These aren't in any sort of order, just posted as I write them. There are no pairings (though some might be subtly hinted at) and no Mary-Sues. Each drabble takes place hours, minutes, and seconds before the very beginning of a Resident Evil game.
Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil.
Before Veronica
Claire combed her fingers through her auburn hair before pulling it all up in a loose ponytail. After she secured the hair with an elastic band, the younger Redfield tucked the remaining strands behind her ears. Eyeing her reflection in the mirror with a slight frown, she tried to cast what she was about to do from her troubled mind.
Tugging her protective finger-less gloves on her hands, she patted her jeans' pockets for the fifth time that evening. Yes, she had her brother's lighter. Yes, she still had the slip of paper with Leon's email address scrawled across it in his tidy, cramped handwriting. Both reassured her. Knowing that she had something from both her brother and a friend made her feel as if they were almost with her, watching her back.
Once night fell, she'd be making her way out of the Parisian hotel room (rented under an alias, of course) and to the nearby Umbrella Inc. European Headquarters.
"Chris, you better be there," Claire muttered angrily to the empty room. She was risking her neck getting into this facility. This time, she was alone and breaking into a place full of living, armed guards just to get some information. "I don't know whether I'll hug him or hit him when I see him." It was always 'when' and never 'if.' When she found Chris. When they reunited. When she chewed him out for trying to 'protect' her by not contacting her for months.
After zipping up her leather boots and pulling the legs of her jeans over them, she finally glanced out the window. The sun was just dipping below the horizon. The sky around it was a splatter of colors. To Claire, it looked like blood smeared against a dying sky.
Claire hunched over the front of the computer, her shoulders slumping down in a desperate wish to stay undiscovered. The harsh glow from the monitor highlighted the crevices in her face, throwing the hollows of her cheeks and eye sockets into shadow. The fluorescent lights that normally lit this particular computer room were off, and the door—which was supposed to be locked—was slightly ajar.
The more she shifted through the virtual files, the more unsettled Claire became. Of course they wouldn't leave evidence of the horrible things they'd done on just any computer, but the things that they did feel comfortable allowing easy access to made her uneasy. A list of dead employees and the loss of money to the company that the deaths had caused was the first thing she found.
Heartless bastards…
Deeper in cyberspace, Claire finally found mention of her older brother. It was a file on Chris Redfield, tracking his location for more than a year—since well before the Spencer Mansion incident. It seemed like they had followed him everywhere, always had him under surveillance. But the oddest thing was that even their information stopped in September. It was as though he'd literally vanished, dropped off the edge of the earth. He'd been seen last in Paris, the same city that Claire walked the streets of now.
She backtracked and found more files with names she recognized. Chambers, Rebecca… a young medic that had worked with her brother back in the doomed Raccoon City. Valentine, Jill… a pretty brunette that Chris had introduced his sister to in May, just after the carnivorous murders first began. Burton, Barry… an old friend of the family that had been the one to convince Chris to join S.T.A.R.S. in the first place. Even further down, she found Birkin, Sherry and, to her immense surprise, a file for Redfield, Claire. A chord was struck deep within her, invoking a sense of pride. They knew she knew. They were even kind enough to consider her a threat worth keeping an eye on.
A small smirk lit up her blue-gray eyes.
The other names would definitely come in handy when she needed allies. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, she chanted in her head in a gleeful, sing-song voice. Before she could find somewhere to write down the list, however, the door slammed open with a resounding clang.
"Dans ici!" a harsh voice yelled as a guard waved his gun and flashlight to motion his buddies into the room. "Tuez-la!"
Claire had paid sufficient enough attention in high school French to get the gist of it—she was screwed. They filtered in, and she had just enough time to count half a dozen men before a hailstorm of bullets flew her way. Metal rattled the wood as she ducked with one arm over her head in protection, a reflex. She dove off the chair and behind the nearest desk, holding her weapon to her chest and already breathing hard.
"Ah, crap," she grumbled, flipping her safety off. One careless shooter had caused the glass of the computer she had been using to shatter and the plastic around it to splinter. Sparks danced up from the smoldering monitor. Despite being caught off guard and a straight shot from the door, no one had managed to hit her. "Must be new recruits…" Kind of like Leon. Reaching around the corner blindly, she fired a few shots in the direction of the agitated voices. A thud and a curse made her smile.
At least she hit one.
Claire crawled to the farthest edge of her makeshift shield before tucking and rolling to the next desk over. Bullets thudded into the ground just inches behind her. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, fighting off all fear and panic. This was her element. She shoved the desk with her shoulder, causing a cup to fall off the corner and shatter on the ground. The guards expectantly aimed their high-powered rifles in that direction. Leaning around the other side, Claire let off a few well-aimed shots, hitting an unsuspecting guard in the hand and another in the kneecap. Both dropped their guns in either anguish or surprise. Three were defenseless.
An alarm was ringing in her eardrums now. Claire imagined the pounding footsteps of back-up forces, but no one else crashed their little party. Lunging toward a filing cabinet, she fired a few more times mid-flight. The rest of the guards dropped, clumsily, to the ground. She heard the groans of the injured and then scuffling as the rest attended to the situation as best as they could.
Up until this moment in time, Claire had never shot a living, breathing thing. Moving dead things, yes. Monsters, yes. But mortal men? No.
Shoving her guilt aside, Claire raced for the second door in the room, heart pounding, waiting, just waiting for one of the crippled men to get revenge. The man she had disarmed first managed to pick up a weapon and fire off several shots at her. Goosebumps dotted her neck as the bullets skimmed by her dancing ponytail.
Quickly, she threw herself against the cement door and flung it behind her if only to keep the gunmen at bay for a few seconds. Creeping around a darkened corner, Claire slammed a new magazine into her handgun, her eyes narrowed vigilantly.
Two more men rounded the bend up ahead, forcing her to change direction and start down the hall the other way at a run. They followed her closely in the windowed corridor, close on her heels.
The constant thrum of a helicopter's rotary propellers echoed from wall to wall, but Claire couldn't pinpoint where exactly the noise was coming from. A large window loomed up ahead, but she kept charging directly at it…
