Standard Disclaimer Applies-

The sky below the clouds covering Rockfort Island were dark that day, and not just for the the obvious reasons of the storm coming in. The stench of decay and battle marred the small island's otherwise nominal features.

On ground level, the words 'war zone' would have been applicable, though perhaps 'slaughter house' would have been more appropriate.

Rockfort Island would have been rated low on Umbrella's scales in terms of a research base, but it rested higher on the ladder because of some of the bases other features. Such as the Military Training Facility, sorted with the task of rigorously training both the UBCS (the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service) and the far more terrifying USF (Umbrella Special Forces.) The small island also housed the private residence of Umbrella's current chairman and CEO, Alfred Ashford.

The latter being one of the reasons for the recent events on this tiny patch of land.

The events beginning months earlier in the mountains of the Arklay Forest seemed to be prophetic of the industrial giants fate. In the wake of the Raccoon disaster, there had slowly been mutinous actions throughout Umbrella's ranks. The recent actions taken by Commander Vincent of the Sheena Island Tyrant Production Facility, the events concerning the disappearance of another one of the corporation's star researchers, Morpheus D. Duvall, and a host of other smaller occurrences.

It seemed as though everyone was under the general consensus that once the REAL story of Raccoon City came to light, heads would roll, and everyone was under preparation for that day.

Mr. Ashford never was a level headed individual to begin with, but when put under severe stress, he tended to become highly erratic, more so than usual. What was housed in and around premises on the island was always a closely guarded secret, until Raccoon and Alfred going haywire that is.

After finding out the island's contents, HCF, one of Umbrella's chief competitors in the Bio Technology field, both legally and not, decided that with mutiny swelling among Umbrella's personnel, as well as Chairman Ashford's increasingly odd behavior, now would be the opportune moment to strike; and strike they did.

HCF wasn't nearly the size of Umbrella, nor did they possess the clout of their primary rival, but they had more than enough funding to spike the tiny strip of land with extreme prejudice. Sending in the best strike team money could buy, as well as pulverizing the land with everything the surplus of Soviet tactical military aircraft they purchased would allow, the island would fall quickly and they would have the chance to pull off the greatest corporate robbery and coup to date.

Their goals were three fold: retrieve all data pertinent to the Raccoon City Disaster, dispose of Alfred Ashford thusly ensuring chaos in the ranks, and finally, retrieve all data regarding past and current production of Bio Organic Weapons.

The plan had started out well, the bombing took out all communication to the base, as well as most of the barracks and security centers, but when HCF deployed their commandos, they figured out that their intelligence missed something major.

All of their reports had lead them to believe that Rockfort had nothing to do with White Umbrella (the biological weapons division) other than acting as a secure archival holding facility, which it was, however, they had no idea that live samples and specimens were also being contained there. And with a combination of a direct hit from a 500 pound bomb, panicked researchers, a lack of security and reinforcements, and a backup power supply failure, the creatures and the base model of the infamous T virus escaped containment, their men didn't stand a chance...

After taking heavy casualties, the remaining few men were ordered to return to their pickup points for extraction and debriefing, although their commander on ground opted to stay on and attempt further measures to attain their objectives.


Though his men may have questioned his sanity, no one could argue that if anyone had the ability to collect the data and eliminate Ashford, it was their leader. After all, he was highly competent driven, and cool under pressure, a true professional. And he seemed to be unnaturally strong and fast, a truly terrifying individual for anyone to cross paths with.

"I'm so sorry KP."

"It's okay Ron, I just wish you had smaller feet."

Although the jump from the jet was relatively clean, chute deployment was a bit of a problem for Ron. Upon deployment, a slight updraft caught the left side of his chute, allowing both of his boot clad feet to come in contact with Kim's midsection.

Although Kim didn't suffer any injury, the Kimmunicator wasn't so lucky, the distinct sound of crunching plastic was heard by both teens. To make matters worse, as Ron righted himself, his Kimmunicator happened to fall free of it's belt pouch and land somewhere to the ground, over 200 feet below.

In the past there would have Ron's tracking chip for backup, but ever since an unfortunate incident involving a teleporter, missing clothes, and an irate Shego, the chip was rather hastily removed.

Both Kim and Ron had landed directly outside of some sort of holding facility, and from the looks of it it absorbed some pretty heavy damage recently.

Ron let out a low whistle. "Well, at least I know I didn't do it," he concluded with a glance around.

"I'm more concerned with the lack of people, Ron." She did have a point, they were accustomed to seeing scores of hired hands running about, always attending to something or other, but this was the opposite, there didn't seem to be anyone home.

"I think it's a little eerie, but no big, I'd say it just makes the search easier." Ron countered with a shrug.

"Alright, but let's just be careful," Kim said, Ron just nodded his approval.

The only entrance any further into the base seemed to be a door bolted shut from the other side, thinking quickly, Ron held out his hands in a cupping gesture, and got to one knee. Kim gave him a nod, and allowed him to give her a boost up, she returned the favor by grabbing his hand and helped him to clutch the top edge of the wall, and hoist himself up.

Once they had a hold of the wall, they nodded to each other and dropped to the other side for a look.

It appeared to be the main yard of where ever they were. There was a large set of iron gates toward the middle, a door to the right of that leading somewhere deeper into the yard, a door to their left that lead somewhere else, and an overturned truck that seemed to take a header into the wall separating that part of the complex from them and...

"Oh my God..."

A human corpse lay next to the burning transport truck. From the looks of him, one could have assumed he was the driver, his skull was cracked open from the impact, and there were third degree burns covering most of his body.

Both teens were distracted enough by the sight of the poor man, they both failed to notice the Glock handgun that had fallen from the dead man's web belt, and lay undamaged on the ground near him.

Kim and Ron Turned away from that sight quickly. No sooner did they turn, they heard a noise from the far corner of the yard. As soon as they turned to face it, Ron's instincts immediately set off all kinds of warning bells.

A man stumbled toward the two youths, as soon as he moved in to the light, they instantly knew something was amiss. He might have passed for Caucasian male a few days previous, thought now it was hard to tell; he was clad in the tattered remains of what looked to be tiger stripe camouflage trousers and a Grey t-shirt as well as a web belt and black combat boots.

The man had several bite marks around his chest and neck, and seemed as though he was in a trance. He seemed to be seriously ill at best, although the his smell seemed to say otherwise.

As children both, Kim and Ron had been on a nature walk in the forests that surround Middleton while on a class sponsored camping trip. They were only a few hundred yards from the campsite when they had run across the remains of what could have been a mule deer, they didn't have the desire to stick around to figure out how it died, but the smell is something they wouldn't ever forget, the unique scent of decayed flesh, similar to the odor of rotten fruit.

And that was the scent assaulting their nostrils at that moment.

"Alright sir, that's far enough," Kim said in her most commanding tone. Still it wouldn't stop

"Are you listening, dude?!" Ron got out as his internal alarms began to squeal louder.

As Kim dropped into a fighting stance and redyed herself to dish out a blitz of punches, Ron suddenly had a realization. Years of survival horror video gaming and creature feature marathons pegged the thing that shambled before them as one thing, and that was...

'No... it can't be... zombies?' Ron thought as he unconsciously dropped into a fighting stance, and began to sweat.

Claire wasn't sure what to make of her predicament now, she had been captured over 3 days ago while on information recon with Barry and Leon. Just thinking of her BF made her smile a bit, despite her current situation. She was damn lucky to have met someone like him, and she knew it. But her thoughts quickly turned back to the situation at hand.

Her captor had miraculously turned into her savior, and allowed her the freedom to walk out, although he had promised her that she would have practically no chance of leaving alive, whatever that meant.

But Claire never was one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she decided to move out ASAP. The first step was to arm herself, the combat knife she found outside her cell would do for the moment, but she never did have her brother's prowess with a blade. Step two was to check out what was going on topside.

Steadying herself for the unexpected (which was an absolute necessity given the people she was dealing with) she slowly approached the stairwell leading to... well, whatever was above her.

Claire kept her head low as she began up the stairs. Her heart was beating in her ears, and she felt extremely vulnerable at the given time, she wasn't sure what to expect when she hit the top of the staircase, but considering her previous experiences with Umbrella, the young lady knew what to hope she didn't run into.

As soon as she stepped outside, Claire felt the cool drizzle of rain. A part of her brain thought back to one of Chris's field manuals describing how rain provided increased cover or something like that.

Leaving that stray thought to linger, she continued around the corner and came face to face with a smoldering transport truck and a...

"Of coarse" Claire muttered after taking in the sight before her. It was a small cemetery, simple granite markers glistening with rain, Claire used to think they were places of rest, up to about seven months ago, then she learned that sometimes the dead did have a little life left in them.

But there was no need to linger here any longer than necessary, and she was starting to get a chill from the storm. Walking cautiously, knife clutched in a proper combat grip in her right hand, she moved toward the only exit in sight, until she felt a small explosion rock the transport truck behind her.

She cursed under her breath, hoping no one had seen the blast and was coming to investigate. When she turned to survey what damage the blast had caused, her breath caught in her throat, and she realized someone spotting the flaming truck was a void issue.

A body, clad in the blood and fuel soaked remnants of a prison workers uniform slid through the shattered windshield of the truck, he had been mauled badly and the diesel from the leaking truck tank had caught fire as soon as the truck lit up. Upon hitting the ground, the body slowly rose to it's feet, paying no heed to the flames engulfing it's torso, arms, and scalp. It immediately spotted Claire with it's clouded dead eyes, and let loose a moan that could have made anyones blood run cold as it made a slow beeline for the woman.

Claire was scared, and with good reason. But one other thought raced through her head, before her mind began to recollect survival skills she had hoped to never use again: 'here we go again...'

"Oh no." Ron said to no one in particular.

Things hadn't gone so well for the two heroes, after the man had refused to halt, Kim had given him a series of quick punches to the chest and gut, all of which only caused her gloves to get covered with leftover bodily fluids.

Kim discarded her gloves and moved to re-engage her target, Ron had been about to jump in and try to redirect the fight when something incredibly lucky (though they didn't realize it at the time) occurred.

Kim attempted to knock the man unconscious with a roundhouse kick to the jaw. The result of said kick was the subject stumbling backwards and losing its footing, with the back of it's head directly in line with the trailer hitch on the mangled truck.

The results were instantaneous. Both teens heard the sickening crunch of bone as his skull made contact, and slumped to the ground, never to rise again.

Snapping back to the present, Ron saw that Kim was on her knees beginning to sob. Ron was as freaked out as she was, possibly more so, but he couldn't show it. If Kim was supposed to be the strong one, and she was nearly broken, he had to stay strong for them both if they wanted to walk out of this.

Leaning down to try to comfort his partner, Ron noticed the rain beginning to pick up, and also realized how incredibly exposed they were out in the yard and realized they needed to find cover, and try to find out what was going on in this hell hole.

"Come on KP, get up," Ron implored, gently placing a hand on her shoulder, "we need to get inside."

"I k,killed him, Ron." She barely got out between the tears, "he's dead."

"We might be too if we don't hide, someone may come looking for him." Ron said gently as he began to carefully pull her to her feet.

"But I..."

"Kim, it was an accident, okay it was no ones fault." Ron said as he began to guide her toward the door to the right of the main gate. "You didn't mean for it to happen." Ron knew it was true, he had been told to stop several times, but he hadn't listened.

And something was bothering him, he didn't look like he shouldn't have been able to move, let alone attack anyone. And that smell was bothering him too, the stench of death. But the only logical conclusion he had come up with... no, no that was too insane to be true, wasn't it?

As he lead her though the unlocked gate he took in their surroundings. A path ahead leading into darkness and a gate to his left, some odd moaning seemed to be coming from the dark path, as well as the adjacent building, and Ron knew that could only lead to trouble.

Ron guided Kim past an unlocked chain link gate, they then passed through another rust covered door set into the wall. As they drew further into the room beyond, Ron suddenly felt his lunch rise to up to try to meet his teeth, and placed his forearm over Kim's eyes to prevent her from going totally catatonic.

There was a guillotine, and honest to god guillotine, in the corner, but that wasn't the disturbing thing. It seemed to be covered in fresh gore, and there were two unfortunate people near the machine who were so torn up, it was impossible to see what they may have looked like in life.

Ron just pushed on, and helped Kim through the next door, which was blessedly free of anyone's presence. There seemed to be something that looked like a metal detector or something, but whatever it was, the smashed control panel rendered it useless anyway.

Ron and Kim continued down the hall, until they reached a small room with graying paint and various tools and small machinery, after leading Kim to a chair, and making sure the room was clear. Ron blocked the only other door in the room with a convenient pipe, then slumped warily into a chair next to Kim and tried his best to console her, while doing his damnedest to control his own panic, which was trying it's best to choke the ability to rationalize from his mind.

Kim wasn't fairing much better. She knew that a breakdown like this on an operation was a good way to get hurt, but the vast majority of her didn't care. The good guys didn't kill people. She didn't have any idea what to do next, thank god for Ron being there or she'd still be in that courtyard, with ...him.

That suddenly got her to think, her... victim, she punctuated with a significant amount of guilt. Something felt off about him. Growing up with a doctor, Kim couldn't help but have some basic medical knowledge imparted on her. From the extensive wounds that covered his body, that guy shouldn't have even been able move, let alone try to attack anyone.

Although, before she could continue that rather disturbing line of thought, She felt Ron give her a light nudge on her shoulder.

One of Ron's better attributes was his awareness. It had always been there, after years of dealing with monomaniacal madman bent on total world conquest, they were earned well. But they didn't truly kick in until Ron's training with the Yamanuchi.

Unfortunately for Ron, those awareness skills that had been his saving grace so many times, had been slightly hampered by the day's events thus far. Therefore, it came as quite the shock when heard steady boot-clad footsteps in the hallway, while he had been consoling Kim from her unintentional kill.

Ron did the only thing that he could think of at the time, roused Kim who looked up with teary eyes, and noticed Ron nodding at the hall. She nodded in return, and crept to the edge of the doorway directly behind Ron.

Ron slowly reached to the floor next to the doorway and picked up the first thing that he could find, that being a chewed up 2x4 board, and held it inches above the floor with the intent of swinging it into the opponent's legs before he had an opportunity to move in.

Although Kim was content to allow Ron to lead, she needed to make sure he was safe. The guilt of taking a life still ran fresh in her mind, but she was determined to keep them both from getting killed. She wasn't sure what to do next, but she knew one thing she needed to know what the hell was going on around here.

There was a blur of motion from Ron as someone walked around the corner into his trap. Ron jerked the person off their feet with a quick sweep of the 2x4 and had the blunt end of the board pinned against the individual's throat in milliseconds. He felt good about the speed of his attack, and was about to start asking questions, when both teens heard the distinct noise of a pistol being racked.

Kim looked on as Ron found himself staring down the barrel of a Glock 17 automatic with a very pissed off looking red headed young man behind it.

"What the hell, did you just try to kill me with a piece of driftwood?!" The youth demanded.

"No, but I might reconsider if you don't drop the gun!" Ron demanded back. 'At least this guy acts human enough' Ron thought to himself.

"Make me toe head!"

"Guys!" Kim shouted.

Both young men turned to Kim as soon as she soon as she shouted.

"Lets just try to get along for now, alright?" Kim wasn't sure who this guy was exactly, but she was fairly certain that he wasn't of the bad guys, per say, despite the handgun.

For one thing, he was wearing something that Kim thought vaguely looked like locater bands around his wrists and neck, and the black shirt proclaiming him as prisoner no. LDF-0267, which obviously meant this place was some type of holding facility, which could explain that girl's mother being sent here, if that was real, and not some kind of trap for whoever owns this disgusting place.

For another thing, she didn't think this guy (despite the prison clothes) seemed like the prisoner type. He was fairly young, probably about her age, with dark brown, almost red hair, light skin, and dark brown eyes. It was the eyes that had her attention for a second or two.

When you deal with people who are making attempts on both your life, and the planet, the ability to read someone can be pretty valuable. Kim always paid attention to the eyes, 'the gateway to the soul' as it's been said. She saw a lot of pain, but there was a kind of warmth too, kind of like Ron's... But Kim's thoughts were interrupted by the red haired man's voice.

"Hey, You're Kim Possible right?" the man said with a little flash of recognition

"Yeah, that's me," Kim said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "And this is my partner Ron Stoppable." She gestured to Ron, still standing above the man with the board at his jugular.

He looked to Ron and lowered his handgun, "so you're her partner, huh? I thought your last name was Troppable or something."

Ron just sighed and moved the timber from his throat "at least you got my first name right, but what made you think it was Troppable?" Ron questioned, although he was fairly certain he already knew the answer.

"That's what the reporters said it was when you guys kept that blue dork from taking over Canada, by the way, on behalf of Quebec, thank you." He concluded with a nod at Ron, and what might be described as an attempt at a charming smile toward the lady.

Kim rolled her eyes, flirting at a time like this. But it was nice to have someone take her mind off of things. "So you seem to know us, what's your name?" Kim asked.

"Steve, Steve Burnside." He said as he raised himself off the ground. "So you folks are really tight with a lot of police and military type people right, so you guys brought back up?"

"Uh, that's a no," Ron responded rubbing the back of his neck, "we usually work alone, and this was supposed to be a simple rescue, so..."

"Are you kidding me?" Steve asked incredulously, blinking several times. "You knew there were fucking ZOMBIES crawling around and you didn't bring help?!"

"Zombies?!" Both Kim and Ron said at once, forgetting to jinx it.

"Yeah, what the hell else would those things be!" Steve concluded

"What the hell is going on around here." Kim asked shaking her head and replaying the events of earlier in her head. Ron was content to ramble through his mind and try to make the connections fit. And Steve just stood trying to make sense of the two's reactions.

As cocky as he was, Steve was at least smart enough to know that he needed help, he was lightly armed and after his experience with those weird things that expanded their arms...

He managed to suppress a shudder at that. Team Possible was here and they had a lot of experience dealing with weird stuff before, although from their reactions, well, he could give them a hand with that. Steve didn't like to depend on anyone for anything, and having to have someone depend on him wasn't much better. But when it came to survival, he could compromise just a little.

Even though he wouldn't admit to it directly, something he saw in Kim made him want to stay. Seeing someone that the media made out to be damn near invincible teary eyed kicked off Steve's protective instinct. He could help them out a little, do his good deed for the day, and everyone gets home alive and well.

He tried to tell himself that survival was the only reason he wasn't going to bail, and it had nothing to do with the fact that when she looked him in the eye, he got a little light headed, and she was awesomely hot...

Author's Note:

How's that for plot development!

Next chapter will be in the pipes soon! We check in with Ms. Redfield and Our Heroes delve deeper into the sick twisted world of Umbrella Incorporated.

-Israelbauman

PS: 100+ hits and one review? Come on, even if it's short, I'd like some feedback to see if I'm doing alright, and if I'm missing anything.