A/N: Hey all. I figure this might need a little explanation, but basically, Shakahnna had a contest on DeviantArt in 2009 to write/draw Shak x Wesker fan fiction/fan art, and this was my entry. Essentially, its Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, but with Shakahnna thrown into the mix. Originally, it was supposed to be a straight novelisation of all the Wesker cut scenes in CVX, but with Shak instead of Claire/Chris. However, as usually happens with me, it ended up taking on a story of its own and became larger. As far as knowing Shak goes, this is a brand new version of the Shak Morgan character from DMD, since she is supposed to occur earlier in the timeline. I have a backstory for this one figured out already that I might put up later. I suggest you essentially read my work as it pertains to Shak to get to know her better (and that's not shameless self-promotion, honest).

In other news, I've not been keeping up with my correspondence lately, due to a combination of laziness and full-time employment. By the time I get home, I just want to veg out and can't even think about typing up letters, and for that I'm sorry, because I don't want people who read and review my work to think it isn't appreciated. I'm always really happy to get new views on my work, and a review always earns a smile, so excuse me for being a jerk and not telling you so personally. In particular, I have to apologise to CJJS, who left some really thoughtful feedback, and whom I haven't been able to contact in almost four months. I don't want my reviewers to go unrewarded, nor to feel like I'm ignoring them; I'm just busy and tired. Thanks, everyone, for the support I've gotten; it means a lot to me, really. I hope you all enjoy this; lots of Wesker next week, when I update. Promise.

Episode One: If I Had My Way...

The guard's knuckles smashed into her jaw, snapping her head back with whiplash-inducing force. Blood trickled across her lip and over her chin. She leered perversely, watching as his face creased in disgust. There was a certain sadistic pleasure she took from his disapproval. She delighted in the way it undermined everything he did. After all, torture was useless if your victim enjoyed it. Of course, that wasn't to say she didn't get a heady satisfaction from the sensation of gore staining her features and the shock of anguish that accompanied it.

She'd have to remember that he didn't like it when people called his sister a slut. Or perhaps he was just angry that Shakahnna herself had claimed to have had sexual relations with her. The pelvic thrusting motion certainly hadn't helped matters.

"Umbrella's in real trouble if all its interrogators are pussies like you," she mocked, spitting a gobbet of blood and saliva onto his grimy shirt that drooled down the front in a slick trail. It wasn't as satisfying as hawking up on a nice, clean uniform, but she would take her entertainment where she could.

His response was to hit her with a crushing backhand that rattled her teeth in her head and her brain in her skull. In truth, he was a big man, tall and broad with an immense barrel chest and powerful limbs, the kind that made each blow a potential killer. To make matters worse, she was tied up, completely incapable of mitigating his considerable strength by blocking the strikes. The fact remained that he was a shoddy interrogator. He was too easily goaded and his aggression made it so that he would probably kill her before he came anywhere close to breaking her.

Of course, that was why they had promised to bring her a professional within the next couple of days, but that didn't mean he was any less eager to try in the meantime.

Shak's reaction to it all was simply to egg them on, regardless of what they had in store for her. She wasn't certain why they were torturing her; she didn't know anything of any particular interest, but they were insistent that she tell them about other S.T.A.R.S members. Other than herself and the team she had been assigned to, which had been wiped out almost a year ago, she didn't know of any members of the organisation who had turned on the corporation. The thought that there might be others filled her with pride.

But she knew that if she admitted to knowing nothing then they either wouldn't believe her and continue regardless, or believe her and have her killed. The sooner she was out of the picture, the sooner someone else would be singled out, and if nothing else she could at least make it a few months before that happened. Simply taking up their attention wasn't good enough for her though. In the last week she had succeeded in sawing quite a few centimetres into the upholstery of the chair she was lashed to, and she suspected that it was only a matter of time before it fell apart completely.

Then she'd see if the broad-shouldered aggressor could take half of what he dished out.

Unfortunately, there had been a surprise waiting for her today that filled her with equal parts dread and intrigue. When she had awoken from her unconscious state, because calling it sleep would have been far too generous, they had been stoking the fire in the wrought iron stove squatting in the corner of her cell. She had noticed on previous occasions that the wall was festooned with various implements, among them branding irons, but she hadn't known whether they were merely decorative until now. They had emptied the embers into a brazier that was now crackling merrily nearby, and her host was eyeing it intently.

She grinned a bloody grin, nonverbally asking him to take his best shot.

Hefting one of the heavy metal rods, its end shaped in the form of the segmented octagon she knew to be the logo of the company he worked for, he pushed it into the smoking debris that was smouldering in its stand. He stoked the fire, motes of orange light dancing around the tip of the brand as he raked it through the coals, before withdrawing it with an overly theatrical wave of his wrist. She scoffed and made a comment about how he looked like a fairy, which made him bristle.

He reached forward and gripped at the lapel of her dark green jumpsuit, wrenching the material until the top three buttons popped one after the other, exposing the flesh at the top of her chest. Forcing down the objections she would otherwise have had, she wiggled her eyebrows lecherously, playing up to his previous forcible insistence that he wasn't attracted to her. Growling, he thrust the tool forward, searing the skin beneath her collarbone and pressing down until it began to burn deeply into her muscle.

She suppressed a groan of agony fused with masochistic enjoyment, twitching in her seat at what would have been an exceptionally pleasant experience, had it been in better company. The smell of cooked meat wafted from the wound as he pulled the iron free, tearing her epidermis apart where it had fused to the end. Although the emblem now charred onto her body brought her no satisfaction, the sensation was the closest she had gotten to a wank in quite a while. She blew out a breath that she didn't realise she had been holding and opened hazy eyes to stare up into the petulant face of her antagonist, who was looking on with disgust.

"You're a sick little whore," he informed her bluntly.

"False, thou fucker," she responded, doing her best to keep her tone from slipping into the sultry murmur that should otherwise have come from a branding, "I'm not the one using fire to hit on sexy redheads. Besides, if anyone's a whore then it's that sister of yours; she's a real cat in the sack. Rowr!"

The jab blackened her eye, but even the skull-splitting impact didn't stop her from bursting out laughing at her own wit and his overenthusiastic punishment. He seemed all too ready to strike her again, with the branding iron this time, but paused when something rumbled overhead. Dust drifted from the ceiling in a faint mist. Her mirth dwindled as she strained her ears to hear what he had also cocked his head to listen to.

Sure enough, there was another concussive tremor, preceded by the whistle of something plummeting to the ground several hundred yards away. It was the sound of a bomb falling and detonating; Shak was almost certain of it.

"Uh-oh! Someone's in trouble!" she sang blithely, kicking her feet happily in what she hoped was not obviously an attempt to work up some slack in the cord tying her down.

"Yeah, you, if you don't shut the fuck up," he snapped, still trying to make out the noises from above and clearly finding her an unwanted distraction. Considering that she had spent the last week winding him up as though it were her life's calling, she believed there was no reason why he should expect her to stop now.

"Nu uh, it's definitely you," she corrected, flexing her hands and feeling the gratifying give that she had been working on preparing for just such an emergency over the course of the last few days, "because as great as you are at tying knots, and you're a genuine fucking boy scout, complete with all the cock-sucking in the woods, you forgot to take into account the fact that this place has really shitty furniture."

With that, she snapped her legs upwards, the bonds lashed around them sawing neatly through the chair's supports, and kicked him firmly in the crotch with both feet. The impact tipped her seat backwards, where it shattered into tinder against the floor. Moving her stiff limbs as quickly as she could manage given their disuse and the pounding they had endured in recent days, she pulled her knees up to her chin and slipped her bound wrists under the soles of her bare feet. She rolled backwards, slipping into a combat stance as he finally shrugged off the blow to the testicles and came after her.

She dodged a heavy blow aimed at her head, grinning broadly when he proved to be as uncoordinated as she had expected, given that he was used to punching people who were tied down. Her reply was to slam her fists into his temple in a hammer blow that sent him reeling. She followed up with a kick that caught him solidly in the stomach and dropped him to one leg, breathing heavily. Features still stretched into an expression of absolute delight, she wrapped her fingers around the brazier and lifted it, its contents still burning within its conical top.

"My turn!" she told him gleefully, before dumping the embers in their entirety over his head.

His clothing burst into flames as the sparks ignited them and he took off shrieking towards the back of the room. She was impressed that he had the presence of mind to remember that the water tank was in the chamber next door; she had been dunked in it several times and knew the layout of that room just as well as she did her own cell. Unfortunately, he seemed to have forgotten about the heavy maroon curtain that separated the two areas, which fell over him as he pitched headlong into it and immediately caught fire as well.

He collapsed into a funeral pyre on the threshold, scream transforming into a strangled gurgle as the heat cauterised his throat, blistered arms flailing in his deadly embrace with the cloth.

She set the unwieldy metal torch on the floor and wriggled her hands loose of the cord still binding her wrists, biting her lip as streaks of gore began to roll the lengths of her forearms from the shallow lacerations it caused. Eventually, she removed the tightly wound bracelets and threw them to the floor, now slick with her blood, which had made a passable lubricant. Before she could think about escaping from the cell, however, the door burst open behind her and a soldier clad in navy blue fatigues, clutching an AK-47, charged through. His eyes widened when he saw her, ensanguine and unrestrained at the centre of the room, a broad grin on her face.

Even as he levelled the assault rifle at her and snapped back the bolt, she snatched up the brazier for the second time, hurling it like a spear. The force of the throw sent the projectile cannoning into his torso in an explosion of hot ash, smashing the weapon out of his hands and knocking the consciousness out of him. Wasting no time, Shak ran to the wall and snatched a pair of the more brutal-looking cutting implements hanging from the brackets lining the chamber, before moving quickly to the door. The cinders littering the floor tickled the skin on the underside of her feet, though they weren't hot enough to cause much more discomfort than that.

She stooped and picked up the firearm lying beside the guard's crumpled body, lacing the strap around her shoulders so that the bulk of it was secured against her broad back. Almost as an afterthought, she carved a wide second smile in the man's throat, grinning as a spray of arterial blood splashed across her reddened cheeks. That way she wouldn't have any nasty surprises to worry about in the future if he woke up and decided to follow her. Since he was working for the company, she didn't expect anyone would be particularly upset about that, unless they were Umbrella scum too.

Taking her newfound arsenal, she skipped over the corpse and began to bounce up the stairs, mounting each step with a gleeful spring in her gait. Her prison was now her playground, with toys and playmates aplenty. In her wake, her interrogator lay blazing beneath his wine-coloured death shroud, his inferno reaching out to take hold of the building around it. That suited her fine; she was only planning on staying long enough to murder all the corporate stooges and get her stuff back. Her babies in particular were crying out for her.

The distant detonations continued beyond the stone walls, overlapping whistles of descent, followed by the rumbling seismic tremors that shook loose plaster from the ceiling in fine mists. They were getting closer, she realised.

She couldn't help but wonder exactly who was dropping bombs on her hosts, though she was well aware that there was no real point in speculating. It was possible that the attackers were a rescue party, but they couldn't possibly be there for her. No one knew where she was and, even if they had found out, she couldn't see her employers at S.T.A.R.S or the Terlawk Police Department launching a full-scale military incursion to a privately owned installation. Unless they had gotten the government involved, but even then that seemed like a stretch. She had to assume that no one was coming to find her, which mean that, although she could use the distraction to her advantage, the responsibility for escaping was ultimately her own. And if she didn't move quickly then they might blow her up by mistake.

As far as their identity went, anyone who hated Umbrella couldn't be all bad.

She could hear noises from the floor above through the door on the landing ahead, bells clamouring, boots hammering wooden flooring. From the sound of the footsteps, she assumed that they were making ready to repel an invasion; their movements were far too scattered to be an evacuation, but too purposeful to be panic. Wherever she was, they had professional soldiers there, which she imagined explained the bombardment. Either the opposing force wanted to soften up the military presence before sending in their own troops, or they were simply going to smash the place to bits. Either way, her need to get out remained undiminished.

As for the alarms, there was clearly more than one wailing its distress in the adjacent room. She didn't imagine that the fire she had caused would go undetected for long as it consumed the upper levels, and the bombing clearly warranted its own siren. She wondered if they had a "Shak-Attack" alert. It would have been a good investment, in her opinion.

The door above burst open, disgorging two men in similar uniforms to the one that had entered her cell, each carrying a rifle much like the one she now owned. Before either could fire, however, she whipped her right arm back and hurled the blood-slicked blade gripped in her fingers, watching as it described an arc in the air, embedding itself in the first individual's crotch. Even as he pitched backwards, screaming and clutching at his perforated groin, she congratulated herself for making her years of "knife-darts" pay off in a combat situation.

She one day hoped to find a practical use for all the expertise she had in drawing cocks on things.

The castrated male's partner hesitated as she continued to climb towards him, eyes widening, mouth frozen in a rictus of sheer terror. Behind her, the bottom of the stairwell was bathed in flickering luminescence from the flames, smoke and heat rising around her as though hell followed her ascension. Her hair shimmered like a molten cascade in the firelight and her emerald orbs glowed with cheerful, mischievous mania, mirrored in the broad grin plastered across her scarred features. The logo branded into the still-visible flesh below her throat made her look like an escaped B.O.W on the rampage. Looking for all the world like a monster rising from dark depths to eat him whole, her very approach had him paralysed with fear.

That or her sex appeal was blowing his mind, which seemed equally likely from her perspective.

Unfortunately, the spell she had unwittingly put on him didn't last. He raised his weapon, but cried out when the other saw-toothed iron knife came hurtling towards him. The leather-wrapped handle struck him stiffly in the shoulder with the wet crack of abused cartilage, throwing his aim away long enough for her to close the distance between them. She grabbed the barrel of his machinegun and forced it away as his finger tightened around the trigger.

The discharge left her ears ringing, the noise amplified by the close quarters, and the vibration rattled her entire arm painfully as bullets tore into the brickwork to her right. Balling a fist with her free hand, she slammed a fierce punch into his testicles, the firearm falling silent as his grip loosened on it. He let out a strangled grunt as he doubled over, before Shak slammed his rifle into his back with the audible crunch of fracturing ribs. Collapsing to his knees, the stab of pain from his spine distracted him away from the screams of his partner as the redhead ripped the blade out of the gory wound in his crotch.

Reasoning that there needed to be a substitute, she jammed her toes into the warm meat, wriggling them playfully at the new, and not entirely unpleasant, stimulus. His bloodcurdling shrieks began anew.

She gripped the back of the second male's head and pulled it back, exposing his jugular to the serrated edge of her crude implement, before carving deeply into it. As his throat began to spray crimson, she kicked him stiffly in the back, watching as he tumbled limply down the steps, his head lolling sickly and painting the entire stairwell with his blood.

Turning her attention to the prone trooper, she twirled the knife quickly in her hand and stabbed it into his stomach. His wailing took on an all new level of strain as she sawed through his gut, eviscerating him with the precision of a medieval surgeon and delighting as steaming, rubbery tubes burst forth from his belly. They glistened in the light from the bulb above the landing as she wrapped her fingers around the exposed lengths, tugging them free and tossing them into the air behind her like streamers. She continued to pull until she jerked something free inside him.

By the time she stopped, his eyes were starring glassily at the ceiling, his struggling long since ceased, a faint copper taint around his lips from where he had bitten through his own tongue.

Shrugging, she retrieved her daggers, holding one in each hand as she kicked through the door that led to the upper level. There was the sound of splintering wood and then the oak panel slammed roughly into the head of a soldier standing behind it, most likely concussing him on impact. Even as he fell back, another man lunged for her, entirely unprepared for her to carve him into pieces with a flourish of her weapons. He collapsed, his neck torn open, his wrists spraying blood and his uniform trousers soaked with scarlet from his gaping femoral arteries.

Seeing the downed individual nearby, she leapt up and brought both feet down on his head, hearing and feeling his skull crack beneath her weight. She hopped in place half a dozen times, and then jumped on his ribcage for good measure, the trauma forcing a burst of gore from his mouth.

A third male ran at her, a metal baton clasped in one hand, the sight of the weapon making her blood run a few degrees hotter by itself. He swung for her, alarm appearing on his features when she lifted her forearm and blocked the attack with a limb composed of solid muscle. The blow gave her a shiver of numbness, but not much else; late night training with her more enthusiastic law enforcement lackeys had given her a tolerance for being beaten with nightsticks. She responded by ramming her forehead squarely into the side of his chin, grinning as she heard the satisfying snap of his jaw shattering.

Unfortunately, she was forced to step down from her human podium, and the rough-hewn boards that made up the flooring spiked her soles with splinters. Her boots began to cry out for her too.

Giving a muffled scream, her latest opponent staggered backwards, only for her to ram her blades up to their hilts in his sternum. No sooner had she done so than yet another guard appeared, this time behind the wooden counter that stood opposite the door. Having watched three of his colleagues despatched in short order, he racked the slide on his AK-47 and aimed it into her cherubic face, pulling the trigger as she vanished behind the upright corpse of the man still impaled on her knives.

His broad back absorbed the bullets, each round smacking wetly into his flesh as he floated through the air towards the desk, driven by the young woman holding him aloft. A stray shot grazed her arm, leaving a hot, skinless track in her flesh, but she pushed onwards. The bolt of his machinegun snapped shut and he cursed as the body kept coming, Shakahnna throwing it at him and forcing him to duck. She ducked too, rolling under the open area beneath the workstation and wincing as her own rifle jammed stiffly into her spine. Gritting her teeth, her grin faltering only for a moment, she swept his legs out from under him with a swift kick.

He slumped onto his back beneath the weight of his dead comrade and was ill-prepared for the underside of the female's bare foot to smack solidly into his throat, before slamming into his face over and over again. She turned his features into a colourful mask of swollen tissue, even as the trauma turned the area from her toes to her heels into a dark, angry mass of bruising. Caught up in the momentary bloodlust, she hauled herself up and straddled his chest, seizing his throat in one hand and bringing the other down, poking out his eyes with her fingertips.

She lifted her arm, gazing curiously at the viscous fluid, the colour and consistency of blackcurrant jam, which was adhering to her skin. Tentatively, she drew the tip of her tongue across the jelly, immediately regretting it as she gagged, finding that the flavour was where the comparison with blackcurrant jam ended. She coloured slightly, the unpleasant taste reminding her that she had gotten carried away in her escape attempt, probably as a result of the baton. And she was definitely missing her babies.

The man beneath her was clearly dead, though whether because his windpipe had collapsed after the first kick she had given him or through shock from losing his eyes, she wasn't certain. Wiping her messy digits on his shirt, she moved a hand to her latest injury, wincing as her finger grazed it slightly, though when it came back bloodless she reasoned that it was probably best to leave it alone. Painful as it most certainly was, it either wasn't deep enough to bleed or had been cauterised instantly by the hot slug, making medical treatment unnecessary for the most part.

Pushing herself up, she cast a quick glance around the chamber she had entered, noting that the small security detail there was dead to a man. The counter that divided the room was clearly supposed to be used for processing the prisoners that arrived and departed, and she hoped that she was the only one present in the building. She wasn't sure if she would have time to search for others before the place burned to the ground or the bombing run obliterated it. Aside from the piece of furniture she was currently crouching behind, the chamber was practically bare, with unadorned redbrick walls and bare boards for flooring.

Knowing that her beloved possessions weren't there, she stood up and once again retrieved her blades, this time from the cadaver draped over the last of the soldiers. That done, she hopped over the workstation, scattering some gore-streaked paperwork as she did so. As an afterthought, she picked up the baton as well, hooking the catch on the end to one of the belt loops stitched to her outfit.

She exploded through the next door, a titian titan bulldozing through her former prison on a mission of merciless mayhem. The five dumbfounded soldiers in the room beyond catered to her eagerness, charging towards her when they saw that their prisoner had escaped her confinement. They had clearly not paid enough attention to her bloodied clothing or weaponry, or they might have chosen a more reserved method for attempting to subdue her. As it was, not one of them had the sense to hold back and Shakahnna was reminded of a drove of lemmings, albeit less cute and more hairy.

The first man was met halfway between his original position and his target by the knife hurled from her right hand, which transfixed his throat and hurled him off his feet. He landed limply on his back even as she whipped out her newly acquired nightstick, parrying a blow with a club aimed at her head by the second advancing guard. She ducked beneath his outstretched arm, eviscerating him with an almost casual slash to his stomach and letting him collapse screaming onto his spilled intestines as a third male reached her.

She blocked and turned aside a solid right hook, before hammering his crotch with her tender foot, enjoying the pain as much as the blow it came from. After doubling him over, she laced her arm around his neck, pulling him into a tight headlock and reversing her remaining knife into a downward grip so that she could stab him between his vertebrae. Paralysed from the neck down, he flopped to the ground and lay moaning, slowly drowning in his own saliva as she passed over him, like the Angel of Death seeking first-born sons to slay.

Sliding her baton back onto its belt loop, she ducked to snatch the blade impaled through the first victim's windpipe, bringing both up in a pincer swing. They bit deeply into the next contestant's neck, but weren't sharp or fast enough to decapitate him completely. As such, he collapsed to the ground gurgling and clutching at the mutilations, hands slippery with the blood that sprayed forth as she freed her weapons with a pair of sharp twists.

The final member of the quintet opposing her backed away nervously as the last of his colleagues hit the floor, eyes wide with fright as she advanced on him, cruel, crude daggers dripping gore. Eventually, he bumped into the wall, weapon sliding from his limp fingers as he flattened himself to the brickwork. She leaned into his face, leering up at him as he shrank away, the fact that he was several inches taller than her giving the confrontation a flavour of the satirical. He lifted his hands, as though he were attempting to pacify her, and then he was gripping her shoulders, knuckles turning white, as she plunged the knife in her right hand to its hilt in his crotch. He tried to scream, but emitted only a reedy death rattle as she tore up through his pelvis and across his stomach, disembowelment following castration.

Smiling at what she perceived to be a perfect score, she jerked the implement free of his corpse with a wet sucking sound and allowed him to slump into a gutted heap at the base of the wall.

Taking in her surroundings quickly, her eyes glowed with delight when she spotted the large locker standing against the wall, stencilled with the letters "Contraband" in thick, black capitals. She wasted no time in charging over to the cabinet and subjecting it to a closer inspection. Though she couldn't be sure until she opened it, she was fairly certain that her equipment and, more to the point, her babies were being kept inside. Unfortunately, a heavy-duty padlock clung to the bolt and failed to budge when she reached out to rattle it.

When she realised that the metal surrounding the container's catch was rusting into disrepair, however, her momentary consternation evaporated entirely.

Resting her twin blades on a tabletop nearby, she took hold of the assault rifle on her back and hefted it, slamming the stock against the decaying section of the door like a personal battering ram. The steel protested against her focused strength, dirty flecks cascading like autumn leaves from the surface as she hammered her weapon against it over and over again. Eventually, she had battered back a sizeable portion of the blockade keeping her from her treasured possessions, enough to cause the bolt, along with the padlock, to fall to the ground with a dull thud.

Propping the machinegun against the foot of the locker for the moment, she hauled it open, searching the contents until her eager emerald orbs settled upon what she had been looking for. Hanging at the rear of the compartment was a pair of padded leather gloves, the fingers of which had been modified to end in vicious, razor-sharp knives. It had taken her several months to perfect the design and as far as she was aware they were unique. Losing them after what they had been through together would have been too much to bear.

Cooing softly under her breath, she reached for them, lifting them reverentially from their hook one at a time and sliding them gently over her callused hands, purring despite herself as she did so. They were still slightly stiff, young as they were, but they had been blooded and seen combat. They'd plucked eyes from sockets, pierced throats, sliced off ears, impaled hands, slid between ribs to puncture organs and sunk deeply into those sensitive spots that caused the most exquisite pain. It had taken her a while to get used to the idea of having longer fingers, but now they moved as an effective extension of her hands.

In a way, the talons made her look like a monster, but she was still very much human, still very capable of determining between good and evil. The distinction allowed her to do terrible things to the latter category, utilising all of the cruelty that humanity imbued her with, and the claws of her own creation, to dispense a brutal justice.

Having reacquired her precious babies, she swished them experimentally, slicing the air into transparent ribbons with each graceful flick of her wrists. She looked forward to letting them slake the thirst they had certainly developed during their week of captivity. A crash and the crackle of flames from the room that she had just left reminded her that she was working to the clock, however, and she grudgingly turned her attention back to the cabinet.

What remained of her STARS uniform lay folded on a shelf, little more than shreds after the ordeal she had been through prior to her capture. She gave the bundle of rags a loving caress and consigned them to a quick and painless immolation at the hands of the fire she had started. It was as good a way as any to say goodbye to an enjoyable, if not particularly distinguished, career in law enforcement. Her thigh holster, still clutching the handsome bulk of her Colt .45 semi-automatic, on the other hand, was still perfectly operable. Moving her finger-blades carefully, she expertly took up the small harness and lashed it around her right upper leg, enjoying the feel of its weight against her muscle again.

Her equipment belt was also waiting for her and she spared a few moments to say a silent prayer to the inefficiency of corporate bureaucracy. Even within the structure of clandestine, illegal operations like the one she was now imprisoned in, paperwork and chains of command still existed, and so her items had been spared from disposal. The bulky black band was stuffed full of ammunition for her pistol and an assortment of other semi-useful knickknacks that she had horded throughout the years, including a few spare pouches for other interesting paraphernalia she might find.

She slipped the accessory around her waist, once again delighting in a reassuring and familiar bulk, this one hugging to her hips. It was nice to feel a little less naked.

Turning around, she retrieved her knives from the counter that they were resting upon and hooked them at her sides, reasoning that it was always a good idea to have more sharps. Seeing nothing else in the locker that caught her eye, she turned away, leaving the Kalashnikov where it was. She disliked the assault rifle's bulk and its adverse effect on her manoeuvrability; the highly preferable Colt made it largely superfluous now anyway.

She skipped across the room, past the pile of bodies by the door she had entered through, blowing them a kiss for their hospitality as she did so. Her spirits were considerably higher now that she had her gear back, particularly the claws that once again twitched at her fingertips, eager to rend flesh and punish the guilty.

Their opportunity came sooner than she thought it would as she slammed her bare sole into the wood of the next door, kicking it open with a splintering noise that earned the attention of the chamber's lone occupant. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, as the majority of the guards had been, most likely entering his middle years, but was much better equipped than his now-deceased colleagues had been. A tactical vest was strapped around his torso, his rifle hanging on its sling at his back, a 9mm sidearm affixed to his thigh. He seemed ready to repel the invasion and immensely confused to see her standing where the rest of his unit should have been.

Grinning broadly, she didn't stop to introduce herself, electing instead to charge at him, flexing bladed digits as she brought her arms back to launch her attack. She pounced, thrusting her hands forward in a stabbing motion that would have seen him skewered on all ten sleek knives had he not thrown himself to the side at the last moment. Landing in a feline crouch, she shifted her weight onto her hands and moved her back legs so that she was facing him a second time, watching as he rolled up into a standing position, hand clutching for his handgun.

Shaking her head, she swiped at him playfully and knocked the gun from his grasp, the points of her talons narrowly avoiding scoring deep grooves in his arms as she did so. His response was to dart out of her reach, closing his fingers around the combat knife affixed to the left shoulder portion of his jacket. He held his own blade with a seasoned grip, the kind of drilled discipline she had come to expect from the company's military.

But Shakahnna had been a cop; she hadn't learned how to be good with sharp objects because some tool had told her it would be a good idea. The majority of her martial arts training had been self-taught, fighting back against people with more bravado or fear than common sense. It made them unpredictable and dangerous, more so than anyone fighting from a rule book could ever be. People with rules usually didn't try to bite your ears off when things got tough, nor did they throw furniture at you or come at you with broken glass bottles. They didn't grind their fingers into your eyes or scream like they were on fire when they were right next to your head in a desperate attempt to throw you off your game.

The banality that training tended to breed was actually quite comforting.

That in mind, she lunged forward again, watching as he twisted his weapon in his hand to parry a slash meant to disembowel him. Steel clashed against steel as they struck and disengaged cleanly. She favoured him with a coy raise of her eyebrow, congratulating him on his opposition thus far, given how brief her fight with the others from his group had been. He responded with a stab aimed at her chest, intended to slip between her ribs and tear through her heart, but she caught the strike with her claws, trapping the blade amid her talons. When he tried to pull it back out of her grasp, she tugged back, keeping them trapped in a bladed embrace.

Laughing heartily, she continued the dangerous stalemate for a few more seconds, delighting in the frustration that was becoming evident on his face. Agitation took over and he dove at her, forcing the knife towards her stomach, but she turned him to the side, thrusting her knee into his gut for his trouble. He recovered quickly, which was fortunate for him because the redhead was already on the offensive as he spun back to face her. She slashed at him over and over, chasing him away as he retreated to avoid the daggers that threatened to slice him into pieces, deflecting those swipes that he could with his own.

His left hand caught her wrist as she attacked, restraining her movements, and his weapon became entangled in her claws for a second time. The resulting mess of metal twisted her fingers into interesting and somewhat painful positions, but she held tight to their second grapple. He risked his footing, bringing his boot down on the bruising on her toes, which made her cry out. Despite herself, the noise had not entirely been one of displeasure.

His face creased with confusion, but quickly hardened again when she began to push against his grip with her strong arm, leaving the other, weaker limb tangled with his. She forced up, wriggling her digits until she was tickling his cheek, watching as his grimace became more and more pronounced with each fraction of a millimetre her strength earned her. In reply, her own lips pulled back from her teeth in similar increments, showing her glee.

A sharp metal point pushed into skin, creating a divot in the unshaven surface, before it edged deeper, slowly sinking into the flesh and drawing a thick, crimson droplet that trailed along the line of his jaw. Then it jabbed inward, rending his features apart, cleaving into ivory pegs and slicing them away from their roots, flaying his tongue, and setting him screaming. He threw her off, but she was insistent, ramming her forehead into his nose and listening to the knot of cartilage within disintegrating. His head snapped back and she clamped her maw around his exposed neck, biting into his throat, severing veins and arteries alike as she chewed through his jugular.

His knife slipped from where it was locked and sliced into the muscle of her forearm, scraping bone. She felt a rush of light-headedness wash over her, a horrifying chill that made bile rise in the back of her throat, and realised instinctively that shock had hit her like a club to the spine. Forcing it down, she drew back, slamming her head into his for a second time in an attempt to clear away the numbness that was so much more dangerous. Pain seized her, quieting the hideous sensation creeping through her body, and its banishment was welcome.

She thrust her claws into his chest, feeling him fall limp on her blades with no small degree of satisfaction. Releasing a pent up breath of exhilaration, she tilted her hands and allowed him to slowly slide from her blades into a heap on the floor.

She stood for a moment, grinning manically, and then grunted and put her hand to her head as a stab of anguish from the two blows she had inflicted made her stagger slightly. It wasn't the most pressing injury she had suffered though, given that her left arm was now streaming with gore, soaking into the glove on her hand and making her fingers slick. She needed a tourniquet and bandage for it, as soon as possible.

And once she'd fixed herself up, there was the small matter of escaping a burning building to take care of.

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The small outpost was now fully ablaze, flames rising almost a full storey above the slated roof, the smoke billowing even higher into the night sky. An undulating pillar of charcoal grey bisected the clouded expanse overhead and, on the horizon, dozens of others could be seen in all directions. The dry stench of atomised stone and the heady perfume of pulped vegetation hung heavily in the atmosphere.

Shakahnna stood in the muddy courtyard, enjoying the open air for the first time in a full week. She was glad to have something on her feet at last; it had been a pleasant surprise to find that the last of her opponents' footwear had been the right size for her. They were good boots, as she had found out when he had stamped on her toes, but now they were hers. She had also appropriated his tactical vest for the extra pocket space and protection. It was muggy and she felt uncomfortably warm, particularly with the raging inferno to her back, but she would bear it.

The best part of her new ensemble was the pair of new handguns she had appropriated. She knew that the ammo for the .45 was limited and the 9mm pistols she had acquired would give her a needed substitute in the event that it was necessary. Umbrella were capable of some unique abominations that took considerable effort to kill, she knew, and the extra firepower would be appreciated if she happened to run into any. You could never tell with the corporation, particularly in a state of chaos like the one currently happening all around her.

She looked into the sky, scanning the overcast twilight with eager eyes, and saw the dark shapes of the bombers, silhouettes of metal carrion swooping through the gloom. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that they were angels, raining punishment upon the guilty below. Whatever the metaphor, she was free and it was because of them, to a degree.

Saluting the shapes in the shadows, giving her thanks for the opportunity they had granted her, she moved off to join the carnage.

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