Author's Notes: Despite never playing it, I wanted to tie Umbrella Corps to HUNK's storyline in my noggin and think it's very feasible that the character in the story mode could be him. Why the hell not?
I later realized that the specimen in the final storyline episodes were bloodshots from 6…and therefore not as extreme as I made them. But I went with it.
So, 3A-7. What happens when you kill monster after monster?
Eventually you become one of them.
He could hear it coming, its bone-chilling howl piercing the icy air, the cacophony bouncing sharply off the steel infrastructure suffering the frost of the Antarctic.
Nothing else elicited the instinctive freezing of blood throughout him. Not the environment. Nothing he had yet encountered but the creature. The fibers in his being knew that it was a threat. A fucking bad creation. Faster than man. Vicious and bloodthirsty in ways unseen in other carriers. So gluttonous and blinded by its predatory needs that one couldn't afford to underestimate its rage.
It would be on him within seconds of setting its sunken, beady eyes on him. He knew as much. Understood it was imperative that he open fire and begin carving away at its glistening, corded flesh the instant he detected it - and knew he better reload even quicker than he was ordinarily capable. Knew there were no options but to pump high capacity clips of hot lead into it while simultaneously retreating and watching the spray of bone shards and boiling black blood project from its flailing body.
The fluids it expelled were like crude oil - slick, splattering over surfaces, rolling down like mercury before bubbling and caustically eating at permafrost with tendrils of sick steam unfurling from it. An additional layer of threat, no doubt, as even the layers he wore were unlikely to withstand its acid.
From its face, cruelly resembling a fleshed skull, protruded daggers of teeth. They gnashed and scraped against each other - against bone whenever another infected crossed its relentless path. No other viral creature he had encountered had a taste for rotting flesh and yet this species was ruthless. In pursuit, they had seized carriers with their claws, driven their teeth through throats, snapping vertebrae, ripping craniums cleanly from shoulders before slashing aside the collapsing corpses. All within violent seconds, caring only to carve and eat its way through whatever crossed its path.
It was immune to logic. To it, such a thing never existed. Its lack of understanding was a saving grace - one to be exploited, as the creature could be hindered by ladders and ledges. In its frenzy, the urge to scale obstacles was not often immediate, its rabid mind instead made to rake and shriek and tear at solid structures with its razor talons. It would persist, clashing and digging at the surface until its onyx blood boiled to the surface, sizzling and spewing, the flesh around its nail beds blistering in rapid mutation as it bellowed, blind to its own condition.
There were many of them, their numbers unknown. Unpredictable, even, as they exploded from the bodies of carriers in a spontaneous and nearly instantaneous mutation. That was why he had to take them out as immediately as possible - one proved taxing, two would divide necessary focus and resources.
He took as few chances as possible, gutting carriers as he encountered them. The aptly named brainer tool was a pleasure to use for the task - one of the few developments he saw fit for using. The ability it gave him to scale walls, in combination with the brutal cleats secured to his boots, had kept his ass unscathed in a couple pinches. While it was more advantageous than he preferred, enabling a soldier an ability that was so heavily reliant on equipment, it had an additional level of appropriateness given the frozen environment.
For as seamless as the modified scythe sliced through necks and cleaved off heads, its effectiveness was matched by its ability to conserve ammunition. That ability remained all-important, as did lessening the populace capable of undergoing mutation.
He had already lost a weapon to one that had gotten too close. It had lunged at him, even as he compressed the trigger, even as high velocity rounds had burst through its skull and the rifle had jolted with recoil. He had been fucking lucky that he had quit firing when he had, instinct overriding everything but surviving. That same intuition had resulted in him dodging what would have been a series of severe lacerations.
The barrel hadn't only been compromised but outright destroyed. Had another round been fired, he would have paid the price. Instead, he had used the destroyed firearm to force the mutant back, thrusting its weight aside with the full push of his own.
That had been the closest encounter with such a specimen. He didn't dare engage one in direct combat. He had no interest in losing blood to those claws or allow those violent teeth to massacre him. Confident in his abilities as he was, he also knew his limitations, and fighting a BOW that could withstand extensive damage was not one to take risks with if avoidable.
Their unpredictability made them all the more dangerous. While he couldn't be certain of their mechanisms, he suspected that intelligence varied within the subjects depending on that of the carriers they rapidly evolved from. Perhaps the degree of decomposition had some correlation with the mutant's cognition. Maybe not. For whatever reason, some were more intuitive than others and demonstrated a higher degree of intentional behavior than others.
Most were mindless, easily obstructed by walls or ladders. Others he had encountered had adapted, utilizing ramps in their pursuit of him. While some had barreled past after he had retreated into ventilation ductwork, two had ascertained his whereabouts and had attempted to claw their way in and navigate the maze. None had succeeded but the proven potential for them to adapt to their environment was threatening.
The prototype still had room for improvement, it seemed - a pertinent fact, given that the objective of this mission was to ascertain if even a soldier of his capacity could survive.
The survival rate they had given it: zero percent. Yet again, he would have to confute them.
Beneath his boot, the crunch of snow audibly compacted beneath his weight. It contrasted the slap of raw flesh on metallic surfaces he knew would soon be heard, rapidly crazed and echoing like that of a dozen men at full sprint.
Stealth was best. He had no intentions of pursuing the BOW, but to locate it first was advantageous. At least then he had the chance to plot his attack and attempt to physically debilitate it before it could react - a luxury he had encountered only once.
He had blown the knees out of that single BOW and sent it topping to the floor and yet somehow, given the ferocity and destructive, mindless lust it exhibited, the creature had nearly reached him before succumbing to his gunfire. Spine protrusions rippling, it had clawed its way to him, heaving its body faster than any, smearing a vile river of putrid obsidian behind its rubbery flesh.
He had laid waste to it with the remainder of his loaded handgun ammunition, the 9mm rounds boring into its waxy skull. For all the BOWs he had encountered, many of which rapidly mutated, these specimens were the most draining of resources yet. Every bullet had to be used efficiently and for maximum payoff, and for a creature with such sporadic movement and senseless flailing, that required skill.
He could only think of the damage that could be done to a populace in the event that a major outbreak of this prototype was unleashed. The casualties would exceed even that of Raccoon City and the rate of demise far quicker - but was the mechanism for its mutation, presumably viral, contagious? And how was it spread? If airborne, it could be a real game-changer.
He didn't intend to find out - and no longer had seconds to spare in considering.
To the inward crashing of a door - one he had acknowledged just split seconds before but scanned past in his constant search - he pivoted on his heels and swung his weapon, targeting the space it barreled into, its body pulsing with fury. The instant it saw him, it threw back its disfigured torso and roared in bloodthirsty glee, the piercing sound pouring out of it even as he sent a spray of bullets crashing into its contorted body.
It turned into them and sprinted, its grotesque limbs pumping rapidly for speed, its wet feet striking the ground with slippery slaps, its gored hands greedily snatching the air, immune to its own overgrown talons slashing into its wrists, and it leapt- propelled itself off of the ground with a massive push that send it speeding through the air, its rapid breath pouring from in wheezing gulps and exhalations of furious frenzy.
He had no other choice - he threw himself perpendicular to its trajectory. Felt the floor disappear beneath him and then he was falling, inertia and skill carrying him into a barrel roll instinctively executed. The second his feet came beneath him again, he was up and running, assault rifle clutched tightly to his chest. With his other hand, he withdrew his pistol and popped off five shots in rapid succession, aimed at the creature that rounded in confusion at his sudden absence and barked out a sound of belching, squealing fury.
He could outmaneuver it with strategy. Already knew what he had to do - how it would react. Regardless of the drop off he had taken from the walkway, it launched itself with maniacal urgency to the floor below. By then, the soldier was already seizing a ladder leading to the level above, was channeling his strength to his arms and legs and climbing that numbing, frozen metal as fast as his body could, immune to the weight and jostling of his gear as his guns and ammunition bumped repeatedly against him.
The bottom of his boot tread was two inches above the claws that collided, deafeningly loud, against his path of retreat. The ladder reverberated with the force, but before the creature could leap higher, scrambling and screeching at the obstacle, he was on the platform, on his feet, and withdrawing a fresh clip to slap into his Magpul FMG-9. Even as he racked it home, he aimed it over the edge and unloaded its firepower as fast as the submachine gun allowed, shots striking the head and shoulders of the slobbering mutant. Each round punched holes through flesh, sinew, and bone, taking chunks of matter with them, the barrage liquefying others and causing that inky blood to bespatter the snow and infrastructure below.
Still, the creature fought as though blind to its own demise. It struggled to reach him even as its wretched face splintered until nothing was left but a mangled crater of abnormal flesh. And fluids dark as pitch sputtered forth as it expelled the last of its dying breath.
Through his mask, HUNK's eyes remained trained on the rapidly decomposing body until it was, for certain, defeated. His next order of action was to determine the condition of his resources and then prioritize searching his surroundings for supplemental supplies.
Being in the Antarctic was nothing new for him. He had the advantage of recognizing the installation he had been transported to, however consumed by snow as it was. Treacherous as the weather was, the freezing precipitation beginning to steadily increase again, he had the necessary endurance to function where many soldiers, and their performance, would gravely suffer.
The duration of his mission remained unknown. No details had been given. He could only assume extraction would arrive at any given time...and presume it would be stationed at the heliport. He still needed to determine if the landmark was accessible or if additional means of reaching it were required. Until then, he would find a strategic location to take inventory - one that preferably had a single point of entry and two for escape.
It was going to be a long day, he figured, if the number of bullet casings littering the ground was any indication. And a longer night, perhaps, with many more shells bound to fall.