Legal disclaimers: Resident Evil and everything directly associated with it is owned by Capcom, I lay no claim to any of it and am only borrowing elements for the purposes of writing a fictional story set in the world of RE. Therefore please don't sue me, anyone, its all just a bit of fun, honest. The only things which are mine are original characters and concepts created for this story.
Disclaimers: This is a prequel story focusing on Xenia Omorova, the character who appears in Matt6's "Operation: Falling S.T.A.R.S.", covering how she came to work for Umbrella. Again, credit to Mat6 and SportyGirl for giving me the idea to do these back-story fics. This symbol / denotes thoughts or something important when surrounding a word or words, while a Y indicates a page break. Finally, my knowledge of firearms is extremely limited, so apologies for that. All Reviews welcomed.
SPECIAL NOTES: Anna Neagley is also a character created and owned by me, ask first if you want to borrow any of these. Ian William's, Matthew Ryan, Mark Klein, Paul Williams and Thomas Walker all belong to Matt6. Others will be accounted for as necessary as the story progresses.
Faith
Chapter One
/January 3rd 2001, northern Afghanistan/
Night, in the winter of Afghanistan, was a cold, dark, terrifying thing. It created shadows in huge mountain crags that could conceal any number of threats. It made a ragged ground seem even more dangerous than it was, with jagged stone edges, loose stones, deep sinkholes and rivers that could literally chill a man to the bone in minutes gleaming like the silver edges of razor-bladed knives in the dull, deadly darkness. The moon barely even lit the sky beneath dark clouds that drifted on the slight wind so slowly a man could almost have run faster, making the eyes hurt as one tried to compensate for the constant shifting shades of dull light and deep darkness.
Matthew Ryan, better known as "Matt" to his friends, stood on a slowly shifting ground formed of scree and small stones which tried to roll away every time he moved, looked ahead of himself and sighed. There was Marine Firebase Echo, a collection of cement block structures, tents and metal-wall warehouses all recently constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers. They'd been put up to house the troops stationed in this area since existing sites had all been deemed security risks, insufficient or simply not worth even the inspection, since most were at best half-wrecked and dilapidated twenty-odd year old former Red Army bases.
Around the perimeter barbed wire had been strung across the tops of wire fences reinforced with steel bars and spikes atop the steel, while on the inside several guard towers with searchlights which were constantly roving contained Snipers and heavy machine guns. Guards with dogs performed regular and irregular patrols all across the grounds on a variety of routes while, unquestionably, more men silently reconnoitred the hills and mountains all about just in case. No one was safe anywhere in Afghanistan, the people they were fighting would blow themselves up just for a chance to kill a single American in the middle of a crowd of people so extraordinary precautions were the norm. That, in part, was why Matt and his team were at this lost place...
Twenty-eight years old, brown-haired and eyed with an easy smile and good looks, six feet odd tall and with a lean, muscular build that spoke of years of hard experience as opposed to hours in the gym, dressed in grey-black fatigues to match the territory, Matt looked at the place he and his command were going to be calling home for the foreseeable future and wondered just what "Punishment Detail" really meant. Sure, they were part of the Special Operations Command, the SOC, an elite Black Ops military unit for the CIA. Sure, their purpose here was to hunt down and deal with any potential Weapons of Mass Destruction as well as any Al'Quaeda commanders in the area. Sure, they had very specific Orders regarding where and when and what...
But, would Ian have sent them up here if he hadn't been ordered to? They had no solid Intel on any major hostile activity in or near the area, only suspicions and possibilities. One did not deploy the elite on the basis of possibility, which meant that someone in the Pentagon had likely exchanged words with someone at Langley behind closed doors. The SOC was no more immune to Political pressures than any other Military unit or organisation, although Ian Williams, SOC Director, would fight all the way to the bitter end to prevent his people from being hit by such stupidity. Did that mean they wouldn't be, though? No. Matt smelled trouble in the wind, someone was out to drop the SOC in it if they could... He glanced either side of him, shooting a smirk at his team.
On his left was Mark Klein, an inch or so taller than him, similar weight and build with short brown hair and blue eyes making him an average man in appearance, dressed headed to foot in mountain camouflage fatigues just like Matt. Two years younger than Matt, his eyes were shadowed with memories of loss and pain which broke through quickly if he became too emotional or involved. With his brother possibly dead in the Racoon City catastrophe, his sister-in-law MIA after barely surviving and escaping the same herself, supposedly now running with the rogue S.T.A.R.S. who had apparently caused the disaster. Added to all of the rumours and half-grasped intelligence floating around Military and Intelligence circles concerning the truth of the disaster...
Matt often wondered just how many people in the world could or would have just absorbed those kinds of hits and just said "Okay". Mark, for his part, was not one of them. Still a perfectly capable soldier, he nonetheless no longer discussed his personal life except with the SOC Psychologist and it was suspected he'd received therapy. Nobody blamed him or thought any less of him for being human.
On Matt's right was Paul Edwards, two inches shorter than Matt at just under six feet tall. Less physical than either Matt or Mark, he nonetheless had a solidly muscular body and grace of movement which easily compensated for any lesser physical power. With dark brown hair and grey eyes which shone with intelligence, his soft face bore an almost permanent smile which made everyone feel a little better, as did the bad jokes he had a habit of telling, deliberately. His camouflage fatigues hung a little loose on his frame, but it was a running joke in Team One that it was because he moved so fast that he'd stretched the materials in all kinds of strange ways.
A man with an exceptional mind and a soldier who was considered more than capable, he was also dealing with pain that he hid better than Mark. His brother had died in the Racoon City disaster, even worse he was confirmed dead in the nuclear plant meltdown that had simply wiped the city off the maps. Paul didn't let it bother him, let himself be absorbed by his job and his studies while he dealt with a chill inside that would never, ever go away as best he could.
Matt nodded towards the camp and made a move-on gesture with his hand before doing so himself. They'd been dropped off by stealth chopper a mile away ten minutes ago, kit bags slung over shoulders with weapons immediately to hand, now they were almost there. Matt had been tempted to suggest they test security by scaling the fences and infiltrating the Barracks just to see if it could be done, but then he'd seen the faces of the guards and sensed the nerves of the soldiers who, temporarily, lived here. Anything unexpected would end up with people dead in a place like this, more than likely several, including him and his team, Team One. That meant the front door-or gate, in this case.
He lit a green flare as they jogged in, followed by Paul and Mark, to show their presence and point of arrival, as instructed for Covert troops. He sensed rather than heard the approach of armed soldiers, until he made out indistinct shapes in the night and stopped. He pulled out his Dog Tags for inspection and confirmation of his identity, when added to a visual map of his face on computer screens and fingerprints-all of which would be wiped from the records the moment confirmed. Mark and Paul followed suit, only minutes later a man with a senior officers insignia confirmed it all with a quiet word to each of them before he flashed a double burst of light from his torch at the camp, followed by a single long one.
With that, Matt and his team moved forwards at a jog to the camp, moved through the opened gates which were immediately closed behind them and headed for the assigned segment of the camp that held the SOC barracks. Including Thomas Walker, the senior SOC officer in Afghanistan at the moment, there were nine teams already operating in the country at various locations-two of them from here, which meant they were due a reunion after a long while apart...
Y
Not far away, sitting quietly in a chair outside the main recreation area for the base while better than 90 of the rest of the troops who didn't have early-morning duties, as well as some who did, cheered and drank themselves stupid at the events occurring inside, Anna Neagley glanced up at the stars in the sky, tried and failed to count them as the clouds drifted across everything, then looked back at her right hand. She was holding a HALO combat knife by the tip of the blade between the ends of two fingers, but the slightest movement shifted the blade to her middle fingertip with perfect balance. That done, she started rolling the knife over and around her fingers and thumb, only the blade touching skin as it moved, silver moonlight shining bright between the seconds.
During the day, she'd have practised with throwing knives or in the gym with any number of different routines and styles, unarmed and Close Quarter Combat/CQC styles. Now everything was shut down and it was too dark, deliberately, to see the target board she used, so she was reduced to passing the time by practising a skill so simple she could have done it in her sleep. Running or heavy physical workouts just weren't an option, not here, the latest newspaper was a week old, she'd read all of the books she liked she could get... More to the point, she'd be dead before she'd socialise with a group of drunken idiots. She had enough nightmares and bad memories for another /two/ lifetimes, thank you...
Twenty-eight years old, five-eight tall, leanly muscular and almost sculpted in her flawless physical development, Anna Neagley was the kind of woman and soldier everyone who saw her thought about, in a variety of ways, every night afterwards for years. Her skin and hair were deepest, darkest and purest black, her hair falling loose halfway down her back in a wave of silk, while hard chocolate-brown eyes were touched by a cold edge that put off anyone who thought to look before they leapt. With a physique that was simply fantasy and looks that improved on it, remarkable bone structure and hard muscle made her seem more dream than reality to most soldiers. None of them had been granted the chance to find out, in any case, since she didn't socialise and trying to push the issue was genuinely dangerous.
As a native of Ethiopia originally, with her Negroid appearance and lush looks she was exceptional in the army in any event. She was even more unique for several other reasons, but only she and an old man who lived in Chicago in the USA knew all of them, a very select few knowing selected one's. As she reclined in her jet-black fatigues, absently spinning the knife around and about in her hand so fast it dazzled the eye, she just lay back and tried to think of what the new day would bring...
She nearly leapt out of her chair when she saw the flares just outside the camp, she /did/ when she saw the torchlight flash. She'd done more than her share of Covert and Intelligence work, for Special Forces and others, she knew exactly what she was looking at. She just didn't know /who/.
She loped to the edge of the recreation main hall before, seeing nothing, sprinting at a distance eating long-legged run across open ground at a speed people had been known to simply stop and stare at. She made it to an area next to a barracks with a clear view of the gate before the gates swung closed and, with a hidden smirk, got a good look at the new arrivals. Strictly speaking, as well as officially speaking, she shouldn't have been doing this. Realistically speaking, if you played by the rules all of the time you'd be dead. Initiative and imagination, no mater what you were taught in Boot Camp, played a massive part in making a real soldier a truly effective one. She could use a little heads-up advantage…
She had to blink several times on seeing just who it was, then thought that actually breathing might just be a healthy act. Him…?
"Matt…?
Y
Xenia Omerova had never been one to turn down an invitation to a good party. At this one, her only condition had been they stock authentic home-brewed Russian Vodka, since that was the only real drink she'd accept in quantity. So far, they'd been true to their word. So far, they hadn't regretted it.
Thirty-six years old, six foot tall with dark auburn fiery hair and deep mahogany-brown eyes, all full curves and firm power in a slim, lean and strong body designed for high-speed Sin and excess in all its forms, Xenia was a woman with striking dark, gypsy looks that made her almost hauntingly beautiful. In a tight black vest, trousers and leather boots with her hair down and loose about her shoulders, falling easily to her waist, she was sheer unbridled sensuality in figure and form even as she tossed back yet another shot of pure Vodka with a smile that spoke of dark pleasures to come. Her cleavage was evident, long fingers on graceful hands suggested all kinds of images and ideas, long legs suggested very specific ones, her muscle suggested ideas that made men weep. She /was/ temptation, there was little more to it, not least because /no-one/ chose /her/...
Over a hundred men and some women, all cheering, sat around wooden tables pressed together in the centre of a room barely tall enough for Xenia to stand up straight in atop the tables. Chairs had been shoved away wherever, the only other thing in sight on the wood and metal floor was a half-empty bottle of pure Vodka and the glass Xenia was using. Bright electric lights lit up the room and made every shadow disappear, partially as a security precaution, but that it helped illuminate the movement of Xenia's body under her clothes even as sweat ran down her skin everywhere from the rooms heating only helped those watching imagine even more.
As she danced slowly on the tables, firm body and fine features holding the attention like a vice, Xenia knew that even the women would have done anything at all that she asked to see just a little bit more of her. It was the kind of power you developed over someone when you got behind their eyes and into their mind, when you shut out everything else and simply made them beg for you to do just that /bit/ more. It was raw lust and temptation as a weapon, one she knew how to use. These idiots would have done /anything/ she'd asked of them right now. How the American's had conquered the world when a single former KGB agent could hold spellbound so many for over an hour she'd never know.
If it wasn't so funny, it would have been sad... Even more entertaining was the fact that the American's actually thought a single bottle of Vodka was enough to get her drunk, to do some kind of "Striptease" as they called such acts. Obviously, none of them had ever seriously tried to push their limits just to find out if they could go any further, any faster, any deeper. None of them knew that, to do this properly, you had to get ready first, which meant that there /were/ no limits...
Xenia gyrated slowly, from standing to almost sitting, throwing her head back then almost going down on hands and knees, her long hair falling loose and rough about her head and shoulders. Her sweat made her hair stick to her shoulders, breasts, neck and face in a way which, she knew, only suggested trailing fingers and breathy, stolen touches all the more. Her grin was feral, her eyes smouldered as she rose to her feet slowly, hands out and almost forming claws, even as she slowly swung around as she stood to take in the whole room. Her muscles bunched, she front-flipped to a one-handed handstand even before she threw back all of the remaining Vodka in her glass in one sharp swallow. Flipping back to her feet, she swiped the back of her hand across her lips and blew a kiss to the highest ranking man in the room, a Brigadier-who looked very uncomfortable suddenly-then grabbed the entire bottle of Vodka, winked, and put it to her mouth.
Cheers nearly took the roof off, along with a few catcalls and suggestions as to things she could do next. They all trailed off into an astonished silence as she drank, and drank, and drank...the last drop seemed to take forever to fall to her lips. She licked her lips, swallowed, then rolled the bottle over in her hand to neck down and shook it, not a drip falling free. The cheers came back with an incredible roar of sound that almost physically moved her on the table, but she stood her ground and raised her hand, gesturing towards a specific individual. The individual was a striking female blonde from the Signals Corp, one of the most attractive women in the room, a fact that by itself caused eyebrows to shoot up. The fact that she quickly stood and started walking towards Xenia raised more.
The woman's name, Xenia knew, was Sally Jenkins, a Private in her mid-twenties who was halfway convinced she'd have to sleep her way to the top. Xenia had been trying to derail that train of thought for months now, so she'd come up with a new strategy that she thought might work. She just hoped that the blonde had enough sense to play along and not even try to make something out of nothing...
Xenia tossed clear the bottle and glass, both of which hit the floor with a dull thump and rolled clear of the tables altogether. She stepped to the edge and held out a hand, which Sally took, stepped back and almost pulled Sally up behind her, then led her to the centre of the tables. That done, she turned to face the other woman and put her hands on her hips, her most inviting smile on her face. Sally almost had a heart attack before she worked it out, but only Xenia saw her face. After that, a wicked smile graced her face, lighting up striking features.
Good, she'd gotten the idea...
Y
None of the other SOC teams were about, even Thomas Walker wasn't to be found, so Matt, Mark and Paul found their billets, slung their packs, secured their gear and considered what to do next. Socialising wasn't such a bad idea, they decided, even though they couldn't let slip, ever, just who they were and what they were doing here. If there was a party on, though, as there seemed to be, it was far less likely that any new arrivals would be particularly odd, let alone noted, since everyone would likely be a little drunk, happy and distracted at the very least.
With smirks all around, despite their tiredness they unanimously decided on a bit of R&R before getting down to business the next dawn. After all, all of them could go at least two days without sleep if they had to, that was practically a part of the job description. Switching to regular fatigues, black t-shirt, trousers and black boots, they were in and out inside ten minutes. Not one of them so much as suspected that they'd acquired a curious almost-invisible stalker...
Y
The "dance" moves Xenia and Sally were using would have made most swallow their tongues, more would have been left drooling and incapable, the few remaining would have just stared. No-one was surprised that the sultry Xenia knew her way around a woman's body as well as a man's, but very few would have imagined that the seemingly reserved Sally had a wild side like /this/.
Xenia knew, but that was a secret she'd kept very specifically. When honestly drunk Sally talked a lot/too/ much, but she got /that/ drunk so rarely that you could mark separate Calendars by it. Xenia had a solid rock constitution and she drank like a drowning fish with anything but Vodka, which would get to her eventually, so Sally attempting to prove herself by drinking the older Russian woman under the table had been a severe error of judgement. It had also left her as one of the few women Xenia actually /liked, strangely enough. To her, if you had the guts to do something you either did it or were afraid of it, not a fault Sally had. Besides which, her language was magnificently foul and her opinions on the US Military and several of her male colleagues were hysterically funny when she let her guard down. She was amazingly good company once you really got to know her, Xenia had discovered...
Hands and fingers wandered everywhere, legs intertwined, bodies touched and pressed against one another, fingertips traced smooth skin and slipped under tight clothes. Teeth nipped at throats and breasts, lips trailed over cheeks, shoulders and skin all over. Caresses and touches turned into embraces, hands and fingers ran through hair, both women almost went limp in one another's arms as hands and delicate fingers trailed over throat, chest and stomach to just above the belt. Both found a way to kneel and caress the others hard-muscled legs, to lick the sweat from the others belly... Both women pretended not to hear the heavy silence that was spreading across the room, the occasional thud as someone just dropped a glass or bottle or mug, or just fell over. They pretended not to notice the stares of everyone in the room burning holes in their clothes...
With a final devilish smirk, Xenia span Sally around to face her, took her in as tight an embrace as she could-then winked and passionately kissed Sally full on the lips. Sally almost collapsed in shock, but rallied magnificently and responded fast, tongue probing at Xenia's lips. Xenia let her in with a twinkle in her eyes, enjoyed the kiss-better than almost any man she'd ever tried-then forced away the sensation of pleasure even as she slowly pulled back. Sally's breathing was fast, too fast, she was flushing red all over, but she managed to step back as well. She'd enjoyed that /too/ much, she needed a man to remind her of what she'd be missing/now/. But who...? Ah, yes, that would work.
Moving away from Sally altogether Xenia gathered herself and, even as the cheers and wolf-whistles appeared to blast open the main entrance, rising in volume and power by the second, she aimed herself at the door. Then she began to run, before rolling, flipping and diving over and over in an exceptional Olympic-class display of gymnastic agility, speed, grace and power...
Y
Matt heard the noise inside the recreation centre long before he got there, even as it was rising in volume. Wondering just what was going on to cause such a wild party on a Military base-more to the point, who was running it that they could get away with doing so?-he walked forwards ahead of Mark and Paul to push the door open. As he did the heat, light and noise left him nearly blind, deaf and dumb-before someone landed literally right in front of him, his arms automatically rising to support an individual he presumed was staggering out. That was mere seconds before he felt the curves and lines of a woman pressing hard into him...
The brief look he got at exquisite good looks, wild eyes and loose hair which practically slapped him, the scent of her breath told him he was in trouble. Drenched in alcohol, yes, but what he could see alone made it clear she wasn't drunk. That was precisely one second before the feral vision in front of him grabbed his head in both hands and stuck her tongue down his throat so fast he almost fell over. The kiss was so luxuriously perfect he very nearly wished he wasn't dressed, Melissa, his fiancé's, memory only just holding on in his minds eye. That was before the tall woman kissing him pulled back sharply, looking far more shaken than he would have expected from so brief a contact even as heat spread throughout him in an inferno conflagration from the kiss, his lips still tingling seconds later... Then he felt a knife at his throat.
"Hi, I have a knife, I like killing people and I'm completely out of my mind..." whispered another woman's honey-sweet soft voice in his ear. That voice alone could have made the dead sit up and listen, but it seemed oddly familiar... Then he was forcefully spun around to meet the owner. His eyes almost fell out in simple shock. "Hi again, Matthew" said Anna Neagley, then she kissed him even more passionately than the first woman had.
He almost died, wasn't even sure he was standing up by the time she let him go too. He slowly registered the dead silence in the room-Anna kissed NO ONE, let alone touched them like she had him, he would quickly discover-looked around carefully, in case he fainted, and spotted his CO, Thomas Walker, near the front of the room, angry and showing it. /Oh, boy/ was all that ran through his mind at the sight...
He would never forget that was how he first met Xenia Omerova.
/End of Chapter One. All Reviews welcomed./