Remnants
Author's Note: I'm a huge Resident Evil fan, so I thought I'd try my hand at writing a fanfic. I wanted to include most of the main characters, so sorry if this doesn't please you. I tried to keep the continuity going, but there'll probably be some errors in there somewhere. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter 1
Leon was bored. He hated flying. He'd had far too many bad experiences with flying to ever enjoy it. Not that he was afraid or anything like that – after all the things Leon S Kennedy had seen over the years, a little height was nothing. But it had been a chopper that had allowed Ada to make her escape from the island with the Plaga sample; a chopper that had brought Mike the pilot his doom on that same island. He was meant to pay for drinks after it was all over, and thanks to being in a chopper, he never got to enjoy that drink with him. Thanks to a chopper, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Chris' then-partner Sheva Alomar had to go through hell, because Ada had used that chopper to supply Albert Wesker with a sample of the Plaga parasite. The sample he was supposed to have collected himself. Thanks to fucking choppers, Chris, Jill, Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers had to endure an entire night in that godforsaken Spencer Mansion. Not to mention all those S.T.A.R.S. that had their lives cut dramatically short. No, flying was the enemy. He hated it.
He stared out the windows of the chopper, taking in the scenery below, trying to divert his attention away from the fact that he was in one. He was on his way to a small town in California. He couldn't remember the name off the top of his head, but that didn't matter. He knew what he had to know, and that was that he would be told everything when he arrived there. He was supposed to meet someone from the BSAA when he touched down. He'd be working intimately with them to solve some sort of imminent crisis. The government didn't seem to think the case warranted attention from the global anti-bioweapon organisation, but they'd let them think they were running the show until Leon could prove them wrong. After all, they'd done all the research and they had information the US government could use. Leon had a sick feeling that this would be another one of those days; because it always was, whenever they sent him on some mission by himself. Every time without fail, when he was by himself he ran into massive amounts of trouble. He just continued to stare at the ground, trying not to jinx himself.
"15 minutes till touchdown, Agent Kennedy." The pilot – a woman named Amy – yelled through the chopper's headsets.
"OK."
Great. 15 more minutes of this shit. He decided to keep himself occupied by reading through the reports he'd been supplied with - again. He'd already read them twice, and they were pretty vague: people had been attacked by 'zombies'. Familiar story. Apparently the victims all said their attackers were people who appeared totally normal. The only thing these initial attackers had in common was that they all worked at a power plant on the edge of town. But otherwise, they seemed like normal people with normal lives, showed no outward signs of anything unusual, and so no one had any reason to suspect a thing. The victims had bites and scratches, but the wounds had healed very quickly and there hadn't been time to investigate them, so no proof was gathered and the cases were all dismissed by the local PD. This all happened a few weeks ago, and the reports had quadrupled since then. By now, almost everyone in the town, except for those who worked at the power plant, had made a report: even the policemen and women who were dealing with the problem. So the BSAA had charged in there and found nothing of interest, but kept up the investigation anyway. When the government found out that the BSAA were involved and had more intel on the case than the police did, Leon was despatched to keep an eye on them.
"Agent Kennedy, proceeding to land now. Good luck, sir."
"Thanks for the ride, Amy."
"No problem, sir. Hope to see you again very soon." She said, smiling flirtatiously at him.
Leon smiled back and jumped out of the chopper when it was close enough to the ground. Women, he thought. I'll never understand them as long as I live. The chopper took off, leaving Leon in a temporary purpose-built compound set up as the base of operations for the investigations.
He walked towards a Lieutenant dressed in regular army colours who was standing guard outside one of the many tents set up around the area, holding a standard issue assault rifle at ready.
"Excuse me, Lieutenant." Leon asked, noting the soldier's rank. "Could you please tell me where I can find BSAA intelligence?" Leon asked as politely as he could.
"Identification, please." The soldier asked nonchalantly.
Leon whipped out his secret service badge and gave it to the soldier, who looked at it for all of two seconds before handing it back.
"Fourth tent on your right, Agent Kennedy. They're expecting you, sir."
"Thanks, Lieutenant."
Leon walked to the fourth tent on his right, as the soldier had directed. He heard what seemed to be familiar voices coming from the tent. At least one familiar voice he knew straight away, and another he was sure he knew from somewhere.
"Hey, Jill. We're expecting company from the government." Chris said, not really giving half a shit.
"What? Why?! Don't tell me they're keeping an eye on us. We're doing them a favour down here, and they send an agent in? Which is it, CIA? FBI?" Jill complained.
"Secret Service." Chris answered, still not giving a shit.
"What the...why the secret service?"
"Well, apparently they have some sort of expert on this sort of thing. God knows who it is. I can only think of six 'experts' off the top of my head, and we're two of them. What more does this crap warrant? My sister's another one. And Barry and Brad, but they're never coming back. Even if you can call Brad Vickers an expert. The only other one is-"
"Leon S Kennedy."
Leon appeared in the doorway of the tent, a serious look on his face, as per usual.
"I don't believe it..." Chris said, his jaw about 2 inches lower than normal. "Leon Scott Kennedy. Long time, no speak, man! Last I heard from you, you were telling me where my sister was. And now I've lost her again!"
"It's great to finally meet you, Chris." Leon said, a broad grin spread across his face. He turned to face Jill. "And you must be the famous and beautiful Jill Valentine. Your profile pictures don't do you justice." He said, extending a hand.
"Beautiful? So he's charming and tough." Jill smiled, taking Leon's hand and shaking it firmly. "Oh, this is stupid." She pulled Leon in roughly and gave him a hug. "It's so great to meet you! All these years, both survivors, and we've never even met before!"
"How about that..." Leon said, laughing, giving her a friendly pat on the back as he was being crushed to death by Jill. "So we're in on this together, huh? I wonder if they realise who they have in their midst?"
"Probably not. This all seems like a wild goose chase to me. We're looking for something that doesn't seem to exist. Whole town's nuts. We're wasting our time." Chris said, looking tired and frustrated.
"Yeah, we've been here for days and found almost nothing. We haven't witnessed anything unusual at all, the whole time. Just seems like a bunch of crazy townsfolk making up stories." Jill said.
"So what have you found out?" Leon asked, puzzled.
"Well, the wounds we have been able to look at were very much the same sort of thing as what we saw back in Raccoon City: bites and scratches. We came here expecting zombies and we got nothing. It's almost as if they're only zombies when we're not looking." Jill said, collapsing back in her chair.
"So how fast do the wounds heal? Are we talking Illuminados fast?" Leon enquired.
"Well I don't know if you've managed to get a hold of our report from Africa, but some of the infectees of Uroboros healed themselves pretty quick. You'd shoot off an appendage and it'd just sprout a new one. It's not quite that fast here, them not being mutated at all. They get to the hospital with these wounds, and within an hour, they're completely healed. We barely have time to receive a report of them even being at the hospital before they're all healed up and ready to be discharged." Chris said.
"But outwardly, they're totally normal, right?"
"Right." Chris and Jill said.
"Has there been any scans done? CT scans or something like that?" Leon asked, feeling like he might be on to something.
"Yeah, we ordered a scan to be done on the three latest victims, and we're still waiting on the results. Should be here in an hour or so." Jill told him.
"OK, here's what I reckon. We wait for the results, and then take a look around the power plant. Armed, of course." Leon said.
"Yeah, that works for me. Jill?"
"Sure. I guess it couldn't hurt." Jill shrugged. "We haven't been there yet, we were told to wait for you before we did anything else. That was what I was gonna suggest anyway."
"OK then, it's settled. So why don't one of you two lovely people show me around?" Leon grinned.
Chris and Jill looked at each other, Jill glaring at Chris, who quickly relented.
"Sure, let's go." Chris said.
"Aw, come on Jill. I'm not that bad, am I?" Leon said.
"No offense intended, Leon. I'm just tired, that's all. I need a nap. I'm getting old, you know." Jill smiled and walked out of the tent, probably to her own tent. Leon looked at Chris, his face scrunched up in an unspoken question. Chris just laughed.
"Don't worry about her, you get used to it."
The two walked around the compound, Chris showing Leon what everyone was doing and who was involved with what, introducing him to a few key personnel as they went. Just as they were nearing the origin of their tour, Chris turned to face Leon.
"Leon, I gotta admit I was feeling a bit sceptical when command told us that a Secret Service agent was taking charge of the investigation. But I'm glad it was you they sent. It's great to finally work alongside you, someone I think I can finally relate to. After all that crazy shit with Wesker and Umbrella over the years, I was starting to think I'd have to go solo from now on." Chris said.
"Yeah I know what you mean. I've always asked to be sent by myself on all my missions, 'cause I hate answering questions about my past. And I had no idea I was being sent to babysit you two. If I knew, I would have arranged a bigger entrance." Leon said with a grin.
"Speaking of babysitting, weren't you assigned to the president's daughter's detail?"
"Yeah, but when they hear pretty much anything that sounds like bioweapons of any kind, they send me. They must think I enjoy it or something."
"Ha! You should join the BSAA. We could use a man of your experience." Chris laughed.
"I'll think about it. But being secret service gets me a lot of attention from women. Not something that's easy to give up." Leon smiled slyly.
"Oh yeah? When you get Jill Valentine flirting with you, then I'll be impressed. Until then, you're just another guy."
The two laughed and walked back towards the intelligence tent, but were stopped by the same Lieutenant that Leon had spoken to before.
"Agent Redfield, Agent Kennedy." The soldier addressed them formally before stopping to catch his breath. "There's a woman at the gates to the compound. She's quite attractive, and says she knows you both, but refuses to show ID. She's demanding to speak to 'Agent Leon Scott Kennedy' immediately, sir."
"Thanks, Lieutenant Vickers." Leon said to the soldier, who saluted them both and marched off.
Unfortunate name, Chris thought to himself. I've spoken to him twice in my entire life, and I already know that he's braver than his namesake. He looked at Leon, who was grinning at him.
"Just another guy, huh?"
"Shut up."
They jogged off to the entrance to the compound, Chris leading the way. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks, almost hitting Leon in the process.
"What the hell, man?" Leon said, before looking up and realising why Chris had stopped. His eyes opened wide and he quickly ran to catch up to Chris, who had bolted for the gate to let the redheaded girl in.
"Don't you ever get cold wearing shorts all the time?" Chris asked the girl, who was dressed in short denim shorts like she nearly always was, a red shirt that matched her hair, and a short denim vest-jacket that was buttoned once across her chest.
"It's my style. And Leon doesn't mind, do you Leon?"
"Please, not while Chris is here. He's a big guy, you know." Leon said, laughing nervously and blushing.
The girl ran to Chris and gave him an almighty hug.
"How've you been, Big Brother? I was expecting Leon, but you're here too? This is too good to be true!" Claire said, releasing him.
"What are you doing all the way out here?" Chris asked, smiling so broadly his face was beginning to hurt.
"Well, I heard from some sources that there was something going down in this small town in California, and that the Secret Service had been sent in. So I came to check it out, looking for Leon."
"Sources?" Chris asked, arms folded and a questioning look on his face.
"Yeah." Claire said defensively, looking at the ground. "I can't compromise my sources."
"I think I know who she's talking about." Leon said, hands in pockets, a mischievous smile creeping across his face. Chris looked at Leon, then at Claire.
"Fine, keep your secrets." He laughed, then hugged his sister again. "You look great, Claire. Regardless of the situation, it's good to see you again."
Claire smiled warmly, then looked at Leon as his radio started going off. She unhooked it from his belt and pressed the 'answer' button. A beautiful girl with glasses and tied-back brown hair appeared on its screen.
"Claire, you made it." She said, smiling. "So that means Leon's with you. You'll be taking your orders from him; he's your 'commanding officer', so to speak. Well that's all I needed to see, you'll update me when the situation arises?"
"Sure, Hunnigan. Thanks for your help! We'll have a coffee some time, my shout." Claire answered.
"I'll take you up on that next time you're in DC. Good luck, 'Agent' Redfield." Hunnigan laughed and disappeared from the little screen."
"What was that all about?" Chris said, stupefied, staring blankly at Leon as Claire put the radio back on Leon's belt.
"Your big-little sister here managed to get in touch with Hunnigan through her TerraSave contacts, and told her that I'd asked for Claire explicitly to be my ground-side advisor during the mission." Leon explained, as Claire looked up at Chris in a cheeky little sister fashion. "Hunnigan didn't believe her, of course, so she did a background check. She saw that she was a Raccoon survivor, so she radioed me and told me the situation. I wasn't expecting any danger, and I thought it'd be good to catch up. Plus, having been around the T-Virus before, if there was any trouble, she'd be a huge help. That was before I found out you and Jill were here, of course."
"I see...so is that her official role here? Ground-side advisor? I didn't know civilians could just walk into operations like these." Chris said, still puzzled.
"Well normally they can't. But because of Claire's special background, and because I'm supposed to be in charge here, we made an exception. Plus, she had a bit of firearms training with me a while back, before the Illuminados incident. Just for fun. Not that she actually needed it or anything." Leon answered. Chris thought silently for a second, then looked back to his little sister.
"Well, it is great to see you, and you are a damn side smarter than Leon and I. This might work out pretty well." He relented to the situation, and smiled heartily at Claire. He hated Claire being in dangerous situations, his brotherly instinct was always to keep her miles away from any trouble. But he had to admit, she was pretty good at handling herself. He always knew she was clever, and tough. Even before she was 18 and went looking for him in what remained of Raccoon City, she was always a smart kid, and always did well at sports too. But he never expected that she'd turn out to be as skilful and intelligent as she was. She'd survived Raccoon City. She'd survived Rockfort Island. She'd helped kill the G-Virus mutated William Birkin, she'd even helped him get rid of Wesker. Not that it kept him down for long, but that was a huge feat in itself. And after all that, she'd helped Leon again, this time shutting down another T/G-Virus plot by WilPharma/Umbrella employee Frederic Downing before it even began. He couldn't deny that she'd be a massive help to him, Jill and Leon.
"Come on, you two. You can catch up in the intel tent. Claire, Jill will fill you in on the situation here. I'll go get us some coffee." Leon said, ushering them towards the intel tent. He hurried off to grab Jill and said coffee.
"Chris, black with 2; Jill, black with 1, Claire, white with one; and mine, white with none." Leon said, handing the coffees around as he announced them
"How'd you know?" Chris asked, blowing the steam from the coffee.
"I'm great." Leon grinned.
"I told him." Jill said, slurping her coffee quietly.
"Yeah...well, anyway..." Leon began.
Jill proceeded to inform Claire of the situation while Chris and Leon looked through the results that had come back from the CT scans of the victims. What Leon saw made him shudder and spill his coffee.
"I don't believe it...not again..." he muttered. "...I killed that thing...you killed that thing. It should be DEAD!"
"I don't get it, what is this?" Chris asked, genuinely not knowing.
"This is what Las Plagas looks like inside the body. This is what I had in me when I was saving Ashley, only this is slightly different. But the only specimen to survive ended up with Wesker. And I thought you and Jill took care of all that. Tricell's supposed to be finished!"
"Well, not exactly. They lost a lot of money and reputation, but they regained it over the last couple of years by doing lots of nice, charitable corporate things. We all thought they'd changed into what a good pharmaceutical corporation should be like. But if that's Las Plagas, then they must have been doing something else all the while. Tricell were the only ones who had a sample of it."
"But the bites and scratches? That's not a plaga trait. That's a T-Virus trait." Jill said, having walked over after finishing updating Claire.
"Yeah, you're right..." Leon said, studying the results more closely. "But that's definitely a Plaga parasite. No doubt about it."
"So what does it all mean?" Claire asked.
Chris took a step backwards, looking horrified as a realisation dawned on him.
"That we might be dealing with a cross between the T-Virus and Las Plagas." He said.
Jill shook her head vigorously. "No way." She said adamantly. "These people, they're normal. You saw it yourself." She said to Chris. "They don't look or act like any zombie or majini that I ever saw."
"Yeah, that's what getting to me. But this is proof. A normal person doesn't have a parasite hooked up to them from the inside. A normal person doesn't bite or scratch someone and put them in hospital." Chris said, visibly shaken. It took a lot to crack someone as tough and experienced as Chris, but he almost looked scared.
"So why hasn't anyone shown any sign of infection? They can't be able to control their mutations, right? I mean, the plaga parasite takes over so quick, and they're so much more aggressive than normal people. This just doesn't make sense." Jill said, getting frustrated at the lack of a clear answer.
The 4 of them looked at each other, not knowing what to say to one another. What was clear was that they were going to have to find out just what was going on. And without knowing where or when an attack was going to take place, and without any knowledge of what to expect, this was going to be bloody hard.
Leon heard the scream after the gunshots, and bolted to the eastern exit of the compound. He was unarmed, due to the safety of the compound not requiring him to be. He arrived to find the gate open, and a soldier on the ground with his uniform torn down his chest. His gun was a few feet away from him, and he was scampering backwards as fast as he could, making panicked grunting noises as he fled. He was dripping blood from his chest, leaking as he scampered, and his jaw was puffed and bruised. He saw Leon, and quickly got up and grabbed him by the arm.
"Agent Kennedy! You gotta help me! This guy, he's nuts! He fucking scratched me! LOOK!" It was Lieutenant Vickers. "He hit me right in the face, too!" The lieutenant hid behind Leon.
Leon looked back towards where Vickers had come from, and noticed a man dressed in regular civilian clothing walking slowly towards the rifle. He picked it up and seemed to be inspecting it.
"Oh shit! GET OUT OF HERE! HE'S GOT MY GUN!" Vickers yelled, and turned to run.
"Un forastero!" The man yelled, pointing at Vickers and Leon. He then aimed the gun at Vickers.
Leon's eyes went wide with surprise as he watched the man handling the gun. He quickly darted forward, sliding as he got near the man. He swept the man's feet out from under him, and he hit the ground with a thud. Leon knocked the gun away from the man, and assumed a defensive stance. There was something about the man that was very familiar. Un forastero? He thought to himself. I've heard that before. The man got up, grunting. He rushed at Leon, screaming as he charged. Leon ducked the blow and hit him hard in the guts, sending the man reeling backwards.
"Kennedy, use this!" Vickers threw a large hunting knife to Leon, which landed at Leon's feet. He picked it up and brandished it at the crazy man.
"Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!" Leon yelled. The man just snarled and kept walking towards him.
"Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!" Leon repeated. "If you refuse to do this, I'll use force!"
"Shit." Vickers muttered, cursing Leon's use of protocol.
The man just kept walking towards Leon and drew back his fist, ready to king-hit him. Leon side-stepped the man and hit him on the back of the neck as hard as he could. The man crumpled and doubled over, snarling viciously. He recovered and drew back his fist again, and Leon quickly swiped him across the chest with the knife. The man screamed and his eyes went large and bloodshot. He charged Leon again, arms raised in order to grab him. Leon ducked and grabbed the man from behind in a headlock. Feeling disappointed and saddened, but dutiful, he drew the knife quickly and deeply across the man's throat. The man fell instantly, and landed on his back as Leon let him go.
"That was close, sir." Vickers let out a big sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"I'm not sure this is over yet." Leon said. Vickers looked down, and the man was squirming on the ground instead of dying.
Just then, Claire, Chris and Jill came running up.
"What's going on here?" Jill demanded. "Leon?"
"Watch." Leon said.
The man was convulsing and squirming on the ground, clutching at his throat. Leon had cut into it very deep, something he was taught when he joined secret service: strike to kill, not to wound. This was turning out to be a bad idea though, and Leon knew what was going to come next.
"Vickers! Get clear!" Chris yelled, running towards the Lieutenant and motioning desperately with his arm for him to move away from the man on the ground. Jill ran around the scene and shut the gate to the compound. Just as she shut it and it clicked into place, the man convulsed violently and lurched upwards. A large, fleshy worm-like creature sprouted from his neck. Only this worm was somewhat spiky, about two metres long and about twenty centimetres wide, and it was squirming everywhere.
"What the fuck is that? That's not the plaga I was expecting!" Leon cried, backing away.
"Move away, Leon." Chris said, drawing a custom SIG-Sauer P226 handgun. He quickly unloaded 4 shots into the Plaga at its base, making it snap off when it squirmed. The man stopped moving altogether, apparently dead.
"It's ok guys, this one's not getting back up." Chris said, holstering his gun.
"Thanks, Chris. I owe you one." Leon said, relieved.
"I'll remember that. So where's your gun? Don't they teach you to be armed in the secret service?" Chris joked.
"How can you joke at a time like this?" Claire demanded. "Did you see that thing?"
"I saw it. But I think we know what we're dealing with now. At least on the surface." Chris answered.
"Yeah, this guy acted just like the Ganado I dealt with in Spain. Only he was a lot tougher. I hit him 3 times, really hard, and cut him twice."
"That's gotta be the T-Virus at work. So it IS what we thought. This isn't good." Jill said, shaking her head.
"So? Where is it?" Chris asked Leon.
"I left it in the Intel tent. I didn't think I'd need it in here. I was on the other side of the compound when I heard Vickers screaming."
"Vickers." Chris snarled, still disgusted every time he heard that name. "I thought you were in charge of keeping the gate SHUT."
"I was. I mean I am!" Vickers said defensively.
"Tell us what happened. NOW!" Chris yelled. Jill came up and stood next to Chris, arms folded, waiting for a response from the shaken soldier.
"Well, this guy came up to the fence, demanding to know what we were doing about the situation in the town. I said that he should go back home, and that we were dealing with the problem. He got angry, and demanded that we go and investigate immediately. I told him to go home, and said that he was preventing the situation from getting any better by standing around the gate like a dickhead." Vickers explained.
Claire glared at Vickers, disgusted. "You insulted him? How did you ever manage to get to Lieutenant? What's wrong with you?"
"Hey, girly. You're not even supposed to be here!. So don't you go spraying your crap at me like you're of some sort of importance." Vickers said angrily, raising his voice and his fist at Claire.
Leon was quietly observing the whole thing, and was the first to see Vickers raising his fist. He grabbed his arm, twisting it around his back. Vickers screamed in pain, thrashing around, trying to get free.
"Let go of me, Kennedy!" he yelled.
"Calm down, Lieutenant. Just calm down! Threatening Claire isn't helping your situation." Leon said.
"I'll calm down when you get your filthy government hands off of me! ARRRHHH!!" Just then, Vickers twisted around in an amazing feat of strength. Leon knew instantly that this was out of character, because just moments ago Vickers was hiding behind him, scared of a regular man. A plaga-infected regular man, but he didn't know that.
"What the-" Leon backed away quickly.
Vickers snarled and turned to face him, saliva dripping from his chin, eyes bloodshot. He looked like an animal. Leon landed a hook-punch straight in Vickers' jaw, but Vickers just turned his head back around and charged him.
BAM! BAM BAM!
Vickers fell straight to the ground with 3 large holes in his neck. Leon quickly checked for a pulse, found none, and got up.
"Nice gun." He said to Chris. "So he was infected, too."
"Looks like it. I wonder how he just transformed like that, though? One minute, he's a regular army guy. A highly arrogant, moronic, cowardly army guy. The next, he's infected. I saw the scratch on his chest, but nothing works that fast. Not even the T-Virus." Jill said.
"I have an idea." Claire turned from the scene of what just transpired and faced the growing crowd of BSAA, police and military personnel who were gathering to see what on earth was going on.
"Has anyone here sustained any injuries from the townspeople? A scratch, a bite, a cut, anything?" She asked, voice raised so everyone could hear her.
Nobody responded, so she rephrased the question.
"Has anyone had any contact with any of the townspeople at all? Shaking hands? Anything like that?"
"I did." A BSAA intelligence officer came out from the crowd. "I shook a guy's hand after I asked him a few questions. But that's all I did." He looked nervous, and people were beginning to back away from him.
"Come here, let me see your hands." Claire said, taking the man's hands and inspecting them carefully. She didn't notice any cuts or anything that could have constituted an infection.
"Hmm...nothing." she said, disappointed.
"What are you looking for?" Jill asked her.
"I was just checking to see if he could have come into contact with an infected person's body fluid. Best if we know exactly what's going on here, so we don't have another incident like this one." She answered.
"Nice work! I wouldn't have thought of that." Leon said, admiring her clear-headedness.
"Thanks!" She looked pleased. She turned around to face the crowd again. "OK that's all, people."
The crowd returned to their posts, except for a few military guys who sorted out a cleanup of the scene.
"Lock down all the gates, and double the watch. I don't want this happening again." Leon ordered to another Lieutenant who was supervising the imminent clean-up.
"Yes, sir." The lieutenant answered, stiffly saluting before delegating his new orders.
"Let's regroup back at the intel tent, and work out what our first move is. Standing out here isn't going to improve anything." Chris said, walking back towards the tent.
The first thing Leon did when he walked into the tent was pick up his gun: a .50 calibre customised "Lightning Hawk" model Desert Eagle. He'd learned to bring big guns and lots of ammo everywhere he went on missions, especially if they involved any kind of bioweapon; be it zombie or B.O.W. He also carried a heavily customised .40 calibre Heckler & Koch USP handgun, owing to the fact that you can never bring enough ammo with you. And if you find any along the way, it's probably not going to be .50 calibre magnum bullets. He holstered both guns.
"OK Leon, Claire. This is the plan. Jill and I came up with it just before you got here, and we're making it up a little as we go along, due to the fact that we didn't know you would both be here, and the situation has changed a little since we made it." Chris began. "The power plant on the northern border of the town has two entrances: one on the south side facing the town, and one on the east side. The south entrance is the main entrance used by employees and administration staff. The east entrance is a loading bay for materials and provisions, etcetera. I was going to take the south entrance and Jill was going to take the east, but since you're both here and things are looking far more dangerous than we initially thought, I think it's best that we go in groups of two."
"Agreed." Leon stated.
"We'll take the east entrance." Claire said, leaning closer to Leon in her chair. Leon looked around at her when he felt her shoulder rubbing against his.
"Oh, and I'm going with Claire." Leon said, a smirk on his face as he looked around at Claire again.
"Like you had a choice." She giggled, then turned serious. "It'll be like old times." She choked up a bit when the reality of the situation hit her. They were going into a creepy, unknown place. They were going to be attacked by creepy, unknown zombies. Again. The horror of what transpired 13 years ago smacked her in the face so hard she could barely breathe. She started sobbing, wiping the tears away with her hand.
"Sorry, guys. I didn't mean to break down like that." She apologised.
"Claire, if it's going to be too much for you, maybe you should-" Chris started.
"No way." Claire interrupted, suddenly angry at him. "There's no way I'm staying out of this. Someone's making these people like this, and laughing all the way to the bank. I swore I'd do everything I could to help people out in situations like these. And I'm definitely not leaving Leon on his own. I can handle myself, Chris. I don't need your protection all the time. I'm thirty-one years old, for god's sake."
Chris looked at his hands dumbly, feeling totally shit for saying such a stupid thing to her. This was Claire Redfield he was talking about. Forget that she was his little sister, she was a veteran of wars that most people couldn't even imagine in their most horrific nightmares, and she'd come out on top every time.
"Sorry...I didn't mean for it to sound like you don't know what you're doing, I'm just-"
"It's OK. I didn't mean to yell. I know you're worried about me, but I came here to do this. It's just a horrible thing to have to do at all. Forget about it, we have more important things to do right now. Come on, let's go get armed." A smile came back to Claire's face, and Chris felt better already.
"Right this way." He said, and led them into the tent across the path from them.
They walked in, grabbing belts and weapons as they thought they might need them, trying to fit as much on their person as they possibly could without bulking themselves up too much to move quickly. Chris already had his favourite new handgun. He grabbed a combat knife and two belts - one shoulder-slung to carry the knife and a larger gun on his back, and another around his waist to carry extra ammo clips – as well as a bulletproof vest. The others all grabbed the same, but with different guns. Jill took a Samurai Edge Beretta, growing quite fond of it over the years, and an Ithaca 37 shotgun. Claire also took a Samurai Edge, but not being as confident in her arms use as the others, she didn't take another different one. Instead, she just took two Berettas. She looked to Chris for confirmation that it was OK to take them both, and he nodded approvingly. Leon already had his magnum and his H&K handgun, so he just stood there waiting for the others to decide.
"Everyone good?" Jill asked. Leon and Claire nodded, so she continued. "Both of you take a side-pack. You can put extra clips in there, so you don't run out of ammo."
They each took a side-pack, filling it with their required ammo, and stepped out of the tent. Chris led them to a military truck, complete with rear-mounted machine guns, and ushered them in. He told the driver to drop them at the power plant, and they drove out the gates of the compound.
"Don't forget to use your radios if you discover anything, and remember not to shoot anyone who isn't outwardly infected. We don't want civilian casualties. I know it's hard to know who's infected around here, but we'll just have to be careful." Leon announced to the others as they drove along. "At this stage we're only looking for any evidence that the power plant had something to do with the first attacks. We'll synchronise time when we get there, and report back at the south entrance after an hour. Clear?"
"Clear." They all responded.
"Quite the leader now, aren't we?" Claire teased.
"I'm just trying to prove myself to Chris 'The Man' Redfield over here." Leon said, smirking at him.
"You don't have to prove anything to me, Leon. We all went through the same deal back in Raccoon City, so we're all proven." He looked at Claire as he said that. "I'm obeying your orders because I respect you, as well as because you're my superior."
"Yeah. You're doing a great job so far, Leon." Jill smiled at him and placed a reassuring hand on his knee, giving it a friendly squeeze.
"Thanks guys." Leon said. He took out his PDA and pressed the call button. Hunnigan appeared on the display.
"Leon." She said, regarding him with a nod.
"Hunnigan. We're heading to the power plant on the northern border of the town. All the attackers of the initial incidents all work at the power plant, so we're looking for any sign that it had something to do with it."
"Great." She said, eternally expressionless. "Report back when you're done."
"Will do." He replied.
As the truck rolled on, the sun began to set on their left. Claire watched it, wondering if any parallels would be drawn between it and their lives. She shook the thought immediately and looked at Leon. He'd been through a lot, but he still looked young, despite his 34 years. One thing was bothering her though, and that was the language the infected man in the compound had spoken to him.
"Leon, what was it that you said the infected guy said to you before you dropped him?"
"Un forastero. It's Spanish for 'An outsider'. Why?"
"Well, this town is known for its Spanish speaking population, but it's strange that they would call you an outsider."
"Not really. When I was in Spain seven years ago, a lot of the infected villagers called me that. It just meant that I'm American, running through their Spanish villages. Out here, I guess it could mean that I'm not infected like them."
"I guess that makes sense...but what also doesn't make sense to me is how they're going from normal to infected all the time. I just can't figure out what's triggering it. The only thing I can come up with is that both the ones we saw were both angry right before they changed."
Chris snapped his head around and stared at Claire.
"I think you're onto something there. It could be triggered by an emotional response under the right circumstances. I mean, there wouldn't be much point having them all infected all the time. They might attack each other, or risk being too obvious. This way, they could maintain secrecy and not draw any attention, or drive attention away because of a lack of proof."
"In that case, we were very lucky to see what we did. And we'll have to be extra careful. This isn't confirmed intel, but it's a start. Don't be too presumptuous when we get there, it might not be true." Leon said.
Claire looked out the window of the truck again, sighing at the slowly fading light on the horizon.