Alex Mercer

History

Alex Mercer originally worked for Gentek, furthering the corporation's research into weaponizing the Blacklight virus. When he learned that the virus is derived from a human who was intentionally infected, he attempts to leak the information to the outside world. General Randall, frustrated by the security leak of the company's top secret work, orders the scientists to be executed. Alex Mercer received word of his dangerous position and steals a vial of the Blacklight virus as insurance. Fleeing to Penn Station but cornered by security, Mercer threatens to shatter the vial, unleashing the virus upon the city. The guards do not back down, however, and open fire, killing Mercer but breaking the vial in the process, exposing the contents to Mercer's carcass.

Alex Mercer's body is then transported to the Gentek morgue, but the scientists' do not realize that Alex has been infected by a weaponized form of the virus. The pathogen secretly consumes every cell in his body, replacing it with a viral replica. When the process is complete, the resulting abomination awakens, a six-foot-tall mass of concentrated Blacklight that has taken on a default form of a perfect replica of the body of Alex Mercer, complete with a partial copy of his memories, to the point where it genuinely believes it is Alex Mercer. The duplicate awakens to a baffled autopsy team, and makes his escape. Soldiers open fire, but "Alex" realizes, to his great surprise, that bullets suddenly have little affect on him. With super strength, speed, and agility, as well as a rapidly-evolving set of shapeshifting abilities, he evades the military and seeks out his sister, Dana.

With the help of his sister and other allies, Alex Mercer fights to stop the virus from consuming the rest of Manhattan, battling the infected and the soldiers of Blackwatch.

Prototype

Alex woke up in a morgue on a slab just as two scientists were about to cut open his torso with a scalpel for an autopsy. The two men panicked and fled, terrified of Mercer. Alex didn't understand why they were so frightened and had no recollection of his previous life. He ran after the scientists in an attempt to escape.

Though Alex was now an amnesiac, he was sufficiently aware to realize that the Blackwatch soldiers were certainly not friends when he saw them kill the two scientists as they tried to escape the facility. The soldiers noticed him, but his body regenerated the damage caused by their fire instantly. Surprising both the soldiers and himself, Mercer cleared the several stories high fence around the facility in a single leap.

After escaping, he found himself trapped in Manhattan, being pursued by the military. He soon discovered that he had the ability to consume others and take on their appearance and memories, along with their special skills.

With no recollection of his own past, Alex decided to track down those responsible for his situation and consume them in order to uncover the truth behind what has been done to him, caught between the Blackwatch Special Forces and an ever growing population of civilians infected by the virus he released.

On consuming Lt. Charles Perri he learned the whereabouts of his sister. Mercer hoped that his sister, Dana, would have some information regarding what happened to him, so he attempted to make contact with her. However, when he arrived at her apartment, he saw soldiers stationed around the building. He consumed a Blackwatch commander and, taking on his appearance, easily infiltrated their perimeter. When Alex entered he saw Dana being held by a Blackwatch soldier. Dana headbutted the Blackwatch soldier just as Alex impaled him with his fist. Dana was terrified having witnessed this, but Alex convinced her to help him.

Dana told Alex that she knew there was something wrong going on at Gentek. She did not know what had happened to Alex either, but was able to tell him what he had told her prior to his memory loss. She told Alex that he had her researching the Gentek organization for weeks. When she went looking for him to relay her findings, he had already disappeared. The conversation incited a flashback, in which Alex remembered seeing the ID card of Dr. McMullen. Dana then lead Alex to a new safe house, the home of Dana's friends, who were out of town for the year. Dana already had all of the files she could get on Gentek stored in the apartment

Dana wasn't able to tell Alex what it all meant, but insisted that the two of them work together to uncover whatever conspiracies were at work. Dana told Alex that since Blackwatch was waiting for her at her apartment, they must also be waiting at his. Alex arrived at his apartment and uncovered further hints of his past life. He saw a photo of himself and Dana with a graduate certificate from the University of New York. He also saw a photo of himself with a blonde woman. When he touched the photo he experienced a flashback in which he saw himself with the woman, his ex-girlfriend Karen Parker. When the flashback was over, it was apparent that the onset of these flashbacks was painful to him. As he was recovering, Blackwatch detonated a bomb that had been planted in the apartment, meant to kill him. He astonishingly survived without a scratch, despite having been thrown out of a window and down to the streets several stories below. Alex hunted down and consumed the man who gave the order to detonate the bomb.

Alex returns to the safe house where Dana shows him his laptop, stored on which are photographs of a girl.

Alex recognizes the girl. Dana tells him that the file has only two names in it: Alex Mercer and Elizabeth Greene, the girl in the photo. The file also says that she is being isolated in the Gentek building. When Alex went to free Greene, she cryptically told him that "The time for waiting is over" and threw him across the room. Greene then disintegrated a wall by touch and sent Hunters after him as he escaped. She then took charge of the infected. He also located his ex-girlfriend,Karen Parker.

Dana continued to assist Mercer in locating his targets, while Karen promised him a cure for his disease. She first claimed that he needed to find her different samples of the virus destroying Manhattan, but once he arrived inside a nearby Hive, Alex was ambushed by Blackwatch specialist Captain Robert Cross who useed both the infected and his own soldiers as cannon fodder while he tried to take Alex down. Mercer ended up defeating him, but Cross turned the tables by distracting Alex by mentioning'Penn Station' and triggering a painful flashback. He injected Alex with a biological weapon while he was distracted.

Due to the parasite Cross had injected him with, Alex couldn't use his special powers aside from his superhuman strength and speed. He still managed to escape from Blackwatch.

Alex returned to Dana who showed him that Blackwatch was keeping an eye on a doctor for McMullen, Dr. Bradley Ragland. Dana then told Alex that if he finds him, Ragland can help them get to McMullen. Before Alex left, she showed him what she found about Hope, Idaho and Greene bu Alex said Hope was an experiment. She asked how he could know that, forcing Alex to admit that he had killed a great number of people and their minds and memories were now within him. Dana was shocked by what her brother has become.

However, with the help of Dr. Ragland, Mercer was cured, restoring his abilities and gaining him the armor and blade powers as a result. During all of this, Mercer was placed as the number one terrorist threat in the entire United States due to treasonous activities against the United States and her allies.

During one of Alex and Dana's meetings, Dana was kidnapped by a Leader Hunter, a larger and stronger version of the normal hunters. Alex pursued this Leader Hunter across the city, but was ultimately unable to rescue Dana. With the help of Dr. Ragland, Alex located and consumed the same Leader Hunter that kidnapped Dana, learning of her location in the core hive in the center of the city. Alex was eventually able to penetrate the hive, where he confronted Elizabeth Greene.

Elizabeth Greene told Alex that Dana was "with us now". During a struggle, Greene seemingly bests Alex, but he was able to inject Greene with a syringe containing the parasite as it had been extracted from him. Greene's body rejected the parasite immediately and she vomited up a large amount of biomass, from which the Supreme Hunter was born. Alex defeated the Supreme Hunter and saved Dana. As he left, a sinister clawed hand began to regenerate and rise from the remain of the hunter, showing the the Supreme Hunter was far from done

In 1969, the government had tested a virus codenamed Redlight in Hope, Idaho. This virus was designed as a biological warfare agent, targeting those of a predetermined race. The virus unexpectedly mutated into something far deadlier, infecting the whole population of Hope. Elizabeth Greene was the sole survivor of the incident; her body welcomed the virus rather than dying from it and it had rewritten her genetic code, along with that of her son, who was taken from her by Blackwatch and codenamed Pariah. This inspired the government to continue research into the virus, cooperating with the Gentek corporation. Scientists at Gentek locked Greene in a cell which had been used to research Blacklight, the new virus present in Greene. They continued to study the different strains of the virus that formed throughout her system as a means of accelerating the biological weapons program.

Before long, the military began to deploy a new biological agent, Bloodtox, engineered to kill the virus and its hosts.

He then attempted to confront McMullen, the Head of Research and founder of Gentek. After a grueling battle with Marines and Blackwatch between him and his target, Alex confronted Mcmullen and moved to consume him to find out what Mcmullen kneww. McMullen committed suicide before Mercer had the chance. It became apparent that Randall planned to nuke Manhattan to destroy the virus. The mysterious contact, revealed to be Captain Cross, then guided Mercer to consume Colonel Taggart, who was attempting to flee the city. Cross had been ordered to capture Taggart and had Mercer impersonate him in order to get onto the USS Ronald Reagan where the bomb was being held.

Cross betrayed Mercer once on the ship, and was revealed to be the Supreme Hunter having consumed Cross at some point and taken his form. It battled Mercer on the deck of the Reagan and was subsequently decapitated by Mercer. Mercer boarded a helicopter and dropped the nuclear bomb into the Atlantic Ocean, allowing it to detonate at sea but leaving himself well within the blast radius. His remains washed up on the city shore as lumps of red tissue, but he was able to take human after consuming a crow that attempted to devour him.

Alex walked off thinking to himself "What have I become? Something less than human, but also something more..." Later, Manhattan is seen in a recovering state, with the virus almost completely destroyed.

Prototype 2: The Anchor

Part 1

After surviving the nuclear blast at the end of Prototype, Mercer found himself at an impasse. He considered himself still human, but did not know where or how he fit into the world, and due to the actions of himself and those he had fought against he had begun to lose his faith in humanity. He began to travel as a way to find himself, or to at least find a purpose.

After passing through, and killing a warlord, in Africa, Alex made his way to Moscow. It was here he realized that while humans may act kind and compassionate, it was in fact and act and all they ever really cared about was themselves. He returned to the U.S., to a small southern town, and freed it from a local drug cartel. Though, even in their festivities they showed Alex the deplorable nature of Humanity. He began to head north, but nothing he saw did anything to change his mind. If anything, it pushed him further from Mankind. Heading even farther north, seeking some solitude, he rented a small cabin with the money he'd taken from some drug dealers. With his new identity as "Jack", he introduced himself to two people he was renting his cabin from, Flint and his daughter Autumn.

This brief moment of solace was interrupted, though, by Zurich, and ex-business partner of Flint's. Zurich demand the land surrounding Flint's lumbar mill, but Flint wouldn't relent told Zurich he'd never sell them. Later, Zurich sent two men over to kill the father and daughter, but Alex intercepted them and killed them himself. He then went after Zurich.

Part 2

After consuming another of Zurich's men, Alex learned where they were based out of. Making his way there, he attempted to infiltrate it. He was soon discovered by Zurich's hired security but they were no match for Alex's power. He then makes his way to Zurich's office and consumes him, learning, horrifyingly, that Flint was once involved with a number of murders and extortion. Enraged and disappointed, Alex goes back to confront Flint.

Flint tries to explain himself to Alex, that he was retired now, but Alex won't here of it. He then kills and consumes Flint in order to protect his daughter Autumn, whom Alex had begun to love. He then returns to his cabin to find Autumn there. He asked her if she would leave with him if things got so bad there that she couldn't stay, all the while looking for the money he had stashed in the cabin. He discovers, however, that Autumn had already taken the money, and is shot before he can react. Autumn states that her father had taught her better than that and all she cared to look out for was herself.

She was surprised, then, when Alex transforms and consumes her. Alex then realizes, right then, that humans are worthless and had grown stagnant. He thought of it as his duty to usher in a better world.

Prototype 2

A little over as year since the first outbreak, Alex returns to New York City, now dubbed New York Zero, and bases the second outbreak, now started by him, out of Penn Station. Laying claim to the whole of the Red Zone, Alex went on to create the Evolved, highly evolved infected who went on to infiltrate both Gentek and Blackwatch.

His plans are interrupted, though, by James Heller. A man Alex himself had infected after being impressed by the mans' actions in the Red Zone. Heller, blaming Alex Mercer for the death of his wife and child, started hunting down the Evolved and halting all of Alex's plans; foremost of which was Project Whitelight. In Project Whitelight Alex had had his Evolved contaminate all of Blackwatch's stock of Whitelight, a supposed cure for the virus, with a piece of his own DNA. Upon release, the contaminated Whitelight would kill or infect any and all caught in its' mists. After halting this plan, Alex decided to get to Heller through his daughter, Amaya, who was still alive, and use her as a "mother" to the next generation of Evolved. Aided by Alex Mercers' sister, Dana, Heller learned Alex was based out of Penn Station, the original outbreak center, and went there to confront him.

Alex then consumed a number of his own Evolved to strengthen himself, and begun to battle Heller on the roof of Penn Station. After a lengthy contest of power, Heller overpowered Alex and consumed him, and then destroyed the majority of the infection in the Red Zone with a Super-Devastator attack.

Powers & Abilities

After being reanimated by the Blacklight virus, every particle within Alex's form, including his clothing, was consumed and replaced by viral biomass. Able to control this biomass at will, Alex could change his shape effortlessly simply by first consuming them first, which would also allow him access to their skills, knowledge, and memories. He could also forcibly absorb the biomass of other entities to feed himself and could transform his shape into various weapons and defenses.

Physical abilities:

• Strength - Due to his incredibly dense viral mass, Alex has a extraordinary amount of strength. He's able to readily throw cars, overpower Hunters, and down helicopters with a single kick.
• Speed - The increase in density also affecting his muscles, Alex is able to dead sprint faster than most sports cars.
• Agility - He is able to perform incredible parkour feats and extreme climbing maneuvers with ease. He's able to run straight up the side of a building and glide through the air by lessen his mass ejecting small amounts for propulsion.
• Endurance - No longer possessing bones or other vital organs, Alex is effectively immune to nearly any injury, provided has adequate time to heal. He can survive falls from unimaginable heights, direct shots from tank blasts, and Hellfire missiles, and even the supernatural powerful attacks of Hunter, all without tiring.
• Healing Factor - While nourished, he has the ability tp heal from nearly any amount of damage within seconds. Should additional biomass be necessary though, he can absorb the mass of other living beings around him to further quicken the effects.
• Enhanced Senses - Alex's hearing, sight, and smell have all also dramatically increased due to his new viral nature. He can see well past the visible light spectrum, allowing him to see into the infra-red, and is able to detect even minute traces of the virus in other bodies as well. He can hear across incredible distances and has developed a way to tap into the hive mind of the virus and control it.

Offensive Abilities -Mutations to the virus that manifest as physical weapons, such as blades, whips, etc, that Alex can use in any instance.

• Claws - A prominent anti-personal ability that transforms Alex's hands into large, three-fingered, one-thumbed claws. Best used against human enemies, the claws are able to easily slice through flesh and bone.
• Blade - The most powerful cutting and thrusting weapon, and Alex's signature weapon at that, the blade is perfect for cleaving through armored and unarmored foes alike. It's large enough to be able to cleave through multiple foes, but not so large as to obstruct movement.
• Musclemass - As the name suggests, this mutation is a simple, but significant, increase in Alex's muscle mass in his arms. It greatly increases damage from all melee attacks and thrown objects; with this Alex is able to disintegrate smaller enemies in a single hit.
• Hammerfists - Primarily a anti-vehicular power, this mutation causes an immense amount of biomass to flood into Alex's hands, causing them to greatly enlarge and increase in weight. With these Alex can cause what look to be small earthquakes and is able to easily smash through the hardest of armor.
• Whipfist - A thin, nimble, blade-edged arm that can stretch to great distances allowing Alex to bifurcate enemies from afar. Due to the wide arcs the weapon goes through it makes an amazing crowd-controlling tool, able to slice through a number of enemies with every attack.
• Devestators - Incredible powerful attacks that act a sort of viral explosion and cause shock-waves as well as large tendrils to shoot out in every direction.

Defensive Abilities

• Shield - An incredibly strong shield composed of biomass that can block nearly any attack. Attacks of significant value, though, can break it.
• Armor - A suit of armor composed of black plates of hardened viral biomass, the armor allows Alex baseline protection against most enemy attacks. The only drawback being that, due to the armors weight, it severally dampens Alex's maneuverability.

Appearance

While the virus allows Alex to take whatever form he wishes, his favored appearance is that of the former Gentek scientist, Alex Mercer, due to the virus having copied his DNA down to the genetic level. The former Alex had pale skin, brown, curly hair, blue eyes, and grey tinting around them. The clothes the former scientist died in have also been included in this base-form, being comprised entirely of biomass. The are a pair of jeans, plain black shoes, a button-up white short, a grey hoodie, and a black leather jacket with red tribal markings on the back. It's interesting to note that his clothing is just as much a part of his anatomy as his flesh itself, and he is therefore unable to take his clothes off without shape-shifting.

Quotes

"My name is Alex Mercer. I'm the reason for all this. They call me a killer, a monster, a terrorist.... I am all of these things."
"One virus, three weeks, millions dead... and I was there. My name was Alex Mercer, and my work is almost done."
"If I'm still human...where do I fit in now? How do I rejoin the human race?"

Trivia

• Originally, Alex Mercer was suppose to have a black jacket with a white hoodie, but was changed so it would differ from Altair in Assassin's Creed.
• The Executive producer of Prototype, Tim Bennison, described Alex as one of the most powerful video game characters of all time.
• The two colors of Alex's jacket, black and red, signify the two main opposing forces in the game, the Infected and Blackwatch.
• In a certain Web of Intrigue node a Blackwatch scientist reveals that Alex is the first male Runner in the history of the virus.
• His personality traits, according to the official bio, are "terrifying, super-intelligent, distant, predatory, blank, and searching".