Prologue: Mixcoatl, South America
The Umbrella Corporation, creator of the spreading T-Virus, has practically collapsed. No cases involving B.O.W.s have been reported since the Raccoon City incident in 1998. According to information recently retrieved, a former Umbrella researcher contacted a man by the name of Javier Hidalgo in a small South American country. Javier, an ex drug lord with political ties, disappeared shortly thereafter. Javier Hidalgo, a man equally known for his extravagant lifestyle. Someone like that didn't just disappear. Following his sudden disappearance, we found out that he had attempted to approach Umbrella. Just what are you up to, Javier...
2000 - Somewhere in South America
'When I pictured my first trip to South America, I don't remember it including a SpecOps field uniform and a bunch of guns. Nor did it include Jackass Krauser.' I thought to myself, pushing my bangs away from my forehead for a third time. The sun was beating heavily on our backs as we trudged through the humid amazonian jungle, it didn't make for a pleasant trek to begin with. But when Krauser started dropping comments about breaking a nail or the humidity messing with my hair, it made it worse. The man seemed to thrive on annoying the living hell out of me.
'But then, if there's anything to balance it out, it's Leon.'
Mission aside, Leon Kennedy was responsible for keeping me - his partner - and our assigned ground support - a nice way of assigning him to be our babysitter - from tearing each others' throats out. He usually opted to walk between us, but when it seemed that we were both calm - which we were, I suppose - he walked ahead. We were nearly to our target anyways, a small waterside village called Mixcoatl, where we were meeting our guide.
Matheus Garcia was our ticket to getting to Amparo, where we'd been told Javier was hiding out.
I hadn't noticed that Leon paused up ahead on the trail, nor the snake that was preparing to lunge for his back, until Krauser's hunting knife embedded itself in the ground, and the snake's head. I hadn't expected the larger soldier's sudden movement, jumped back for a moment before realizing what happened.
I passed Krauser as he disengaged the knife from an unfortunate tree root, the snake's head still lodged on the blade. He sipped from the canteen almost nonchalantly, I wanted to roll my eyes at the I-just-saved-your-ass look that was on his face.
When he stopped, passing the canteen to Leon, he asked, "So, you think B.O.W.s actually exist?" He waited a moment for a response before laughing gruffly as he shook the dead snake loose from his knife. "Oh wait, you said you've faced 'em before, huh?" Once he walked ahead of us, I did roll my eyes. Our first mission with him, haven't properly known him outside training for more than a few hours, and I was sick of the Special Ops soldier, despite knowing that he was a valuable asset to the mission because of his accomplishments on the field.
B.O.W.s were real, though. I had the feeling he didn't care. B.O.W.s, Cryptid, all the same.
"Oh ye of little faith..." I muttered, causing the faintest of smirks to appear on Leon's face. If it weren't such a serious and honestly terrifying thing, I'd laugh in Krauser's face if there were B.O.W.s in Mixcoatl. "Come on, we're nearly to the village. Our guide's taking us to Amparo from there." I said louder, for the benefit of their ears as I pointed to the map. We were only about a mile out from the marked location on the map.
"Alright then, let's move out, princess."
Good feelings gone. I scowled at the back of his head as he started forward again, but didn't rise to the bait. The last thing we needed was to draw attention by having an argument. Krauser knew it, too, he deliberately baited me knowing I couldn't bite back.
"I'm never gonna get used to this guy..." I groaned under my breath.
Something felt off about the village the second we set foot in the open. It was completely empty, the same way Raccoon City had been. That set an uneasy feeling stirring in my gut. Where was everybody?
"Pretty quiet around here..." Krauser muttered, thinking along the same lines as I was.
Walking around one of the houses, we followed what seemed to be an alleyway into a much more wide-open, and even more empty part of the village. There was a well in the front right corner of the area, the wall to our right lined with fences and even more alleyways scattered about between buildings.
"Where is everybody?" Leon voiced my question as we cautiously ventured further. On the fence beside us, I saw a good dozen or so 'Missing' posters; all young girls, teenagers. They looked old and worn, some more than others. It was an ongoing thing, then.
'Y ahora las noticias - the number of missing girls has now risen to over 50, marking an increase in disappearances this year. The local authorities are warning parents to be cautious.' a voice over the radio crackled as we continued on. I frowned sadly, wondering the fate of the missing girls. Javier's crime syndicate was known for organ trafficking, I hoped that this wasn't the case. But then, how much better was the alternative?
"It's not just girls that have gone missing," Leon commented, switching the radio off. "It's... everyone. There's no one left..."
"We don't know that for sure, Leon." I dissuaded, though the uneasy feeling was beginning to spike. We stopped beside the crude well, Krauser glancing around. He frowned deeply.
"Something's wrong." He said, taking another two steps forward and clicking the safety on his pistol off. Leon followed suit. "It smells like... like a battlefield." Whatever quarrels Krauser and I had, I wasn't going to doubt his judgment on that particular piece of information. He was a seasoned fighter, he'd seen his fair share of battles. Leon, as it appeared, didn't catch the meaning. Eyes still wandering around us, he spoke up.
"A battlefield?" he repeated questioningly.
"Like death." I supplied, understanding the meaning, and caught onto it myself. The discomfort was blooming into full-out stress as the silence around us continued. I didn't like this one bit. My tightened grip on the pistol in my hands was telling of that, and I listened harder for the sound of anything - footsteps, voices... there. "...on your left." I pointed with my eyes, where a man had emerged from one of the narrow pathways. The stress kicked it up a notch, my heartbeat picking up with it. I recognized the gait of an infectee.
"He looks hurt." Krauser said, stepping up to assist. In any situation that didn't involve B.O.W.s, that was commendable. But when said B.O.W.s were potential threats, it was risky. "Hey, you okay? What happened here?"
"Krauser, wait!" I spoke up, training my gun on the infected man. "Step back, something's not right with this guy."
"Agreed," Leon commented from beside me. His position matched mine, both of us with our weapons trained on the stranger. It was then that the man's hanging head tipped up, revealing dead grey eyes, a similar complexion and a bloody mouth with bits of flesh stuck in its teeth. For one, ew, for two, I was right!
Two gunshots later, the infected man was naught but a corpse again.
"Didn't see that comin'..." Krauser muttered. "So this is what Umbrella's virus can do, huh?"
"And more." I responded.
"Yeah, but there was something different about this one." Leon cut in, frowning. We didn't have time to ponder that, two more had appeared from the 'street' behind us. This was our first combat against real B.O.W.s in two years, but it felt like we were right back in Raccoon City. Only, this time with more training under our belts.
More zombies were showing up all around us, we didn't have nearly enough bullets for them all. Didn't mean we wouldn't try, and I still got a good few headshots in.
"We've got to find our guide before it's too late, let's go!" Krauser barked, pointing us towards the narrow street that didn't currently have zombies coming from it. Darting past decrepit empty buildings, we rounded a corner further into the village when, lo and behold, more of the undead had appeared.
"Shoot for the head, that's the only confirmed way to take 'em out!" I shouted over the gunfire. One of them got a little too close for comfort, and the last few years of training kicked in. Literally. A hard kick sent the undead woman stumbling backwards into Leon's line of fire.
"Not bad, comrades, but if that's the toughest these biological weapons get, then we got nothin' to worry about." And there he was again, the cocky soldier. I snorted as I reloaded the handgun and we moved forward.
"Trust me, you ain't seen nothing yet." I shivered at the memory of a few of the creatures we'd gone up against. Regular zombies were basically just cannon-fodder. "And in large numbers, those things are huge ammo saps."
I hadn't noticed that Krauser had even fallen behind until a loud grunt - followed by a zombie groan - sounded off behind us. Of course he'd get ambushed by a zombie.
"Krauser!" Leon wasted no time in sending a few bullets the zombie's way, freeing up our 'ground support'.
"Thanks, I owe you one." the older man commented. You wouldn't be able to tell from his voice that about two seconds earlier he'd had a zombie trying to eat his face off. But the barely-visible pulse points I could see told another story.
"I'm sure you'll get the opportunity to pay me back later," Leon responded through gritted teeth, the three of us beginning to fire on more of the undead that had popped up behind us. It was eerily silent again once they were taken care of. The market that we seemed to have stumbled into was empty, save for a few bodies that had yet to come alive and try to eat us. Blood was smeared and spattered everywhere on the walls, soaking and drying into the dusty ground beneath the heat of the sun. It was sickening.
"This is bad..." my partner mumbled under his breath. Wow, biggest understatement since Raccoon.
"Let's keep moving."
The next minute or so was a flurry of zombies, running, and gunfire.
"This is one hell of a mess we're in."
"I thought Leon was good at making understatements." I muttered, shooting at two more of the infected trying to follow us through the crude wooden fence we'd just jumped. "Let's get out of here, we still need to find Matheus!" I headed towards a gate on our right, pulling it open and cautiously peeking through on both sides. Nothing.
Wait, I was wrong.
"These things are hiding everywhere, huh? - Woah!-" Krauser's comment was cut off by his exclamation of surprise at two very large spiders that had appeared out of utterly nowhere.
'Damnit, I hate these things...' I wanted to whine, so badly, but it really wasn't the time.
"A snake tattoo... this is the mark of Javier's men, the Sacred Snakes..." Krauser mused, kneeling beside one of the bodies.
What was Javier doing with this virus...? Infecting a whole village, let alone his own men... why? What motive was there behind something like that? Some men just want to watch the world burn. I didn't know where the quote came from, but it was possible Javier truly had no motive but to cause trouble. But he was smart, and it wasn't likely. There had to be a reason.
The path to our right led to a precarious walkway that opened up to the rest of the village, which was slowly flooding. Javier's doing, I'd bet. "Son of a bitch must have opened the water gate..." Okay, thinking along the same lines a few times could be excused as 'Great minds think alike,' but now it was just getting weird.
"You think he knew we were coming?" Leon mused quietly as we made our way down the crude walkway.
"We didn't know we were coming 'til a few days ago, how would he have found out?" I asked.
"Who knows, but I've got my doubts about our guide still being alive." Krauser commented gruffly.
"We'll be dead too if we aren't careful, guys." I hated to even think it, but he was right. But then, Matheus was our only ticket to Amparo, he had to be alive. There was a niggling sense that there was something I was forgetting, involving that ticket to Amparo, but I couldn't figure it out. Two minutes passed in relative silence, and I forced myself to keep my guard up. God only knew when more B.O.W.s would decide to show up.
More spiders, more zombies, and giant frogs. We hadn't been in Mixcoatl for a full hour, and I was sick of it already. Further ahead, the sound of pained groaning reached my ears. Human groaning. Our guide? We'd never met him, only had a picture to go off of. "You hear that? It's coming from over here!"
There was our guide, a bleeding mess on the floor of what looked like a school house.
"Matheus!" I exclaimed. He was alive, barely. "Matheus Garcia, hey, can you hear me?" The man groaned, I saw a small nod.
"What happened?" Leon asked, a deep frown etched on his face - worried. The man struggled, it seemed like it was a tremendous effort to open his eyes or lift his head, let alone speak. The enormous puddle of blood seeping into the floorboards, coupled with his paling skin, was telling.
"That...that girl!" he choked out. "She brought... devils to ...to this village!"
A girl had escaped from Javier's mansion with his help, the virus had followed her. She'd hidden in Mixcoatl, drew the infected creatures here. That was the gist of what was said, before our guide drew and released his last breath.
"He's gone." I sighed. "He said the girl escaped from Javier's mansion. Think it was one of those missing girls?" I asked. I had a hunch that this girl was more than just some girl that Javier's men had kidnapped; why go through all this trouble and mess for one girl? I didn't understand.
"The Sacred Snakes were known or organ trafficking, this could have something to do with them. The report said there's no evidence linking the two, but... I think we'll need to track down that girl to find out for sure."
"Well, now that our guide is dead, she may be our only chance to find Javier's mansion." Leon muttered. He had a point there. Everyone else in the village was dead, including the only person who could take us to the mansion. This girl was our last chance, assuming she wasn't dead too. "There should be a boat over by the church, let's check it out."
We'd barely turned for a second before the sound of something slithering behind us caused me to turn right back around again. Just in time to see what was left of our guide dragged into the water by a hole in the floor.
"What the hell was that?" Leon hadn't seen, hadn't turned in time.
"Something in the water took our guide. We need to get moving." I took point, going along the precarious wooden planks and back out of the broken building. The water had risen even higher, some of the smaller houses were falling apart. On the righthand side were more houses, but a drier path. On the left was a more direct route, but the bridge had been mostly taken out. "Which way should we go?" A few seconds' deliberation passed.
"I think this way's better," Leon pointed to our right. I was inclined to agree, even if we ended up a little wet. Considering the amount of blood, dirt and, well, everything else on us, a bit of muddy water wouldn't make a difference in the long run. I also had a feeling that these clothes would be incinerated when we got back, hand in hand with quarantine. Because that had been such a joy the last time, but it wasn't like we'd had much of a choice.
It was the same song and dance through the last stretch of village - frogs, spiders, zombies. The church was just ahead now, and with it the boat. We could get out of here and find the girl. It seemed almost calm, for all of five seconds. Then at that point, we were dodging for our lives as... as something leaped from the water, arcing through the air and headed straight for us. It certainly wasn't like any B.O.W.s we'd seen before.
"What the hell was that? Where did it go?" Krauser demanded as we shifted from the washed-up bridge to the more solid floor surrounding the church. More mutated, giant frogs hopped up from the water in front of us before Leon or I could say anything. Once the one-part-satisfying-two-parts-disgusting sound of the frogs falling to the ground came and the gunfire ceased did any of us take notice to the fact that it was actually quiet.
"I think it's gone." Leon said. With the silence came a new sound from inside. "Wait... you hear that?" It sounded like...singing. Weapons at the ready, just in case something else was in there, we approached the door to the church. Upon pushing the door open, we came to a sight that seemed very much out of place after everything we'd just fought against. A girl was sitting on the floor in the sun, eyes closed, singing peacefully.
"Sleep my love, as the trees above protect you from the dark... Our great river will watch you as you dream, until dawn..."
'Like Kim would say, a voice made from angels' tears.' a voice in the back of my mind commented. I wondered where that had come from.
"Leon!" Krauser whispered. When both of us turned, he jerked with his chin towards the water beside the girl. The creature we'd seen earlier was watching the girl, dull blue eyes focused entirely on her. It...didn't look like it wanted to attack. Leon raised his pistol, but the second he readied to fire, the small click of the gun alerted the two to our presence. The girl's eyes opened for a brief second, before losing consciousness and collapsing to the floor. The moment she did, the monster turned to us, eyes flashing red as it rose from the water with a snarl.
"Sorry to interrupt the concert..." I muttered sarcastically. My initial thought was to shoot for the head, but that didn't appear to be working. The tentacles swung for us and I acted on instinct, shooting at the one headed for us before it could reach us. My instinct proved correct, the creature reared back with an unholy screech. A few more shots hit and missed before Leon spoke up.
"We'd have a better chance fighting this out in the open, come on!"
It disappeared into the water, I imagined circling in the water around the church, before leaping for us again. I couldn't dodge in time, pushed Krauser out of the way as it all but landed on top of me. Unfortunately for it, that gave me a perfect shot at its head.
And I never missed a target.
Several bullets later, I managed to get out from beneath it and rejoin my partners. I searched for a way to take this thing out, taking in every variable I could see. The bell above the door, its stand wasn't structurally sound, a few bullets could send it falling. The creature was right underneath it. "Shoot that!" A clip full of bullets at just the right spots sent the bell 'tower' falling from the church roof, hitting the creature squarely on the head. It roared an howled for a second or two, blood cascading from a gashon its head -where the bell tower had impacted most - onto the ground, before retreating into the water.
"We did it!"
While Leon and Krauser were busy looking for the creature, my memory had already returned to the girl in the church. Darting into the church, I jumped from one section of floor to the other - how she'd gotten to this broken-off corner of the church, I didn't understand. Kneeling beside her, I felt for a pulse. It was there. She didn't appear to have any significant injuries, but the whole of her right arm was wrapped in a bandage. There was no blood on it, so I found myself wondering why it was there.
"Leon, what the hell is going on here?" Ah, there were my partners. Krauser sounded beyond freaked out, I could relate. "Have you fought these things before?" I remembered his attitude earlier, almost laughed. 'Well, we did mention that earlier, didn't we? And you didn't believe us?' I wanted to say, but held my tongue. As much as a small part of me wished I would, saying 'I told you so' wasn't going to help.
"Look, fill me in. I need to know what you've been through." Krauser pressed, though not sounding particularly forceful. He just sounded like he was trying to understand. Leon sighed, and the two of us shared a look. The silent communication told what was and wasn't allowed to be shared with Krauser.
"Alright, let me go back to the beginning. My fight against bio warfare all started in a zombie infested ghost town. It was September, 1998. My first, and only, day as a police officer. I met her just outside the city limits, no memory of who she was or how she'd come there. I took her to the city with me, and...well..."
A/N: I decided to do an overhaul, rework a bunch of stuff. If anybody read either of the originals, I imagine they'd agree with my reasoning that some stuff just needed to be fixed. I don't own resident evil, I adopted the OC from Gwenniegirl Kennedy (inactive).
Also, I know that Raccoon City and Operation Javier are canonically four years apart, but for the sake of the future of the story, I've moved Operation Javier from 2002 to 2000.