Chapter 3 – The Catalyst

Ricky aimed his Beretta at the door ready for whatever demon may be on the other side, the door knob turned and Ricky held a finger on the trigger ready to fire. The door swung open to reveal Leon S Kennedy and a young, pretty, blonde haired girl, unmistakably the President's daughter, Ashley Graham. Leon raised his gun at the sight of Ricky and quickly lowered it. "What are you doing here, Ricky?" Leon was scrutinizing him with disbelief and a very clear look of relief at the idea that somebody is there to help him rescue the subject and to get her home to President Graham safely.

Leon was dressed in a grey t-shirt and blue pants, a simple attire for such a complex person Ricky thought. "Here to assist you, have to get Ashley to safety, after seeing what these guys are like, I don't really think this village is an ideal holiday destination." Ricky looked at Leon, and then at Ashley, dressed in a sleeveless orange jumper, a green plaid skirt and a second jumper over her shoulders. "Ricky, turn around, looks like we've got company." Ricky turned around and looked at the dark ruins of a morbid graveyard, he noticed Leon quickly close the already small gap between him and Ashley. Ricky saw a back of a wagon with barrels on the back, looking like one bullet will explode the barrels; he fired one shot at a villager, alerting the others with intent. "Stand back, gonna be one hell of an explosion." with them words said, Ricky took aim one of the barrels and waited until all the villagers came close enough to be killed in the resulting explosion, but some were too clever, about four villagers came closer, eyes set to kill the American agents. Ricky fired a second shot and the barrel exploded, and set the wagon on fire, the wagon hurtled down the slope leading to a shack, it had killed five villagers and left four standing, although Leon and Ricky could only see two of the murdering kidnappers. "Stick close to me, Ashley." Ricky turned around and noticed Ashley cautiously walking, millimeters behind Ricky, with Leon watching their six. The first villager raised his axe and made to throw it straight at Ricky, realizing the danger he could put Ashley in, he fired a shot in his dirty shoulder, the resulting wound was seeping with blood and the villager dropped the axe, but he reached for another. Leon very quickly shot three shots into his head and the villager fell to the floor, Ricky ran up to him and drove his combat knife deep into his brain, as a safeguard. Leon tackled the next villager with ease, just five shots into his chest and he died. The three Americans made for a path in the far right corner of the graveyard, as he reached the small pathway to a hidden tunnel Leon took to get to the church, Ricky saw a villager, a female villager, and she was dressed in a dirty, blue dress with an apron tied to her, like a peasant. Not taking any chances, Ricky pulled his Remington 1100 from his back strap and fired a slug into her head; he felt some blood splatter onto his face as her head exploded. Without wiping the dirty blood off, he fired another shot into the male villager coming in fast with a pitchfork aimed for Ricky's skull, the shot ripped through his stomach and his body was cleanly pulled from his waist, and he was clearly dead.

"Ashley, don't look on the floor, you will not like what you see" Ricky reached for her arm and gently lead her towards the ladder to the cavern, carefully avoiding the gory mess that Remington 1100 blast had caused. As soon as she was free from stepping on blood or guts, Ricky quickly released her arm, put his Remington back into his back strap and pulled his Beretta out of its holster and aimed it down the dark ladder shaft, when he was convinced that it was safe for the three Americans, he went down first, making no eye contact with either Leon nor Ashley, Ashley followed Ricky, followed by Leon. "Leon, what else do you know about these people?" Ricky inquired wiping the blood from the villager off his face. "Well, I know that they're called the Los Illuminados, the cult leader is called Osmund Saddler, the villagers have been infected by a parasite or something, and so have me and Ashley…" at the last words, Leon looked at Ashley with remorse in his eyes mingled with slight fear. "And what does this parasite do to you? Make you go insane like them? Why haven't you both attempted to kill me yet?" Ricky fired questions at Leon hoping that there is a hope to save their sanity and brains before it's too late. "I don't know exactly, but Saddler controls all these villagers, and yeah, yeah we will go insane, but we don't know how long we have got, apparently the parasite has to grow into adult form until Saddler gets control of us, and our minds." Leon explained, still looking at Ashley, Ricky looked at both of them and turned away and opened the steel door leading to a clearing which was lit with an eerie blue light, Ricky noticed the Merchant stood next to a long lamp with a blue fire lit into it.

Leon took the lead with Ashley following behind him, he walked straight passed the Merchant and jogged down the narrow cavern, Ricky closely following them to make sure that they didn't get attacked. Leon led them to a ladder at the end of the cavern and started to climb up. When the three Americans finished their climb, they came into a small, smelly room; to the left was a door, slightly ajar. Ricky took the lead this time and fully opened the door to find an old typewriter, a fireplace and a table. Looking around this meager dwelling, he saw the front door; he placed his hand to open it when Leon stopped him. "Ricky, we know that they want Ashley for some reason, so best be on our guard, yeah?" Leon reloaded his pistol and held it at the door signaling Ricky to open it. The door swung open and it seemed quiet. What Ricky saw was a village, the village stunk though. At the centre stood a burning stake with a human burning! Then, then it all went to shit. From the left and the right was screams of the Spanish for the Americans blood, Ricky quickly shot a bullet into the male villager to the left of them and watched him drop dead. Leon was busy taking out the villagers to the front of them he didn't notice the Spaniards going for Ashley; Ricky shot their legs and took out his knife to stab them in the head. "Leon, go on ahead, I'll take them out, get to the extraction point, I'll meet you there if I'm still alive!" Ricky tossed his only grenade at a group of villagers, clearing Leon and Ashley a path.

"You sure, man? Okay, good luck, old friend." Leon took one look back at Ricky, but Ricky didn't meet his gaze. Leon took Ashley's hand and led her to the gates to the right of the building they just left. Ricky dropped the "agent" act as soon as the gates closed, took out the villagers and radioed a very dear friend.

"Objective complete, gained Leon's trust, he's took the girl to the extraction point." He put the radio away and sat on a fence, timing himself.

He heard gunfire in the distance and waited until it died down and made his way to the fence thinking to himself about his real intentions, would he be able to get away with it? Would Leon find out? What if Leon caught him….No he couldn't afford to think negatively, not now anyway. He slowly opened the green gates which lead to a larger farm, a barn in the distance and a two story building to the right of the barn. He walked towards the two story building and noticed villagers neutralized, Leon knew how to put down zombies, Ricky's seen him in action, back in that hell hole, Raccoon City…Ricky's home town. How could he let that devastation happen? After the Arklay labs, how could Umbrella be so stupid as to let that horror happen again? Sheena island was another Raccoon, hardly anybody in the entire world knew about that incident, let alone the islands existence. Rockfort, Claire, Chris and Ricky reunited there as well, without Claire, Ricky would have died, and that's for sure. Ricky quickly ended his musings when he found himself at another gate, unlocked, a villager dead next to the gate, this is surely the way Leon went, he opened the gate and heard inaudible shouts and gunfire. Ricky stopped at a bridge and saw hundreds of villagers surrounding a two story "house"…