Halloween 2nd Night Special - Slayer

Stalker's received a redesign, and a name change. He's now called Slayer, which is just easier to say.

Slayer is a cyborg, though the only part of him that is human anymore is the brain inside the machine's head. All of his remaining physical body was completely destroyed and repossessed by the Shadow that was inserted into him through distorted medical science. Slayer was originally a clone, named KI-02M, or Kyle, to his friends. He was one of two test subjects in the early research programs of creating Super-Soldiers, using the raw energy that comprised Shadows to create killing machines that could be controlled. The other subject, KI-02F, Kathy, did not survive the program. Kyle and Kathy were the second pair of test subjects to mature in their cloning tanks, and were the last to go through the procedure, since Slayer destroyed all of the remaining clones, bar one, in a massacre that decimated the staff of the Supernatural Suppression Agency's Science Branch, and a majority of the Military Branch's personnel, resulting in a power shift between the two branches that saw the Super-Soldier program shut down.

The previous two subjects, KI-01M/F (Male/Female), remain unnamed. They never received nicknames, since a part of the original procedure called for absolutely no interaction between the subjects and the staff. KI-01M was also the sole survivor of his procedure, similar to Slayer. However, 'Ragdoll', as he came to be known, did not kill his fellow subject as Slayer did. Ragdoll's counterpart did not survive the initial procedure. In Ragdoll's procedure, the Shadow was injected into each of them. In the Male's case, rapid bodily disintegration was observed, and only halted by quickly placing the subject in stasis. Ragdoll's body was them reconstructed artificially, by removing his flesh piece by piece and refining it into Human leather, then sewing it back on with high-density steel wire. The Shadow could not destroy the strengthened flesh as easily, and so integrated with it instead. Ultimate however, the Shadow consumed the subject, and no remnant of Humanity could be salvaged. They placed a computer system in its head, that would control the body's chemical stimulants to compel the Shadow to follow basic orders, which only worked because the Shadow was occupying a physical body, rather than a solid mass of energy as it normally did, but that was all they could do. Ragdoll still periodically goes on rampages, each time coinciding with the date of the final surgery that killed him.

Slayer on the other hand, had the 'advantage' of Ragdoll's results and research. During the procedure, Kyle showed astonishing resistance to the Shadow, which the Scientists concluded was due to changes in environment compared to Ragdoll. Kyle and Kathy were given names, fictitious previous lives, interacted with the Scientists and eachother, as well as a lot of the Military staff, forming friendships, relationships, and notably, falling in love with eachother. They were both together in the same operating room when the procedure began, but Kyle was quickly carted off to another room when his resistance showed, so that they could replace his body with a pre-prepared machine body, that was more controllable compared to the basic computer in Ragdoll. Much of Kyle was preserved inside the machine, but he would later lose his original body parts as the Shadow became the dominant personality, save for what remained of his head, which was encased inside the mechanical skull.

Kathy on the other hand went through the same process as her predecessor. Unlike the male subjects, the female subjects did not disintegrate, instead, the Shadow consumed them from inside and inhabited their body, obliterating the subject's minds and taking over. The scientists effectively trapped the Shadow in Kathy's body, then activated a more advanced stimulant-control system that could be used for more complicated commands than Ragdoll's, creating a perfect, controllable Shadow, and the first Super Soldier prototype. Kathy's predecessor died of shock before the Shadow could consume her, and so her body was broken and unable to be controlled, but Kathy did not die of shock, and the operation was a success. The thing is, Kathy did, in fact, die, just not physically. Kathy no longer inhabited her own body, and had been pushed out by the Shadow. Further research on the procedure, made some time afterward, speculated that the reason that the Male subjects disintegrated whereas Female subjects did not, was because the Shadows they had used on both accounts had been Female in form. If a Male-formed Shadow had been used instead, the results might have differed.

Kyle however remained in control, so the Shadow instead destroyed the machine body that they inhabited, and replaced most of its parts with its own body, copying the original form. The AI could no longer make the body move, so the procedure was ultimately deemed unsuccessful. However, Kyle, now 'Slayer Mk1', still 'lived'. Kyle was holding on to the hope that Kathy was still alive, as he had a present to give to her for her birthday - a red hair ribbon that he had clutched in his hands the entire time. Picking it up from his old body, he was led into an arena where the Scientists would use this opportunity to battle-test Kathy, now named 'Lilith'. Kyle tried in vain to give Kathy the red ribbon as a present, but Lilith ignored him, and kept trying to harm him, only the AI system inside Kyle's new body keeping him alive, compelling him to react in time to stop or avoid her. Once he realised that Kathy was dead, Kyle lost all sense of self and the Shadow took over. The Scientists could only watch in horror as the failed Slayer Mk1 tore their prized Lilith apart, piece by piece, splattering her all over the walls, and finally, eating her.

They confined Slayer to his old cell whilst they figured out what to do with him. In a brief moment, Kyle awoke again and looked in the mirror for the first time since his procedure. All he saw staring back at him was the Shadow's Mask. He peeled it off, and saw what was left of his face underneath, and it all came flooding back to him. Bellowing with rage, Kyle burst out of his cell and went on a rampage to the lower levels, where the clones were kept, killing all but one of the Scientists involved in the procedure, and severely injuring the survivor, which turned out to be the director of the whole program. Several platoons of the SSA's Military personnel were carved through like butter, leaving entire hallways filled with blood and corpses. In a desperate last bid, the Science Branch unleashed Ragdoll to stop Slayer. When they met in the last hallway, there was a moment of recognition in eachother's eyes, before Slayer's rage ultimately pushed him onward, and he tore off Ragdoll's arm, leaving him bleeding to death on the floor.

Slayer then broke into the storage facility at the lowest levels, where all the clones were kept. Hundreds of copies of Kyle and Kathy were lined up in rows of tall, bulky tanks, filled with as much wire and pipe as there was Human, each at various stages of maturation, ready to go through procedures of their own. Slayer destroyed them all, breaking their tanks and killing each of them before they even had a chance to be alive, not that they would have had much of a life anyway. However, Slayer spared the third Kathy, the one that most resembled the one he knew. He took her tank out from it's place and carried it all the way back to his cell, where he placed it into a corner, ripped open the wall and connected the power lines to it, and then sat there, in silent vigil over the copy of his dead lover.

It took a long time for the SSA to get back on their feet, and even longer to convince Slayer to help them kill Shadows - the purpose he was created for. Once he agreed though, he became their strongest asset. But nobody who survived the massacre ever speaks of it openly.