So be honest... who missed me? I missed all of you! Or am I just saying that to get on everyone's good side again? And I know you're all telling me to shut up so you can read the chapter. We'll get there in due time.

First! This story picks up a little while after Apocalypse ends, but we're nowhere near Extinction yet. That would have become apparent, but I like everyone being well informed before reading. Also, I snagged chapter titles from Five Finger Death Punch songs - each of which inspired its respective chapter. You can give the songs a listen if you want, but it's not required. Now read all the rest of the stuff I have to include in my Author's Note, then read the chapter, and then... you guessed it: review! Reviews are my muse (and so is andrella07, but don't tell her I said that!).

Rated M for language, adult themes, gore, maybe some smut eventually... Seriously, if you've read any of my other stories, you know exactly what to expect. And that's why you keep coming back for more.

Disclaimer: I do not and will not at any point own Resident Evil or Five Finger Death Punch - though it'd be really cool if I did.

Chapter 1: Bulletproof

You won't break me, no matter how hard you try

You can't shake me down

I'm fucking bulletproof

After escaping the Detroit Umbrella facility, the group that had 'rescued' Alice – she really hadn't needed it – took her to the only safe place they could think of. There was a small pocket of resistance that was trying to fight back against Umbrella and the spreading infection. Unfortunately, they were only putting themselves in more danger by taking the blonde to them.

While she was in the facility, Dr. Isaacs had done far more to Alice than had originally been done in the Raccoon City hospital. He revived her with another strand of the T-virus, this one even stronger than the first infection, and implanted a neural dampener to keep control of his prized Project. Once he activated Project Alice, she was an unwitting spy for Umbrella.

The first time they took complete control of her was when they stormed the building that the resistance was hiding in. They knew where everything was and where everyone would be. It was also the first time that Alice stained her hands with the blood of the innocent. She could see every move that she was making, but had no will to stop herself.

Angie died that night – and Alice was the one holding the gun that killed the girl.

Jill was nearly paralyzed – and Alice was the one holding the knife that sank into her back.

Carlos was blown halfway to hell – and Alice was the one that threw the grenade into the room after him.

The only reason LJ was spared from the rampage was that he ducked out as soon as the Umbrella soldiers stormed the building. If he hadn't, he would have been among the ranks of the dead and seriously injured. The only ones that made it out were those tough enough to fight out, or smart enough to play dead.

Rage had been the only thing to free her from the hold that Umbrella had on her. It was enough to regain the will to control her own body and it was enough to threaten to destroy her. The anger spurned by her lack of control never went away – she was angry at herself for what she'd done and angry at Umbrella for making her do it.

To avoid such a situation again, Alice broke into another facility and got the satellite tracks so she could keep from being found. They couldn't control her if they couldn't find her. If they couldn't find her, they couldn't see her coming either.

After falling off the grid, Alice worked on bettering her control over the powers given to her by the T-virus. The most startling were her telekinetic abilities. That was something she'd never expected and it took time, effort, and a lot of pain to master.

With her first attack on Umbrella, she'd jumped the gun a bit – she had yet to bring herself to her full potential. Control over her telekinetic abilities was dicey at best, but she still took out anyone she could find. Good, old fashioned guns were just as effective as her developing powers.

Her second guerilla inspired attack flowed together with a little more ease. She had worked on her strength and agility; she could better harness her mental powers. The collateral damage she caused was on a very self-satisfying scale. Everyone involved with Umbrella deserved to die – she couldn't deny that even she deserved it, though the T-virus refused to grant her such a reprieve.

Now, she was on her way for yet another attack. That was how she played it every time. After an attack, she'd disappear again for a few months. Only when she was sure the corporation was unaware of her location did she move on to the next.

Alice was outnumbered by… well, she didn't much care for the numbers, but she did know the odds were stacked against Umbrella. Their first mistake was injecting her with the T-virus in Raccoon City, the second mistake was bringing her back from the dead, and the final mistake was giving her a reason to kill them all.

It didn't matter that she was hardly dressed for the occasion – black pants, a white t-shirt, and a black leather jacket offered her absolutely no protection – Alice was still going to make her strike. This time, she was far more confident in herself. While she was hiding from the corporation, she would work on all of her abilities. The only thought going through her head was that if she mastered herself in this new life, she could eradicate Umbrella once and for all.

There was poison running through her veins and it wasn't just the T-virus. The more deadly venom that had set her on this self-destructive path was her barely contained anger. It consumed nearly every fiber of her being and drove her to go after the men that had not only ruined her, but ruined the world.

Night was just beginning to descend when Alice brought her motorcycle to a stop. The all black and fully customized Harley Davidson Nightster was swiped from an obliging dealership – though she was fairly certain it had belonged to someone who had been employed there considering all the work done to it. The motorcycle had served her well thus far and she really didn't think that would change any time soon.

After getting off the bike, she reached into one of the leather saddlebags before producing a pair of H&K MP5Ks, twin Mark XIX Desert Eagles, and a Mossberg 590A1 to round it all off. Each of the weapons was slid into a holster, save for the shotgun. Reaching into the other saddlebag, she retrieved a pair of Kukri blades – if she was going in for a war, she would do it the right way.

Generally, the smartest way to attack such a large, heavily reinforced complex would be to sneak in and keep as low of a profile as possible. That would take far too much time and Alice just didn't have the patience for stealth at the moment. So instead of taking the safe route, she walked right in through the front door.

The blonde didn't get more than two steps into the building before alarms began blaring all around her. She wasn't concerned in the least however. Now that she was here, they wouldn't be able to stop her.

Two dozen soldiers in all black body suits and helmets flooded the hall to block her pursuit, guns up and laser sights all targeting her midsection and chest. "Put down your weapons!" one of them demanded.

Her lips twisted into a smirk. "Maybe you should drop yours."

The only answer she got was a barrage of bullets, all hoping to find their mark but not a single one making it. Alice's pupils dilated to the point that there was only a thin strip of blue iris left around the black and she stopped each of the shots that was meant to 'kill' her. The soldiers stopped firing when they realized they were just wasting ammunition – there were literally hundreds of bullets suspended in the air in front of the woman.

Without so much as a second thought, Alice turned twenty-four of the bullets around and this time they found their marks – one in each of the soldiers who blocked her path. The rest of the suspended ammunition dropped, completely forgotten once they clattered to the floor.

With the first wave dealt with, Alice pressed on. She didn't bother to pick her way through the bodies; if someone was in her way, she stepped on them. They were dead already, what did they care?

Instead of soldiers barreling out into the hall, two grenades clattered down toward her as she rounded a corner. Whoever threw them must have been hoping to catch her off guard and give her little time to react, because the incendiaries exploded before they even stopped rolling.

Though the blonde only had a split second to react, that was all she needed. Her pupils dilated again, manipulating the flames around her as they spread in the hall. She took control of the fire, forcing it back down the hall in the direction that the grenades had originally come. There were shouts as the inferno caught up with the cowards that tried to surprise her, but they quickly dissipated.

Alice walked down the now charred corridor, rounding another corner and finding four blackened bodies. Too bad for them, they should have known better.

This hall led to a staircase that went down at least five floors. The man she was looking for – if he was here at all – would be at the bottom. The blonde tossed a look over the railing when she heard steps coming up toward her. Between what she could see and hear, she estimated about three dozen soldiers this time. Maybe the good doctor was here after all and he was just throwing as many bodies between them as possible.

She slung the shotgun over her shoulder and pulled the submachine guns from the holsters at her waist. The safeties were quickly flipped off before Alice started her descent – she was going to meet the small army of soldiers head on and with guns blazing.

She got down two flights of stairs before colliding head on with the opposing force. Alice gunned down the first line of soldiers, taking a few more steps down to come face to face with the second line. She used the gun in her hand to add force behind a punch and brought her other arm up to hit another soldier hard enough to topple him over the rail. She ducked as the butt of a rifle came her way and as she straightened, she shot the man point blank.

With a quick flip of the weapon, Alice holstered one of the submachine guns and in the same fluid motion, drew out a Kukri blade. She used the edged weapon to literally cut down those closest to her and shot the ones that weren't within arm's reach.

It didn't take long for three dozen bodies to litter the stairs around her. Alice was a machine designed to excel at one thing: killing. And she surpassed that with flying colors.

Now that her way was clear again, the blonde holstered her other gun and bent down briefly to wipe the blood from her blade off on a fallen soldier's suit. Once it was safely back in its sheath, she pulled the shotgun from her shoulder and finished her descent down the stairs.

She had expected more soldiers to stand in her way, but all told she'd already killed over sixty men. None of them were her prime target though, but she hoped to find him waiting in the lowest level of the building.

When the stairs leveled out to a landing, she glanced around. There wasn't anyone around. That was incredibly irritating. The labs and offices were completely silent, even to her enhanced hearing. She stepped further into the area, listening for any signs of movement or life.

From the looks of things, no one had been working in this complex for a while. The soldiers had been here only to protect Umbrella's assets. This was not what she had wanted to find.

"Shit," she swore lowly, letting her arm drop for the shotgun to simply hang at her side.

"Project Alice… I'm so happy to see you." The familiar voice made her blood boil with fury.

The blonde whipped around to face the doctor. She had known before turning that it wasn't actually him in the room; she would have heard him before this. "Isaacs," she snarled out his name with such venom it sounded like an insult.

The projection moved closer to her, as if to get a better look. "My, my, my… how much you've developed since we last saw each other. I'm so proud of you."

The compliment was more like a thousand knives, digging into her skin mercilessly. "I don't want your pride," she snapped. "I want to end the miserable existence you call a life."

Dr. Isaacs merely sneered at her resent. "I don't believe that I'm the miserable one here, Project Alice."

"Fuck you." If it would have done any good, she would have brought the shotgun up and emptied it into him.

"Now, now," he chastised with a shake of his head. "Where are your manners? I offered a compliment, the correct response would have been to accept it… but, I suppose that would be too much to ask."

"Yes," Alice confirmed with a nod. "It is too much to ask. What do you want?"

"I watched you via the surveillance in this building, you're magnificent. You really should come home, Project Alice."

For a moment, she wondered if he would be stupid enough to answer her next question. "Alright, just where is home then?"

The projection of Isaacs merely laughed. He was far too smart to fall for that. "All in due time, all in due time."

"I'm done with you," the blonde stated, bringing up the shotgun. He was about to protest and point out that the gun would do nothing, but she wasn't actually aiming for him. The shot found its way into the computer producing the projection and Isaacs was gone in an instant.

Alice was sure she was running out of time – now that they knew where she was, they'd be sending a team or five to come and collect her. She rummaged around in the labs until she found what she wanted. Each facility had a purge device and she was going to rid the world of another Umbrella complex.

With the timer set and counting down, she quickly headed back up the stairs and out of the building. There was no time pack away her weapons, so she merely jumped onto her motorcycle. The roar of the motor was drowned out by another roar underneath the street. She hit the gas as the ground started breaking apart and the building started to collapse around itself.

This particular complex had been hidden in plain sight in a fairly large city, so she ducked down the first road that she could and pressed on with more speed. The damage area from the explosive purge device was a large one, at least a mile in radius. Once she got out of the danger zone, she had to find some sort of cover to hide from the helicopters that were quickly closing in.

She saw an old warehouse ahead and pulled inside, killing the bike's engine and sitting in utter silence. The roar of the explosion she'd set off was finally dying down, but she could hear the roar of a few choppers replace it. Just like she'd thought, Umbrella was looking for her.

Several incredibly tense minutes passed while she waited for them to give up. Sure, they could search every inch of the city, but that would be a waste of their time and assets. Even if someone managed to find her, she'd kill them before they even had a chance to radio it in.

About ten minutes went by before she was able to pull back out of the abandoned building. A quick survey of the sky and the tops of the buildings around her confirmed that she was safe for the time being.

Alice didn't linger in the city for long. She hit the highway that would lead her further west and didn't even glance back at the city she was leaving. The world had ended, most of its inhabitants were dying, dead, or undead. There was hardly any chance at all that any innocent, living people had gotten caught in the crossfire and wondering about it just wasn't something she could allow herself – she already had enough guilt weighing on her shoulders.

It was well past midnight when the blonde finally stopped again. Her bike needed gas and she couldn't deny that a couple hours of sleep was a tempting thing. Towns and cities were sparse along the stretch of highway she traveled, so she simply pulled off the side of the road to make a Spartan camp for the night.

The first order of business was to get a fire going. Yes, it could attract the undead, but she could handle any wandering threats. Once she had that going, she pulled the extra fuel can from the rack on her bike and filled up the gas tank. Fuel was getting pretty high on her list of priorities; she was starting to run low. That would be something to search for tomorrow.

As Alice settled down by the fire – a thin blanket the only thing separating her from the cold ground – she switched on a radio she'd picked up from a military blockade. It could receive transmissions within a reasonable distance, but she wasn't too worried about returning the calls. Every now and again she heard a message for help and depending on how desperate the plea was, she would either head that way or ignore it.

Tonight, the frequency seemed to be clear. A year had passed since the Raccoon City incident, and living people were already starting to get scarce. Many thought if they holed up, the threat would pass. They were the first ones to die. The threat didn't pass and they either starved, killed each other, or were caught by the infection.

After listening to the silence that the radio offered for a while, Alice pulled out her map and decided where she wanted to go from here. She'd have to lay low for a while again, because Umbrella would be up in arms until they realized they wouldn't find her until she wanted to be found again. Heading out west seemed to be the best option for now. It was more open than the congested northeast, but that also meant more area for the corporation to have to scour to find her.

With a very, very simple plan in mind, the blonde packed away her map again and lay down on the blanket. The radio was still on nearby and she heard it crackle to life before she let herself drift off to sleep.

"This is Claire Redfield's convoy, is anybody out there? I repeat, this is Claire Redfield's convoy… Is anybody out there?"