A/N: This chapter's way too long overdue. Anyways, I'm not sure if anybody's still following up on this, but regardless, here's another update.

Also, my intent is to keep each character intact to their personality in-game. None of that OOC-ness because I find it'd make for much more hilarious situations when contrasted with the humdrum nature of reality.

Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you Chapter 3!

RESIDENT EVIL 7: CASTING CALL

Chapter 3 – The Director

"Tch," Jake scoffed. "Ever the megalomaniac, I see."

Intrigued by the young man in front of him, Wesker took his attention off Chris and slowly seized the other man up. He tipped his sunglasses forward, exposing the glowing irises of his eyes as Wesker appraised Jake. "And just who might you be? I fear that you've mistaken me for somebody else."

"Great, and he doesn't even recognize his own son," Jake rolled his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?" he threw his hands up in exasperation.

"I'll repeat myself once again," Wesker gritted his teeth. He was starting to get annoyed by this young man's brashness. "You've clearly mistaken me for someone else, so I suggest taking your grievances with your father to the man who rightly deserves it. What!?" Wesker whirled around to face Chris as the elder Redfield cleared his throat.

"You do know that he is your son, right?" Chris shot him a funny look.

"You had a son?" his equally perplexed sister quipped.

"Wait, let me get this straight. Our former captain, the great Albert Wesker actually fathered a child?" Jill folded her arms, this sudden revelation stunning her as well. "Well, prior to that, you must have been in a relationship with a woman, correct?" she narrowed her eyes skeptically.

It was never any concern to what regards others held Wesker in, but somehow, the implication of Jill's words stung. "D-did you…" he sputtered, "Did you honestly think I was that hopeless in that regards?"

Jill and Chris simply stood there and shrugged. This infuriated him even more.

"To be honest, women really find your whole 'total-world-domination-complex' a turn-off," Chris replied, highlighting Wesker's obvious personality flaw.

"That, and the fact that you love your reflection more than you do us women," Jill added with a straight face.

"Do you take me for a fool, Chris or is this another one of your lame attempts at a joke?" Wesker growled. He did not come here to have his love life belittled and put under scrutiny. "I thought that open mic night at J's Bar was enough to prove that you made a better pointman than a stand-up comic?"

This time, it was Claire's turn to have her curiosity piqued while Jill stifled a laugh.

"Chris?" she relinquished her grip on her brother's ear as she mischievously searched his eyes for truth to those words.

The elder Redfield's eyes widened in embarrassment as his mind wandered back to that horrible and drunken night. He shook the thought away and refocused on the matter at hand. "Stop running away from the truth, Wesker! We know about you and Ms. Muller, and of how she was with your child when she left you to return home to Edonia. That's your son standing right there."

"Impossible!" the usually stoic former STARS captain replied, the smallest quiver of doubt present in his voice. "I would have known!" Wesker shot back upon regaining his composure. His fists clenched as every fiber of his being itched to silence Chris there and then. The man simply talked too much for his own good.

"Deny it all you want, Dad but that still doesn't change the fact that you have a son," Jake stabbed an accusing finger at him. "Oh, and the feeling's mutual – I don't like this any more than you do, you deadbeat piece of crap."

Those final few words were the last straw. Wesker turned his attention onto his son, nostrils flaring.

"Enough!"

The next few moments were a blur as the blonde, bespectacled man lunged at Jake with inhuman speed. Taking the young man by surprise, he seized him by the throat and lifted him off the ground with ease.

"What the?!" Jake squirmed in Wesker's crushing grip.

"Wesker!" Chris yelled out as both he and Jill made to lunge at their former captain in unison.

They had yet to reach him before Jake lashed out with a savage kick; the blow catching Wesker right in the face. The force of the kick was enough to faze him – which was surprising, given the fact that he was able to shrug off almost any physical attack, barring the strongest of Chris's haymakers – causing him to drop Jake to the ground. That strength…could it really be that Jake was truly his biological son?

"I've had enough of you and your meddlesome posse, Chris!" Wesker spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground before continuing, "My only intent in coming here was to have a nice little chat with Capcom's production team about my role in the next installment but it seems even you couldn't grant me that. Well, I figured it's time to take you out of the equation once and for all!" Malice laced every single word of his threat. "And for once, I'm glad your sister is here. I'm sure she'd enjoy watching you squirm as I crush the life out of you, Chris…" Wesker trailed off, as he suddenly staggered on his feet.

"Urk!"

The blonde grunted in pain, wobbled unsteadily on his feet before collapsing to the ground.

Somehow, Claire had made her way behind the distracted Wesker and delivered a wicked right hook to his face. A collective wince of pain went around the room. She casually swept a stray lock of auburn hair behind her ears after making short work of her brother's nemesis.

"Nobody threatens my brother!" she quipped to the man splayed on the ground as she gingerly massaged her fist. An awkward silence descended upon the room after Wesker's destructive spree was put to a sudden end. "Oh, and that was for Rockfort too!"

"Claire, what were you thinking punching that superhuman freak in the jaw?" Chris began, mouth still agape at the sheer feat that his sister just pulled off.

"Well, did you just expect me to stand here and watch him hurt you?"

"No…b-but," the elder Redfield was hard pressed to form a reply as he struggled to process what just transpired. It took his sister all but a span of a few seconds to accomplish what had taken him years to do.

"Yep, he's out cold," Jill called out as she checked for a pulse. "But I don't think it was because of that punch though – even as much as I'd think that the bastard had it coming."

"It's not?" Chris raised his brow, puzzled.

"Nope, I'd say it's this," his longtime partner plucked an object from Wesker's neck and held a small tranquilizer dart between her fingers. "It's empty."

No doubt drawn by all the commotion, Leon and Helena turned up, only to be further puzzled by sight of the aftermath of Wesker's confrontation.

"Hey, Jake! Good to see you're back!" Leon traded greetings with the man in question before addressing the white elephant – or rather, the blonde man lying unconscious on the floor. "So what the hell just happened here? We heard some sort of fight going on."

"That girl right there socked my dad in the face," Jake motioned to Claire in wide-eyed amazement. "Knocked him out cold."

Leon could only gulp on hearing Jake's words. If Claire was capable of putting Wesker to the ground, he'd hate to think what she'd be able to do to him if he got on her wrong side. Thank goodness it's only Helena I need to worry about right now.

"All right, everybody make room!" a voice boomed from one end of the room.

The stagehands and crowd parted to reveal a plain Oriental man, his features hinting at a Japanese heritage, dressed simply in jeans and a plain black shirt. Nevertheless, he must be a man of import, as attested by the air of reverence that he garnered from the production staff in the lot. Slung across his shoulders is a tranquilizer rifle, no doubt the one used to subdue Wesker.

"Albert Wesker really is starting to prove more trouble than he's worth," he sighed, the melodic and lyrical twang of a Japanese accent coloring his voice. "The minute he hears word of preproduction and already he's on our doorsteps hounding us…and creating trouble too. Remind me to thank Ms. Gionne for developing the countermeasure to Mr. Wesker's condition."

He stepped into the center of the crowd, one foot placed victorious over Wesker's unconscious body, not unlike a pose a proud hunter would strike after downing his game.

"Good morning, everyone!"

This earns a chorus of good mornings in reply, and a couple of confused looks from the cast members. He flashed the most genial of all smiles before getting down to business.

"I'm sure most of the cast members haven't seen me before but allow me to introduce myself. I'm Hideo Kojima." The look of confusion on the Resident Evil protagonists face deepened. "No, I'm just messing with you all!" he snickered heartily. "Seriously though, I'm Edei Takeshi, or you can just call me Ed, and I'm the guy who will be serving as lead director on Resident Evil 7!"

This earns him a round of applause and whoops from the crowd while the cast members nod in understanding. Ed graciously pauses until the din dies down before resuming, "Capcom has seen it fit to appoint me as the man who will restore the Resident Evil franchise to its former glory."

"You mean after the disappointment that was Resident Evil 6 which most of us here worked our butts off working on?" Leon couldn't help but quip. It was a grievance he held – and rightly so since the previous installment did somewhat burn him out. It was the most grueling game to produce yet out of the entire installment, what not with all the grand scope and spectacular set-pieces and yet, the sales of the game worldwide didn't quite reflect all the work that went into it.

The director took the criticism in stride as he nodded understandingly. "Yes, I do believe that we had tried to accomplish too much in Six, to the point where we lost the franchise's identity along the way. I'd like to think Michael Bay was to blame for this – I'm guessing all those explosions must have informed the mindsets of the top brass at Capcom."

"Hey, but I love his Transformers movies!" a voice piped up from somewhere in the crowd.

Ed unslung his rifle, took aim, and fired off a shot at the source of the voice. Leon gulped, realizing how close he came to rubbing Ed the wrong way. Deeming the heretic sufficiently taken care of, Ed cleared his throat, "Now, where was I? Right! As I was saying, they've listened to the critics and deemed that plentiful explosions do not make for a good game. Therefore, they've entrusted me with the vision to bring Resident Evil back to its survival horror roots with its next numerical installment."

"Oh, like the Amnesia series?" another unnamed voice quipped.

"NO!" he brought the rifle down across his knees, snapped it in half and chucked it at the guy unlucky enough to earn Ed's fury. "There shall be no mention of our competition in this lot! EVER!" The fit of rage subsided as quickly as it came; Ed was all smiles again as he continued, "Anyways, we now know what works and what doesn't, so we'll be building our next numerical installment through all the lessons we've learnt from Six."

"You sure about this guy?" Jill leaned in close to Chris, apprehension written all over her face.

"I-I guess he's a little weird but the brass must have chosen him for a reason," Chris mirrored her doubts.

"Okay…"

"So, with all that said, I look forward to working with you all!" Ed clapped his hands in a show of concluding his little speech. "Oh, and one more thing, this one directed especially to the cast members." His sanguine smile that came off as a little bit disturbing sent shivers running down their spines. "I don't do things like what the previous directors are typically used to; I prefer more…unconventional approaches when it comes to shooting scenes." There's a gleam of twisted delight in his eyes as he mentions it, enough to send a pit of ice dropping into the bowels of the most stalwart of the cast members. "Just a little heads-up, but I'm sure it won't be too much trouble for veterans of the franchise like yourselves!"

Concluding his little speech, the director took his leave. On his way out, he grunted as he dragged an unconscious Wesker with him.

"Oh boy, I can't wait to start! It's been too long since I was in a game!" Claire squealed with delight.

With everyone filled with dread of the production schedule to come; nobody could bring themselves to break the younger Redfield's bubble of joy.

"Here we go again," Leon groaned.

A/N: And scene! Woo hoo! The plot thickens! What ever will happen next to the unsuspecting cast and crew of Resident Evil 7 now that a new director is in town? Stay tuned to find out!

In all seriousness though, this was such a fun little creative exercise as I'm able to just subject all these wonderful characters to the devious schemes and scenarios that my mind concocts. I don't exactly have a clear idea on where to take the characters next, but we'll just see how everything plays out.

Hope you enjoyed reading, and I'll see you in the next update!