Fic: Behind the Mask

[zpansven]

Author's Notes: Mik Myers is perhaps one of my most mysterious characters. I've not been able to come up with a decent profile or pic for poor Mikky *ducks thrown knives from said character at the nickname*

Ahem. As I was saying. Since I've not been able to come up with a decent profile/pic, I will appease Mik through writing. I guess this would be Chapter One, introducing who Mik is and what the Bounty Hunter's orginal mission was...

------

Tsunami couldn't send in anyone else. The CO of the Black Ops team needed someone who had no known association with his team to retrieve their deep cover operative from the city once called Malton; with the data and Intel collected about NecroTech, they'd be able to determine who or what was behind the Outbreak there and hopefully find a way to reverse it.

Therefore, it would be best to send someone known only as a Mercenary.

What better Mercenary to send but one who was engineered to be rather hard to kill?

"I'd go if they'd let me. Psycho's my teammate, my responsibility," Project Lazarus apologized again as the Mercenary double-checked the assigned equipment; all of it had no serial numbers, nothing to trace if found.

"...it's alright. We all follow orders."

Lazarus was a tall lanky man, which was probably why the Mercenary seemed so much shorter to him; it wasn't because of that he didn't like the thought of his comrade going into the city of Malton, no. It was just... the younger agent didn't have the proper experience dealing with what he'd heard was inside the massive walls built to quarantine the city.

Zombies.

The thought made Lazarus shiver. Send him, Hell send Sandstorm or all of Bravo team, but this Mercenary wasn't trained to fight the undead. Not like Bravo team, not like him. Hell, Psycho had better experience with zombies then..

"Myers. It's time." The cold voice of their CO cut off Lazarus's contemplations, fears.

Tsunami was a man of taller then average height, around six feet or taller -- with his sheer presence, it was hard to tell -- and his teal eyes were like flakes of rock, partially hidden behind the thin veil of smoke from his ever-present cigar. His black hair was neatly combed back, letting the silver streak shine predominately, one of the only reminders of his age.

"I understand."

Myers was a good kid, but in Lazarus's opinion perhaps not quite good enough for this mission. Of average height, he dark urban camouflage seemed to cover just about every part of the young Mercenary. Barely an adult, Myers had killed several times already, all because of...

The florescent lights gleamed off the Mercenary's white ceramic mask. It, like the mark on the inside of the darkly garbed Mercenary's right wrist, were proof of a murderous heritage.

Lazarus's green eyes darted over to Tsunami and the tall man ran a nervous hand over his shortly cropped blond hair, wishing he was bold enough to speak out against his CO as he led the Mercenary away.

"Mik."

The Mercenary stopped, not turning, but Lazarus knew that the younger agent was listening.

"Headshots or decapitation only."

"I understand."

"Okay. Okay. Mik..."

The shorter, younger agent didn't move, waiting.

"Go with God."

"...Thank you."

And that was the last time Alex Stryker, better known as Lazarus, saw the Mercenary known as Mik Myers. And he hoped, prayed, that he'd find Psycho and get the hell out of Malton swiftly.

[dray]

((ooh, that was a good start! :3 I look forward to reading more!))

[zpansven]

Here's another part for Mik's story. The first person to correctly guess the merc's gender gets a cookie!

---

Chapter Two: Entering Malton

It was more desolate then expected; the once lively city had been separated from the rest of the world through the use of thick, powerful walls erected by the military that gave the city a roughly square shape. The twilight that covered the city was only punctuated by few powered buildings and the pinpricks of torches burning on the rooftops to light the way of travelers using the makeshift bridges crisscrossing the various buildings.

Even observing through a pair of binoculars inside the relative safety of the transport helicopter, Myers felt a slight chill; this was not natural, even with the admirable attempt to adapt and recreate some form of society out of this apocalypse, it wasn't natural -- the living and dead weren't meant to coexist, even under hostile circumstances. The flight had been an educational one -- the Intel Tsunami had provided had confirmed the rumors the merc had heard concerning Malton.

The dead walked the Earth. Was it connected to Umbrella Corporation's virus's? Was it NecroTech's doing? Psycho probably knew, seeing as it was the deep-cover agent's duty to find out if NecroTech was dealing in illegal biological weapons like the now defunct Umbrella Corporation...

The merc blinked and the dull, dark eyes that gazed on everything and nothing suddenly sharpened; it was time. In an automatic pre-jump check, the merc secured any loose gear that could hamper or hinder during the rough landing that was expected.

What wasn't expected was the sudden rough handling of the 'copter by the pilot as Myer's jumped; the hard jostle and sudden blast of the 'copter blades' back draft sent the merc from a carefully controlled plummet into an awkward, tumbling free fall toward the dark city below...

[dray]

And then what happens? XD I've been thinking 'he', but that comes as default, I suppose. It would be surprising if Mik was actually a girl... though given your picture (which I struggled with, to be honest, in gender identification in the first place) I guess that not knowing is part of the fun.

[zpansven]

*chuckle* I've actually gotten rather good at making my characters androgynous -- it takes even my closest friends and my family a few minutes to figure out the gender of some of my more 'gender-neutral' characters and they look for the little signs I have for females and for males; of course it helps to get a look at the full body rather then just the face/neck/upper torso...

I like making characters that is capable of surprising the reader and that the reader actually likes and roots for, especially when I introduce an original character in an established fandom...

[zpansven]

The scout's darkly clad form plummeted through the air, the rappel line from the helicopter whipping through the air, snapping loudly over the air whistling in the young mercenary's ears.

'If that thing goes tense, me still in it...the damage would be extensive,' the decision was made in a split second as Myers pulled the combat knife free from the sheath strapped to the front of the shoulder of the dark flack vest; the blade flashed as the mercenary reached out, gripping the rappel line and sliced it free. Releasing the severed line, Myers rolled midair, sheathing the knife; the fall was short with how low the helicopter had been over the city and the young brunette barely had time to brace for---!

There was pain and a loud snapping sound mingling with the metallic thud of impacting on the stairs of a fire escape; the improper landing broke the merc's arm and the night sky tumbled endlessly as Myers fell head over heels down the fire escape. With a bang as the merc's body impacted on the rusty landing, the tumble finally halted.

That...hurt. Alot. And the merc was no stranger to pain...

Carefully Myers took inventory of the damage done: left arm felt broken, probably in more then one place while the right knee was mangled, some broken ribs...

Lovely.

Great.

That knee and ribs would hamper movement, but the knee was the worse problem... In a city teeming with the undead, limited speed and mobility would be a death warrant.

Carefully taking a breath, the merc shifted, reaching up with the relatively uninjured right hand to grip the railing of the fire escape, ignoring the pain resulting from the damaged ribs. Pain was normal, pain was expected -- deal with it, like before, like always...

In a few, agonizing moments the Merc stood, leaning heavily against the railing and looked down to see a zombie shuffling below, pacing in the eternal hunger of those of the dead doomed to walk the earth; the noisy fall had gained it's attention and probably the attention of others...

[zpansven]

Taking a careful breath, the merc lifted dark eyes to examine the fire escape; there was an entrance to the building a flight of stairs up, making it near the top floor of the building. With a determination born of the will to survive and the unstoppable will to keep fighting, the wounded merc managed to partially crawl/drag up the metal stairs, every so often bumping the twisted knee.

The entryway was a busted out window, shards of glass still embedded in the frame; with the broken ribs in mind, the merc carefully shifted into a sitting position, the broken arm cradled close for protection before lashing out with a gloved right hand, clearing away the broken glass jutting up from the window frame. When the window was sufficiently cleared out, the young brunette found a monumental task ahead -- climbing through the window into the dubious safety the unknown building presented.

Several minutes and more then a few muffled curses later, the merc rested on the ground of a storage room, panting softly for breath; head lifting, the dull, dark eyes scanned the interior of the room and found that there was a reasonably intact door that could be jammed by the discarded partially bent length of pipe laying on the floor. Cautiously the merc belly-crawled forward, ears straining for the sounds of any movement, living or undead.

Finding none, and having made it to the door, the brunette scooped up the pipe and from a nearly prone position, used to to jam the door. Grunting, the merc sat up, shrugging off the partially empty pack -- always travel light and live off the land if you can help it -- before leaning back into a corner that gave a good view of the door and window.

God this was going to hurt....

[zpansven]

After probing the broken arm and find that it was in two places on the ulna and radius respectively -- it was really fascinating what a person could learn about anatomy and a person's pain threshold after carving up some criminals, Myers found -- the merc knew that there would have to be a halfassed attempt to realign the bones before...

The burning of the Mark caused the Merc's teeth to grind against the urge to vocalize pain. The good hand fumbled and pulled off the leather belt supporting the urban camo pants the brunette wore and, after chomping on it, began to try and reset the bones in the poorly lit store room. Tears of pain formed in the merc's dark eyes automatically as bone grated against bone; the eyes never wavered from the partially blocked door, too aware of the danger from the undead and not-quite-sane survivors in the city to relax.

The Mark burned again and the Merc's body began to spasm; the good hand suddenly, unwillingly released the broken arm, leaving the bones half-aligned in the full body convulsion. Biting down hard on the thick, durable leather of the belt, the Merc could feel the shifting as bones were forcibly shifted and realigned on their own,the broken bones rapidly knitting together and tendons reattaching...

The Merc's vision began to swim with black creeping in from the edges as Myers's body threatened to shut down in response to the pain.

It was a painful process, one that all those with the Mark were cursed with -- the older Cursed Ones had learned how to block out the pain; the more damage one had undergone, the more one had time to gain a higher threshold for the pain. But Myers was younger and had always been able to scrape by with only minor injuries and the pain of having broken bones suddenly, forcibly realigning and knitting together on their own was enough for the young Merc to lose consciousness...