(Recap: In the last installment we found that Nicolette was still alive along with Steve Burnside, and that Jill was not Nicolette's aunt. She was Nicolette's mother.)
Nicolette sat cross legged on the king sized bed, looking down at her hands as they lay, empty and open, on her legs. The feeling of hot breath returned to her, billowing against her lips. She shuddered and felt a horrid pain in her chest. She could picture his arrogant face and could hear the horrible icy tone in his voice. She could feel the leather of his gloves on her face.
"Stop." She whispered to herself, the pain in her chest growing. She could feel the same blinding panic and the numbness that the shock had brought. She could feel him move closer to her, her heart pounding.
"God," She whispered, her voice thick and raw. "Please, God." She bowed her head as she felt his lips, a complete contradiction of soft and ruff, on her own. "Make it stop." She shook her head and pushed herself off the bed and walked to the door. She left the room and walked down the hallway, it's white walls and black floor blinding her momentarily. She walked her way to the elevator, heading to the kitchen.
"Niki!" She heard a familiar voice and turned around. When she saw a man with auburn hair swinging in his face running towards her wearing a white lab coat, a black t-shirt, and an old pair of jeans, she couldn't help but smile and let the memory fade into the back of her mind. "Niki! Wait up!"
Nicolette smiled and laughed quietly under her breath. "Hurry up then, Stevie."
Steve ran so fast that when he skidded to a stop he nearly knocked into Nicolette. Nicolette lost her balance and wobbled back and forth, trying to keep herself up. "Steve!"
"Oh, ops!" Steve grabbed her and held her up while she caught her balance. "I'm so sorry, Niki."
"It's alright, Steve." She laughed, her strange eye's sparkling. "You keep me on my toes." 'And my mind off of memories.'
"You do the same to everyone else." Steve laughed along with her as they walked the short distance to the elevator. "Your like a whirlwind around here."
"You make me sound like the best thing around here." Nicolette replied pressing the bottom to go down.
"You are."
"That's only because everything else here sucks." She whispered as she walked past Steve into the elevator. Steve followed her laughing loudly, causing all Umbrella workers to look over at them.
"You speak the truth." He replied a little breathlessly.
Nicolette glanced at him, looking at his easy smile and felt guilt plague her heart. "Steve?" She asked when the doors shut and the were left alone in the elevator.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry about the other night."
"What do you mean?" Steve asked innocently, looking at her with wide blue green eye's.
"When I yelled at you." Nicolette said softly. "I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's alright." Steve replied throwing him arm around her shoulders. "I thought you were still mad at about something I didn't do."
"Your a freak." She mumbled, smiling and shrugging Steve's arm off. "And you don't understand the phrase, 'personal space', do you?"
"Eh." Steve replied as they reached their floor. "I haven't had anyone I could hug for years."
"Stop trying to guilt trip me." Nicolette rolled her eye's and lead the way out of the elevator and threw some double doors into a gray and black dinning room. "Wesker in very found of the color black."
"Really?" Steve glanced around. "I guess, I've never really noticed."
"How-?" Nicolette shook her head and turned away, walking to their normal table. It was Wesker's table, the first day Wesker had told her it was all she could do not to start yelling at the top of her lungs. How could she be expected to be civil at a table, especially after what he did to her last night. There was no way she could live threw this. At least not without Steve having a conniption. She smiled at that thought. She sat on the side of the table remembering the first time she asked Steve who sat at the head of the small table. He was shocked that she even had to ask, the answer that came out of his mouth didn't surprise her one bit. Wesker thought of himself as king, Steve a prized scientist, and her as a trainee supper spy and body guard. Steve sat down across from her.
"So..." Steve began looking at Nicolette. She looked warningly at him.
"Steve, don't ask any question you'll one day regret." She whispered menacingly.
"So, your not going to tell me what happened in the lab last night?" He whispered back, leaning over the table.
"Steve!" Nicolette snapped turning her head away from him. "Let this go. Just forget about last night."
"How do you expect me to-" Steve's mouth snapped closed audibly. Nicolette mentally prepared herself and turned to see Wesker strutting over to the table. Her eye's lingered on him for a second before she turned her back on him and rolled her eye's in irritation.
'Cocky SOB.'
"Good morning, sir." The words rushed out of Steve's mouth, irritating Nicolette a little more.
"Your very up beat." Wesker said coldly, his glasses gleaming in the light.
"He's a morning person." Nicolette snapped in Steve's defense. She could feel Wesker's gaze burning into the side of her face. "It's not his fault your always in a bad mood."
"Apparently I'm not the only one in a bad mood." Wesker replied coldly formal.
"Ugh." She huffed looking down at her empty plate trying to calm down. 'If you attack him all of this is doomed to end badly.'
"So..." Steve glanced at Nicolette quickly. "What did I miss las-" Nicolette kicked him in the shin under the table. "OW!" Steve glared at her like a hurt five year old.
"Am I missing something?" Wesker asked his eyebrows arched.
"I just wanted to know," Nicolette swung her leg back and kicked him in the leg. "What I missed last night." Nicolette waited for him to shout in pain again but nothing happened. She reeled her leg back again and kicked the leg in front of her again. This time there was a little movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head slowly to the side and kicked the leg again. She saw Wesker shift a little and felt dread grip her heart. The servers placed food in front of them as she calmed down her pounding heart.
"I assume," Wesker said icily. "That kick was not meant for me."
"At least your assumption is correct." Nicolette replied looking down at her plate and poking at her food.
"I also assume that last nights experiment is still clouding your simple, child like mind."
Nicolette started as he mentioned the experiment, his voice bringing back memories. "No, it seams your ego is so big that you think a minor test would bother me, if it were performed by you. It would have been more memorable if an Umbrella personal had performed it." She tossed her freshly washed blond curls. "But, now that you mention it, did you get your results?"
"Yes," Nicolette stabbed a piece of blueberry pancake with her fork and lifted it to her mouth as Wesker took a long sip from his coffee, Steve sat on the other side, shoveling in his food like a human garbage disposal while he glanced from one to the other. Nicolette chewed while waiting for Wesker to finish his answer. "I received the result that I had expected."
Nicolette could feel annoyance build up inside as she acted nonchalant on the outside, swallowing and wiping her mouth with a napkin. "And what result would that be?"
"Nothing worth while." He replied formally. "It deserves no further analysis."
"Well," It took all of Nicolette's effort to keep her voice calm and not to turn in her chair and smack his glasses to the floor. She could just picture grinding those annoying glasses under her heals. "You needn't have wasted your time with that silly little experiment. I could have told you that."
Wesker picked up a fork and knife and began cutting into his omelet. "Then my hypothesis proved conclusive."
Steve openly gaped at both of them, completely lost in the conversation. Nicolette gave him a quick apologetic smile before she took a sip from her orange juice. Steve just stared back at her, in a complete loss for words. What did he miss last night? What the hell did Wesker do? And why, why did it effect Nicolette so much?
/~/~/~/
Chris stood, frozen against the wall, his dark blue eye's wide and unfocused. Jill hovered beside him, panicking as she tried to get his attention and snap him awake.
"Chris?" She said taking his pulse. "Chris? Please answer me!"
"J-Jill?" He breathed, his entire body tensed.
"I'm right here Chris." She whispered, standing in front of him. "Chris, I'm right here."
"Nicolette...She's...She's-"
"My daughter, yes." Jill pulled his crossed arms apart and took a hold of one of his hands. "She's my daughter."
"So, I-I-" Chris broke off breathing deeply before pulling away from her, his entire body shaking. "I LOST YOUR DAUGHTER?"
"She's not just my daughter, Chris." Jill replied defensively.
"OH, I FORGOT!" Chris roared. "WHO'S THE FATHER? BECAUSE HE SHOULD BE NOTIFIED."
"You are."
"What?"
"Chris, Nicolette is your daughter."
/~/~/~/
Nicolette dodged Steve's kick to her ribs and knocked his other foot out from under him, dancing away in flurry.
"Nice try Steve." She smiled at him, watching him pull himself up. "But your just a little too slow."
"A little?" Steve huffed. "Stop trying to make me feel better."
"Then go harder on me." Nicolette taunted, her strange eye's gleaming.
"What are you talking about?"
"I know your not trying to take me out, Steve." Nicolette rolled her eye's. "Now, give me all you got."
"Just remember," Steve smiled evilly at her. "You asked for it."
"I will." She jumped at Steve, flipping in the air and trying to hit him in the chest. She felt a surprisingly strong hand wrap around her ankle and spin her, letting go and launching her into a wall. She threw her hand's in front of her face before impact. She fell to the floor in a crouch and looked up to see Steve standing in front of her, his entire body covered in green and orange flames. Surprise flickered across her face before her stubborn nature kicked in. She dove between Steve's legs, kicking one right at the ankle, and flipped to her feet, her eye's sizing Steve up. Besides the flames licking at his body and not burning his clothes there was only one thing different with Steve was his glowing dark purple eye's.
"Scared?"
"You wish." Nicolette smiled and slipped to the side as Steve shot some sort of green electricity from his finger tips. She flipped over to him and knocked his hand out of the way, nearly getting hit by some strange sort of red gook. Steve reached towards her, his hand glowing strangely. Nicolette dodged, twisting around Steve's body and climbed onto his back.
"Cheater." Steve laughed shaking her off. Nicolette landed on her feet and looked up at Steve, who was now floating in the air. She leaped up and knocked Steve to the ground, holding him down by standing on his chest and pulling a toy protocol gun out of the huge pocket of her old, beat up, guy jeans. His hand stopped glowing.
"I'm no cheater." She smiled down at him. "I'm just to good for you to mess with."
"Ha." Steve laughed. "And you think Wesker has a big ego."
"He does, it's way bigger then mine." Nicolette replied, "Give up?"
"Do I have an choice?"
"Hmm," She mocked thinking for a moment. "I'm going to go with...no."
"Fine. You win." Nicolette jumped off of Steve and offered him her hand. He grabbed it and she helped pull him off the ground, the flames and purple eye's fading. "I don't know what to do now. You kicked my butt even when I was using my powers."
"Speaking of that," Nicolette let go of Steve's hand and looked into his normal blue green eye's. "How did you get those?"
"Well, it's a long story." He replied uncomfortably. "I would rather not talk about it-"
"Your that guy." Nicolette gasped as everything clicked together in her head.
"What guy?" Steve asked turning away from her.
"The one with the Veronica virus." She reached forward and grabbed his arm. "The one Wesker took as a sample."
"Can we not talk about this?" Steve asked sadly trying to shrug her off.
"No, Steve." Nicolette snapped. "I had to share my life with you. Now it's your turn."
"Fine." Steve sighed. "I was locked up in Rockfield prison."
"Why?"
"My father was a mole in Umbrella. He took information and sold if to the highest bidder. Umbrella found out and...and killed my mother, hauling me and my dad off to Rockfield. We were there for only a few months when Umbrella started dropping bombs full of T virus on the island prison. Everyone was infected, except for Alfred and Alexia Ashford, me, and Claire Redfield." Steve sounded as if he were caressing the very name. "Claire helped me get threw a lot of what happened there. She saved me sometimes and I saved her. We were a makeshift team that acted like professionals." Steve chuckled sadly. "Well, sometimes. We ended up killing Alfred, and in revenge Alexia infected me and had me attempt to kill Claire."
"Oh, Steve!"
"I-I couldn't kill her." Steve replied gruffly.
"Why not?"
"I-I loved her." Nicolette walked around Steve to stand in front of him.
"And he took you away from her?" She whispered. "He's really that heartless?"
"No, he has a heart. Remember the story I told you, he was raised not to use it."
"Don't defend him." Nicolette growled. "He's not worth it."
"Niki-"
"Don't." She replied shortly. "Your father passed information?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm." Nicolette began to lose herself in her thoughts. 'That all makes sense, pass the information to Umbrella's enemy's. It could get Steve and me out of here. I just have to be sure no one suspects me.'
"Niki, I know what your thinking-"
"I'm not going to do anything stupid, Steve." She said with a mask of defeat. Inside she was already plotting what to send to her old employers.
"Good." Steve walked to the door, pulling his lab coat on. "You know, you remind me of her."
"Who?" Nicolette asked startled.
"Claire." Steve said with a sad little laugh. "You look like her. Only, your hair and eye's are different, your nose is different, and your personality is different."
"Nice to know." She replied sarcastically. Steve smiled and left her alone in the room to ponder on her new plan. The only hole she could see was the spider like devise. With a single word Wesker could control her, any form of a command and she has to obey or even suffer threw pain. She shook her head and looked down at the clothes on her body, dirty and ripped. What kind of man treated a girl, a woman like this? What was her crime? Fighting for her life? Who has a problem with her doing that? Her sister is still waiting, her aunt is probably going insane on Chris, and Leon would be worried. She was going to help him with his fixation on some spy. Wesker deserves to be betrayed by someone he trusts.
"Miss Holiday, you are instructed to be in the room immediately." Wesker's coldly formal voice echoed out of the intercom. She rolled her eye's and left the room, heading to the room her kidnapper had assigned her to meet him at. Nicolette walked down the hallway to the big wooden door, the entire time lost in her thoughts of deceiving the man who was keeping her alive. When she reached the door she banished all her plans to the back of her mind and pulled the door open. She took a moment to rid herself of any angry emotion that could be lurking in her system, no matter what Steve though she was far from suicidal. She walked in to the dimly light room, looking around for any signs of Wesker. She paused when she noticed were the light was coming from. It was the wall of computers, in front of it was an oddly familiar tall black revolving chair, peaking over the top was a few strands of slicked back white blond hair. She moved over to the chair as quietly as she could. She stood to the side of it glancing at the information on the computer before she looked back at the chair.
"Honestly," She asked, perching herself on a cleared part of the desk and looking at Wesker. "Your obsessed with these chairs as much as you are with those glasses your wearing. I still don't know if you have a warehouse out there filled with these chairs or if this one is carried from place to place."
"Is that all your child like mind can think of?"
"At least I don't have an addiction to random objects."
"No, your more attached to people." Wesker replied coldly.
"Only if their attached to me." She replied simply, pulling her leg up and wrapping her arm's around it. She placed her chin on her knee, watching Wesker. "Did you want something?"
"I saw you defeat Steve."
"How?" She asked unsurprised, she was too use to Wesker and his 'surprises'. 'That's a scary thought.'
"Camera." Wesker replied matter of factually.
"Figures." Nicolette said softly, thinking about how Steve had revealed his powers. "Did you enjoy watching someone else get beat up for once?"
"That's irrelevant." Wesker said turning from the computer and looking at her.
"Then what is relevant?"
"That you need a new teacher." Wesker took a file off the desk right next to her.
"A new teacher?" She asked, her tone completely confused. "Who would teach me then?"
"That's irrelevant."
"Um, am I going to live threw this?" She asked slightly nervous.
"Do I sense a little fear there, Nicolette?" Wesker asked coldly, pulling the file over his face, hiding a smirk.
"No."
"Then you should be fine training with the person I have selected."
"Why am I worried that I'll end up killing him?" She asked getting up and moving away from him.
"I'm sure you wont."
"How can you be sure?"
"He's the best at what he does."
"I thought only you thought you were the best." Nicolette asked walking around the room. Wesker didn't answer. "What, too lost in your reports?"
"You'll have a training session this afternoon." Wesker tossed his report to the side and stood up from his chair. He walked to the door, his boots leaving in dents in the carpet. He paused, looking over his shoulder. "Are you coming?"
"Where?" Nicolette asked in surprise turning to face Wesker's back.
"To your room."
"Room?"
"Yes," Wesker replied coldly. "I have a proper place to put you. Your being in here is too much of a hassle."
"Not my fault you don't know how to lock a door." Nicolette mumbled following him out the door and down the hallway. Wesker led her past several doors and around two corners before he paused in front of a dark polished wood door. He turned the knob, opened the door and walked into the room with Nicolette right behind. She stopped halfway into the room and froze with a gasp.
"What?" Wesker said coldly as he glanced behind him at her. "Is it not satisfactory?"
"It's...it's..." Nicolette looked around the room. The walls were a rosy red color and the carpet was a chocolate brown color. In the corner of the room, up against the wall, was a huge queen sized bed with silver curtains hanging down on from the ceiling. There was a a dark mahogany dresser and chest on ether side's of the room. The dresser had a door leading to a bathroom, the chest had two double doors. The room was partly empty, with several boxes on the floor. She looked back over to Wesker and wiped all emotion from her face. "It's fine."
"Well, it doesn't matter if you like it or not," Wesker replied coldly, walking over to the double doors and opened them. "We can not have you occupying my room"
"How nice of you." Nicolette whispered sarcastically, rolling her eye's behind his back. She walked around the room admiring every detail. Wesker disappeared into the double doors.
"What the fuck are you doing in here?" Nicolette wiped around and found Jacquelyn standing, glaring openly at her, her brown eye's shooting daggers.
"What are you doing here?" Nicolette asked off guard.
"This is my room." Jacquelyn snarled walking up to Nicolette and getting in her face. "I don't like having filth like you in here."
"I don't-"
"Don't even think about getting mouthy with me." Jacquelyn hissed, her eye's now hard and glinting. "Your nothing but Wesker's distraction."
"Back off." A chilling voice reached the two women and caused Jacquelyn jumped backward, away from Nicolette who was oddly relieved to hear Wesker's voice. She shook her head and cleared her head. There was no way she was thinking clearly right now.
"Sir, what are you doing in here?" Jacquelyn asked her voice shaking.
"Showing my, 'little distraction', was it? Her new room." Wesker walked in between both of them holding several garments in his arms. He tossed them into an empty box.
"But, sir, this is my room." The darker skinned woman protested. "How-?"
Wesker bolted forward, his hand wrapping around her throat. "Are you questioning me?"
"I-no sir." Jacquelyn repented, her eye's wide in panic. "I would never do that."
"Are you calling me deft or ignorant?" Wesker growled, his cold expressionless face right next to hers, his glasses glinting in the light. "I know I heard you start to question me."
"I'll never do it again." Jacquelyn whimpered as Wesker released her ruffly.
"Good. Your moving into room 23094."
"A store room." The woman asked shooting a glare at Nicolette. "I thought that's were she was going to be put."
"No. I thought here would work better." Wesker glanced coldly at Nicolette. "I could keep a better eye on her."
"Really." Jacquelyn smiled momentarily and Nicolette half expected her to start doing a victory dance. She rolled her eye's at the smug older woman. "I never thought she was important."
"Leave." Wesker said coldly. "And take some of your," Wesker took in the room. "Clothes and things."
"What about my-?" Jacquelyn cut off as Wesker turned to her, a faint pulse of red behind his sunglasses. "Never mind, I'll just take what's important."
Wesker turned his attention back to the double doors, which, Nicolette realized, was a walk in closet. She stood there and watched as Jacquelyn left the room, her arms full of boxes. Nicolette couldn't believe what was happening. If Wesker was giving her a room then he must be planing to keep her around for a while, it also meant that she was important to what ever his physio brain was concocting.
"Excuse me." Wesker's chilling voice snapped her out of her internal musings. Nicolette turned and looked at him, her face unreadable. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No." Nicolette replied, standing up strait and tall. "Would it matter if you were?"
"I have something that you might, appreciate." Wesker said throwing a backpack on the bed. Nicolette forced herself not to flinch as the bag hit the silver sheets with a soft muted thud.
"What makes you think I'll appreciate it?" She asked, her stubborn and hard headed streak kicking in. "Oh, wait because you said I would."
"Hmph." He walked to the door, not even glancing back at her. "You think you know me, do you?"
"If I did, you would've been dead that first night." Nicolette snapped.
Wesker laughed softly. "I do believe you will enjoy everything in that bag." He grinned evilly at her. "Or you will be forced to."
"I knew it." She sighed with a roll of her eye's as he left. "I'm going to be nothing but a slave to this ass." She couldn't help but smile. "I must be losing my mind if I really think this will be a lot easier then trying not to blow up a lab with Steve."
Nicolette moved the remaining boxes into the hallway and shut the door behind her. She threw herself onto the bed and looked at the bag wondering if she should open it. Would it hurt just to look inside? She reached out for it, her hand hesitant. Why would he put something in there to hurt her when he set up her training for this afternoon? She was just being paranoid. He could have hurt her at any time, why now when he couldn't see her reaction? Nicolette sat up, folding her legs under herself and pulling the black army style backpack closer, resting it against her knees and lap. She pulled open the zipper and reached in, defying her fear. Her hand brushed something soft and sturdy. Nicolette forced herself not to pull her hand out and scream, instead she fished the soft thing out of the bag. What ended up being sprawled out on her bed was some sort of clothing. Nicolette reached out and poked it. It didn't move, but felt like silk. She pushed the back pack away and picked it up. She held it out in front of herself, taking in the shades of black swirled with an icy shade of blue. In her hands was an off the shoulder, long sleeved battle suit. The top plunged down dangerously, but was covered with a thin, heavy icy blue piece of cloth. The entire thing looked like it would end up being several sizes too small. Nicolette placed it down and continued to look inside the army style back pack. Inside she found several other copy's of the battle suit, several pairs of black heeled boots, and some other things that she had been needing. It bothered her that it was Wesker who had given her these things, that he had even known that she had needed them. She shook her head and stood up. If she had a training session then she had better get ready. For once Nicolette could take a shower and not fear Wesker's revenge.
/~/~/~/
Chris gaped at Jill, his expression beyond words to describe. "Wha-wha-what?"
"Oh, Chris." Jill looked up at him, her gray blue eye's soft. "She's our daughter."
"How the hell did we have-have a baby?" Chris slid down the wall into a sitting position.
"It was a very long time ago-"
"1991 was a long time ago?" Chris buried his face in his hands muffling his voice.
"Right now, yes. It was a long time ago." Jill stayed calm, sinking to her knee's beside Chris. "And we both were crazy, young and reckless."
"Ha!" Chris laughed miserably.
"It was a crazy night." Jill continued ignoring Chris's outburst. "And I guess we both drank too much and-"
"Ugh!" Chis moaned. "Why didn't you ever tell me before?"
"Chris, I was trying to give us all a better life."
"You call this better-?"
"Chris, I was seventeen." Jill cut him off, her voice trembling. "Seventeen. And you were eighteen. We both were just starting out on our own, living our own lives. We couldn't have handled a baby. I couldn't even think about telling you without having a panic attack. I took a leave from training, do you remember? I had to pull some strings to get Niki away from the dangerous life I had chosen."
"So you sent her to your sister?"
"Not without complications." Jill winced visibly.
"Complications?"
"Spencer." Jill shuddered. "At the time I didn't think much of it. I mean, what bad could come from the highest ranking person in a very important company like Umbrella taking interest in our baby?"
"Interest?" Chris raised his voice. "What the hell does that mean, Jill?"
"He wanted to train her when she was older. It was the only way he would allow anyone to help me get my baby girl away."
"So you agreed?" Chris looked at her, he's eye's wide.
"Not entirely willingly. He promised to look after her and my sister, keep them safe and make sure they had everything they could need. He promised me that she would have a life that I wanted so bad to give her." Jill sniffed meeting Chris's disbelieving stare. "I had no choice, Chris."
"You could have told me." Chris's voice was stiff as he pushed himself to his feet and looked down at her. "Did you think I would walk away from my b-" Chris's voice broke and he took a moment to steady himself. "From my baby girl?"
"I didn't want to put you in any position that you would regret."
"Too late." Chris snapped.
"I can't do anything to change what I did when I was seventeen, Chris." Jill replied pointedly. "I have no idea what Spencer did to her. Don't you think I regret that? That I regret not getting to watch her grow? Or take her first steps? Say her first words?" Tears were brimming and flooding her eye's. "Don't you think I regret the life I missed out on with my daughter? That I wish she could have called me, Mom, and not her worry crazy Aunt when she left?"
Chris stood there speechless.
"You don't understand. You didn't know she existed." Tear's swam down Jill's face. "I did. I had to live with that. I didn't want you to. I couldn't do that to someone I-to you."
Chris walked over to her, his anger melting away, leaving only fear and sadness in it's midst. He crouched down next to her and threw his arms around her, holding her close. "Jill. Jill, it's okay. If she's still-"
"Chris," Jill moaned, crying into his shoulder. "Don't. She is alive. I know she is."
"Okay, then we will get her back." Chris whispered into her hair. 'I just know she wont be the same as before. Those viruses...they aren't natural. '
/~/~/~/
Nicolette grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself before she turned off the water in the shower. She shook her long, wet, knotted hair out and looked at the battle suit that hung on the door. 'Does he expect me to shrink to fit into it?' She took it down and began to slip it on. She was surprised to find that it fit and hugged every corner of her body in all the right spots. Nicolette shrugged and slipped on the boots, that strangely fit her feet to every nook and cranny of her feet. 'Perverted old man must have taken my sizes.' She rolled her eye's. It took her a few moments to locate a brush and a hairdryer that Jacquelyn had not been able to take with her. Nicolette began to bush dry her hair for the first time in a month. Halfway done and a series of knocks and shouts outside the door interrupted her. She switched off the switch on the blow dryer and placed the brush on the cream colored marble top to the sink counter.
"Can I help you?" She called irritatedly.
"Niki! You need to hurry up!" Steve's voice was loud and high pitched.
"What?" Nicolette ran to the door her damp, curling hair fanning out behind her. "Steve?"
"Oh God, he's going to kill me!"
"Steve?" Nicolette unlocked the locks and ripped the door open. "Steve what's wrong?"
Steve was pacing back and forth, his hands pulling at his hair. "He's going to kill me!"
"Who?" Nicolette asked standing in the doorway in a calm panic. "What's going on?"
"Your late for your training session." Steve was right in the middle of a panic attack. "Your late for your training session."
"No I'm not," Nicolette replied calmly walking up to Steve and stopping him in the middle of the room. "My training session starts at five."
"It's five fifteen!" Steve ripped himself away from Nicolette. "You are late."
"What?" Nicolette glanced at the clock on the wall. Her heart jumped into her throat when she saw that Steve was right. "Oh, well. It's not like he'll find out I was a little late."
"Niki," Steve shook his head, his eye's wide. "I'm sure he'll find out."
"Steve, breath. I'll leave right now, okay?" Nicolette left the room in a rush, leaving Steve standing in the middle of the room still freaking out. She ran to the training room in her new high heeled boots with out losing her balance, even when dodging Umbrella workers and turning narrow corners. She burst into the room, her breathing normal like she had just walked all the way here, instead of running the whole way. The door shut softly behind her as she took in the changes of the room. There were no more benches or chairs. Every bit furniture had been removed.
"Nice of you to finally arrive." Nicolette's eye's widened as her head turned slowly to the side, in the direction of the voice.
"Wesker?" She tried not to stare openly at his naked chest. "Wha-? Why?" The truth hit her like a wall of bricks. "Your my teacher?"
"Surprised?" Wesker asked coldly. Nicolette ripped her gaze from his chest and looked at his face.
"Pleasantly." She said sarcastically, moving farther into the room and brushing past him to get a sip of water from one of the many bottles in the corner.
"Would you like to explain why your late?" Wesker's voice was chilling.
"Your not my teacher." Nicolette replied just as frostily. "Your my trainer. Nothing personal, but I've learned from experience not to get personal with my trainers."
"I own your life."
"Whoa! Slow down there." Nicolette raised her eyebrow. "I don't see a ring on my finger. All you have is a failed 'experiment.'"
Wesker sighed angrily. "Your an embarrassment to women everywhere."
"Look who's talking." She shot back, flipping her hair out of her face. "And if you must know, I was taking a shower." She looked over her shoulder at Wesker. "Happy?"
"Stretch. I don't need you breaking something."
Nicolette rolled her eye's and began her stretches. She felt a pair of eye's watching her.
"Can you stare at your own ass or something?" She asked disgustedly, continuing with her stretching.
"You think to much of yourself." Wesker replied walking around the room.
"That's rich coming from you." She mumbled as she finished stretching. "Now, lets get this over with."
"Yes," Nicolette felt a rush of cold air and slammed into a wall. "Lets."
Nicolette landed on her feet and flipped out of the way just as Wesker punched the wall that she had just been thrown into. She narrowed her eye's and focused on him, trying not to be mesmerized by his tanned skin and strong muscles. Instead she focused on the twitching movements of his muscles, the only way she could watch and find out his next move. 'If only I could get him to take off those stupid fucking glasses.' Wesker moved in front of her and reached for her waist, Nicolette reached up and snatched his glasses of his face, reveling his slightly glowing cat like eye's and then dodged out of the way, shoving the glasses into the front of her shirt. Wesker glared at her, his red eye's flashing.
"Your going to regret that."
"If it make's this even, I don't think I will." Nicolette responded evenly, her voice calm.
"This is far from even." Wesker growled his eye's glowing brighter. He flashed out and kicked her in the stomach, forcing her back a few steps. Wesker clenched his hand into a fist and swung at her only to hit empty air. He turned his head to find her standing several feet away. "I see that you'll have to learn the hard way."
"That won't help my abilities." Nicolette replied hotly. "It will only make me useless to Umbrella."
Wesker growled in irritation. "You don't even know what your abilities are."
"Then teach me." She snarled. Wesker moved toward her and grabbed her writs from behind, Nicolette swung herself backwards over his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist. Wesker immediately released one of her wrists reaching for her thigh. Nicolette moved to avoid his hand and slipped, causing Wesker to grab her butt. Nicolette's eye's grew wide and she grabbed a hold of his perfect hair and gave it a yank, leaving it with a messy chunk of hair sticking out from the rest of his perfectly gelled hair. She released and jumped away from him, ripping his arm away from her body. Wesker turned to her his usually expressionless mask was cracked as he stared openly at Nicolette.
"Are you trying to get killed?" Wesker growled.
"No." Nicolette retorted. "I generally don't appreciate having my ass grabbed."
"What are you talking about?"
"You," Nicolette stormed up to him, her strange blue eye's blazing. "Sexually harassed me."
"What are you implying?" Wesker's eye's began to blaze red. "That I wanted to touch you?"
"You sure didn't stop yourself." Nicolette snapped, anger flashing across her face.
"I grabbed your thigh." Wesker retorted coolly, his eye's started to lose their red glow. "You think that everything has a romantic essence to it. Like every woman."
"I bet you wish I did actually think that way. If I did I so wouldn't be here right now." She growled. "I would have married some random guy that looked at me twice when I was eighteen."
"A child, get married?" Wesker looked away from her and off into the distance. "Well, that would have saved me from all this trouble."
"If you had gotten married, old man, I wouldn't even be in this mess." Nicolette found herself nose to nose with her trainer, and worst enemy. "She would have kept you in line and this world would be back the way it was before-"
Wesker grabbed her jaw and held her closer to his face. "Back before what? Humans are on their way to self annihilation. I am doing nothing but trying to save all humanity." Wesker released her jaw ruffly.
"By what?" She asked, rubbing her jaw. "Turning all humans into what you turned me into?"
"It's not as bad as you make it out to be."
"I'm a monster!" Nicolette protested, glaring at Wesker in disgust. "My existence is unnatural."
"It's far from that." Wesker growled, slamming her into a wall. "Very far away."
"How is it not?" Nicolette gasped, feeling a tremor of pain in her back as she hit the wall. "What's your big explanation to how I'm not unnatural?"
"Viruses." Wesker replied softly, his tone coldly formal. "Viruses are not always invented, they would have created themselves eventually. Umbrella merely sped up their chemical makeup and breeding habits. You where injected with two very powerful viruses that would have ran rampant around the world in several thousand years."
"Then why invent them now?"
"Why not create a new genesis before the entire race of humans die out?" Wesker asked his nose nearly touching hers. "It would be a pity to lose humanity's genetics, don't you think?"
"They wouldn't be human!" She replied in horror.
"In slight ways they would be."
"Would they have feelings? Passion?" Nicolette looked away from Wesker, she didn't even want to acknowledge his existence. "Would they understand love? Would they feel it?"
"Emotions are nothing but a weakness." Wesker growled past his teeth.
"No." Nicolette snapped her head back and glared directly at him, all the passion in her body aimed directly at him. "Your wrong."
"What did you just say?" Wesker held her closer to the wall.
"Your wrong. Emotions aren't a weakness." Nicolette didn't back down. "They are the strongest force in the world."
"Your fairy tales are stuck in your head little girl." Wesker breathed glaring back at her. "Confusing reality and dreamland."
"I think your confusing me with yourself." Nicolette tried to shake him off of herself. "I don't mix my dreams with reality. If I did this would be one strange world."
"Why would I confuse myself with anyone?" Wesker asked. "Let alone you."
"I was just attempting to get it past your thick skull in to your narrow mind that-." Nicolette stopped and looked Wesker square in the eye. "You know what, your not worth my breath."
"Ignorant little girl." Wesker snarled, his breath billowing on Nicolette's face. "I should-"
"Should what, you arrogant son of a-" Nicolette was cut off by a pair of lips crushing her own. Her eye's grew wide in surprise and horror. She felt herself give in, her eye's fluttered close and her arms were loosened from his grip and she threw them around his neck, pulling him closer. She felt his arms wrap around her waist and tighten, holding her closer to him. Nicolette felt her fingers entangle themselves in Wesker's heavily gelled hair and her legs wrap around his hips as he crushed her more into the wall. She could feel his hand move away from her waist and back to the of the front of the battle suit she was wearing and touched the spider like devise. Nicolette felt slight pain as the wires retracted causing her to tighten her grip in Wesker's hair. A low wild sound escaped the back of his throat as he pressed his lips against hers so ruffly that if felt as if their lips were molted lava, and lost his hand in her hair while the other kept her close to his body.
Wesker felt her skin on his and suppressed a shiver. He tried to remember what had caused this but his thinking was cloudy as he tried to hold the girl closer. 'Why is this...happening?' He thought semi clearly for the first time in the past twenty minutes. 'What am I doing?' Wesker's eye's shot open and he ripped himself away from her and watched her fall to the floor. When she hit the ground her eye's bolted open and she glanced around herself in confusion. Nicolette glance up at him and narrowed her eye's as she sat up.
"Was that another one of your experiments?" She asked irritatedly rolling her eye's. "You know your disgusting. You call me a little girl and then you turn around and do these type's of experiments on me. That's borderline molestation."
"If you can not withstand a test or two how are you going to learn how to survive?" Wesker replied coldly, turning away from her and walking away. "It's not like you will live by pure will."
'Well...that's one way to shut her up.' Wesker thought to himself as he left the room.
Nicolette watched him go with a strange feeling in her body, her hand immediately went to her chest. There she found nearly healed scars. 'What the hell is going on around here?'
/~/~/~/
A dark haired girl held two magnums and was aiming at several zombie like dummy's. She shot them repeatedly in every vital organ she could see.
"Good! Good!" The girl quit firing and turned her head to look at the woman calling out to her. The woman had red hair and bright dark blue eye's. She was smiling. "Your doing good, Roy."
"Thanks, Claire." The girl smiled, her dark green eye's glowing.
"That was very good." The girl turned to see Chris and Jill standing in front of her, both of their eye's rimmed in red. "Royal, we need to talk to you."
The smile on Royal's face began to fade as she took in their attitude. "Oh dear God." Royal's eye's grew wide and her mouth dropped. "God, no. Please don't tell me that...not Niki...God not Niki."
Jill stepped forward and hugged Royal. "Roy, she fought like a tiger."
"She really did." Chris replied, his voice thick with some sort of emotion. "It's just that-"
"No zombie could take my sister down!" Royal snapped, her emotions raging.
"It wasn't a zombie." Chris glanced at Jill who nodded. "It was a man named Albert Wesker."
"Albert Wesker?" Royal repeated, glancing from person to person. "Who the hell names their kid Albert?"
/~/~/~/
Nicolette glared down at the spider like devise only a foot away from her. Her mind was focused only on Wesker, her entire body sheathing in anger at the way he had taken advantage of her emotional moment to kiss her. What kind of man-? 'Only the low down, dirty scum that make up the very fabric of a douche.' She thought angrily pushing herself to her feet. Nicolette continued to glare down at the devise, she walked over to it and crushed in under her foot. She then turned on her heals and walked briskly out of the room, right in to Steve.
"There you are!" Steve smiled at her, his eye's soft. 'Does he know?' "I was sent to get you."
"Why?" Nicolette asked trying to mask her annoyance. 'Why can't I get a break here?'
"There is a little briefing that Wesker," Nicolette groaned inwardly and rolled her eye's at the name. "Wants us to be at."
"Why does he need a, 'little girl' that he pushes around there?"
"What?" Steve looked at Nicolette alarmingly.
"Why does he want us there?" She amended looking away from Steve.
"We are two of the few, well we are the only really, that Wesker considers good enough to know his plans."
"Plans?" Nicolette repeated thoughtfully. 'Is it really that easy?'
"Well, yeah." Steve grabbed her arm and tugged her down the hall. "We enforce all the plans, well, uh, you do now."
"Is it because I'm biologically stronger and more powerful." Nicolette guessed, her mind racing around the information leak she was planing.
"Well, actually. All the men are scared to the bone about you. They think your-"
"Just like Wesker." Nicolette replied darkly as Steve pulled her into a meeting room. It was entirely white aside from the clear long glass table, the small gray revolving chairs, a huge monitor on the wall, and a huge revolving black chair. "Seriously, what is with that chair? Does he lug it everywhere?"
"Shh." Steve pulled her over to the corner of the room. "Just, don't talk, don't question anything, and..." He drifted off looking her up and down. "Just-just don't be you, okay?"
"Shh." Steve pulled her over to the corner of the room. "Just, don't talk, don't question anything, and..." He drifted off looking her up and down. "Just-just don't be you, okay?"
"Steve I-"
"Zip it!" Steve hissed his eye's wide in panic at she meeting was called to order and Wesker sat in his huge revolving black chair.
"Welcome." Wesker's voice was chillingly formal, Nicolette looked at him and rolled her eye's at his sunglasses. 'I hate those fucking things.' "Let's get to business."
"Um, Niki?" Nicolette glanced at Steve to see him staring at her chest.
"Steve?" Nicolette whispered out ragged and folded her arms over chest. "Stop looking there."
"No, what happened to the spider thing?" Steve's eye's were wider then ever. "And were did you get those glasses?"
"Get what?" Nicolette moved her arms and looked down, handing out of her shirt was a pair of black, unscratched sunglasses. "How-?" Nicolette flashed back the fight and how she had just plucked them off his face. "Oh dear God." She glanced back at Wesker to see him wearing an exact copy of the glasses she had hanging on to her shirt. "At least I know he's got more then one pair of glasses now."
"Shh." Steve pulled her over to the corner of the room. "Just, don't talk, don't question anything, and..." He drifted off looking her up and down. "Just-just don't be you, okay?"
"Steve I-"
"Zip it!" Steve hissed his eye's wide in panic at she meeting was called to order and Wesker sat in his huge revolving black chair.
"Welcome." Wesker's voice was chillingly formal, Nicolette looked at him and rolled her eye's at his sunglasses. 'I hate those fucking things.' "Let's get to business."
"Um, Niki?" Nicolette glanced at Steve to see him staring at her chest.
"Steve?" Nicolette whispered out ragged and folded her arms over chest. "Stop looking there."
"No, what happened to the spider thing?" Steve's eye's were wider then ever. "And were did you get those glasses?"
"Get what?" Nicolette moved her arms and looked down, handing out of her shirt was a pair of black, unscratched sunglasses. "How-?" Nicolette flashed back the fight and how she had just plucked them off his face. "Oh dear God." She glanced back at Wesker to see him wearing an exact copy of the glasses she had hanging on to her shirt. "At least I know he's got more then one pair of glasses now."
"Shhh." Steve whisper, turning his attention back to the meeting. "Tell me about it later."
Nicolette rolled her eye's and looked away from every living thing, trying to block out the entire meeting. They were about to close the meeting when Daniel Moore stood up and addressed Wesker.
"Sir, our mole at the BSAA has finally sent their leaked information to us. Apparently there has been an uprising with some agents."
"What about?" Wesker asked coldly. Daniel glanced in Nicolette's direction before looking at the table in front of him. "Ahh, I see. They want their, little nuisance back."
Nicolette felt her anger grow deeper as her eye's shot to Wesker's figure. "I wasn't a nuisance to them." She retorted.
"Children should only speak when addressed." Wesker replied coldly.
"So I'm still a child to you?" Nicolette asked, holding her anger back.
"I believe that is what I said, are you hard of hearing?"
"No." She glared openly at him. "I'm just making sure that you completely thought of me as a child. The way you treat me is not the way any self respecting man would treat a child."
"Were are you going with this?" Wesker sighed exhaustively.
"You-you hate Christopher?" Nicolette's anger was affecting her sight, all she could see was red, she couldn't see Wesker's hands clenched into fists. "Really? He wouldn't treat a 'child' like you would. He would have-"
Nicolette never got the chance to finish her sentence, she was slammed into the wall, the right side of her face smarting. She raised her eye's to see Wesker standing above her his face encased in his cold, unfeeling mask. He glared down at her as she lifted her hand to her face, touching the place he had smacked her. Wesker turned way from her and walked to the door about to leave.
"Chris never would have hit me." Nicolette choked out fighting the tears that were biting at the lids of her eye's. "He would've hurt anything that did."
Wesker turned around and was in front of her before she could blink. His eye's were flashing behind his glasses as he kicked her. "Never, never say Chris's name." Wesker growled at her as he turned his back on her again and stormed out of the room. Nicolette curled into herself, tying to ease away the pain without drawing attention. She felt a hand on her shoulders, trying to pull her to her feet, and her eye's snapped up to see Steve looking down at her, pity and sadness in his eye's. Nicolette tore herself away from him and scrambled to her feet. A snicker caught her attention as she stood, wobbly a few feet away from Steve and his worrying expression. Nicolette snapped her head in the direction of the sound to see Jacquelyn Taylor, in a black skirt and a low v neck blouse with a pair of silver high heels, smiling at her, looking like a child that had just been given the perfect Christmas present. Nicolette glanced around the room to see some hiding smiles behind their hands with pity in their eye's, while others looked torn between pretending nothing had happened and coming forward to help her. Her gaze ended back on Jacquelyn before she straitened herself up completely, proudly, and walked out of the room with out looking back.
"Niki?" Steve called out as the door shut behind her. Nicolette wasted no time breaking into a run down the hallway into her designated room, throwing the door shut behind her and locking it. She took several deep breaths staring around the room that had been forced on her. A room she didn't want. Nothing in the room was her's, she missed the old bunk bed she and her sister had shared when she wasn't training in her 'boarding school'. Nicolette missed the old stuffed animals, that Royal had collected ever since Nicolette had given her that pink bunny Royal's first birthday, that had always cluttered the entire bottom bunk and parts of the pink carpeted floor. She missed the white flowered wall paper that had been dotted with old family pictures of picnics and Christmases, posters of bands and movies, and paint from when Royal wanted to be a famous artist and Nicolette had made fun of her painting, causing her sister to toss a paintbrush at her. A sad, angry smile pulled at Nicolette's lips and the tears that pricked at her lids turned into daggers as the memories of her childhood room plagued her. She could remember helping Royal with her spelling when her sister had decided to try writing a short story. Nicolette could remember tucking her little sister in every night that she was home, she could remember the night she had sang Royal to sleep after their father died. That room had been home. The room she and Royal had shared at the BSAA was on it's way to making them feel at home. Wesker had ruined it all. He had dashed the hope Nicolette and Royal had of living a slightly happy life and moving on from everything they had been past. He had pulled her from the only person in the world that understood her. Nicolette opened her eye's and glared around the room, her eye's flashing.
"I hate this place." Nicolette whispered, holding back her tears. "And I hate him, more then anything in this world."
Nicolette looked down at the battle suit that she was wearing. Disgust at herself welled up inside as she glared at the suit. Nicolette felt the urge to rip it off and tare it to ribbons but her practicality kicked in. Nicolette knew that for as long as she lived she would never forgive Wesker for what he did to her and how he treated her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the sunglasses still hanging out of the front of the battle suit. In a rage she grabbed the glasses and threw them against the wall. Nicolette glared off into the middle distance, rage glazing over her eye's.
"Oh, Wesker," She whispered darkly, an evil smile pulling at her lips. "If you thought Christopher was annoying, your about to be unpleasantly surprised. There's only so much I can do to save my sister, but believe me, I would die for her."
/~/~/~/
Steve was sitting alone in the lab, reading his old notes and reports on his old failed experiments. Trying to figure out were he went wrong on his most resent one, trying to remove the Veronica virus from his body using a needle and a shot of whiskey. Steve was so into his old reports and notes that he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the doors to the lab thud softly as it closed.
"Relax," Wesker's formal tone reached out in the darkness and reached Steve's ear's, oddly calming him and angering him. Wesker walked up to the lab table and looked down at the papers that Steve had scattered in him moment of fear. "I see your still working."
"I can't really focus on anything right now. So I thought why not pay attention to something that I already know."
"What's blocking your focus?" Wesker asked unfeelingly, his face still angled down at the papers.
"Nicolette." Steve noticed Wesker tense up at the poor girl's name, but he continued with out pausing. "She wont let me into her room. Or even talk to me, not even to tell me to go away. All I could hear from the door was sniffing and something being thrown at the door."
"Steve." Wesker turned away from the table and looked at his machines. "I need you to do something for me."
"What's that?" Steve asked, his eye's weary.
"I need you to run some tests." All Steve could see was Wesker's back as it tensed up defensively.
"I've been running-"
"That's not what I meant." Wesker replied sharply.
"Well," Steve stood up and went to grab his lab coat, slipping it on as he continued talking. "What do you mean?"
"I have been feeling..." Wesker cleared his throat. "Feeling..."
"Yes?" Steve washed his hands as he waited patiently for Wesker to finish is sentence.
"A strange feeling in my chest." Wesker concluded. "I want you to figure out why I'm feeling it."
"I'll do my best." Steve walked over to an X-ray machine. "Come over here and relax into the seat."
Wesker went over to the dentist like chair and situated himself into it. Steve set up the ray's and the wrist and ankle wraps.
"Sir."
"What?" Wesker asked coldly.
"You need to take your glasses off." Steve held his hand out for them. "The tests wont work if you have them on the entire time."
Wesker sat there for a moment, calculating how much he wanted his test results. He reached up, took his glasses off his face and placed them into Steve's hand, glaring up at Steve.
"If you lose those, you will regret it." Wesker said coldly. Steve placed them on a table and secured Wesker in the machine. He then walked behind a screen with a remote in his hands.
"Ready?" Steve called. He heard a strange noise come from Wesker's restrained form. Steve continued with every test he could think of, not entirely liking the results and not wanting to be the one to tell Wesker, but knowing that it was unavoidable. When he finally finished all the tests and calculated all the final results it was eleven PM.
"What is wrong with me?" Wesker demanded as he slipped his glasses back on and buttoning up his shirt.
"I, I'm not sure how to tell you this." Steve replied looking over the results and flipping the pages on his clipboard.
"Just. Say. It." Wesker growled, his head angled in Steve's direction. "What. Is. Wrong. With. Me."
"Nothing." Steve said tossing the clipboard to the side and pulling the plastic gloves off. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with you."
"There has to be." Wesker snapped, his eye's blazing under his glasses."There is no other explanation."
"Tell me this," Steve ran his fingers threw his hair and looked sleepily over his shoulder at Wesker. "What does the pain feel like?"
"It-it's not really a pain." Wesker replied, a little unsettled. "It's more of an uncomfortable twinge."
"Where?" Steve asked, stifling a yawn.
"Right above my-" Wesker cut himself off. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. There is nothing wrong with me. That's all I wanted to be told."
Wesker left the room in a bit of a huff, leaving a very sleepy Steve to look on after him. Steve shook his head slowly.
"Is everyone around here losing their minds?"
/~/~/~/
"Damn it!" Nicolette cursed under her breath, her eye's focused on the computer monitor in front of her. "What's his fucking password?"
Still focused on the stubborn monitor, she tried every password that she could think of and her frustration grew as each one was shut down. Nicolette was about to give up and throw the computer out the window when a name came to mind. She typed in the words and the computer opened up all the files and plans that Wesker had stored.
"Hu, wow." Nicolette was slightly shocked as she surfed the information. "You must have really liked that Burkin guy, Wesker."
Nicolette took out an old USB stick that Steve had given her, full of odd bits of information on some sort of new virus that he had been thinking about making, and plugged it into the hard drive. She began copying files and moving the copy's to the storage drive. With every new folder she copied she could feel a little pressure lift off her heart, and with every copy she moved to the USB stick she could feel her heart pound harder against her ribs. Every once in a while it gave an uncomfortable twinge. Nicolette tried to ignore the feeling as much as she could, it didn't bother her that much until she felt a little guilt prick at her heartstrings.
"Stop." She muttered under her breath as she continued with her work. "This is for the greater good. Wesker needs to be taken down." A little sadness mixed with the guilt. Nicolette rolled her eye's and sighed. "If I don't everyone is going to die. Very painfully." She muttered as she scanned the top of one file. It was talking about a creature called a Banzin. Something about it having impenetrable gray skin with some sort of super strength and super fast learning intelligent brain. There was part of a report on a large group of Umbrella personal trying to take the creation down ending with all of them being slaughtered and the person taking the notes and writing the report had survived. "Wesker." Nicolette muttered angrily closing the file and copying it on to her USB. Working as fast as she could she copied all the files and information she could find that she deemed important enough to copy. Nicolette was about to log out and shut the computer down when she caught the name of one document. Valentine. Nicolette shivered, remembering her aunt telling her why she hadn't been to visit in years. Wesker had messed with everyone in her family and the person that was almost as close to her as her sister was the person that he had used as a personal servant. Sending her to do all his dirty work and using her against Chris. Nicolette felt tears prick at her eye's.
"Why? Why Jill?" Nicolette muttered as she opened the document and unplugged the USB stick. Nicolette read the information with memories floating in the back of her brain. She remembered how Jill had always stayed with Royal, Nicolette, and their mother when she was taking a little vacation. Jill had always spoiled both of them with toys and attention while their mother and father went out. Nicolette could remember the day after she and her sister had heard that their father was dead, Jill had taken a short leave to see them and help their mother out with everything around the house. Jill was always there. The day that she had been reported dead, she had jumped out of a window for some important reason, had been on of the most devastating in Nicolette's life. That was the first day Royal had taken care of her. Royal never questioned anything about why Nicolette had been so heartbroken, she too had a very broken heart. And the day that Nicolette had come home she found that her mother had been infected with the t virus, it was no longer her mother, it was a zombie that had her little sister hiding in a closet scared for her life. Nicolette had dodged her mother in shock, still processing what was going on. The zombie mad a move for her again and Nicolette knocked it sideways with a kick. Royal had climbed out of the closet and ran up the stairs to the attic screaming for Nicolette to follow. Nicolette had knocked the zombie to the ground with a second kick and ran after her sister, climbed into the attic after her and shut the door. They waited there for the longest time and just when they felt like giving up they heard guns going off and felt a gentle tugging on the other side of the door. Jill's voice talked softly on the other side of the door, it was muffled but both Royal and Nicolette knew it was her. They threw the door open wide and hugged her tightly, both crying. "How could he do that to a family? How could he think doing all this is good for anyone?"
"Well," Nicolette started at the sound of Wesker's voice and shoved the USB stick into a small pocket in the battle suit before she turned and looked at him defiantly. "I should have known that you would break in to one of my personal accounts eventually. I just was not expecting it to be today."
"Well, you should learn to expect the unexpected." Nicolette retorted turning her attention back to the computer trying to ignore her pounding heart. "Will you stop scaring me like that? Make some noise when you enter a room."
"Maybe you should expect the unexpected." Wesker replied coolly, placing his hand on the desk on ether side of her and looking over her shoulder at what she was reading.
"Don't turn my own words on me and if I do there wont ever be any surprises in life." Nicolette replied smartly a small smile appeared on her lips. Wesker glanced at her, Nicolette glanced up to see him looking at her. "What?"
"It's nothing." Wesker replied looking away from her and back to what she was reading. "Is this an interesting subject to you?"
"In a way." Nicolette had trouble breathing with Wesker's chin a few inches above her shoulder. "Jill is my aunt."
"Really?" Nicolette could feel his breath in her ear, blowing strands of her light blond hair in front of her vision, and the vibrations of his voice hit her body. "I never would have guessed."
"Is-is there something wrong?" Nicolette asked him as she tried to focus on the words on the screen. "Your acting...nicer."
"What do you mean, nicer?" She could feel his red cat like eye's burning into her face as she tried, and failed, to read about her aunt.
"You haven't thrown me into a wall yet." Nicolette replied with a small laugh. Wesker shifted slightly, bringing himself slightly closer.
"You haven't made me want to, yet." Wesker replied, moving her hand off the mouse and clicked it several times, bringing up a hidden file. Inside it was a picture of some sort of silver liquid in vile. "You should start studying this."
"What is it?"
"A little mission for you and Steve." Wesker murmured formally. "I thought that it would be better to have you know now."
"When?"
"Two days."
"That's fast." Nicolette whispered skimming the information. "You want us to retrieve this virus?"
"Yes, but I'm not sure were it comes from." Wesker stood up strait and moved away from her. Nicolette turned in her chair and looked up at him, he was only a foot away put she could still smell his strangely intoxicating scent. He smelt like autumn, cinnamon, mist, melted chocolate and had a slight man like musk. "It will be up to you and Steve to find it and bring it back."
"Are you sure you can trust me?" Nicolette breathed looking away from him and back at the computer.
"I trust you not to abandon Steve." Wesker replied coldly. "I know he couldn't if he tried to. Besides, you wouldn't get far."
"Don't work yourself up." Nicolette tried to breath threw her mouth to block out the smell of Wesker's skin. "You know I couldn't leave. I have no life." Nicolette smiled at her last sentence.
"Hmm, well then." Wesker walked slowly away from her.
"Wesker?" Nicolette called out not turning away from the computer.
"Yes, Nicolette?"
"What kind of cologne are you wearing?"
"Cologne?" Wesker sounded purely amused. "I don't own any. All you smell is my essence."
Wesker left Nicolette in the room looking after him. "Jerk." She muttered rolling her eye's. "Self centered Jerk." Nicolette got to her feet and shut down the computer, heading to her room. She only had a few hours to write up a letter and put it into one of the mail sorters. Ironically, as Steve had told her a few weeks ago, they barely sort the mail. It was a well known fact that they didn't read anything that had Wesker's name on it or had anything to do with him. 'All I have to do is make sure his name is on the envelope and I can get away with mailing it. Beyond that, I really don't know what I'm going to do.' Nicolette shut and locked the door behind herself and walked over to her bed. She pulled out an old laptop that Steve had given her and hooked it up to a printer that Jacquelyn had forgotten to take with her when she moved her things from the room. Nicolette immediately set to work by plugging in her USB and copying every bit of information on to a document. Nicolette kept feeling like someone was looking over her shoulder and that someone was breathing in her ear, but when she turned around she couldn't find anyone there. Nicolette shook her head and turned her attention back to her letter. She was nearly finished she closed her eye's briefly. Nicolette blinked her eye's open to find herself back in the computer lab looking at the document on the monitor. She felt warm breath against her neck and soft strange weight on her shoulder. A sweet scent hit her nostrils as she turned her head. Nicolette's eye's grew wide when she saw the head on her shoulders. Wesker didn't have his glasses on, for the first time Nicolette could see his eye's without the anger and irritation shadowing them and they took her breath away. They were clear and cat-like, they had her trapped in there unusually soulful depths. Wesker's expression was soft and her gazed into her eye's. Nicolette could see his face move closer to hers and she jolted away in surprise.
"Wha-?" Nicolette woke up to find her face on the keyboard of the laptop. "Shoot! I fell asleep!" Glancing at the clock to see it was six twenty she hurried threw the rest of the letter, copying and pasting entire folders and documents. Nicolette had nearly finished when she heard a knock at her door and she froze in shock.
"Niki?" Steve's voice came, muffled, from the other side of the door. Nicolette continued to type out the last of the letter. "Niki? Please talk to me, Niki."
Nicolette appraised her final copy of the letter and printed in out.
"Nicolette! I know your in there! I can hear the printer going!" Nicolette glanced at the door as she folded up the very thick letter and stuffed it into the envelope. "Come on Niki! Talk to me. I miss talking to you!"
"I've only been in here for a couple of hours." Nicolette mumbled under her breath as she sealed the envelope and stuffed it into the front of her battle suit.
"Nicolette! Please!" Steve was pulling on the door. "Why are you so upset? You know how Wesker is!"
Nicolette got to her feet and walked to the door, after she hid the USB stick and shut down the computer. She opened the door and watched Steve fall to the floor before stepping over him, heading down the hallway. Nicolette didn't look back or respond to Steve as he called her name. Nicolette blocked out any emotion that threatened to show on the surface. All she wanted was for this all to end. She wanted to go back to the BSAA HQ and hug her little sister. Nicolette just wanted to go home to what little family she had left. Nicolette turned the corner and saw a tall, pale man about her age, his hair was a blue black color. He looked up as Nicolette walked past and did a double take.
"Cl-Claire?" He choked out his forget-me-not blue eye's wide. The man stepped in front of her. "Is that you?"
"Who the hell are you?" Nicolette asked in irritation, glaring at the man who looked into her eye's and flinched backwards.
"Nope, wrong person." The man muttered under his breath. "My name is Walker, Walker Haywood."
"Walker Haywood?" Nicolette asked, questioningly lifting an eyebrow as she looked him up and down. How the hell...? "Whatever. Do you know were I can put this letter?" Nicolette fished it out of her suit in one fluid movement. "Wesker sent me to mail it, but he forgets that I don't know this place as well as he does."
"Oh," Walker appraised her and held his hand out. "I can take that."
"Um, I'm not-"
"It's okay, I know where the letter needs to go." Nicolette glanced from Walker to the letter in her hands, she felt herself begin to resist the urge to put the letter back, to rip it up. "It's okay," Nicolette looked up at Walker in shock and took a step back. "You can trust me."
"I-" Nicolette looked down at the letter in her hand again. 'What's wrong with me?' Nicolette took a deep breath. 'Okay, just give him the letter. Just move your hand out and put the letter in his hand.' Nicolette's hand started to shake a little before she drew it back an inch. 'What? Why can't I-?' Nicolette found herself lost in a rush of memories. Wesker's face right next to her's yesterday in training. Wesker showing her the room she was to stay in. The way he acted towards her last night. 'What's wrong with me?' Nicolette closed her eye's and forced herself to remember how Wesker had thrown her into a wall. How he had slapped her and kicked her. How he had tried to kill her. Nicolette opened her eye's and looked at Walker, who's surprisingly gentle blue eye's were focused worriedly on her. She smiled at him and moved her hand closer to his opened one. Then Nicolette felt a hand on her waist, firm and commanding, and another tangled in her hair. A rush of emotions pulsed threw her body. A pair of lips crashed against hers, fusing together. 'Oh, God, no!' Nicolette could feel herself lose most train of thought before the memory fell away. 'Don't tell me that I...'
"Miss?" Nicolette snapped out of her little world and focused on the man in front of her. "Can I take that for you?"
"Um," Nicolette glanced down at the letter in her hands before looking up at Walker and smiling. "No, it's the wrong letter."
"Oh, I see." Walker smiled back at her. "I can wait for you to go get the right one."
"Um, no. That's fine." Nicolette shrugged her shoulders and tossed her hair out of her face, smiling blindingly at the man. "It was probable just a test. You know how Wesker is."
"Yeah, well have a good day Miss, uh.." Walker smiled apologetically at her. "I'm sorry I don't know your name."
"Oh, Nicolette Holiday." Nicolette glanced around herself to make sure they were still the only ones in the hallway.
"Miss Holiday." Walker bowed with a smile on his face. "I wish you a very good day."
"You too mister Haywood." Nicolette turned on her heels and hurried back to her room, glade that Steve wasn't waiting for her. She threw the letter of the dresser after she shut the door and threw herself on the bed. "Ugh! Why me?" Nicolette cried into one of the pillows. "Why? Why? Why?"
'Why what?' A little voice inside her asked. 'What's wrong?'
Nicolette ignored the voice and cried herself to sleep. Her dream passed by her in flashes of color and light, at one point she saw a pair of black sunglasses being thrown at her. Then Nicolette felt her self hit something hard.
"Excuse me, Miss Holiday." Nicolette's eye's flashed open to see the floor. She had been pushed off her bed on to the floor. Nicolette rolled over and looked above her. It was Jacquelyn Taylor. "But is this yours?"
"What the he-?" Nicolette pulled herself up into a sitting position, her head spinning and her heart heavy with self hate, and actually looked at Jacquelyn this time. She was decked out in a dark burgendy suit and held something in her hand. It looked like a piece of paper. 'Oh, no.'
"This!" Jacquelyn waved the paper in from of Nicolette's face. "Is this letter yours?"
"No. I don't get mail." Nicolette replied cheekily, pushing Jacquelyn's hand out of her face and getting to her feet.
"I meant, did you write this?" Jacquelyn was quickly losing her patience.
"Why would I write a letter to myself?"
"This letter has information about top secret plans that A-I mean, Wesker has been planing."
"How would that interest me?" Nicolette turned and glared at the older woman. "Do you think I really care about his silly little plans?"
"I believe you wrote this to give the BSAA everything they would need to attempt to take Umbrella down and foil everything Wesker has worked for." Jacquelyn snapped, her dark eye's glowing with mistrust.
"Who would believe you?" Nicolette asked rolling her eye's irritatedly. "If I wanted to anything like that I would have done it by now. Everyone knows that. They also know that the BSAA think I'm dead."
"Wesker-"
"Wesker would think that you wrote it to frame me." Jacquelyn froze in shock and looked down at the opened letter in her hand before she looked darkly at Nicolette and threw the letter down on the floor.
"I'm watching you." She snarled as she stormed out of the room. Nicolette took a deep breath to steady her frayed nerves and her racing heart. She picked up the letter and looked around herself.
'I need to get rid of this.' Nicolette walked out of her room, shutting her door behind her, and hurrying down the hall, heading to Wesker's 'study'. It was a dark little room filled with books and files, just a few steps from the lab that Steve was always in, Nicolette usually avoided it like the plague, but it had one thing she needed, a fireplace. Nicolette opened the door and peeked inside, looking both ways making sure that the coast was clear. She hurried in, shutting the door behind her, and lit the fire. When it was barely more then a spark Nicolette started ripping the letter into pieces and fed them to the tiny fire. She had just fed the last scrap to the fire when she heard the door open, but she couldn't bring herself to look at who it was. Nicolette knew that he had seen her, she also knew that he would comment as soon as he could figure out what she was doing, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything. Instead Nicolette just stared into the fire. Losing herself in her childhood memory's.
"Are you trying to burn the building down."
Nicolette laughed. "You know, not a bad idea. Besides the fact that everyone in the building would be trapped like mice. But, no. I'm not."
"Is there anything you need, Nicolette." Nicolette sighed at the coldly formal tone.
"Can you, please, stop talking like the king of England?" She asked irritatedly, finally looking away from the fire and at the man standing behind her, the flames of the fire lighting up his usual black getup and his black glasses.
"What are you doing in here then?" Wesker asked, his tone still cold. Nicolette rolled her eye's and looked back at the fire.
"Just...remembering."
"Remembering?"
"Just memories. My family and I used to go camping...before my dad died. My sister and I used to dance by the fire, pretending that we were Indians and that it was a ritual. My dad used to dance with us." Nicolette shook her head and stood up. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. You don't care."
Wesker watched her, trying to figure out why it did slightly interest him. 'I'm just trying to figure out her weakness.'
"I'll just leave." Nicolette turned away from the fire but was cut off by Wesker himself.
"I actually wanted to talk to you about your mission tomorrow."
"What now?" Nicolette asked irritatedly, her eye's still red. "You already know that you can trust me not to run away tomorrow. What more do you need to say?"
"I know you wont run. I have many reasons why you wont."
"Really?" Nicolette asked with a little laugh. "You made a list? Are you kidding me?"
"You wouldn't abandon anyone there if you could help it." Wesker turned his back on her and strolled to the middle of the room. "Steve couldn't make it threw a maze of flowers let alone a complicated building on his own." Nicolette rolled her eye's and walked over to the the door. "You could make it by yourself, surprisingly. But I can not completely trust you to do so. You no longer have that devise on your chest, and as, I have been informed, another could kill you. I can only trust that someone that you 'care' for could stop you from leaving."
Nicolette opened the door and looked back at him. 'That, and the fact that i stupidly fell in love with an ass like you.' Nicolette paused for a moment, deftly watching him before she shook her head and walked out of the the door. Nicolette wasn't surprised when she didn't hear the door close, she knew that Wesker would have noticed the moment that she had left the room that she was gone and that he was going to come after her, she just didn't expect him to show up right in front of her out of nowhere. Wesker's eye's were glowing slightly under his glasses so Nicolette could see that they were focused completely on her.
"Were, do you think your going." Wesker growled, drawing closer to her causing Nicolette to take a step back.
"To my room."
"Did you think I dismissed you?" Wesker pushed her into a wall, cornering her.
"I was tired. If you not going to stop talking for hours about the obvious then at least wake me up when your lecture ends." Nicolette held Wesker gaze. Wesker's eye's flamed out from underneath his glasses, framing his eye sockets.
"What have you got to be tired about?" Wesker was glaring directly into Nicolette's eye's.
"You pointing out the obvious all the time is tiring." Nicolette replied bravely, glaring back at him. Wesker's eye's began to glow blindingly as he lifted his hand and folded it into a fist. Nicolette closed her eye's and held her breath. She felt a rush of air and heard a sickening crunch. Nicolette waited for the pain, any pain, but all she could feel was Wesker's hot breath on her face. Nicolette opened her eye's and found Wesker still glaring at her with his glowing red eye's. She turned her head slightly to the side and let her eye's try to find his hand, but all she could she was his wrist and hand in the wall, right next to her face. Nicolette gasped silently. Wesker chuckled and pulled his hand, deliberately slow, from the wall, accidentally letting it brush against her face briefly, the cold leather gave Nicolette the goose bumps. Wesker's glare intensified a little more.
"Your lucky I need you undamaged for tomorrow." Wesker backed up a bit and turned on his heals, heading back to his study. Nicolette shifted and looked at the hole in the wall that Wesker's fist had just made.
"I wonder how badly that would hurt." She whispered, reaching a hand out to touch it.
"Would you like to find out?" Wesker growled from his door.
"No, I'm good." Nicolette replied glancing at him before she turned and left, leaving Wesker to stalk into his study. When Nicolette reached her room she shut the door and leaned against it, her eye's closed and her breathing heavy. "God, I never thought I would enjoy fighting with a man so much."
/~/~/~/*
"You have everything, right?" Nicolette could hear Steve next to her as she looked outside the window and down at the earth. Where everyone was free, zombie or not.
"Yes, Steve." Nicolette sighed softly as she could and sadly looked away from the free earth, thousands of miles below them, and look at Steve instead. Steve had just freshly cut his hair and was dressed in a gray tee shirt, a black vest, and a pair of jeans. Any indication that he was a scientist and researcher was gone. Instead he looked like some guy off the streets walking into a secluded building. "I am sure I have everything."
"Just making sure." Steve looked at Nicolette before he glanced away. "Did he have to make improvements on your suit?"
Nicolette looked down at the black, backless, one shoulder sheath cocktail dress with a split up the side that her battle suit had been transformed into. "What's wrong with it?"
"It's...just...he's trying to dress you up like Ada."
"Who's Ada?"
"The woman who's place your taking in this mission." Steve informed her, trying to keep his eye's up. "Just tell me it can change back into the suit? I'm much more used to seeing you in that."
"It can, Steve, breath."
"Good." Steve relaxed into his seat, closing his eye's and breathing deeply.
"Steve?" Nicolette asked tentatively, curiosity burning inside her brain.
"Yeah, Niki?"
"Do I ever remind you of her?" Nicolette took a deep breath. "Do I ever remind you of Claire?"
"Um," Steve opened his eye's and look over at her surprised. "No, you remind me of you."
"You said the way I look-"
"Niki, you and her are different in so many ways." Steve sat up strait and angled his body towards hers. "She's sweet and gentle, no matter what. The moment you feel even slightly threatened your all super ninja. Claire has this way of making you feel like you can do thing's you never thought you could. You, Niki, you make people feel like we never meet your standards, like you know we are capable of more then we know. You both make us push, just in different ways. Oddly, I think you two would get along."
"Nice to know."
"See right there!" Steve was ecstatic to point any difference out. "You feel like she's some sort of competition."
"It's not like that." Nicolette smiled at Steve sadly. "I did get along with her."
"What?" Steve's blue green eye's popped open wide. "Y-you knew Claire?"
"Redfeild?" Nicolette asked simply. "Yeah, she's training my sister. She also lives in the room right next to ours-I mean hers."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't realize we were talking about the same person." Nicolette whispered sadly looking out the window again. "You have to remember, I'm trying to block my old life out. It's not easy."
"Oh," Steve glanced awkwardly away from Nicolette. "Sorry, Niki."
"I'll live." Nicolette closed her eye's and rested her head against the window. "Can we not talk until we get there?"
"Sure." Steve relaxed against his seat again and looked away from her. "I guess we can do that."
/~/~/~/
"Roy?" At the sound of her name, a black hair woman with dark green eye's looked up from the gun she was holding tenderly in her hand at Claire, who was sitting next to her in the jeep. Claire's eye's were soft as she looked at the young woman she had trained. "Roy, we are here."
"Oh," Royal looked back down at the gun in her hand, her sister's beloved Blacktail, and placed it into it's holster on her hip. "Okay."
Royal climbed out of the jeep and was nearly knocked backwards back into it. Royal grabbed a hold of the top of the car and the car door to stop falling.
"Who the hell is in my way?" Royal snapped angrily, her green eye's flashing. The person moved out of the way of the door.
"I'm so sorry miss!" Royal jumped out of the car and whirled around on the poor man standing just a foot away. His blue eye's were wide with surprise and his dirty blond hair was hanging in his face. Royal nearly forgot her anger when she saw the handsome man standing in front of her. But as Nicolette had always told her, her anger always came before anything else.
"Why the hell were you standing right in front of a car door?" Royal got right up in the poor man's face, her anger blazing like a wild forest fire. "Who the hell does that?"
"Roy! Calm down." Claire pulled Royal off the man. "Calm down. He's not Wesker. He's a guy who made a small mistake, okay?"
Royal twisted herself away from Claire and looked at the ground. "Don't treat me like a three year old throwing fit." She muttered bitterly.
"Well you shouldn't go around attacking government spies." Claire replied, a small sad smile on her face. "Or your partner."
"What?" Royal 's eye's snapped up and looked at Claire in shock and horror. "Aren't...aren't you my partner?"
"No." Claire pointed at the guy Royal had just been yelling at. "He is."
"Your kidding me. Please, tell me your joking!" Claire shook her head and gave Royal a gentle push in the still completely surprised man's direction.
"He's a nice guy. He's easy to work with...just don't do anything stupid." Royal rolled her eye's and walked up to the man again.
"I'm Royal Holiday." Royal forced a small, slightly polite smile. "Who are you?"
"Nice to meet you, Royal." The man smiled at her, his green eye's lighting up. "I'm Leon Kennedy."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Leon." Royal could hear the lack of tone to her voice and knew that Leon could too, but at the moment she was ready to lie about anything, she didn't even want a partner.
"Um, okay." Leon glanced behind him and shifted slightly to reveal a 5'8 woman with golden locks type hair and big light blue eye's. "This is Sherry Birkin. She's...my charge."
"Isn't she like twenty something?" Royal asked, looking the girl up and down.
"It's older then you." Sherry replied softly, her eye's wide as she took Royal in. "They say your only nineteen."
"How old are you?" Royal asked, slowly warming up to the other girl.
"Twenty five."
Royal laughed. "You have five years on Niki." Royal's eye's were clouded in pain and sadness for a moment. "She would have loved to meet you guys. She loved going on missions like this."
"What happened to her?" Sherry asked just before Leon put a hand on Sherry's shoulder and shook his head.
"I-"
"Wesker." Royal looked behind her to see Chris standing there, looking directly at Sherry, his eye's also clouded in pain and sadness.
"I'm sorry." Sherry whispered, her blue eye's wide.
"It's not smart to bring Sherry in there." Chris said to Leon, ignoring Sherry.
"Your letting Royal go in."
"She's trained." Chris looked Leon directly in the eye. "We don't know if Sherry can defend herself. She could be a-"
Jill walked in front of Chris and stood in front of Leon. "Sherry could get very hurt. You could lose her."
"It's up to Sherry." Leon said, his expression torn. Everyone looked at Sherry, who was a little uneasy being the center of attention.
"I-I want to go." Sherry glanced at everyone before looking down at her sneakers. "You-you need someone who knows viruses to tell you how-w to destroy the on-ne Uncle Wesk-I mean Wesker is after."
"She has a valuable point." Royal said looking at Chris and Jill. "We don't have anyone who can destroy the virus, or who knows how to in any way."
"Just, make sure that she's capable of taking care of herself." Jill draped one arm over Royal's shoulders. "I don't want anything to happen to Royal."
"Don't tell me." Royal muttered under her breath. "I'm your daughter too."
"No." Jill whispered back, smiling a little. "If you were you wouldn't act so much like my sister, Edana."
"Nice to know that one person never lied to me." Royal grumbled bitterly.
"James Holiday really is your father. Now stop." Jill whispered rebukingly. "Nicolette is more of a sister to you then she ever could have been a cousin. She needs you to be strong and to do this."
"How could this help her?"
"Wesker want's this virus. He'll send a spy to retrieve it for him." Jill's whisper grew more excited with each word. "If we can get a tracker on the spy, we'll find Wesker. Where we find Wesker-"
"We'll find Niki." A small smile of hope appeared on Royal's face. "So there's a reason that I'm here."
"That's right, Roy." Jill turned and looked directly into Royal's dark green eye's, Royal looked back into Jill's and was shocked that she had never noticed the little traits on Jill that Nicolette had. "Your are tracking devise. Don't let that spy shake you for a second."
"I wont."
/~/~/~/
"How the hell are we going to get him a virus when he doesn't even know where it comes from?" Nicolette ranted angrily, kicking a chair with her high heeled boot. "And why the hell did he have to dress me up like that freaking Ada chick?"
"Finally, your censoring yourself. I was wondering when that was going to happen." Steve replied a few feet away, on a computer read valuable information. "The hologram is just to make you look like her so that the BSAA, if they show up, will think that Niki Holiday is dead and that Ada was sent, once again, to do Wesker's dirty work."
"It's sick." Nicolette looked into one of the broken computers and couldn't help but glare at the face looking back at her. The short black hair annoyed her to no end, the only good side she could see was that her eye's, even if they were a cross between brown and green, were normal. "Does he want me to dress like a hooker?"
"I think he might have gone a little over board with the dress." Steve said with a glance at her. "It's to distract any man who's going to aim to kill."
"They can't kill me, can they?" Nicolette asked a little worriedly as she tugged at the choker on her neck.
"They couldn't kill Wesker with two rocket launchers while he was practically swimming in a pool of lava. I think you'll survive a few stray bullets."
"Sarcasm isn't needed."
"Did you really just say that?" Steve laughed out loud. "You?"
"Shut up Steve and hurry up." Nicolette whispered walking over to him and placing a hand on his back. "Their here."
"Who?"
"The BSAA."
"How-?" Steve looked up at her his eye's wide. "Your like super girl, aren't you?"
"I don't know about that." Nicolette smiled at him. "I just know how they go about everything. Now hurry up so we can start moving."
"I'm only stuck on one thing." Steve replied looking back at the computer. "There's this creature, the name is weird so-"
"Banzin." Nicolette said cutting him off. "One of Wesker's failed creations, isn't it? Built to be strong and intelligent, but it surpassed its design."
"I didn't know that." Steve glanced up at her in surprise before looking back at the computer and wiping its memory. "No need to let the BSAA know what their up against."
"Since when has Umbrella ever been that hospitable?" Nicolette asked rolling her eye's.
"It's so weird to see your expressions on Ada's face." Steve smirked. "You make her more lively."
"Whatever. Lets just get going." Nicolette opened the door and broke into a sprint down the hallway before flipping over the banister and landed in the middle of a library. She looked up to see Steve. "Are you coming?"
"Yeah. Give me a moment." Steve took a few deep breaths and jumped down after her, nearly falling over when he landed. Nicolette steadied him and then pulled him towards the basement.
"Let's start down here."
"Your insane." Steve groaned trying to pull himself free from her grip.
"Shut up Steve." Nicolette smiled as she pulled the door open and lugged Steve in at the same time she walked in. Suddenly the floor beneath their feet gave out and Nicolette let go of Steve, her hands reaching, trying to grip something, a scream ripped out of her throat.
/~/~/~/
Royal whirled around, her sister's Blacktail in her hands, and her entire body tense. "What the hell was that?"
"I'm not sure." Leon stood rigged with his Silver Ghost pointed stiffly at the ground and Sherry hiding behind him. Royal glanced around the entrance room, her entire stance stiff.
"Well you don't just here screams in a building like mansion in the middle of the day." Royal replied her eye's scanning the room. "There has to be someone in danger in here."
"I'll contact Chris and see if anyone has been reported missing." Leon lifted his hand and activated the head piece communication devise, Royal quickly did the same. "Chris? Chris, come in, we need to talk."
"I'm here." Chris's voice came in out of breath. "I'm here, what is it?"
"Did you hear about anyone getting in any trouble?" Leon asked as Royal continued to look around the room.
"No, not yet." Chris sighed. "Unless your talking about zombie attacks." Sherry gave a little almost soundless gasp and griped Leon's arm tightly. "We've had several of those."
"Did anyone scream?" Leon asked, glancing down at Sherry, his eye's soft in pity.
"Not that I've heard, why?"
"We just heard a very loud scream." Royal whispered into her head piece. "It sounded like-never mind."
"Roy, what did it sound like?" Chris's voice was tense and worried. "Is someone in pain?"
"I'm not sure if their hurt. But the voice sounded female..." Royal gulped and took a deep breath. "Chris, this is going to sound crazy, but it sounded like Niki."
"That's impossible." Leon replied looking up from Sherry his eye's on Royal. "She couldn't be here."
"I said it was going to sound crazy." Royal replied defensively.
"I hate to say this, Roy." Chris sounded upset. "But Agent Kennedy has a point. Wesker wouldn't send Nicolette here, she would bolt the second she could. Wesker would have found out how valuable she is by now. No way he would jeopardize that."
"Didn't you say Wesker is blinded by his own ambition?" Royal asked, trying to back herself up. "Wouldn't he have thought-"
"No, Wesker's not stupid." Chris sounded like he was sick of the topic. "He would never send Nicolette unless he had a very good reason to think that she wouldn't run."
"Okay." Royal dropped the topic.
"Good. Now, only contact me if it's important."
"I'll do my best." Royal rolled her eye's and continued to survey the room.
"Sure." Leon responded, his tone polite.
"Suck up." Royal muttered, a small smile on her face. A little movement out of the corner of her eye wiped the smile from her face. "Leon, can Sherry handle a gun?"
"If she had to, why?" Leon followed her gaze and pulled a Glock 30 out of it's holster on his hip, shoving it into Sherry's hands.
"We have some hosts that have come to welcome us." Royal shot at the figure in the corner and watched the magled corpse hit the floor, blood splattering on the floor and the wall. Two zombies jumped out a Leon, he shot them down with in seconds. Royal kicked one in the gut, her foot almost going into the corpse, and shot another in the head before shooting the other. Sherry held the gun in her hands like it was a cobra raring to strike. Royal shot a zombie that was about to grab a hold of Sherry and ran over to her, trying to cover all sides of the older girl.
"How many are there?" Leon shouted, bullets ringing in the air and groans from the zombies nearly blocking out his voice.
"I don't know!" Royal shouted back, dropping her guard for a moment and got locked into a zombie headlock with another zombie on her legs. "Leon! Help!"
/~/~/~/
Nicolette landed on her heel's, making a bit of a thudding sound and jarring her knees. She looked around herself, her eye's adjusting easily to the dark.
"Steve?" Nicolette called, her voice a little raw. "Steve? Are you there?"
"Ugh, I'm over here." Steve moaned. "Why did you have to pull us to the fucking basement?"
"Well, there's normally very interesting stuff in the basement." Nicolette replied softly as she tried to get to Steve by following the sound of his voice, but in every direction she went there was a wall. "Steve, we have a slight problem."
"What now?" Steve whined, Nicolette could hear him getting to his feet and walking towards the sound of her voice. "Damn it! A fucking wall, just what we need!"
"Do I contact Wesker now?" Nicolette asked hesitantly.
"Yes, why not do that! His anger will make both of us feel better about our failure!" Steve ranted.
"Hmph." Nicolette rolled her eye's as she lifted her hand up to the choker on her neck and pressed the black stone that dangled off it. Immediately the color changed from black to a smokey gray. "And you call me the downer."
"What went wrong?" Wesker's voice sent an odd thrill through Nicolette's body.
"What makes you think somethings wrong?" Nicolette asked innocently.
"We fell through a floor and now we are separated by a wall." Steve's voice was muffled by stone.
"Traitor." Nicolette mumbled under her breath.
"Interesting." Wesker's voice was as cold as ever. "I'm surprised it took you this long to get into some sort of trouble, Nicolette. You'll both have to find your own ways out and meet up as soon as you can. Don't fail me."
"Ugh, we all know your going to listening. Why bother saying that?" Nicolette asked annoyed, silently rebuking herself your letting her stupidity get the best of her now. "It's just annoying."
"It just make's this all the more interesting." Wesker's tone was still cold.
Nicolette rolled her eye's and pressed her hands against the wall. "Steve? Do you think that you could make your way out of there?" Nicolette's mind raced back to her conversation with Wesker the day before. "Can you actually get yourself out of a flower maze?"
"Um, not entirely." Steve admitted heavily. "But I have a GPS and I know where your going to be."
"How do you have a GPS?" Nicolette's eye's grew wide in surprise. "Wait, better question, why?"
"I thought it would come in useful. Apparently, I was right." Nicolette rolled her eye's at the superior tone Wesker was using.
"Whatever. How is it going to help you get out?" She asked quickly.
"There's a tracking devise in your choker." Steve said matter of factually. "I can track you that way, using you to make sure I find my way back."
"Great." Nicolette groaned inwardly. "What else is in this choker?"
"Unimportant at the moment." Wesker replied coldly.
"That just means, don't screw up and you'll never have to find out, doesn't it?" Nicolette rolled her eye's. "Steve, I'll have to meet you upstairs."
"I'll get there when I can." Steve called as Nicolette walked away from the wall. There was a weak light in the tunnel that she was stuck walking in.
"What made these?" Nicolette murmurer stretching out here hand to touch the sides made of bent metal and dirt.
"What precisely are you talking about?"
"Ugh, knew you would be listening!" Nicolette grumbled moving away from the wall. "I was talking about this huge tunnel."
"Tunnel?" Wesker's tone concerned Nicolette, he was actually think about where she was. "Get out of there as fast as you can. Don't linger in any spot that has been destroyed."
"Okay." Nicolette raced down the tunnel, pulling a Samurai Edge out of it's holster on her thigh. "I'll get out of here now."
Nicolette ran down the tunnel, glancing around the entire time looking for an exit. A boulder fell in front of her and she shirked breathlessly.
"What happened?" Wesker demanded coolly.
"Nearly got crushed," Nicolette breathed trying to calm down her heart. "Don't worry yourself too much."
"I won't." Wesker replied as she climbed over the boulder. Nicolette reached the top of the boulder and was shocked to find a small hole that lead to the floor right above her head.
"Then stop listening to me, try making sure Steve can make it past his little maze." Nicolette whispered as she began to pull herself into the hole. She gasped when she brushed her knee against a rough piece of stone.
"What now?" Wesker demanded yet again.
"Didn't I tell you to go check up on Steve or something?" Nicolette hissed through gritted teeth as she continued to climb into the hole.
"You can not tell me to do anything." Wesker growled, Nicolette could just imagine his eye's faintly glowing red and she almost smiled. "Now, what happened?"
"I'm getting out of the tunnel just like you told me to." Nicolette replied, climbing into the hole, surprised to find it wider then she thought and going in both directions. "Damn."
"How exactly are you managing to do that?"
"Well, grumpy, I am climbing through a hole in the ceiling." Nicolette whispered, glancing down at her knee, watching it heal right before her eye's. "Now I'm right in between the floors, trying to find a way to get to the entry room."
"You climbed through the ceiling?" Nicolette raised an eyebrow.
"Is that concern I hear?" Nicolette asked tauntingly, her hope's rising stupidly. "Or just curiosity for your reports?"
"Curiosity." Wesker replied briskly, his tone colder then before.
"Good." Nicolette began crawling down one of the tunnel's, her eye's looking for anyway out. "We don't want you turn soft, now do we?"
Nicolette never got the answer to her rhetorical question, just as the question had left her lips she had spotted a crack in the stone above her head. She creeped up the it and looked through it, seeing someone she never thought she would see again. His reddish brown hair was as messy as ever, his dark blue eye's were slightly less focused the usual, and he stood tall and strong a few inches away from the crack.
"Oh God," Nicolette breathed, her heart pounding in her ribcage. "Christopher. It's Chris."
Nicolette tried to claw at the crack, only to scatter some dust in her eye's and feel a strange tugging at her neck coming from the choker.
"No." Wesker's tone was firm and full of silent venom. Nicolette shook her head and looked through the crack again. Chris stood in the middle of the room, his gun pointing at the floor. The expression on his face confused Nicolette. Why was Chris so sad? Did something happen to Jill?
"I hate to say this, Roy, but Agent Kennedy has a point. Wesker wouldn't send Nicolette here, she would bolt the second she could. Wesker would have found out how valuable she is by now. No way he would jeopardize that." Chris sighed heavily as he listened, his face fell even more. "No, Wesker's not stupid. He would never send Nicolette unless he had very good reason to think she wouldn't run." Nicolette felt tears prick at her eye's.
"They think I'm alive." She whispered to herself, her throat thick with emotion. "They still think about me."
"Good. Now contact me only if it's important." Chris ran his fingers though his hair and looked to the side at something or someone Nicolette couldn't see.
"Who was that?" The female voice gave Nicolette a chill.
"Jill." Nicolette breathed her head spinning. "Aunt Jill."
"Agent Kennedy and Roy." Chris's word's sent a shot of adrenaline and shock through her body. Her sister was here, in this building. One of her friends was with Roy. "Sherry is holding up alright."
"You know that's not why I asked." Jill replied, her voice was full of suppressed rage and hope. "You mentioned Niki. Tell me why."
"Roy thought she heard her scream."
"You screamed?" Wesker hissed interrupting Nicolette's emotional moment.
"Um..."
"It could have been." Jill replied defensively.
"Jill, would Wesker really send Nicolette here?"
"If she had the same thing I had on, yes. He could get her to do anything." Jill ranted, stepping into Nicolette's view.
"No, Jill." Chris grabbed Jill's hand, shocking Nicolette to the core. When the hell did that happen? "If Nicolette survived those shots of those viruses that I doubt that devise would work very well."
Nicolette watched the emotional moment, wishing that she could burst through the floor and shout that she was alive, that Wesker had sent her, and that Steve was trapped in the basement, doomed to try and find his own way out and somehow meet up with her again. To beg for help. Thinking that maybe if she was taken far away from Wesker all of her odd feelings would disappear like dew in the morning sun. But Nicolette knew she couldn't betray Wesker like that, and that he wouldn't let her. So she was forced to sit there and shed silent tears as her aunt and Chris Redfeild left the room.
"Don't. Ever. Say. That. I. Never. Did. What. You. Said." Nicolette whispered trying to calm her heaving breaths. "I hope that what I'm doing is worth what I'm giving up."
"Get out of there." Wesker ordered his tone sounded colder to Nicolette then it ever had before. "Now."
"Your a real asshole." She whispered aiming her gun at the crack and firing several times before she began to kick it. Nicolette stopped when the hole was big enough for her to crawl through and climbed out of the tunnel into a strangely decorated dinning room.
"Now, look for the virus." Nicolette's eye's widened.
"What about-?"
"Steve will find you." Wesker snarled coldly. "Now get moving."
"Yes, heartless monster." Nicolette growled, ignoring the sound of crunching metal on Wesker's side of the conversation, walking over to the door and peeking out, looking every direction she could before taking of down several stairways and down a couple of hallways. She came to a painful halt behind a giant cream colored pillar when she spotted her black haired green eyed sister being trapped and attacked by zombies. "No!"
/~/~/~/
Royal rocked back and forth trying to knock the zombies off of her body. She felt horror rage over her body as she shouted for help. Before Royal had a chance to blink the zombie that had her in a headlock jolted and Royal felt something warm splatter on her face. She barely had a millisecond to inspect the warm liquid on her face when the zombie's head, the one had been trapping her legs, exploded splattering her jean's and shoes with blood and gore. Royal looked over at Sherry to see the older woman screaming and crying at the very sight of Royal, still holding the gun his her hands like a poisonous snake. As soon as the zombie's had appeared they disappeared, or were all laying on the floor. Leon walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You alright?" Leon looked genuinely worried about her, causing a little fluttery feeling in Royal's stomach.
"Yeah." Royal breath dizzily. "Thanks for helping me get out of that mess."
"What mess?" Leon asked his forehead scrunched together in confusion.
"With the two zombies." Royal clarified, her eye's narrowing in surprise. "You shot them before they could hurt me."
"I didn't even know that you were-two zombies?" Leon's eye's grew wide. "I didn't help you. I didn't even know you were in any trouble."
"Then who d-?" Royal caught a glimpse of a pale woman with short black hair wearing a backless, one shoulder black dress with a split up one side running up the huge major staircase. "Who in the zombie infested world is that?"
Leon turned around and froze immediately. "Ada." He breathed.
"What?" Royal asked stepping closer to Leon, a little worried.
"Ada!" Leon shouted, running after the pale, black haired woman. "Ada! Wait!"
"Leon!" Royal shouted after him, torn between following her partner and staying with Sherry who was breaking down. "Leon! Come back!"
/~/~/~/
Nicolette tore up the stairs, her heals clicking against the marble and Wesker growling from the choker. She couldn't believe what she had just done, and apparently Wesker couldn't ether. Nicolette continued to run with Leon on her heels.
"Ada!" Nicolette glanced behind herself and saw Leon's hopeful and slightly creepy lovey dovey face watching her in complete interest. "Ada! Please, wait!"
Nicolette looked back in front of her, just as her foot snagged on the top step and fell, throwing her arms in front of her face, shouting out loud as she slammed into the hard floor.
"What's with you and screaming?" Wesker growled coldly.
"I didn't scream!" Nicolette whispered in pain as she tried to push herself upright. Nicolette flinched as she felt warm skin brush against her's. Her head snapped to the side to see Leon at her side, his hands on both of her arms, supporting her weight while at the same time pulling her to her feet.
"Are you alright Ada?" Leon's steal blue eye's were gazing softly at Nicolette who was immediately creeped out beyond words.
"Who are you-?" Nicolette cut off as she looked down at herself and realized she didn't look like herself. "Um, I mean...I'm fine?"
"Good." Leon's eye's grew softer and Nicolette leaned away. "I was worried about you."
"You-you shouldn't be." Nicolette replied getting to her feet and brushing Leon's hands off. She walked into the middle of a hallway, noting the soft footsteps behind her. 'Please don't make this hard Leon.'
"Ada-"
"Stop!" Nicolette spun around and glared directly at Leon, his expression was surprised and shocked as she took a step towards him. "Just stop! I'm not who you think I am, just leave me alone."
"Ada." Leon whispered softly, grabbing Nicolette's shoulders and pulling her close. "Ada, I love you."
"Don't." Nicolette whispered as Leon moved closer. "Please, don't-"
"No." Leon whispered back, his face inches from hers. "You stop running from me Ada. Please, just stop running."
"Le-" Nicolette was nearly cut off by Leon's face moving closer to her's, his breath warm and sweet smelling. Nicolette broke away from him and backed away from him as fast as she could. "Leon, you need to get over your obsession with h-me. It's not healthy."
"Wh-what?" Leon's eye's grew wide as he looked Nicolette up and down. "Your not Ada."
"Um...Leon don't say anything stupid-"
"Your Niki-"
"Leon's alive?" Wesker's growling voice vibrated against her throat. "He's still alive?"
"Wesker!" Leon's eye's narrowed and intensified. "Your still alive?"
"I think we now know that everyone is alive." Nicolette replied her eye's on Leon who's eye's were glued on her choker.
"So, your actually stupid enough to send Niki here?" Leon asked, walking closer to Nicolette, his stance tense. "You have no idea how important she really is, do you?"
"Nicolette, kill him." Wesker growled coldly, causing Nicolette's blood to freeze.
"Wh-what?" Nicolette whispered in shock. "No. No way!"
"Do it!" Wesker growled. Nicolette looked at Leon, her eye's wide, Leon looked at her like he was ready for her to spring at him or aim her gun at him. Nicolette shook her head slowly as she backed away.
"No." She whispered before she turned around and ran down the hallway, leaving Leon to stand there in shock. Nicolette could hear something on Wesker's side of the conversation slam into what sounded like a wall. "I'm sorry, I can't kill a friend of mine."
Wesker just growled. Nicolette continued to run down the hallway's, her shoes barely making a sound.
"Niki!" Nicolette skidded into a halt and snapped her head to the side to see Steve, covered head to toe in dirt, standing a few feet away from her. "There you are!"
"Steve?" Nicolette asked, breathing a little heavier then usual. "What the hell happened to you?"
"No time." Steve replied grabbing her hand and pulling her down another hallway.
"But I-"
"No time." Steve repeated as they ran into an open room. "You have to kill that thing."
"What thing-?" Nicolette was cut off by a strange piercing screech, she slowly raised her head and saw a great big monster. It's skin was gray, almost like the color of dead skin, it's head was nothing more then a giant mouth of teeth with two little black dots on ether side, it stood about fifteen feet tall on three strangely mutated legs and it's two strangely twisted arms were handing limply by it's side. Strange intestine like tentacles were growing out of the monsters back and gut. Nicolette took a step back only to be shoved forward by Steve. The monster roared, scattering saliva in her general direction. When the monster finished Nicolette looked down and saw stains all over the dress. "Steve?"
"Yeah, Niki?"
"If we survive this..."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to give Wesker a piece of my mind." Nicolette jumped forward and shot at the monster with her Samurai Edge. "I mean how am I going to kill this thing?"
"Try not shooting at it like a crazy woman." Steve suggested as the monster swatted her away with one of it's huge twisted arms. Nicolette hit a pillar and plummeted to the floor, only managing to twist and land on her feet at the last second.
"Then how-?"
"Try hand to hand combat." Wesker offered, his voice still cold, but at that moment Nicolette was happy that someone knew what they were doing.
"Alright, but this had better work." Nicolette jumped at the monster and kicked at one of the tiny black dots. Just as she hit it the monster's arm came to swat at her again, it only succeeded in pushing her arm into it's mouth and puncturing it with a razor sharp fang. Nicolette screamed in pain and Steve was freaking out behind his pillar.
"What's going on?" Steve pulled out a communication pad and looked at the screen to see Wesker in his back chair, looking slightly unnerved.
"Sir, she kinda, um...got bit by the monster." Steve said through his hyperventilating.
"Oh. That's not good."
"No, it's not sir." Steve agreed looking around the pillar again, his face twisted with emotion as he looked up at Nicolette. "I don't know what to do."
"Get out there and help her." Wesker growled, Steve looked back at the pad in surprise.
"If I could have, I would have already." Steve replied in frustration. "I could just make all this worse!"
Nicolette screamed a second time as she tugged her arm out of the monsters mouth. Nicolette toppled to the ground, blood pulsing out of her arm. Steve got to his feet, about to run out to help Nicolette get out of the way of the monster. Just before he could reach her the monster picked her up with one of the tentacles sticking out of its body and lifted her high into the air. Steve froze were he stood and looked above in fear.
"Niki." He breathed his heart pounding. "Dear God."
"Steve, what's happening?" Steve slowly turned the pad so that it was facing the monster. "Damn it!" Wesker growled. "Banzin."
"What now?" Steve asked helplessly, his eye's wide.
"Get her down, idiot." Wesker growled angrily. "Get her down now!"
"How do you expect me to do tha-?" Steve broke off as Nicolette's body started to twitch.
/~/~/~/
"Leon?" Royal ran up the steps with Sherry right behind her. She couldn't explain why she was strangely unworried about Leon chasing this 'Ada' person, how could she worry? The person had saved her life. "Leon, were are you?"
"I'm here." Leon was running down the stairs in her direction, a strange look on her face. "I'm here. Let's move."
"Are you-"
"I'm fine." Leon snapped, pausing in front of her, not looking her in the eye's. "Let's just get to work."
"Um...Okay?" Royal replied, her eye's wide as Leon brushed past her. "What's up your butt?" She mumbled as she followed him.
/~/~/~/
Nicolette felt a strange feeling in side her body. Her arm began to twitch and the pain slowly eased, leaving an odd bubbly feeling to spread through her body. Nicolette's eye's fluttered open to find herself being lifted by the monster to it's mouth, she tried to pull herself away from it but she couldn't move her body. All she could do was watch as she was slowly moved closer to the huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Through her choker she could hear Wesker order Steve around.
"Get out there now." Nicolette heard Wesker growl, his voice harsher then usual.
"And do what?" Steve asked, his voice was high and fearful.
"Get Nicolette down."
"How-?"
"I don't care how!" Wesker snapped. Nicolette smiled faintly as the strange bubbly feeling intencified and she was thrown into the monster's mouth.
"Niki!" Steve shouted dropping the pad on the floor and running forward pulling a Silver Ghost out of one of the huge pockets on his pants, aiming and shooting at the tentecals that had just been holding Nicolette up. Steve was momentarily blinded by fear and gut wrenching guilt as he repeatedly shot at the Banzin.
"Steve, use the Veronica Virus." Wesker ordered coldly. Steve didn't need to be told twice. He immediately shifted, dropping the gun, and narrowed his eye's, sizing up the Banzin before holding up his two flaming hands and kicked off of the ground, using clear wings that had sprouted out of his back to float in the air. Steve started aiming and throwing the green electricity at any place he thought could be a weak spot.
"I'm coming Niki." Steve growled, his dark purple eye's darker then normal. "I'm not going to let you die today."
Then, just as a hit of electricity hit the monsters stomach, a strange blue light appeared on the monsters skin, spreading all over it's body and engulfing it's frame. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared it vanished, leaving Steve to stare in awe at the Banzin. Then, in a flash of an whitish blue light, the Banzin fell to the floor in pieces, with Nicolette laying on the floor in the middle of it in her battle suit, no longer looking like Ada Wong. Steve returned to normal and ran over to her, praying that she was alive. Steve reached her in time to see her move the mess of curly, light blond hair out of her face. Nicolette blinked around the room confused on her surroundings.
"Where the hell am I?" She asked softly, she soundly like she had just gotten up from a nap.
"Niki?" Steve breathed falling to his knee's, his entire face was a cross between shock and amazement. "Your alive! Oh, thank you! God, thank you!"
"Steve?" Nicolette asked weakly, looking up at Steve with wide innocent looking blue eye's. For the first time Steve didn't have to force himself not to flinch at her strange eye's, instead he found himself looked deep into them then he ever had before. There was something different about her now, something he couldn't put his finger on.
"Yeah, Niki?" Steve asked in breathless joy.
"When we get back," All innocence suddenly drained from her eye's and instead there was a passion that took it's place. "I will kill Wesker."
Steve looked at her for a moment before bursting laughing.
"I highly doubt you could." Wesker drawled coldly, his voice radiating from her choker.
"Stupid fucking asshole." Nicolette snapped propping herself up with her hands.
"Sticks and stones." Wesker replied frostily.
"Those don't even hurt you." Nicolette grumbled angrily getting to her feet with Steve steadying her. "Does anything hurt you?"
"Lava and Rocket launchers." Steve said brightly, smiling at Nicolette. "Remember Wesker?"
Wesker growled angrily causing Steve to flinch. "Yes." Wesker replied stiffly. "I do."
"Come on." Nicolette addressed both men. "Can we just get this mission over with?"
"How?" Steve asked looking around the room. "I have no idea where that freaking virus is."
"I think I do." Nicolette walked over to the dead Banzin's jaw and pulled out several teeth. "I think the virus is in here."
"In it's teeth?" Steve walked over to her, jumping over an arm. "What make's you think that?"
"It bit me." Nicolette replied simply, glancing at the ragged tear in her battle suit, just a few inches above the elbow. "I know it's not what your used to, Steve, but this isn't a normal monster." She smiled at him. "It's a Banzin, this," She press on the top of the tooth and watched a drop of silver liquid hit the floor burning a little hole into it. "Is the Banzin Virus."
"Cool." Steve gathered the teeth that Nicolette held out to him and stuffed them into his pockets. "Let's go."
"Which way?"
"Um...library?" Steve offered hesitantly.
"Let's go." Nicolette took off through a door way with Steve right behind her. "We'll go in on the second level of the library. We can get to the jet faster that way."
"Alright!" Steve sounded completely pumped. "Lets do this! Lets get outta here."
/~/~/~/
Jill looked around the library, taking in the old musky sent of abandoned books. Chris stood several feet away from her, looking up at the second floor, which had a strange walkway built across the open space. They had barely been there for a few moments when they heard a very low moan. Both of the former S.T.A.R.S. members turned in different directions, wiping out their gun's. Surrounding them, and breaking through the floors, was a whole army of zombies and lickers.
"Damn it!" Chris muttered under his breath, his eye's darting for someway out.
"Finally," Jill's light gray eye's narrowed and her she sort of smiled. "A way to blow off steam."
/~/~/~/
Nicolette and Steve ran into a strange room filled with a few empty desks, some boxes in the corner, and a hanging light bulb. Steve hurried over to the door on the other side of the room and pulled on it. He grunted and then tried to push it open. Nicolette glanced over at him and rolled her eye's.
"What's wrong now, Steve?" Nicolette asked slightly irritatedly as she continued to secure their surroundings.
"The door wont open." Steve hissed as he pushed harder, a small box of shells fell out of his pocket and hit the floor. Nicolette accidentally fired off her gun in the air and the bullet hit the light bulb showering the floor in glass.
"Shoot!" Nicolette snapped angrily. "I can't see. Where are you?"
"I'm over here." Steve replied simply. Nicolette moved from side to side in frustration before her anger took over.
"Where the fuck is over here?" Nicolette froze where she was and continued to try and see in the dark. "Great! Just great! I can kick a Banzin's ass but when it comes to trying to find someone in the dark..."
"Wesker?" Steve called across the room addressing her choker. "Can you help us out?"
"I might be able to-"
"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Nicolette snapped angrily.
"-but I need to be informed about what went wrong." Wesker continued coolly, ignoring Nicolette's interruption.
"The light blew." Nicolette mutter, praying that Steve would go along with her lie.
"Your beat by lack of sight?"
"Shut up." Nicolette growled. "Can you help, or not?"
"I happen to have a GPS right here."
"Asshole." Nicolette whispered, her eye's narrowing into slits. "Just get us out of here before Leon shows up again."
"If your so worried you should have killed him." Wesker growled back at her. "Move forward."
Nicolette walked forward and her legs hit one of the empty desks. "Fuck! What's with the empty desk in the middle of the fucking room?"
"Hmph." Wesker chuckled softly. "Go around it and continue going forward."
"Fine," Nicolette walked slowly around the desk and continued forward. "But if I end up slamming into-" Nicolette was cut off by a wall. She peeled herself off of it and growled. "I really am getting pissed."
"The GPS can only show me the room, not what's in it. Turn to your left and walk strait."
"I'm so not in the mood to slam into anything else." Nicolette grumbled as she turned and followed Wesker's instruction, this time walking into something warm and solid. She curled her hand into a fist and punched the form.
"OW!" Steve cried crumpling to the ground.
"Oh! Steve, I'm so sorry!"
"What's with you and going for the eye's?" Steve cried as Nicolette reached down to help him up.
"I don't know, I'm so sorry."
"Now, get out of that building." Wesker interrupted them coldly.
"How?" Steve asked, still babying his bruising eye. "The door is locked."
"Um, I could pick it." Nicolette said a little sheepishly.
"Really?" Steve asked, his tone implying that he really didn't care.
"Yeah, my aunt taught me." Nicolette answered him while rolling her eye's. "I just need some light and something to pick at it with."
"Well, there's a flashlight in your left boot." Wesker said coldly. "And I believe you have a hairpin in your hair, don't you."
"What? Are you kidding me?" Nicolette reached down into her boot and pulled out metal flashlight. "How the hell-?" She reached up into her hair and pulled out a hairpin. "How the hell do you know this stuff?"
"I designed the suit."
"And the hairpin?"
"An educated guess."
"Whatever." Nicolette switched the light on and knelt down to pick the lock. It didn't take her long at all to crack it and she pushed the door open. The light that poured in nearly blinded them as they stumbled out of the room and onto a thick brown carpet. Nicolette glanced at Steve. "You okay?"
"I'll be fine as soon as we get outta here."
"I'm still really sorry." Wesker cleared his throat. "Thank you, Wesker, for creeping me out and making me walk into things." Nicolette forced out.
"Fine."
"Douche bitch." Nicolette breathed, looking over at Steve. "Ready to run?"
"Yeah." Both started running for across the carpeted bridge like walk way across the library. Nicolette glanced down for a moment only to freeze and do a double take.
"Chris?"
/~/~/~/
Jill fought the zombies off while Chris shot repeatedly at them. She had just pushed one into a group of them, forcing them to fall over, and moved until she was standing back to back with Chris as she shot them down. Jill looked above her, trying to see if any were going to jump down on them and she felt her heart jump out of her chest.
"Niki." Jill breathed, her daughter was running across the bridge like walk way several feet above her head with a auburn haired man. "Chris! It's Niki!"
"That's impossible." Chris grunted, kicking a zombie away.
"Just look!" Chris looked up at the same time that Nicolette looked down at him. His heart began to pound.
"That's my daughter?" Chris whispered as Nicolette froze. The man turned around and came running back, grabbing Nicolette's wrist and leading her off of the bridge. "Was that...Steve?"
"Who?" Jill breathed her eye's still fixed on where her daughter had been standing mere seconds before.
"Jill!" Chris shot down a zombie going for Jill's arm. Jill snapped out of her daze and continued to fight back the zombies with he daughter's image dancing in her head.
/~/~/~/
Nicolette felt her feet move numbly and could feel Steve's grip grow stronger, at the moment she didn't care what Steve did to her arm. All she could think of was her Aunt and her partner stuck in a sea of zombies, fighting their way out. About how they had looked up at her and watched her. 'If only I could have seen their expressions.' Nicolette closed her eye's, preserving the moment that they had both looked up at her. 'Now they know.' Nicolette's eye's flashed open. This was her chance, the only chance she would possibly ever get, and she was walking away from it. She could be taken away from all of this, she could take Steve away from all of this, she could be with her sister and laugh everything off with Leon. Nicolette calculated everything in her head, everything that she had been through and what could happen if she chose something different then going with Steve. They had just reached the jet when Nicolette had come to a decision. She pulled her hand out of Steve's grasp.
"What the hell?" Steve whipped around and looked questioningly at Nicolette. "What are you doing?"
"What's happening?" Wesker's formal and cold voice echoed in the quiet room and vibrated against her neck. "What is she doing?"
"Don't like being blind, do you?" Nicolette murmured walking past Steve on to the jet. "You both need to learn to trust me. I'm not going to run away."
"Um," Steve stood there awkwardly, watching her with guilt oozing from every pore. "It's just, you know...Something you would do."
"I'm never going to leave you alone with a mad man Steve." Nicolette smiled at him. "I promise."
"Alright." Steve walked into the jet and followed Nicolette to their original seats.
"Oh, by the way, Wesker?" Nicolette settled into her seat and reclined, every ache and scratch relaxing into the soft seat.
"Yes?" Wesker's response was stiff.
"You owe me big time." She whispered as she drifted off into unconscious.
"In your dreams." Wesker's cold tone followed her into her dreamland.
"Asshole..."
/~/~/~/
Steve watched her fall asleep with interest. What had happened to her when that monster bit her? What did that virus from it's teeth do? Steve shook his head and turned on the monitor in front of them. Wesker's image, still in his black chair, showed up. Steve fought the urge to nudge Nicolette awake and decided to talk to Wesker himself.
"She's sleeping." Steve informed Wesker quietly. "The Banzin took a lot out of her."
"Do you honestly think I care?" Wesker asked, a little harsher the usual.
"I don't know." Steve replied glancing over at Nicolette. "She looks cute when she sleeps just like Cl-"
"Stop the trip down memory lane." Wesker snapped, sitting up strait. "I believe you have the virus."
"In my pocket, we will be able to extract it out of the Banzin tooth when we get back to HQ." Steve replied efficiently, patting his pocket. "Niki came through for us."
"Hmmm...She is useful." Wesker replied his face composed.
"Useful?" Steve's face was twisted in agony and disbelief. "She nearly had her arm bitten off."
"Is that not useful."
"No, it's sad that she had to go through that just to find out were the virus was." Steve glanced over at her and lowered his voice. "Besides, we don't know what this virus even does. What if it's harmful to her?"
"Stop worrying about her." Wesker snapped his eye's glowing faintly behind his sunglasses. "She is none of your concern."
"Then who's concern is she?"
"That's irrelevant." Wesker had a hint of a snarl in his tone and Steve could see his hand's grip the arms of his chair. "I will see both of you immediately when you get here."
The monitor went black and left Steve confused and unhappy about the conversation that had just transpired. Steve shook his head to clear away the feelings and took calming breaths to try and forget. It was the only thing to do until he could face Wesker's wrath when he made it home.
/~/~/~/
Pale pink wallpaper covered the walls of the, rather large, room and a pure white, fluffy carpet stretched to cover the entire room. In the middle of the room was a cradle. She walked towards it, her curiosity peeked. She looked inside, her long curly blond hair falling in front of her face almost blocking her view. She gasped in horror and pulled back. In the middle of the cradle, in a blanket stained red with blood, was a baby with ashen, decaying skin and odd sharp teeth. It's cold, haunted red brown eye's burned in her face and she couldn't fight a shudder of horror and fear that ran down her spine.
"W-What are you?" She whispered, trying and failing to pull her gaze away from the disturbing baby. It's eye's scaring her to the pit of her soul. Suddenly she felt like she was being gently shaken and she jolted, her eye's sprung open and she found herself in a rather comfy seat in a jet.
"I'm sorry to wake you up," She snapped her head to her right and saw an auburn haired man with blue green eye's looking at her warmly. "But Wesker want's to see us immediately."
"What?" She murmured sleepily, horror and dismay still clinging to her as she tried to figure out where she was and what was going on. The name Wesker sent chills down her spine, in a completely different way then with the disturbing baby. "Steve?"
The man laughed. "Yes, Niki?"
"Am I dreaming?"
"No, this is all real and Wesker is really waiting for us. You know how patient he is." Steve smiled and took Nicolette's hand to pull her to her feet. "As a matter of fact you both have no patience, least of all with each other."
"What?" She asked sleepily rocking from side to side as Steve held her up.
"Wesker." Steve murmured, practically dragging her to the doorway. "He's waiting outside, wake up! Please get some clarity before you say something completely stupid!"
"What could I say right now?" Nicolette slurred a bit, her eye's slightly out of focus. "I can barely stand up by myself, let alone walk."
"It might just be a side affect of the virus in your bloodstream." Steve gave her brife once over, his panic hardly suppressed by his morbid curiosity. "I'll need to run some test quickly."
"But-but the virus already fused with my cell's, didn't it?" Nicolette's looked Steve directly in his eye's and saw the worry and uncertainty swirl in the blue and green shades that made up his eyes. "How long will it take?"
"Only a few seconds." Steve murmured gently, bending his knees to pick her up. "We just need to get you past Wesker and I'll get you to the lab."
"No!" Nicolette protested in misery. "Please no!"
"Why? What's wrong with the lab?"
"Can you just run the tests in my room?" Nicolette whispered. "Just this once? I've had more then I can take of that room."
"Alright. Let's just get you passed Wesker." Steve walked slowly to the door of the airplane before being shocked by a pair of glowing red eye's.
"I was wondering what was taking so long." Wesker spoke as if he were talking to someone who had just delivered a report after a few moments of checking it over. "I almost thought that she had died. Atlas no. She hadn't, she's just dead weight."
"It's the virus. I don't know if this is ment to happen or if something went wrong." Steve was panicking and his body started to shake with the effort of holding Nicolette up.
"Hand her over." Wesker replied shortly, holding his arms out stiffly. Nicolette glared weakly at him as Steve started to shake harder.
"Are you sur-"
"Hand. Her. Over." Wesker snapped, whisking over and pulling Nicolette ruffly from Steve's arms. "I can handle her."
"Just..." Steve paused, looking away from Wesker and down at Nicolette. "Just...please, be careful with her. She's been through hell today. I don't think she could handle anything else."
"Are you telling me what to do?" Wesker's tone had a hint of a growl in it and Steve gaze snapped up in fear.
"No, sir." Steve stuttered, hurrying past Wesker and out of the plane. Wesker watched him leave, the glow from his eye's slowly dying. Nicolette, on the other hand, was glaring up at Wesker. Self hate pounded in her veins as she felt her stomach flutter at the sound of Wesker's heart beating. Nicolette couldn't help but slowly relax in Wesker's arm's, surprised that, despite his freezing attitude and his cold words, he produced body heat. Her neck went limp and her head nestled on his should. Nicolette smiled as she heard a low, brief growl in the core of his body knowing that as son as she was better Wesker was going to use it against her but at that moment she didn't care. If Nicolette hadn't had her eye's open she wouldn't have noticed how dead and empty Wesker's face had become, or that she was outside the plane and in fresh air for the first time in a long time. Her eye's glanced back up at Wesker's face and she bit back a small smile.
"I've been thinking." Nicolette whispered, rolling her head away from his chest and on to the side of his arm, looking down at the ground.
Wesker sighed and kept his face blank as he shifted her weight to one arm and pressing a button on the elevator before stepping in and pressing a level. "What make's you think I'm interested in what your thinking about?" Nicolette kept her mouth shut as Wesker repositioned her weight in his arms. He sighed again and, from what Nicolette could see from beneath his sunglasses, rolled his eye's. "What is it."
"No need to be so demanding." Nicolette teased weakly, looking back down at the ground as his eye's darted down to her. "I was just thinking about that favor-"
"Favor?" Wesker repeated calmly. "What, favor?"
"I'm like this because I got bit by a monster you created." Nicolette pointed out softly, closing her eye's. "It's nice when you don't deny things, isn't is?" Nicolette could feel another, more audible growl come from the mans core. "I also got bitten while trying to uncover what your virus is."
"That make's you think I owe you a 'favor'?" Wesker asked calmly.
"Was it planed that I was going to get hurt?" Silence fell upon the two and Nicolette smiled softly. "I rest my case."
"What do you want?" Wesker growled the question through gritted teeth.
"I just want to go to a park." Nicolette whispered pleadingly. "Just for an hour or two."
Wesker walked her into her room and placed, surprisingly gently for a man who normally smacks her into walls, on to her bed without saying a word. Nicolette looked up at him with her big, strange blue eyes. At that moment Nicolette felt like a three year old child looking up at an adult asking if she could have just one cookie before dinner, know the answer might be no but still hoping and praying that it would be yes. Wesker looked back down at her, she couldn't tell if he was meeting her gaze or not, with his expression the same as before, cold and empty. Just at that moment Steve rushed in with a few needles and a microscope. He set them down next to her on the bed and pulled a scalpel out of his pocket.
"What are you going to do with that?" Nicolette and Wesker asked in unison, both had dropped their staring match when Steve had rushed in.
"I need to cut through the suit." Steve replied gently taking a hold of Nicolette's injured arm. There was a ragged tear in her forearm, several inches from her wrist, with blood still dripping slowly from it. He placed the sharp edge at one end and cut it all the way to the wrist. The fabric fell away to reveal a huge, nasty looking puncture wound in her forearm. "Thank God. It's shallow."
"Shallow?" Nicolette asked raising her eyebrows and looking up at Steve with wide eye's. "You call that shallow?"
"Yes, the Banzin tooth had gone right through your arm." Steve replied flinching at the memory as her prepared a needle to take a blood sample. "Your healing has sped up. Most likely thanks to this new virus. We just have to make sure that it's not doing more damage then harm."
"So how are you going to do that?" Nicolette asked, her voice still soft and sleepy.
"I'm going to take a sample or two," Steve injected the needle into her skin after finding a vein. "And I'm going to test them, just to make sure that your going to be fine."
"So...your doing this because your worried?" Nicolette asked, raising her strange almost white blue eye's up to meet Steve's blue green ones.
"That's the main reason I'm doing this." Steve replied pointedly, glancing up past Nicolette before looking down at her arm and pulling the first sample out, inserting the second one. Nicolette followed were Steve's gaze had been before he looked away and almost smiled when she noticed Wesker standing above her still, his head tilted down in a mix of her and Steve's direction. "I'll be done soon."
"Whatcha staring at?" Nicolette asked, the smile she had been holding back spreading across her face. "Do I look as bad as I feel?"
"Depends, how bad do you feel?" Wesker asked coolly, his face still blank and empty.
"Hmmm..." Nicolette closed her eye's as she thought about it. "I feel like my ass was just handed to me by you times a hundred."
"You look worse." Wesker replied calmly, a corner of his mouth twitched a little.
"Thanks." Nicolette replied rolling her eye's. "Done Steve?"
"Yeah, I'll get going and run those test's." Steve ignorantly got to his feet and gathered everything he brought in with him before hurrying out of the room. Wesker followed him slowly before pausing, turning around and looking at Nicolette.
"Give me another reason as to why I should do you this 'favor'." Wesker asked his voice so low Nicolette almost couldn't hear him. Wesker watched her from behind his glasses, the strange twinge in his chest returning with a passion. He watched as Nicolette looked directly at him, her expression was that of exasperation. Her silence made him a little unconformable and caused adrenaline to spike his blood as he waited for her answer.
"I came back." She replied simply as Wesker's chest gave a very painful twinge and he closed his eye's behind the sunglasses, taking a deep unnoticeable breath.
"You have a valuable point." He replied opening his eye's and turning to leave. "I'll escort you as soon as your cleared."
"You?" Nicolette giggled sleepily, watching him as he paused in her doorway. "Why you?"
"You asked me for a favor, I am following the the rules it mandates."
"You still don't trust me."
"Only as far as I could throw you." Wesker retorted coldly.
"Which is pretty far." Nicolette mumbled, turning on her side and cuddling into her bed. "But it also means you don't trust Steve or anyone else to watch me."
"Your more...cunning then they could handle."
"If I didn't know any better, I would think that was a complement." Nicolette whispered sleepily.
"Than it's good you know better." Wesker replied coldly, leaving the room to let her sleep.
/~/~/~/
"How does it look?" Wesker asked impatiently as he paced back and forth behind Steve. Steve sighed forcing himself not to roll his eye's.
"Everything is working and going the way it's meant to." Steve replied calmly as he made a few more notes. "I think that she's fine, probably has some new ability's, but besides that..."
"So you can clear her?" Wesker asked angrily as he continued to pace back and forth.
"I don't see why not." Steve replied, moving away from the lab table and facing Wesker, as he raised his eyebrows. "Is that a problem."
"I...owe her a favor." Wesker growled, kicking a stool out of the way.
"A...favor?" Steve nearly laughed. "You really are going to go through on that?"
"I don't want to." Wesker growled, his eye's blazing red.
"Why? What did she ask for?"
"An hour or two at a park." Steve laughed out loud causing Wesker to turn on him his eye's flaming. "What's so funny?"
"After everything she's been through, and everything she's done I think it's a good idea. Keeping her cooped up isn't very ideal for anyone." Steve became serious as he stared Wesker down. "Think about it, it's the only one she's ever asked for. Don't you think she's worthy of one happy memory. Who's taking her?"
"I am." Wesker growled.
"Well, none of this could end well." Steve muttered, smiling as he walked away from Wesker.
"Were are you going?" Wesker demanded, his voice still tense.
"It's been a long day, I'm starving and I bet Niki is too." Steve called over his shoulder. "Why don't you try and find a way to disguise her eye's for..." Steve glanced behind him. "When are you going?"
"Tomorrow."
Steve laughed as he reached the door. "Good luck."
/~/~/~/
The next day Wesker was standing by a black SUV impatiently, waiting for Nicolette to show up, knowing the sooner they left the sooner he could get back to his reports and experiments.
"How long does it take to put on new clothes?" Wesker muttered, his eye's narrowing behind his sunglasses and the corners of his mouth dipped down slightly. "She's just going to a park, not to meet the queen of England."
Wesker stood there a while longer, glaring down at his shoes in boredom. Then his sensitive ear's picked up distinctive click clacking of heels meeting pavement. Wesker's head shot up is such a sudden move that it was invisible to the naked eye. Nicolette was walking down a back way stairway in pair of jeans, a black tank top, a hoodie and a pair of silver heels. Wesker kept his face as cold and as empty as he had always been trained to do, but on the inside his chest was twinging uncontrollably and he couldn't take his eyes off of her. He actually felt the urge to offer her his hand to help her down the last few steps before she paused and raised an eyebrow.
"I think I need to start buying my own clothes." Nicolette replied looking down at the heels. "It's not that I don't like them, it's just.." She sighed and brought her gaze back up to Wesker with a sheepish smile, "Well, do you want me to stick out?"
"What do you mean?" Wesker asked having slight, but unnoticeable, trouble not to show any emotion in his voice but curiosity.
"Who wears silver heels to a park?" Nicolette asked as she briskly walked down the last few steps.
"You." Wesker replied, pulling keys out of his pockets and unlocked the doors, climbing into the drivers seat.
"No, I would usually wear sneakers." She replied climbing into the passenger seat as Wesker started the car. "Heels normally show that a girl is to stuck up to play in the mud."
"You haven't been to a park since you were a child, am I correct?" He asked coldly as he felt a strange feeling in his core.
"Do you call seventeen a child?" Nicolette asked with a laugh. "Wait, I forgot who I was talking to. I'm a child to you know."
Wesker stole a glance at her laughing form. Nicolette was completely relaxed, her body at complete ease, even while sitting next to him. It was as if she couldn't careless what he did or said, she was just happy to be out of the building. Wesker was a little curious about how she could be so much at home around him. Did Nicolette think that he wouldn't hurt her if she tried to run?
"Your...happy." Wesker formed the question into a statement as he focused on the road.
"I guess you could say that."
"Why are you?"
"Well," Nicolette looked out the window at the passing trees. "I just think that, it's nice to have a breath of fresh air. Mine was nearly over two months ago."
Wesker stole yet another glance at her in time to watch her upturned laughing mouth fade into a frown. They both drove in complete silence the rest of the way to the park. When Wesker parked Nicolette started to bounce impatiently on the seat. Wesker looked at her a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Do normally lose your mind when you go to a park?" Wesker asked, hiding his face as he stepped out of the vehicle. "Or are you just trying to test how far you can push me today?"
"I can't believe it!" She gasped, climbing out of the SUV and scrambling onto the pavement in her rush to take in the entire park. "I just can't believe it!" Nicolette turned her strange blue eye's on Wesker. "Thank you so much for actually doing this for me!"
"Here." Wesker pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his black leather duster. He was decked out in his, as usually, black on black color scheme. Black pants, black collared shirt and back boots to back up his insane getup in the May almost July heat. Nicolette looked at the sunglasses in surprise and flinched as he moved the hand holding them closer to her. Wesker sighed. "Their to hide your eyes."
"Oh. Oh!" Nicolette reached out and took them gingerly from his hands before placing them on. "Thank...you?"
"Why are we here, exactly anyway?" Wesked asked annoyed, glaring around the park at children playing on the playground equipment while their parents talked amongst each other, some comparing child care books.
"To relax and have some fun." Nicolette replied as she began walking along a pathway. "Do you think you can manage that?"
Wesker's eye's narrowed and he caught up to her, walking next to her but slightly in front of her.
"Do you have to hover?" Nicolette whispered, glancing to see two old ladies watching them with smiles on their faces. "They'll start to think that your my overly friendly dad, or my very possessive boyfriend."
Wesker turned his head towards her with an unreadable expression before he laughed quietly and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "You really think too much of yourself."
"Whatever you say." Nicolette replied, Wesker could hear her heart speed up as his breath stirred up strands of her hair.
"But, to admit I do think we need a cover, don't you?"
"Why bother asking?" Nicolette sighed brushing the stray stands of hair out from in front of her glasses. "Your not going to do anything I want to do."
"Are we, or are we not at a park?" Wesker replied calmly into her ear, he felt a shutter run down her spine. He was momentarily confused by her reaction before he pushed it aside. "The only way I can make sure you don't run and that we can explain why we are so close in to go with the lover-"
"Over protective boyfriend." Nicolette whisper interrupted him.
"-scenario." Wesker continued, not missing a beat ignoring Nicolette. He moved his head a few inches away from her's and noticed the two elderly woman still watching them shamelessly.
"Ugh, is this going to be me and you pretending to be like Edward and Bella?" Nicolette huffed as they continued to walk down the path, passing trees and little kids.
"Who?"
"Wow," Nicolette tilted her head to the side and looked above her glasses up at Wesker. "You really are old, aren't you?"
"Do you want to go back to building?" Wesker growled his eye's glowing slightly under his own shades.
"No, I want to know why your so touchy about your age and if I could get some ice cream." Nicolette smiled up at him, her eye's sparkling.
"Why do you think-"
"Please?" Nicolette's lower lip was pushed out further, her entire face falling into a puppy dog pout. "Pretty please?"
"Fine." Wesker replied stiffly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ten dollar bill. "Where do you get ice cream?"
"At the ice cream truck."
"What's that?" Wesker asked, unwillingly curious.
"What?" Nicolette looked back at Wesker in surprise. "You've never been to a park before, have you? It's a big truck filled with all kinds of frozen treats. Here," Nicolette reached down and grabbed the hand that wasn't holding the money and pulled Wesker, who was a little shell shocked, down the well beaten path to the place little kids had been running to before. In the middle of the sea of children Wesker could see a strange brightly painted truck. Inside was a cheerful young man, about mid twenty's, handing the children odd colored shapes on sticks. "This is an ice cream truck."
"That doesn't look like it's worth being in existence."
"Stop. Just wait until you've had some ice cream." Nicolette pulled him through the sea of little kids, who watched him as if he were a vampire just waiting for the chance when their parents looked away to jump on them and suck their blood, up to the truck. The young man ran his fingers through his long black hair and locked his brown eye's on Nicolette, sizing her up as if she were a piece of meat.
"Hello miss," The young man smiled down at her, two dimples showing up. "Is there anything I can get you and your..." The young man glanced over Wesker and then looked back at her smiling bigger. "..FBI friend today?"
"What do you want, Wesker?" Nicolette looked up at him. Wesker glanced over the menu that was attached to the side of the truck.
"I'll have whatever you decide to order." He replied stiffly, looking away from the truck and around himself to see a cluster of kids surrounding him. "Just hurry up."
"I'll have a vanilla ice cream cone," Nicolette glanced back at Wesker and quickly decided to try and be nicer to him. "And he'll have a chocolate one."
"Coming right up." The young man replied winking at Nicolette before grabbing a scooper and a cone. "By the way miss, what's your name?"
"Nicolette." Nicolette replied smiling back at him, a strangely painful twinge suddenly and unmercifully attacked Wesker's chest. "What's yours?"
"Austin." Austin smilled at her with his black hair hanging in his face. He nodded over to Wesker. "He your boyfriend?"
"To be honest," Wesker's entire body froze, he even stopped breathing. "I haven't actually thought about it. It's all very complicated."
"Oh, that's a bummer." Austin's smile faded a bit. "Well, if you ever want a relationship that's not complicated..."
Nicolette smile up at him and laughed a little. "I'll know where to find you." Austin handed her the two ice cream cones and Wesker shoved the money at him before walking briskly away from the truck, the little kids around him scattering. He couldn't help the frustration that inhabited every cavity of his body, he couldn't force the twinges to stop their now painful attack on his insides, and most of all he couldn't suppress the urge to kill that pesky human ice cream man. "Wesker!" He continued to walk but, un-willed by his body he slowed down a little. "Wesker!" Nicolette stepped in front of him, nearly getting knocked down before he stopped. She held the ice cream cone out to him and he took it numbly. "What's with you?" She hissed at him.
"You." Wesker snapped under his breath. Nicolette shook her head a licked her ice cream cone.
"What did I do?" She asked at she licked the white frozen glob of sugar and cream. Wesker watched her with strange interest, almost as if he couldn't look away.
"Um..." Wesker cleared his throat and forced himself to look away. "What didn't you do."
"I didn't do?" One of Nicolette's eyebrows raised up above her glasses. "That makes no sense."
Wesker watched her continue to lick her ice cream cone. Then suddenly his eye's widened slightly under his glasses at an unexpected feelings and reactions from his body. Wesker narrowed his eye's and swatted the ice cream cone out of Nicolette's hand. Nicolette's mouth dropped open as they both watched the ice cream cone splat on the cement.
"What. The. Hell." Nicolette whispered still looking down at the white melting mess. She looked up at him, over her glasses. "Why?"
"It was a reflex. There was a fly." Wesker replied briskly.
"I didn't see a fly."
"That just proves how I am more Superior then you." Wesker replied easily, looking at her eye's from behind his own glasses.
"That's just not-"
"Excuse me, Nicolette?" Wesker's eye's snapped to the side to see Austin, the annoying, pathetic human. In his hand he held an orange Popsicle. "I saw you lose your ice cream and thought you would want this."
"Oh," Nicolette took it with a smile. "Thanks."
"No problem," Austin smiled back at her and did a little bow. "I enjoy pleasuring woman with their desires."
Nicolette blushed and glanced over at Wesker, noticing how is jaw was being clenched. She immediately took a step away from Austin. "Thanks." She hurried back to Wesker, who was glaring down at the chocolate ice cream cone. "There, lets just get going. I want to swing for a bit."
Wesker walked numbly beside her, hovering over her still, and watching the ice cream melt on to his glove. He soon grew bored of watching it melt and looked over at Nicolette to see her sucking on the Popsicle. Wesker looked away his throat suddenly dry, his heart pounding, the twinge in his chest intensifying and a strange bodily reaction that shocked him. Wesker pulled himself away from Nicolette's side and crushed the ice cream cone. He tossed it to the ground and pushed all of his strange new urges from his mind. Wesker walked a foot away from Nicolette and pulling is coat closer, trying to hide a certain body part that was bulging out more then usual. Nicolette on the other hand didn't even glance in his direction, she was too busy looking around herself at all the trees and little kids. When the swings came into sight she hurried over to them and started to swing with the Popsicle in her mouth and juice running down her fingers. Wesker stood several feet away, watching her and shaking melted chocolate ice cream off his glove. Wesker stood there for nearly and hour watching her just sit there and swing. Oddly he couldn't stop finding a fascination with her just swinging there. It was as if Wesker was under a spell. As soon as the thought began to dawn on him his phone went off. Wesker reached into his pocket and pulled it out only to find a text message from Steve. Hour's up if your sick of being out in the sun. Wesker shoved the phone back into his pocket before he walked over the Nicolette who was still swinging on the swing.
"Time to go." Nicolette sighed before Wesker could open his mouth. She jumped off of the swing landing right in front of him with a smile on her face. "Can we get some lunch before we go?"
"Are you serious?"
"Yes, and hungry." Nicolette placed both hands on her stomach and let her lower lip stick out.
"Where do you think we can get anything for you to-" Nicolette cut him off by pointing at a little food stand just a few feet from a jungle gym. "This place hate's me."
"It does not!" Nicolette protested laughing as she grabbed his wrist and tugged him forward. "It just wants us to stay as long as we can."
"Can you not just eat when we get back." Wesker hissed under his breath as he let Nicolette lead him to the stand.
"Please, Wesker." Nicolette whispered, looking over her shoulder at him. "It's not like this food will kill me."
"Your lucky I-"
"'Need you alive', yes I got the memo." Nicolette replied laughing, something about her laugh got to Wesker and he flashed an all to brief smile. Nicolette pulled him up to the stand, which was surrounded by kids shouting and yelling parents. Wesker couldn't hear what Nicolette had ordered or what the man in charge had said but he could tell from the way the man was watching her and the way Nicolette had glanced over at him that the man was hitting on her. Nicolette smiled at Wesker and pulled him closer to her, the closest they had ever been with out threatening to kill each other or fighting. The man turned away from them and grabbed something wrapped up in paper. He quickly turned around with a huge smile on his face and handed it to Nicolette.
"Go wait over there." Wesker murmured as he pulled out the money. Nicolette walked over to a bench just a few feet away and began to rip into the paper. Wesker handed the man the money and was about to join her when the man stopped him. Wesker slowly turned his head back in the other mans direction. "Is there something wrong."
"No," The man replied with a smile. "Its just, I have your change." Wesker continued to just look at the man enjoying the fear it brought in the mans eye's before he started to leave again. "Ah, sir! Wait!" Wesker turned back to see the man looking at him imploringly.
"Yes?" Wesker felt irritation start eat at his words.
"I-uh-I wanted to ask..." The man gulped and took a deep breath. "Are you here with her?"
"What?" Wesker asked, shock and anger attacking and fogging his brain.
"The pretty blond girl." The man looked over at Nicolette with a lusting look in his eye's. "Are you too-?"
Wesker interrupted the man with low growl. "Stay away from her." The man glanced back at Wesker his eye's suddenly wide in terror. Wesker turned around and walked away from the stand, he grabbed Nicolette's elbow and pulled her to the car. When they were in the car Nicolette reached over and placed her hand on Wesker's arm. Wesker's head snapped in her direction and she almost pulled her hand away, instead she placed the food wrapped up in paper on her lap and took off her glasses, her light blue eye examining his face.
"What's wrong?" Nicolette asked softly.
"Nothing."
"Stop lying." Nicolette whispered, hanging the glasses from the front of her black tank top. "Just tell me."
"No." Wesker started the car and didn't face her. "It's of no importance."
"It is if it's important to you." Nicolette continued to whisper as her eye's tried to pinpoint his under his glasses. "Remember, what effects you effects me."
"I highly doubt it." Wesker mumbled under his breath, her brushed Nicolette's hand off of his arm before raising his voice and looking at her. "I just remembered that there was a test that I had wanted to complete today."
"Oh." Nicolette looked down at her lap and began digging into the paper for her food. Just as they had pulled out of the parking lot Nicolette had freed her corn dog. Wesker caught a glimpse of it and groaned inwardly. He couldn't help but glance over at her once in a while to watch her eat. He also couldn't stop the bulge from returning as a side effect. Wesker tried to focus on the road the remainder of the way back to the Umbrella Head Quarters.
/~/~/~/
Steve sat down next to Daniel Moore, Wesker's second in command, with a pile of papers and a bag of sour cream and onion chips. Daniel looked over at Steve with an easy smile on his face.
"Hey, Steve, whatcha up to there?" Daniel asked, nudging the guy next to him to shut up.
"Just some papers Wesker wanted done today." Steve glanced around the table. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Nothing-" Daniel began before an Umbrella solider broke in.
"Wesker and Miss Holiday."
"What about them?" Steve asked laughing. "How much they hate each other?"
"You know they don't hate each other. At least I don't believe Wesker hates her." Daniel replied awkwardly.
"Wesker honestly couldn't careless about Niki." Steve's smile widened. "Now Niki absolutely hates everything about Wesker. No doubt about it."
"You sure? I haven't heard them fight-"
"Doesn't mean that they don't, trust me." Steve said firmly interrupting Daniel. "She hate's him and he doesn't care about her at all. Those are the facts boys. You know how Wesker is, he doesn't see her as anything but a tool."
"So you can't see anything happening between them?"
"Nope." Steve replied opening the bag of chips and grabbing a pen out of his pocket. "It's never going to happen, mark my words."
/~/~/~/
Nicolette was sitting in her room on her bed brushing her recently washed hair, wearing a gray tank top and a pair of brown shorts, when there was a knock on her door. Nicolette rolled her eye's, tossed the brush aside, and got up to answer the door. She knew that it was only a matter of time before Steve would come and bug her about the events at the park, and even though she was going to be happy to see him, she had know idea what really happened today. Nicolette swung the door open with a smile on her face.
"Hey, Ste-" Nicolette broke off as she took in who was really standing in front of her. His boots were gone and in the place of his black leather dust was a 3/4 black collared shirt. "W-W-Wesker?" Nicolette choked out, backing away from the door.
"Did I surprise you?" He asked walking it to the room after her. He paused for a moment to close the door. Nicolette heard and audible click.
"Did you just lock the door?"
"You sound surprised." Wesker replied turning slowly towards her as she stumbled against the side of her bed. "I thought you knew what I was capable of."
"I guess I just thought to highly of you." Nicolette snapped, realizing that Wesker was about to kill her. "My mistake."
"Hmm, I would say that," Wesker disappeared and then reappeared right in front of her. Nicolette glared up at him as he took off his glasses and threw them onto her nightstand. "Just yet."
"What are yo-" Nicolette was cut off by Wesker pressing his lips against her's. Losing control she let her hands get tangled up in his light blond, gelled back hair, underneath the had casing was feathery soft hair. Wesker stifled a moan and wrapped his arms around her waist, crushing her against his body. Wesker pulled away briefly, breathing heavily as he pulled her hands out of his hair. Nicolette was just regaining her strength when he pecked her as he grabbed the hem of her tank top. When he pulled back to let her gasp for breath he slipped it off of her body and threw it across the room before kissing her again. Wesker felt her fingers comb threw is hair and he held her close again. He was surprised when her fingers disappeared from his hair but got the shock of a life time when his shirt was ripped open, buttons popping off and flying in different directions, and her hands were pressed against his chest. Wesker released her and let the shirt slide off his body, hitting the carpet with a muted thud. Wesker opened his eye's, taking in Nicolette wearing only a cream colored bra and a pair of brown shorts with her long damp hair curling down over her shoulders. Wesker grabbed a hold of her again, kissing her harder then before, and pushed her onto the bed. His hands began roaming her body, memorizing every curve and angle she had, before he began peeling off her shorts. Nicolette, on the other hand, was having an internal conflict. Her body screamed yes, while her brain shouted no, and heart was being torn in two different directions. With out thinking or willing them to her hands brushed down from Wesker's chest to the front of his pants grabbing a hold of his belt and tugging gently before moving back up north to get lost in his hair again. When Wesker felt her tug his belt he couldn't stiffly a growl as he ripped her shorts the rest of the way off of her legs and pushed her into the bed with more force. Nicolette wrapped her legs around Wesker's hips and tugged on his hair. Wesker growled again, this time letting go of Nicolette's waist to rip off his belt. Nicolette pulled her lips from his, gasping for breath as Wesker kissed her jaw and down her neck. She opened her eye's and looked around herself, looking anywhere but the one place she really wanted to. Wesker's lips burned into her skin as air finally reached Nicolette's oxygen deprived brain. Slowly she relized what was happening and why Wesker was really here.
"No." She breathed, still completely out of breath as Wesker's mouth kissed the area in between her collar bone and her neck. Wesker couldn't hear her, he was to lost in his planing. Nicolette put her hands between their body's and pushed against his chest, speaking a little louder this time. "No!" Wesker pulled away and looked down at her, raising an eyebrow before he leaned back down to kiss her again. "NO!" This time she untangled her legs from his hips and pushed hard against him.
"What?" Wesker stared down at her with an unreadable expression. "What did you just say?"
"I-I said-"
"Did you just tell me no?" Wesker's eye's started to blaze the brightest form of red imaginable. He jumped off the bed to his feet, stormed to the door, unlocked it, swung it open and slammed it shut so hard that it broke off its hinges and slammed into a wall. Nicolette stared after him in complete shock, unable to completely prossess what had just happened, before she realized that she was laying on a bed in her underwear and got up to slip the tank top and the shorts back on before hiding the things that Wesker had left behind. Just as she shoved his shirt under her pillow Steve ran in his eye's wide with worry.
"You okay?" He asked, running up to her and hugging her.
"I'm-I'll be fine." Nicolette replied, letting Steve hold her for once and trying to fight the tears. "I-I'm just-My door."
Then for the first time, she started to cry in front of Steve, who held her tighter not knowing what much else he could do.
"What's wrong?" Steve whispered as he started rocking her and himself back and forth.
"I want my Aunt." Nicolette sobbed into his shirt as Steve also started to pat her on the back.
/~/~/~/
It was the middle of the night when Jacquelyn Taylor sneaked in to her bosses bedroom wearing only a thin bathrobe and a set of underwear. Her heart began to pound as she caught sight of his sleeping form in his bed. Jacquelyn couldn't stop her gasp at his godlike form under the sheets and the blankets. She numbly hurried over to the bed as quietly as her feet could carry her. Jacquelyn slipped off her bathrobe and climbed under the blankets laying next to Wesker with her heart pounding even harder. 'I'm going to take his mind off of that blond little twit.' Jacquelyn turned on her side and brushed her hand up Wesker's arm.
Wesker was woken up by the sound of his door opening. No one would be stupid enough to disturb him in the middle of the night, not unless they were suicidal. The only person who was crazy enough to attempt it would be...Nicolette. Wesker immediately let his body relax against the mattress and closed his eye's faking sleep. He heard soft feet clumsily walk over to his bed, was Nicolette drunk? She doesn't normally walk like that, her feet usually sounded like a whisper against the carpet unless she was wear heels. Wesker's interest peeked when he heard something soft hit the floor. The blankets were shifted and then bed shifted as she climbed into the bed. Wesker felt a small part of himself want to roll over in the bed and continue where they had left off, another part wanted to shove her away, a part larger then the other two wanted her to apologize to him before he did ether. Nicolette nearly broke his facade as she brushed her hand up his arm and rested it on his shoulder, her fingers softly drumming against his skin. Her finger's felt different then before, they were missing the flames that burned into his skin. The flames the edged him on, instead they felt like just skin. She brushed her hand down his chest in a strange wavy trailing motion. Wait a moment... Her hand was dangerously close to a certain part of his body. 'Niki wouldn't do anything like-' The hand suddenly, with out warning, grabbed a hold of his crotch. Wesker's eye's snapped open and his hand grabbed the hand, yanking it away from his body. He rolled over, straddling the Nicolette impostor and holding them down by their wrists. Wesker's lips pulled pack in disgust when he recognized the impostor as Jacquelyn Taylor.
"What. Do. You. Think. Your. Doing." Wesker snarled angrily, his eye's glowing dimly.
"I'm trying to show you that I'm better then that blond lying bimbo." Jacquelyn declared oblivious to Wesker's anger as she leaned up and kissed his stiff lips. Wesker intensify his grip on her wrists, hearing a satisfying and sicking snap. Jacquelyn screamed loudly and withered under Wesker's body. "My wrists!"
"What did you say?" Wesker asked coldly his eye's blazing. "That didn't hurt? Well, I can fix that."
Wesker rolled off of her, pulling her to her feet by her broken wrists. He released her wrists and aimed a halfhearted punch at her ribcage hearing another satisfying and sickening snap. Jacquelyn crumpled to the ground only to be kicked into a wall. Wesker bent down and picked her up by her neck, holding her up in the air. He glared darkly up at her before he threw her in the middle of the room. Wesker walked slowly until he was standing above her before he picked her up by her neck again, holding her up as he pulled his hand back, he looked directly in to her glazed over, pain filled eye's before shoving his hand directly into her chest, ignoring the blood that sprayed on to his skin. When the life left the woman's body he pulled his hand out in a quick movement and let her drop to the floor.
/~/~/~/
Nicolette lay in her bed staring at her ceiling. Steve had fixed her door and tried to make her feel better before he went off to bed, leaving Nicolette to wonder if she made the right decision earlier with Wesker. Was it really what she wanted? To say no to him? It had very nearly torn her heart out to say it and now it was killing her to even think it, but what if she had been wrong? What if Wesker actually wanted her? What if she wasn't just a one night stand to him? Nicolette pushed herself out of bed.
"I have to talk to that fricking asshole." She muttered under her breath. Nicolette had barely shut her door when she heard a scream echo in the hallway. "What...?"
Nicolette walked unsteadily to Wesker's room in a daze. She reached out and tuned the knob, opening then door. Nicolette's mouth dropped open as she took in the sight of Wesker standing in the middle of the room wearing a pair of black boxers, his skin stained in blood, and Jacquelyn's bloody, mangled body. She couldn't stop moving slowly into the room until she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Nicolette 's eye's snapped up to see Wesker looking at her, his bloodstained hand right next to his face, pushing his un-gelled hair out of his sight.
"Nicol-"
"Don't." Nicolette whisper, interrupting Wesker her voice strangely calm, the opposite of how she felt on the inside. "Just...just don't."
"I-"
"Don't Wesker!" Nicolette raised her voice and narrowed her eye's. "I-I hate you!"
Nicolette turned around and ran out of the room. Wesker reached his bloodstained hand after her and took a step forward, only to bump into the body on the floor. Wesker let his hand drop and glared down at it.
"This is all your fault." He growled kicking it. Wesker turned his back on the body and walked away.
/~/~/~/
The next day Steve stood in the usual meeting room, watching all the Umbrella higher ups that worked below Wesker find their seats for the weekly meeting. Wesker came in as calmly and as coolly as every taking his seat and watching expressionlessly as everyone started to give Wesker any news and updates that they had. Halfway through the meeting Steve caught movement in the corner of his eyes, it was a door opening just wide enough for a female with long blond hair and strange white blue eyes to slip in with out being detected by any human before shutting the door. Steve couldn't help but smile at her, he had worried for the past several days when she continued to refuse to come to the dinning room to eat anything and never left her room. Every time he came by she had let him in but her hair was always in a sloppy ponytail, in her pj's, her eye's glazed over, and every move defensive and protective of herself. Steve tried the ketch her eye but Nicolette was focused deeply on something, following her gaze he saw Wesker. Steve looked back at her in surprise just in time to see her eye's moving as if trailing something somewhat important to her. Steve followed her gaze again to see a young Umbrella CEO of sorts. He was only a few level's below Wesker's position and completely at ease hanging around the building longer then any of the others. Steve glanced back at Nicolette to see a little evil smile curl on her lips.
Wesker watched Nicolette intently, waiting for her to start yelling at him in front of everybody or spring at him angrily like he had seen some girls do in weird romantic movies and shows before he gave up trying to understand the female populace when he was in his twenty's, only with Birkin's urging of course. Instead she stood there, her eye's fixated on something just off his shoulder. Then, as if there had been some sort of sing, Nicolette softly, yet briskly, walked past everyone at the table and just as she had almost reached him she turned to the side, spun a chair around, reveling one of his CEO's Walker Haywood. Nicolette didn't even glance in Wesker's direction as she leaned down and kissed the CEO right in front of him, silence cut through the room like a knife. Nicolette pulled away from the man, leaving him dizzy and confused in his chair, and walked over to Wesker. She walked behind his chair, her hand running along the top of it until she reached the other side and leaned down so her face was right next to his ear.
"Your not the only one who can run test's." She whispered as Wesker turned is head in her direction. "And I believe I told that any random Umbrella worker would have been better, more eventful, then you..." She laughed quietly. "Well, lets just say...it's rare when I lie."
Nicolette pulled away and walked briskly out of the room, leaving as quiet as a funeral home with Wesker sitting there, his eye's slowly beginning to burn red. In one fluid motion, unseen to the naked eye, Wesker got to his feet, punched a huge hole into the long glass table and left the room, slamming the door so hard that the windows shattered.
