To Stop A Criminal

by Ionuneos

Chris Redfield is reluctantly dispatched to New York to take down some giant, green monster. Things start well, but that doesn't last long...What was that about Wesker? -MvC3-

1. The Team

A/N: After watching a few (read: almost all) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 videos that are out there, it was inevitable that headcanon would develop. This story is the result of that. Consequently, that means that some details might be a bit skewed from fact. Please, enjoy at your leisure!

-MVC-

This was one hell of a night.

Everything was fine just a few hours ago. Right up until the phone rang, anyway. I didn't pay it any mind personally, but my superior had a different opinion. I had tried not to eavesdrop on the conversation. However, listening in is pretty much unavoidable when there isn't anyone else to talk to or anything else to focus on. I knew I was in trouble the moment that the words, "I'll dispatch him right away," left his mouth.

Things right after that are a blur. They don't matter, anyway. All I really care to remember is that I was flown by helicopter to New York after being told that some massive green thing was terrorizing the urban part of the state. While running for the awaiting chopper, the boss decided to tell me that it was roughly seven feet tall and humanoid in shape. At first, I appreciated the heads up, but it was a long ride over and I got thinking. Are there other massive green things that I would get confused by? I'm pretty sure if I came across anything that fit a description like that, I would need to take it down anyway.

My ride docked on the roof of a large building. I recognized where we were instantly; New York, New York. From as high up as I was, the city reminded me too much of a maze. Roads for the motorists, sidewalks for the pedestrians, and alleyways for the stupid who think they can take a shortcut without getting mugged. Living here had to be an acquired taste.

I jumped out, and apparently not a moment too soon. I barely got to hit the ground below me before the helicopter took off. It was past sunset, so I lost visual contact with it almost immediately. I didn't let it bother me. There was something about gripping a fully loaded pistol that gave me a sense of confidence.

Fifteen stories up, it was hard for the artificial lights even in a town like this to reach me. It was dark, but I could make most things out. Vents that filtered air into the building were ahead of me and to the right a little; some sort of chimney was puffing out unnatural levels of smoke in the corner; and a gigantic billboard was on my left. I knew there had to be a staircase to get into the building somewhere, but that didn't catch my eye right away. I had to hope I wouldn't find it the hard way.

I began walking toward the edge of the building to see if the creature I was hunting had hit this part of the city yet. I couldn't even take my third step before there was a deafening sound, like a crash, followed fittingly by a small tremor. It would have been fantastic if the thing had just gotten here. Maybe I could have stopped it before it did much damage.

Then I heard it breathing.

With all the reluctance I'd ever had, I realized that I didn't find this thing. It found me. I jerked my entire body around and witnessed the form with my unwilling eyes. The descriptions couldn't have been more perfect. It was really big, and it was really green. It was nighttime, and I could still make out the jungle-like hue that it had. It was also humanoid. So much so, I had to wonder if it actually had been human at some point. If it was, then there was the slightest chance I could end this without a pounding headache.

"Freeze!" I yelled, pointing the gun at it. It was an ironic command, since the only movement it was making was breathing. Granted, even its breaths were intimidating. "I need you to surrender!"

"Hulk surrenders to no one! Hulk smash!"

And it talked. It was instinct that made me grip the gun even harder. Its voice was like thunder, which only made me more startled considering I wasn't expecting to hear any words out of it. I frowned and grunted at the words that were about to leave my own mouth. "No. Hulk no smash. Hulk quietly lay on ground."

This time, the more predictable thing happened. It charged at me like a stampeding bear. I'm not too familiar with getting charged by people that are even bigger than me, but I went through too much training to be hit by an attack like that. I rolled to the side at the last second so it couldn't change its direction, then stayed down on one knee as I aimed the gun at it again. "I said freeze!"

"Hulk say no."

It started walking toward me. It wasn't the blind dash that it had made before; this reminded me more of that cocky swagger that Wesker liked to use. The difference between then and now is that the world shook every time this thing took a step, not to mention that the muscle in its shoulder is bigger than my head.

I tried getting out of the way, but forgot to account for one last thing. Compared to Wesker, the creature's reach was like a football field. Its massive arm reached out and grabbed me by the side of my neck. As soon as the hand made contact, I could feel my world start turning black. Its grip was unlike anything I'd had the pleasure of putting up with before. I could tell that it wasn't even using all of its power to crush me. Any more force, and my head was almost definitely coming off.

I had only one option occur to me. Using what little was left of my will, I shakily pointed the pistol at it and fired, then again. The recoil of each shot automatically lifted my arm, along with the gun a bit higher, causing each bullet to hit something new. Life was getting squeezed out of me, so I had a hard time paying attention to where each shot went. All I know is I started somewhere in its mid-section and ended dangerously close to its neck.

It dropped me. At first, I thought the one-sided firefight had worked. Then I regained just enough of my wits to realize that it wasn't even looking at me anymore. With an expression rivaling that of a rock, its head was looking toward the south end of the building. I tried following its gaze, but even in my half-conscious state, I didn't notice anything. Hulk, or whatever, quite obviously did. Without giving me any indication that it remembered I was there, it sprinted forward and leaped straight off the building.

I counted them. Six seconds later, there was a sound like a nuclear explosion had just struck. Really, it was just that thing smashing into the pavement below. A sympathetic part of me wondered if it was okay, but that question answered itself when I heard and felt it start to run off again.

There wasn't any time to waste. My life had finally quit flashing before my eyes, which helped greatly in me scrambling to my feet. I had to catch that thing, and sitting on the roof wasn't going to do that. I took a few moments to reload my weapon, then frantically looked around for that staircase.

Without even realizing it, fifteen minutes slipped by me somehow. I had made it to the eleventh floor, but I still wasn't sure where I was. It seemed like the past four floors were all attics. Not only did they have nothing but boxes in them, none of them were marked. I didn't want to spend much time sifting through them, and even if I did, the lighting wasn't ideal. Still, that was for the best. It was afterhours by now, so there shouldn't be a soul left in the building. I couldn't say what that Hulk's game was, but if it was hurting people, he wouldn't have any incentive to come through here. That would give me a chance to finally get back to earth, since the helicopter couldn't have dropped me off down there. If I could get to that point, I wouldn't mind going round two with it.

I was badly pressed for time, but I couldn't help myself from slowing down when I neared the last few steps going into the tenth floor. The moon shone enough light through the windows to let me see the room I was in. Scattered through the entire room was six enormous machines. I ran up to them to get a better look. Things quickly fell into place at that point.

The apparatus were made with steel. There was a miniature conveyer belt that ran through them, with a drop-off point being an abrupt end. Whatever went on the belt would fall into a large bin that was set up for the purpose of catching it. It was obviously too small for most things to fit onto, but a few sheets of paper would slide through without a problem. I squinted and happened to notice the words "Daily Bugle" written in a fancy font on the sides of the machines. The name itself wasn't recognizable, but I had to guess that it was a newspaper. That made sense; all of those boxes upstairs must have been nothing but blank sheets of paper. For a city this big, a place like this probably needs that much paper.

It was reassuring to finally know where I was, even if there was hardly a chance it would matter. There was no way anyone would want to stay here any longer than they had to. That meant no trouble for me. I brushed past the machines and picked up the pace.

One floor, then two. I lost track of how many elevators I passed, but I wasn't going to take a chance on anything I didn't need to.

I was passing through a hallway on the seventh floor when a sound caught my attention. It was particularly effective since I hadn't heard a noise come from this building so far that I hadn't produced. I grabbed my pistol from the holder it had been in and tried quieting my footsteps. The hall wasn't that long, but it had plenty of doors along its sides. It would have been frustrating, since the sound could have come from any of them. Luckily, something told me it had come from the room with a light on. The door was shut, but shards of artificial light broke past cracks on the top and bottom of it anyway. It was going to be awkward at best if it turned out to be nothing, but I couldn't let this go without investigating it. One room in the entire building was just too unusual.

I sidled to the wall next to the door and mentally counted to three. When I was ready, I spun around and nearly broke the door off of its hinges with one of the strongest kicks I could manage. As an army of one, I flooded into the room. It turned out to be an unimpressively small room, which would be bad for a fight. A computer desk, appropriately fitted with a computer, was stashed into the best corner of the room possible. A different desk and hundreds of newspaper clippings laid around the room, but I found myself without the ability to spare any attention.

Standing in front of the computer was a man. Judging by the way he was dressed, I was already ready to send him to the psychiatric ward. He wore a tight costume with an apparently thought-out, but still pretty random design of alternating red and blue. The mask he wore had disgustingly large eyes on it, like a big bug. When he turned to face me, no doubt alerted by my unsubtle appearance, I glanced at an insignia of a black arachnid on his chest. I'd come across many odd things in my time, not excluding zombies and super villains, but I was now convinced that I'd seen it all. One glaringly clear thing was that it was very likely he didn't work here.

"Freeze!" I shouted for the second time tonight, aiming the gun at what appeared to be an unexpectedly toned body.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to point at people?" I could tell by his voice alone that he wasn't any older than a young adult. How smug his words came out irritated me, but only went on to prove my claim. "It could be considered rude, you know."

He was more confident in his abilities than I thought. Without any consideration for how I might react to him, he jumped towards the closest wall and stuck to it. The action reminded me exactly of a Licker, sick creatures that could do the same thing. Unlike those things, this guy was moving at an incredible speed for maneuvering on a wall.

I was out of options. I quickly fixed my aim and squeezed the trigger hard enough to feel a bullet leave the barrel at an accelerated rate. Some things I've taken out before needed more than one shot, but none of them were human. I had no idea how he was sticking to the wall, but I knew he was human.

I almost couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw that he had the reflexes that were necessary to react to a bullet. He pushed himself off of the wall and towards the ceiling, near the lighting fixture, where he once again clung to. He did that fast enough to leave at least half a second in between the jump and the bullet hitting the wall where he was.

"Don't they hand out a booklet these days?" he asked, once again not taking me seriously. "Something that mentions that the guy in red tights is really, really hard to shoot?"

He lifted his hand up to face me and lowered his two middle fingers into his palm. It was odd, but only for the nanosecond that went by before a stream of gray fluid shot from his wrist. The liquid solidified almost as soon as it touched oxygen, creating what looked like a rope. I could tell it was aimed for my gun, and it was time to show some reflexes of my own.

I lifted the same arm up that was holding my weapon so that substance would meet with my muscle. Whatever it was happened to be sticky and cold by the time it touched me; I wasn't bothered by either. With my free hand, I grabbed the blade that I always keep handy and chopped the thin wire like it was butter. I looked up to see him withdraw a bit from surprise.

"Well! I'm impressed!" he exclaimed. I couldn't tell if he was still being sarcastic or not. "You're an interesting one, pal."

I instinctively lined the crosshairs back up with bug boy's head. "Have you even seen how you're dressed?"

"Heeyy," he drawled. "My mom picked this out for me." He dropped down from the ceiling, acrobatically flipping over so he would land on his feet. Once again, I couldn't help but feel like he didn't care I was pointing a gun at him. "Let's put the cards out on the table, chief. JJ is too cheap to hire a body like you to keep this place under wraps at bedtime. And yet, you're attacking the local neighborhood-friendly Spider-Man. That means I got you pinned down as the newest bad guy I'll find myself repeatedly dealing with. Let me guess, you're with the blond guy with a trench coat?"

"Blond?" I echoed, simultaneously lowering my gun a bit.

It became obvious that he didn't see that as a ceasefire. In fact, he must have seen it as an opportunity. He sprinted forward and knocked my pistol out of my hands before I could do anything about it. He tried following it up with a punch aimed at my ribs, but by this time, I was already back in the game. I grabbed his hand with my own and was immediately shocked by how much force I had to use to hold him back. His figure, though in-shape, still looked scrawny through the uniform. A punch like that wasn't going to be any lighter than one of my own.

"Whoa...You take vitamins?" he muttered, trying unsuccessfully to yank his hand out of my grip.

Apparently, we both realized what his next move was going to be. He just happened to realize it first. He didn't let me crush his hand very long before he brought his other one up, not in a punch, but something harder to counter. He squeezed his palm again, and the same substance from before came gushing out from his wrist. It collided with my eyes, leaving me totally blinded.

I didn't hesitate to shove him away and grab my knife again. I wasn't very keen about putting a sharp blade to the side of my head, but this stuff liked me way too much to be pulled off easily.

When my sight was freed, I was a little surprised to see that he hadn't stuck around. I was alone in the room, spare a single strand of that material. It was attached to the ceiling and still moving. I got a hold of it to give it a small tug. He definitely could have used this stuff to swing through the open door. It seemed primitive and unnecessary to me, but so was that costume he wore.

I had no time to waste seeing what he was searching for on the computer before I got here. It hadn't even taken me three seconds to un-blind myself, which meant there was no way he could have gotten far. He must have known that I wasn't going to stay incapacitated for long; in his haste, he forgot about the gun he had knocked off me. I wasn't about to curse at fortune, though. I got a strong hold of the handle and ran through the only doorway in the room.

Back in the hallway, it was impossible to miss a second strand of goop attached to the ceiling. He must have used this to switch directions. There was a set of double doors at the end of the hall, and physics dictated that his swing's arc would have launched him right through there.

I wasn't ready to barge in. I couldn't help but feel he would be expecting that.

That's when inspiration struck.

I charged forward. There wasn't much time to get momentum, but I didn't need that much to begin with. When I was several inches from the doors, I dived forward. While I was in midair, I twisted around to face the other way.

It was painful as my head smashed into the door, but it did the job of opening it for me. The entire room was close to pitch black; luckily, I could see all that I needed to. I hit the ground on my back while looking and aiming in the direction of the ceiling. Before my eyes could focus on him, I heard a satisfying "Uh-oh." Just like I'd thought, he had clung to the wall above the door, waiting to ambush me. That backfired on him. Then I fired on him.

I wasn't as forgiving this time. Three, four, five, six. My pistol carried twenty bullets in a cartridge, and this guy was going to eat all of them if that's what it took. He used his inhuman reflexes to keep dodging while never leaving the wall, but I could tell I kept getting closer to hitting him.

Sixteen, seventeen. This was getting bad. If he knew I needed to stop and reload soon, with as fast as he moved, he could tie me to the floor before I had the chance. I fired one more bullet and, while hoping he wasn't expecting it, got to my feet as fast as I could.

"Whew," he sighed, finally dropping to the floor. He squatted on the ground, which reminded me more of a mammal predator than an insect one, which I assumed this guy was supposed to be. "You play rough. Where were you when the Lizard was around?"

My gun was still aimed at him. It only had two bullets left, but I couldn't let him know that. "My questions first. Who are you?"

He raised his hand up. It didn't look like he was going to shoot at me this time. He looked more like he was stunned. "You-You haven't heard of me? Really? ...Not even a little bit?"

I didn't react. I wasn't going to dignify that with a response.

"It's Spider-Man, pal. I'll grant you, I know what this looks like, but I'm really one of the good guys."

"Since when do good guys wear masks and break into buildings?"

He stood up and folded his arms. Those creepy eyes stayed on me. I followed them closely with the pistol. "That happened around the same time they started using guns and breaking into buildings. I hate to say it, but you got as much explaining to do as me."

"I'm here to track down a green monster that's terrorizing-" I started to explain, but got cut off.

"Who, the Hulk?" the self-proclaimed Spider-Man asked. "That guy's a teddy bear. He might look like a nightmare and trample over buildings every now and then, but he'll be fine in a few hours."

"I'll leave that up to my superior's discretion." I changed the subject. "What are you doing in this building?"

He gave a long pause. I tried figuring out what might be going through his head, but couldn't think of anything. Maybe he was just debating on how much to tell me. "Look. I spotted a really shady guy earlier. That's par for the course in New York, but there was just something wrong about this guy. He handed over a ton of weapons I'd never seen before, and didn't get anything in return but a metal briefcase. By the time I got there, the party was already over. That's why I'm here. This is the city's biggest newspaper. If anybody knows about him, it'd be in this database."

"The guy you thought I worked for earlier?"

"You don't?"

I reluctantly lowered my gun. It didn't end well last time, but Spider-Man didn't sound threatening anymore. If anything, he was just as interested in me as I was him. "Wesker..." I sighed.

"Who?"

"Albert Wesker. I can't say for sure, but how you're describing him is right up his alley. He'll trade anything to get what he wants, and it usually comes in small packages."

The masked man set his hands on his hips. "Good. So you're friends."

"Hardly." I holstered my barely loaded gun and started walking toward him. "I've been after that guy for years. I work for the BSAA. Chris," I said as I lifted a hand for him to shake. "Chris Redfield."

Probably a tad confused, he hesitantly grabbed the hand. "Uh...Spider. Spider-Man."

"You gave me a hell of a run there." He might dress oddly, but he deserved praise for keeping me on my toes. I was already rather relieved I didn't need to fight him anymore. "I suppose you couldn't tell me why this Hulk character was running south?"

"South? That's where-"

He stopped. It was an unusual, not to mention inconvenient place to stop a sentence, but I didn't have time to question him before he spoke again. This time, it wasn't where he left off. "Spider-sense. Look out!"

I was past confused by this time, so I had to be thankful that Spider-Man decided to give me a shove.

I heard only a sharp ping, like a sword was just taken out of its sheath. Soon after that, a slice through empty air; I realized with horror that the air hadn't been empty a minute ago. If the oversized, but friendly bug didn't push me, I would have been on the wrong end of whatever that chop was.

Acting quickly, I could hear another produced sound, but I recognized this one. Spider-Man launched some more webbing. At first, I couldn't tell what he was aiming at. Then all of the lights in the room came on, and I decided that I had my answer.

The room I was in turned out to be a cafeteria all along. It seemed unusual to have a cafeteria seven stories off the ground, but that only made me wonder if this newspaper was so big that it could afford that. It reminded me a lot of the cafeteria at school when I was a kid. Long wooden tables with benches fixed on them, plentiful enough in number to accommodate at least most of these Daily Bugle workers, were neatly aligned. An impressive montage of metal canisters were lodged inside of a counter on the opposite side of the room. I could only imagine food went in them. The floor was cold and hard; then again, I had known that from landing spine-first on it a little earlier.

Some things came to mind right off the bat. Looking around, I didn't see any door that might lead downstairs. Was this a dead-end? Besides that, Spider-Man knew exactly where the light switch was. Maybe he has night vision in that mask of his, but somehow I doubt that. Just how many times has he broken in this place to know where the light switch was?

At least for the time being, both of those were trumped by the last thing. Spider-Man and I were no longer alone. We probably never were. Crouching between us was a woman. Well-built, admittedly, but too feral for my tastes. She wore a two-piece outfit consisting of a tight bra, and tighter pants. They were both midnight black, so combined with the same color hair, she didn't have much of a problem blending into the darkness. The skin she revealed, which happened to be a lot, was perfectly smooth. That didn't sit well with me. Coming from somewhere behind her knuckles was a pair of steel claws for each hand. No one that wore something like that had perfect skin.

"My, Wolverine!" Spider-man exclaimed. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was smiling behind his mask. "You look awful pretty today!"

"Don't call me that!" she ruthlessly bit back. Afterward, she didn't show much trouble in lunging after him. He did an agile back flip to dodge, and the ensuing fight was inevitable.

Though it wasn't the hardest, I could comfortably say that I had the most awkward situation to deal with: watching. None of my weapons could help Spider-Man without risk. I trusted my aim, and I was certainly aware that he could dodge my bullets; but I wasn't going to risk losing the only person who could give me a lead on Wesker to friendly fire. I figured that the least I could do is reload my used-up pistol in case it was needed.

"This one a friend of yours?" I called out, unintentionally taunting him into losing some of his focus.

It didn't matter. He bent his entire back backwards until seventy percent of his body was parallel to the ground. It dodged a horizontal slashing attack for him, if not barely. "With friends like this, who needs enemies?"

He gave a strong push with his legs, sending himself flying backwards. He crashed into and stuck to the wall that stood there, then used both of his wrists to ensnare the girl in thick webbing.

That tactic didn't work long against me, and I think he knew it wasn't going to work long now, either. He shot a strand of substance at the ceiling and swung in my direction. He gave a warning of, "Tag!" as he did so. I was about to charge in when he twisted around and attached himself to the wall. He told me to hang on. I glanced over quickly at the femme fatale; she was still struggling with the bondage, so I granted Spider-Man a second to chat.

"Don't you have any other weapons on you?" he asked. It was more of a plea, which sounded odd coming from a guy with that much going for him. "Something that doesn't involve putting holes into her?"

I looked at my pistol. It had gotten me through the most challenging parts of my career as a BSAA officer, making it hard to replace. That said, I always made sure to have back up plans.

I granted the request with a nod and set the gun away. In its place, I pulled out a personal favorite: the electric rod, or as I know it by, the dummy stick. With a flip of one switch, the complex machine surged to life. Touching this thing is something you don't do twice. A tap is enough to make a dog whimper and totally fry a squirrel; to humans, more exposure is needed before anything serious happens. Still, a quick whack is plenty to put someone out of commission for awhile.

My gaze shifted back to Spider-Man. I still wasn't used to a person who could comfortably sit on a wall. Thankfully, Spider-Man wasn't used to a handheld bug zapper. I felt like we were even. "Whoa. Remind me to keep the 'your mom' jokes to myself."

I heard the sound of something being shredded. Without even looking, I could have come to the conclusion that the woman had found a way to get her claws through the webbing. I stood in a defensive fighting pose while Spider-Man kept talking. For whatever reason, she seemed to be waiting until he finished.

"One more thing. I'd bet my web shooters that her claws are made of adamantium."

Web shooters. So that's how he does it. "Meaning?" I questioned impatiently.

"Meaning you aren't going to be breaking them. They, however, can likely break you."

"Always nice to get a warning like that." I said it sarcastically, but there was some obvious truth to it too.

I knew I had only one chance. If these "adamantium" claws are as strong as Spider-Man says, they'll dice the dummy stick into unsalvageable pieces. If this had any chance of ending non-violently, I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't risk even swinging the thing until I was assured a hit, either.

This young lady didn't want to give me any more time than she already had. I would need to come up with tactics on the fly, because she charged straight for me.

As the repeated gymnastics proved, I was nowhere near as limber as Spider-Man or this girl was. I had one thing these kids didn't, though: experience. This girl was showboating her moves as much as Spider-Man did; flying spinning kicks, unbelievably smooth combo attacks with her claws, and a couple nimble dodges when I decided to stop being on the defensive. But what she had in finesse, she lacked in unpredictability. Those claws of hers aren't very dangerous when you give a BSAA member half a second to react to them.

I found an opportunity and took it. After a missed strike, she left herself open enough for me to sneak an uppercut into her chin. That stunned her just long enough for me to bring my leg up and give her revealed tummy a front kick. I didn't use any less force than when I had kicked that door open earlier. If she'd had anything to eat lately, I expected her to lose it right after that.

The kick definitely widened the rather close-range gap we had fallen into. She ungracefully stumbled back a ways, then must have realized that and used her momentum to do a back flip. Her inertia vanished at that point. She crouched into the same position I'd first seen her in. Somehow, that pose made her devilish glare more intimidating. I guess it was a good thing that the leer didn't last for long; she got distracted when something caught her eye.

As another egotistical way to show off, she did a single cartwheel to her right. The act brought her much closer to one of the tables, which didn't make much sense at first. It definitely made sense when she lifted her arms up and attacked the bench in a perfect one-two motion. The first slice dismembered the wood from the table itself, and the second broke it off from the rest of the long seat.

That didn't take her any longer than two seconds. After that, she sank the two-pronged claws of her left hand into the modified chunk of wood. A spin helped her gain momentum, and a sudden jerk of her wrist caused the fragment of the bench to be hurled into my direction.

The speed it was moving was incredible. I didn't even feel comfortable going around it; my only way was through it. I quickly and safely handed off the electric rod to my opposite hand. I leaned back, bringing my now-free right hand with me. When the projectile was within range, I launched a punch like a spring toy being activated. When my gloved hand made contact with it, the fragile weapon smashed into many more pieces than the woman had initially carved it into. All of the remaining chunks flew past both sides of my head.

Spider-Man said nothing, but a part of me had to wonder if he was impressed.

I shook out my hand. I had hit worse, but the odd dimensions of the wood and the speed it had been flying at promised me that there would be a mark there by the morning. My opponent didn't give me much time to recover; she bolted forward, but again, I could already tell what she was going to do.

The claws had a flaw. If the arm they were on got blocked, they were useless. As she tried to scratch me with her right hand, I grabbed her arm just beneath the wrist. When the left one came around, I caught it with the hand that was still holding onto the bug zapper. She was formidable, but her arms didn't have much mass, making it not so hard a task to accomplish. I thought now would be a grand time to give her a little shock. She thought otherwise.

"Chris!" the masked man screeched from the sidelines.

That wasn't helpful, and I wasn't even sure what was wrong. Then I noticed that, despite standing within inches of each other cross-armed, this woman brought her foot up. It takes more than a kick to take me out, and she apparently prepared just for that reason. I heard another pinging sound, the same kind I had heard when she first attacked us with the claws. I managed to glimpse at her foot and realized that a retractable spike had been shoved out of her boot. It was far too late to react in any way, so I could do nothing but watch as the knife-sharp stick dug into my abdomen.

I was winded, and fell to the ground with a knee. She let me; as soon as she had made contact, she rolled backwards. I gripped my stomach with my free hand and looked up at her. She reminded me so much of an animal. Looking down at me without mercy, but without hatred. Like she didn't want to hunt me, but rather, needed to.

As I thought about that, I could only wonder if this entire fight could be avoided.

It was time for an acting job. I would be horrible on improv shows, but the fact was that her spike wasn't very long. As far as things to get impaled by, I'd say that was one of the better ones. If I could get her to believe I was in more pain than I was, she might be more willing to talk. "What...do you want?" I said, stretching the pain in my voice as far as I could.

"You're in my way..." she muttered. Her words were calm, but more annoyingly, they didn't really answer my question.

Spider-Man spoke up. Unlike the quiet tone the woman used, his was polar opposite. He was mad. Whether he was mad at her for injuring me or mad at himself for tagging me in, I doubt I'd ever know. "What is this, 'break into the Bugle' night? Should we start an online fan club?"

"We might be...on the same side!" I yelled with agony. "Tell us your name. Who are you looking for?"

Similar to at least one other occasion tonight, she took her time before answering with anything. Just like that same occasion, I tried to figure out why'd she'd have trouble telling us something. And in the same vein, I came up with nothing. It took close to, but under five seconds for her to respond. "Too many questions."

She dashed forward. It was time to end my facade.

When she was in a reasonable distance of doing so, she took a flying leap towards me. I waited until then; until I knew she couldn't change her direction. I swiftly rolled to my side, accidentally leaving a drop of blood on the ground as my stomach brushed by it. I thought that her claws might go flying through the plated floor, but that was only a passing alternative. It was more important for me to get on my feet than to think about that.

By the time she hit the floor, directly where I would have been, I was already standing. I took a similar jump at her as I raised the electric rod up.

She perhaps wanted to flatter me by mimicking me move for move. She dodged with a roll, completely unfazed by the fact I was supposed to be injured. Then she climbed to her feet and immediately lunged again. The process literally repeated itself, and I did nothing to change that. For the second time, I rolled out of the way.

She must have expected me to do the same thing again. She attempted to turn into a ball and spin away, but she wasn't prepared for me to account for that. I caught her mid-roll with the dummy stick, bringing what I supposed to be the end of this long battle.

She was facing the floor. As the electric rod did its thing, I was close enough to feel the volts circulate through her entire body. I didn't expose her to it for long, but I trusted it was enough to convince her to talk. A genuine scream of pain told me so.

"It's Electro's fault for not copyrighting that," Spider-Man commented. I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but by this time I'd come to expect that from him. He leaped off the wall in order to get a little closer to the two of us. "Chris, are you all right?"

I was until you said that. I came close to saying that out loud. Instead, I set the electric rod away and used my newly freed hand to cover up my spike wound. "I've been worse, trust me. I'll be fine."

Spider-Man seemed to believe my claim well enough. He nodded at me, then squatted down. Those inhuman muscles of his still amazed me. "I hope you learned your lesson, young lady," he reprimanded, of course speaking to the girl. "On the positive side, I could name a few cellmates that I'm sure you'll get along with."

"...I'm not going to jail!"

There was a list of things that caught me off guard. Her words were only half of the problem; the way she said them was just as bad. She didn't sound like she was in the least bit of agony. I began wondering if her earlier cry and motionlessness was a part of the same act that I role-played seconds before.

Then there was the more physical side of things. Without any warning that I noticed, she spun around to lay on her back while taking a stab at Spider-Man at the same time. I didn't notice anything, but thankfully, he must have. He did a last second dodge, not because he wanted to, but that was all the time he had to react.

She did the equivalent of a break dance, extending her legs in different directions and spinning. It was either to show off, or more likely, get the two of us away from her. Either way, it worked to get both of us to back off.

And after that, she jumped to her feet. Besides the panting, she didn't look the least bit worse for wear.

"Accelerated healing..." the bug spoke up from his perch back on the wall, sounding deep in thought. "Of course! Now I know you must be related to Wolvie. First cousins, perhaps?"

She retracted her claws. I was glad for that, but didn't doubt in the least that a sudden movement would send them flying back out. "Call me X-23. Everyone else does."

Spider-Man fell to the ground, apparently feeling like the fighting was over with. I wish I knew where he got his confidence from. "X-23? Sounds like the name of a science experiment, not a-"

A sharp leer. A penetrating glare that I could feel, and it wasn't even aimed at me. Poor Spider-Man probably started to sweat under his mask.

"Uh...Okay. Touchy subject. That's worth keeping in mind." He switched tones, effortlessly going from recovery from the awkward to a more serious note. "How did you get in here? Or, I guess more importantly, what did you want in here?"

She brushed several strands of hair away from her eyes. She held a more distinct beauty in her facial features when they didn't look like they were about to maul me. "I need to get higher. This was the tallest building I found first."

"Higher in the city?" I chimed in. "Why?"

X-23 shook her head. She folded her arms adamantly, but the entire time, avoided eye contact with me.

Silence filled the room after that. Spider-Man broke it, but it took him awhile. "You can imagine how many questions I have, but here's the most important one: We're the good guys...Are you?"

The woman turned around. It was odd; to me, it looked like she was turning shy. It didn't make much sense. At least it fit in with the rest of the night. "...A helicopter took off. I want to find it."

The answer shocked me. If anything, it was more of a response to the question I asked a full minute ago than Spider-Man's. After a moment, I realized that it vaguely gave him an answer, too. There's no need to be labeled a good or bad guy. There are just as many people out there that do things their own way without fitting into either of those classifications.

With a reply like that came more questions. Questions were dangerous. The more we asked her, the more distant she seemed to get. Could she have seen my helicopter? But what would she care about that for? Those inquiries became obsolete when Spider-Man turned his head towards me.

"Hey, that reminds me. That Wesker guy you told me about, he took off in a chopper after getting what he wanted."

"Wesker?" X-23 suddenly became fascinated by us. Passively interested enough to shift her head back around, anyway. "You know of him?"

I could ask her the same question. I didn't. Instead, the three of us shared glances with each other.

There was something to be done, and I couldn't put it off any longer. I gave the two of them my back and brought a hand up to my ear. I gently pushed a button on the headset that was always there, then kept my hand there to dig the device further into my ear. The headset wasn't exactly static-free, and if either of the others talked, I was bound to miss something. "HQ, this is Chris. Do you read me?"

"Copy," I managed to pick up from in between the frustrating static. It was a male voice, but anything other than that was beyond me. "What's the situation?"

"Things have changed," I replied, silently praying to myself that a long explanation wasn't going to be necessary. "Wesker's out and about around here. I'm going after him instead."

"Your mission is to neutralize that creature. You have orders."

I frowned. Only in the BSAA can you be near the top of the list and still be treated like a newly-recruited search dog. "In that case, I'm changing my orders. I have strong reason to believe that the creature isn't a danger to anybody. If Wesker's around, I'm not going to let him get away."

There was a long break. Nothing but static filled my ear. I had to hope he wasn't saying anything that was getting lost to bad reception, but I doubted that anyway. With a moment of spare time, I realized that the other two could only hear half of this conversation. I briefly wondered what they were thinking, but the person on the other side of this microphone broke my concentration on that.

"Your mission's been changed. You have clearance to use any force necessary to take down Wesker."

I love it when I get my way. It's a shame it doesn't happen much. "Affirmative. Chris out."

Before turning around, I looked down at my wound. I should have told that guy to get the worker's comp papers out for me. I gave a small, refreshing sigh, then turned about face to the other two. Neither had moved. X-23 even still had her head turned.

"You're a lot better at dealing with management than I am, bud," Spider-Man granted me.

It was a welcome, if not out of place compliment, but I ignored it. Even if it wasn't very modest of me doing so, I considered these two my troops. Troops' morale was only as good as they're rallied. "I can't say I know what you two personally have against Wesker, but I'd call it pretty evident that all of us want him taken down. As far as I'm concerned, it would be redundant to do it alone."

Spider-Man seemed to know where I was going with that. It wasn't very hard to figure out, so I wasn't too impressed by it. "I don't know, Chris. I'm glad you're on our side, but I just got done saying I'm not a great team player. I'm more of a solo act."

That was a disappointing blow. As far as physical strength is concerned, I've never had a better partner than Spider-Man. I considered dropping the idea of forming a unit, but was pleasantly caught off-guard when the talking costume went on.

"I'll tell you what. If you can get Little Miss Sunshine to join the party, you can count me in."

I turned to look at X-23. Somewhere in all of that, she had turned her head back around. She appeared completely disinterested, but she hadn't moved yet; that was about the only optimistic thing I could pull out of this. "X-23," I said her name for the first time. It was then I realized just how long of a name it was. It only has three characters in it, but it takes longer to say than Spider-Man. "You're the most pivotal member of the team. You-"

"Gee, thanks," Spider-Man cut in.

I glared at him. He wanted X-23 on the team, and if throwing him under the bus was all it took, I was about to do it. "X-23 is the one who saw Wesker last! She knows better than either of us where he is right now. Without her, we're taking a blind shot-"

For the second time, I was interrupted. This one I didn't mind nearly as much. "South. He was heading...south."

My argument froze in its place. She still hadn't turned around, but X-23 spoke as calmly as ever. I didn't say anything; maybe she'd want to continue.

Apparently, she did. "By now, he has passed this building. I might know where he is going. I would join you if you can give me a faster means of travel."

I hardly wasted a second. She almost didn't get to the end of her sentence before I jammed the call button on my headset again. "This is Chris. Get me a helicopter. Now!"

"Granted. MDR, make a 180 and return to Redfield."

I brought my hand back down. "It'll be here in minutes." With that, I stuck my hand into the center of the triangle that the three of us had created. I added a simple word: "Partners?"

X-23 was first. I could tell she was reluctant; if Spider-Man didn't play well with others, I could only imagine what X-23's thoughts of teamwork were. Still, I felt her soft hand lay on top of mine. Right after that, a red glove sat on top of hers. I noticed that Spider-Man waited until X-23 had gone first, but as long as he was in, I didn't care.

I felt like the black sheep of this group. Not only because I lacked any "superpowers," but also because I favored teamwork much more to solo missions. I could handle myself, but I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want an extra set of eyes watching your back for you.

Thoughts about my philosophy got shot through the window when I heard a close-range scraping noise. I recognized it quickly; X-23 launched her retractable claws. That would have been more acceptable if my hand wasn't beneath hers, and Spider-man's on top.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed, startled, stumbling back.

"Hey!" Spider-Man also yelled, leaping back and leeching on the wall.

When I recovered from the surprise, I looked at X-23. For the first time since we'd met her, there was a smile on her face. A mischievous smirk.

I was reluctant to admit that I was the oldest one here, but I could still appreciate a practical joke. She hadn't hurt anyone by it, as evidenced by a lack of any pain. After thinking about it, I wondered if it was her way of saying that she was warming up to us. I was fine with all of the above facts.

Spider-Man hopped from one wall to another, landing much closer to X-23 this time. "I hate you," he said, looking in her direction.

She spoke nothing, but only continued to smile.

"You're the one that insisted she went on the team," I said, speaking up for her.

I got a hold of my pistol. It had been holstered long enough to feel a little cold when I first touched the handle. After one quick check to ensure that I reloaded it, I held it next to my head, pointing towards the ceiling. "Come on. We better get to the roof."

I ran as best as I could for having a spike driven into my stomach just minutes ago. X-23 was right behind me; I could tell because her and Spider-Man's footsteps were quite a bit different from one another. Besides, shortly after, I heard him speak from the same spot.

"'Ooh, you're the one that insisted she went on the team,'" Spider-Man whined to himself, mocking my statement to him. I heard a web get slung from his wrist, then attached to the ceiling.

I heard him swing, and knew that the most improvised team I'd ever seen was right behind me.

-MVC-

A/N: This isn't the end. At least...not in theory. I have plans to make this a two-shot, but anyone who knows me would know that I have a very bad track record of saying things I'll never do. In fact, I haven't even started working on the second half yet; for now, maybe this ending was satisfying enough? This story took me well out of my comfort zone (where my electric rodents at?), so feel free to give me any and all thoughts on it!