Resident Evil: The Hades Memoirs
Alexia Ashford - Loss
In the aftermath of her battle with the Other and his human underling, she had retreated into her cocoon.
Here, she was safe from the chaos that still raged within her hive. Though she had ascended to a level of being beyond such puerile concerns as physical comfort, there was consolation in the warm embrace at the centre of her domain. This was a place of safety, hidden from the eyes and probing explorations of the interlopers to her home. She regenerated her wounds - the scarring across her lips where she had been struck by the Other's hand, the pockmarks that riddled her torso, the withered flesh burned by her own fire. They were superficial injuries all and none were too grievous to mend.
Reaching out with her mind, she soothed the pain and frustration of her servants. Many had died when the Soldier had turned against them, his axe cleaving through the tendrils that they formed and severing the more unfortunate among them from her presence. It had been the end of them, she was aggrieved to learn. Still, though she had originally intended for the female to meet her end in misery at the hands of her once-loyal guardian, the resulting outcome had been no less satisfactory. She had, instead, been forced to watch him die in her arms after sacrificing himself to preserve her; a pleasing turn, she felt, but not nearly enough to sate her lust for vengeance.
They had stolen Alfred from her, after all. Where once there had been the bright, beautiful promise of a future, ruling humanity with her sibling, the only being whose companionship she truly valued, at her side, now she was alone in that rule. For that, she would see them all die alone and despairing.
Time passed unnoticed as she mused on the happenings since her awakening, until she was roused by grim tidings from her messengers, their reports urgent to her mind. The cacophonous wail of sirens was sounding from all around; the hive was making ready to destroy itself. She searched for the source of the disquiet, using the eyes of her drones to see in her stead, until at last she found the human and the female, brother and sister, just as she and Alfred had been. Her thoughts willed her servants to convey her to the very height of the installation, where the intruders could be found. As she passed, her caresses satisfied their need for her approval and the meaning that only she could provide with her rule.
She mustered her strength; her last battle with the male had injured her and this time she would need to be wary. Her power was still in its infancy, untested and in need of mastery. All the same, she foresaw no great difficulty in destroying them; even the Other, whose power was indeed beyond human, had not been of concern to her. Once they were defeated, she would turn back the tide of destruction that threatened to engulf her dominion. Then, she would spare them the mercy of a sudden end in the flames and devastation, the better to extract her vengeance from them.
The girl had already suffered; now she would serve as the tool, aiding in the ruin of her sibling as surely as the Soldier had aided in hers.
She bid the drones to place her atop the plateau woven from steel, where those that dared to oppose her lingered. There was no doubt that they beheld her arrival, but her followers barred their path, throwing their bodies across the way and denying them passage. And thus, as they watched, Alexia Ashford was birthed once more to the world.
Her body was deposited, curled about itself, at the centre of the great platform, nude and glistening with the secretions of her beloved followers. Though the atmosphere within the facility was stringently controlled by the many conditioning units, even upon her awakening to the cold of the laboratory, she had felt no sense of discomfort.
Neither was she a slave to modesty; where before the impropriety of her undressed state had once been unthinkable, she now found her mind much expanded from its initial misconceptions. Clothing had been a suitable diversion for her when first she emerged, desiring to experience what the forgotten world beyond her own mind could present her with, but it had always been superfluous. The rules of engagement were her own to make now, as surely as her form was her own to mould and shape.
Her transformation began as she rose to her feet, the external manifestation of the power she held within her slender frame blossoming outwards. With a mere thought, she toughened her supple, unblemished skin until it possessed the solidity of stone, the texture becoming rough and pebbled, the colour turning from alabaster to grey. Her lustrous, golden tresses writhed and weaved about her scalp, entwining with one another before fusing into thick, dark locks of flesh that fell to frame her smooth features.
The organs that she had cultivated within her body began to secrete their combustible fluids, the substance of her own making welling up to form ridges and patches that pulsed beneath her skin. Thick cuffs appeared at her wrists, shielding the glands from which her inner fire would burst, to cleanse those beings that she anointed with it. Armour to shield her vulnerabilities grew over her figure, along the length of her right arm to envelop her chest, before extending down across the flat of her stomach and right side. It neatly covered her groin and continued on to her left ankle, where it reached its end.
Thus prepared, she turned to face the humans with glowing, scarlet orbs, the flames that would consume them flickering in her vengeful eyes.
The stage upon which they stood was bathed in the luminescence from the wildly spinning alert lights. They gave the confrontation an air of urgency, compounded by the alarms and the warnings called out by the automated female custodian that calmly intoned the coming devastation.
The girl looked on in the grip of a maelstrom of emotions, sorrowful anguish and furious wrath among the ripples that appeared upon her features. She was cradling her right arm, heavy with discolouration from the crushing pressure she had suffered while in the grip of the Queen's most zealous drones. Her brother seemed taken with righteous indignation, no doubt imagining himself the hero of the hour, flirting between resolute determination and fatigue. His concern for the young woman at his side was almost palpable.
She watched them conversing in hurried tones, caring little for the words they spoke, desiring only to extract their suffering to salve her own sorrow.
Unarmed and injured, the girl seemed finally to accept that she could not withstand the onslaught to come. Grudgingly, she turned to flee, but the path to her salvation lay beyond Alexia. The Queen drew back her hand, casting forth a torrent of combustible liquid and watching with sadistic joy as flames burst forth, describing an impassable barrier. Or at least, it should have been impassable.
Weak as she may have been, the sister threw herself recklessly through the roaring fires, shielding her face from their withering touch and landing huddled, but mostly unharmed, beyond them. Though her face remained impassive, the smouldering embers became an inferno in her heart and she gestured once more, a second blazing line, fiercer than the first, pinning her prey where it stood. Eyes narrowing with a predatory focus, she strode forwards, fingers lusting to feel her burn at their tips.
The female backed away, glaring defiantly, until defiance was all that remained for her as she reached the rail that separated her from the precipice. A triumphant smirk appeared upon the transformed being's lips, but it faltered when something impacted solidly with the very centre of her back. The force of the blow threw her forward onto her hands and knees, the indignity of it stinging more than the pain. A crater had opened in her reverse, blood the colour of emeralds welling up within, spilling along the length of her spine.
The male yelled at his sibling to run and this time there was neither argument nor hesitation; she turned and raced from the stage as soon as the way was clear.
And in that moment, her fate had been decided. If Alexia could not have her as the instrument of her brother's torment, then once again the roles would be reversed. She would be condemned to wait alone for him to join her, only to feel the crushing desolation when he did not return. Then, if the noblewoman's thirst for vengeance had been sated, the girl would be permitted to die. If she were feeling particularly merciful, perhaps she would allow him to perish in her arms, just as Alfred had done in hers.
The wound that split her flesh yearned to be filled and made new by her power, but she had something greater in mind. With supreme force of will, she altered her bone structure, pressing outwards to create joints, onto which she grafted a thin, but strong, film of skin. They took shape, obeying her every whim, until at last she opened her wings, the span of each as tall as a man. Rising to her feet once more, she turned to face him, the new adornments to her form giving her the look of a corrupted angel.
His response to the alterations in her appearance was to simply sight along the length of his weapon and fire, a second bullet blowing apart the side of her head. Her mind reeled with the damage as skull fragments and brain tissue sprayed outwards from the devastation. Another slug burst her stomach, spilling rubbery coils of green-slicked innards. As she fell open, he recoiled, clamping a hand over his mouth and nose at the smell rising from the matter oozing forth. Where before he had barely been able to penetrate her impervious skin, his attacks were now splitting her apart at the seams.
But she felt no true pain, she realised. Nothing here could compare to the anguish of losing Alfred.
Her stomach expanded outwards, her mass increasing and forcing her enemy into retreat as her form came to fill the artificial plateau on which they fought. Atop a throne of ever-increasing organic material, she rose until she loomed above him, as though she had made her seat above a mountain of flesh and bone. At its base, maternal organs spewed balls of amniotic fluid that burst wetly upon the platform, releasing newborns forged from her own being that pursued the adversary. Above, her legions gathered in new appendages for her to utilise, sending them slamming down with enough force to buckle the surface beneath. She watched it all with freshly formed eyes, wide with desire to witness his death.
The male was not deterred. With another of his weapons, he dispensed death upon her children, the affront to her causing more injury than the demise of the autonomous bodily refuse itself. Finely-honed instinct guided his motions as he moved from one place of safety to another, avoiding the destruction wrought by her immense limbs. His death should have been assured from the first moment and yet his defiance was without end. At intervals, he would turn and ensure that she herself was not forgotten, peppering the bloated carcass upon which she sat with bullets that tore and ripped through layers of flesh and fat. Few of the slugs were truly aimed at her, but her drones protected her from them.
The battle raged with neither giving ground to the other, but eventually, she knew, his weapons would become useless once their supplies of ammunition expired. Unfortunately, before she was given the satisfaction of seeing his hope dwindle away to nothing when he realised that he could no longer harm her, a jolt of unease ran through her. Beneath, the bulbous mass was seeking matter to replenish itself; in its desperate attempt to reconstitute those parts lost to the conflict it had attempted to consume her.
It convulsed, rippling with its own pain, and once again made its desire for her flesh known to her. She let out a panicked shriek, the feeling of her own form attempting to devour her causing her untold agony. Pulsating sacs disgorged pus as they tore apart, beginning a slow, inexorable gravity that threatened to drown her within herself. Though she struggled against it, she seemed bound to perish.
But her cries had awakened the drones tending the hive beneath and they flew to her aid. They settled upon the pulsing mound of flesh that was tethering her, gnawing through its hold, eager to free their queen. In that moment, her screams became contemptuous laughter. She rose, her anchor falling away beneath her, severing her body at the waist. A length of spinal column hung from what remained of her torso, but there was no pain or concern in that. She did not need the parts that she had discarded, borne aloft on her glistening wings as she was; she could always recreate them later if she so desired.
Turning her mind to ways to slay her enemy, she devised glands at the opening of her mouth, using them to spray a torrent of acid down as she circled overhead. The male weaved amid the streams, his fleet of foot faltering not for the briefest of moments. Puddles of her bile bubbled and spat as they fell upon the steel around him, but soon they would sear his flesh from his bones - reduce him to nothing but a pile of melted human slag. He had discarded his useless, empty weapons; his life was suspended by a thread of fortune, his fate no longer within his control.
In an instant, however, his destiny changed. An alert sounded from beneath her as her fluttering bore her in circles through the air. She watched as a device at the periphery of their battleground began to move, locks cycling mechanically as it fell open to reveal the bulk of a shoulder-mounted cannon of sleek, metallic design. Screaming her displeasure, she loosed another shower of corrosive fluid, the gurgle of its passing resonating in her open mouth.
It did not deter him. He took up the weapon, hefting it from its compartment on the wall and holding it aloft with triumph clear on his features. Even with the heavy load he was carrying, he still moved amid the downpour with a quickness that was surprising for a being of his mediocre humanity. She pursued him with determination, driven to snuff out his meagre existence and extract the toll she demanded in payment for the life of her brother.
Her revenge was not to be.
He stopped at the handrail dividing the place of their struggle from the abyss beyond, turning on his heel and shouldering his newfound weapon. She screeched, once silvery voice warped into a strange parody of itself that rang loudly in her ears, even over the blare of the sirens. In her eyes, the embers of her inner fire flared brightly, locking with the glass lens of the eyepiece and the cool, sapphire orb beyond. His body tensed, braced for the recoil of the machine that formed an extension of his arm, and then it coughed its deadly discharge.
A globe of throbbing, pulsating green energy exploded from it. It enveloped her, bathing her in its blinding, burning resonance, and she felt it seep into her being, seeming almost to merge with her. And then it erupted, an enormous, emerald flower blossoming outwards, a supernova expanding in a cascade of glowing effulgence, tearing her asunder particle by particle. A scream of anguish rose in her throat, the noise of it lost to the roar of the maelstrom consuming her, and then she came apart. Her skin dissolved, muscle tissue withering into nothing, internal organs evaporating, and bones turning to dust in the heat of the blast.
The miniature star collapsed in on itself as it burned to nothing, vanishing with a roaring, sucking noise as it imploded, leaving only a faint mist where the last of the Ashford line had once been.
Alexia was no more.
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