Resident Evil: Shadows of the Past
From the moment the helicopter's runners first struck the concrete, Jill could tell with a certainty that Chris was still angry. He had fallen silent as they made ready to land but, even though his ranting had come to a momentary halt, his muscles were still bunched stiffly, his teeth clenched behind his lips. She had been his partner, and lover, long enough to know the signs. Someone was going to get a piece of his mind and that someone was probably going to be Jim Silverman, their supervisor at the B.S.A.A.
Not that she could necessarily disagree with his frustration. At that moment, they were supposed to be on assignment in Central America, derailing attempts by guerrilla forces to purchase biological weapons originally created by the Umbrella Corporation. Instead, the operation had been given over to a second pair of agents - a pair who hadn't spent the last six months investigating the situation the way they had.
But it wasn't just about the waste of time and resources that resulted from calling them back; in fact, it never was with her colleague. They had seen what their targets were capable of doing to their fellow human beings and it had wounded his sense of justice. He had wanted to bring them in himself and strike a blow in the name of everything he believed in. That was always his way.
Despite how much she sympathised with him, she couldn't allow him to take his agitation out on their superior. Being part of the B.S.A.A's "Original Eleven" gave them some degree of leeway within the organisation, but his temper often pushed the limits of what they could get away with. Considering that their group, and what it stood for, meant just about everything to Chris, she couldn't, and wouldn't, stand to see that taken away from him, not by anyone, including himself.
They strode through the building unchallenged; everyone employed there knew who they were, making identification checks redundant. He was silent as he walked, but his anger showed in his pace, making it difficult for her to stay in step with him. All the same, she managed it with experience-honed aplomb. It didn't take them long to reach Silverman's office and although her first instinct was to knock, his was to shunt through the door uninvited, leaving her with no choice but to follow.
The supervisor, clad in a neatly-pressed shirt and trousers, with a suitably unostentatious tie, was on the phone when Chris entered. Seeing the look on the other man's face and knowing that his pent up aggression would not wait, he made his excuses and told the person on the other end that he would call them back.
"What the hell, Jim?" the broad-shouldered agent began, even before the handset had slid into its cradle, "you send us out there for six months and then you call us back just when we're about to nail those sons of bitches? What kind of operation are you running here?"
"If you'd give me a minute to explain..."
"No!" he barked forcefully, slamming a fist into the desk with such force that the half-filled mug of coffee at its centre leapt an inch into the air, spilling lukewarm caffeine over the veneered wood, "if you've got a problem with me or my partner then you take it up with me to my face; don't hide behind your desk and stop me from doing what I'm in this organisation to do, you Goddamn bureaucrat!"
"If you're finished, Agent Redfield," the other man snapped back, rising from his seat, almost as though he were attempting to go nose-to-nose with him - impossible given that he was three inches shorter, "I didn't call you back here just so you could yell abuse at your superior. In fact, if you continue this insubordination then you're going to find yourself on indefinite leave, irrespective of why I called you back."
Jill winced. Silverman was a former F.B.I hotshot, Assistant Supervising Agent or something similar, and new to their division. He didn't understand Chris yet; he especially didn't understand that being confrontational wasn't the way to handle him. His temper tended to get him into trouble; it was a situation just like this that had ended with him being dishonourably discharged from the U.S. Air Force. Back then, he hadn't had her there to soothe him when he got frustrated. People saw him like he was now and never believed her when she told them how much more placid he had become in recent years.
But he burned hot and fast; providing you could survive his initial eruption, he was easily handled when he cooled down, which was usually quite quickly. If they worked together for long enough, she was sure that their supervisor would learn that. In the mean time, it was her duty to avert the crisis.
Placing a gentle hand on her partner's shoulder, she made to pull him softly away from the desk, but he was focused, intense, and shrugged her off harshly. Her response was to wrap her fingers around his arm and tug at him again, harder this time. That snapped him back to reality, reminding him of exactly who was there beside him. He turned to look at her, jaw still tight with anger, but with an unspoken apology in his eyes, softer as they locked with her own. She met his gaze, earnest and compassionate, before turning back to glare at Silverman in her own turn.
"So explain, Jim," she insisted hotly.
He didn't answer for a few seconds, looking first at Chris and then at her, before sliding back into his seat and reclining, a subtle smile appearing on his lips. "Before you came in here and made an ass of yourself," he said, which did not win him any friends among his current audience, both of whom were forced to suppress a snarl of indignation, "I was going to tell you about some information we recently received from an anonymous source. There was a lot of it, some things we know and some we don't, but to cut a long story short, we now know where Oswell Spencer is hiding."
This time, it was their turn to fall silent. The brunette felt herself falter as her mind struggled to comprehend the enormity of what they had been told. From the corner of her eye, she watched the burly male standing beside her gape involuntarily, and was pleased to see that she wasn't the only one who was dumbstruck.
"You mean, the Oswell Spencer?" she asked eventually, a rush of excitement building within her as she squeezed her partner's arm tightly, "former Chairman of Umbrella, Oswell Spencer?"
"That's right," Silverman acknowledged, the understated mirth on his features splitting into a broader, self-satisfied smirk, "the man behind this whole, dark chapter in human history; the one who's been pulling all the strings since the beginning. We've finally got a verified fix on his location, a castle estate at the head of a valley in Eastern Europe. And, because you two were on this case years before the B.S.A.A was even formed, we're giving you the privilege of bringing him in."
"You're giving this to us?" Chris queried incredulously.
"It's not mine to give; the organisation thinks that you're the best team for the job and, even if I wanted to, I can't argue. You're the two most experienced members of the 'Original Eleven'; on top of that you're the most skilled of the remaining six. Furthermore, after all you've been through, we, as a whole, think you deserve a little closure. It's yours because you earned it, and no one can give or take what's already yours."
"Then why all the secrecy?" the dark-haired male demanded, consternation creasing his face anew, but mitigated by Jill's pacifying touch, still clasping the solid muscle of his forearm softly, "why not tell us this before we came all the way back thinking it was just some kind of official fuck-up?"
"You can thank your friend Burton for that," the other man informed him darkly, "he suggested I surprise you with the news once you got back. I won't be taking his advice again any time soon."
"For the love of God, Barry," Jill muttered quietly, now realising who it was that she had to thank for the venomous tirade she had been forced to endure during their trip back from Central America.
"My sentiments exactly," he agreed, sliding open a draw in his desk and removing a thick, paper-bound file strung with elastic bands, holding it up so that they could both see it, "you've got three days to get up to speed, then you'll be heading out to Munich. There, you'll be liaising with the European branch to plan this operation. I'm assuming you understand how important it is that this goes off without a hitch."
"We've worked with the European agency before, Jim; don't worry," she explained, her mood having improved dramatically since they had first received the order to return.
It helped that her partner himself seemed so much more relaxed, the fists he had been clenching opening subconsciously, his grim scowl evaporating entirely. In many ways, they were two parts of a greater whole, a unit founded on common goals and worldviews, as well as mutual respect and adoration. When he was in pain, whether emotional or physical, she felt it, and she knew he felt the same for her. But when he was strong, when he was happy, she felt that too.
Right now, with the anticipation of the upcoming mission, with the knowledge that they could finally put an end to the decade-long nightmare that had begun in Raccoon City, they were both strong. Together, she believed they were unstoppable.
"Thanks," Chris said bluntly; his anger had burned out, just as she had expected, and she affectionately laced her fingers into his, "I mean it; thanks."
"It's not me you need to thank, Redfield," their superior insisted, dropping the stack of documents onto the desk with a thud, making certain not to slap it down in the puddle of coffee at its centre, "save it for whoever dropped this in our lap."
-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----
From the air, the secluded castle estate of Lord Oswell Spencer, sole surviving founder of the Umbrella Corporation, exuded an air of almost palpable menace. The grandeur of its scale was second only to how completely uninviting it managed to seem. It crouched atop its perch on the cliff edge like an immense stone gargoyle, glaring out into the abyss beyond the precipice through one wide, fire-lit eye. Mist wreathed its bulk like a cloak, a crown of dark, forbidding clouds gathered about its towers dripping discharges of lightning that struck weather vanes and masts intended to channel it harmlessly away.
"Nice place," Jill said sardonically, earning herself a wry smile from Chris as they waited at the sealed mouth of the helicopter's passenger compartment, ready to disembark.
Even insulated from the noise of the whirling rotors and the howling gale that buffeted them by the thick steel, she was forced to raise her voice to be heard. As inhospitable as the climate was for an aerial insertion, it was almost impossible to reach their destination by anything other than helicopter, the roads having eroded away years before. They flew the more stable currents, though even these were fierce. But approaching the chasm at the back of the huge structure would send them into a tailspin with almost no chance for survival.
Unfortunately, reports showed that Spencer's stateroom was in that area, and she was certain it could only have been the light they had seen upon approach. That would mean an insertion elsewhere in the castle and a potential firefight with their suspect's personal security officers.
The goal was to take the former Chairman of the now-defunct corporation's Board of Directors into custody alive. He had been below the radar for some time, ever since his company had folded, in fact; unfortunately for him, their anonymous source had blown the lid off his hiding place. It was finally time for him to face the justice he so richly deserved, and time for them to finish what they had started some ten years before. Many of the B.S.A.A's members suspected that he also knew something about the rapid increase in bio-terrorism since the death of his organisation.
Given his history, she didn't find it hard to believe that he knew exactly what was occurring in the shadows cast by Umbrella's tombstone.
"Spencer's been hiding for too long," her partner stated flatly, matching pairs of cool, sapphire orbs locking in an affectionate and mutually-respectful tryst, savouring the seconds before the mission when their focus would need to be elsewhere, "its about time he paid for everything he's done and stopped letting his employees pick up the tab."
She nodded firmly, holding his gaze and squeezing his shoulder reassuringly with her free hand, using the other to grip the rail overhead as the cabin rocked.
"Fifteen seconds to touchdown," she informed the tactical unit who would be supporting them, "you all know what to do."
It was a statement more than a question; the brunette was supremely confident in their abilities, hand-picked, as they had been, by the agency in Munich. Despite that, the men seated in the compartment behind them all offered a nod of confirmation as she turned to glance at them.
They had spent the journey in silence, electing not to engage in the usual customary bravado, each one as focused as the next on the mission at hand. Their assault rifles were gripped in steadfast hands as they hung forward in their straps, prepared to release themselves and disembark as soon as the helicopter had landed. For foot soldiers such as them, travelling via air was one of the more nerve-racking experiences of any operation. In such cramped conditions, there was very little to keep them occupied, and nothing to distract from the constant fear of being shot down.
Jill sympathised; she hadn't quite gotten used to coping with the idleness herself, even after all these years, but Chris was former U.S.A.F, an old hand when it came to airborne operations.
Holding the gaze of the team's commanding officer for the briefest of moments, she turned back to watch pensively as the walls of the castle passed beneath them. Rooftops shed their slates and courtyard shrubberies erupted in sprays of leaves, as their downdraft blasted Spencer's immaculately maintained shelter into disarray. A chill hung in the air, complimenting the darkness of the sky for its ominous portents, and she was forced to suppress a shudder despite her thermal combat gear.
Admittedly, she wasn't certain if the shiver that ran through her was as a result of the cold, or because of the creeping sense of apprehension mounting in her gut.
Their pilot manoeuvred them expertly into the well created by an ornamental garden, almost at the very centre of the sprawling estate, and began to descend. Even before the runners had dropped into the dirt of the rose beds, the support unit rose to its feet as one and crowded to the exit behind the two solo agents. With a unit of trained professionals to her back and her lover at her side, Jill felt a certainty of purpose that pushed the unfounded dread away from her thoughts.
She moved a hand to her sidearm, tugging the reassuring bulk of her Beretta from its holster at her hip and flicking off the safety catch with her thumb. Next to her, Chris did the same for the 9mm Glock 17 he favoured.
The helicopter came to rest at the centre of the walled courtyard, crushing several lovingly cultivated flowers into compost in the process. The jarring rattle of impact spurred them into motion, Chris and Jill vaulting from the open hatch and thudding into the dirt, boots churning soil as they cleared the way for the soldiers.
"Move out!" the sergeant barked, his harsh, German accent giving the order a heavier authoritative punch, and, with that, the operation was underway.
-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----
Eventually, they reached the oaken double doors, carved with the crest of the Spencer family, the rearmost chamber of the estate. Dim firelight shone from the crack beneath the door, colouring the grey flagstones a more pleasant orange. This was the room they had seen from the air, possibly the only one lit in the entire castle at that moment.
It was quiet; the estate was deserted, to the point where they had all begun to wonder aloud if their information had been correct. The lack of security personnel, the absence of servants, not even a trace of human movement for days, suggested that the place had been abandoned. But none of them could explain why there was light in the stateroom, the kind of rich and vibrant luminescence that only flames cast; flames that could only have been kindled a short time ago. Someone was there.
There had been talk of a trap.
If there was, Jill would be ready; she checked her weapon compulsively, keeping stride with her lover.
There were now only five men from the original unit of thirteen accompanying them, the rest securing their extraction route. Privates Lambert and Fischer, the fire team's forerunners, took their positions on either side of the decorative portal, ready to breach. Chris, Sergeant Wolf and herself stood to one side, awaiting their cue to pile through quickly after they forced entry. The remaining two soldiers, Corporal Diaz and Private Christen, assembled directly in front of the doors, each taking a handle.
There was a moment of tension, and then the sergeant gave a nod. The men on point threw the entrance open and darted in, assault rifles sweeping the chamber beyond, and the others followed. Jill kept pace with Chris, adrenaline clashing with nerves in a stomach-churning cocktail of uncertainty as the room was unveiled.
Flames danced merrily in the grate at the right hand side of the room; an immense stone chimney breast extended to the ceiling, proudly bearing the seal of the noble house that owned the estate. Immense, glass-fronted bookcases spanned the walls from the top to bottom, separated by a balcony that only served to emphasise the exhaustive collection of knowledge gathered there. A long table stacked with several volumes stood at the far end of the room, and an expensive, high-backed armchair sat before the fire. Its scarlet upholstery seemed almost cheery in the warm luminescence, particularly in comparison with the drab stone walls that gave the chamber an austere yet grandiose atmosphere.
Jill's cobalt eyes danced across the details in a matter of seconds, before finally settling on the expansive window built into the far wall and the raised dais surrounding it.
She saw the ancient wheelchair, standing empty atop its stage. She saw the slumped body, aged and fragile, a withered, colourless face contorted in an expression of agony, extravagant robe stained with blood from the wound in its chest - an instant death. She saw the man standing at the window, his broad back turned to the interlopers as they focused their attention upon him. She saw the ebony-hued greatcoat he wore, the polished boots beneath, the blood-slicked glove of black leather that dripped the life fluid of their suspect upon the floor.
She saw him turn to face them.
And she watched as he was revealed; black business suit neatly creased beneath his knee-length, leather coat, a shirt and tie, jacket and trousers, unembellished save for the merest spatters of gore; short, blond hair swept back from his smooth, ageless features; sunglasses perched levelly upon the bridge of his nose. He spread his arms, palms up, welcoming them to a place where he now held dominion.
Lightning struck a peak in the distance, a flare of brightness that transformed the world into a photonegative of itself. In that moment the man, the giant, the monster, became a silhouette, a pure shadow imposed upon the brightness of the sky. In place of his hidden eyes burned two piercing pinpoints of crimson.
And as the light faded to normal, she saw the corner of his mouth tilt slightly, subtly upwards.
"Wesker!" Chris roared, heavily muscled arms snapping up to bring the Glock clasped between his hands to bear. The very sound of his name made Jill's skin crawl, subtle horror needling her flesh.
Her partner fired, squeezing off three shots before the others surrounding him had even realised what was happening. The Beretta clutched in her hands whipped forward and added its own deadly rain to the volley. The blond reacted faster than any of them, displaying his superhuman agility as he twisted effortlessly away from the path of the flying bullets. His every sinuous movement was a paragon of honed athleticism, his dexterity undiminished by his advancing years.
Sergeant Wolf barked an order in German and, despite their varying nationalities, his men complied as one. They levelled their assault rifles with trained fluidity and opened up on fully automatic, a concentrated hail of fire shredding the air. Wesker transcended from man to shadow, his rapidly twisting body becoming a furious blur of motion.
Within the blink of an eye, he had closed the distance between them, his dark blur resolving once more into his graven image. He punched clean through the chest of Private Lambert, gore-slicked fist exploding from the soldier's back in a spray of bone and pulped organs. The other troopers cursed as one, an amalgam of blasphemy and obscenity as the merciless god fell upon them, backing away from him in subconscious synchronicity.
Chris was the only one to lunge forward, honed reflexes spurring him into the battle, firing off two shots at point blank range that his nemesis dodged with almost casual grace. A heavy right hook, that should have slammed into the black-clad male's head, instead thudded stiffly into the solid flesh of his raised forearm, the block rising even as he had begun to strike. The retaliation was swift and brutal, a thrusting knife-hand strike aimed to transfix his torso. But her lover had prepared his body and his mind for this confrontation, turning the attack aside and shifting his mass to avoid the impaling strike.
Before either of the two men could make their next move, however, Jill entered the fray, her sidearm barking its report as she drew a bead on Wesker's face. His head jerked aside at each deadly cough, metal slugs rending the air around him, before he wrapped one immense hand around the barrel of the handgun, forcing her aim away. He spun into an elbow strike that connected with Chris's chest and sent him cannoning, fast and hard, into one of the pillars supporting the state room's balcony.
She fired one last, futile bullet that missed by mere millimetres as he writhed out of its path. The gunshot distracted him long enough for her to sacrifice her Beretta to his hands without his notice, spinning in a smooth roundhouse that should have connected solidly. In a second, however, the blond had cast aside the weapon and reached up to snatch her ankle out of the air, a bare inch from the side of his head. His free palm impacted stiffly with her stomach, launching her backwards into the air and sending her skidding across the stone floor. Pain exploded across her midriff and friction burns from the marble burst into bloom along her spine and tailbone.
Pressing herself up, she watched Private Christen level his weapon, the confrontation between the two agents and their nemesis having taken mere seconds, and opened fire. His aim was flawless, but no sooner had he pulled the trigger than his target was no longer there to be hit, the barrage of rifle rounds peppering Corporal Diaz even as he lifted his own firearm. His body armour absorbed the majority of the slugs, save the unfortunate bullet that punctured his throat and sent his life fluid spraying down the front of his uniform in a torrent of crimson.
Crying out in despair, the distraught soldier only had time to regret his mistake for a single second. Wesker seized him by the front of his tactical vest and impaled him through the chest with his hand in a single, brutal motion. Ribs shattered, his heart and lungs turned to liquid, and then the tips of the virally-enhanced male's fingers emerged from his back. Bloody froth erupted from the hole in his reverse, crimson spittle bubbling from his slack lips, and then the hand transfixing him ripped free, letting his corpse fall to the ground.
The wounded corporal slumped to his knees, the black-clad demon having taken only a fraction of a second to dispatch his unfortunate colleague. That same devil closed its hand around his jaw and broke his neck with a swift twist, executing him almost as an afterthought before he could drown in his own blood.
By the time the sole survivor of the fire team, Private Fischer, had adjusted his aim, the impossibly broad form of his target had filled his vision. It loomed before him like the shadow in the mist that portends the sinking of ships. His terror caused him to freeze on the trigger for the briefest moments, only snapping from his trance when a hand shot towards him, latching around the barrel of his weapon. The bullet puckered the underside of his jaw and burst from the top of his skull, thick, scarlet gore seeping from the fissure in his head, diluted by grey cerebral liquid. Wesker had forced the firearm under his chin during his second of hesitation.
Sergeant Wolf screamed an unintelligible cry of disbelief and fury, firing wildly as his adversary turned to confront him. The human B.O.W vanished into a blur once again, before materialising directly in front of him and twisting the rifle in his hands. Stray bullets shattered the glass frontage of the bookcases on the ground floor and shredded the volumes within to pulp.
The commanding officer released his weapon, unsheathing the combat knife from his shoulder and lashing out at the blond's throat. His opponent blocked the strike with one hand and then casually shattered his elbow with the other. The trooper's arm bent inwards on itself with a sick crunch and he shrieked for the briefest of moments, before the blade still clutched in his paralysed fingers pierced his neck. The cry became a strangled gurgle as his own blood flooded his windpipe.
"No!" Chris roared in disbelief, watching as the last of the doomed men slumped to the ground, before hurling himself bodily at his nemesis with a bellow of, "you son of a bitch!"
Jill felt her blood turn to ice water, his sheer power terrifying to behold; she had heard it described but this was the first time she had witnessed it. Even without his superhuman strength and agility, she knew Wesker to be a born killer; all the virus had done was made him better at that vocation than ever before. It had been true when he had wiped out the S.T.A.R.S in Raccoon, before his transformation, and it was true now that he had done the same to five elite B.S.A.A members, without so much as taking a hit.
She didn't know how they could beat someone so powerful, but she knew one thing; neither of them were going down without a fight.
Before she could regain her footing, however, her partner had already closed with his hated enemy, swinging a rage-powered fist. It impacted dully against his opponent's raised arm, the block unwavering, almost as though it were chiselled from granite. But statues didn't strike back, and she felt a surge of relief when her dark-haired paramour had the presence of mind to bring his Glock to bear once more. Two high shots hummed past the other man's head, a desperate attempt to delay the coming retaliation. Unfortunately, before he could sink his aim and put a bullet through the blond's stomach, Jill saw Wesker's hand snatch the barrel of his gun and her relief vanished immediately.
The superhuman whirled smoothly out of the path of the slug, the tail of his greatcoat trailing in his wake, bringing his right leg around in a spinning back kick that hammered into Chris's spine. The impact tore the gun from his hands and sent him sprawling to the floor.
She watched as he discarded the weapon, a measured nonchalance guiding his every action, and allowed the faintest hint of a sneer to appear on his otherwise passive features. Whatever his sinister intentions were, however, she didn't let them come to pass, snatching her combat knife from its sheath and lunging for him. The blade sliced into the flesh of his arm, dark crimson spilling forth across his forearm and wrist from the laceration, and she felt a surge of manic elation run through her. He had missed a step, turning a heartbeat too late to deflect the attack.
Next time, she would ram the dagger through his rotten heart.
Unfortunately, before she could slice at him a second time, his hand had encircled her wrist, the tightness of his grip alone enough to bruise the flesh at the base of her palm. Despite how much it bled, he barely seemed to feel the injury. She ignored her own pain, kicking him solidly beneath the arm; the height of the kick was impressive by anyone's standard, but Wesker was decidedly unmoved.
With a casual twist, he disarmed her for a second time, but she was not done just yet. She snatched at the flick-knife concealed on her equipment harness with her free hand and embedded it in his inner thigh, twisting it for good measure. Rather than open his femoral artery, however, the only effect was a minor crease of vexation upon his handsome features, moments before he swatted the new blade out of her hand as well. She answered by slamming a punch into his solar plexus, but his physique was akin to sculpted stone beneath her fist; it was like striking concrete.
His own punch sent her mind spinning into disarray, instantly turning the left side of her face into a mask of purple bruising and splitting the skin along her lower lip. Blood ran into her mouth and over her chin. She felt her captured arm hyperextend, the tension causing her to flip over onto her back, her body thudding painfully on the stone. Disoriented, she had only the presence of mind to roll desperately away from her enemy while she gathered her senses.
Heavy footsteps heralded Chris's return to the battle, and she watched through the fingers clutching her throbbing temples as he shoulder-rammed full tilt into their opponent's midsection. His momentum carried the blond titan backwards; his hands hammered at his stomach in a barrage of punches, arms moving like pistons, firing blows like a machinegun spraying bullets on full-auto. Wesker didn't retaliate immediately; he let her partner's fervour wane, weathering the hail of blows with all the patience of a mountain, until fatigue set in.
The crushing knee to the chest drove the air from her lover's lungs, rocking him back onto the balls of his feet. A straight right punch took him full in the mouth, splintering teeth, the blow so fast that Jill's eyes registered only a streak of moving darkness. The left that followed slammed into his stomach, sending him staggering backwards and falling to one knee, spitting crimson-tainted saliva. Every blow felt as though it were hitting her own body; watching Chris suffering was enough to shake the haze from her vision and drive her back into the fight.
She closed with their nemesis, swinging a hook punch that he evaded casually, before shifting her weight to aim a kick at him as he moved to stand behind her. The sole of her boot thumped stiffly against the solid muscle of his crossed forearms as he blocked and in a heartbeat she had altered her position again. This time, she hammered her leg into the area of his side that housed his kidneys, a punishing roundhouse that would have seen any normal human bruised internally. But she knew that she was aiming at pressure points out of instinct rather than because she thought they would do any good. He had survived impaling, regenerated scarring that should have been permanent; his inhumanity wasn't in question.
Almost as though he was aware of the doubts lurking in her mind, he dropped low and swept her legs out from under her, sending her crashing hard onto her side against the flagstones. He rose, his body seeming to go from crouched to upright without any movement in between. From her position on the ground, she watched as he swung his right leg up in an axe kick aimed for her face. Even as she braced herself to roll aside, Chris returned with a roar of fury, thrusting his foot into the blond's gut and knocking him backwards. An enraged punch cleaved the air, the fist coming to within millimetres of the darkened lenses before his eyes, causing the slightest quirk of his eyebrow.
Twisting the restrained arm away, Wesker struck him with a palm strike that pushed him off his feet, sending him hurtling through the air and crashing through the glass façade of one of the bookcases. Jill looked on as he slumped to the floor, slivers of the cabinet embedded in his back, his shirt slowly absorbing blood from more than half a dozen deep wounds. A shower of crystal shrapnel followed, cascading over him like razor-sharp rain and leaving weeping lacerations all over his arms. Seeing him in so much pain made her heart ache, but she forced her eyes away from him and rolled deftly to her feet, snatching up her fallen combat knife on the way.
She charged at their former superior yet again, the blade serving as an extension of her arm, slashing right, and then left. Chris had told her at length about the other man's abilities, but that didn't stop her being amazed when he parried each deft snap of her wrist with his gloved hands alone. The blade carved the leather covering his fingers to ribbons and his blood misted into the air with every strike, painting the stone at their feet like an artistic tribute to the macabre.
She couldn't help but grin when she found herself matching his speed, at least for the moment.
Unlike so many of the others at the B.S.A.A, she had listened to her partner, trusted him intrinsically, and she had put in the hours to prepare herself for the inevitable reunion with their nemesis. As much as he was ready, so was she. Together, they stood a chance, no matter how slight.
He stepped towards her, dropping his guard and lunging for her throat, but she pirouetted on her right heel, avoiding his grip and carving a line of crimson into his chest. Building momentum, she continued to spin and brought the knife around in a stab, only for the point to stick fast in the taut sinew of his left arm. His features took on a momentary glimmer of mock-commiseration, and then his free hand locked around her windpipe, squeezing it closed. Buzzing blood filled her head as he wrenched her skyward, her feet pedalling air as she was carried up and then slammed down onto the surface of the long table.
Dragging her by her neck, he pulled her across the veneered wood, her body knocking aside several expensive volumes, before he released her and allowed her momentum to carry her off the end. She became airborne for a brief moment and then skidded across the ground painfully. Her body was beginning to feel sluggish from fatigue and stiff with bruising; she wasn't sure how much more she could take.
But it didn't matter. To her, it didn't matter how strong or tough or fast he was; he wasn't the biggest monster she'd ever faced, and he wouldn't be the biggest monster she'd ever beaten. And she wouldn't stop fighting until one of them was dead, no matter who had the advantage.
All the same, she tried not to think about the odds.
She pushed herself to her feet, the simple task made arduous by the fact that she was dizzy and throbbing with hurt. Her legs trembled and a weak groan escaped her lips involuntarily. For her effort, she was rewarded with the sight of the blond bearing down on her. A solid uppercut jarred her jaw, sending her sprawling across the stage and into the abandoned wheelchair, which toppled and lay, pathetically mimicking its now-deceased owner.
"Our reckoning is at hand," she heard him state flatly, marching towards her with an air of finality in his footsteps, flexing his bloody hands as though relishing the building crescendo.
"Go to hell!" Chris bellowed in response, and she looked up just in time to see him bring an ancient wooden chair down on the other man's back. With a resounding crunch, the weapon splintered into tinder against his immense frame.
He spun, wrapping his right hand around her partner's throat, eyes flaring with vengeful spite, though his expression did not flicker, and she felt a fresh rush of adrenaline hit her body like a spur. Her hand pulled another combat knife from her belt as she rose to her feet and ran to her partner's side. By the time she had reached him, he had buried a boot in their opponent's groin and sent his sunglasses spinning away from their perch on the bridge of his nose with a hard punch to the head. In the next second, she thrust the blade to its hilt in his back, the point sinking between his ribs and transfixing his heart.
He swatted her away almost as though she were an insect, and his injury no more than a nuisance, the backhand rattling her teeth and sending her backwards into the wide window behind her. Her skull cracked against the surface and she slumped onto her backside, suddenly too lightheaded to keep her balance. The dark-haired male struck back, knocking aside the arm that was holding him in the other man's moment of distraction. But the blond moved too quickly, a smooth, unbelievably fast roundhouse kick sending him sprawling down the steps. Her lover gave an agonised grunt as he skidded along on his lacerated reverse, leaving a streak of blood across the floor in his wake.
"I believe that congratulations are in order," he mused, his voice sounding clear and sharp through the droning in Jill's head, "you have both improved immeasurably since last we met. It is gratifying to know that my influence promotes such diligence, even in my former subordinates."
Her vision filled with him, impossibly tall, impossibly broad, as he approached her, looking down upon her slumped form with barely concealed malice clear in his inhuman eyes. Chris had described those eyes, but the memories didn't compare to reality. Red and gold ringed feline slits, they belonged to a monster. Fitting, then, that they were Wesker's.
"Like Chris said," she grunted, putting her hand down as though she were trying to push herself up, instead rolling up the leg of her combats to touch the stainless steel revolver in its ankle holster, "go to hell!"
She arched her back, pressing her weight into the reinforced glass, and rose in a lithe wave of movement. Before he could react, her hand snapped up, the secondary firearm going with it, her thumb working the hammer rapidly, five bullets streaking through the air as she unloaded on him. Each round missed by a factor of mere centimetres as he twisted and contorted his body aside. He drew ever closer, until he had finally closed the gap between them, his chest pressing against the barrel of the pistol, his hand encircling it, and then the final round fired. There was a thud as metal impacted against flesh.
His face split into an ugly smirk and he shook his head - a slow, deliberate admonition.
Surprise couldn't even register before his fingers jerked the gun roughly out of her grip. With a forceful jerk, he placed her back flush to his torso and held her there, bracing his arm against her body. The lower half of her face began to bruise under the pressure of the thumb and forefinger locked around her chin, but she struggled regardless. She wasn't going to let him have his way.
She saw Chris standing, staring at her, eyes fraught with fury and the kind of desperate, unreasoning fear that comes when a loved one is in mortal peril. His nature was tempestuous and passionate, and in a world where virtuous men like him often found themselves disappointed by those around them, she had seen her fair share of his anger. This was different; she hadn't seen this look before.
But then, she had never seen him face off against Wesker before.
Memories of awaking to the sound of Chris's fevered cries, of lying swathed in sweat-soaked sheets, cradled in his desperately clinging arms, pushed to the forefront of her mind. Terrors haunted his dreams, visions of their former superior lurking in his mind, manifesting in eyes glowing in the shadows and voices that called mockingly from the darkness. Ever since the mission to Rockfort and the Antarctic, in search of his lost sister, he had held that dread inside of him.
He had the right to be afraid; this was the most dangerous B.O.W they had ever faced.
But she knew that it was more than that. He had confided in her of the horrors he had seen while he slept, the images of the blond holding his loved ones, sometimes her, sometimes his sister, in his merciless clutches. He had described, in almost graphic detail, the way he had been taunted and forced to watch them maimed and tortured before his eyes, powerless to intervene. And then, in the moment that woke him with his own screaming, his nemesis would pluck out their hearts with one deft motion of his hand. Now, it seemed, his worst fears were being realised.
She wouldn't let it happen. She was stronger than that; they were stronger than that.
"I must confess, I had not expected the B.S.A.A to be quite so forthcoming as to dispatch the two of you in pursuit of the late Lord Spencer when I informed them of his location," Wesker said, his tone so thick with self-satisfaction that it set Jill bristling, "how fortunate to be able to address three long-standing grievances in a single evening. However, though I consider my meeting with my former benefactor to be a matter of business, I will derive considerable personal gratification from the conclusion of his particular encounter."
"Let her go!" the male operative barked, and she felt her chest begin to ache again looking at the stricken expression on his face.
"Your concern is touching," their enemy commented sardonically, taking her arm and wrenching it behind her back violently, "but sentimentality alone will not save you or your beloved partner."
A muffled pop echoed around the chamber as he dislocated the limb and she let out a yelp, the sudden pain making her sink to her knees. He seized a fistful of her hair and dragged her back to her feet, but in that instant she leapt upwards, driving her elbow into his throat. Taking advantage of his moment of distraction, she threw herself forward, his unrelenting grasp tearing coffee-coloured tresses from her scalp in a thick clump.
Chris appeared beside her, combat knife in hand, roaring ferociously as he plunged the blade into the blond's unprotected chest over and over again. Wesker staggered, blood rolling in thick torrents across the front of his orderly attire, chips of bone and shredded pieces of internal organ spraying from each new wound. But though he faltered, he did not fall.
Jill wailed, the injured joint seeming almost to bulge sickly, swollen with blood and pain. She had to do something; she had to mend it and get back into the fight while they still had a chance.
A dislocation wasn't a big deal, she assured herself. In fact, after the Antarctic, her lover's knee hadn't been the same, and she had taken care of it for him more times than she could count. It was an ugly, painful thing to go through; she had seen the aftermath of it enough to know that for certain. But she needed to help him and that meant fighting it - she couldn't let Wesker win.
Pressing her shoulder to the ground, she twisted the paralysed appendage back into its socket, letting out a tortured cry as she did. Feeling returned immediately, her suffering increasing tenfold with it. The injury needed a splint, a dressing, anything to give the damaged joint some support, but she couldn't afford the delay.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she pushed herself back to her feet and threw herself onto the human B.O.W's back, wrapping her good arm around his neck. Her free hand wrapped around the hilt of the knife that was still lodged between his ribs and, with a twist and a jerk, she pulled it free. Then with the same furious zeal as her partner, she thrust it into his flesh again and again and again, putting all of her heart and soul and rage and fire into each and every stabbing motion.
Just when she hoped that perhaps they had finally beaten him, defeated the pinnacle of Umbrella's creations, the worst that the world had to offer, Wesker caught Chris by his forearm. The noise of the palm thrust that followed was enough to make Jill's own body brace involuntarily and she was forced to watch as her lover was thrown across the stateroom. His insensate form slid to a stop and, until she saw him stir a moment later, she feared the worst.
An inhumanly-proportioned hand reached back, seizing her by the shoulder with a hold that threatened to pull the healthy joint apart as well. Gritting her teeth against the pain and hopelessness, she wedged her blade between his vertebrae, the crippling attack doing little more than annoying him further. She shut her eyes, trying to force down the fear that was growing inside her as she unlaced the belt of anti-personnel grenades from her waist. Her limbs locked solidly around his torso, trained muscles pulling taut so that she was laced stubbornly around his upper body. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins, setting her hands trembling as she clasped the bandolier and began to work loose the pins.
"Get back!" she screamed at her partner, azure orbs sorrowful but resolute, as he struggled to climb to his knees and their eyes locked.
She didn't want to die; no one did. But the fact remained that she couldn't let him live. After what he had done to them in Raccoon City, what he had done to Chris and his sister in the Antarctic, he had to pay, or he would do the same to others. If she allowed that to happen then she wouldn't be able to forgive herself. She could only hope that her sacrifice would be enough and that Chris would forgive her. Though she had said it a thousand times, each more heartfelt than the next, she prayed now more than ever that he knew how much she loved him.
The blond realised her plan, his grip on her upper arm tightening and beginning to drag her forward. She clung to him, her aching body threatening to rebel and concede, but she dominated it with sheer willpower. When his tugging became more insistent, when she was almost certain that he was going to tear the limb off completely, she leaned forward and, in sheer desperation, bit him in the throat. Her teeth sank into his flesh, blood that turned to ash on her tongue spraying into her mouth, and his second hand grabbed at the back of her head, attempting vainly to pull her free.
After an agonising moment, she finally came loose from his neck, a wad of foul-tasting meat tearing away between her jaws. Her heart leapt as her hands slipped apart and, for a moment, she feared that she had failed, until the felt the metal rings looped around her fingers. She clamped her eyes shut and clutched the belt to his bleeding heart, all her pain fading to insignificance in the light of what needed to be done, for herself, for her lover, and for the world.
The detonation almost knocked her out with its concussive force alone. Agony, like nothing she had ever felt before, hammered through her entire body, so intense that she was almost certain she blacked out for the briefest of moments. But unconsciousness would have been mercy compared with the torment that ran through her, bringing a wordless, primal howl from her blood-slick lips.
In a second of morbid clarity, she realised that she was no longer clinging to the belt; all that was holding her suspended were the rigid muscles still wrapped around her enemy. Her arms had been reduced to ragged stumps, flesh and bone shredded to little more than gory confetti by the explosion. She clung to him by reflex, her remaining sinew tightening subconsciously around his torso, the final, unintentional act of her dying body. Her ears were ringing, her eyes blind, her senses in an absolute disarray. A sharp stab and a hot, sticky wetness was spreading across her stomach from where searing shrapnel had cut through Wesker and into her.
Her screaming became weak, trembling moans as her overwhelmed body began to shut itself down, self-preservation instincts trying desperately to spare her from the anguish.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. She was adrift in a sea of sensation without context. Her back struck something solid. His weight crushed her against it, and then it gave way behind them, fracturing apart into a thousand spinning blades, slicing the flesh from her bones.
For a split second, she thought she could see Chris. His eyes, hollow and dark with misery, stared into her soul. His hand, powerful and callused reached out towards her, so close that she almost felt that their fingers could touch. Upon his palm, he wore a ragged, crimson wound from the glass he had crawled over in his desperation to save her. Silent tears, the kind she knew all too well, streamed across his cheeks, and he made no attempt to hide them as he so often did.
She was falling, plunging into the deepest, darkest abyss, and leaving him.
Against her will, against every hope she had ever dared to have, she was leaving him.
I'm sorry, Chris... her mind echoed, as the blackness consumed her, I love you...
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