Chapter 01: 'Branches'
Eighteen Years Ago
Lonsdale Train Yards [Raccoon City]
In the haze of her walking night terrors, she was back in that forsaken city, like she always was, always in a sense-would be. And that cop was there. That fucking rookie cop that ruined everything, by implying that there had been another choice. There never was, and there never would be, as the universe operated by an order that was well above her pay grade.
Karena LesProux gripped his face. She finally had her claws on that wretched little policeman in blue. Her gloved fingers slowly made their way to his eyes. The young man was sweating profusely. Sweat and blood stained the 'RPD' logo of his uniform. He struggled against her, weak but determined. She had him pinned down in this empty place. Nothing was going to stop her from ending his pathetic life-
"Stop struggling, you little shit!"
NOTHING- not his ponytailed girlfriend, the American soldiers, the monsters, the beasts, the traitors, nothing was going to stop Lupo from snuffing the life out of her prey.
"MIEZ-VOUS MOTHERFUCKER!"
And then she plunged her thumbs into his eye sockets, gouging him.
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21: 45 Pacific Standard Time
East Los Perdidos [Present Day]
"Mother Wolf, you alright?"
Code-Named 'Vector' was pointing his Howa Type-89 assault rifle at Karena 'Lupo' LesProux. The French woman had an episode again. It was Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Vector couldn't blame her. Sure, it was unprofessional, but seeing the things she went through, it was completely understandable that Lupo was a bit… mentally strained.
"I'm alright." Karena breathed through her respirator.
Her hands were gripped around an eyeless enemy soldier. She had gouged out the poor bastard's eyes.
"Get back." Vector motioned the team leader.
The French woman pushed herself off, quickly withdrawing from her would-be prey. A second later, she un-holstered her side arm, producing a 5.7mm Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre-Herstal Five-Seven pistol. Chances after all, were for armatures. Not soon thereafter, the enemy soldier's face began to violently contort. Biological transformation/ mutations were such an ugly affair. Flesh buckled, a precursor to a putrid explosion of puss and bone, as the once eye-less man's entire head regenerated into a cancerous-appearing lump with tentacles and blade-like appendages.
"Not a zombie."
Lupo raised her firearm and adjusted her combat stance. Her iron sights were aligned and there had been the beginnings of a crisp trigger pull, when a torrent of 5.56 rounds suddenly decapitated the mutant. The creature lurched forward, arms flailed about, before it slumped to its knees, in almost in religious reverence to the black-clad commandos.
"Team Leader, do you need me to take over?"
Lupo holstered her sidearm, and then proceeded to recover her assault rifle.
"I am okay."
Vector reached out to offer a reassuring touch to the Frenchwoman's left shoulder. He was rudely smacked away. The Japanese Umbrella operative turned his head away, the cloak of his battle dress uniform hiding his already featureless face.
"Do not touch me soldat. Do not question me. I am not your mentor. I am not your 'Wolf Mother'. I am your team leader."
Lupo glared at Vector through her military respirator, unlike the S-10 gasmask he had on, one could see the venom in her eyes through her full-face visor. Raccoon City was eighteen years ago. It's been nearly two decades. Though she hasn't physically aged that much due to her time in 'storage', her eyes held the being of someone that's been living in anguished fear and disgust for far too long.
"Tell the rest of the team to regroup on me. Then contact HQ for our next set of orders."
Vector provided a prompt nod.
"Orders understood, Team Leader."
A slight worried sigh escaped her mask, and Lupo goes to inspect the magazines of her QBZ-97 assault rifle. To the far side of her, were the remnants of an enemy military compound. Crates of equipment were sprinkled haphazardly, industrial tents ripped to shreds, smoking vehicles overturned, all right next to an unpleasant looking collection of craters. All of this, alongside the charred and mangled bodies everywhere clued in what had transpired as a danger-close artillery strike.
"They've salvaged something." The Frenchwoman mentioned to no one in particular.
"Come again, Team Leader?"
"Never mind that, Vector."
Lupo smelled the V8 turbo diesel engine through her respirator, even before it appeared. She welcomed the new smell. Its scent was far superior in taste and in morale to the charred plagued dead bodies that were seemingly everywhere now. It assaulted her olfactory receptors mercilessly until it had even hid the sweat and stale breath trapped within the confines of her mask. Lupo, the Wolf relished this, if only for ever the second.
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheel Vehicle (HMMWV) or Humvee was a military four-wheel light truck produced by AM General. Its purpose was a utility vehicle for use with the American military. Often they had crew-served weapon mounted on top. This particular Humvee had a 7.62 NATO M60 machinegun emplacement. Operating it was a small, nearly petite Japanese girl.
Christine Yamata, call-sign: 'Four-Eyes' saluted smartly as the Humvee came to a sudden stop right in front of the fireteam. A visible amount of smoke trailed her manned LMG (light machine gun). Like Lupo, the Japanese girl didn't really age due to the cryogenics. But unlike Lupo she seemed permanently upbeat. She was still the kid, her eyes gleeful at the strange turn of events that had befallen the world.
"Team Leader, situation reports as follows: heavy caliber firearms remain highly effective against 'Plaga' enhanced foot mobiles. Preliminary observation and investigation has revealed little about their communication methods. No digital, mechanical, or biological method to their command and control structure was found."
Vector got up from his crouched position, finger withdrawing from the earpiece under his hood.
"HQ figured it would be a bust." The illusive Japanese man was reporting in too.
"This isn't a total failure! We've recovered a lot of important data points on the enemy!" said Four-Eyes. The Japanese girl was the field scientist of the fireteam. Although not exactly disagreeable, she was oftentimes found in opposition of the team's popular opinion. It was as if she operated on a completely different line of thinking. This was likely due to her rumored 'condition' of being autistic.
"Seems like a failure enough to Me." said another man, in agreement with Vector. It was the driver of the Humvee. This man had seen better days. Previously, he was a pilot in the Umbrella Corporation's elite Security Services. Now he was a footslogger on a fireteam, acting as the unit's vehicle specialist. 'LONE WOLF', that was his call-sign. Now he was just Jack. He opted to use his regular civilian moniker, given the fact that there were too many 'wolves' within the Wolfpack.
"Not my place to disagree with HQ." Vector had continued. "And we have new tasking."
"What is it?" Lupo wondered out loud for the rest of the team's benefit.
"We have a HVT extraction. It's a High Valued Target, an Umbrella Executive."
"Perhaps Umbrella's High Command will give us use of IOWA's labs!"
The rest of Fireteam Delta eyed Four-Eyes' abrupt comment, before resuming their conversation.
"Our gracious employers are re-tasking us to Downtown, Los Perdidos." Vector came off as if nobody had interrupted him. "The target is male, attached to the White Umbrella Division. He's currently holed at the Exchange Night Club on Spring Street."
"But enemy forces are expected to try and take the city tomorrow." Lupo worried.
"It doesn't matter, Mother Wolf. These are orders from HQ. It means that U.S.S. Command and SOCOM are in complete agreement in this task."
"We have transport at least." Jack chirped in.
"But there would be less bio-organic weaponry to discover!"
Four-Eyes was still floating around within her own little world.
"It's going to be another long night ladies and gentlemen." Vector shrugged.
"It is always a long night."
With that, Lupo turns around to stare at the heart of Los Perdidos City from their eastern position on the 710 freeway, near the 60 intersect. The enemy had been using America's major freeway system as their main supply route, to invade and to seize territory and people in whatever inhuman goal they had schemed. The war has finally made its way from the East Coast to Southern California. It torched palm trees, burned the barrios, and had compelled what surviving refugees to flee towards a massive evacuation happening off the Western United States.
"Resupply off the enemy dead, repack, get some MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) military rations into your systems. We're moving out in fifteen." Lupo ordered. There was no acknowledgement. It wasn't required. They were not an official military unit. These lost souls were what remained of the Umbrella Corporation's Security Service. They were just dogs of war.
Before them, hanging over Downtown Los Perdidos was a dark moon. Smog, dust, and clouds moved to try and cover it up. It hung ominously over the city, a bad omen with the promise of much more violence to come. It had come to this, but how? It was a nightmare of the first order. Lupo found herself questioning what series of event had led to the near complete takeover of the United States, and what seemed like the onset of a Third World War.
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The Story Thus Far….
It was all just rumors. Nothing is known for certain. There were rumors of the United States Government being infiltrated by a cult. No, nothing like the radical Islamists from the Middle East, this had been something darker, something… different. The running theory was that they were European, maybe Spain, maybe England. They convinced, maybe mind controlled even, the political elites. First they passed laws that benefitted their coffers, and then their political power. They were subtle at first. The erratic government changes were blamed on bi-partisan politics. Intelligence agencies believed that Russian hacking was influencing government and social institutions. Of course, there was opposition, strikes, riots, and everything that came with it. Everything had made it easy for them to enact martial law.
But the Great Enemy wasn't revealed until much later. Many years down the line. Long after the supposed government tried to enact a new heavy handed 'patriot act' which invaded the privacy of everyone in the United States. It was long after the appearance of a new and alien religion, that of 'Illumination'. Even when portions of the United States Military took up arms against its own people, utilizing everything from tanks to monsters, was he still cloaked in silence.
It wasn't until the 'W-Event'. The trigger that sent the entire world to war, did he reveal himself. He ordinated himself an Emperor, the messenger of a new era, the prophet of a new faith, he promised to baptized the entire world a-new, and in the image of an undying great god. He was, and he is known to all as:
"Lord Saddler."
That was why Lupo was awakened from Cryogenic Container U-52 at level 10 of the HIVE complex.