to stick to the buildings, the street, the sidewalk, the glass windows, it was getting stuck to everything. More mutants were spawning, some of them from inside the buildings around the sources. The madness was getting worse. Much worse.

Void Moon's dark mutants twitched some more, awaiting a response. While that was happening, Hunter was trying to fight back against the virus, but wasn't doing well. The virus, now ever-growing with more material to feast upon, began to overpower his efforts, keeping him down and quiet like a good little hostage.

[Khralse]

Clash watched through the wall, remaining hidden, completely invisible, a ghost in the wall. His eyes traced careful patterns over the room from outside it. He watched the mutants in the sewer, the one being standing by the hive, and the hive itself. Things looked nasty... No, really, ew. He didn't speak, didn't move, a statue buried in the soil. The 'infection' seemed to spread out indefinitely, every nook and cranny would soon be tainted if it wasn't already. He dreaded what the surface would look like, but then again...

This city deserved it.

It held him there for how long? Gutted and still alive? Sustained with nothing in the darkness? dead, empty, concious, suspended in space and time, in total sensory depravation... Yeah this city could bite a dong, forget it. Let them eat plague-cake. Then again... How did that feel wrong? Grr... too many thoughts and not capacity for it. The shark resumed his vigil, waiting and debating. He was a master-debater, and this was an issue he'd have to pull in all directions. Nevertheless, He was sure he was unseen, unheard, a proper hunter stalking what could very-well be prey.

[Mewtwo]

"We do not have need for identification, but the humans have called us Void Moon."

"Well that will have to suffice for now, you may call me Ansem then," he replied as he noticed how the mist was getting thicker, he wondered what was in these mists that would affect Heartless like so. He also wondered if Emblem Heartless would be affected by the mist since they are artificially made and not created from the darkness within organisms. "I say, I like how you're able to change my Heartless like so, I'm quite intrigued in what you did to do something like this...very intrigued," Ansem said with a grin.

[Raal]

The mutant's bulging eyes twitched, regarding Ansem with an indifferent malevolence. It spoke again, "We had done what comes natural to us. If you want to look like this, please do stay in our fog."

The rest of the mutants started to clear out, skittering toward the direction of one of the manholes. They went down the manhole, not deterred by the mist pumping up from it. The new mutants were now in the sewers. The mutant Heartless currently being used to communicate remained, still circling Ansem to get a better look at him.

"Interesting specimen...." Oh, now it was sizing him up. Grand.

[Khralse]

biological in nature, ever adaptive... Pretty neat looking. Clash saw the mutants scurrying around, how the fog filled the sewers and rose out the manhole covers. He resumed moving, tracing the path of the infection down one tube, branching off and following another. For a brief second, his body breached the tube, passing as though it were moving through a veil of fog. His side brief as he dropped a small metal pod from his back. He moved to the other side, grazing once again and dropping off a second metal pod. Another tube, closer to the fork, two more little pods. Another tube, this one only receiving one pod, then a final pod dropped closer to the main entrance to the lair's chamber.

The shark kept moving, heading back until he was observing the lair, head tilting slightly and mouth held partially open. He watched the being in the lair remain all but motionless, oblivious to the events street level. Observe and Plan... Maybe this thing could exact Clash's revenge for him... But what if it just kept going? What if Isafaro was only the first step? How far would this thing spread?

[Mewtwo]

We had done what comes natural to us. If you want to look like this, please do stay in our fog."

Ansem laughed, "I think not thank you," he said before levitating himself and flying above the fog, "I would much rather keep my present appearance." He watched as his former Heartless-turned-mutant were circling him trying to size him up, how cute, they would find themselves outmatched against his powers of darkness as he looked at the speaker. "So what exactly did you do to my poor Heartless and anyone really? I've never seen such magic before."

[Raal]

The creature watched him levitate. Well, well! This was unexpected! Void Moon liked him already! The mutant's movements went spastic for a time, then settled down. It was starting to get beyond unstable, even for the virus. Maybe they could have a meeting while hell was being risen above ground. There wasn't anyone to threaten it, so why not?

It circled again, "To the sewers for that answer, and wear a gas mask...."

Huh, a cryptic message. The last Heartless-mutant crawled into a gas-pumping manhole, disappearing almost instantly. It knew where to go thanks to the virus' tamperings. In reality, the virus was losing its grip on the creature, and if it did that, well it would probably explode. If Ansem wanted answers...

... he'd have to go straight into the heart of this madness.

[Khralse]

The thing hadn't moved, and the shark was still watching. He was growing impatient though, and the full extent of what he was seeing eluded him. Both the events on the surface and the full nature of Hunter. He had dropped surprises in three key tunnels but it might not be enough. What's more, he had been thinking about letting this thing run whatever plan it had versus stopping it now. Isafaro sucked the big one. Like big ol' dinosaur big one, but would it be right to let the entire world suffer just 'cuz of one nasty city? such things were pondered by a robotic shark capable of passing through solid matter. Clash had decided. He'd talk to it.

With a quick flourish of fins the shark moved up to the top of the small room and poked his head down through the ceiling, directly looking at Hunter. The lair was pretty neat looking when not viewed through a few meters of dirt and concrete. "Ceiling shark is watching you... y'know." his 'humour' was undamaged, at least. "soooo, what'cha doin'?" His voice had a degree of innocence to it, even now. An almost childish curiosity that seemed to perfectly fit a mechanical shark head sticking through the ceiling. He wanted more information, and he was going to get it.