Part One: White Knight Syndrome


In every good fairy tale there is a simple formula. A dashing hero, a dazzling damsel in distress, an evil villain and a heroic battle to save the world. This story, dear readers, is no different.

Well…maybe a little different...

Currently our dashing hero found himself less than dashing as he was dangling upside down by his ankles in a room that smelled of formaldehyde and disinfectant. Subtly, somewhere under that, was the smell of death. It wouldn't be the last time he found himself this way...but it would be the first time he was AWARE that he was being rescued by one other than himself.

A hero needing a hero.

How, you may ask, did our hero come to be here? Well…that's a story for another time. This is, after all, Resident Evil and there are no quaint towers and no white knights. There are, however, heroes that rise from nothing to save the day. So come with me and let us see what becomes of a hero when he's in need of saving...

Our tale really begins with the rescue of our dashing hero by a dazzling damsel who, it would seem, was not in distress at all...


Umbrella Holding Facility Compound - August - 2005


One of his eyes was crusted shut with dried blood. How long had he been hanging here? A day? A year? It was hard to say since all the blood had rushed to his head and he could barely remember his name let alone how long he'd been dangling in the dark.

He had a vague recollection about how he'd come to be here. There was the image of flying fists, of fire and a fierce battle over a flaming pit. There was a face in there, a beautiful face with cool eyes the color of dark skies.

Images blurred and churned in his mind, confusion drifting in to mix with reality until he wasn't sure what he remembered and what he'd imagined. Our hero let out a groan as his head started pounding again, the pleasant numbness of the moment before lost beneath burgeoning conscious thought.

It was hard to see in the semi darkness around him but what he could make out was deformed things in tanks. Limbs and eyes and tentacles encased in glass tubes and floating in liquid of different colors. Directly in front of him was something that might have been a man once. It was tall and had arms as long as it's body with claws as big as mans chest for hands. All five fingers of the claws were razor sharp, glinting in the flickering lights. A great pulsing mass upon it's chest showed that thing was breathing, likely in stasis until whoever was breeding it came along to release it's horror upon the world. The face was skeletal but still vaguely human, showing a place where a nose should go and cheekbones below very human shaped closed eyes. In all, our hero judged the thing in the tube to be eight feet tall and scary as shit.

The other tubes contained things he hadn't thought to see outside of Alien. He might have used an allegory like Monsters INC. or something but that seemed too jovial of a comparison. Were they monkeys? Dogs? It was hard to judge but it seemed likely. He sort of made out a shape that looked like a man sized frog a few tubes away. What kind sick shit pit had he fallen in to?

There was a clatter and the sound of approaching feet. Closing his eyes, he pretended to be sleeping.

Voices came, slow but distinct in the distance.

"He's still out. I think we should start the testing."

"No. No way dude. You know what she said man. She said Wesker would turn our balls into earrings if we so much as touch a hair on his head man."

"Well eventually his head is going to explode or something dude. He can't keep dangling like that."

There was a loud sigh. "Ok. Ok. Let's turn him up. We'll chain him to the Tyrant tank. That'll keep him from trying to escape."

"Hell yeah it will. I wouldn't want to accidentally crack that tank and free it from stasis."

With a grunt of assent, the two voices came closer and our hero found himself being hoisted upright with the grind and whir of a machine. When he was parallel to the floor, one of them released his ankles. He let his body drop boneless to the cold metal. This place was as sterile as a cotton ball.

There was the rattle of chains being removed from his ankles.

"What was the name of this guy again?"

"Eh…" A rustle of papers. "Kennedy. Leon S. Kennedy."

"Ohhhh yeah. Spook type guy right?"

"Yeah. Some hot shit special agent type. Nick name was Ghost because he could slip in and out without ever being seen."

"Ha. Guess somebody saw him. At least long enough to stick a tranq dart in his ass."

"No shit."

The chains on his hands were rattled and released. One of the two voices was dragging him over toward the tank with the nasty monster in it. It was an unpleasant tango that he was NOT thrilled to begin.

Leon cracked an eye and waited for the right moment.

"Jesus this guy weighs a ton. He's all fucking muscle. You think he works out?"

"Shut up, you puss. What kind of gay ass question is that? You want to cop a feel while we're at it or what? Don't drop him. Keep your hand outta his pants. And take his other arm."

"Eat me, dude. I'm just saying he's fucking huge. One of us should get the tranq gun, just in case."

He was unceremoniously dumped on one of the men who grunted at his total dead weight. Staggering a little, the man croaked, "Hurry up dude. He's heavy."

The figure returned carrying a silver tranq gun. "Okay." He tucked it into his waist band. "Let's finish moving him."

They each took an arm and drug him the last few feet to the tank.

"Here wrap his arm around there and I'll cuff it and hook it to this one."

"'kay.

"Don't know why you needed the gun dude. He's out cold. What's he gonna do?"

In story telling this is what's known as foreshadowing: A moment when something occurs that subtly lets the reader know of impending events. What would he do indeed? And so our hero said...

"This." Leon mused and jerked his left arm. The geek holding it smashed face first against the heavy glass tube, knocking his glasses aside and breaking his nose. He shrieked and the other one dropped Leon's opposing arm to try to draw the tranq gun from his waist band.

Leon beat him to it. He grabbed the gun himself and pulled the trigger against the man's skinny stomach. With a gurgling grunt, the dork fell backwards; out like a light.

The other was still shrieking and clutching his gushing nose as he scuttled backwards across the floor like a discombobulated crab. He hit the wall a few feet away with his back and started moaning. He was making some kind of noise like a horny cat.

Hefting the tranq gun, Leon followed him. His head swam and swirled at gaining his feet but he shook it off and knelt. He pressed the gun to the geek's temple.

"Listen up, dork. And listen well. I only want to hear two things come out of your mouth in the next five seconds: The way out of here and what's going to try to stop me along the way."

The geek spilled the beans. It was rather disappointing really. He didn't have to crack skulls or anything. No bamboo slivers, no burning off ears, nothing. Sad.

He was, well, naked. So he'd had enough presence of mind to knock out the geek and steal his lab coat and pants. The pants were snug as hell and the white shirt beneath the coat fit like a second skin but it was better than being naked. Inspired, Leon also hand cuffed both geeks to each other hugging the Tyrant tank. It seemed fitting given their idea of how to tie him up.

He slipped out into the sterile hallway, clipping one of the geeks ID badges to the lab coat. It was the one who most resembled him. All they really had in common was dark blonde hair but it was better than nothing.

He passed a few more lab geeks on his way through the twisting corridors. A general description from the geek with the broken nose had given Leon some idea of how to leave the tunnels of freakish torture in which he found himself ensconced.

Leon was half way home free when the first real trouble struck. One of the stupid geeks actually had the nerve to look at him. Then she glanced at his ID.

"Hey…you're not Elmo!"

Aside from the fact that he wasn't aware that any real person was named ELMO, Leon found himself in a bit of a conundrum. Did he silence the girl? He wasn't a fan of hitting women in general but this one was hurrying toward a big red button on the wall that just screamed "ALARM". Of course it might also have been the self destruct button for the lab. Lord knew these Umbrella wienies were constantly blowing their own shit up as a general means of not having to deal with their issues.

"Hey!"

She froze.

"If you hit that button there, I'm going to shoot you."

There, he thought, that was reasonable enough right? But the silly girl was still inching toward the button even with a gun aimed at her. Sometimes there was no making sense of the female brain.

"Perhaps you think you are faster than a speeding bullet?" He queried, though technically it was a dart. But still.

"Maybe."

On a sigh, Leon moved toward her. She squeaked and threw the only thing she had in her hand at him. It was really degrading to admit how bad his reflexes were and how impaired his body was that he couldn't even dodge a bottle of YooHoo. It was also really sad that his brain staggered out of reality long enough to remind him how much he loved YooHoo.

The bottle clipped him just above his left ear. He grunted and careened into the wall beside him. The girl squeaked again and then did what any self respecting person at gun point would do - she hightailed it away from him screaming for help.

"Heeeelp! This guy killed Elmo!"

Unfairly, Leon figured it was a far fall from the Ghost to the Guy Who Killed Elmo. He'd be the most hated person on Sesame Street. It was a pretty epic fail.

Leon stumbled, vision spotted. He bumped into a desk laden with computer stuff that bleeped and blared alarmingly at the intrusion. A very loud boom behind him told him he'd better move his ass because, oh yeah, someone was now shooting at him.

A bullet buried itself in his left arm just above the elbow as Leon more rolled than ran out of the room. Somehow he'd managed to swipe the girls card key off the table as he did so, hurrying down the long, narrow hallway toward a set of doors at the end.

Voices were shouting and feet were pounding after him. He felt the hot whiz of another bullet and knew he'd never make it. He was too weak, his body too tired, his brain too shocky to be able to compete with four armed men giving chase down one small hallway. It was pathetic and perfectly human.

Just as he had about to decided to turn and rush the men in a final act of bravado, the doors at the end of the hallway whooshed open. Standing in them was a goddess. Or an amazon. He wasn't sure which. He never was with her.

But either way, she was likely there to kill hi-

"Get down."

And he did. Just like that.

He dropped to the floor and the vixen opened fire. There were shouts that were quickly cut off and turned to gurgles of death. The symphony of death was quite musical to his half numb ears.

Lying on the floor, Leon was pretty sure he was about to die. His vision fuzzy, he glanced up as the vixen knelt beside him. She was gorgeous, all Amazonian warrior queen. Lots of dark eyes and PERFECT tits. Which was, not at all, relevant to staying alive.

"Leon...long time no see."

"Mmm."

"I wonder if I can ever find you when you aren't in peril. Perhaps it's my unfortunate calling in life to protect you."

That was just like her.

She was ALWAYS a bit snarky and tongue in cheek. She was, also in this moment at least, apparently right.

"Rest now, Mr. Hero. I'll make sure the bad guys don't ruin your pretty face."

There was NOTHING he hated worse than knowing he owed Ada Wong a favor.

When it came to her?

Always Wong, never right.

Puns.

His curse on the world. And the last thought he had before he blacked out.


A:N: Think you've read this? You have. I stalled on it before but have the itch to Ada and Leon again. Fun little run ins with them over the years. It'll bounce through time as I see fit.