..

Sherry counted three of them. No, four. Each mercenary carried a syringe.

The picture of caution, she'd stayed out of sight and kept from engaging the mercenaries. She was more than able with a firearm, but they had numbers and tight corridors. They'd hurried through tunnels, filed out of elevators, and dogged through run-down buildings, far more intimate with the terrain.

A civil war had raged miles away, over talons of rock that overlooked battered streets. Minutes ago, the BSAA hammered the Liberation forces with greater weaponry and aerial supremacy. As she'd climbed to the next floor, the artillery quieted, coating the hallway.

It was silent, until she heard those four.

She watched the first one roll up his sleeve. His buddies rolled up theirs, egging him on to do it first. He did so, jamming the syringe into his right thigh. She spun, flattened against one side of the doorway, and listened as the needles crunched against skin. Listened as the four mercenaries grunted, listened as their grunts turned to wails.

Stealing a glance, the four men convulsed in session, gripping their chests and tumbling, some to their knees, others collapsing and going through spasms. The 'energy boosters'. None of them mutated, despite her intel that the 'boosters' were all a front for test samples of the C-Virus.

Another one of the mercenaries crashed against the floor. Sherry winced, but her objective was still around here, somewhere. She gripped her handgun and skirted past the doorway, the howls of dying men accompany her as she continued her search. These insurgents had chosen their fates.

A door at the end of the hall brought to a flight of stairs, bringing her to a thick red door with a wheel handle. Carefully, she eased the door a few inches and slid through the gap, entering the dimly-lit passageway of this floor.

There was noise on that floor. Two people fighting somewhere, and one of them losing, badly. She broke into a sprint. The floor had a bunch of rooms, but she followed the ruckus. Leaning around the corner of one, she spied on a man in a black coat. Said man's leg was extended, pinning a mercenary to the wall. Two white syringes lay discarded a few feet from them.

She remembered his dossier picture, the deep scar along his face. Jake Muller, with the orange symbol of the Liberation insurgents stitched onto the sleeve of his coat; in the flesh. The man re-chambered his leg, letting the pinned mercenary slide to the ground unresponsively.

She holstered her Triple Shot to approach the two of them.

"Did you take your dose?"

The man turned to face her. "Yeah," he replied, his tone searching for a usable punchline.

For a moment, dark eyes searched her from top to bottom as she caught her breath, and they lingered; then they met her at eye level, confirming that she wasn't BSAA, or part of the insurgency. He didn't pull a gun on her, at least.

"But if you want your own hit, you're gonna' have to sign up with the lady downstairs."

Sherry peered at her watch, and glanced back at Muller. A hissing noise filled the air, drawing their attention to the unconscious man, whose body took on a fiery glow. The skin blackened, until the charred color consumed the rest of his body. All his bones, all the flesh shattered, decomposing with spurts of bloody fluid until it all turned to ash. It all smoldered.

"Wouldn't recommend it though," he finished, giving her a shrug.

A new, biological virus, called the C-Virus. The new term for people infected with the virus was J'avo. The first J'avo captured, alive, was a godsend. Now she knew why. Yet her target stood right in front of her, dose already taken. No mutation, no freakish, demonic wings spurted from his back, or gangrene tentacles exploding out of his mouth like in the Wesker report.

She'd found him. She'd found the man who would give them a cure.

"No question." She shook her head. "You've got the antibodies."

Her eyes swept left, passing the gray furnaces that hugged another part of the dilapidated room, the vines of electrical wiring that dangled from the ceiling, illuminated by the leak of daylight. On the nearby wall, veined walls discolored with rust and cracked ugly, or missing plaster, she found a garbage chute hatch, mildly surprised at how easily it opened.

"Thank you very much," he said, before it fumbled. "Wait, what?"

She frowned, inwardly. "You could be the key to saving this world, Jake Muller," she explained meaningfully, local performance review be damned.

Behind Jake came the patter of footsteps as three, loping figures raced from the opposite hallway. The next room had a full ceiling, casting the intruders in an eerie, distant glow. A fourth joined them as the leader spotted Jake and her, and charged straight for them. J'avo. Even in minimal lighting, she saw the cluster of glazed bulbs the virus replaced their eyes with, wreaked across their skin.

Sherry already had her handgun drawn when Muller circled past her, smirking.

"Better save myself first!" With that, he jogged toward the chute.

Asshole.

The gang of J'avo hurried toward them, rife with murderous hisses and moans. Their gang crossed a length of sunlight as they entered, which Sherry quickly realized wasn't sunlight at all. Jake paused in mid-leap, one of his legs already tucked into the chute without the other.

A white light, shaped like a sphere, brighter than the sunlight pouring in through the ragged ceiling, obscured the J'avo. Sherry shielded her eyes. Maybe it blinded them. They grunted with something close to surprise, apparently trapped on the other side. Though she used an arm to keep herself from being blinded, Sherry kept her Triple Shot aimed with a hand.

Then, the light began to bleed.

It pulled from the sphere with a stretching, winding gurgle. A shadowy figure pushed its way out, shaking itself, freed from containment. The shadow grew an arm, and in that arm was a scythe, one that dwarfed the shadow in size.

The sphere of blinding light that materialized from nowhere shivered, distorting until it winked out of existence and returned normal color to the room. The J'avo waited on the other side of the room, some of them crouching defensively.

Sherry heard a shriek; a girl's voice, not her own, and certainly not the J'avo.

She wondered if it was one of the J'avo, maybe a side-effect of the C-Virus. But she abandoned the thought.

Her attention went back to that scythe, that huge bastard of a scythe. The figure holding it remained in silhouette, probably just her eyes readjusting.

She had two eyes, and the grotesque mutants on the other side of the room had several, and they were scattered. The US government was sure that each of the eyes functioned on their own. So they had to be blind, right?

The scythe blurred. There was a thick cutting noise. One of the J'avo fell with a hiss of spewing blood. His head bounced off the ceiling, taken straight off the body.

Straight, off.

Sherry felt her eyes widening and her hands numbing. The shadowy figure was no longer still. She blinked, focused, but she heard the awful cleaving sound before she opened her eyes again.

A second J'avo fell forward, his head also missing. The head landed with a thump a second later. The next J'avo screeched as the scythe smashed against its chest. There was a bang, and a flash, before the J'avo launched off its feet. Its torso vanished in an explosion of sizzling fluids and gore.

The last J'avo, startled, reached for something behind his back. That time, Sherry noticed a streak of red, just an instant. Like a wisp of floating flower petals - razor-sharp petals that diced through the J'avo's collar bone and split through him. The bifurcated halves blasted apart from each other.

Sherry saw the short-haired, pale-skinned girl holding the scythe at last.

A gigantic, unstained scythe that should have flattened her, slung over her shoulder. By the girl's feet, along the walls, splattered across the floors, and from the severed heads that found their rest on the floor, the corpses of the J'avo began disintegrating, just like before.

"Well damn," Muller drawled as he stepped out from the garbage chute. Crude, but it was better than being numb from shock.

Sherry trained her weapon on the scythe-wielding teenager, waiting for any sudden moves...

"Jake! We're leaving," she ordered. "I have to get you to a safe rendezvous point. You," she aimed at the girl, who turned and faced them. "Who are you? Are you with the insurgents?"

The girl tilted her head, causing the scythe to bob on her shoulder. "Um, you're talking to me?" she pointed at herself, balancing the scythe with her other hand.

Ignoring the bizarrity of that, Sherry guessed she wasn't with the BSAA either. She wasn't dressed like an insurgent. She didn't have one of those spider-shaped emblems, the same emblem on Jake's shoulder.

In fact, she was almost the spitting image of Red Riding Hood: a red cloak, black dress, boots and all. But either Sherry needed to re-read Little Red Riding Hood, or...

She glanced at the J'avo that had gotten launched off his feet. Helping get rid of the corpse was the absence of the torso, liquefied before he even hit the ground. She remembered the flash ... a gunshot.

"Um, boy," the girl spoke innocently, her pointing hand now scratching the back of her head. "Where do I even start with that?" Her head deepened, talking to herself. "Oh man, am I even allowed to talk about that? Ohhh..." Her voice dropped into mutters that Sherry couldn't make out.

Muller hardly seemed concerned. The asshole was grinning!

"Well you see, I'm not exactly... from here," the girl continued. "My name's Ruby, and I... well, I'm here to fight monsters. Evil, soulless monsters." She brought her hand up and did a gesture, wiggling her fingers like she were pressing a typewriter, still holding that scythe behind her effortlessly.

How old was this girl? She wasn't even Sherry's height. Sherry briefly supposed that the scythe might be a prop of some kind, until she recalled the severed, flying heads...

She had to escort Jake Muller. Her mission came first. She stepped in front of him, keeping her gun on the mysterious girl.

"So, you guys look pretty human compared to these... things," said this 'Ruby', gesturing at one of the simmered pools of drying blood where the corpses were. "I don't – suppose - your civilization has any bearing on interdimensional travel, do they?"

Sherry and Muller swapped glances.

"I'll take that as a...no." The girl frowned, pulling the scythe down in front of her like a basket. It was so non-threatening, Sherry almost felt embarrassed that the action nearly caused her to shoot the girl.

"Dimensional travel?" said Jake, amused.

"Yeah," the girl brightened, "that's it. I came from-"

"Look out!" she cried, flipping her scythe.

A roar reached into the room, behind them. Sherry's reflexes whirled her around, spotting the J'avo that appeared through the same doorway she'd entered from, gun pointed.

Sherry stiffened when the projectile rocketed between her and Muller, and she recoiled, shoved by the force of the wind. The J'avo's face exploded into itty pieces, a superb headshot.

Of course, the admiration was short-lived when she stumbled from proximity. Muller jumped too, both spinning to find the scythe-wielding girl holding her scythe upside-down, forcing back a lever that resembled a gun's hammer. A bullet casing popped out with an audible snap and jingled when it hit the floor.

"Sorry, sorry!" Ruby muttered, raising a hand, her voice fading into whispers. "I saw it before I-"

Sorry. The J'avo was dead, deader than dead, in fact. Reports said the J'avo could regenerate. Ha. Ha ha ha. Imagine.

That fucker so wasn't coming back.

Sherry ignored the wisp in her breaths and tried to force the church bells from her ears. They clanged from every direction, making her wobble, momentarily delirious. She exhaled. She breathed.

She didn't know what was going on in Jake's mind, but he'd stopped grinning. She had a feeling that if he'd had a firearm, he'd have drawn it.

"-I'm fine," she heard him respond, "I'm fine."

"I'm really sorry," she heard Ruby repeat, the bells getting further away. "Are you sure you're alright?" She walked closer, tempting fate.

"I'm fine. We're fine," Sherry said, nursing her left ear.

She looked at Jake.

"Are you okay?"

"I said I'm fine." His eyes narrowed at Ruby. "But don't you ever fire a weapon next to my head ever again, do you understand?"

Ruby, her eyes now large, silver platters with IOUs taped onto them, gulped and nodded complacently.

"Okay then Missy," he pre-faced, "you want to start making sense and explain what this is about before that gunshot attracts more of them?"

"That's... complicated."

Sherry listened, her inner voice screaming that she grab Jake and make a run for it.

"Let's just say I'm here to help you guys out. If you have any Beowolves, or Ursi around you need extermina-"

"Beowolves," he interrupted. "Ursi? The hell are you talking about?"

"Oh," she stepped back and bit her fingernail, "you guys don't have those here. Geez, um, okay. Do you have any scary, violent monsters here that try to harm innocent people..."

There had to be at least six piles of rotting, melted flesh in the room with them by now.

"Er, sort of like these?" she waved her hands at them.

Jake turned to Sherry.

"Okay, blondie, your turn. Please start making sense," he said.

"Look, she's not part of the mission. My name is Sherry Birkin, I'm with the United States Division of Security Operations. I need you to come with me. I need to get you to a safe zone-"

"Now why should I do that?" he crooned.

Sherry straightened. "I'll fill you in on the details later, but for right now, just come with me. This place isn't safe."

"Could have fooled me. I was just waiting to go to the bathroom when that guy tried-"

"-this isn't a game!" she said, patience already skimmed. "This is a matter of global importance, and I can't speak with you until..." she glared at Ruby, causing him to stare as well.

The girl winced and backed away. "What?"

"Those things that attacked us?" continued Sherry, "were byproducts of a new virus."

Jake lifted an eyebrow. "No shit?"

"It's the same thing that y..." she paused, remembering their third party. "Those dead J'avo injected themselves with!" Just as she intended, Muller inspected his arm and checked the left side of his neck. So he had gone through with it.

"J'avo?" Ruby cut in.

"Yes," she answered, not looking at her. "You just decapitated five of them."

Jake raised his hand, defiant. "Uh excuse me, I killed one, too."

"So these things," asked Ruby, "these J'avo... they're a global threat in this world?"

Sherry nodded, getting impatient. Wasn't that clear?

"They sound dangerous."

Impatient.

"And you guys don't have Grimm in your world. Okay, I see! I'll take care of the J'avo for you." Seconds trickled by. Ruby took another step back. "Why are you both staring at me like that?

"Look, Miss... Miss-"

"Rose!" she chimed, grinning, "Ruby Rose, at your service."

"-Miss Rose," said Sherry. Her eyes screwed shut, and she massaged her forehead. "You're not with the BSAA and you're not with the Liberation Army. This is a matter pertaining to the US government and if you interfere, I have no choice but to use lethal force. Please step aside."

The cheery demeanor faltered as soon as it materialized. Sherry felt the Triple Shot stir in her hands. She was threatening a child soldier, not a child, even if her appearance made that hard to believe; a super human killer on top of that.

"But I'm here to help," she said. "I don't mean you any harm-"

"-Yeah, Miss Birkin," Muller added, in a voice that said he wasn't on her side at all. "Cut the kid a break. She did just save our lives."

Sherry squinted at that.

"Even if all she says is drrible. But you, Miss Birkin of the United States of A, I understand you." She squinted harder. He raised his index finger interpretively. "At least I think I do. The good guys want to recruit me? But I don't come cheap."

He made a fist then opened it, showing his palm. "I'm thinking... two grand up front, and three grand for a job well done."

Sherry blinked, balling her left hand into a fist. Here was the person she knew could save the world, the only hope to stave off an impending bioterrorist attack. "I'm not here to hire you."

Muller opened his mouth when they heard the snarls. More J'avo, sprinting and rasping, poured into the corridors on each exit to the room.

A lot more.

"We need to move!" Sherry headed for the garbage chute. "Jake, you first!"

"What for?" asked Ruby.

Apparently, Sherry's twitching eye went unnoticed.

Muller, thank god, started for the chute. "Don't need to tell me twice." He complied, jumping into the chute.

"I don't think they're really all that dangerous-"

She wasn't sure whether it was her eye twitching, or more J'avo adding to the horde getting ready to murder them that made Ruby pause. Either way, someone was going to get shot.

"Are you coming with us, or not?" Sherry demanded, gripping the handle of the chute. She refrained from pinching her temples, fearing the action fatal.

"I'm with you, it's just they don't seem all that tough. I bet I could take'em."

"Fine, stay here then." Sherry grabbed the top of the chute and swung her legs inside. Her Triple Shot pressed against her hip, unfortunately, and she had to shift onto her side.

"I'll cover you!" the girl shouted, way above.

While she slid, the stampede of J'avo chased her through the chute. Craning her neck around, she watched the shadows that ran past the chute.

And, with every crack of thunder, watched them flail backward as nothing more than a bundle of bloodied, hewn limbs.

Sherry swirled her attention back in front of her, just as her feet past the end of the chute. Human waste... obliterated her nostrils. Matches lit behind her eyes. The world faded to black, her body tumbling into a pair of extended arms that appeared to be waiting for her to fall.

It was anything but graceful, however, and the arms that caught her offered little resistance. She'd braced for the fall, not for someone making a half-hearted attempt to catch her, and her knees plunged forward when she landed with a splash. Any less preparation and she'd have made a face plant.

Strangely, those same arms firmed suddenly, keeping her from doing so.

They were in a sewer, two staircases, one of them collapsed. Once she was steady, Muller released her. She thanked him, reluctantly, and saw the grayish, olive-colored water they were ankle-deep in, and the dark shapes flitting underneath.

She turned in the nick of time.

"Geronimo," the girl bellowed from above.

A bright, red shape descended from the garbage chute and landed perfectly, boots splashing lightly as she bent into a crouch. The scythe was gone, as far as Sherry could tell in the darkness of a sewer.

She watched Ruby's face pucker the moment the girl realized where they were. The end of her cloak floated in the sewage, not that it mattered. "Ugh," she squeaked. "Why did we have to escape here?"

Sherry dusted herself, and stared at her companions.

Jake Muller, alive, and she planned to keep him that way.

Ruby Rose, an unknown, what, ten-year old capable of blasting mutants to pieces without missing a beat. Regenerating mutants.

Sherry sighed. Move over Kennedy Report, hello Birkin Report.

First things first, get Muller to safety.

"We're moving," she told them. "Follow me."

..

RWBY vs Resident Evil