DISCLAIMER: Resident Evil is owned by Capcom Co. Ltd. All these characters and materials are used without permission, and I'm not profiting from this piece of fan fiction.

Her Greatest Work Yet

By firewolf
January 2013

Ada was tired, physically, mentally, emotionally... This whole adventure with Carla Radames had sickened her to the core. Thank god, it was going to be over soon.

There was just this one last laboratory- one last loose end to tie up and wrap up... She wondered how much damage she could do before Leon caught up with her as he was want to do.

It had been a thought to leave the lab to him and the US government. With what evidence he already held and what he'd probably find in this last facility, she was sure he'd even do her a favour of clearing her name and striking off the alleged connection between her and Neo Umbrella from her records.

However, Ada seldom liked to leave to others what she could handle herself and she really wanted to see this through to the end. Still, she couldn't say what she had expected to find when she inserted the model of the Quad Tower she'd picked up at the aircraft carrier into the console.

The monitors in the room immediately came alive with images of Carla and several other researchers. Ada watched the recordings of Carla's experiments with the C-Virus and her victims in Chrysalid states. However, that wasn't all. Ada felt her senses elevating into higher alert as the Carla in the recording started to talk about something she called her "greatest work yet."

Instinct drew Ada to walk around the console and approach the door in the centre of the room. It opened into a quiet hallway that led to another room where she found a protective chamber of some sort with something inside. As she drew nearer, Ada recognised the object as an un-hatched Chrysalid. However, by some eerie coincidence it seemed as if the Chrysalid was apparently ready to hatch with her appearance.

She lifted her Ammo Box 50, but hesitated. Curiosity stayed her finger on the trigger. Carla called this Chrysalid her "greatest work yet"... What was it of?

She recalled the Ustanak which she had seen chasing Sherry and Wesker's son. That had been a fairly large creature. This Chrysalid, however, wasn't anywhere near as large. In fact, it appeared of quite modest proportions...

A chill ran down her spine. Perhaps, it wasn't so much a 'what' but a 'who'? After all, Carla did find out what Derek Simmons did to her in remaking her into a doppelganger of Ada. Perhaps she was just taking a page out of Simmons' playbook. However, who was Carla recreating and for what purpose?

Curiosity kept Ada immobile as she watched Carla's creation hatch though all instincts screamed at her to empty the clip at the Chrysalid. In hindsight, Ada wished she hadn't indulged her curiosity.

In a spray of fluids, a figure arched quite violently out of the Chrysalid's shell with its birth. Ada nearly dropped her Ammo Box 50 with her shocked recognition of the man Carla had 'cloned'.

"Leon...?"

The sleek, lean muscular frame was achingly familiar. Leon- the doppelganger's head was thrown back with slightly parted lips as it sucked in deep breaths to replenish it's lungs as if it had been holding it's breath for too long. Under the laboratory lights he creature's body looked almost gleaming with fluids that had covered it and it's fringe was plastered wetly over his right eye which seemed to beg for a hand to brush it aside. And in that particular posture... It stirred too many pleasant memories of- of Leon and how he had looked when he was sweaty with exertion, his hair in disarrayed, with eyes half-lidded and moist lips parted in a gasp of orgasm.

Ada shook her head. "No."

Her heart knew it wasn't him. This- thing... It's skin was flawless- unmarked by scars or blemishes. It's chin looked hairless and smooth, as if it had never needed a razor. This wasn't Leon. The skin on his left shoulder was unmarked. This wasn't the man who'd heroically thrown himself between her and a bullet in Raccoon City. This wasn't the man who less than an hour earlier had protected her from a B.O.W. transformed Simmons while she had lain unconscious and helpless at the quad tower.

The figure slowly righted itself to lean forward and place it's hands on the Plexiglas walls of the chamber which still enclosed it. lt was a mistake for Ada to meet its eyes when it noticed her. There was a look of confusion and question in its gaze that was much too familiar; a look, which Ada had always loved to create in Leon- the real Leon.

Leon- Carla's greatest work... The bitch...

Ada didn't know why she was surprised. After all, Simmons remade Carla into Ada Wong. And Ada Wong was whispered in select circles to have had a weakness for a certain government agent.

On one of those rare times when they happened upon each other and hung out together as plain citizens rather than faced off as government agent and mercenary, Ada remembered Leon, complaining to her that Sherry's new Government appointed guardian had a grudge against him that he'd never understood. It meant Leon had been hardly allowed any contact with the little girl he signed his life away to the government for, and this pained him greatly that he could only ever find out how Sherry was from his infrequent contact with Claire Redfield.

Of course, Simmons didn't like Leon. The man was obsessed with Ada and she refused to associate with him outside of work. Whereas Leon and her- Small surprise Carla picked up on it too.

Her greatest work... Ada felt her bile rising up her throat. That bitch!

She raised the Ammo Box 50, which she hadn't realised she had lowered, and pointed it's barrel directly at the head of the 'Leon' creature. She told herself that she wasn't the least bit tempted to take into her custody a 'Leon' unfettered by ties to the US government. He might even be perfect given that with hindsight guiding her, Carla could have ensured this creation never regained his original memories of who he was before it was remade. The ticking time bomb, which Carla had been for Simmons, was probably negated in this 'improved' model...

No. Her heart screamed that this was an abomination. It wasn't the real Leon and Ada would not suffer to let it live let alone exist.

She pulled the trigger firmly, letting the rapid fire assault rifle tear the monster to pieces. The clip was quickly finished and she ejected it to slam another one into place to also unload it upon the now barely recognizable Chrysalid.

When this clip was done, Ada loaded another and turned her attention to the rest of the room. No one- no one was going to recover the information to be able to clone Leon again- No one!

She emptied clip after clip into the computers, equipment and desks of files and notes. However, even in the face of the destruction she couldn't shake the image of the creature's look of confusion and question when it had looked upon her. That expression had also been on her doppelganger's face when she had hatched from her Chrysalid. Derek Simmons had taken Carla then and tried to remould her into his 'Ada Wong'.

There was a picture in the room of the original Carla Radames sitting with Simmons during happier times. Ada knew from looking at Carla's smile that she was in love with Simmons. It sickened her to think of Carla in her flesh and in Simmons' arms when fresh out of the Chrysalid; that Carla had genuinely made love to Simmons while wearing her face. And Carla would probably have done the same with the poor creature that looked like Leon. Perhaps he used to be a researcher who had a crush on Carla. Like Simmons, she would have-

Her Ammo Box 50 clicked empty again, but Ada just ejected the empty clip and slammed in a new one. She did not want to dwell on what Carla may have wanted to do with her own personal 'Leon Kennedy' any more than she wanted to think of what Simmons did with Carla after she was successfully recreated in her image. She felt- unclean...

With the room in ruins and a fire roaring among the papers and equipment, Ada gave her surroundings a last look around. She spotted the picture of Carla and Simmons again, miraculously still intact despite her earlier indiscriminate shooting.

She drew the communicator from her pocket and stared at it for a moment. Then she threw it at the picture and walked away.

The ring of her regular phone was a welcomed diversion. A new job? Yes. That's what she needed now. It was a very well received distraction, which could prevent her from dwelling too long on thoughts of Carla and Simmons. And- Leon...

After what she had done to his doppelganger, Ada didn't want to be anywhere near Leon for a long while. She was sure she'd do something very foolish and dangerous for the both of them if she encountered him again too soon.

He was a highly placed government agent. She was a mercenary and did not belong in the circles that he moved in. The evidence she'd provided him would clear him of the President's murder. Leon's continued high position of trust in the US government was secure, Ada was sure of that.

Her hand moved unconsciously to an old long faded scar hidden by the fabric of her blouse; a scar she'd picked up in Raccoon City. She couldn't help wondering though- If she'd chosen not to help him clear his name- if she had thought instead to take Leon on the run with her...

Foolish dreams...

Epilogue

Leon looked around the nearly destroyed laboratory as the other SS men flitted about bagging evidence and carefully trying to extract the half-burnt remains of computers and equipment. They were always a step or ten behind Ada.

Still, Ada appeared uncharacteristically sloppy this time, or maybe she just wasn't that serious in ensuring all the data was destroyed since a good amount of it would exonerate her involvement in Neo Umbrella. Even after reviewing the evidence, the story still seemed too farfetched and- quite pathetic; that the deaths and destruction was brought about not only because of Simmons' betrayal, but was escalated because of the woman he'd betrayed and remade as 'Ada Wong'. A woman scorned.

Leon felt sick for Ada. Despite all the suffering she had caused though, he pitied Carla. He was glad Simmons was dead. What he did to Carla, who evidently loved him... What knowing this must have done to Ada...

He had found the briefcase of notes on the abandoned aircraft carrier that Chris Redfield directed him to, claiming that that was where he saw Ada fall to her death. However, from the slime and bio hazardous flesh found on board and the fact he had met up with and fought beside Ada well after Chris claimed she'd died, Leon could put two and two together to figure out that it was Carla whom Chris had seen fall. And apparently, Ada had faced her off when she made herself a B.O.W. and killed her, then went on to follow the trail to this lab Leon now stood in.

The one exception to the incomplete destruction in this facility though was Carla Radames' 'Greatest Work'. The Chrysalid, the notes and the computers in the room were practically obliterated.

From the Chrysalid 's size and general shape though, there was enough to identify it as humanoid and not of the monstrous variety. Carla had evidently tried to clone someone the same way she had been remade into Ada Wong. Who it was meant to be though would remain a mystery since bullets destroyed the head, face and upper torso of the creature.

Still, Leon could not help experiencing the chill of feeling as if someone had walked on his grave when he took a closer look at the corpse before they'd body bagged it. The legs of the creature looked a little too uncomfortably familiar. If it weren't for the lack of a scar on the thigh that Ada gave to him back in Spain and the absence of various other imperfections that served as reminders of old injuries...

When they next met, Leon knew he had a lot he wanted to talk to Ada about; not to mention her help in clearing his name. Given the evidence he and Hunnigan had uncovered together, Leon knew he could have cleared his own name even if she hadn't provided the SD card. However, Ada's evidence was extremely helpful in ensuring he was *completely* cleared beyond a shadow of doubt. The information also put the final nails in Derek Simmons' coffin of guilt.

Still, Leon had to wonder- if in the end- if he hadn't been able to clear his name for having to kill the zombie Adam had become- whether she'd have appeared to give him a hand to disappear and go on the run- with her...

Foolish dreams...

~End~

Thanks for reading.

firewolf