Chapter Two: A Band of Heroes
Link took a seat and had a mug of amber liquid shoved in front of his face. He was halfway through the glass before he was even able to start processing what was in front of him. 12 people, who made the ones he had adventured with before look nearly normal. Actually, Link thought as he took another sip, that wasn't entirely fair. With the exception of the rodents and machine-men, all of them were human, making them less strange than say Kirby or Diddy. Although, Link thought, reconsidering as he took another sip, he was allowing for a large range of normal, considering how odd and colorful some of their attire was. Also this was among the absolute worst drinks he'd ever had the displeasure of tasting.
One of the animals was a brilliant blue, which nearly matched the color of the other mechanical man, although the animal had sharp spikes jutting out of his head and back. His arms and legs were thin, but his feet and hands were large and encased in gloves and shoes. Despite his frail appearance, the large-eyed, waist-high creature gave off an aura of swiftness. Near him was a similarly shaped creature, although his yellowish-orange fur and double tails made him stand out. In fact, Link thought, the orange one kind of reminded him of Fox. Something in his face.
As Link slowly drank and thought to himself, the others stood by, occasionally murmuring or exchanging glances. None of them stared directly at Link, but he could feel their gazes all the same. In an effort to avoid talking to them and certainly to avoid thinking about what he just escaped and who didn't escape with him he looked them over, doing his best to take in every feature they had without meeting any of their eyes.
The suited men drew his gaze next. Honestly, with the exception of fully visible faces encased in helmets, he thought they looked a lot like Samus, although he was surprised by how clean-shaven and boyish the blue one's face was. The red one had a more adult face, but it wasn't really more masculine. In fact, with the long blonde hair and green gems placed suspiciously on his chest, Link was starting to wonder if the red one was a man.
Following those unusual figures, the next ones were almost banal in their normality. One was a woman, too old to be called young, but too young to be called middle-aged. She was pretty, in a plain, understated cute way. Like the girl next door, not the amazoness of beauty that Samus wa-
Link caught that thought off abruptly.
Her hair was brownish-red and tied off in a ponytail that reached down to her shoulders and her clothing was of a type Link wasn't familiar with. It was a uniform, he guessed, but he wasn't sure what for. Her pants were tan, her shirt a faint green and she was draped in bandoliers and pockets. Her equipment was all pretty small, with some devices that looked similar to Falco's guns and grenades, but of a different model. The man next to her was also packed full of weapons and equipment, but his clothing seemed less uniform and more individual than hers. A dark leather jacket, a darker shirt and blue pants contrasted sharply with light hair that seemed to have started going gray a little earlier than his age would suggest. His hair, Link noticed, was weirdly fine and delicate, nearly seeming to feather out as it covered one eye, but the man's hard expression, well-toned physique and far beyond the normal amount of knives made it clear that he was not a delicate man.
Link's gaze then traveled to the blond, spiky-haired swordsman who talked to him when he arrived. His clothing was dark, leathery and entirely irrelevant when one considered the giant, omigod, that sword is so huge, is anyone else noticing the behemoth of a sword?! Link caught himself staring at the blade, and before anyone could interpret his interest as a desire to talk, he moved onto the woman near the swordsman. She also carried a sword, a long, curving one that was still well within the realm of normal. Thin armor was draped around her green vest and light beige pants. Her hair was flowing, gentle waves the color of cornsilk, and her face had a fey beauty to it that was sharper than even Zelda's at her most mysterious, but the way she carried herself- she was all warrior and dammit Link was thinking about Samus again.
The next girl he saw was very young, truly a girl and not a woman. She was short, petite, with dark red hair in thick locks. Her clothing was a peach-pink color mostly, and like the fiery haired man next to her, it had a lot of zippers. The man was tall, thin and garbed in black, hooded robes, but his hair jutted out in great spikes that made it seem unlikely he could actually pull the hood down.
The last two were women too. One was small, slender with a youthful, rounded face, but a scar along her cheek gave her a hard look, and the clear musculature gave her a powerful presence. Her legs were bare and the tight green spandex she wore did little to disguise her figure. The woman near her was tall and graceful, with a sinuous yellow scarf and form-hugging clothes.
With that final observation, Link realized he had finished his glass and could no longer avoid the people around him.
"Where am I?" Link asked, drawing the attention of all, even the grouchy bartender, although his attention was short-lived.
"A stop between dimensions," the fox-like one said, his voice far younger than Link would have guessed. "Basically a neutral zone where people from different worlds can gather easily."
"Like the Smashing Realm," Link said quietly.
Link took the fox speaking pretty well in stride, having seen far weirder things in his life. Some of the others looked startled or uncomfortable though, as if they hadn't realized that the fox was more than just a colorful, partially clothed animal.
"And you are?"
"People like you," the blonde swordsman said. "We've been displaced from our homes by revived and organized villains."
Link snorted. "Of course you have. Well, sorry to say this, but the villains in my home are dead. I wish that was my problem."
The fox seemed confused at that. "Did you not just escape from a subjugated world?"
"Yeah," Link said, irritation creeping into his tone. "But it wasn't mine."
That seemed to draw some attention. The red machine man showed an expression other than bored indifference for the first since Link arrived. "Explain."
Link bristled at the commanding tone. "Don't tell me what to do."
The man raised an eyebrow. Or at least, he looked like he would have, if his helmet didn't come down far enough to cover them. "I didn't realize you would take it as an order."
Link glared at the man, not sure if he was being sarcastic. "I don't see why I have to tell any of you anything. I just came through hell and don't know any of you."
"The turtle didn't vouch for us?" the fox asked.
"No one vouched for the turtle," Link said. He turned his glare to the empty mug in his hand. "Why the hell am I not drunk?"
"Cause that's water," the bartender grumbled. Link scoffed for a second and then stared at the remaining, amber-colored liquid rimming the edges of the glass. He paled noticeably and pushed the mug away. Several of the others who had their own glasses copied his behavior.
"Moving on," the swordsman said, pointedly ignoring the bartender. "Maybe we should see if we could get more comfortable with each other?"
"How?" the blue mechanical man asked.
"Well, this was intended to be a meeting of allies, for us to agree to help each other and retake our worlds. We should work out a plan on how we're going to do that."
"You were the expert on portals who set this up," the knife-laden man said. "Our scientists barely understood the stuff. I know for a fact me and Claire have no idea what's possible and what's not with these things, so beyond shooting the bad guys when they're in front of us, I got nothing."
"I have no idea either actually," the swordsman said. "I mean, we've got some people capable of manipulating the pathways between dimensions, but I wasn't responsible for any of that."
"This is ridiculous," Link said. "You're trying to assemble some half-assed band of heroes to go traipsing from world to world, killing the bad guys one villain at a time?"
"Hey that's not bad!" the blue man said.
"Nice idea," the red-haired girl said, with a gentle smile.
"It's not an idea," Link snarled back, wiping the smile off her face. "It's the most damn obvious thing to do. Trust me, I did it. It worked. And now everything sucks."
There was a long silence.
"Maybe we should focus on getting to know each other," the swordsman said. "We can figure out plans of attack after we see where we all stand."
"And how do you suggest we familiarize ourselves with each other?" the fox asked.
"Why don't we hear how your worlds fell," the graceful woman said. Her accent got a jump out of Link, but other than that he didn't respond. "If we share what we all have in common, and see how the situation is on each world, a plan could arise."
"Sounds good," the swordsman cut in, overriding Link's snort of derision. "Who wants to go first?"
No one jumped at the opportunity. The swordsman's small smile of support started to fade in disappointment, until the knife-laden man pushed the woman next to him with his elbow. "Oh, look at that, Claire would love to go first."
"Dammit Leon," Claire said, stumbling forward. She started to step back, but when she saw everyone looking at her she sighed and brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Fine. I'll do it. But you're talking too, Leon!"
The man just smiled innocently. No one else interrupted, and even Link looked vaguely curious as to what they had to say. After a short clearing of her throat, the woman began to speak.
A few months ago at the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance European Base...
"Dammit Chris, stop packing for one second and look at me!" Claire shouted. Chris's apartment was small and spartan, with the same militarized feel as everything the BSAA did. Claire knew from seeing some of the other apartments though, that Chris had gone out of his way to take one of the smallest on base, something that flew in the face of his rank, experience and seniority in the organization. If he actually spent any time in his official living quarters, she might have chewed him out for punishing himself in such stupid ways.
"What? I'm busy." Chris punctuated this statement by slamming shut a small suitcase that had more guns than clothes in it. Considering it was probably all of his clothes, and not nearly all of his guns, Claire hoped that didn't mean he had a second suitcase of just guns lying around.
"I know, but Chris, you've got to stop. Or at least take a break."
"I can't. I have to do this."
"Why? It can't be personal anymore. You found Jill. You killed Wesker. You're done."
"It'll always be personal," Chris said angrily. "I won't stop. I'm doing this for the men that died, not just for me."
"You have to stop! I spent all that time searching for you, I find you and it doesn't matter, because you just leave again."
"You know why I leave!" Chris shouted, his hands clenching into fists. Claire took a step back, fully realizing how much he dwarfed her. Still, he was her brother and she wouldn't let him intimidate her.
"And that's why it's so awful. I know exactly what you're out there doing, what you're fighting; and it's noble, but it's killing me. I know that any minute you could die some horrible painful death, or worse, get turned into some mindless monster. And every time you leave, every time I look on the news and see what devastation is being wrought on some poor city, I know you're right there in the middle of it."
"You worry Claire, I get that," Chris said, making a visible effort to calm down.
"Don't belittle it by calling it worry Chris. Worry is for if you're a few minutes late for lunch, or you don't call back for a day. You're diving headlong into literally the most dangerous, awful things we could imagine and risk fates worse than death every minute you're there. I'm panicked every time you're gone. And you're gone a lot."
"You think I don't worry about you?" Chris said, turning it back on her. "You're going into situations nearly as dangerous as me."
"They are not!" Claire said, startled to see Chris actually responding to her. Usually at this point in their arguments he shuts her out, but something she said must have gotten to him. "If I do my job right, I never have to fire a shot."
"Then why do you always bring a gun?" Chris said.
Claire didn't respond. Chris waited a minute and when he saw that she had nothing to say, he grunted and grabbed his suitcase. She made a sound as he left, but it was just non-vocal sound of frustration and Chris ignored it.
"Dumbass," Claire grumbled after he left. She kicked at the door, and when that didn't make her feel better she kicked it again. That time it actually made her feel worse, and she reluctantly left Chris's apartment, limping slightly. It was an overcast day, not raining but the promise of a storm hung in the air.
Claire didn't see Chris as she left the apartment; she assumed he had gone straight to the helipad. She considered going after him and trying to talk him again before he left. She knew she couldn't convince him to stop driving himself into the ground, but she could at least make him realize he didn't win their conversation. She hated thinking that he thought he outsmarted her. Before a decision was made, Leon turned a corner and called out her name.
"What?" Claire grumbled. Then she paused, as Leon neared. He wasn't wearing a uniform, just dark pants and a thick jacket, although he still carried his pistol and a few knives. "Wait, what are you doing here?"
"They let me in," Leon said slowly, as if explaining something to a child.
"No, I mean, why are you here? You don't work for the BSAA."
Leon gave her an embarrassed smile. "I kind of do now."
Claire completely stopped walking, all thoughts of Chris temporarily shot out of her mind. "What?! But who's protecting the president?"
"Not the guy who shot the last president," Leon said.
"Oh. Right."
"Yeah, I figured I should quit before they fire me. The new president was kind of uncomfortable around me."
"But there were extenuating circumstances!"
Leon waved his hand, indicating that he didn't want to talk about it anymore.
"Anyways, I'm working in an advisory position for the BSAA now. Your bosses didn't want a guy with my skillset and experience going to waste."
Claire snorted at that, a smile quirking up her lip. "Of course not."
"Enough about me. What's got you limping?"
Claire flushed slightly. "It's nothing. Chris and I just had another fight."
Leon raised an eyebrow. "And did you try to kick that mountain of muscle?"
"No!" Claire said, flush deepening. "I kicked a door."
"So you somehow missed him?"
"No!" Claire shouted, nearly stamping her foot in indignance, before realizing how childish that would look, and how much amusement Leon would derive from that.
"So what's wrong then?" Leon said, tone shifting from one of teasing to one of sympathy.
"The same thing as always," Claire said. "Chris has been fighting viruses and terrorists and monsters for fifteen years now, and he won't stop."
Leon gave Claire a long stare. "That's not exactly fair Claire. You have your own obsession."
"That's not the same! I know Steve's body was picked up by Wesker. He could be alive, or a terrible monster or something. I need closure on that."
"We're all searching for something," Leon said, somewhat wistfully.
Claire glared at him. "You're not the same either. You know Ada's probably alive, and doing fine."
Leon looked somewhat annoyed at that. "I was referring more to Jill and Carlos, and Rebecca and Billy. But now that you mention it, you're right. I do know Ada's probably alive. I don't know what the hell she's doing or why."
"I'm not trying to get into another fight," Claire said, sighing.
"Well if you were, you nearly succeeded," Leon said, earlier traces of humor gone. "Why's it bother you so much what he does?"
"Besides him being my brother?" Claire asked.
"Yes. You've been fighting about this for years. It seems personal."
Claire sighed and stared off past Leon. She stared for so long he started to wonder if she had fallen asleep standing up, when she turned her attention back to him. "I just...you're right. I do have my own obsession. But I can get through it, because I have a goal: Find Steve. Chris had his own goals: Find Jill, Kill Wesker. He did those, but he's still just as obsessed. He shifted his goals and I'm afraid..."
"You're afraid that if he can't get over it, you won't be able to either," Leon said, with more compassion in his voice than Claire was expecting. She smiled sadly.
"Chris is probably gone now," Claire said. "Why don't we get a drink together, and try not to think about our obsessions and the people we lost?"
At that moment, Chris's apartment exploded, sending Claire and Leon running for cover. A second explosion sounded from deeper in the base, coming near HQ.
"We're under attack?!" Claire yelled, dodging the remains of Chris's home.
"Watch yourself, there could be an outbreak!" Leon shouted back, trying to dodge and cover his face with his sleeve from any viruses that could be drifting around. When the dust cleared, the two joined up with an organized, but confused batch of BSAA soldiers, who were heading to the second explosion. On the way however, something ovalloid and metallic crashed into the pavement near them.
"A capsule?" one of the men near it asked. He lowered his rifle and started to move towards it.
"Back off!" Leon said, pulling out his handgun. The man started to scoff at the unranked man trying to tell him what to do on his base, but then remembered what they usually dealt with and took the man's advice. A little bit too late as something kicked the door off the capsule hard enough to send the man down with a broken spine. He screamed as a hulking, bald, gray-skinned man in an enormous black trench coat emerged from the capsule. The BSAA soldier tried to raise his rifle to fire, but his arms weren't working. Following a powerful stomp from the giant, most of the rest of him wasn't working either.
"I don't believe it," Claire said drawing her own pistol. "That's the Tyrant we killed in Raccoon City. Who dug up another one of them?"
No one answered her, as the Tyrant stomped towards them, its fists larger than the men's heads. Despite the surprise of the attack and the sudden death of one of their members, the other seven men were quick to regroup and open fire. Having been trained for battling inhuman bullet sponges, they made sure to spread out and focus their fire, their assault rifles pouring into the Tyrant's center mass and head. The creature lunged forward, trying to pound one of the men into the ground, but even with his gear, he was able to slip around the fast, but unmaneuverable monster, and was quickly pumping fire into again. Soon the sheer barrage of bullets sent the creature to its knees. Leon and Claire fired some shots at it, but it seemed like the creature was barely alive even now: bleeding from dozens of wounds, its chest a mangled mess and its head more bullet than brain.
"If this was some kind of attack on the BSAA, they didn't plan this well," Claire said. "B.O.W.'s like that are dangerous in a small, ammo-deprived environment, but against a trained force?"
"Looks like some moron got his hands on something he didn't understand," Leon said.
The Tyrant responded by shuddering, and then its upper body exploded out into a noxious blue gas.
"What?" Leon shouted. "The C-Virus?!"
Leon and Claire bolted from the expanding virulent fog, while the BSAA soldiers started to put on their gas masks. Two of them were too slow, and the blue gas seeped into their noses and mouths, driving them coughing to the ground.
"What's going on?" Claire yellled, as the sounds of screaming echoed from multiple areas on the base. Minor explosions, like those of grenades, rumbled nearby and threatening to overtake those noises was the unearthly cries and moans of the growing horde of inhuman beasts. Claire took a few shots at what she swore was a Hunter that dashed across their path.
"A better question is where should we go?" Leon asked, the two ducking behind a smoldering car as another Tyrant lumbered past.
"The Helipad," Claire said instantly.
Leon wasn't sure if she was saying that because it was their best shot out of the rapidly growing mess the BSAA base had become, or because she was hoping to find her brother still here. He also decided it didn't matter. With only a few shots fired at the occasional monster or zombified BSAA soldier, the two reached the helipad, and fortunately found that not all the helicopters had taken off. That was in large part because of the organized battalion of soldiers, led by Chris, carefully and methodically decimating the increasing horde of Hunters, Tyrants and zombies lunging for them.
"Claire, get in one of the helicopters and get out of here!" Chris shouted, aiming his rifle and downing a lunging, clawed Hunter in midswipe.
"Careful with the Tyrants," Leon shouted. "They're virus bombs!"
"What?" One of the men shouted, lobbing a grenade at one of the Tyrants as it proceeded to rip apart a BSAA soldier who got too close.
"Shit," Leon said. The grenade exploded, sending the injured Tyrant to its knees. It almost seemed to grin, as it gave off one faint shudder, and then exploded.
"Chris!" Claire shouted, as Chris backed away from the expanding cloud of blue gas.
"The hell?" Chris yelled back, as the men at the forefront of the helipad started coughing.
"We gotta go Chris! We can't deal with this!"
Chris looked reluctant to leave his men, but as the cloud of poisonous blue crept forward, he saw he had no choice. He pushed some of the men behind him forward, and the surviving soldiers ran for the helicopters, using up the last of their grenades to keep the stem of monsters at bay.
Claire, Leon and Chris all found themselves in the same helicopter, and as the pilot carried them away from the base, they saw it had become a warzone. Fires raged out of control, as fewer and fewer bullets fired at greater and greater numbers of infected. As the base pulled out sight, there was a muffled thump, followed by a massive explosion that rocked the helicopter.
"The BSAA have self-destructs on their bases?" Leon asked, as the billowing cloud of flames overtook the cloud of the virus.
"Yeah," Chris said. "Not everything Umbrella did was a bad idea."
"I can't believe you'd say that," Claire said, not entirely joking.
"I can't believe this happened," Chris said. "No warning, no nothing. Just one second, everything was going as normal and then T-Virus monsters were popping up. Who the hell got their hands on the T-Virus?"
"And the C-Virus," Leon said. "Somehow those Tyrants were loaded with the C-Virus. Something weird is going on."
"A lot of good people dying is more than 'something weird'," Chris growled.
The drove on in silence for a while, the helicopter pilot only speaking to say he was taking them to a rendezvous point.
"Hey Chris," Claire said. "That mission you were going on, what was it?"
It took Chris a moment to respond, but eventually he tore himself out of his thoughts. "There was some kind of viral outbreak in France. Actually, it was kind of strange. Reports said that the virus seemed to be similar to that one from Raccoon City."
"The T-Virus?" Leon asked. "Zombies and Hunters and the like?"
"No," Chris said, as if coming to a realization. "It wasn't a big outbreak. Only a few creatures, and the infection rate was minimal. Thing was, the creatures didn't die. They kept mutating and surviving."
"The G-Virus?" Leon asked.
"There are way too many viruses," Claire grumbled. "But that can't be possible! How could there be three different viral infections going on simultaneously? Is one group responsible?"
"Uh, hate to be the bearer of the worst news," the pilot said, "But you should listen to this."
He turned up the radio, and their world turned upside down. Later, when they reached the rendezvous point and talked to other survivors of similar attacks, they turned on the television and connected to the internet. From there, they despaired of ever seeing the world fixed.