1 Death...or Rebirth?

Do you wanna know what you shouldn't believe in? Altruism.

Helping people as if they'd ever help you is practically a form of masochism, at least where I'm from. The fact is, that most people where I live are assholes. This has instilled in me a certain...way of thinking, so to speak.

The first time I ever tried to help someone was when I was 8 and someone asked me for help on their homework. Being the naive child I was, I instantly accepted and helped them finish the homework within a few minutes. This was how they discovered my intelligence which was considerably higher than any of the others in our class.

What did I get in return for my help? I was bullied relentlessly and forced to do that person's homework along with all of their friends' homework as well.

If you give people the chance...they will manipulate you. They will use you.

It's an overly cynical way to think but growing up under the conditions I have...well, it's almost second nature to be skeptical of people.

How did I grow up? Well, apart from the aforementioned bullying, I grew up in a catholic orphanage run by a church. Nothing of a sexual nature happened to me, but it wouldn't be a lie to say that I was physically abused by the people who were supposed to look after me. Any kind of slight they imagined that I'd done, they would punish me for it. These punishments ranged from getting hit by a bible, to getting the cane. Nothing too much, sure. But it did make me quieter and less social than the average youth.

Hence why my bullying only got worse.

All until one big snap.

You see, I'd always been interested in biology, and by other's words, not my own, I was a genius. Everything to do with Biology and most other sciences just...made sense to me. This knowledge of Biology obviously included extensive knowledge on the anatomy of the human body, and after one rather...extreme case of bullying, I used that anatomical knowledge for a rather, let's say, nefarious purpose.

I wasn't a particularly big kid but my knowledge let me know where to hit and how to hit it to cause the most damage.

This led to the main bully of my childhood to be rushed to hospital with a dislocated jaw, a broken nose, and a hand with all the finger joints dislocated. The hand that struck my friend.

That was the day I learned that even if people were assholes, the stronger asshole was the one in charge.

The bullies never raised a hand against me or my only friend ever again. Who was my only friend? Barbara Gordon, the Police Commissioner's daughter. A girl with an intellect to match my own. It was also an added benefit that we both had shades of red as our hair color. Her's was more of a very red auburn, while mine was vermilion. Like bright red blood, I would suppose. Just like I was, she was singled out because of her hair. Pretty stupid, right? Well, kids usually are.

Did the extreme case of bullying involve her? Yes. Did I have to get involved? No...but that's what friends do, right? Help each other, I mean.

What did they do to her? I don't think that needs to be said. She tried to help me, so the bully that day beat her up. Viciously. Ripped at her hair, jabbed her face with crude punches...etc, etc.

Anyway, I don't really wanna picture that anymore, so I'm gonna carry on. Because of the rather grievous injuries of the bully, I was in for some major shit, as you would expect. But then in comes James Gordon, like some kind of furious bull. The school had no doubt informed him of his daughter's injuries and he'd come rushing.

I vividly remember thinking that it would be nice to have such a father. To be loved like that by someone.

Whatever.

The gist of what happened would be that I watched the Police Commissioner roar at our class teacher for about half an hour, citing that he'd have her job for such negligence of her duties as a teacher. Even as he raged, he kept a sharp wit that impressed me.

After his thorough reprimand of the teacher, he came over to me and knelt in front of me. I can remember his words even now as my mind goes numb.

"You helped my daughter, son, so I'll help you. But I want you to promise me. That you won't do anything like what you did to that other kid, ever again. Punching someone is fine, especially if they deserve it, but you shouldn't cripple a person's hand, son. You understand?"

And he did help me. He made it so the bully's parents had to drop charges against me. It also helped that he offered to pay for the kid's medical bills. After he informed them of the physical assault their son had performed on his daughter before I beat him to a pulp. Which could class it as self-defense, and no judge would take the side of the family opposing the kid who saved James Gordon's daughter from a bully. No one wants the Police Commissioner as an enemy, I guess.

From that day forth I kept true to Gordon's promise and only hit people without crippling or disfiguring them. Unless you count a broken nose or a dislocated jaw as disfigurement. Though I usually offered to set the nose or put the jaw back into place after I did it.

Surprisingly no one took me up on my offers. Oh well, their loss, right?

I continued my friendship with Barbara until this very day. I visited the Gordon Household nearly every day, just to get away from the orphanage.

The Commissioner had found out what happened to me at the orphanage but it seems someone big was backing it and he couldn't do anything...but I couldn't really hate him for it. In the end, I only slept at the orphanage anyway. Most of my time was spent in school or at Barbara's.

Speaking about school; that's where my intelligence started to help me. I blitzed through just about anything they gave me and got myself a pretty good scholarship, securing a college education for me, and all I had to do was get to the age of 16 before I could go.

The memories flashed through my eyes until I landed on a certain one when I was 16 and I couldn't help but smile despite my circumstances

I was standing in front of a pouting Barbara who had tears in her eyes. She was sad. She didn't want me to leave. Even as I told her that we could speak on the phone whenever she wanted, her bottom lip quivered and her tears broke free. I could understand her sadness - I was feeling it just as much as her, after all. We'd been by each other's sides like we were surgically stitched together for the past 8 or 9 years, and suddenly I'm off to college on a scholarship for the young and scientifically talented.

I remember her practically diving into me and hugging me close, obviously not wanting to let go.

I remember her warmth.

And you should not doubt that my hormonal teenage self could feel her budding beauty. Specifically, two nice mounds pushed against me. I definitely remember that.

I remember hugging her back, and I remember a few tears falling from my eyes.

I remember telling her that once I finished college that I'd come back and spend some time watching her stupid rom-com movies with her. I remember her laughing through her sobs. I remember loving the fact that I could make her laugh with such stupid lines.

I didn't know it then, but I guess I just loved her. But the problem with a high IQ? You usually have a low EQ. I still love her. Considering how I'm thinking of her as I die, that should be pretty obvious.

Oh? You didn't know I was dying? Well, getting shot a couple of dozen times will do that to you.

Why was I shot?

Well, that's because after I finished college, I was swept up into a governmental job by the American government when a paper I wrote on a virus that could re-program cells caught the eye of a certain woman called Amanda Waller.

They wanted me to develop this virus.

And I did.

They gave me the choice to name it, so I did. I called it the 'Mercer Virus'. After myself. My name is Alexander Mercer. But I'd rather people just call me Alex. Problem with the 'Mercer Virus'? You couldn't exactly control what it re-wrote in a cell. It just awakened every bit of DNA in a cell and ended up making weird chimera cells. Blood cells would change and become made up of bone, muscle, brain, nerve - everything. Most of my animal test subjects died a day or two after their injection. No matter what I did, it just wouldn't work.

But before they died, the animal I injected showed such increased metabolic rates that it healed hundred, maybe even thousands of times quicker than it once did. This was what I'd designed the virus for. To heal. But it also came along with the added benefits of making the subject much stronger, faster, and durable than before.

This gained the attention of Amanda Waller. That power-hungry bitch.

They wanted to use it on human soldiers. Real elite ones. They wanted to make super soldiers to battle metahuman threats like people on the Justice League if they ever got out of order or whatever bullshit excuse they told me.

I told them human tests would be stupid and redundant - they'd just be killing people.

Yet did they listen to me? No. No, they did not.

And what did that lead to? A goddamn Zombie outbreak in a Mexican Facility. Thousands of people were lost and after they bombed the facility until the ashes were ashes, they'd lost millions upon millions of dollars of equipment.

Who did they blame for this?

Not Amanda Waller who pushed for human testing, no, but me. The guy who told them not to do it. They said I'd intentionally made the virus like this. That I wanted to cause chaos. They even linked me to Poison Ivy some-fucking-how and said I was some kind of Eco-Terrorist who wanted to use my virus to kill people.

Luckily my years in the government had afforded me some sources of information, and I knew what was coming for me. A highly trained hit-squad. The best of the best who weren't turned into Zombies down in Mexico.

But knowing could only do me so much. An explosion of light and heat and dozens of impacts to my chest was the only thing that registered before I was thrown across my lab just as I was hurriedly getting blackmail off my computer and onto a USB. What blackmail? Blackmail on the government, of course. You don't work with the shady side of the government for a whole year without getting some dirt you could use. It was all to keep me safe but I guess I was too slow.

Annnnnd we're up to date, with me gasping for air as my life flashed through my eyes. The bad thing was though, that I couldn't breathe. Looking down I saw that I'd taken multiple projectiles to the chest area. Whether they were bullets or shrapnel from the explosion, I couldn't tell. It didn't matter either. I could see blood pooling on my chest and blood pooling around me, probably from some exit wound.

It didn't take a genius to put together two and two and figure out that my lungs had been pierced multiple times and were flooding with blood.

And from where I could see some of the entry holes on my abdomen, I knew a few big blood vessels would have surely been hit.

I was dying. No ifs, and or buts about it.

A flash of malice came over me as this realization settled in.

I wouldn't be able to spend time with Barbara because of these asshats. I'd already delayed our reunion by a year, which she wasn't happy about in the least, and now I was about to delay that reunion forever. She's gonna be so pissed.

...I'm in Arizona right now and Gotham is in New Jersey...so they could probably put an end to a Zombie problem before it hit there, right?

My brain was getting all fuzzy and my ear were ringing. I was honestly just surprised I hadn't died of shock or blood lose yet. But my brain's slowness and the dream-like state I was in was making me think of a stupid thing to do.

Lifting a hand toward my neck, I felt for the string wrapped around my neck in an impromptu necklace. Ripping it, I held it above my face and saw the string and attached to the string, was a small test tube filled with a red and black liquid.

My newest creation. DX-1118 C. More potent than the shit they gave those soldiers. Much more adaptable. Maybe I'd start the apocalypse with this action I was about to take...but I didn't care.

Malice filled me. Indignation. Selfishness. A self-serving, malignant person. In the moments of my death, that's who I was showing myself to be.

Maybe...Maybe I'd spent too long away from Barbara? She always made me want to do good.

Yet as I placed the vial into my mouth and crunched down on it, I realized what I was. A monster. A beast who'd fallen in the love with the beauty and didn't want to think about how unsuitable he was for her. The reason I always tried to do good around Barbara was because I didn't want her to see how bad I could be when I really wanted to be.

The truth is, I had broken my promise to James Gordon. Multiple times. I just threatened and manipulated the people I hurt into not telling anyone.

I'm a horrible person.

And as I felt the virus hit the back of my throat and race down my gullet and through the blood blocking up my throat, spreading from cell to cell...I could tell I was changing into something else.

Still something horrible, something less than human....yet I was becoming something more.

The action which I thought would start a Zombie outbreak...was reviving me. Giving me a chance to be reborn.